Network Security Contract Job Trends

Network Security
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Network Security skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 29 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 155 146 185
Rank change year-on-year -9 +39 0
Contract jobs citing Network Security 833 547 553
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.70% 1.90% 1.29%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.51% 15.09% 10.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 565 331 382
10th Percentile £399 £370 £375
25th Percentile £446 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £521 £561
Median % change year-on-year +0.86% -7.26% -2.39%
75th Percentile £623 £606 £666
90th Percentile £700 £688 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £490 £575
% change year-on-year +4.74% -14.78% +9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 7 17
10th Percentile £27.20 £66.20 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £80.34 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.00 £81.35 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.10% +328.16% -63.55%
75th Percentile £74.00 £81.73 £41.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.86 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.50 £81.35 £7.43
% change year-on-year -19.48% +994.89% -83.88%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

Network Security falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 4,756 3,624 5,441
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.72% 12.60% 12.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,917 2,243 3,264
10th Percentile £263 £213 £206
25th Percentile £400 £362 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -2.44%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £481
% change year-on-year +2.70% -3.90% +1.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 281 158 418
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.42 £16.30
Median hourly rate £28.88 £39.66 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -27.18% -0.85% +118.16%
75th Percentile £65.00 £58.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.86 £30.32 £45.88
% change year-on-year +11.68% -33.91% +162.17%

Network Security
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Network Security relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Network Security job vacancy trend in the UK

Network Security
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Network Security.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Network Security

Network Security
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Security over the 6 months to 29 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Network Security in the UK

Network Security
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Network Security.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Network Security

Network Security
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Network Security over the 6 months to 29 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Security in the UK

Network Security
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Network Security within the UK over the 6 months to 29 May 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England 0 722 £525 -1.27% 197
UK excluding London -10 407 £513 +4.74% 177
London -6 311 £550 -4.35% 73
Work from Home +23 244 £528 +5.60% 109
North of England +4 161 £498 -0.50% 46
South East -11 102 £520 +6.12% 65
North West +12 92 £498 -1.49% 29
Yorkshire -14 66 £500 +2.04% 14
Midlands -46 49 £450 -14.29% 16
East of England -18 35 £525 -6.67% 15
South West -21 33 £550 - 16
Scotland +2 32 £538 +26.47% 15
West Midlands -62 31 £435 -17.14% 11
East Midlands -13 17 £638 - 5
Wales -19 3 £600 +106.90% 11
North East -25 3 £538 -14.00% 6

Network Security
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 22 (2.64%) Confluence
2 12 (1.44%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (0.84%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.24%) Apache
5 1 (0.12%) nginx
Applications
1 14 (1.68%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (1.56%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 5 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 259 (31.09%) Azure
2 178 (21.37%) AWS
3 108 (12.97%) GCP
4 66 (7.92%) Entra ID
5 34 (4.08%) GitHub
6 30 (3.60%) Azure Sentinel
7 28 (3.36%) Azure DevOps
8 27 (3.24%) GitHub Actions
9 21 (2.52%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 20 (2.40%) Microsoft 365
10 20 (2.40%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 19 (2.28%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 18 (2.16%) Azure Key Vault
13 17 (2.04%) Azure AKS
13 17 (2.04%) Azure Monitor
14 16 (1.92%) Akamai
14 16 (1.92%) AWS CloudFormation
15 15 (1.80%) AWS Direct Connect
16 14 (1.68%) SaaS
17 13 (1.56%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 377 (45.26%) Firewall
2 175 (21.01%) VPN
3 153 (18.37%) WAN
4 123 (14.77%) LAN
5 105 (12.61%) BGP
6 103 (12.36%) DNS
7 91 (10.92%) OSPF
8 82 (9.84%) SD-WAN
9 77 (9.24%) VLAN
10 70 (8.40%) TCP/IP
11 69 (8.28%) Wireless
12 53 (6.36%) DHCP
12 53 (6.36%) MPLS
13 45 (5.40%) IPsec
14 43 (5.16%) SSL
15 38 (4.56%) Wi-Fi
16 36 (4.32%) Cisco ISE
17 33 (3.96%) Cisco ASA
18 31 (3.72%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
19 30 (3.60%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (0.96%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (0.60%) SQL Server
3 4 (0.48%) Neo4j
4 3 (0.36%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.36%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.36%) InfluxDB
4 3 (0.36%) Power BI
5 2 (0.24%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
5 2 (0.24%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.24%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.24%) Relational Database
5 2 (0.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.12%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 40 (4.80%) JIRA
2 22 (2.64%) Jenkins
3 21 (2.52%) GitLab
4 19 (2.28%) Git
5 8 (0.96%) Sonatype Nexus
6 7 (0.84%) Snyk
7 5 (0.60%) Browser DevTools
8 3 (0.36%) Artifactory
9 2 (0.24%) Postman
9 2 (0.24%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.12%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.12%) Claude Code
10 1 (0.12%) JUnit
10 1 (0.12%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.12%) Zephyr
General
1 184 (22.09%) Social Skills
2 124 (14.89%) Finance
3 68 (8.16%) Analytical Skills
4 62 (7.44%) Public Sector
5 47 (5.64%) Banking
6 37 (4.44%) Documentation Skills
7 27 (3.24%) Telecoms
8 20 (2.40%) Financial Institution
9 11 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 11 (1.32%) Legal
10 9 (1.08%) Manufacturing
10 9 (1.08%) Retail
11 6 (0.72%) Law
11 6 (0.72%) Local Government
11 6 (0.72%) Military
11 6 (0.72%) Organisational Skills
11 6 (0.72%) Police
12 5 (0.60%) Influencing Skills
13 3 (0.36%) Billing
13 3 (0.36%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 216 (25.93%) Network Engineer
2 180 (21.61%) Architect
3 104 (12.48%) Security Engineer
4 88 (10.56%) Security Architect
5 77 (9.24%) Senior
6 63 (7.56%) Network Architect
7 52 (6.24%) Network Security Engineer
8 34 (4.08%) Consultant
9 32 (3.84%) Project Manager
10 31 (3.72%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 29 (3.48%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 28 (3.36%) Lead
13 27 (3.24%) Network Security Architect
13 27 (3.24%) Senior Network Engineer
14 26 (3.12%) Cloud Engineer
15 23 (2.76%) Azure Architect
16 22 (2.64%) Cloud Architect
17 21 (2.52%) Analyst
17 21 (2.52%) Solutions Architect
18 19 (2.28%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (4.08%) 802.1X
2 13 (1.56%) LDAP
2 13 (1.56%) SAML
3 10 (1.20%) REST
4 7 (0.84%) ARM Templates
4 7 (0.84%) Kafka
5 6 (0.72%) OAuth
5 6 (0.72%) SLSA
6 5 (0.60%) CSS
6 5 (0.60%) HTML
6 5 (0.60%) OpenID
7 4 (0.48%) AWS CDK
7 4 (0.48%) OAuth2
8 3 (0.36%) JSON
8 3 (0.36%) Lambda Expressions
8 3 (0.36%) Node.js
8 3 (0.36%) Plotly
8 3 (0.36%) RabbitMQ
9 2 (0.24%) RESTful
9 2 (0.24%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 126 (15.13%) Data Centre
2 48 (5.76%) Cloud Native
2 48 (5.76%) Security Posture
3 42 (5.04%) Hybrid Cloud
4 30 (3.60%) Onboarding
5 29 (3.48%) PKI
6 28 (3.36%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 23 (2.76%) Data Protection Act
7 23 (2.76%) Public Cloud
8 22 (2.64%) Cyber Threat
8 22 (2.64%) IoT
8 22 (2.64%) Management Information System
9 21 (2.52%) Operational Technology
10 17 (2.04%) Product Ownership
11 14 (1.68%) Security Operations Centre
11 14 (1.68%) Self-Motivation
12 11 (1.32%) Cyber Security Posture
13 10 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
13 10 (1.20%) Replication
14 9 (1.08%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 77 (9.24%) Windows
2 63 (7.56%) Linux
3 27 (3.24%) Windows Server
4 9 (1.08%) VMS
5 8 (0.96%) Unix
6 7 (0.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 6 (0.72%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.60%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.60%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.36%) SUSE
10 1 (0.12%) Android
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 170 (20.41%) Cybersecurity
2 139 (16.69%) Cloud Security
3 136 (16.33%) Zero Trust
4 115 (13.81%) Security Architecture
5 113 (13.57%) CI/CD
6 111 (13.33%) Migration
7 109 (13.09%) Infrastructure as Code
8 107 (12.85%) DevOps
9 106 (12.73%) SIEM
10 90 (10.80%) High Availability
11 87 (10.44%) Problem-Solving
12 86 (10.32%) Continuous Improvement
13 81 (9.72%) Application Security
14 80 (9.60%) Network Segmentation
14 80 (9.60%) Threat Modelling
15 77 (9.24%) Identity Access Management
15 77 (9.24%) Incident Response
16 74 (8.88%) Load Balancing
17 71 (8.52%) Agile
18 70 (8.40%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 117 (14.05%) Python
2 64 (7.68%) PowerShell
3 35 (4.20%) Bash
4 29 (3.48%) Bicep
5 21 (2.52%) JavaScript
6 19 (2.28%) SQL
7 10 (1.20%) Kusto Query Language
8 7 (0.84%) Go
8 7 (0.84%) Shell Script
9 6 (0.72%) Java
10 4 (0.48%) C
10 4 (0.48%) PHP
11 3 (0.36%) C++
12 2 (0.24%) C-shell
12 2 (0.24%) Korn
12 2 (0.24%) Perl
12 2 (0.24%) Ruby
12 2 (0.24%) Rust
13 1 (0.12%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.12%) AppleScript
Qualifications
1 244 (29.29%) Security Cleared
2 183 (21.97%) SC Cleared
3 161 (19.33%) Cisco Certification
4 107 (12.85%) CCNP
5 97 (11.64%) CISSP
6 71 (8.52%) DV Cleared
7 61 (7.32%) CCNA
8 60 (7.20%) Degree
9 54 (6.48%) CISM
10 33 (3.96%) CCSP
11 32 (3.84%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 31 (3.72%) Azure Certification
13 21 (2.52%) CCIE
14 17 (2.04%) GIAC
15 16 (1.92%) AWS Certification
16 14 (1.68%) BPSS Clearance
17 13 (1.56%) CEH
17 13 (1.56%) JNCIS
18 12 (1.44%) Computer Science Degree
19 11 (1.32%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (10.56%) NIST
2 67 (8.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 38 (4.56%) GDPR
4 24 (2.88%) PCI DSS
5 19 (2.28%) NCSC
5 19 (2.28%) QA
6 17 (2.04%) GRC
7 14 (1.68%) Cyber Essentials
8 13 (1.56%) SLA
9 8 (0.96%) Actionable Recommendations
9 8 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 8 (0.96%) SOC 2
10 7 (0.84%) Disclosure Scotland
10 7 (0.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 4 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 4 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 4 (0.48%) PMO
11 4 (0.48%) RMADS
12 3 (0.36%) ISA99
12 3 (0.36%) NIST 800
System Software
1 59 (7.08%) Active Directory
2 56 (6.72%) VMware Infrastructure
3 26 (3.12%) VMware NSX
4 20 (2.40%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (2.28%) Docker
6 15 (1.80%) Hyper-V
7 11 (1.32%) VMware ESXi
7 11 (1.32%) vSphere
8 5 (0.60%) Firmware
8 5 (0.60%) Squid
8 5 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.24%) NFS
9 2 (0.24%) Postfix
9 2 (0.24%) Sendmail
9 2 (0.24%) Varnish
9 2 (0.24%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.12%) KVM
10 1 (0.12%) ProxySG
10 1 (0.12%) RHEV
10 1 (0.12%) Xen
Systems Management
1 123 (14.77%) Terraform
2 83 (9.96%) Ansible
3 67 (8.04%) Kubernetes
4 38 (4.56%) FortiGate
5 18 (2.16%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (1.68%) Grafana
6 14 (1.68%) Nagios
7 11 (1.32%) Microsoft Intune
7 11 (1.32%) vCenter Server
8 9 (1.08%) Microsoft Clustering
9 8 (0.96%) Kibana
10 6 (0.72%) Prometheus
10 6 (0.72%) QRadar
11 5 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 5 (0.60%) CASB
11 5 (0.60%) Istio
11 5 (0.60%) Suricata
11 5 (0.60%) WSUS
12 4 (0.48%) Kustomize
12 4 (0.48%) Puppet
Vendors
1 237 (28.45%) Cisco
2 139 (16.69%) Palo Alto
3 114 (13.69%) Microsoft
4 78 (9.36%) F5
5 72 (8.64%) VMware
6 64 (7.68%) Fortinet
7 59 (7.08%) Juniper
8 54 (6.48%) Zscaler
9 51 (6.12%) CheckPoint
10 33 (3.96%) ServiceNow
11 27 (3.24%) Splunk
12 26 (3.12%) SolarWinds
13 22 (2.64%) Aruba
13 22 (2.64%) ForeScout
14 20 (2.40%) Google
15 19 (2.28%) Citrix
16 16 (1.92%) Tenable
17 13 (1.56%) Arista
17 13 (1.56%) Okta
18 12 (1.44%) Infoblox