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 19 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 182 133 150
Rank change year-on-year -49 +17 +105
Contract jobs citing Network Security 579 609 731
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.57% 1.93% 1.69%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 14.96% 15.03% 12.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 354 380 505
10th Percentile £343 £349 £406
25th Percentile £413 £425 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £509 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.72% -7.50% -
75th Percentile £580 £614 £650
90th Percentile £686 £700 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £550
% change year-on-year -5.00% -9.09% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 12 7
10th Percentile £36.90 £20.15 £48.50
25th Percentile £48.94 £35.75 £58.75
Median hourly rate £65.50 £41.00 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.76% -43.45% +93.33%
75th Percentile £77.19 £47.50 £76.25
90th Percentile £92.75 £49.75 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £43.00 £72.50
% change year-on-year +51.16% -40.69% +93.33%

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 3,871 4,052 5,885
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.47% 12.87% 13.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,546 2,354 3,612
10th Percentile £204 £213 £210
25th Percentile £356 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -2.91%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £469 £475
% change year-on-year -4.00% -1.32% +2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 161 140 348
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.22 £17.72
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £23.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £56.45
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% -37.99% +156.57%
75th Percentile £65.00 £57.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £70.00 £74.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £32.50 £57.99
% change year-on-year +29.05% -43.96% +205.21%

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 19 January 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 19 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Security in the UK

Network Security
Top 17 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 19 January 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 -33 519 £500 -4.76% 322
UK excluding London -31 278 £475 -5.00% 299
London -21 228 £539 -1.78% 81
Work from Home -35 151 £515 +3.00% 112
North of England -31 102 £474 -5.20% 57
North West 0 69 £475 -5.00% 30
South East -12 68 £430 -20.37% 96
Midlands -22 60 £500 -14.24% 38
West Midlands -6 54 £500 -14.24% 20
Yorkshire -40 44 £205 -59.00% 21
East of England -16 24 £475 -14.80% 37
South West -20 20 £533 +1.43% 44
Scotland +7 17 £543 +35.63% 19
East Midlands -32 6 £544 +79.75% 18
Northern Ireland - 3 £500 - 4
North East -14 2 £475 -41.72% 6
Wales -14 2 £700 +141.38% 10

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 12 (2.07%) Confluence
2 6 (1.04%) SharePoint
3 5 (0.86%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (0.69%) Apache
5 1 (0.17%) IIS
5 1 (0.17%) nginx
5 1 (0.17%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 17 (2.94%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.90%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.17%) Windchill
Cloud Services
1 172 (29.71%) Azure
2 131 (22.63%) AWS
3 54 (9.33%) GCP
4 33 (5.70%) Entra ID
5 28 (4.84%) GitHub
6 25 (4.32%) GitHub Actions
6 25 (4.32%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 24 (4.15%) Amazon S3
8 23 (3.97%) Microsoft 365
9 22 (3.80%) Azure DevOps
10 20 (3.45%) Amazon EC2
11 16 (2.76%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 16 (2.76%) Amazon ELB
11 16 (2.76%) Azure Sentinel
12 15 (2.59%) Azure Key Vault
13 13 (2.25%) Serverless
14 11 (1.90%) Google Workspace
14 11 (1.90%) IaaS
15 10 (1.73%) AWS CloudFormation
15 10 (1.73%) Azure ExpressRoute
Communications & Networking
1 281 (48.53%) Firewall
2 124 (21.42%) VPN
3 89 (15.37%) WAN
4 85 (14.68%) DNS
5 68 (11.74%) LAN
6 58 (10.02%) TCP/IP
7 56 (9.67%) BGP
8 50 (8.64%) VLAN
9 49 (8.46%) SSL
10 40 (6.91%) OSPF
11 37 (6.39%) SD-WAN
12 34 (5.87%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
13 32 (5.53%) Wireless
14 31 (5.35%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
15 30 (5.18%) DMZ
16 29 (5.01%) Internet
17 21 (3.63%) Intrusion Detection
18 18 (3.11%) Cisco ASA
19 17 (2.94%) MPLS
19 17 (2.94%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
1 4 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
1 4 (0.69%) InfluxDB
1 4 (0.69%) Relational Database
2 3 (0.52%) Amazon Athena
3 2 (0.35%) Data Lake
3 2 (0.35%) Power BI
3 2 (0.35%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.17%) Redis
4 1 (0.17%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.17%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 33 (5.70%) Jenkins
2 24 (4.15%) GitLab
3 21 (3.63%) Git
4 11 (1.90%) JIRA
5 2 (0.35%) Snyk
5 2 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.17%) Metasploit
6 1 (0.17%) Subversion
General
1 172 (29.71%) Social Skills
2 86 (14.85%) Analytical Skills
3 68 (11.74%) Finance
4 51 (8.81%) Public Sector
5 31 (5.35%) Banking
6 24 (4.15%) Telecoms
7 22 (3.80%) Documentation Skills
8 14 (2.42%) Investment Banking
9 13 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 9 (1.55%) Military
11 8 (1.38%) Manufacturing
11 8 (1.38%) Pharmaceutical
12 7 (1.21%) Legal
12 7 (1.21%) Presentation Skills
13 5 (0.86%) Financial Institution
13 5 (0.86%) Influencing Skills
13 5 (0.86%) Organisational Skills
14 4 (0.69%) Local Government
14 4 (0.69%) Marketing
15 3 (0.52%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 126 (21.76%) Network Engineer
2 101 (17.44%) Architect
3 90 (15.54%) Security Engineer
4 65 (11.23%) Security Architect
5 48 (8.29%) Senior
6 43 (7.43%) Network Architect
7 37 (6.39%) Network Security Engineer
8 31 (5.35%) Analyst
9 23 (3.97%) Network Security Architect
10 21 (3.63%) Cybersecurity Engineer
10 21 (3.63%) Lead
11 19 (3.28%) Administrator
12 18 (3.11%) Cloud Engineer
12 18 (3.11%) Security Analyst
13 17 (2.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 17 (2.94%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
14 16 (2.76%) Operations Engineer
15 15 (2.59%) IT Support
15 15 (2.59%) Wintel Administrator
15 15 (2.59%) Wintel Systems Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (2.42%) 802.1X
2 11 (1.90%) LDAP
3 8 (1.38%) .NET
3 8 (1.38%) Node.js
4 7 (1.21%) SAML
5 5 (0.86%) .NET Core
5 5 (0.86%) AngularJS
5 5 (0.86%) Elastic Stack
5 5 (0.86%) PyTorch
5 5 (0.86%) RabbitMQ
5 5 (0.86%) React
5 5 (0.86%) TensorFlow
6 4 (0.69%) ARM Templates
7 3 (0.52%) HTML
7 3 (0.52%) Lambda Expressions
7 3 (0.52%) OAuth
7 3 (0.52%) OAuth2
7 3 (0.52%) OpenID
7 3 (0.52%) Plotly
8 2 (0.35%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 66 (11.40%) Data Centre
2 34 (5.87%) Security Posture
3 33 (5.70%) Management Information System
4 32 (5.53%) Hybrid Cloud
5 30 (5.18%) PKI
6 29 (5.01%) Cloud Native
7 20 (3.45%) Public Cloud
8 19 (3.28%) Onboarding
9 18 (3.11%) Cyber Threat
10 16 (2.76%) Operational Technology
11 15 (2.59%) Analytical Mindset
11 15 (2.59%) Security Operations Centre
12 14 (2.42%) Cyber Security Posture
13 11 (1.90%) Data Protection Act
13 11 (1.90%) IoT
14 10 (1.73%) Virtual Team
15 9 (1.55%) Cloud Security Posture
15 9 (1.55%) CSOC
16 7 (1.21%) Cyber Kill Chain
16 7 (1.21%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 87 (15.03%) Windows
2 65 (11.23%) Linux
3 26 (4.49%) Windows Server
4 11 (1.90%) Unix
5 8 (1.38%) VMS
6 4 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (0.69%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.52%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.17%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.17%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 145 (25.04%) Cybersecurity
2 109 (18.83%) Problem-Solving
3 107 (18.48%) SIEM
4 95 (16.41%) Incident Response
5 89 (15.37%) CI/CD
5 89 (15.37%) Cloud Security
6 81 (13.99%) DevOps
7 77 (13.30%) Infrastructure as Code
8 73 (12.61%) Zero Trust
9 64 (11.05%) Migration
9 64 (11.05%) Security Architecture
10 59 (10.19%) Change Management
10 59 (10.19%) Threat Modelling
11 56 (9.67%) Identity Access Management
12 50 (8.64%) Network Architecture
13 49 (8.46%) Infrastructure Automation
14 47 (8.12%) Continuous Improvement
14 47 (8.12%) Load Balancing
15 46 (7.94%) Security Operations
16 43 (7.43%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 116 (20.03%) Python
2 70 (12.09%) PowerShell
3 38 (6.56%) Bash
4 19 (3.28%) SQL
5 14 (2.42%) Bicep
5 14 (2.42%) JavaScript
6 11 (1.90%) Kusto Query Language
7 10 (1.73%) Java
8 9 (1.55%) Go
9 5 (0.86%) C
9 5 (0.86%) C#
9 5 (0.86%) C++
10 4 (0.69%) Perl
10 4 (0.69%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.35%) C-shell
11 2 (0.35%) Korn
12 1 (0.17%) PHP
12 1 (0.17%) Rust
12 1 (0.17%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 195 (33.68%) Security Cleared
2 145 (25.04%) SC Cleared
3 114 (19.69%) Cisco Certification
4 89 (15.37%) CCNP
5 79 (13.64%) CISSP
6 59 (10.19%) DV Cleared
7 46 (7.94%) Degree
8 39 (6.74%) CCNA
9 37 (6.39%) CISM
10 30 (5.18%) CCIE
11 25 (4.32%) GIAC
12 24 (4.15%) CEH
13 20 (3.45%) Azure Certification
14 17 (2.94%) CompTIA Security+
15 16 (2.76%) Computer Science Degree
16 13 (2.25%) AWS Certification
17 12 (2.07%) CCSP
18 11 (1.90%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 10 (1.73%) CCSE
20 9 (1.55%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 71 (12.26%) NIST
2 69 (11.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 41 (7.08%) GDPR
4 27 (4.66%) PCI DSS
5 17 (2.94%) Cyber Essentials
6 16 (2.76%) NCSC
7 7 (1.21%) GRC
7 7 (1.21%) HIPAA
8 6 (1.04%) SLA
8 6 (1.04%) SOC 2
9 5 (0.86%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 5 (0.86%) PSD2
9 5 (0.86%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 4 (0.69%) JSP 440
11 3 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.52%) PMO
11 3 (0.52%) RMADS
12 2 (0.35%) GxP
12 2 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 2 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 43 (7.43%) VMware Infrastructure
2 39 (6.74%) Active Directory
3 38 (6.56%) Docker
4 10 (1.73%) Hyper-V
4 10 (1.73%) VMware NSX
5 8 (1.38%) Virtual Machines
6 5 (0.86%) vSphere
7 4 (0.69%) Firmware
7 4 (0.69%) ProxySG
8 3 (0.52%) Virtual Servers
8 3 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.35%) KVM
9 2 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.17%) RACF
10 1 (0.17%) RHEV
10 1 (0.17%) Xen
10 1 (0.17%) XenApp
10 1 (0.17%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 103 (17.79%) Terraform
2 65 (11.23%) Ansible
3 40 (6.91%) Kubernetes
4 20 (3.45%) FortiGate
5 13 (2.25%) Nagios
6 11 (1.90%) QRadar
7 10 (1.73%) Kibana
7 10 (1.73%) Microsoft Intune
8 7 (1.21%) Grafana
8 7 (1.21%) Prometheus
8 7 (1.21%) Single Sign-On
9 6 (1.04%) Microsoft Clustering
10 4 (0.69%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.69%) vCenter Server
11 3 (0.52%) CASB
11 3 (0.52%) Icinga
11 3 (0.52%) Puppet
11 3 (0.52%) SCCM
12 2 (0.35%) Docker Swarm
12 2 (0.35%) Istio
Vendors
1 152 (26.25%) Cisco
2 114 (19.69%) Palo Alto
3 91 (15.72%) Microsoft
4 81 (13.99%) F5
5 60 (10.36%) CheckPoint
6 50 (8.64%) VMware
7 43 (7.43%) Juniper
7 43 (7.43%) Zscaler
8 40 (6.91%) Fortinet
9 30 (5.18%) Splunk
10 24 (4.15%) Google
11 23 (3.97%) SolarWinds
12 22 (3.80%) Meraki
13 16 (2.76%) ServiceNow
14 14 (2.42%) Tenable
15 13 (2.25%) Aruba
15 13 (2.25%) Blue Coat
16 12 (2.07%) CrowdStrike
17 10 (1.73%) ArcSight
17 10 (1.73%) Tanium