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 14 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 160 143 181
Rank change year-on-year -17 +38 +2
Contract jobs citing Network Security 776 575 563
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.63% 1.98% 1.32%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.07% 15.57% 10.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 528 345 386
10th Percentile £390 £370 £363
25th Percentile £437 £431 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £523 £575
Median % change year-on-year -1.44% -9.13% -
75th Percentile £619 £606 £668
90th Percentile £700 £675 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £490 £575
% change year-on-year +2.04% -14.78% +9.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 10 17
10th Percentile £32.65 £18.28 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £41.63 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.00 £80.68 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.43% +324.61% -64.53%
75th Percentile £74.00 £81.35 £41.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.29 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.50 £80.68 £7.43
% change year-on-year -18.81% +985.80% -84.87%

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 4,546 3,694 5,429
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.56% 12.75% 12.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,806 2,274 3,239
10th Percentile £263 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £360 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £488 £490
Median % change year-on-year +1.54% -0.51% -4.99%
75th Percentile £588 £590 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £696
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +2.70% -2.63% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 243 164 417
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.92 £16.30
Median hourly rate £40.54 £34.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +17.51% -13.75% +116.22%
75th Percentile £65.88 £58.70 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £24.71 £45.88
% change year-on-year +72.00% -46.14% +148.47%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -16 674 £520 -2.53% 246
UK excluding London -27 381 £500 +2.04% 183
London -22 291 £544 -5.43% 98
Work from Home +4 222 £528 +5.60% 123
North of England -6 141 £489 -2.25% 51
South East -29 97 £500 +2.04% 62
North West +2 85 £486 -3.85% 32
Midlands -36 55 £500 -9.09% 24
Yorkshire -24 54 £500 +3.09% 16
East of England -24 36 £515 -10.43% 15
West Midlands -48 35 £475 -9.52% 18
Scotland +10 29 £472 +11.06% 16
South West -34 29 £545 -0.91% 14
East Midlands -15 19 £638 -1.92% 6
North East -15 3 £538 -14.00% 4
Wales -18 3 £600 +106.90% 4

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 19 (2.45%) Confluence
2 10 (1.29%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (0.52%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.39%) Apache
5 1 (0.13%) nginx
Applications
1 15 (1.93%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.42%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (0.64%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 242 (31.19%) Azure
2 164 (21.13%) AWS
3 100 (12.89%) GCP
4 57 (7.35%) Entra ID
5 31 (3.99%) GitHub
6 29 (3.74%) Azure Sentinel
7 26 (3.35%) Azure DevOps
7 26 (3.35%) GitHub Actions
8 19 (2.45%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 19 (2.45%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 17 (2.19%) Azure AKS
9 17 (2.19%) Azure Key Vault
10 16 (2.06%) AWS CloudFormation
10 16 (2.06%) Azure Monitor
11 15 (1.93%) Microsoft 365
12 14 (1.80%) Akamai
12 14 (1.80%) AWS Direct Connect
12 14 (1.80%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 13 (1.68%) SaaS
14 11 (1.42%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 361 (46.52%) Firewall
2 152 (19.59%) VPN
3 137 (17.65%) WAN
4 109 (14.05%) LAN
5 97 (12.50%) BGP
6 92 (11.86%) DNS
7 85 (10.95%) OSPF
8 76 (9.79%) SD-WAN
9 75 (9.66%) VLAN
10 65 (8.38%) TCP/IP
11 58 (7.47%) Wireless
12 47 (6.06%) MPLS
13 44 (5.67%) DHCP
14 37 (4.77%) Wi-Fi
15 33 (4.25%) Cisco ISE
15 33 (4.25%) IPsec
16 32 (4.12%) Cisco ASA
16 32 (4.12%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 32 (4.12%) SSL
17 31 (3.99%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
2 5 (0.64%) SQL Server
3 4 (0.52%) InfluxDB
3 4 (0.52%) Relational Database
4 3 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.39%) Power BI
5 2 (0.26%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.26%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.26%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 33 (4.25%) JIRA
2 22 (2.84%) Jenkins
3 20 (2.58%) GitLab
4 15 (1.93%) Git
5 8 (1.03%) Sonatype Nexus
6 7 (0.90%) Snyk
7 5 (0.64%) Browser DevTools
8 3 (0.39%) Artifactory
9 2 (0.26%) Postman
10 1 (0.13%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.13%) Claude Code
10 1 (0.13%) JUnit
10 1 (0.13%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.13%) Zephyr
General
1 176 (22.68%) Social Skills
2 114 (14.69%) Finance
3 67 (8.63%) Analytical Skills
4 58 (7.47%) Public Sector
5 42 (5.41%) Banking
6 32 (4.12%) Documentation Skills
7 26 (3.35%) Telecoms
8 21 (2.71%) Financial Institution
9 11 (1.42%) Legal
10 9 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (0.90%) Manufacturing
12 6 (0.77%) Organisational Skills
13 5 (0.64%) Law
13 5 (0.64%) Local Government
13 5 (0.64%) Military
13 5 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
13 5 (0.64%) Retail
14 4 (0.52%) Police
15 3 (0.39%) Billing
15 3 (0.39%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 201 (25.90%) Network Engineer
2 169 (21.78%) Architect
3 99 (12.76%) Security Engineer
4 87 (11.21%) Security Architect
5 71 (9.15%) Senior
6 57 (7.35%) Network Architect
7 48 (6.19%) Network Security Engineer
8 29 (3.74%) Lead
9 28 (3.61%) Consultant
9 28 (3.61%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 25 (3.22%) Network Security Architect
11 24 (3.09%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 23 (2.96%) Analyst
12 23 (2.96%) Cloud Engineer
12 23 (2.96%) Project Manager
12 23 (2.96%) Senior Network Engineer
13 19 (2.45%) Azure Architect
14 18 (2.32%) Cloud Architect
14 18 (2.32%) Solutions Architect
15 17 (2.19%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (3.61%) 802.1X
2 14 (1.80%) LDAP
3 10 (1.29%) SAML
4 7 (0.90%) REST
5 6 (0.77%) SLSA
6 5 (0.64%) HTML
6 5 (0.64%) Node.js
6 5 (0.64%) OAuth
7 4 (0.52%) AWS CDK
7 4 (0.52%) OpenID
7 4 (0.52%) RabbitMQ
8 3 (0.39%) .NET
8 3 (0.39%) ARM Templates
8 3 (0.39%) CSS
8 3 (0.39%) Elastic Stack
8 3 (0.39%) JSON
8 3 (0.39%) Lambda Expressions
8 3 (0.39%) OAuth2
8 3 (0.39%) Plotly
9 2 (0.26%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 121 (15.59%) Data Centre
2 41 (5.28%) Security Posture
3 39 (5.03%) Cloud Native
3 39 (5.03%) Hybrid Cloud
4 29 (3.74%) Onboarding
5 26 (3.35%) PKI
6 25 (3.22%) Public Cloud
7 24 (3.09%) Data Protection Act
7 24 (3.09%) IoT
8 22 (2.84%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 22 (2.84%) Management Information System
9 21 (2.71%) Cyber Threat
10 20 (2.58%) Operational Technology
11 16 (2.06%) Product Ownership
12 13 (1.68%) Security Operations Centre
13 11 (1.42%) Cyber Security Posture
13 11 (1.42%) Virtual Team
14 10 (1.29%) Analytical Mindset
14 10 (1.29%) Replication
15 9 (1.16%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 71 (9.15%) Windows
2 59 (7.60%) Linux
3 24 (3.09%) Windows Server
4 9 (1.16%) Unix
4 9 (1.16%) VMS
5 6 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (0.77%) Ubuntu
6 5 (0.64%) Mac OS
6 5 (0.64%) Windows 10
7 3 (0.39%) SUSE
8 1 (0.13%) Android
8 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 161 (20.75%) Cybersecurity
2 132 (17.01%) Cloud Security
3 120 (15.46%) Zero Trust
4 112 (14.43%) Security Architecture
5 105 (13.53%) CI/CD
6 104 (13.40%) Migration
7 101 (13.02%) SIEM
8 99 (12.76%) DevOps
9 97 (12.50%) Infrastructure as Code
10 88 (11.34%) Problem-Solving
11 79 (10.18%) High Availability
12 78 (10.05%) Threat Modelling
13 76 (9.79%) Continuous Improvement
14 73 (9.41%) Network Segmentation
15 71 (9.15%) Incident Response
16 68 (8.76%) Application Security
16 68 (8.76%) Stakeholder Management
17 66 (8.51%) Identity Access Management
18 65 (8.38%) Load Balancing
19 62 (7.99%) Agile
Programming Languages
1 110 (14.18%) Python
2 61 (7.86%) PowerShell
3 34 (4.38%) Bash
4 24 (3.09%) Bicep
5 23 (2.96%) JavaScript
6 21 (2.71%) SQL
7 10 (1.29%) Kusto Query Language
8 8 (1.03%) Go
9 7 (0.90%) Java
9 7 (0.90%) Shell Script
10 4 (0.52%) C
10 4 (0.52%) PHP
11 3 (0.39%) C++
12 2 (0.26%) C#
12 2 (0.26%) C-shell
12 2 (0.26%) Korn
12 2 (0.26%) Ruby
13 1 (0.13%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.13%) AppleScript
13 1 (0.13%) Perl
Qualifications
1 230 (29.64%) Security Cleared
2 170 (21.91%) SC Cleared
3 153 (19.72%) Cisco Certification
4 106 (13.66%) CCNP
5 90 (11.60%) CISSP
6 66 (8.51%) DV Cleared
7 57 (7.35%) CCNA
8 50 (6.44%) CISM
8 50 (6.44%) Degree
9 30 (3.87%) Azure Certification
9 30 (3.87%) CCSP
10 29 (3.74%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 21 (2.71%) CCIE
12 18 (2.32%) GIAC
13 17 (2.19%) AWS Certification
14 15 (1.93%) CEH
15 14 (1.80%) CompTIA Security+
16 12 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
17 11 (1.42%) TOGAF Certification
18 10 (1.29%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 82 (10.57%) NIST
2 66 (8.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 40 (5.15%) GDPR
4 26 (3.35%) PCI DSS
5 19 (2.45%) NCSC
6 16 (2.06%) GRC
6 16 (2.06%) QA
7 14 (1.80%) Cyber Essentials
8 11 (1.42%) SLA
9 8 (1.03%) Actionable Recommendations
9 8 (1.03%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 8 (1.03%) SOC 2
10 7 (0.90%) Disclosure Scotland
10 7 (0.90%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 6 (0.77%) PMO
12 5 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 4 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 4 (0.52%) RMADS
14 3 (0.39%) ISA99
15 2 (0.26%) JSP 440
System Software
1 50 (6.44%) Active Directory
1 50 (6.44%) VMware Infrastructure
2 21 (2.71%) VMware NSX
3 19 (2.45%) Virtual Machines
4 13 (1.68%) Docker
4 13 (1.68%) Hyper-V
5 10 (1.29%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (1.16%) vSphere
7 6 (0.77%) Firmware
8 5 (0.64%) Squid
8 5 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.26%) NFS
9 2 (0.26%) Postfix
9 2 (0.26%) Sendmail
9 2 (0.26%) Varnish
10 1 (0.13%) KVM
10 1 (0.13%) ProxySG
10 1 (0.13%) Xen
10 1 (0.13%) XenApp
10 1 (0.13%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 114 (14.69%) Terraform
2 73 (9.41%) Ansible
3 57 (7.35%) Kubernetes
4 33 (4.25%) FortiGate
5 16 (2.06%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (1.80%) Nagios
7 11 (1.42%) Grafana
8 10 (1.29%) Microsoft Intune
8 10 (1.29%) vCenter Server
9 9 (1.16%) Microsoft Clustering
10 8 (1.03%) Kibana
11 5 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 5 (0.64%) Istio
11 5 (0.64%) Prometheus
11 5 (0.64%) QRadar
11 5 (0.64%) WSUS
12 4 (0.52%) CASB
12 4 (0.52%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.52%) Suricata
13 3 (0.39%) Docker Swarm
Vendors
1 219 (28.22%) Cisco
2 131 (16.88%) Palo Alto
3 109 (14.05%) Microsoft
4 75 (9.66%) F5
5 66 (8.51%) VMware
6 57 (7.35%) Fortinet
6 57 (7.35%) Juniper
7 50 (6.44%) CheckPoint
8 49 (6.31%) Zscaler
9 32 (4.12%) ServiceNow
10 25 (3.22%) Splunk
11 22 (2.84%) ForeScout
12 21 (2.71%) Google
13 20 (2.58%) SolarWinds
14 19 (2.45%) Aruba
15 17 (2.19%) Citrix
16 14 (1.80%) Tenable
17 13 (1.68%) Meraki
18 12 (1.55%) Infoblox
18 12 (1.55%) Okta