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 23 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 174 162 167
Rank change year-on-year -12 +5 -3
Contract jobs citing Network Security 874 562 566
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.59% 1.72% 1.50%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.03% 14.91% 12.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 571 335 372
10th Percentile £400 £380 £360
25th Percentile £463 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £534 £538
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -0.74% -2.27%
75th Percentile £650 £634 £635
90th Percentile £730 £738 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £545 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +9.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 14 7
10th Percentile £26.80 £45.00 £32.90
25th Percentile £67.50 £55.00 £42.50
Median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.05% +40.32% -25.65%
75th Percentile £74.00 £84.09 £58.75
90th Percentile £85.00 £95.50 £82.79
UK excluding London median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £53.75
% change year-on-year +4.05% +30.53% -25.86%

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 5,132 3,770 4,463
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.36% 11.53% 11.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,973 2,341 2,598
10th Percentile £235 £225 £225
25th Percentile £393 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £478 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.69% -4.48% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £608
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +8.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 424 199 229
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.50 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.50 £25.15 £23.80
Median hourly rate £34.75 £42.50 £51.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.24% -17.48% -8.83%
75th Percentile £68.75 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £73.40 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -23.53% -25.89% -0.26%

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 23 September 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 23 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Security in the UK

Network Security
Top 18 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 23 September 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 -2 764 £550 +3.29% 714
UK excluding London -14 436 £545 +9.00% 390
London -2 336 £550 - 355
Work from Home -2 260 £534 -2.86% 323
North of England +8 203 £540 +10.32% 94
North West -6 110 £537 +13.05% 57
South East -34 89 £559 +24.26% 125
Yorkshire +12 88 £540 +8.87% 28
Midlands -62 51 £450 -14.29% 61
East of England -9 40 £525 +10.53% 41
West Midlands -63 37 £450 -14.29% 45
Scotland -14 28 £600 +33.33% 22
South West -45 24 £675 +5.47% 36
East Midlands -9 14 £500 - 16
Channel Islands -1 6 £600 -17.24% 1
North East - 4 £680 - 10
Northern Ireland +4 1 - - 10
Wales -15 1 £650 +30.00% 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 20 (2.29%) Microsoft Exchange
2 17 (1.95%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.26%) Confluence
4 4 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.34%) Apache
6 2 (0.23%) IIS
7 1 (0.11%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.11%) CMS
7 1 (0.11%) NetWeaver
7 1 (0.11%) nginx
Applications
1 20 (2.29%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.80%) MS Visio
3 5 (0.57%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.34%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.11%) InfoPath
5 1 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (0.69%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 296 (33.87%) Azure
2 199 (22.77%) AWS
3 102 (11.67%) GCP
4 95 (10.87%) Entra ID
5 48 (5.49%) Microsoft 365
6 42 (4.81%) GitHub
7 39 (4.46%) Azure DevOps
8 34 (3.89%) Azure Monitor
9 28 (3.20%) Serverless
10 25 (2.86%) SaaS
11 24 (2.75%) Azure Sentinel
12 20 (2.29%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 20 (2.29%) GitHub Actions
13 18 (2.06%) Azure AKS
13 18 (2.06%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 16 (1.83%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 16 (1.83%) Amazon EKS
15 15 (1.72%) OCI
15 15 (1.72%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 14 (1.60%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 398 (45.54%) Firewall
2 205 (23.46%) VPN
3 188 (21.51%) WAN
4 137 (15.68%) DNS
5 130 (14.87%) LAN
6 104 (11.90%) Wireless
7 94 (10.76%) BGP
8 92 (10.53%) TCP/IP
9 80 (9.15%) SD-WAN
10 75 (8.58%) DHCP
11 70 (8.01%) VLAN
12 66 (7.55%) OSPF
13 59 (6.75%) SSL
14 50 (5.72%) MPLS
15 45 (5.15%) IPsec
16 44 (5.03%) Wi-Fi
17 43 (4.92%) Cisco ISE
18 42 (4.81%) Internet
19 38 (4.35%) Cisco ASA
20 34 (3.89%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.49%) SQL Server
2 7 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
2 7 (0.80%) BigQuery
3 4 (0.46%) Elasticsearch
3 4 (0.46%) Neo4j
4 3 (0.34%) Azure SQL Database
4 3 (0.34%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.23%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.23%) Delta Lake
5 2 (0.23%) InfluxDB
5 2 (0.23%) Power BI
6 1 (0.11%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.11%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.11%) Looker
6 1 (0.11%) Metadata
6 1 (0.11%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.11%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.11%) Qlik Sense
6 1 (0.11%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.11%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 39 (4.46%) Git
2 31 (3.55%) JIRA
3 30 (3.43%) GitLab
4 28 (3.20%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.80%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (0.46%) MSBuild
6 4 (0.46%) SonarQube
6 4 (0.46%) Visual Studio
7 3 (0.34%) Artifactory
7 3 (0.34%) Browser DevTools
7 3 (0.34%) Claude Code
8 2 (0.23%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.11%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.11%) Postman
9 1 (0.11%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.11%) Subversion
General
1 240 (27.46%) Social Skills
2 153 (17.51%) Finance
3 93 (10.64%) Analytical Skills
4 64 (7.32%) Banking
5 45 (5.15%) Documentation Skills
6 44 (5.03%) Public Sector
7 29 (3.32%) Telecoms
8 25 (2.86%) Legal
9 18 (2.06%) Financial Institution
10 15 (1.72%) Influencing Skills
11 14 (1.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 14 (1.60%) Manufacturing
11 14 (1.60%) Retail
12 12 (1.37%) Organisational Skills
13 11 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
14 8 (0.92%) Local Government
15 6 (0.69%) Automotive
15 6 (0.69%) Law
15 6 (0.69%) Military
15 6 (0.69%) Police
Job Titles
1 248 (28.38%) Network Engineer
2 149 (17.05%) Architect
3 117 (13.39%) Security Engineer
4 106 (12.13%) Senior
5 82 (9.38%) Security Architect
6 71 (8.12%) Network Security Engineer
7 68 (7.78%) Consultant
8 53 (6.06%) Network Architect
9 50 (5.72%) Senior Network Engineer
10 45 (5.15%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 45 (5.15%) Project Manager
11 42 (4.81%) Cloud Engineer
12 38 (4.35%) Security Consultant
13 32 (3.66%) Lead
14 28 (3.20%) Analyst
15 27 (3.09%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
16 25 (2.86%) Azure Engineer
16 25 (2.86%) Network Security Architect
17 24 (2.75%) Network Manager
18 23 (2.63%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 136 (15.56%) Terraform
2 35 (4.00%) 802.1X
3 23 (2.63%) REST
4 16 (1.83%) SAML
5 15 (1.72%) ARM Templates
6 12 (1.37%) Kafka
7 8 (0.92%) JSON
7 8 (0.92%) NETCONF
8 6 (0.69%) gRPC
8 6 (0.69%) Keycloak
8 6 (0.69%) LDAP
8 6 (0.69%) OpenID
9 5 (0.57%) Azure Blueprints
9 5 (0.57%) OAuth
9 5 (0.57%) SLSA
9 5 (0.57%) Software Packaging
9 5 (0.57%) XML
9 5 (0.57%) YAML
10 4 (0.46%) .NET
10 4 (0.46%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 118 (13.50%) Data Centre
2 86 (9.84%) Security Posture
3 51 (5.84%) Onboarding
4 47 (5.38%) Cloud Native
5 44 (5.03%) Hybrid Cloud
6 41 (4.69%) Management Information System
7 36 (4.12%) Operational Technology
8 31 (3.55%) Cyber Threat
9 28 (3.20%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 27 (3.09%) PKI
11 25 (2.86%) Self-Motivation
12 22 (2.52%) Security Operations Centre
13 20 (2.29%) Cloud Security Posture
14 19 (2.17%) Public Cloud
15 17 (1.95%) Data Protection Act
16 15 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
17 13 (1.49%) Linux Command Line
17 13 (1.49%) Replication
18 9 (1.03%) SCADA
18 9 (1.03%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 105 (12.01%) Windows
2 88 (10.07%) Linux
3 42 (4.81%) Windows Server
4 19 (2.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 11 (1.26%) Unix
6 10 (1.14%) Windows 10
7 6 (0.69%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.57%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.46%) SUSE
10 3 (0.34%) Check Point GAiA
10 3 (0.34%) VMS
11 2 (0.23%) Android
11 2 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.23%) zOS
12 1 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.11%) Rocky
12 1 (0.11%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 175 (20.02%) Cloud Security
1 175 (20.02%) Cybersecurity
2 150 (17.16%) Stakeholder Management
3 137 (15.68%) CI/CD
4 134 (15.33%) Zero Trust
5 126 (14.42%) Continuous Improvement
6 124 (14.19%) Infrastructure as Code
7 123 (14.07%) Incident Response
8 121 (13.84%) SIEM
9 117 (13.39%) Migration
10 116 (13.27%) Problem-Solving
11 114 (13.04%) DevOps
12 112 (12.81%) Change Management
13 109 (12.47%) Security Architecture
14 96 (10.98%) Identity Access Management
15 93 (10.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
16 91 (10.41%) Data Protection
17 88 (10.07%) Security Operations
18 87 (9.95%) Threat Modelling
19 86 (9.84%) Load Balancing
Programming Languages
1 159 (18.19%) Python
2 92 (10.53%) PowerShell
3 74 (8.47%) Bash
4 34 (3.89%) Bicep
5 23 (2.63%) SQL
6 14 (1.60%) Go
7 12 (1.37%) Java
8 7 (0.80%) Search Processing Language
8 7 (0.80%) Shell Script
9 6 (0.69%) Kusto Query Language
10 5 (0.57%) ActionScript
11 4 (0.46%) Rust
12 3 (0.34%) JavaScript
12 3 (0.34%) Perl
12 3 (0.34%) VBScript
13 1 (0.11%) C
13 1 (0.11%) C++
13 1 (0.11%) Ruby
13 1 (0.11%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 242 (27.69%) Security Cleared
2 176 (20.14%) Cisco Certification
3 174 (19.91%) SC Cleared
4 111 (12.70%) CISSP
5 98 (11.21%) CCNP
6 72 (8.24%) DV Cleared
7 67 (7.67%) Degree
8 52 (5.95%) CCSP
9 49 (5.61%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 49 (5.61%) CCNA
9 49 (5.61%) CISM
10 34 (3.89%) Azure Certification
11 33 (3.78%) CCIE
12 26 (2.97%) AWS Certification
13 17 (1.95%) Computer Science Degree
14 13 (1.49%) GIAC
15 12 (1.37%) PMP
16 11 (1.26%) BPSS Clearance
16 11 (1.26%) CEH
16 11 (1.26%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 73 (8.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 68 (7.78%) NIST
3 33 (3.78%) GDPR
4 30 (3.43%) NCSC
5 24 (2.75%) PCI DSS
6 14 (1.60%) Cyber Essentials
7 13 (1.49%) GRC
7 13 (1.49%) QA
8 11 (1.26%) NIST 800
8 11 (1.26%) SLA
9 9 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 8 (0.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 7 (0.80%) Disclosure Scotland
12 5 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 4 (0.46%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 4 (0.46%) PMO
14 3 (0.34%) Data Quality
14 3 (0.34%) SOC 2
15 2 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
15 2 (0.23%) P3O
System Software
1 88 (10.07%) Active Directory
2 58 (6.64%) VMware Infrastructure
3 35 (4.00%) Docker
4 21 (2.40%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (1.83%) VMware NSX
6 14 (1.60%) Hyper-V
7 13 (1.49%) vSphere
8 12 (1.37%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (0.92%) Virtual Desktop
10 6 (0.69%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.57%) Firmware
11 5 (0.57%) Squid
12 3 (0.34%) FreeRADIUS
13 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 2 (0.23%) NFS
13 2 (0.23%) OpenSSH
13 2 (0.23%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.11%) ProxySG
14 1 (0.11%) Samba
14 1 (0.11%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 103 (11.78%) Ansible
2 82 (9.38%) Kubernetes
3 48 (5.49%) FortiGate
4 26 (2.97%) Grafana
4 26 (2.97%) Microsoft Intune
5 18 (2.06%) Prometheus
6 16 (1.83%) Progress Chef
7 15 (1.72%) SCCM
8 13 (1.49%) Single Sign-On
9 10 (1.14%) CASB
10 9 (1.03%) QRadar
11 7 (0.80%) Cisco CUCM
11 7 (0.80%) Cisco Prime
11 7 (0.80%) Puppet
11 7 (0.80%) vCenter Server
11 7 (0.80%) VxRail
12 6 (0.69%) Nagios
12 6 (0.69%) WSUS
13 5 (0.57%) Suricata
14 4 (0.46%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 262 (29.98%) Cisco
2 171 (19.57%) Palo Alto
3 169 (19.34%) Microsoft
4 95 (10.87%) Fortinet
5 83 (9.50%) F5
6 77 (8.81%) VMware
7 69 (7.89%) Zscaler
8 58 (6.64%) CheckPoint
9 48 (5.49%) Juniper
10 41 (4.69%) Splunk
11 40 (4.58%) SolarWinds
12 32 (3.66%) Aruba
13 30 (3.43%) Google
14 26 (2.97%) ServiceNow
15 21 (2.40%) Citrix
16 17 (1.95%) Meraki
17 16 (1.83%) CyberArk
18 14 (1.60%) Blue Coat
18 14 (1.60%) Tenable
19 12 (1.37%) AlgoSec