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 31 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 175 154 181
Rank change year-on-year -21 +27 -10
Contract jobs citing Network Security 870 613 538
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.62% 1.86% 1.39%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.10% 15.76% 11.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 574 363 371
10th Percentile £400 £375 £363
25th Percentile £463 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £618 £666
90th Percentile £730 £723 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £531 £500 £550
% change year-on-year +6.20% -9.09% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 17 6
10th Percentile £26.20 £45.00 £30.50
25th Percentile £42.13 £55.00 £44.38
Median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £53.75
Median % change year-on-year +4.05% +30.53% -20.07%
75th Percentile £74.00 £84.00 £58.75
90th Percentile - £91.00 £88.81
UK excluding London median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £53.75
% change year-on-year +4.05% +30.53% +17.49%

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 5,087 3,890 4,613
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.47% 11.80% 11.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,997 2,381 2,743
10th Percentile £250 £238 £230
25th Percentile £400 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £470 £500
% change year-on-year +2.13% -6.00% +9.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 376 202 288
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £20.50
Median hourly rate £26.00 £45.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -42.22% -10.00% -9.62%
75th Percentile £65.06 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £79.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.81 £42.50 £55.75
% change year-on-year -39.28% -23.76% -1.32%

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 31 August 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 31 August 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 31 August 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 -22 764 £550 +4.76% 367
UK excluding London -30 421 £531 +6.20% 237
London -3 341 £550 - 163
Work from Home +11 273 £534 -2.86% 128
North of England +7 199 £531 +8.42% 53
North West -11 113 £533 +12.21% 26
South East -36 105 £554 +17.93% 81
Yorkshire +7 83 £514 +3.63% 22
Midlands -63 43 £425 -19.05% 35
East of England -3 39 £525 -2.78% 21
West Midlands -70 28 £400 -23.81% 20
Scotland -14 26 £600 +33.33% 10
South West -58 16 £575 -10.16% 37
East Midlands -3 14 £500 - 15
North East -35 2 £675 +8.00% 5
Wales -17 1 £650 +30.00% 3

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 17 (1.95%) Microsoft Exchange
2 13 (1.49%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.26%) Confluence
4 2 (0.23%) Apache
4 2 (0.23%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.11%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.11%) IIS
5 1 (0.11%) NetWeaver
5 1 (0.11%) nginx
Applications
1 21 (2.41%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.80%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.46%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.11%) InfoPath
5 1 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (0.69%) Oracle ERP
2 2 (0.23%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 311 (35.75%) Azure
2 207 (23.79%) AWS
3 110 (12.64%) GCP
4 93 (10.69%) Entra ID
5 43 (4.94%) Microsoft 365
6 40 (4.60%) Azure DevOps
7 34 (3.91%) GitHub
8 32 (3.68%) Azure Monitor
9 27 (3.10%) Azure Sentinel
9 27 (3.10%) SaaS
9 27 (3.10%) Serverless
10 21 (2.41%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 20 (2.30%) GitHub Actions
12 19 (2.18%) Azure AKS
12 19 (2.18%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 18 (2.07%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 16 (1.84%) Amazon EKS
15 15 (1.72%) OCI
16 14 (1.61%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 14 (1.61%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 395 (45.40%) Firewall
2 203 (23.33%) VPN
3 193 (22.18%) WAN
4 132 (15.17%) LAN
5 129 (14.83%) DNS
6 104 (11.95%) Wireless
7 101 (11.61%) BGP
8 92 (10.57%) TCP/IP
9 87 (10.00%) SD-WAN
10 74 (8.51%) OSPF
11 73 (8.39%) DHCP
11 73 (8.39%) VLAN
12 52 (5.98%) MPLS
13 51 (5.86%) IPsec
13 51 (5.86%) SSL
14 50 (5.75%) Wi-Fi
15 47 (5.40%) Cisco ISE
16 39 (4.48%) Cisco ASA
16 39 (4.48%) Internet
17 35 (4.02%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.49%) SQL Server
2 6 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
2 6 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
2 6 (0.69%) BigQuery
3 4 (0.46%) Elasticsearch
3 4 (0.46%) Neo4j
3 4 (0.46%) Power BI
4 3 (0.34%) Data Lake
4 3 (0.34%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.23%) Delta Lake
5 2 (0.23%) InfluxDB
6 1 (0.11%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.11%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.11%) Looker
6 1 (0.11%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.11%) Qlik Sense
6 1 (0.11%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.11%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.11%) Star Schema
6 1 (0.11%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 35 (4.02%) Git
2 31 (3.56%) GitLab
3 30 (3.45%) JIRA
4 25 (2.87%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.80%) Sonatype Nexus
6 5 (0.57%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.46%) MSBuild
7 4 (0.46%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.46%) Visual Studio
8 3 (0.34%) Artifactory
9 2 (0.23%) IBM UrbanCode
10 1 (0.11%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.11%) Claude Code
10 1 (0.11%) Postman
10 1 (0.11%) Snyk
10 1 (0.11%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.11%) Subversion
General
1 222 (25.52%) Social Skills
2 150 (17.24%) Finance
3 82 (9.43%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (6.78%) Banking
5 48 (5.52%) Public Sector
6 44 (5.06%) Documentation Skills
7 28 (3.22%) Telecoms
8 24 (2.76%) Legal
9 18 (2.07%) Financial Institution
10 15 (1.72%) Retail
11 14 (1.61%) Manufacturing
12 13 (1.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 11 (1.26%) Influencing Skills
13 11 (1.26%) Organisational Skills
14 8 (0.92%) Police
15 7 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
16 6 (0.69%) Automotive
16 6 (0.69%) Local Government
16 6 (0.69%) Military
17 5 (0.57%) Law
Job Titles
1 244 (28.05%) Network Engineer
2 163 (18.74%) Architect
3 108 (12.41%) Senior
4 105 (12.07%) Security Engineer
5 89 (10.23%) Security Architect
6 62 (7.13%) Consultant
7 61 (7.01%) Network Security Engineer
8 55 (6.32%) Network Architect
9 52 (5.98%) Senior Network Engineer
10 45 (5.17%) Project Manager
11 40 (4.60%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 39 (4.48%) Cloud Engineer
13 36 (4.14%) Lead
14 33 (3.79%) Security Consultant
15 26 (2.99%) Analyst
16 25 (2.87%) Network Manager
17 24 (2.76%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
18 22 (2.53%) Azure Engineer
18 22 (2.53%) Solutions Architect
19 21 (2.41%) Network Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 126 (14.48%) Terraform
2 36 (4.14%) 802.1X
3 16 (1.84%) REST
4 15 (1.72%) SAML
5 14 (1.61%) ARM Templates
6 11 (1.26%) Kafka
7 7 (0.80%) NETCONF
8 6 (0.69%) JSON
9 5 (0.57%) gRPC
9 5 (0.57%) Keycloak
9 5 (0.57%) OpenID
9 5 (0.57%) SLSA
9 5 (0.57%) XML
10 4 (0.46%) .NET
10 4 (0.46%) Azure Blueprints
10 4 (0.46%) CSS
10 4 (0.46%) OAuth
10 4 (0.46%) Protocol Buffers
10 4 (0.46%) RESTful
11 3 (0.34%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 108 (12.41%) Data Centre
2 79 (9.08%) Security Posture
3 51 (5.86%) Cloud Native
4 44 (5.06%) Hybrid Cloud
4 44 (5.06%) Onboarding
5 39 (4.48%) Management Information System
6 36 (4.14%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 28 (3.22%) Operational Technology
8 27 (3.10%) Cyber Threat
9 26 (2.99%) PKI
10 22 (2.53%) Security Operations Centre
11 21 (2.41%) Self-Motivation
12 20 (2.30%) Data Protection Act
13 18 (2.07%) Cloud Security Posture
14 15 (1.72%) Public Cloud
15 13 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
15 13 (1.49%) Linux Command Line
16 11 (1.26%) Replication
17 9 (1.03%) IoT
17 9 (1.03%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 91 (10.46%) Windows
2 77 (8.85%) Linux
3 31 (3.56%) Windows Server
4 15 (1.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (0.92%) Windows 10
6 6 (0.69%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.69%) Ubuntu
6 6 (0.69%) Unix
7 5 (0.57%) VMS
8 3 (0.34%) Check Point GAiA
8 3 (0.34%) SUSE
9 2 (0.23%) Android
9 2 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
9 2 (0.23%) zOS
10 1 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.11%) Rocky
10 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 182 (20.92%) Cloud Security
2 173 (19.89%) Cybersecurity
3 135 (15.52%) Stakeholder Management
4 133 (15.29%) Zero Trust
5 126 (14.48%) Continuous Improvement
6 121 (13.91%) CI/CD
7 117 (13.45%) Infrastructure as Code
8 115 (13.22%) Incident Response
9 114 (13.10%) Migration
10 112 (12.87%) DevOps
11 110 (12.64%) Change Management
12 107 (12.30%) SIEM
13 103 (11.84%) Problem-Solving
13 103 (11.84%) Security Architecture
14 100 (11.49%) High Availability
15 93 (10.69%) Data Protection
15 93 (10.69%) Identity Access Management
16 92 (10.57%) Threat Modelling
17 90 (10.34%) Load Balancing
18 84 (9.66%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 135 (15.52%) Python
2 82 (9.43%) PowerShell
3 68 (7.82%) Bash
4 38 (4.37%) Bicep
5 28 (3.22%) SQL
6 12 (1.38%) Go
7 10 (1.15%) Java
8 9 (1.03%) JavaScript
9 7 (0.80%) Kusto Query Language
9 7 (0.80%) Search Processing Language
10 6 (0.69%) Shell Script
11 4 (0.46%) Rust
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
Qualifications
1 227 (26.09%) Security Cleared
2 166 (19.08%) SC Cleared
3 163 (18.74%) Cisco Certification
4 104 (11.95%) CISSP
5 95 (10.92%) CCNP
6 65 (7.47%) DV Cleared
7 62 (7.13%) Degree
8 53 (6.09%) CCNA
9 52 (5.98%) CISM
10 45 (5.17%) CCSP
11 43 (4.94%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 37 (4.25%) Azure Certification
13 28 (3.22%) AWS Certification
14 27 (3.10%) CCIE
15 16 (1.84%) Computer Science Degree
16 11 (1.26%) BPSS Clearance
16 11 (1.26%) GIAC
16 11 (1.26%) PMP
17 10 (1.15%) CompTIA Security+
17 10 (1.15%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 73 (8.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 68 (7.82%) NIST
3 44 (5.06%) GDPR
4 32 (3.68%) NCSC
5 25 (2.87%) PCI DSS
6 14 (1.61%) QA
7 12 (1.38%) GRC
7 12 (1.38%) SLA
8 11 (1.26%) Cyber Essentials
9 10 (1.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 8 (0.92%) NIST 800
11 7 (0.80%) Disclosure Scotland
12 6 (0.69%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 5 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 4 (0.46%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 3 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
15 3 (0.34%) ISA99
15 3 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 3 (0.34%) SOC 2
16 2 (0.23%) Data Quality
System Software
1 81 (9.31%) Active Directory
2 56 (6.44%) VMware Infrastructure
3 30 (3.45%) Docker
4 21 (2.41%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (2.18%) VMware NSX
6 14 (1.61%) Hyper-V
7 11 (1.26%) vSphere
8 8 (0.92%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.92%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.57%) Firmware
9 5 (0.57%) Squid
10 2 (0.23%) FreeRADIUS
10 2 (0.23%) NFS
10 2 (0.23%) OpenSSH
10 2 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.23%) VMware Workstation
11 1 (0.11%) Postfix
11 1 (0.11%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.11%) Sendmail
11 1 (0.11%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 93 (10.69%) Ansible
2 77 (8.85%) Kubernetes
3 44 (5.06%) FortiGate
4 23 (2.64%) Microsoft Intune
5 22 (2.53%) Grafana
6 15 (1.72%) Prometheus
6 15 (1.72%) Single Sign-On
7 14 (1.61%) SCCM
8 13 (1.49%) Progress Chef
9 10 (1.15%) CASB
10 7 (0.80%) Cisco Prime
10 7 (0.80%) Puppet
10 7 (0.80%) QRadar
10 7 (0.80%) vCenter Server
11 6 (0.69%) Cisco CUCM
12 5 (0.57%) Suricata
12 5 (0.57%) WSUS
13 4 (0.46%) Kustomize
13 4 (0.46%) Podman
13 4 (0.46%) systemd
Vendors
1 248 (28.51%) Cisco
2 163 (18.74%) Microsoft
3 152 (17.47%) Palo Alto
4 87 (10.00%) Fortinet
5 81 (9.31%) F5
6 77 (8.85%) VMware
7 55 (6.32%) CheckPoint
8 54 (6.21%) Zscaler
9 44 (5.06%) Juniper
10 38 (4.37%) Splunk
11 36 (4.14%) SolarWinds
12 31 (3.56%) Aruba
13 27 (3.10%) Google
13 27 (3.10%) ServiceNow
14 22 (2.53%) Citrix
15 16 (1.84%) Meraki
16 14 (1.61%) CyberArk
16 14 (1.61%) Tenable
17 13 (1.49%) ForeScout
18 12 (1.38%) Blue Coat