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 20 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 159 153 181
Rank change year-on-year -6 +28 -12
Contract jobs citing Network Security 898 603 566
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.70% 1.84% 1.36%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.96% 15.15% 10.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 603 368 377
10th Percentile £398 £375 £363
25th Percentile £450 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.29% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £613 £650
90th Percentile £715 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £530 £500 £575
% change year-on-year +5.90% -13.04% +9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 16 17
10th Percentile £25.05 £50.00 -
25th Percentile £40.53 £66.37 £7.43
Median hourly rate £73.00 £81.01 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.89% +252.23% -65.15%
75th Percentile £74.00 £84.25 £41.25
90th Percentile £74.03 £92.50 £58.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £73.00 £81.01 £13.50
% change year-on-year -9.89% +500.09% -28.95%

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 4,999 3,981 5,202
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.47% 12.14% 12.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,017 2,427 3,100
10th Percentile £238 £235 £213
25th Percentile £400 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £594 £600
90th Percentile £669 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £489 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.84% -5.00% +8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 327 193 395
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.00 £16.58
Median hourly rate £26.00 £47.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -45.26% +18.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £83.80 £72.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.44 £42.50 £45.88
% change year-on-year -37.79% -7.37% -19.74%

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 20 July 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 20 July 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 20 July 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 -12 775 £537 +2.29% 187
UK excluding London -26 455 £530 +5.90% 149
London -9 332 £550 - 71
Work from Home +12 266 £540 +2.37% 77
North of England +8 188 £528 +7.76% 34
South East -20 125 £557 +13.67% 54
North West -5 100 £536 +12.84% 23
Yorkshire +2 86 £500 +1.63% 11
Midlands -42 52 £450 -21.74% 22
Scotland -3 37 £569 +30.00% 17
East of England -13 32 £525 -4.55% 13
West Midlands -79 31 £413 -28.26% 9
South West -43 26 £550 -8.33% 13
East Midlands +5 20 £638 - 13
Wales -20 3 £600 +106.90% 2
North East -35 2 £675 +8.00% 1

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 15 (1.67%) Confluence
2 12 (1.34%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (0.78%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.22%) Apache
5 1 (0.11%) IIS
5 1 (0.11%) NetWeaver
5 1 (0.11%) nginx
Applications
1 17 (1.89%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (0.67%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.33%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.11%) InfoPath
4 1 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (0.67%) Oracle ERP
1 6 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 282 (31.40%) Azure
2 200 (22.27%) AWS
3 117 (13.03%) GCP
4 86 (9.58%) Entra ID
5 35 (3.90%) GitHub
6 30 (3.34%) Azure DevOps
6 30 (3.34%) Azure Sentinel
7 27 (3.01%) Microsoft 365
8 26 (2.90%) Azure Monitor
9 24 (2.67%) GitHub Actions
9 24 (2.67%) Serverless
10 23 (2.56%) SaaS
11 20 (2.23%) Azure AKS
11 20 (2.23%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 19 (2.12%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 19 (2.12%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 18 (2.00%) Azure Key Vault
14 17 (1.89%) OCI
15 16 (1.78%) Akamai
16 14 (1.56%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 411 (45.77%) Firewall
2 201 (22.38%) VPN
3 179 (19.93%) WAN
4 131 (14.59%) LAN
5 123 (13.70%) DNS
6 108 (12.03%) BGP
7 99 (11.02%) Wireless
8 88 (9.80%) SD-WAN
8 88 (9.80%) TCP/IP
9 87 (9.69%) OSPF
10 75 (8.35%) VLAN
11 64 (7.13%) DHCP
12 55 (6.12%) IPsec
12 55 (6.12%) MPLS
13 50 (5.57%) SSL
14 46 (5.12%) Wi-Fi
15 44 (4.90%) Cisco ASA
15 44 (4.90%) Cisco ISE
16 42 (4.68%) NGFW
17 37 (4.12%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (1.00%) SQL Server
2 8 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
3 5 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
4 4 (0.45%) Data Lake
4 4 (0.45%) Elasticsearch
4 4 (0.45%) Neo4j
4 4 (0.45%) Power BI
5 3 (0.33%) Amazon Athena
5 3 (0.33%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.22%) BigQuery
6 2 (0.22%) InfluxDB
6 2 (0.22%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.11%) Data Mining
7 1 (0.11%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.11%) DataStage
7 1 (0.11%) Delta Lake
7 1 (0.11%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.11%) Relational Database
7 1 (0.11%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (0.11%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 41 (4.57%) JIRA
2 34 (3.79%) Git
3 23 (2.56%) GitLab
4 18 (2.00%) Jenkins
5 10 (1.11%) Sonatype Nexus
6 6 (0.67%) Browser DevTools
7 5 (0.56%) Snyk
8 4 (0.45%) MSBuild
8 4 (0.45%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.45%) Visual Studio
9 3 (0.33%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.22%) Postman
11 1 (0.11%) Burp Suite
11 1 (0.11%) Claude Code
11 1 (0.11%) JUnit
11 1 (0.11%) SoapUI
11 1 (0.11%) Subversion
11 1 (0.11%) Zephyr
General
1 211 (23.50%) Social Skills
2 143 (15.92%) Finance
3 69 (7.68%) Analytical Skills
4 64 (7.13%) Public Sector
5 63 (7.02%) Banking
6 44 (4.90%) Documentation Skills
7 25 (2.78%) Financial Institution
8 21 (2.34%) Telecoms
9 17 (1.89%) Legal
10 13 (1.45%) Retail
11 12 (1.34%) Manufacturing
11 12 (1.34%) Organisational Skills
12 11 (1.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 10 (1.11%) Influencing Skills
14 8 (0.89%) Police
15 6 (0.67%) Law
16 5 (0.56%) Local Government
16 5 (0.56%) Military
17 3 (0.33%) Billing
17 3 (0.33%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 249 (27.73%) Network Engineer
2 189 (21.05%) Architect
3 115 (12.81%) Security Engineer
4 95 (10.58%) Security Architect
4 95 (10.58%) Senior
5 71 (7.91%) Network Security Engineer
6 66 (7.35%) Network Architect
7 50 (5.57%) Consultant
8 41 (4.57%) Project Manager
9 38 (4.23%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 38 (4.23%) Senior Network Engineer
10 36 (4.01%) Lead
11 29 (3.23%) Cloud Engineer
12 26 (2.90%) Network Security Architect
13 25 (2.78%) Network Manager
14 22 (2.45%) Security Consultant
14 22 (2.45%) Solutions Architect
15 21 (2.34%) Analyst
15 21 (2.34%) Azure Architect
15 21 (2.34%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (4.45%) 802.1X
2 18 (2.00%) SAML
3 15 (1.67%) REST
4 12 (1.34%) ARM Templates
5 10 (1.11%) Kafka
6 6 (0.67%) OAuth
6 6 (0.67%) OpenID
7 5 (0.56%) .NET
7 5 (0.56%) CSS
7 5 (0.56%) HTML
7 5 (0.56%) JSON
7 5 (0.56%) LDAP
8 4 (0.45%) gRPC
8 4 (0.45%) Keycloak
8 4 (0.45%) NETCONF
8 4 (0.45%) OAuth2
8 4 (0.45%) Protocol Buffers
8 4 (0.45%) RESTful
8 4 (0.45%) SLSA
8 4 (0.45%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 116 (12.92%) Data Centre
2 69 (7.68%) Security Posture
3 49 (5.46%) Cloud Native
4 44 (4.90%) Hybrid Cloud
5 37 (4.12%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 31 (3.45%) Onboarding
7 27 (3.01%) Operational Technology
8 26 (2.90%) Management Information System
9 25 (2.78%) Data Protection Act
10 22 (2.45%) PKI
10 22 (2.45%) Public Cloud
11 20 (2.23%) Cyber Threat
12 19 (2.12%) Product Ownership
13 18 (2.00%) Security Operations Centre
14 17 (1.89%) IoT
14 17 (1.89%) Self-Motivation
15 13 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
15 13 (1.45%) Linux Command Line
16 10 (1.11%) Replication
16 10 (1.11%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 75 (8.35%) Linux
2 70 (7.80%) Windows
3 18 (2.00%) Windows Server
4 13 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (0.89%) Unix
6 7 (0.78%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.67%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.56%) VMS
8 5 (0.56%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.33%) Android
9 3 (0.33%) Check Point GAiA
9 3 (0.33%) SUSE
10 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 173 (19.27%) Cybersecurity
2 162 (18.04%) Cloud Security
3 134 (14.92%) Zero Trust
4 124 (13.81%) CI/CD
5 118 (13.14%) SIEM
6 117 (13.03%) DevOps
6 117 (13.03%) Infrastructure as Code
7 113 (12.58%) Continuous Improvement
8 110 (12.25%) Migration
9 109 (12.14%) Security Architecture
10 106 (11.80%) Stakeholder Management
11 98 (10.91%) Change Management
11 98 (10.91%) High Availability
12 97 (10.80%) Problem-Solving
13 90 (10.02%) Incident Response
14 89 (9.91%) Identity Access Management
15 88 (9.80%) Agile
15 88 (9.80%) Data Protection
16 86 (9.58%) Load Balancing
17 84 (9.35%) Threat Modelling
Programming Languages
1 117 (13.03%) Python
2 60 (6.68%) PowerShell
3 52 (5.79%) Bash
4 37 (4.12%) Bicep
5 22 (2.45%) SQL
6 18 (2.00%) JavaScript
7 8 (0.89%) Shell Script
8 7 (0.78%) Java
9 4 (0.45%) Perl
9 4 (0.45%) Rust
10 3 (0.33%) Go
10 3 (0.33%) PHP
11 2 (0.22%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.22%) Ruby
12 1 (0.11%) ActionScript
12 1 (0.11%) AppleScript
12 1 (0.11%) C
12 1 (0.11%) Search Processing Language
12 1 (0.11%) VBA
Qualifications
1 241 (26.84%) Security Cleared
2 169 (18.82%) SC Cleared
3 159 (17.71%) Cisco Certification
4 99 (11.02%) CISSP
5 95 (10.58%) CCNP
6 80 (8.91%) DV Cleared
7 64 (7.13%) Degree
8 58 (6.46%) CCNA
8 58 (6.46%) CISM
9 40 (4.45%) CCSP
10 39 (4.34%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 33 (3.67%) Azure Certification
12 23 (2.56%) CCIE
13 21 (2.34%) AWS Certification
14 15 (1.67%) CompTIA Security+
15 13 (1.45%) Computer Science Degree
15 13 (1.45%) GIAC
16 12 (1.34%) BPSS Clearance
17 10 (1.11%) CEH
17 10 (1.11%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 84 (9.35%) NIST
2 73 (8.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 41 (4.57%) GDPR
4 30 (3.34%) NCSC
5 27 (3.01%) PCI DSS
6 19 (2.12%) QA
7 17 (1.89%) GRC
8 15 (1.67%) SLA
9 13 (1.45%) Cyber Essentials
10 9 (1.00%) Disclosure Scotland
11 8 (0.89%) NIST 800
12 7 (0.78%) Actionable Recommendations
12 7 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 7 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 6 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 6 (0.67%) SOC 2
14 4 (0.45%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 3 (0.33%) ISA99
15 3 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 42001
15 3 (0.33%) PMO
System Software
1 72 (8.02%) Active Directory
2 54 (6.01%) VMware Infrastructure
3 27 (3.01%) Docker
4 25 (2.78%) VMware NSX
5 22 (2.45%) Virtual Machines
6 12 (1.34%) vSphere
7 10 (1.11%) Hyper-V
7 10 (1.11%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.67%) Firmware
9 5 (0.56%) Squid
9 5 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
10 3 (0.33%) NFS
11 2 (0.22%) OpenSSH
11 2 (0.22%) Postfix
11 2 (0.22%) Sendmail
11 2 (0.22%) Varnish
11 2 (0.22%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.22%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.11%) ProxySG
12 1 (0.11%) Samba
Systems Management
1 122 (13.59%) Terraform
2 85 (9.47%) Ansible
3 74 (8.24%) Kubernetes
4 43 (4.79%) FortiGate
5 20 (2.23%) Single Sign-On
6 19 (2.12%) Grafana
7 14 (1.56%) Microsoft Intune
8 12 (1.34%) Prometheus
9 10 (1.11%) vCenter Server
10 8 (0.89%) CASB
11 7 (0.78%) Puppet
11 7 (0.78%) QRadar
11 7 (0.78%) SCCM
12 6 (0.67%) Cisco CUCM
13 5 (0.56%) Cisco Prime
13 5 (0.56%) Suricata
13 5 (0.56%) WSUS
14 4 (0.45%) Istio
14 4 (0.45%) Kustomize
14 4 (0.45%) Podman
Vendors
1 256 (28.51%) Cisco
2 150 (16.70%) Palo Alto
3 133 (14.81%) Microsoft
4 85 (9.47%) F5
5 83 (9.24%) Fortinet
6 68 (7.57%) VMware
7 64 (7.13%) CheckPoint
8 59 (6.57%) Juniper
9 56 (6.24%) Zscaler
10 37 (4.12%) Splunk
11 33 (3.67%) ServiceNow
12 31 (3.45%) SolarWinds
13 25 (2.78%) Aruba
13 25 (2.78%) Citrix
14 24 (2.67%) Google
15 22 (2.45%) ForeScout
16 19 (2.12%) Tenable
17 15 (1.67%) Infoblox
18 13 (1.45%) CyberArk
18 13 (1.45%) Meraki