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 24 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 159 138 168
Rank change year-on-year -21 +30 +27
Contract jobs citing Network Security 779 577 629
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.68% 1.95% 1.44%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.39% 15.38% 11.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 528 351 435
10th Percentile £354 £363 £388
25th Percentile £425 £424 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £575
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -9.57% -
75th Percentile £600 £610 £650
90th Percentile £700 £675 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £490 £575
% change year-on-year +2.04% -14.78% +7.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 12 17
10th Percentile £32.00 £20.70 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £40.50 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.50 £62.84 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.24% +230.72% -63.55%
75th Percentile £74.07 £81.35 £41.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.03 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.50 £80.68 £7.43
% change year-on-year -18.81% +985.80% -83.88%

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 4,480 3,752 5,718
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.64% 12.70% 13.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,793 2,321 3,438
10th Percentile £250 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £488
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% +0.36% -6.11%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £465 £475
% change year-on-year +2.15% -2.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 211 172 429
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.78
25th Percentile £20.79 £20.64 £17.69
Median hourly rate £42.25 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.67% -6.25% +110.53%
75th Percentile £70.00 £61.31 £62.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £67.12
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £27.72 £46.39
% change year-on-year +89.39% -40.25% +150.76%

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 24 April 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 24 April 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 24 April 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 -11 676 £500 -4.76% 177
UK excluding London -4 394 £500 +2.04% 151
London -30 278 £525 -4.55% 68
Work from Home +5 219 £525 +5.00% 79
North of England -7 132 £478 -4.50% 39
South East -17 109 £500 +2.04% 54
North West +1 80 £487 -2.60% 24
Midlands -15 70 £500 -9.09% 18
Yorkshire -20 53 £425 +6.25% 10
West Midlands -29 51 £500 -4.76% 13
East of England -25 35 £525 -6.67% 15
South West -32 30 £550 - 8
Scotland +10 27 £509 +19.71% 6
East Midlands -20 18 £638 -1.92% 5
Wales -18 4 £600 +106.90% 5
North East -14 2 £538 -14.00% 5
Northern Ireland - 1 £500 - 9

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 18 (2.31%) Confluence
2 11 (1.41%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (0.77%) Apache
4 4 (0.51%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.13%) nginx
5 1 (0.13%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 22 (2.82%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.41%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (0.64%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 244 (31.32%) Azure
2 168 (21.57%) AWS
3 93 (11.94%) GCP
4 59 (7.57%) Entra ID
5 35 (4.49%) GitHub
6 30 (3.85%) GitHub Actions
7 29 (3.72%) Azure Sentinel
8 28 (3.59%) Azure DevOps
9 21 (2.70%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 20 (2.57%) Azure Key Vault
11 19 (2.44%) Azure AKS
12 18 (2.31%) AWS CloudFormation
13 17 (2.18%) Azure Monitor
13 17 (2.18%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 15 (1.93%) Microsoft 365
15 14 (1.80%) Google Kubernetes Engine
16 13 (1.67%) Akamai
16 13 (1.67%) AWS Direct Connect
16 13 (1.67%) Serverless
17 12 (1.54%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 364 (46.73%) Firewall
2 151 (19.38%) VPN
3 132 (16.94%) WAN
4 106 (13.61%) LAN
5 98 (12.58%) BGP
6 87 (11.17%) OSPF
7 86 (11.04%) DNS
8 75 (9.63%) SD-WAN
9 72 (9.24%) VLAN
10 58 (7.45%) TCP/IP
11 51 (6.55%) Wireless
12 44 (5.65%) MPLS
13 42 (5.39%) DHCP
14 38 (4.88%) Wi-Fi
15 36 (4.62%) Cisco ASA
16 34 (4.36%) Internet
17 33 (4.24%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 31 (3.98%) Cisco ISE
19 30 (3.85%) IPsec
20 28 (3.59%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.03%) Azure SQL Database
2 6 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
3 5 (0.64%) InfluxDB
3 5 (0.64%) Relational Database
3 5 (0.64%) SQL Server
4 3 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.39%) Data Lake
4 3 (0.39%) Power BI
5 2 (0.26%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 32 (4.11%) JIRA
2 23 (2.95%) Jenkins
3 16 (2.05%) GitLab
4 9 (1.16%) Git
5 8 (1.03%) Sonatype Nexus
6 7 (0.90%) Snyk
7 5 (0.64%) Browser DevTools
8 2 (0.26%) Postman
9 1 (0.13%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.13%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.13%) JUnit
9 1 (0.13%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.13%) Zephyr
General
1 186 (23.88%) Social Skills
2 110 (14.12%) Finance
3 78 (10.01%) Analytical Skills
4 63 (8.09%) Public Sector
5 37 (4.75%) Banking
6 33 (4.24%) Documentation Skills
7 27 (3.47%) Telecoms
8 20 (2.57%) Financial Institution
9 11 (1.41%) Legal
10 8 (1.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 8 (1.03%) Manufacturing
11 7 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (0.64%) Local Government
13 4 (0.51%) Electronics
13 4 (0.51%) Influencing Skills
13 4 (0.51%) Law
13 4 (0.51%) Military
14 3 (0.39%) Pharmaceutical
14 3 (0.39%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (0.39%) Retail
Job Titles
1 185 (23.75%) Network Engineer
2 175 (22.46%) Architect
3 95 (12.20%) Security Engineer
4 88 (11.30%) Security Architect
5 65 (8.34%) Senior
6 60 (7.70%) Network Architect
7 46 (5.91%) Network Security Engineer
8 27 (3.47%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 27 (3.47%) Lead
9 26 (3.34%) Analyst
10 25 (3.21%) Consultant
10 25 (3.21%) Network Security Architect
11 21 (2.70%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 20 (2.57%) Azure Architect
12 20 (2.57%) Project Manager
13 19 (2.44%) Senior Network Engineer
13 19 (2.44%) Solutions Architect
14 18 (2.31%) Cloud Architect
14 18 (2.31%) Cloud Engineer
15 17 (2.18%) Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (2.95%) 802.1X
2 13 (1.67%) LDAP
3 10 (1.28%) SAML
4 8 (1.03%) Node.js
5 6 (0.77%) .NET
5 6 (0.77%) REST
6 5 (0.64%) .NET Core
6 5 (0.64%) AngularJS
6 5 (0.64%) OAuth
6 5 (0.64%) PyTorch
6 5 (0.64%) RabbitMQ
6 5 (0.64%) React
6 5 (0.64%) TensorFlow
7 4 (0.51%) ARM Templates
7 4 (0.51%) AWS CDK
7 4 (0.51%) HTML
7 4 (0.51%) OpenID
8 3 (0.39%) CSS
8 3 (0.39%) Elastic Stack
8 3 (0.39%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 111 (14.25%) Data Centre
2 44 (5.65%) Cloud Native
3 43 (5.52%) Security Posture
4 39 (5.01%) Hybrid Cloud
5 30 (3.85%) Onboarding
6 26 (3.34%) IoT
6 26 (3.34%) Public Cloud
7 25 (3.21%) Management Information System
8 22 (2.82%) Data Protection Act
8 22 (2.82%) Operational Technology
8 22 (2.82%) PKI
9 19 (2.44%) Cyber Threat
9 19 (2.44%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 16 (2.05%) Product Ownership
11 14 (1.80%) Virtual Team
12 13 (1.67%) Security Operations Centre
13 12 (1.54%) Analytical Mindset
13 12 (1.54%) Cyber Security Posture
14 9 (1.16%) Clustering
15 8 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 79 (10.14%) Windows
2 65 (8.34%) Linux
3 28 (3.59%) Windows Server
4 13 (1.67%) Unix
5 10 (1.28%) VMS
6 7 (0.90%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.77%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.64%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.39%) SUSE
10 1 (0.13%) Android
10 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 167 (21.44%) Cybersecurity
2 126 (16.17%) Cloud Security
3 114 (14.63%) Security Architecture
3 114 (14.63%) Zero Trust
4 109 (13.99%) Problem-Solving
5 104 (13.35%) Migration
6 99 (12.71%) CI/CD
6 99 (12.71%) Infrastructure as Code
7 96 (12.32%) SIEM
8 95 (12.20%) DevOps
9 77 (9.88%) Threat Modelling
10 75 (9.63%) Continuous Improvement
11 72 (9.24%) High Availability
11 72 (9.24%) Incident Response
11 72 (9.24%) Network Segmentation
12 69 (8.86%) Change Management
13 67 (8.60%) Stakeholder Management
14 66 (8.47%) Agile
15 65 (8.34%) Identity Access Management
16 64 (8.22%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 110 (14.12%) Python
2 62 (7.96%) PowerShell
3 27 (3.47%) Bicep
4 26 (3.34%) Bash
5 25 (3.21%) JavaScript
5 25 (3.21%) SQL
6 15 (1.93%) Kusto Query Language
7 9 (1.16%) Go
8 8 (1.03%) Shell Script
9 7 (0.90%) Java
10 5 (0.64%) C#
11 4 (0.51%) C
11 4 (0.51%) PHP
12 3 (0.39%) C++
13 2 (0.26%) C-shell
13 2 (0.26%) Korn
13 2 (0.26%) Ruby
14 1 (0.13%) ActionScript
14 1 (0.13%) AppleScript
14 1 (0.13%) VBA
Qualifications
1 233 (29.91%) Security Cleared
2 173 (22.21%) SC Cleared
3 140 (17.97%) Cisco Certification
4 102 (13.09%) CCNP
5 94 (12.07%) CISSP
6 72 (9.24%) DV Cleared
7 52 (6.68%) CCNA
8 51 (6.55%) CISM
9 50 (6.42%) Degree
10 33 (4.24%) Azure Certification
11 28 (3.59%) CCIE
12 24 (3.08%) CCSP
12 24 (3.08%) GIAC
13 23 (2.95%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 21 (2.70%) CEH
15 19 (2.44%) AWS Certification
16 15 (1.93%) CompTIA Security+
17 12 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
17 12 (1.54%) TOGAF Certification
18 10 (1.28%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 85 (10.91%) NIST
2 72 (9.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 44 (5.65%) GDPR
4 28 (3.59%) PCI DSS
5 21 (2.70%) NCSC
6 15 (1.93%) GRC
7 14 (1.80%) Cyber Essentials
7 14 (1.80%) SLA
8 10 (1.28%) QA
9 9 (1.16%) SOC 2
10 8 (1.03%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (1.03%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 8 (1.03%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 6 (0.77%) PMO
12 5 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 5 (0.64%) Disclosure Scotland
12 5 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 4 (0.51%) RMADS
14 3 (0.39%) ISA99
14 3 (0.39%) JSP 440
System Software
1 54 (6.93%) VMware Infrastructure
2 49 (6.29%) Active Directory
3 22 (2.82%) VMware NSX
4 18 (2.31%) Docker
5 13 (1.67%) Hyper-V
5 13 (1.67%) Virtual Machines
6 12 (1.54%) vSphere
7 10 (1.28%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.90%) Firmware
9 5 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.26%) NFS
10 2 (0.26%) Postfix
10 2 (0.26%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.26%) Sendmail
10 2 (0.26%) Varnish
11 1 (0.13%) KVM
11 1 (0.13%) RHEV
11 1 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.13%) XenApp
11 1 (0.13%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 119 (15.28%) Terraform
2 76 (9.76%) Ansible
3 59 (7.57%) Kubernetes
4 30 (3.85%) FortiGate
5 15 (1.93%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (1.80%) Nagios
7 12 (1.54%) Kibana
7 12 (1.54%) Microsoft Intune
8 11 (1.41%) vCenter Server
9 9 (1.16%) Microsoft Clustering
10 7 (0.90%) Grafana
11 6 (0.77%) Prometheus
12 5 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 5 (0.64%) Istio
12 5 (0.64%) Progress Chef
12 5 (0.64%) WSUS
13 4 (0.51%) CASB
13 4 (0.51%) Puppet
13 4 (0.51%) QRadar
14 3 (0.39%) Network Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 215 (27.60%) Cisco
2 122 (15.66%) Microsoft
3 118 (15.15%) Palo Alto
4 75 (9.63%) F5
5 69 (8.86%) VMware
6 59 (7.57%) Fortinet
7 58 (7.45%) Juniper
8 52 (6.68%) CheckPoint
9 43 (5.52%) Zscaler
10 30 (3.85%) ServiceNow
11 26 (3.34%) Splunk
12 25 (3.21%) Google
13 19 (2.44%) Aruba
13 19 (2.44%) SolarWinds
14 18 (2.31%) ForeScout
15 16 (2.05%) Meraki
15 16 (2.05%) Tenable
16 15 (1.93%) Citrix
16 15 (1.93%) Okta
17 12 (1.54%) SAP