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 5 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 181 147 148
Rank change year-on-year -34 +1 +92
Contract jobs citing Network Security 570 641 784
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.56% 1.77% 1.74%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 14.33% 14.41% 12.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 352 402 528
10th Percentile £350 £363 £400
25th Percentile £413 £426 £474
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £688 £725 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £500 £550
% change year-on-year -2.10% -9.09% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 13 5
10th Percentile £40.50 £21.80 £65.00
25th Percentile £45.00 £36.00 £68.75
Median hourly rate £68.33 £41.00 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year +66.66% -43.45% +61.11%
75th Percentile £85.00 £50.00 £76.25
90th Percentile £94.38 £58.75 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.75 £45.50 £72.50
% change year-on-year +44.51% -37.24% +61.11%

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 3,977 4,447 6,239
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.90% 12.31% 13.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,585 2,567 3,866
10th Percentile £206 £220 £211
25th Percentile £356 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £584 £600 £613
90th Percentile £675 £686 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 188 167 348
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.06 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.13 £22.75 £22.69
Median hourly rate £34.00 £41.00 £55.70
Median % change year-on-year -17.07% -26.39% +26.02%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £66.05
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £76.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £47.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year -10.53% -15.91% +25.53%

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 5 December 2025.

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 5 December 2025.

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 5 December 2025. 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 -34 507 £500 -4.76% 214
UK excluding London -44 284 £490 -2.10% 181
London -10 230 £515 -4.28% 69
Work from Home -42 146 £518 +3.60% 87
North of England -34 98 £466 -6.75% 40
Midlands -18 70 £500 -11.62% 16
North West 0 67 £492 -4.70% 27
West Midlands +1 66 £500 -20.32% 10
South East -34 59 £425 -20.19% 92
Yorkshire -29 45 £205 -59.00% 12
South West -11 24 £588 +11.90% 19
East of England -15 22 £488 +44.44% 14
Scotland +9 20 £475 +18.75% 2
East Midlands -26 4 £650 +73.33% 6
Wales -11 3 £471 +102.69% 2
Northern Ireland - 3 £500 - 1
Channel Islands - 2 £725 - 1
North East -7 1 £550 -32.52% 2

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 6 (1.05%) Confluence
2 5 (0.88%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.70%) Apache
4 3 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.18%) IIS
5 1 (0.18%) nginx
5 1 (0.18%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 15 (2.63%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (0.88%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.18%) Windchill
Cloud Services
1 148 (25.96%) Azure
2 128 (22.46%) AWS
3 45 (7.89%) GCP
4 29 (5.09%) Microsoft 365
5 28 (4.91%) Entra ID
6 23 (4.04%) Amazon S3
7 22 (3.86%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 19 (3.33%) Amazon EC2
9 18 (3.16%) Azure DevOps
10 17 (2.98%) GitHub
11 16 (2.81%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 16 (2.81%) Amazon ELB
12 15 (2.63%) Azure Sentinel
12 15 (2.63%) GitHub Actions
13 14 (2.46%) Azure Key Vault
14 13 (2.28%) Azure Monitor
15 12 (2.11%) IaaS
15 12 (2.11%) Serverless
16 11 (1.93%) Azure Logic Apps
16 11 (1.93%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 278 (48.77%) Firewall
2 113 (19.82%) VPN
3 103 (18.07%) DNS
4 92 (16.14%) WAN
5 61 (10.70%) BGP
6 60 (10.53%) SSL
7 59 (10.35%) LAN
8 58 (10.18%) TCP/IP
9 55 (9.65%) SD-WAN
10 48 (8.42%) OSPF
11 42 (7.37%) VLAN
11 42 (7.37%) Wireless
12 41 (7.19%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
13 34 (5.96%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
14 33 (5.79%) DMZ
15 28 (4.91%) Internet
16 26 (4.56%) Intrusion Detection
17 23 (4.04%) HTTP
18 21 (3.68%) DHCP
19 20 (3.51%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.53%) Amazon Athena
1 3 (0.53%) Amazon RDS
1 3 (0.53%) Azure SQL Database
1 3 (0.53%) InfluxDB
1 3 (0.53%) Relational Database
2 2 (0.35%) Data Lake
2 2 (0.35%) Power BI
3 1 (0.18%) GIS
3 1 (0.18%) MySQL
3 1 (0.18%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.18%) Redis
3 1 (0.18%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.18%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 24 (4.21%) Jenkins
2 22 (3.86%) GitLab
3 20 (3.51%) Git
4 7 (1.23%) JIRA
5 1 (0.18%) Burp Suite
5 1 (0.18%) Metasploit
5 1 (0.18%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.18%) Subversion
General
1 185 (32.46%) Social Skills
2 91 (15.96%) Analytical Skills
3 60 (10.53%) Finance
4 47 (8.25%) Public Sector
5 37 (6.49%) Banking
6 21 (3.68%) Telecoms
7 19 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
8 16 (2.81%) Investment Banking
9 11 (1.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 10 (1.75%) Legal
10 10 (1.75%) Pharmaceutical
11 9 (1.58%) Manufacturing
12 8 (1.40%) Military
13 7 (1.23%) Law
13 7 (1.23%) Presentation Skills
14 6 (1.05%) Financial Institution
15 5 (0.88%) Influencing Skills
15 5 (0.88%) Organisational Skills
16 3 (0.53%) Local Government
16 3 (0.53%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 119 (20.88%) Network Engineer
2 108 (18.95%) Security Engineer
3 99 (17.37%) Architect
4 58 (10.18%) Network Security Engineer
4 58 (10.18%) Security Architect
5 47 (8.25%) Senior
6 41 (7.19%) Analyst
7 38 (6.67%) Network Architect
8 29 (5.09%) Consultant
9 24 (4.21%) Lead
10 20 (3.51%) Administrator
10 20 (3.51%) Cybersecurity Engineer
11 19 (3.33%) Network Security Architect
11 19 (3.33%) SOC Analyst
12 18 (3.16%) Security Analyst
13 16 (2.81%) IT Engineer
13 16 (2.81%) Operations Engineer
14 14 (2.46%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 14 (2.46%) Project Manager
14 14 (2.46%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (2.63%) 802.1X
2 14 (2.46%) LDAP
3 8 (1.40%) .NET
4 7 (1.23%) ARM Templates
5 6 (1.05%) Node.js
5 6 (1.05%) SAML
6 5 (0.88%) .NET Core
6 5 (0.88%) AngularJS
6 5 (0.88%) PyTorch
6 5 (0.88%) React
6 5 (0.88%) TensorFlow
7 4 (0.70%) RabbitMQ
8 3 (0.53%) ADO
8 3 (0.53%) Elastic Stack
8 3 (0.53%) Lambda Expressions
8 3 (0.53%) Plotly
8 3 (0.53%) SailPoint
8 3 (0.53%) YAML
9 2 (0.35%) OAuth
9 2 (0.35%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 42 (7.37%) Data Centre
1 42 (7.37%) Security Posture
2 41 (7.19%) Management Information System
3 28 (4.91%) Hybrid Cloud
4 24 (4.21%) Cloud Native
5 20 (3.51%) Cyber Threat
6 19 (3.33%) Operational Technology
6 19 (3.33%) Security Operations Centre
7 17 (2.98%) Onboarding
7 17 (2.98%) PKI
8 16 (2.81%) Analytical Mindset
9 14 (2.46%) Public Cloud
10 12 (2.11%) Cloud Security Posture
10 12 (2.11%) Data Protection Act
10 12 (2.11%) Virtual Team
11 11 (1.93%) Cyberattack
12 10 (1.75%) CSOC
12 10 (1.75%) Cyber Security Posture
13 9 (1.58%) SCADA
14 8 (1.40%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 87 (15.26%) Windows
2 72 (12.63%) Linux
3 22 (3.86%) Windows Server
4 15 (2.63%) Unix
5 5 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (0.70%) VMS
7 3 (0.53%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.18%) CentOS
9 1 (0.18%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.18%) Kali Linux
9 1 (0.18%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.18%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 141 (24.74%) Cybersecurity
2 120 (21.05%) Problem-Solving
3 110 (19.30%) Incident Response
4 108 (18.95%) SIEM
5 92 (16.14%) Cloud Security
6 71 (12.46%) CI/CD
7 69 (12.11%) Infrastructure as Code
8 68 (11.93%) DevOps
9 61 (10.70%) Change Management
10 55 (9.65%) Migration
11 54 (9.47%) Identity Access Management
11 54 (9.47%) Zero Trust
12 52 (9.12%) Security Operations
13 51 (8.95%) Network Architecture
13 51 (8.95%) Security Architecture
14 49 (8.60%) Threat Modelling
15 47 (8.25%) Vulnerability Management
16 45 (7.89%) Continuous Improvement
16 45 (7.89%) Load Balancing
17 44 (7.72%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 113 (19.82%) Python
2 66 (11.58%) PowerShell
3 39 (6.84%) Bash
4 17 (2.98%) Bicep
4 17 (2.98%) SQL
5 10 (1.75%) JavaScript
5 10 (1.75%) Kusto Query Language
6 6 (1.05%) Go
6 6 (1.05%) Java
6 6 (1.05%) Perl
7 5 (0.88%) C#
8 3 (0.53%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.35%) C
9 2 (0.35%) C++
9 2 (0.35%) C-shell
9 2 (0.35%) Korn
10 1 (0.18%) Rust
10 1 (0.18%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.18%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 151 (26.49%) Security Cleared
2 104 (18.25%) SC Cleared
3 99 (17.37%) Cisco Certification
4 79 (13.86%) CISSP
5 77 (13.51%) CCNP
6 46 (8.07%) DV Cleared
7 45 (7.89%) Degree
8 40 (7.02%) CISM
9 29 (5.09%) CCIE
10 26 (4.56%) GIAC
11 25 (4.39%) CEH
12 20 (3.51%) CCNA
13 18 (3.16%) CompTIA Security+
14 17 (2.98%) Computer Science Degree
15 16 (2.81%) Azure Certification
16 15 (2.63%) AWS Certification
17 14 (2.46%) CCSA
18 13 (2.28%) CCSP
19 12 (2.11%) (ISC)2 CCSP
20 9 (1.58%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (12.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 68 (11.93%) NIST
3 48 (8.42%) GDPR
4 34 (5.96%) PCI DSS
5 16 (2.81%) NCSC
6 12 (2.11%) Cyber Essentials
6 12 (2.11%) GRC
6 12 (2.11%) HIPAA
7 6 (1.05%) SLA
7 6 (1.05%) SOC 2
8 5 (0.88%) PSD2
8 5 (0.88%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 4 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 3 (0.53%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 3 (0.53%) JSP 440
10 3 (0.53%) QA
11 2 (0.35%) GxP
11 2 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 2 (0.35%) PMO
12 1 (0.18%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 38 (6.67%) Active Directory
1 38 (6.67%) Docker
2 37 (6.49%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (1.75%) Firmware
4 8 (1.40%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (1.23%) VMware NSX
6 5 (0.88%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.70%) ProxySG
7 4 (0.70%) vSphere
8 3 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.18%) KVM
9 1 (0.18%) RACF
9 1 (0.18%) XenApp
9 1 (0.18%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 81 (14.21%) Terraform
2 50 (8.77%) Ansible
3 31 (5.44%) Kubernetes
4 20 (3.51%) FortiGate
5 13 (2.28%) QRadar
6 7 (1.23%) Microsoft Intune
7 6 (1.05%) CASB
7 6 (1.05%) Grafana
7 6 (1.05%) Prometheus
7 6 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.88%) Kibana
8 5 (0.88%) SCCM
9 4 (0.70%) CA Spectrum
10 3 (0.53%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.35%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.35%) Nessus
11 2 (0.35%) Puppet
12 1 (0.18%) HP Fortify
12 1 (0.18%) Icinga
12 1 (0.18%) VxRail
Vendors
1 135 (23.68%) Cisco
2 107 (18.77%) Palo Alto
3 96 (16.84%) Microsoft
4 91 (15.96%) F5
5 60 (10.53%) CheckPoint
6 48 (8.42%) Zscaler
7 47 (8.25%) Juniper
8 46 (8.07%) VMware
9 44 (7.72%) Fortinet
10 33 (5.79%) Splunk
11 27 (4.74%) Meraki
12 24 (4.21%) Google
13 22 (3.86%) CrowdStrike
14 21 (3.68%) SolarWinds
15 14 (2.46%) Tenable
16 13 (2.28%) Blue Coat
16 13 (2.28%) ServiceNow
17 11 (1.93%) ArcSight
17 11 (1.93%) Forcepoint
18 10 (1.75%) Qualys