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

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 159 139 167
Rank change year-on-year -20 +28 +30
Contract jobs citing Network Security 782 588 620
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.69% 2.00% 1.43%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.46% 15.55% 10.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 529 361 432
10th Percentile £350 £362 £400
25th Percentile £425 £419 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £575
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -9.57% +1.77%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £650
90th Percentile £700 £675 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £490 £575
% change year-on-year +2.04% -14.78% +9.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 12 16
10th Percentile £32.00 £20.70 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £40.50 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.50 £62.84 £18.25
Median % change year-on-year +4.24% +244.32% -64.99%
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 3,782 5,676
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.68% 12.84% 13.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,806 2,345 3,403
10th Percentile £246 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £489
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -0.31% -5.96%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £464 £475
% change year-on-year +2.43% -2.37% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 207 171 425
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.86
25th Percentile £20.79 £21.00 £17.69
Median hourly rate £48.72 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +29.92% -6.25% +110.53%
75th Percentile £70.00 £61.38 £62.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.50 £28.00 £46.14
% change year-on-year +98.21% -39.31% +149.38%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 -19 679 £500 -5.21% 203
UK excluding London -13 399 £500 +2.04% 173
London -34 275 £525 -4.55% 80
Work from Home +5 217 £525 +5.00% 104
North of England -1 136 £481 -3.88% 42
South East -18 110 £500 +2.04% 53
North West -2 84 £489 -2.20% 27
Midlands -23 71 £500 -9.09% 21
Yorkshire -33 53 £425 +6.25% 9
West Midlands -32 52 £500 -4.76% 15
East of England -23 35 £525 -6.67% 20
South West -30 29 £545 -0.91% 11
Scotland +3 28 £475 +11.76% 11
East Midlands -20 18 £638 -1.92% 6
North East -12 3 £550 -12.00% 6
Wales -15 3 £513 +76.72% 8
Northern Ireland - 1 £500 - 11

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 (2.30%) 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 (2.81%) 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
1 245 (31.33%) Azure
2 168 (21.48%) AWS
3 95 (12.15%) GCP
4 59 (7.54%) Entra ID
5 35 (4.48%) GitHub
6 30 (3.84%) GitHub Actions
7 29 (3.71%) Azure Sentinel
8 28 (3.58%) Azure DevOps
9 21 (2.69%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 19 (2.43%) Azure Key Vault
11 18 (2.30%) AWS CloudFormation
12 17 (2.17%) Azure AKS
13 16 (2.05%) Azure Monitor
13 16 (2.05%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 15 (1.92%) Microsoft 365
15 14 (1.79%) Google Kubernetes Engine
16 13 (1.66%) Akamai
16 13 (1.66%) Serverless
17 12 (1.53%) Amazon S3
17 12 (1.53%) AWS Direct Connect
Communications & Networking
1 374 (47.83%) Firewall
2 152 (19.44%) VPN
3 134 (17.14%) WAN
4 107 (13.68%) LAN
5 104 (13.30%) BGP
6 88 (11.25%) OSPF
7 86 (11.00%) DNS
8 77 (9.85%) SD-WAN
9 74 (9.46%) VLAN
10 58 (7.42%) TCP/IP
11 50 (6.39%) Wireless
12 47 (6.01%) MPLS
13 42 (5.37%) DHCP
14 38 (4.86%) Wi-Fi
15 36 (4.60%) Cisco ASA
15 36 (4.60%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 34 (4.35%) Internet
17 30 (3.84%) Cisco ISE
17 30 (3.84%) IPsec
18 28 (3.58%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.02%) 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 (0.38%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.38%) Data Lake
4 3 (0.38%) Power BI
5 2 (0.26%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 32 (4.09%) JIRA
2 23 (2.94%) Jenkins
3 16 (2.05%) GitLab
4 11 (1.41%) Git
5 8 (1.02%) 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
1 192 (24.55%) Social Skills
2 108 (13.81%) Finance
3 84 (10.74%) Analytical Skills
4 64 (8.18%) Public Sector
5 36 (4.60%) Banking
6 34 (4.35%) Documentation Skills
7 27 (3.45%) Telecoms
8 20 (2.56%) Financial Institution
9 10 (1.28%) Legal
10 8 (1.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 8 (1.02%) Manufacturing
10 8 (1.02%) Organisational Skills
11 5 (0.64%) Local Government
11 5 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (0.51%) Electronics
12 4 (0.51%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (0.51%) Military
13 3 (0.38%) Law
13 3 (0.38%) Pharmaceutical
13 3 (0.38%) Retail
Job Titles
1 186 (23.79%) Network Engineer
2 175 (22.38%) Architect
3 92 (11.76%) Security Engineer
4 89 (11.38%) Security Architect
5 64 (8.18%) Senior
6 62 (7.93%) Network Architect
7 45 (5.75%) Network Security Engineer
8 27 (3.45%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 26 (3.32%) Analyst
9 26 (3.32%) Lead
9 26 (3.32%) Network Security Architect
10 25 (3.20%) Consultant
11 21 (2.69%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 19 (2.43%) Azure Architect
12 19 (2.43%) Senior Network Engineer
12 19 (2.43%) Solutions Architect
13 18 (2.30%) Cloud Architect
13 18 (2.30%) Cloud Engineer
13 18 (2.30%) Project Manager
14 17 (2.17%) Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (2.94%) 802.1X
2 13 (1.66%) LDAP
3 10 (1.28%) SAML
4 8 (1.02%) 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%) ARM Templates
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%) AWS CDK
7 4 (0.51%) HTML
7 4 (0.51%) OpenID
8 3 (0.38%) CSS
8 3 (0.38%) Elastic Stack
8 3 (0.38%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 113 (14.45%) Data Centre
2 44 (5.63%) Cloud Native
3 43 (5.50%) Security Posture
4 41 (5.24%) Hybrid Cloud
5 29 (3.71%) Onboarding
6 27 (3.45%) Public Cloud
7 26 (3.32%) IoT
8 25 (3.20%) Management Information System
9 22 (2.81%) PKI
10 21 (2.69%) Data Protection Act
10 21 (2.69%) Operational Technology
11 19 (2.43%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 19 (2.43%) Product Ownership
12 18 (2.30%) Cyber Threat
13 15 (1.92%) Analytical Mindset
14 14 (1.79%) Security Operations Centre
14 14 (1.79%) Virtual Team
15 12 (1.53%) Cyber Security Posture
16 9 (1.15%) Legacy Systems
16 9 (1.15%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 84 (10.74%) Windows
2 69 (8.82%) Linux
3 31 (3.96%) Windows Server
4 13 (1.66%) Unix
5 10 (1.28%) VMS
6 8 (1.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 7 (0.90%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.77%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.64%) Windows 10
10 3 (0.38%) SUSE
11 1 (0.13%) Android
11 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 171 (21.87%) Cybersecurity
2 124 (15.86%) Cloud Security
3 116 (14.83%) Zero Trust
4 115 (14.71%) Problem-Solving
4 115 (14.71%) Security Architecture
5 104 (13.30%) Migration
6 103 (13.17%) CI/CD
7 99 (12.66%) Infrastructure as Code
8 98 (12.53%) DevOps
9 96 (12.28%) SIEM
10 77 (9.85%) Continuous Improvement
10 77 (9.85%) Threat Modelling
11 73 (9.34%) Incident Response
11 73 (9.34%) Network Segmentation
12 71 (9.08%) High Availability
13 69 (8.82%) Change Management
14 68 (8.70%) Stakeholder Management
15 65 (8.31%) Agile
15 65 (8.31%) Identity Access Management
16 63 (8.06%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 115 (14.71%) Python
2 65 (8.31%) PowerShell
3 30 (3.84%) Bash
4 26 (3.32%) Bicep
5 25 (3.20%) JavaScript
5 25 (3.20%) SQL
6 15 (1.92%) Kusto Query Language
7 9 (1.15%) Go
8 8 (1.02%) Shell Script
9 7 (0.90%) Java
10 5 (0.64%) C#
11 4 (0.51%) C
11 4 (0.51%) PHP
12 3 (0.38%) 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%) Perl
Qualifications
1 236 (30.18%) Security Cleared
2 174 (22.25%) SC Cleared
3 141 (18.03%) Cisco Certification
4 103 (13.17%) CCNP
5 98 (12.53%) CISSP
6 72 (9.21%) DV Cleared
7 52 (6.65%) CCNA
7 52 (6.65%) CISM
7 52 (6.65%) Degree
8 33 (4.22%) Azure Certification
9 30 (3.84%) CCIE
10 25 (3.20%) CCSP
10 25 (3.20%) GIAC
11 24 (3.07%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 22 (2.81%) CEH
13 21 (2.69%) AWS Certification
14 16 (2.05%) CompTIA Security+
15 12 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
15 12 (1.53%) TOGAF Certification
16 10 (1.28%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (11.25%) NIST
2 75 (9.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 46 (5.88%) GDPR
4 30 (3.84%) PCI DSS
5 20 (2.56%) NCSC
6 15 (1.92%) Cyber Essentials
6 15 (1.92%) GRC
7 14 (1.79%) SLA
8 10 (1.28%) QA
8 10 (1.28%) SOC 2
9 8 (1.02%) Actionable Recommendations
9 8 (1.02%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 8 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 6 (0.77%) PMO
11 5 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 5 (0.64%) Disclosure Scotland
11 5 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 4 (0.51%) RMADS
13 3 (0.38%) ISA99
13 3 (0.38%) JSP 440
System Software
1 54 (6.91%) VMware Infrastructure
2 49 (6.27%) Active Directory
3 22 (2.81%) Docker
3 22 (2.81%) VMware NSX
4 13 (1.66%) Hyper-V
4 13 (1.66%) Virtual Machines
5 12 (1.53%) vSphere
6 10 (1.28%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.90%) Firmware
8 5 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.26%) NFS
9 2 (0.26%) Postfix
9 2 (0.26%) ProxySG
9 2 (0.26%) Sendmail
9 2 (0.26%) Varnish
10 1 (0.13%) KVM
10 1 (0.13%) Squid
10 1 (0.13%) Xen
10 1 (0.13%) XenApp
10 1 (0.13%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 119 (15.22%) Terraform
2 77 (9.85%) Ansible
3 62 (7.93%) Kubernetes
4 31 (3.96%) FortiGate
5 15 (1.92%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (1.79%) Nagios
7 13 (1.66%) Microsoft Intune
8 12 (1.53%) Kibana
9 11 (1.41%) vCenter Server
10 9 (1.15%) Microsoft Clustering
11 7 (0.90%) Grafana
12 6 (0.77%) Prometheus
13 5 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 5 (0.64%) Istio
13 5 (0.64%) Progress Chef
13 5 (0.64%) WSUS
14 4 (0.51%) CASB
14 4 (0.51%) Puppet
15 3 (0.38%) Docker Swarm
15 3 (0.38%) QRadar
Vendors
1 215 (27.49%) Cisco
2 121 (15.47%) Microsoft
3 119 (15.22%) Palo Alto
4 78 (9.97%) F5
5 69 (8.82%) VMware
6 59 (7.54%) Fortinet
7 58 (7.42%) Juniper
8 51 (6.52%) CheckPoint
9 43 (5.50%) Zscaler
10 30 (3.84%) ServiceNow
11 27 (3.45%) Splunk
12 25 (3.20%) Google
13 19 (2.43%) Aruba
13 19 (2.43%) SolarWinds
14 18 (2.30%) ForeScout
15 17 (2.17%) Meraki
15 17 (2.17%) Tenable
16 15 (1.92%) Citrix
16 15 (1.92%) Okta
17 13 (1.66%) Databricks