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 14 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 171 156 156
Rank change year-on-year -15 0 +82
Contract jobs citing Network Security 586 601 807
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.65% 1.64% 1.74%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 14.63% 13.59% 12.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 364 387 541
10th Percentile £350 £359 £400
25th Percentile £413 £433 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.62% -4.55% +2.14%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £638
90th Percentile £713 £725 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £508 £525
% change year-on-year -1.48% -3.33% +0.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 10 6
10th Percentile £45.00 £35.90 £40.50
25th Percentile £52.50 £40.50 £64.06
Median hourly rate £70.16 £45.00 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.91% -37.93% +61.11%
75th Percentile £87.19 £56.56 £76.25
90th Percentile £97.50 £64.76 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.33 £53.75 £72.50
% change year-on-year +27.13% -25.86% +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 4,005 4,422 6,519
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.27% 12.05% 14.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,602 2,554 4,068
10th Percentile £206 £225 £213
25th Percentile £358 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £685 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 201 166 340
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.83 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.18 £24.63 £22.94
Median hourly rate £35.00 £45.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.22% -18.18% +30.49%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £66.44
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £75.71
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £49.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year -14.14% -12.37% +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 14 November 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 14 November 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 14 November 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 -14 516 £503 -4.29% 304
UK excluding London -18 301 £500 -1.48% 202
London +7 224 £525 -0.28% 132
Work from Home -25 158 £525 +5.00% 160
North of England -27 99 £481 -3.75% 34
Midlands -13 72 £500 -9.09% 30
West Midlands -4 68 £500 -21.26% 25
North West -1 65 £485 -7.67% 22
South East -19 65 £430 -21.19% 81
Yorkshire -30 47 £463 -7.50% 8
South West +4 30 £620 +6.35% 23
East of England -13 22 £488 +77.27% 20
Scotland -1 19 £503 +25.63% 11
Wales -5 5 £500 +127.27% 3
East Midlands -24 4 - - 5
Northern Ireland - 3 £500 - 3
Channel Islands - 2 £725 -
North East -12 1 £550 -32.52% 4

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 5 (0.85%) Confluence
2 4 (0.68%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.51%) Apache
3 3 (0.51%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.17%) IIS
4 1 (0.17%) nginx
4 1 (0.17%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 12 (2.05%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (0.68%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.34%) Chatbot
3 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.17%) Windchill
Cloud Services
1 152 (25.94%) Azure
2 130 (22.18%) AWS
3 43 (7.34%) GCP
4 29 (4.95%) Microsoft 365
5 27 (4.61%) Entra ID
6 24 (4.10%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 21 (3.58%) Amazon S3
7 21 (3.58%) Azure DevOps
8 18 (3.07%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 17 (2.90%) Amazon EC2
9 17 (2.90%) Azure Key Vault
9 17 (2.90%) Azure Sentinel
10 16 (2.73%) Amazon ELB
10 16 (2.73%) GitHub
11 14 (2.39%) GitHub Actions
12 13 (2.22%) Azure Monitor
13 12 (2.05%) Azure Logic Apps
13 12 (2.05%) IaaS
13 12 (2.05%) Serverless
14 10 (1.71%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 282 (48.12%) Firewall
2 114 (19.45%) VPN
3 103 (17.58%) DNS
4 91 (15.53%) WAN
5 66 (11.26%) BGP
6 61 (10.41%) SSL
7 58 (9.90%) TCP/IP
8 56 (9.56%) SD-WAN
9 53 (9.04%) LAN
10 49 (8.36%) OSPF
11 45 (7.68%) Wireless
12 44 (7.51%) VLAN
13 39 (6.66%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 32 (5.46%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
14 32 (5.46%) Intrusion Detection
15 28 (4.78%) DMZ
16 25 (4.27%) DHCP
17 24 (4.10%) Internet
18 23 (3.92%) Cisco ISE
19 22 (3.75%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.51%) Amazon Athena
1 3 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
1 3 (0.51%) Azure SQL Database
2 2 (0.34%) Data Lake
2 2 (0.34%) DynamoDB
2 2 (0.34%) GIS
2 2 (0.34%) Power BI
3 1 (0.17%) InfluxDB
3 1 (0.17%) MySQL
3 1 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.17%) Redis
3 1 (0.17%) Relational Database
3 1 (0.17%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.17%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 25 (4.27%) Jenkins
2 23 (3.92%) GitLab
3 22 (3.75%) Git
4 11 (1.88%) JIRA
5 2 (0.34%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.17%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.17%) Metasploit
6 1 (0.17%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.17%) Subversion
General
1 183 (31.23%) Social Skills
2 87 (14.85%) Analytical Skills
3 55 (9.39%) Finance
4 45 (7.68%) Public Sector
5 34 (5.80%) Banking
6 22 (3.75%) Documentation Skills
6 22 (3.75%) Telecoms
7 15 (2.56%) Investment Banking
8 13 (2.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 10 (1.71%) Law
9 10 (1.71%) Legal
9 10 (1.71%) Pharmaceutical
10 7 (1.19%) Military
11 6 (1.02%) Manufacturing
11 6 (1.02%) Presentation Skills
12 5 (0.85%) Financial Institution
12 5 (0.85%) Organisational Skills
13 4 (0.68%) Aerospace
13 4 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.51%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 120 (20.48%) Network Engineer
2 107 (18.26%) Architect
2 107 (18.26%) Security Engineer
3 60 (10.24%) Security Architect
4 59 (10.07%) Network Security Engineer
5 54 (9.22%) Senior
6 39 (6.66%) Network Architect
7 38 (6.48%) Analyst
8 37 (6.31%) Consultant
9 23 (3.92%) Lead
10 21 (3.58%) Administrator
11 19 (3.24%) Cybersecurity Engineer
11 19 (3.24%) SOC Analyst
12 18 (3.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 18 (3.07%) Network Security Architect
13 17 (2.90%) Security Consultant
14 16 (2.73%) Security Analyst
15 15 (2.56%) Systems Administrator
15 15 (2.56%) Systems Manager
15 15 (2.56%) Wintel Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (2.73%) 802.1X
2 13 (2.22%) LDAP
3 11 (1.88%) ARM Templates
4 7 (1.19%) YAML
5 6 (1.02%) .NET
5 6 (1.02%) ADO
5 6 (1.02%) SAML
6 4 (0.68%) Elastic Stack
7 3 (0.51%) .NET Core
7 3 (0.51%) AngularJS
7 3 (0.51%) Lambda Expressions
7 3 (0.51%) Node.js
7 3 (0.51%) Plotly
7 3 (0.51%) PyTorch
7 3 (0.51%) React
7 3 (0.51%) SailPoint
7 3 (0.51%) TensorFlow
8 2 (0.34%) OAuth
8 2 (0.34%) OAuth2
8 2 (0.34%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 44 (7.51%) Security Posture
2 43 (7.34%) Management Information System
3 41 (7.00%) Data Centre
4 30 (5.12%) Hybrid Cloud
5 23 (3.92%) Cloud Native
6 22 (3.75%) Security Operations Centre
7 21 (3.58%) PKI
8 19 (3.24%) Onboarding
9 17 (2.90%) Analytical Mindset
9 17 (2.90%) Cyber Threat
9 17 (2.90%) Operational Technology
10 12 (2.05%) Cloud Security Posture
10 12 (2.05%) Public Cloud
11 11 (1.88%) Cyberattack
11 11 (1.88%) Data Protection Act
11 11 (1.88%) Virtual Team
12 10 (1.71%) CSOC
12 10 (1.71%) Cyber Security Posture
13 9 (1.54%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
13 9 (1.54%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 85 (14.51%) Windows
2 68 (11.60%) Linux
3 22 (3.75%) Windows Server
4 12 (2.05%) Unix
5 5 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (0.68%) VMS
7 3 (0.51%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.17%) CentOS
9 1 (0.17%) Kali Linux
9 1 (0.17%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.17%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 141 (24.06%) Cybersecurity
2 114 (19.45%) Problem-Solving
3 111 (18.94%) SIEM
4 110 (18.77%) Incident Response
5 94 (16.04%) Cloud Security
6 73 (12.46%) Infrastructure as Code
7 71 (12.12%) DevOps
8 70 (11.95%) CI/CD
9 61 (10.41%) Identity Access Management
10 57 (9.73%) Security Architecture
10 57 (9.73%) Vulnerability Management
11 56 (9.56%) Zero Trust
12 55 (9.39%) Change Management
13 53 (9.04%) Migration
14 52 (8.87%) Threat Modelling
15 51 (8.70%) Network Architecture
15 51 (8.70%) Security Operations
16 49 (8.36%) Infrastructure Automation
17 48 (8.19%) Agile
18 46 (7.85%) Information Security
Programming Languages
1 111 (18.94%) Python
2 69 (11.77%) PowerShell
3 39 (6.66%) Bash
4 20 (3.41%) Bicep
5 12 (2.05%) Kusto Query Language
6 11 (1.88%) SQL
7 7 (1.19%) JavaScript
8 6 (1.02%) Perl
9 4 (0.68%) Java
10 3 (0.51%) C#
10 3 (0.51%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.34%) C
11 2 (0.34%) C++
12 1 (0.17%) Go
12 1 (0.17%) Rust
12 1 (0.17%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.17%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 158 (26.96%) Security Cleared
2 110 (18.77%) SC Cleared
3 101 (17.24%) Cisco Certification
4 82 (13.99%) CISSP
5 75 (12.80%) CCNP
6 52 (8.87%) Degree
7 49 (8.36%) CISM
8 47 (8.02%) DV Cleared
9 33 (5.63%) CCIE
10 26 (4.44%) GIAC
11 23 (3.92%) CEH
12 22 (3.75%) Computer Science Degree
13 18 (3.07%) CCNA
14 16 (2.73%) AWS Certification
14 16 (2.73%) Azure Certification
15 15 (2.56%) CompTIA Security+
16 14 (2.39%) CCSA
16 14 (2.39%) CCSP
17 13 (2.22%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 10 (1.71%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 86 (14.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 76 (12.97%) NIST
3 51 (8.70%) GDPR
4 36 (6.14%) PCI DSS
5 20 (3.41%) NCSC
6 15 (2.56%) HIPAA
7 13 (2.22%) GRC
8 11 (1.88%) Cyber Essentials
8 11 (1.88%) SOC 2
9 8 (1.37%) SLA
10 5 (0.85%) PSD2
10 5 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 4 (0.68%) QA
12 3 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.51%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 3 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 3 (0.51%) JSP 440
12 3 (0.51%) NIST 800
13 2 (0.34%) GxP
13 2 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 39 (6.66%) Active Directory
1 39 (6.66%) Docker
2 34 (5.80%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (1.54%) Firmware
3 9 (1.54%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (1.19%) VMware NSX
5 4 (0.68%) Hyper-V
5 4 (0.68%) vSphere
6 3 (0.51%) ProxySG
6 3 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.17%) KVM
7 1 (0.17%) RACF
Systems Management
1 73 (12.46%) Terraform
2 52 (8.87%) Ansible
3 31 (5.29%) Kubernetes
4 21 (3.58%) FortiGate
5 14 (2.39%) QRadar
6 7 (1.19%) Microsoft Intune
7 6 (1.02%) CASB
7 6 (1.02%) Grafana
7 6 (1.02%) Prometheus
7 6 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.85%) Kibana
8 5 (0.85%) SCCM
9 4 (0.68%) CA Spectrum
9 4 (0.68%) OpenView
10 3 (0.51%) Nessus
10 3 (0.51%) Puppet
11 2 (0.34%) HP Fortify
11 2 (0.34%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.34%) Kustomize
12 1 (0.17%) VxRail
Vendors
1 145 (24.74%) Cisco
2 103 (17.58%) Palo Alto
3 99 (16.89%) F5
4 98 (16.72%) Microsoft
5 62 (10.58%) CheckPoint
6 53 (9.04%) Zscaler
7 51 (8.70%) Fortinet
8 46 (7.85%) VMware
9 41 (7.00%) Juniper
10 39 (6.66%) Splunk
11 27 (4.61%) CrowdStrike
11 27 (4.61%) SolarWinds
12 26 (4.44%) Meraki
13 21 (3.58%) Google
14 13 (2.22%) ServiceNow
14 13 (2.22%) Tenable
15 12 (2.05%) Blue Coat
15 12 (2.05%) Qualys
16 11 (1.88%) ArcSight
16 11 (1.88%) Forcepoint