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 18 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 171 153 177
Rank change year-on-year -18 +24 -11
Contract jobs citing Network Security 873 612 537
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.63% 1.86% 1.39%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.28% 15.77% 11.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 587 363 370
10th Percentile £400 £375 £363
25th Percentile £463 £448 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £643 £613 £664
90th Percentile £732 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £532 £500 £550
% change year-on-year +6.46% -9.09% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 19 7
10th Percentile £26.00 £45.00 £21.20
25th Percentile £42.13 £60.38 £32.75
Median hourly rate £73.00 £80.68 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.51% +61.35% -24.24%
75th Percentile £74.00 £83.05 £58.75
90th Percentile - £88.00 £82.79
UK excluding London median hourly rate £73.00 £80.68 £50.00
% change year-on-year -9.51% +61.35% +163.16%

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 5,052 3,881 4,738
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.43% 11.81% 12.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,987 2,350 2,889
10th Percentile £250 £245 £221
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 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.58% -5.00% +9.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 363 203 315
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £20.00
Median hourly rate £26.14 £46.25 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year -43.48% -5.61% -10.91%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.95 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £45.00 £54.88
% change year-on-year -41.91% -18.00% -2.86%

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 18 August 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 18 August 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 18 August 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 -20 765 £550 +4.76% 217
UK excluding London -34 432 £532 +6.46% 183
London -9 334 £550 - 73
Work from Home +9 271 £550 +3.00% 110
North of England -4 191 £530 +9.18% 35
South East -36 115 £560 +14.29% 72
North West -10 107 £537 +13.05% 24
Yorkshire +1 81 £500 +1.63% 8
Midlands -54 52 £463 -11.90% 33
East of England -17 37 £525 -4.55% 16
West Midlands -65 32 £406 -22.62% 21
Scotland -7 27 £600 +33.33% 10
East Midlands -2 19 £638 - 12
South West -58 15 £563 -12.11% 17
Wales -22 2 £538 +7.50% 2
North East -38 2 £675 +8.00% 3

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 17 (1.95%) Microsoft Exchange
2 12 (1.37%) Confluence
2 12 (1.37%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.34%) Apache
4 2 (0.23%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.11%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.11%) IIS
5 1 (0.11%) NetWeaver
5 1 (0.11%) nginx
Applications
1 20 (2.29%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.80%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.34%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.11%) InfoPath
4 1 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (0.69%) Oracle ERP
1 6 (0.69%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 302 (34.59%) Azure
2 208 (23.83%) AWS
3 112 (12.83%) GCP
4 93 (10.65%) Entra ID
5 37 (4.24%) Azure DevOps
5 37 (4.24%) Microsoft 365
6 32 (3.67%) GitHub
7 30 (3.44%) Azure Monitor
7 30 (3.44%) Azure Sentinel
8 27 (3.09%) SaaS
9 26 (2.98%) Serverless
10 22 (2.52%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 21 (2.41%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 20 (2.29%) Azure AKS
12 20 (2.29%) GitHub Actions
13 18 (2.06%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 15 (1.72%) Akamai
14 15 (1.72%) Amazon EKS
14 15 (1.72%) OCI
15 14 (1.60%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 385 (44.10%) Firewall
2 189 (21.65%) VPN
3 183 (20.96%) WAN
4 132 (15.12%) LAN
5 126 (14.43%) DNS
6 97 (11.11%) Wireless
7 91 (10.42%) BGP
8 90 (10.31%) TCP/IP
9 88 (10.08%) SD-WAN
10 71 (8.13%) OSPF
11 68 (7.79%) DHCP
12 67 (7.67%) VLAN
13 50 (5.73%) MPLS
14 49 (5.61%) IPsec
14 49 (5.61%) SSL
15 45 (5.15%) Wi-Fi
16 42 (4.81%) Cisco ISE
17 38 (4.35%) Internet
18 37 (4.24%) Cisco ASA
19 34 (3.89%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.49%) SQL Server
2 8 (0.92%) Azure SQL Database
3 6 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
3 6 (0.69%) BigQuery
4 4 (0.46%) Elasticsearch
4 4 (0.46%) Neo4j
4 4 (0.46%) Power BI
5 3 (0.34%) Data Lake
5 3 (0.34%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.23%) Delta Lake
6 2 (0.23%) InfluxDB
7 1 (0.11%) Amazon Athena
7 1 (0.11%) Data Mining
7 1 (0.11%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.11%) Looker
7 1 (0.11%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.11%) Qlik Sense
7 1 (0.11%) Relational Database
7 1 (0.11%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (0.11%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 37 (4.24%) Git
2 33 (3.78%) JIRA
3 28 (3.21%) GitLab
4 23 (2.63%) Jenkins
5 8 (0.92%) Sonatype Nexus
6 6 (0.69%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.46%) MSBuild
7 4 (0.46%) Snyk
7 4 (0.46%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.46%) Visual Studio
8 3 (0.34%) Artifactory
9 2 (0.23%) IBM UrbanCode
10 1 (0.11%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.11%) Claude Code
10 1 (0.11%) Postman
10 1 (0.11%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.11%) Subversion
General
1 216 (24.74%) Social Skills
2 155 (17.75%) Finance
3 77 (8.82%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (6.76%) Banking
5 54 (6.19%) Public Sector
6 43 (4.93%) Documentation Skills
7 25 (2.86%) Financial Institution
7 25 (2.86%) Telecoms
8 21 (2.41%) Legal
9 14 (1.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 14 (1.60%) Manufacturing
9 14 (1.60%) Retail
10 12 (1.37%) Organisational Skills
11 10 (1.15%) Influencing Skills
12 8 (0.92%) Police
13 6 (0.69%) Automotive
13 6 (0.69%) Local Government
13 6 (0.69%) Presentation Skills
14 5 (0.57%) Front Office
14 5 (0.57%) Law
Job Titles
1 234 (26.80%) Network Engineer
2 166 (19.01%) Architect
3 104 (11.91%) Senior
4 101 (11.57%) Security Engineer
5 88 (10.08%) Security Architect
6 58 (6.64%) Network Architect
7 57 (6.53%) Network Security Engineer
8 56 (6.41%) Consultant
9 48 (5.50%) Senior Network Engineer
10 43 (4.93%) Project Manager
11 41 (4.70%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 39 (4.47%) Lead
13 36 (4.12%) Cloud Engineer
14 29 (3.32%) Analyst
15 28 (3.21%) Security Consultant
16 24 (2.75%) Network Manager
17 21 (2.41%) Azure Engineer
17 21 (2.41%) Network Security Architect
18 19 (2.18%) DevOps Engineer
18 19 (2.18%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (4.35%) 802.1X
2 14 (1.60%) REST
2 14 (1.60%) SAML
3 13 (1.49%) ARM Templates
4 10 (1.15%) Kafka
5 6 (0.69%) JSON
5 6 (0.69%) NETCONF
6 5 (0.57%) .NET
6 5 (0.57%) OpenID
6 5 (0.57%) XML
7 4 (0.46%) Azure Blueprints
7 4 (0.46%) CSS
7 4 (0.46%) gRPC
7 4 (0.46%) Keycloak
7 4 (0.46%) OAuth
7 4 (0.46%) Protocol Buffers
7 4 (0.46%) RESTful
7 4 (0.46%) SLSA
8 3 (0.34%) ModSecurity
8 3 (0.34%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 97 (11.11%) Data Centre
2 75 (8.59%) Security Posture
3 51 (5.84%) Cloud Native
4 45 (5.15%) Hybrid Cloud
5 39 (4.47%) Management Information System
6 38 (4.35%) Onboarding
7 36 (4.12%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 28 (3.21%) Operational Technology
9 26 (2.98%) Cyber Threat
10 23 (2.63%) Data Protection Act
10 23 (2.63%) PKI
11 21 (2.41%) Public Cloud
11 21 (2.41%) Self-Motivation
12 20 (2.29%) Security Operations Centre
13 16 (1.83%) Cloud Security Posture
14 13 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
14 13 (1.49%) Linux Command Line
14 13 (1.49%) Product Ownership
15 10 (1.15%) Replication
16 9 (1.03%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 83 (9.51%) Windows
2 74 (8.48%) Linux
3 24 (2.75%) Windows Server
4 15 (1.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (0.92%) Windows 10
6 7 (0.80%) Unix
7 6 (0.69%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.69%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.57%) VMS
9 3 (0.34%) Android
9 3 (0.34%) Check Point GAiA
9 3 (0.34%) SUSE
10 2 (0.23%) zOS
11 1 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.11%) Rocky
11 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 179 (20.50%) Cloud Security
2 177 (20.27%) Cybersecurity
3 128 (14.66%) Zero Trust
4 127 (14.55%) Stakeholder Management
5 126 (14.43%) CI/CD
6 120 (13.75%) Continuous Improvement
7 118 (13.52%) Infrastructure as Code
8 111 (12.71%) Change Management
8 111 (12.71%) DevOps
8 111 (12.71%) SIEM
9 107 (12.26%) Migration
10 106 (12.14%) Incident Response
11 103 (11.80%) Problem-Solving
12 97 (11.11%) Security Architecture
13 96 (11.00%) Identity Access Management
14 93 (10.65%) Data Protection
14 93 (10.65%) High Availability
15 88 (10.08%) Threat Modelling
16 87 (9.97%) ITIL
16 87 (9.97%) Load Balancing
Programming Languages
1 126 (14.43%) Python
2 77 (8.82%) PowerShell
3 64 (7.33%) Bash
4 37 (4.24%) Bicep
5 29 (3.32%) SQL
6 12 (1.37%) JavaScript
7 10 (1.15%) Java
8 9 (1.03%) Go
9 7 (0.80%) Search Processing Language
9 7 (0.80%) Shell Script
10 6 (0.69%) Kusto Query Language
11 4 (0.46%) Rust
12 3 (0.34%) Perl
12 3 (0.34%) VBScript
13 2 (0.23%) C
13 2 (0.23%) Ruby
14 1 (0.11%) C++
Qualifications
1 223 (25.54%) Security Cleared
2 158 (18.10%) SC Cleared
3 153 (17.53%) Cisco Certification
4 104 (11.91%) CISSP
5 88 (10.08%) CCNP
6 69 (7.90%) Degree
7 67 (7.67%) DV Cleared
8 57 (6.53%) CCNA
8 57 (6.53%) CISM
9 44 (5.04%) CCSP
10 42 (4.81%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 38 (4.35%) Azure Certification
12 24 (2.75%) CCIE
13 23 (2.63%) AWS Certification
14 16 (1.83%) Computer Science Degree
15 11 (1.26%) GIAC
15 11 (1.26%) PMP
16 10 (1.15%) BPSS Clearance
16 10 (1.15%) CompTIA Security+
17 9 (1.03%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 80 (9.16%) NIST
2 78 (8.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 48 (5.50%) GDPR
4 33 (3.78%) NCSC
5 31 (3.55%) PCI DSS
6 19 (2.18%) QA
6 19 (2.18%) SLA
7 15 (1.72%) GRC
8 14 (1.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 8 (0.92%) Cyber Essentials
9 8 (0.92%) Disclosure Scotland
9 8 (0.92%) NIST 800
10 5 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 5 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 5 (0.57%) SOC 2
11 4 (0.46%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 3 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 3 (0.34%) ISA99
12 3 (0.34%) PMO
System Software
1 83 (9.51%) Active Directory
2 56 (6.41%) VMware Infrastructure
3 28 (3.21%) Docker
4 21 (2.41%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (2.18%) VMware NSX
6 14 (1.60%) Hyper-V
7 11 (1.26%) vSphere
8 8 (0.92%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.92%) VMware ESXi
9 6 (0.69%) Firmware
10 5 (0.57%) Squid
11 3 (0.34%) NFS
12 2 (0.23%) FreeRADIUS
12 2 (0.23%) OpenSSH
12 2 (0.23%) Postfix
12 2 (0.23%) Sendmail
12 2 (0.23%) Varnish
12 2 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.23%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.11%) ProxySG
Systems Management
1 124 (14.20%) Terraform
2 86 (9.85%) Ansible
3 75 (8.59%) Kubernetes
4 48 (5.50%) FortiGate
5 23 (2.63%) Microsoft Intune
6 22 (2.52%) Grafana
7 17 (1.95%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (1.49%) SCCM
9 12 (1.37%) CASB
9 12 (1.37%) Prometheus
10 11 (1.26%) Progress Chef
11 7 (0.80%) Cisco Prime
11 7 (0.80%) Puppet
11 7 (0.80%) QRadar
11 7 (0.80%) vCenter Server
12 6 (0.69%) Cisco CUCM
13 5 (0.57%) Suricata
13 5 (0.57%) WSUS
14 4 (0.46%) Kustomize
14 4 (0.46%) Podman
Vendors
1 242 (27.72%) Cisco
2 153 (17.53%) Microsoft
3 141 (16.15%) Palo Alto
4 82 (9.39%) Fortinet
5 79 (9.05%) F5
6 72 (8.25%) VMware
7 57 (6.53%) Zscaler
8 53 (6.07%) CheckPoint
9 44 (5.04%) Juniper
10 43 (4.93%) Splunk
11 34 (3.89%) SolarWinds
12 33 (3.78%) ServiceNow
13 31 (3.55%) Aruba
14 28 (3.21%) Google
15 21 (2.41%) Citrix
16 17 (1.95%) Tenable
17 15 (1.72%) ForeScout
18 14 (1.60%) CyberArk
18 14 (1.60%) Infoblox
18 14 (1.60%) Meraki