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

6 months to
24 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 153 145 180
Rank change year-on-year -8 +35 0
Contract jobs citing Network Security 815 555 543
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.68% 1.93% 1.28%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.43% 15.21% 10.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 552 334 372
10th Percentile £393 £368 £364
25th Percentile £438 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £524 £524 £569
Median % change year-on-year - -7.91% -1.09%
75th Percentile £619 £605 £669
90th Percentile £700 £688 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £503 £490 £575
% change year-on-year +2.55% -14.78% +9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 8 17
10th Percentile £27.20 £37.05 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £71.50 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.00 £81.01 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.77% +326.38% -64.53%
75th Percentile £74.00 £81.54 £41.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.67 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.50 £81.01 £7.43
% change year-on-year -19.15% +990.34% -84.87%

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 4,675 3,649 5,373
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.62% 12.66% 12.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,876 2,259 3,221
10th Percentile £263 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £490
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -0.51% -5.41%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £464 £475
% change year-on-year +2.43% -2.37% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 155 412
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.30 £16.30
Median hourly rate £32.50 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.33% -6.25% +116.22%
75th Percentile £65.22 £58.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.78 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.02 £28.00 £45.88
% change year-on-year +39.36% -38.97% +154.89%

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 May 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 May 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 24 May 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 -4 709 £525 -0.94% 253
UK excluding London -22 397 £503 +2.55% 202
London +2 307 £550 -4.35% 98
Work from Home +11 236 £528 +4.55% 132
North of England -6 156 £493 -1.35% 56
South East -25 97 £500 +2.04% 66
North West +6 90 £489 -4.12% 35
Yorkshire -22 63 £500 +1.83% 16
Midlands -53 51 £475 -9.52% 20
East of England -23 36 £515 -8.44% 16
South West -25 33 £550 +2.33% 15
West Midlands -61 32 £435 -17.14% 13
Scotland +3 29 £576 +35.47% 21
East Midlands -13 18 £638 - 7
Wales -17 3 £600 +106.90% 7
North East -25 3 £538 -14.00% 6

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 21 (2.58%) Confluence
2 11 (1.35%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (0.61%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.25%) Apache
5 1 (0.12%) nginx
Applications
1 14 (1.72%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.35%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 251 (30.80%) Azure
2 171 (20.98%) AWS
3 107 (13.13%) GCP
4 63 (7.73%) Entra ID
5 32 (3.93%) GitHub
6 31 (3.80%) Azure Sentinel
7 27 (3.31%) Azure DevOps
8 26 (3.19%) GitHub Actions
9 19 (2.33%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 19 (2.33%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 19 (2.33%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 18 (2.21%) Azure Key Vault
11 17 (2.09%) Azure AKS
11 17 (2.09%) Azure Monitor
11 17 (2.09%) Microsoft 365
12 16 (1.96%) Akamai
12 16 (1.96%) AWS CloudFormation
13 14 (1.72%) AWS Direct Connect
13 14 (1.72%) SaaS
14 11 (1.35%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 370 (45.40%) Firewall
2 166 (20.37%) VPN
3 145 (17.79%) WAN
4 117 (14.36%) LAN
5 101 (12.39%) BGP
6 96 (11.78%) DNS
7 88 (10.80%) OSPF
8 78 (9.57%) SD-WAN
9 77 (9.45%) VLAN
10 69 (8.47%) TCP/IP
11 66 (8.10%) Wireless
12 49 (6.01%) MPLS
13 48 (5.89%) DHCP
14 37 (4.54%) IPsec
14 37 (4.54%) SSL
14 37 (4.54%) Wi-Fi
15 35 (4.29%) Cisco ISE
16 31 (3.80%) Cisco ASA
16 31 (3.80%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 29 (3.56%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (0.86%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (0.61%) SQL Server
3 4 (0.49%) Neo4j
4 3 (0.37%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.37%) InfluxDB
4 3 (0.37%) Power BI
5 2 (0.25%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.25%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.25%) Relational Database
5 2 (0.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.12%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.12%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 38 (4.66%) JIRA
2 22 (2.70%) Jenkins
3 20 (2.45%) GitLab
4 17 (2.09%) Git
5 8 (0.98%) Sonatype Nexus
6 7 (0.86%) Snyk
7 5 (0.61%) Browser DevTools
8 3 (0.37%) Artifactory
9 2 (0.25%) Postman
10 1 (0.12%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.12%) Claude Code
10 1 (0.12%) JUnit
10 1 (0.12%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.12%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.12%) Zephyr
General
1 178 (21.84%) Social Skills
2 118 (14.48%) Finance
3 68 (8.34%) Analytical Skills
4 58 (7.12%) Public Sector
5 45 (5.52%) Banking
6 37 (4.54%) Documentation Skills
7 27 (3.31%) Telecoms
8 20 (2.45%) Financial Institution
9 12 (1.47%) Legal
10 10 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 9 (1.10%) Manufacturing
12 8 (0.98%) Retail
13 6 (0.74%) Law
13 6 (0.74%) Military
14 5 (0.61%) Influencing Skills
14 5 (0.61%) Local Government
14 5 (0.61%) Organisational Skills
14 5 (0.61%) Police
15 3 (0.37%) Billing
15 3 (0.37%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 208 (25.52%) Network Engineer
2 175 (21.47%) Architect
3 107 (13.13%) Security Engineer
4 87 (10.67%) Security Architect
5 73 (8.96%) Senior
6 61 (7.48%) Network Architect
7 51 (6.26%) Network Security Engineer
8 31 (3.80%) Consultant
8 31 (3.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 29 (3.56%) Lead
9 29 (3.56%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 28 (3.44%) Project Manager
11 26 (3.19%) Cloud Engineer
11 26 (3.19%) Network Security Architect
12 23 (2.82%) Analyst
12 23 (2.82%) Azure Architect
12 23 (2.82%) Senior Network Engineer
13 22 (2.70%) Cloud Architect
14 19 (2.33%) Solutions Architect
15 18 (2.21%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (3.80%) 802.1X
2 13 (1.60%) LDAP
3 11 (1.35%) SAML
4 9 (1.10%) REST
5 6 (0.74%) ARM Templates
5 6 (0.74%) Kafka
5 6 (0.74%) SLSA
6 5 (0.61%) HTML
6 5 (0.61%) Node.js
6 5 (0.61%) OAuth
7 4 (0.49%) AWS CDK
7 4 (0.49%) CSS
7 4 (0.49%) OpenID
8 3 (0.37%) .NET
8 3 (0.37%) Elastic Stack
8 3 (0.37%) JSON
8 3 (0.37%) Lambda Expressions
8 3 (0.37%) OAuth2
8 3 (0.37%) Plotly
8 3 (0.37%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 126 (15.46%) Data Centre
2 48 (5.89%) Security Posture
3 44 (5.40%) Cloud Native
4 39 (4.79%) Hybrid Cloud
5 31 (3.80%) Onboarding
6 26 (3.19%) PKI
7 25 (3.07%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 24 (2.94%) Data Protection Act
9 23 (2.82%) IoT
10 22 (2.70%) Cyber Threat
10 22 (2.70%) Management Information System
10 22 (2.70%) Public Cloud
11 21 (2.58%) Operational Technology
12 16 (1.96%) Product Ownership
13 14 (1.72%) Security Operations Centre
14 12 (1.47%) Self-Motivation
15 11 (1.35%) Cyber Security Posture
16 10 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
16 10 (1.23%) Replication
16 10 (1.23%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 75 (9.20%) Windows
2 60 (7.36%) Linux
3 27 (3.31%) Windows Server
4 9 (1.10%) VMS
5 8 (0.98%) Unix
6 7 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 6 (0.74%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.61%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.61%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.37%) SUSE
10 1 (0.12%) Android
10 1 (0.12%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 168 (20.61%) Cybersecurity
2 138 (16.93%) Cloud Security
3 130 (15.95%) Zero Trust
4 113 (13.87%) Security Architecture
5 110 (13.50%) CI/CD
6 106 (13.01%) Migration
6 106 (13.01%) SIEM
7 105 (12.88%) Infrastructure as Code
8 103 (12.64%) DevOps
9 87 (10.67%) Problem-Solving
10 85 (10.43%) High Availability
11 83 (10.18%) Continuous Improvement
12 79 (9.69%) Threat Modelling
13 77 (9.45%) Application Security
13 77 (9.45%) Network Segmentation
14 76 (9.33%) Incident Response
15 72 (8.83%) Identity Access Management
16 71 (8.71%) Load Balancing
17 69 (8.47%) Agile
18 68 (8.34%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 114 (13.99%) Python
2 62 (7.61%) PowerShell
3 36 (4.42%) Bash
4 28 (3.44%) Bicep
5 23 (2.82%) JavaScript
6 18 (2.21%) SQL
7 10 (1.23%) Kusto Query Language
8 7 (0.86%) Go
9 6 (0.74%) Java
9 6 (0.74%) Shell Script
10 4 (0.49%) C
10 4 (0.49%) PHP
11 3 (0.37%) C++
12 2 (0.25%) C#
12 2 (0.25%) C-shell
12 2 (0.25%) Korn
12 2 (0.25%) Ruby
13 1 (0.12%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.12%) AppleScript
13 1 (0.12%) VBA
Qualifications
1 240 (29.45%) Security Cleared
2 181 (22.21%) SC Cleared
3 159 (19.51%) Cisco Certification
4 107 (13.13%) CCNP
5 95 (11.66%) CISSP
6 70 (8.59%) DV Cleared
7 61 (7.48%) CCNA
8 55 (6.75%) Degree
9 54 (6.63%) CISM
10 31 (3.80%) CCSP
11 30 (3.68%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 30 (3.68%) Azure Certification
12 21 (2.58%) CCIE
13 18 (2.21%) GIAC
14 16 (1.96%) AWS Certification
15 15 (1.84%) CEH
16 14 (1.72%) CompTIA Security+
17 13 (1.60%) JNCIS
18 12 (1.47%) BPSS Clearance
19 11 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 83 (10.18%) NIST
2 65 (7.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 39 (4.79%) GDPR
4 25 (3.07%) PCI DSS
5 19 (2.33%) NCSC
6 17 (2.09%) QA
7 16 (1.96%) GRC
8 13 (1.60%) Cyber Essentials
9 12 (1.47%) SLA
10 8 (0.98%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (0.98%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 8 (0.98%) SOC 2
11 7 (0.86%) Disclosure Scotland
11 7 (0.86%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 5 (0.61%) PMO
13 4 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 4 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 4 (0.49%) RMADS
14 3 (0.37%) ISA99
15 2 (0.25%) NIST 800
System Software
1 55 (6.75%) Active Directory
2 53 (6.50%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (2.82%) VMware NSX
4 20 (2.45%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (2.33%) Docker
6 15 (1.84%) Hyper-V
7 11 (1.35%) VMware ESXi
7 11 (1.35%) vSphere
8 6 (0.74%) Firmware
9 5 (0.61%) Squid
9 5 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.25%) NFS
10 2 (0.25%) Postfix
10 2 (0.25%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.25%) Sendmail
10 2 (0.25%) Varnish
10 2 (0.25%) VMware Workstation
11 1 (0.12%) KVM
11 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.12%) Xen
Systems Management
1 121 (14.85%) Terraform
2 81 (9.94%) Ansible
3 64 (7.85%) Kubernetes
4 39 (4.79%) FortiGate
5 17 (2.09%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (1.72%) Nagios
7 13 (1.60%) Grafana
8 11 (1.35%) Microsoft Intune
8 11 (1.35%) vCenter Server
9 9 (1.10%) Microsoft Clustering
10 8 (0.98%) Kibana
11 6 (0.74%) QRadar
12 5 (0.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 5 (0.61%) CASB
12 5 (0.61%) Istio
12 5 (0.61%) Prometheus
12 5 (0.61%) Suricata
12 5 (0.61%) WSUS
13 4 (0.49%) Kustomize
14 3 (0.37%) VxRail
Vendors
1 231 (28.34%) Cisco
2 133 (16.32%) Palo Alto
3 111 (13.62%) Microsoft
4 77 (9.45%) F5
5 69 (8.47%) VMware
6 63 (7.73%) Fortinet
7 60 (7.36%) Juniper
8 52 (6.38%) CheckPoint
8 52 (6.38%) Zscaler
9 32 (3.93%) ServiceNow
10 26 (3.19%) Splunk
11 22 (2.70%) ForeScout
12 21 (2.58%) Aruba
12 21 (2.58%) Google
12 21 (2.58%) SolarWinds
13 16 (1.96%) Citrix
13 16 (1.96%) Tenable
14 12 (1.47%) Infoblox
14 12 (1.47%) Meraki
14 12 (1.47%) Okta