Network Security Contracts

Network Security
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Network Security skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Network Security over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 145 174 185
Rank change year-on-year +29 +11 +49
Contract jobs citing Network Security 583 609 837
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.99% 1.40% 1.40%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 15.59% 10.79% 11.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 351 420 525
10th Percentile £363 £377 £404
25th Percentile £425 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £575 £563
Median % change year-on-year -9.57% +2.22% +4.17%
75th Percentile £606 £663 £688
90th Percentile £675 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £575 £530
% change year-on-year -14.78% +8.49% +6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 17 16
10th Percentile £20.70 - £21.16
25th Percentile £40.50 £7.43 £30.13
Median hourly rate £62.84 £19.00 £52.13
Median % change year-on-year +230.72% -63.55% -0.89%
75th Percentile £81.35 £41.25 £66.00
90th Percentile £82.03 - £70.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £80.68 £7.43 £46.11
% change year-on-year +985.80% -83.88% -9.19%

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 3,739 5,643 7,361
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.79% 12.94% 12.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,297 3,382 4,789
10th Percentile £213 £205 £235
25th Percentile £363 £350 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £495 £519
Median % change year-on-year -1.52% -4.53% +3.70%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -2.63% - +8.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 181 423 478
10th Percentile £14.20 £13.57 £9.80
25th Percentile £17.30 £17.35 £10.63
Median hourly rate £32.50 £38.50 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.58% +102.63% -31.84%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £67.40 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.59 £45.88 £18.50
% change year-on-year -46.41% +148.00% -13.95%

Network Security
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Network Security as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Network Security in the UK

Network Security
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Network Security.

Daily rate trend for Network Security in the UK

Network Security
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Security over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Network Security in the UK

Network Security
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Network Security.

Hourly rate trend for Network Security in the UK

Network Security
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Network Security over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Security in the UK

Network Security
Top 17 Contract 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 30 April 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 +32 490 £530 -3.64% 396
UK excluding London +14 257 £490 -14.78% 291
London +75 243 £550 +1.15% 160
Work from Home +16 168 £500 -16.67% 271
South East +19 68 £490 -8.07% 74
North of England +22 65 £500 -20.00% 61
North West -1 42 £500 -23.08% 30
South West +2 30 £550 -4.35% 31
Midlands -3 29 £550 -9.47% 33
East of England +42 27 £563 +18.42% 29
Scotland +25 27 £425 -26.09% 37
West Midlands -14 25 £525 -13.58% 25
Yorkshire +22 22 £400 -20.00% 27
Wales +12 10 £290 -20.00% 12
East Midlands +13 4 £650 - 7
North East -1 1 £625 +38.89% 6
Channel Islands - 1 £450 -

Network Security
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 26 (4.46%) SharePoint
2 25 (4.29%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (2.06%) Confluence
4 1 (0.17%) Apache
4 1 (0.17%) IIS
4 1 (0.17%) JBoss
Applications
1 17 (2.92%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (2.23%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 183 (31.39%) Azure
2 100 (17.15%) AWS
3 47 (8.06%) GCP
4 44 (7.55%) Microsoft 365
5 34 (5.83%) Entra ID
6 24 (4.12%) Azure Sentinel
7 20 (3.43%) IaaS
8 16 (2.74%) OneDrive
9 15 (2.57%) Azure AKS
9 15 (2.57%) Power Platform
10 13 (2.23%) GitHub
11 11 (1.89%) AWS CloudFormation
11 11 (1.89%) Cloud Computing
12 10 (1.72%) Akamai
12 10 (1.72%) Azure DevOps
13 8 (1.37%) SaaS
14 7 (1.20%) PaaS
14 7 (1.20%) Power Automate
15 6 (1.03%) Azure ExpressRoute
15 6 (1.03%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 321 (55.06%) Firewall
2 167 (28.64%) VPN
3 113 (19.38%) WAN
4 105 (18.01%) BGP
5 101 (17.32%) OSPF
6 82 (14.07%) Wireless
7 78 (13.38%) LAN
8 74 (12.69%) DNS
9 58 (9.95%) SD-WAN
10 56 (9.61%) TCP/IP
11 50 (8.58%) IPsec
11 50 (8.58%) SSL
12 43 (7.38%) EIGRP
13 40 (6.86%) VLAN
14 37 (6.35%) Cisco ASA
15 34 (5.83%) MPLS
16 33 (5.66%) DHCP
16 33 (5.66%) Wi-Fi
17 28 (4.80%) Internet
18 27 (4.63%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (3.26%) SQL Server
2 8 (1.37%) Power BI
3 3 (0.51%) Data Lake
4 2 (0.34%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
4 2 (0.34%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (0.34%) Elasticsearch
4 2 (0.34%) GIS
4 2 (0.34%) InfluxDB
4 2 (0.34%) Looker
4 2 (0.34%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.34%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 2 (0.34%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 1 (0.17%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.17%) Big Data
5 1 (0.17%) MySQL
5 1 (0.17%) Oracle Database
5 1 (0.17%) Redis
Development Applications
1 13 (2.23%) JIRA
2 10 (1.72%) Jenkins
3 8 (1.37%) GitLab
4 7 (1.20%) Git
5 6 (1.03%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.17%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.17%) Katalon Studio
6 1 (0.17%) Selenium
6 1 (0.17%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.17%) WebDriver
General
1 193 (33.10%) Social Skills
2 109 (18.70%) Analytical Skills
3 100 (17.15%) Finance
4 41 (7.03%) Telecoms
5 37 (6.35%) Public Sector
6 26 (4.46%) Banking
7 16 (2.74%) Legal
8 15 (2.57%) Manufacturing
9 13 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 12 (2.06%) Documentation Skills
11 11 (1.89%) Retail
12 9 (1.54%) Financial Institution
13 7 (1.20%) Organisational Skills
13 7 (1.20%) Presentation Skills
14 6 (1.03%) Marketing
15 5 (0.86%) Law
15 5 (0.86%) Military
16 4 (0.69%) Electronics
16 4 (0.69%) Local Government
16 4 (0.69%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 170 (29.16%) Network Engineer
2 107 (18.35%) Architect
3 66 (11.32%) Security Engineer
4 56 (9.61%) Senior
5 51 (8.75%) Security Architect
6 46 (7.89%) Network Architect
7 42 (7.20%) Network Security Engineer
8 36 (6.17%) Analyst
9 28 (4.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 21 (3.60%) Consultant
11 19 (3.26%) Support Engineer
11 19 (3.26%) Technical Architect
12 18 (3.09%) Senior Network Engineer
13 15 (2.57%) Azure Engineer
13 15 (2.57%) Firewall Engineer
13 15 (2.57%) Solutions Architect
14 14 (2.40%) Lead
15 13 (2.23%) Cisco Engineer
15 13 (2.23%) Cloud Architect
15 13 (2.23%) Network Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (4.46%) 802.1X
2 18 (3.09%) LDAP
3 8 (1.37%) SAML
4 5 (0.86%) .NET
4 5 (0.86%) Elastic Stack
5 4 (0.69%) JSON
5 4 (0.69%) REST
5 4 (0.69%) XML
6 3 (0.51%) RESTful
7 2 (0.34%) NETCONF
7 2 (0.34%) Node.js
7 2 (0.34%) SailPoint
7 2 (0.34%) Web Services
7 2 (0.34%) YAML
8 1 (0.17%) ARM Templates
8 1 (0.17%) JWT
8 1 (0.17%) Loki
8 1 (0.17%) Middleware
8 1 (0.17%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 69 (11.84%) Data Centre
2 62 (10.63%) Security Posture
3 26 (4.46%) Cyber Threat
4 24 (4.12%) Management Information System
5 18 (3.09%) PKI
6 15 (2.57%) Security Operations Centre
7 14 (2.40%) Cyberattack
7 14 (2.40%) Hybrid Cloud
8 12 (2.06%) Video Conferencing
9 11 (1.89%) Data Protection Act
9 11 (1.89%) Private Cloud
10 10 (1.72%) Analytical Mindset
10 10 (1.72%) Operational Technology
11 9 (1.54%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 9 (1.54%) Public Cloud
12 8 (1.37%) CSOC
12 8 (1.37%) Self-Motivation
13 7 (1.20%) Cloud Native
14 6 (1.03%) Legacy Systems
15 5 (0.86%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 74 (12.69%) Windows
2 50 (8.58%) Linux
3 35 (6.00%) Windows Server
4 14 (2.40%) Unix
5 7 (1.20%) Windows 10
6 5 (0.86%) CatOS
7 4 (0.69%) Check Point GAiA
7 4 (0.69%) Windows Server 2019
8 3 (0.51%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.51%) Windows Server 2003
9 2 (0.34%) CentOS
10 1 (0.17%) Android
10 1 (0.17%) CoreOS
10 1 (0.17%) VMS
10 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 144 (24.70%) Problem-Solving
2 109 (18.70%) Cybersecurity
3 81 (13.89%) Cloud Security
4 69 (11.84%) Migration
5 67 (11.49%) SIEM
6 62 (10.63%) Network Architecture
7 61 (10.46%) Information Security
8 49 (8.40%) Application Security
9 47 (8.06%) High Availability
9 47 (8.06%) Incident Response
10 46 (7.89%) Computer Science
11 44 (7.55%) Network Design
11 44 (7.55%) Security Architecture
11 44 (7.55%) Security Operations
12 42 (7.20%) Change Management
12 42 (7.20%) Network Monitoring
13 41 (7.03%) Vulnerability Management
14 40 (6.86%) Risk Management
15 39 (6.69%) DevOps
15 39 (6.69%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 92 (15.78%) Python
2 54 (9.26%) PowerShell
3 15 (2.57%) SQL
4 14 (2.40%) Java
5 11 (1.89%) Bash
6 7 (1.20%) Perl
7 5 (0.86%) Go
8 4 (0.69%) Bicep
8 4 (0.69%) C#
9 3 (0.51%) C
10 2 (0.34%) C++
10 2 (0.34%) Kusto Query Language
10 2 (0.34%) Rust
10 2 (0.34%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.34%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.17%) ActionScript
11 1 (0.17%) ActionScript 2.0
11 1 (0.17%) PHP
Qualifications
1 152 (26.07%) Cisco Certification
2 150 (25.73%) Security Cleared
3 111 (19.04%) CCNP
4 102 (17.50%) SC Cleared
5 89 (15.27%) Degree
6 61 (10.46%) CCNA
7 57 (9.78%) CISSP
8 44 (7.55%) DV Cleared
9 41 (7.03%) Computer Science Degree
10 28 (4.80%) CISM
11 26 (4.46%) CCIE
12 23 (3.95%) Azure Certification
13 20 (3.43%) Microsoft Certification
14 16 (2.74%) CEH
15 15 (2.57%) CCSE
15 15 (2.57%) CompTIA Security+
16 14 (2.40%) CCSA
17 10 (1.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 10 (1.72%) CCSP
18 8 (1.37%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 57 (9.78%) NIST
2 46 (7.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 27 (4.63%) GDPR
3 27 (4.63%) PCI DSS
4 15 (2.57%) SLA
5 11 (1.89%) HIPAA
6 8 (1.37%) COBIT
7 7 (1.20%) GRC
7 7 (1.20%) QA
8 6 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials
9 5 (0.86%) NCSC
9 5 (0.86%) SOC 2
10 3 (0.51%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.34%) DICOM
11 2 (0.34%) HL7
12 1 (0.17%) Data Quality
12 1 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 1 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 59 (10.12%) Active Directory
2 49 (8.40%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (3.43%) vSphere
4 16 (2.74%) Docker
5 14 (2.40%) VMware NSX
6 13 (2.23%) Hyper-V
7 12 (2.06%) Virtual Machines
8 8 (1.37%) Firmware
9 3 (0.51%) FreeRADIUS
9 3 (0.51%) iptables
10 2 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.17%) VMware Workstation
11 1 (0.17%) Xen
Systems Management
1 57 (9.78%) Ansible
2 46 (7.89%) Terraform
3 36 (6.17%) Microsoft Intune
4 31 (5.32%) FortiGate
5 25 (4.29%) Kubernetes
6 9 (1.54%) Grafana
7 8 (1.37%) Cacti
7 8 (1.37%) CASB
7 8 (1.37%) Puppet
7 8 (1.37%) ZABBIX
8 7 (1.20%) vCenter Server
9 6 (1.03%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 6 (1.03%) Prometheus
10 5 (0.86%) Nagios
10 5 (0.86%) SCCM
10 5 (0.86%) VxRail
11 4 (0.69%) Cisco Prime
11 4 (0.69%) Nessus
11 4 (0.69%) PowerCLI
12 3 (0.51%) QRadar
Vendors
1 208 (35.68%) Cisco
2 104 (17.84%) Microsoft
3 89 (15.27%) Palo Alto
4 65 (11.15%) Fortinet
5 64 (10.98%) VMware
6 52 (8.92%) CheckPoint
7 43 (7.38%) F5
8 42 (7.20%) Juniper
9 27 (4.63%) SolarWinds
10 26 (4.46%) Meraki
11 24 (4.12%) Splunk
12 22 (3.77%) Aruba
12 22 (3.77%) Zscaler
13 19 (3.26%) Qualys
14 14 (2.40%) Arista
15 13 (2.23%) Infoblox
16 12 (2.06%) Google
17 10 (1.72%) Extreme Networks
17 10 (1.72%) ServiceNow
18 9 (1.54%) Tenable