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

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 152 159 180
Rank change year-on-year +7 +21 -8
Contract jobs citing Network Security 864 556 563
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.70% 1.86% 1.29%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.94% 14.94% 10.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 596 338 376
10th Percentile £400 £370 £375
25th Percentile £450 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £524 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.24% -4.77% -
75th Percentile £625 £613 £663
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £492 £575
% change year-on-year +6.71% -14.43% +9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 9 18
10th Percentile £21.25 £65.13 -
25th Percentile £33.81 £80.34 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.00 £81.35 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.10% +287.38% -61.82%
75th Percentile £74.00 £82.10 £41.25
90th Percentile - £87.20 £45.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £81.35 £7.43
% change year-on-year -17.03% +994.89% -66.62%

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 4,817 3,722 5,393
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.49% 12.42% 12.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,962 2,284 3,181
10th Percentile £250 £225 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £483 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.57% -3.45% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £473 £488
% change year-on-year +1.59% -3.23% +2.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 298 174 428
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.56 £21.00 £17.69
Median hourly rate £27.69 £44.50 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year -37.78% +7.23% +118.42%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.97 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.08 £78.50 £72.62
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.72 £35.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year -23.66% -26.32% +150.00%

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 23 June 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 23 June 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 23 June 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 +1 749 £528 +0.57% 192
UK excluding London -13 422 £525 +6.71% 177
London +4 330 £550 -4.35% 59
Work from Home +11 255 £540 +4.35% 102
North of England +4 177 £514 +4.47% 45
South East -23 102 £525 +7.14% 52
North West 0 96 £525 +5.00% 33
Yorkshire 0 79 £500 +1.83% 11
Midlands -43 50 £450 -22.58% 21
Scotland -1 35 £600 +41.18% 18
East of England -19 33 £525 -4.55% 15
South West -32 30 £550 -6.38% 23
West Midlands -65 30 £420 -27.74% 11
East Midlands -2 19 £638 - 10
Wales -22 3 £600 +106.90% 6
North East -34 2 £675 +8.00% 2

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 23 (2.66%) Confluence
2 14 (1.62%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (1.04%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.23%) Apache
5 1 (0.12%) IIS
5 1 (0.12%) NetWeaver
5 1 (0.12%) nginx
Applications
1 16 (1.85%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.27%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.12%) InfoPath
5 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (0.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.46%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 266 (30.79%) Azure
2 189 (21.88%) AWS
3 116 (13.43%) GCP
4 77 (8.91%) Entra ID
5 38 (4.40%) GitHub
6 31 (3.59%) GitHub Actions
7 29 (3.36%) Azure DevOps
8 28 (3.24%) Azure Sentinel
9 23 (2.66%) Microsoft 365
9 23 (2.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 21 (2.43%) Serverless
11 19 (2.20%) Azure Key Vault
11 19 (2.20%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 19 (2.20%) SaaS
12 18 (2.08%) Azure AKS
13 17 (1.97%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 17 (1.97%) Azure Monitor
14 16 (1.85%) Akamai
15 15 (1.74%) AWS CloudFormation
16 13 (1.50%) AWS Direct Connect
Communications & Networking
1 391 (45.25%) Firewall
2 174 (20.14%) VPN
3 154 (17.82%) WAN
4 122 (14.12%) LAN
5 105 (12.15%) DNS
6 101 (11.69%) BGP
7 86 (9.95%) SD-WAN
8 83 (9.61%) OSPF
8 83 (9.61%) Wireless
9 74 (8.56%) TCP/IP
10 73 (8.45%) VLAN
11 54 (6.25%) MPLS
12 53 (6.13%) DHCP
13 47 (5.44%) IPsec
14 44 (5.09%) SSL
14 44 (5.09%) Wi-Fi
15 39 (4.51%) Cisco ISE
16 36 (4.17%) Internet
17 34 (3.94%) NGFW
18 33 (3.82%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (0.58%) SQL Server
3 4 (0.46%) Amazon RDS
3 4 (0.46%) Elasticsearch
3 4 (0.46%) Neo4j
3 4 (0.46%) Power BI
4 3 (0.35%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.35%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.23%) InfluxDB
5 2 (0.23%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.23%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.12%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.12%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.12%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.12%) Delta Lake
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.12%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.12%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.12%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 44 (5.09%) JIRA
2 25 (2.89%) GitLab
3 23 (2.66%) Git
3 23 (2.66%) Jenkins
4 7 (0.81%) Snyk
4 7 (0.81%) Sonatype Nexus
5 5 (0.58%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.46%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.35%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.23%) Postman
9 1 (0.12%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.12%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.12%) JUnit
9 1 (0.12%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.12%) Zephyr
General
1 197 (22.80%) Social Skills
2 138 (15.97%) Finance
3 65 (7.52%) Analytical Skills
4 63 (7.29%) Public Sector
5 53 (6.13%) Banking
6 38 (4.40%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (2.78%) Telecoms
8 22 (2.55%) Financial Institution
9 15 (1.74%) Legal
10 12 (1.39%) Retail
11 11 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 10 (1.16%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (1.04%) Police
14 8 (0.93%) Local Government
15 7 (0.81%) Manufacturing
16 6 (0.69%) Law
17 5 (0.58%) Influencing Skills
17 5 (0.58%) Military
18 3 (0.35%) Billing
18 3 (0.35%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 228 (26.39%) Network Engineer
2 183 (21.18%) Architect
3 115 (13.31%) Security Engineer
4 86 (9.95%) Security Architect
5 85 (9.84%) Senior
6 61 (7.06%) Network Security Engineer
7 60 (6.94%) Network Architect
8 41 (4.75%) Consultant
9 39 (4.51%) Project Manager
10 32 (3.70%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 31 (3.59%) Lead
12 29 (3.36%) Cloud Engineer
13 28 (3.24%) Senior Network Engineer
14 25 (2.89%) Network Manager
14 25 (2.89%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
15 23 (2.66%) Network Security Architect
16 22 (2.55%) Azure Architect
16 22 (2.55%) Solutions Architect
17 21 (2.43%) Cloud Architect
17 21 (2.43%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (4.40%) 802.1X
2 14 (1.62%) SAML
3 13 (1.50%) REST
4 10 (1.16%) Kafka
5 9 (1.04%) ARM Templates
6 8 (0.93%) LDAP
7 7 (0.81%) OAuth
8 6 (0.69%) CSS
8 6 (0.69%) HTML
8 6 (0.69%) OpenID
8 6 (0.69%) SLSA
9 5 (0.58%) OAuth2
10 4 (0.46%) AWS CDK
10 4 (0.46%) gRPC
10 4 (0.46%) Keycloak
10 4 (0.46%) Protocol Buffers
10 4 (0.46%) RESTful
11 3 (0.35%) Lambda Expressions
11 3 (0.35%) Plotly
11 3 (0.35%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 113 (13.08%) Data Centre
2 63 (7.29%) Security Posture
3 52 (6.02%) Cloud Native
4 43 (4.98%) Hybrid Cloud
5 36 (4.17%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 27 (3.13%) Onboarding
6 27 (3.13%) PKI
7 26 (3.01%) Data Protection Act
8 25 (2.89%) Public Cloud
9 22 (2.55%) Operational Technology
10 21 (2.43%) Management Information System
11 20 (2.31%) Product Ownership
12 19 (2.20%) IoT
13 17 (1.97%) Cyber Threat
14 15 (1.74%) Security Operations Centre
15 14 (1.62%) Self-Motivation
16 10 (1.16%) Replication
17 9 (1.04%) Linux Command Line
17 9 (1.04%) Virtual Team
18 8 (0.93%) Enterprise Cloud
Operating Systems
1 68 (7.87%) Linux
2 66 (7.64%) Windows
3 24 (2.78%) Windows Server
4 10 (1.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (1.04%) VMS
6 8 (0.93%) Unix
7 6 (0.69%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.69%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.58%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.35%) Android
9 3 (0.35%) Check Point GAiA
9 3 (0.35%) SUSE
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 173 (20.02%) Cybersecurity
2 151 (17.48%) Cloud Security
3 136 (15.74%) Zero Trust
4 127 (14.70%) CI/CD
5 117 (13.54%) DevOps
6 116 (13.43%) Migration
7 115 (13.31%) Infrastructure as Code
8 113 (13.08%) Security Architecture
9 112 (12.96%) SIEM
10 102 (11.81%) Continuous Improvement
11 97 (11.23%) High Availability
12 91 (10.53%) Problem-Solving
12 91 (10.53%) Stakeholder Management
13 88 (10.19%) Application Security
14 83 (9.61%) Agile
14 83 (9.61%) Data Protection
14 83 (9.61%) Load Balancing
14 83 (9.61%) Network Segmentation
14 83 (9.61%) Threat Modelling
15 81 (9.38%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 111 (12.85%) Python
2 46 (5.32%) PowerShell
3 39 (4.51%) Bash
4 31 (3.59%) Bicep
5 21 (2.43%) SQL
6 19 (2.20%) JavaScript
7 8 (0.93%) Shell Script
8 7 (0.81%) Java
9 5 (0.58%) Kusto Query Language
10 4 (0.46%) C
10 4 (0.46%) PHP
10 4 (0.46%) Rust
11 3 (0.35%) C++
11 3 (0.35%) Perl
12 2 (0.23%) Ruby
13 1 (0.12%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.12%) AppleScript
13 1 (0.12%) Go
13 1 (0.12%) Search Processing Language
13 1 (0.12%) VBA
Qualifications
1 238 (27.55%) Security Cleared
2 175 (20.25%) SC Cleared
3 162 (18.75%) Cisco Certification
4 99 (11.46%) CISSP
5 97 (11.23%) CCNP
6 70 (8.10%) DV Cleared
7 64 (7.41%) Degree
8 63 (7.29%) CCNA
9 60 (6.94%) CISM
10 38 (4.40%) CCSP
11 37 (4.28%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 31 (3.59%) Azure Certification
13 22 (2.55%) CCIE
14 20 (2.31%) AWS Certification
15 15 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
16 14 (1.62%) CompTIA Security+
16 14 (1.62%) Computer Science Degree
17 13 (1.50%) GIAC
18 10 (1.16%) JNCIS
18 10 (1.16%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (10.30%) NIST
2 71 (8.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 41 (4.75%) GDPR
4 27 (3.13%) PCI DSS
5 26 (3.01%) NCSC
6 19 (2.20%) QA
7 18 (2.08%) GRC
8 15 (1.74%) Cyber Essentials
9 13 (1.50%) SLA
10 8 (0.93%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (0.93%) Disclosure Scotland
10 8 (0.93%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 8 (0.93%) SOC 2
11 7 (0.81%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 5 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 5 (0.58%) NIST 800
13 4 (0.46%) PMO
14 3 (0.35%) ISA99
14 3 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 3 (0.35%) RMADS
System Software
1 65 (7.52%) Active Directory
2 53 (6.13%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (2.78%) Docker
3 24 (2.78%) VMware NSX
4 23 (2.66%) Virtual Machines
5 11 (1.27%) VMware ESXi
6 10 (1.16%) vSphere
7 8 (0.93%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.69%) Firmware
9 5 (0.58%) Squid
9 5 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.23%) NFS
10 2 (0.23%) Postfix
10 2 (0.23%) Sendmail
10 2 (0.23%) Varnish
10 2 (0.23%) VMware Workstation
11 1 (0.12%) OpenSSH
11 1 (0.12%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 120 (13.89%) Terraform
2 77 (8.91%) Ansible
3 76 (8.80%) Kubernetes
4 40 (4.63%) FortiGate
5 19 (2.20%) Grafana
5 19 (2.20%) Single Sign-On
6 11 (1.27%) Microsoft Intune
6 11 (1.27%) Prometheus
6 11 (1.27%) vCenter Server
7 6 (0.69%) CASB
7 6 (0.69%) QRadar
8 5 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 5 (0.58%) Istio
8 5 (0.58%) Puppet
8 5 (0.58%) Suricata
8 5 (0.58%) WSUS
9 4 (0.46%) Kustomize
9 4 (0.46%) Podman
10 3 (0.35%) Network Intrusion Detection System
10 3 (0.35%) VxRail
Vendors
1 238 (27.55%) Cisco
2 137 (15.86%) Palo Alto
3 126 (14.58%) Microsoft
4 76 (8.80%) F5
5 69 (7.99%) Fortinet
6 67 (7.75%) VMware
7 59 (6.83%) CheckPoint
8 54 (6.25%) Zscaler
9 52 (6.02%) Juniper
10 36 (4.17%) ServiceNow
11 32 (3.70%) Splunk
12 24 (2.78%) Aruba
12 24 (2.78%) Google
13 22 (2.55%) SolarWinds
14 21 (2.43%) Citrix
14 21 (2.43%) ForeScout
15 17 (1.97%) Tenable
16 15 (1.74%) Arista
17 14 (1.62%) Infoblox
18 13 (1.50%) Okta