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

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 175 152 178
Rank change year-on-year -23 +26 -9
Contract jobs citing Network Security 878 611 526
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.63% 1.87% 1.36%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.25% 15.76% 11.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 581 363 358
10th Percentile £400 £375 £363
25th Percentile £463 £448 £461
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £618 £664
90th Percentile £725 £723 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £528 £496 £550
% change year-on-year +6.45% -9.82% +3.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 17 7
10th Percentile £26.20 £45.00 £21.20
25th Percentile £42.13 £55.00 £32.75
Median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.05% +40.32% -25.65%
75th Percentile £74.00 £84.00 £58.75
90th Percentile - £91.00 £82.79
UK excluding London median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £50.00
% change year-on-year +4.05% +40.32% +9.29%

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 5,090 3,878 4,662
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.47% 11.85% 12.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,997 2,363 2,784
10th Percentile £250 £243 £220
25th Percentile £400 £365 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £476 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +0.21% -5.00% +9.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 374 204 302
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £20.50
Median hourly rate £26.00 £45.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -42.22% -10.00% -11.49%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.71 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.81 £42.50 £54.88
% change year-on-year -39.28% -22.55% -4.57%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 -21 772 £550 +4.76% 542
UK excluding London -36 426 £528 +6.45% 301
London -20 344 £550 - 295
Work from Home +7 274 £538 -2.27% 227
North of England +9 202 £528 +7.87% 52
North West -5 114 £531 +11.79% 32
South East -35 104 £550 +17.18% 97
Yorkshire +11 85 £514 +4.47% 17
Midlands -60 46 £500 -4.76% 48
East of England -5 40 £525 -2.78% 26
West Midlands -80 28 £406 -22.62% 30
Scotland -6 26 £600 +33.33% 24
East Midlands -4 17 £638 - 18
South West -48 15 £563 -12.11% 44
North East -38 2 £675 +8.00% 3
Wales -21 1 £650 +30.00% 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 (1.94%) Microsoft Exchange
2 13 (1.48%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.25%) Confluence
4 2 (0.23%) 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 21 (2.39%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.80%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.46%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.11%) InfoPath
5 1 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (0.68%) Oracle ERP
2 5 (0.57%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 312 (35.54%) Azure
2 207 (23.58%) AWS
3 110 (12.53%) GCP
4 93 (10.59%) Entra ID
5 43 (4.90%) Microsoft 365
6 40 (4.56%) Azure DevOps
7 33 (3.76%) GitHub
8 32 (3.64%) Azure Monitor
9 28 (3.19%) SaaS
10 27 (3.08%) Azure Sentinel
11 26 (2.96%) Serverless
12 21 (2.39%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 20 (2.28%) Azure AKS
13 20 (2.28%) GitHub Actions
14 19 (2.16%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 19 (2.16%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 16 (1.82%) OCI
16 15 (1.71%) Amazon EKS
17 14 (1.59%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 14 (1.59%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 399 (45.44%) Firewall
2 200 (22.78%) VPN
3 191 (21.75%) WAN
4 133 (15.15%) LAN
5 128 (14.58%) DNS
6 103 (11.73%) Wireless
7 100 (11.39%) BGP
8 92 (10.48%) TCP/IP
9 86 (9.79%) SD-WAN
10 73 (8.31%) DHCP
10 73 (8.31%) OSPF
11 72 (8.20%) VLAN
12 50 (5.69%) MPLS
12 50 (5.69%) Wi-Fi
13 49 (5.58%) IPsec
13 49 (5.58%) SSL
14 47 (5.35%) Cisco ISE
15 40 (4.56%) Cisco ASA
16 39 (4.44%) Internet
17 36 (4.10%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.48%) SQL Server
2 8 (0.91%) Azure SQL Database
3 6 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
3 6 (0.68%) 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%) 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%) Star Schema
7 1 (0.11%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 36 (4.10%) Git
2 32 (3.64%) JIRA
3 31 (3.53%) GitLab
4 25 (2.85%) Jenkins
5 8 (0.91%) Sonatype Nexus
6 5 (0.57%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.46%) MSBuild
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%) Snyk
10 1 (0.11%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.11%) Subversion
General
1 223 (25.40%) Social Skills
2 153 (17.43%) Finance
3 82 (9.34%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (6.83%) Banking
5 51 (5.81%) Public Sector
6 44 (5.01%) Documentation Skills
7 27 (3.08%) Telecoms
8 24 (2.73%) Legal
9 19 (2.16%) Financial Institution
10 15 (1.71%) Retail
11 14 (1.59%) Manufacturing
12 13 (1.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 11 (1.25%) Influencing Skills
13 11 (1.25%) Organisational Skills
14 8 (0.91%) Police
15 7 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
16 6 (0.68%) Automotive
16 6 (0.68%) Local Government
16 6 (0.68%) Military
17 5 (0.57%) Law
Job Titles
1 244 (27.79%) Network Engineer
2 163 (18.56%) Architect
3 110 (12.53%) Senior
4 104 (11.85%) Security Engineer
5 87 (9.91%) Security Architect
6 64 (7.29%) Consultant
7 60 (6.83%) Network Security Engineer
8 55 (6.26%) Network Architect
9 53 (6.04%) Senior Network Engineer
10 45 (5.13%) Project Manager
11 42 (4.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 38 (4.33%) Cloud Engineer
13 37 (4.21%) Lead
14 34 (3.87%) Security Consultant
15 29 (3.30%) Analyst
16 25 (2.85%) Network Manager
17 23 (2.62%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
18 22 (2.51%) Azure Engineer
19 21 (2.39%) DevOps Engineer
19 21 (2.39%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 127 (14.46%) Terraform
2 35 (3.99%) 802.1X
3 15 (1.71%) REST
3 15 (1.71%) SAML
4 14 (1.59%) ARM Templates
5 11 (1.25%) Kafka
6 6 (0.68%) JSON
6 6 (0.68%) NETCONF
7 5 (0.57%) .NET
7 5 (0.57%) Keycloak
7 5 (0.57%) OpenID
7 5 (0.57%) SLSA
7 5 (0.57%) XML
8 4 (0.46%) Azure Blueprints
8 4 (0.46%) CSS
8 4 (0.46%) gRPC
8 4 (0.46%) OAuth
8 4 (0.46%) Protocol Buffers
8 4 (0.46%) RESTful
9 3 (0.34%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 107 (12.19%) Data Centre
2 78 (8.88%) Security Posture
3 51 (5.81%) Cloud Native
4 47 (5.35%) Hybrid Cloud
5 43 (4.90%) Onboarding
6 40 (4.56%) Management Information System
7 36 (4.10%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 28 (3.19%) Operational Technology
9 27 (3.08%) Cyber Threat
10 26 (2.96%) PKI
11 22 (2.51%) Security Operations Centre
12 21 (2.39%) Data Protection Act
12 21 (2.39%) Self-Motivation
13 18 (2.05%) Public Cloud
14 17 (1.94%) Cloud Security Posture
15 13 (1.48%) Enterprise Software
15 13 (1.48%) Linux Command Line
16 11 (1.25%) Replication
17 9 (1.03%) Enterprise Cloud
17 9 (1.03%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 91 (10.36%) Windows
2 77 (8.77%) Linux
3 31 (3.53%) Windows Server
4 15 (1.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (0.91%) Windows 10
6 6 (0.68%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.68%) Ubuntu
6 6 (0.68%) Unix
7 5 (0.57%) VMS
8 3 (0.34%) Check Point GAiA
8 3 (0.34%) SUSE
9 2 (0.23%) Android
9 2 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
9 2 (0.23%) zOS
10 1 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.11%) Rocky
10 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 183 (20.84%) Cloud Security
2 178 (20.27%) Cybersecurity
3 137 (15.60%) Stakeholder Management
4 135 (15.38%) Zero Trust
5 127 (14.46%) Continuous Improvement
6 124 (14.12%) CI/CD
7 119 (13.55%) Infrastructure as Code
8 114 (12.98%) Incident Response
9 113 (12.87%) DevOps
9 113 (12.87%) Migration
10 110 (12.53%) Change Management
11 108 (12.30%) SIEM
12 104 (11.85%) Problem-Solving
13 103 (11.73%) Security Architecture
14 99 (11.28%) High Availability
15 96 (10.93%) Identity Access Management
16 94 (10.71%) Data Protection
17 92 (10.48%) Threat Modelling
18 90 (10.25%) Load Balancing
19 88 (10.02%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 133 (15.15%) Python
2 81 (9.23%) PowerShell
3 68 (7.74%) Bash
4 38 (4.33%) Bicep
5 30 (3.42%) SQL
6 12 (1.37%) Go
7 10 (1.14%) Java
8 9 (1.03%) JavaScript
9 7 (0.80%) Kusto Query Language
9 7 (0.80%) Search Processing Language
10 6 (0.68%) Shell Script
11 4 (0.46%) Rust
12 3 (0.34%) Perl
12 3 (0.34%) VBScript
13 2 (0.23%) C
14 1 (0.11%) C++
14 1 (0.11%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 224 (25.51%) Security Cleared
2 163 (18.56%) SC Cleared
3 161 (18.34%) Cisco Certification
4 104 (11.85%) CISSP
5 94 (10.71%) CCNP
6 65 (7.40%) Degree
6 65 (7.40%) DV Cleared
7 53 (6.04%) CCNA
7 53 (6.04%) CISM
8 45 (5.13%) CCSP
9 43 (4.90%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 39 (4.44%) Azure Certification
11 27 (3.08%) AWS Certification
12 25 (2.85%) CCIE
13 16 (1.82%) Computer Science Degree
14 11 (1.25%) BPSS Clearance
14 11 (1.25%) GIAC
14 11 (1.25%) PMP
15 10 (1.14%) CompTIA Security+
15 10 (1.14%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 75 (8.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 72 (8.20%) NIST
3 45 (5.13%) GDPR
4 32 (3.64%) NCSC
5 26 (2.96%) PCI DSS
6 17 (1.94%) QA
7 16 (1.82%) SLA
8 14 (1.59%) GRC
9 11 (1.25%) Cyber Essentials
9 11 (1.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 8 (0.91%) NIST 800
11 7 (0.80%) Disclosure Scotland
12 6 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 5 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 4 (0.46%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 3 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
15 3 (0.34%) ISA99
15 3 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 3 (0.34%) SOC 2
16 2 (0.23%) PMO
System Software
1 85 (9.68%) Active Directory
2 58 (6.61%) VMware Infrastructure
3 31 (3.53%) Docker
4 21 (2.39%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (2.16%) VMware NSX
6 14 (1.59%) Hyper-V
7 11 (1.25%) vSphere
8 8 (0.91%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.91%) VMware ESXi
9 6 (0.68%) Firmware
10 5 (0.57%) Squid
11 2 (0.23%) FreeRADIUS
11 2 (0.23%) NFS
11 2 (0.23%) OpenSSH
11 2 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.23%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.11%) Postfix
12 1 (0.11%) ProxySG
12 1 (0.11%) Samba
12 1 (0.11%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 91 (10.36%) Ansible
2 78 (8.88%) Kubernetes
3 44 (5.01%) FortiGate
4 23 (2.62%) Grafana
4 23 (2.62%) Microsoft Intune
5 18 (2.05%) Single Sign-On
6 15 (1.71%) Prometheus
7 14 (1.59%) SCCM
8 13 (1.48%) Progress Chef
9 10 (1.14%) CASB
10 7 (0.80%) Cisco Prime
10 7 (0.80%) Puppet
10 7 (0.80%) QRadar
10 7 (0.80%) vCenter Server
11 6 (0.68%) Cisco CUCM
12 5 (0.57%) Suricata
12 5 (0.57%) WSUS
13 4 (0.46%) Kustomize
13 4 (0.46%) Podman
13 4 (0.46%) systemd
Vendors
1 249 (28.36%) Cisco
2 166 (18.91%) Microsoft
3 150 (17.08%) Palo Alto
4 85 (9.68%) Fortinet
5 79 (9.00%) F5
5 79 (9.00%) VMware
6 56 (6.38%) Zscaler
7 54 (6.15%) CheckPoint
8 43 (4.90%) Juniper
9 40 (4.56%) Splunk
10 37 (4.21%) SolarWinds
11 31 (3.53%) Aruba
12 30 (3.42%) ServiceNow
13 27 (3.08%) Google
14 22 (2.51%) Citrix
15 17 (1.94%) Meraki
16 14 (1.59%) CyberArk
16 14 (1.59%) Tenable
17 13 (1.48%) ForeScout
18 11 (1.25%) Infoblox