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

6 months to
9 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 158 144 171
Rank change year-on-year -14 +27 +17
Contract jobs citing Network Security 786 583 580
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.65% 2.00% 1.35%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.16% 15.63% 10.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 540 350 400
10th Percentile £375 £370 £360
25th Percentile £429 £425 £462
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £520 £575
Median % change year-on-year -1.97% -9.52% -
75th Percentile £614 £605 £666
90th Percentile £700 £675 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £490 £575
% change year-on-year +2.04% -14.78% +9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 11 17
10th Percentile £32.00 £18.50 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £40.50 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.50 £80.68 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.81% +324.61% -64.53%
75th Percentile £74.07 £81.35 £41.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.10 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.50 £80.68 £7.43
% change year-on-year -18.81% +985.80% -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 4,580 3,730 5,481
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.60% 12.79% 12.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,839 2,294 3,282
10th Percentile £250 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £489 £495
Median % change year-on-year +1.28% -1.26% -4.44%
75th Percentile £588 £598 £601
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £466 £475
% change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 239 169 420
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.13 £16.72
Median hourly rate £40.54 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +24.74% -18.75% +111.92%
75th Percentile £65.88 £58.69 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.11 £24.66 £46.14
% change year-on-year +95.09% -46.55% +149.38%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -12 681 £513 -2.70% 267
UK excluding London -19 389 £500 +2.04% 195
London -22 290 £530 -7.83% 111
Work from Home +6 225 £525 +5.00% 126
North of England -5 138 £481 -3.75% 60
South East -33 103 £500 +2.04% 66
North West +3 85 £481 -3.75% 45
Midlands -28 62 £475 -13.64% 27
Yorkshire -24 51 £480 -1.54% 14
West Midlands -41 42 £435 -17.14% 20
East of England -29 36 £515 -8.44% 14
Scotland +6 30 £475 +11.76% 14
South West -36 29 £545 -0.91% 13
East Midlands -17 19 £638 -1.92% 7
North East -16 3 £538 -14.00% 1
Wales -18 3 £600 +106.90% 4

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 19 (2.42%) Confluence
2 10 (1.27%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (0.76%) Apache
4 4 (0.51%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.13%) nginx
Applications
1 16 (2.04%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.40%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (0.64%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 244 (31.04%) Azure
2 167 (21.25%) AWS
3 99 (12.60%) GCP
4 57 (7.25%) Entra ID
5 32 (4.07%) GitHub
6 29 (3.69%) Azure Sentinel
7 27 (3.44%) Azure DevOps
7 27 (3.44%) GitHub Actions
8 19 (2.42%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 18 (2.29%) AWS CloudFormation
9 18 (2.29%) Azure AKS
9 18 (2.29%) Azure Key Vault
9 18 (2.29%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 15 (1.91%) Azure Monitor
10 15 (1.91%) Microsoft 365
11 14 (1.78%) Akamai
11 14 (1.78%) AWS Direct Connect
11 14 (1.78%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 14 (1.78%) SaaS
12 12 (1.53%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 364 (46.31%) Firewall
2 151 (19.21%) VPN
3 136 (17.30%) WAN
4 109 (13.87%) LAN
5 99 (12.60%) BGP
6 90 (11.45%) DNS
7 87 (11.07%) OSPF
8 77 (9.80%) SD-WAN
9 76 (9.67%) VLAN
10 62 (7.89%) TCP/IP
11 58 (7.38%) Wireless
12 46 (5.85%) MPLS
13 44 (5.60%) DHCP
14 38 (4.83%) Wi-Fi
15 34 (4.33%) Cisco ISE
16 33 (4.20%) Cisco ASA
16 33 (4.20%) IPsec
17 32 (4.07%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 32 (4.07%) Internet
17 32 (4.07%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.02%) Azure SQL Database
2 6 (0.76%) Amazon RDS
3 5 (0.64%) InfluxDB
3 5 (0.64%) Relational Database
3 5 (0.64%) SQL Server
4 3 (0.38%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.38%) Data Lake
4 3 (0.38%) Power BI
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 33 (4.20%) JIRA
2 23 (2.93%) Jenkins
3 17 (2.16%) GitLab
4 12 (1.53%) Git
5 8 (1.02%) Sonatype Nexus
6 7 (0.89%) Snyk
7 5 (0.64%) Browser DevTools
8 2 (0.25%) Postman
9 1 (0.13%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.13%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.13%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.13%) JUnit
9 1 (0.13%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.13%) Zephyr
General
1 180 (22.90%) Social Skills
2 116 (14.76%) Finance
3 73 (9.29%) Analytical Skills
4 61 (7.76%) Public Sector
5 41 (5.22%) Banking
6 32 (4.07%) Documentation Skills
7 26 (3.31%) Telecoms
8 20 (2.54%) Financial Institution
9 12 (1.53%) Legal
10 9 (1.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (0.89%) Manufacturing
11 7 (0.89%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (0.64%) Law
12 5 (0.64%) Local Government
12 5 (0.64%) Military
12 5 (0.64%) Retail
13 4 (0.51%) Police
13 4 (0.51%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (0.38%) Billing
14 3 (0.38%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 202 (25.70%) Network Engineer
2 175 (22.26%) Architect
3 101 (12.85%) Security Engineer
4 90 (11.45%) Security Architect
5 71 (9.03%) Senior
6 58 (7.38%) Network Architect
7 49 (6.23%) Network Security Engineer
8 29 (3.69%) Lead
9 28 (3.56%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 26 (3.31%) Consultant
11 25 (3.18%) Network Security Architect
12 24 (3.05%) Analyst
13 22 (2.80%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 22 (2.80%) Senior Network Engineer
14 21 (2.67%) Project Manager
15 20 (2.54%) Cloud Engineer
15 20 (2.54%) Solutions Architect
16 19 (2.42%) Azure Architect
16 19 (2.42%) Cloud Architect
17 18 (2.29%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (3.56%) 802.1X
2 14 (1.78%) LDAP
3 10 (1.27%) SAML
4 7 (0.89%) REST
5 6 (0.76%) Node.js
6 5 (0.64%) HTML
6 5 (0.64%) OAuth
6 5 (0.64%) RabbitMQ
6 5 (0.64%) SLSA
7 4 (0.51%) .NET
7 4 (0.51%) AWS CDK
7 4 (0.51%) OpenID
8 3 (0.38%) .NET Core
8 3 (0.38%) AngularJS
8 3 (0.38%) Elastic Stack
8 3 (0.38%) JSON
8 3 (0.38%) Lambda Expressions
8 3 (0.38%) OAuth2
8 3 (0.38%) React
8 3 (0.38%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 120 (15.27%) Data Centre
2 42 (5.34%) Cloud Native
3 39 (4.96%) Hybrid Cloud
3 39 (4.96%) Security Posture
4 32 (4.07%) Onboarding
5 27 (3.44%) PKI
6 26 (3.31%) Public Cloud
7 24 (3.05%) Data Protection Act
7 24 (3.05%) IoT
8 22 (2.80%) Cyber Threat
8 22 (2.80%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 22 (2.80%) Management Information System
9 20 (2.54%) Operational Technology
10 16 (2.04%) Product Ownership
11 13 (1.65%) Security Operations Centre
12 12 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
12 12 (1.53%) Virtual Team
13 11 (1.40%) Cyber Security Posture
14 9 (1.15%) Clustering
15 8 (1.02%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 74 (9.41%) Windows
2 65 (8.27%) Linux
3 24 (3.05%) Windows Server
4 13 (1.65%) Unix
5 9 (1.15%) VMS
6 6 (0.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.76%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.64%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.64%) Windows 10
8 3 (0.38%) SUSE
9 1 (0.13%) Android
9 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 162 (20.61%) Cybersecurity
2 134 (17.05%) Cloud Security
3 125 (15.90%) Zero Trust
4 117 (14.89%) Security Architecture
5 105 (13.36%) Migration
6 104 (13.23%) CI/CD
7 100 (12.72%) SIEM
8 99 (12.60%) DevOps
9 98 (12.47%) Infrastructure as Code
10 96 (12.21%) Problem-Solving
11 79 (10.05%) High Availability
12 78 (9.92%) Continuous Improvement
12 78 (9.92%) Threat Modelling
13 75 (9.54%) Incident Response
14 73 (9.29%) Network Segmentation
15 69 (8.78%) Stakeholder Management
16 66 (8.40%) Change Management
16 66 (8.40%) Identity Access Management
17 64 (8.14%) Agile
17 64 (8.14%) Application Security
Programming Languages
1 111 (14.12%) Python
2 62 (7.89%) PowerShell
3 31 (3.94%) Bash
4 24 (3.05%) JavaScript
5 23 (2.93%) Bicep
5 23 (2.93%) SQL
6 11 (1.40%) Kusto Query Language
7 9 (1.15%) Go
8 8 (1.02%) Java
8 8 (1.02%) Shell Script
9 4 (0.51%) C
9 4 (0.51%) PHP
10 3 (0.38%) C#
10 3 (0.38%) C++
11 2 (0.25%) C-shell
11 2 (0.25%) Korn
11 2 (0.25%) Ruby
12 1 (0.13%) ActionScript
12 1 (0.13%) AppleScript
12 1 (0.13%) VBA
Qualifications
1 235 (29.90%) Security Cleared
2 174 (22.14%) SC Cleared
3 151 (19.21%) Cisco Certification
4 107 (13.61%) CCNP
5 90 (11.45%) CISSP
6 71 (9.03%) DV Cleared
7 56 (7.12%) CCNA
8 49 (6.23%) Degree
9 48 (6.11%) CISM
10 30 (3.82%) Azure Certification
11 29 (3.69%) CCSP
12 28 (3.56%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 22 (2.80%) CCIE
14 19 (2.42%) AWS Certification
14 19 (2.42%) GIAC
15 16 (2.04%) CEH
16 14 (1.78%) CompTIA Security+
17 12 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
18 11 (1.40%) TOGAF Certification
19 10 (1.27%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 83 (10.56%) NIST
2 71 (9.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 43 (5.47%) GDPR
4 29 (3.69%) PCI DSS
5 21 (2.67%) NCSC
6 16 (2.04%) GRC
7 15 (1.91%) Cyber Essentials
7 15 (1.91%) QA
8 12 (1.53%) SLA
9 8 (1.02%) Actionable Recommendations
9 8 (1.02%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 8 (1.02%) SOC 2
10 7 (0.89%) Disclosure Scotland
10 7 (0.89%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 6 (0.76%) PMO
12 5 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 5 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 4 (0.51%) RMADS
14 3 (0.38%) ISA99
14 3 (0.38%) JSP 440
System Software
1 51 (6.49%) Active Directory
1 51 (6.49%) VMware Infrastructure
2 22 (2.80%) VMware NSX
3 18 (2.29%) Virtual Machines
4 15 (1.91%) Docker
5 13 (1.65%) Hyper-V
6 10 (1.27%) VMware ESXi
6 10 (1.27%) vSphere
7 7 (0.89%) Firmware
8 5 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.25%) NFS
9 2 (0.25%) Postfix
9 2 (0.25%) Sendmail
9 2 (0.25%) Squid
9 2 (0.25%) Varnish
10 1 (0.13%) KVM
10 1 (0.13%) RHEV
10 1 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.13%) XenApp
10 1 (0.13%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 117 (14.89%) Terraform
2 76 (9.67%) Ansible
3 58 (7.38%) Kubernetes
4 33 (4.20%) FortiGate
5 16 (2.04%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (1.78%) Nagios
7 10 (1.27%) vCenter Server
8 9 (1.15%) Grafana
8 9 (1.15%) Kibana
8 9 (1.15%) Microsoft Clustering
8 9 (1.15%) Microsoft Intune
9 6 (0.76%) Prometheus
10 5 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 5 (0.64%) Istio
10 5 (0.64%) Progress Chef
10 5 (0.64%) QRadar
10 5 (0.64%) WSUS
11 4 (0.51%) CASB
12 3 (0.38%) SCOM
12 3 (0.38%) VxRail
Vendors
1 219 (27.86%) Cisco
2 131 (16.67%) Palo Alto
3 110 (13.99%) Microsoft
4 76 (9.67%) F5
5 66 (8.40%) VMware
6 58 (7.38%) Fortinet
7 56 (7.12%) Juniper
8 53 (6.74%) CheckPoint
9 48 (6.11%) Zscaler
10 32 (4.07%) ServiceNow
11 25 (3.18%) Splunk
12 23 (2.93%) Google
13 22 (2.80%) ForeScout
14 20 (2.54%) Aruba
14 20 (2.54%) SolarWinds
15 15 (1.91%) Citrix
16 14 (1.78%) Meraki
16 14 (1.78%) Tenable
17 12 (1.53%) Infoblox
17 12 (1.53%) Okta