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

6 months to
5 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 163 145 161
Rank change year-on-year -18 +16 +44
Contract jobs citing Network Security 767 585 669
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.69% 2.00% 1.52%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.07% 15.49% 11.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 516 372 464
10th Percentile £350 £362 £400
25th Percentile £425 £421 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -5.45% -
75th Percentile £600 £602 £650
90th Percentile £688 £675 £749
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £575
% change year-on-year - -13.04% +9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 11 16
10th Percentile £37.23 £18.50 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £40.50 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.00 £45.00 £18.25
Median % change year-on-year +44.44% +146.58% -64.99%
75th Percentile £75.00 £81.18 £41.25
90th Percentile £82.00 £82.10 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £80.68 £7.43
% change year-on-year -19.43% +985.80% -83.88%

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 4,492 3,776 5,869
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.91% 12.92% 13.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,866 2,338 3,544
10th Percentile £225 £213 £205
25th Percentile £380 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £480
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% +1.67% -7.79%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £468 £475
% change year-on-year +1.60% -1.58% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 195 153 407
10th Percentile £15.62 £14.99 £13.71
25th Percentile £20.41 £21.46 £17.72
Median hourly rate £42.25 £35.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +20.71% -6.67% +97.37%
75th Percentile £70.29 £63.25 £62.25
90th Percentile £77.10 £75.00 £67.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £28.00 £45.44
% change year-on-year +78.57% -38.38% +145.62%

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 5 April 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 5 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Security in the UK

Network Security
Top 17 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 5 April 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 -17 670 £500 -6.28% 194
UK excluding London -14 388 £500 - 144
London -20 276 £515 -6.36% 73
Work from Home 0 213 £525 +7.69% 78
North of England -18 134 £481 -3.88% 33
South East -19 104 £500 -3.85% 46
North West -2 85 £491 -1.90% 24
Midlands -25 70 £500 -13.04% 20
West Midlands -24 54 £500 -13.04% 14
Yorkshire -28 52 £343 -23.03% 8
East of England -23 33 £500 -11.11% 19
South West -25 31 £545 -0.91% 19
Scotland +8 27 £509 +19.71% 7
East Midlands -25 15 £638 +50.00% 6
North East -12 3 £550 -12.00% 1
Wales -20 3 £513 +76.72% 2
Northern Ireland - 2 £500 - 1

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 18 (2.35%) Confluence
2 6 (0.78%) Apache
3 5 (0.65%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (0.52%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.13%) nginx
5 1 (0.13%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 22 (2.87%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.30%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 239 (31.16%) Azure
2 162 (21.12%) AWS
3 93 (12.13%) GCP
4 57 (7.43%) Entra ID
5 35 (4.56%) GitHub
6 31 (4.04%) GitHub Actions
7 29 (3.78%) Azure DevOps
8 26 (3.39%) Azure Sentinel
9 22 (2.87%) Azure Key Vault
10 20 (2.61%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 18 (2.35%) Azure Monitor
12 17 (2.22%) AWS CloudFormation
12 17 (2.22%) Microsoft 365
12 17 (2.22%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 14 (1.83%) Azure AKS
13 14 (1.83%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 13 (1.69%) Akamai
14 13 (1.69%) Serverless
15 12 (1.56%) Power Platform
15 12 (1.56%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 373 (48.63%) Firewall
2 150 (19.56%) VPN
3 131 (17.08%) WAN
4 105 (13.69%) LAN
5 99 (12.91%) BGP
6 87 (11.34%) DNS
7 83 (10.82%) OSPF
8 73 (9.52%) VLAN
9 70 (9.13%) SD-WAN
10 59 (7.69%) TCP/IP
11 47 (6.13%) Wireless
12 44 (5.74%) MPLS
13 39 (5.08%) Cisco ASA
13 39 (5.08%) DHCP
14 37 (4.82%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 36 (4.69%) Wi-Fi
16 35 (4.56%) Internet
17 29 (3.78%) SSL
18 28 (3.65%) IPsec
19 27 (3.52%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (1.17%) Azure SQL Database
2 6 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
3 5 (0.65%) InfluxDB
3 5 (0.65%) Relational Database
4 3 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.39%) Data Lake
4 3 (0.39%) Power BI
5 2 (0.26%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.26%) SQL Server
5 2 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 32 (4.17%) JIRA
2 22 (2.87%) Jenkins
3 15 (1.96%) GitLab
4 11 (1.43%) Git
5 7 (0.91%) Snyk
5 7 (0.91%) Sonatype Nexus
6 5 (0.65%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (0.13%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.13%) JUnit
7 1 (0.13%) Postman
7 1 (0.13%) Zephyr
General
1 196 (25.55%) Social Skills
2 105 (13.69%) Finance
3 88 (11.47%) Analytical Skills
4 65 (8.47%) Public Sector
5 36 (4.69%) Banking
6 30 (3.91%) Documentation Skills
7 26 (3.39%) Telecoms
8 20 (2.61%) Financial Institution
9 10 (1.30%) Legal
10 9 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 8 (1.04%) Manufacturing
12 6 (0.78%) Presentation Skills
13 5 (0.65%) Influencing Skills
13 5 (0.65%) Investment Banking
13 5 (0.65%) Organisational Skills
14 4 (0.52%) Electronics
14 4 (0.52%) Local Government
14 4 (0.52%) Military
15 3 (0.39%) Law
15 3 (0.39%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 175 (22.82%) Network Engineer
2 174 (22.69%) Architect
3 90 (11.73%) Security Architect
4 89 (11.60%) Security Engineer
5 63 (8.21%) Network Architect
6 58 (7.56%) Senior
7 39 (5.08%) Network Security Engineer
8 28 (3.65%) Analyst
8 28 (3.65%) Network Security Architect
9 25 (3.26%) Consultant
10 24 (3.13%) Lead
11 23 (3.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 20 (2.61%) Azure Architect
12 20 (2.61%) Cloud Architect
13 19 (2.48%) Cloud Engineer
13 19 (2.48%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
14 18 (2.35%) Solutions Architect
15 17 (2.22%) Project Manager
15 17 (2.22%) Security Specialist
16 16 (2.09%) Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (3.00%) 802.1X
2 13 (1.69%) LDAP
3 9 (1.17%) SAML
4 8 (1.04%) Node.js
5 6 (0.78%) .NET
5 6 (0.78%) ARM Templates
5 6 (0.78%) REST
6 5 (0.65%) .NET Core
6 5 (0.65%) AngularJS
6 5 (0.65%) PyTorch
6 5 (0.65%) RabbitMQ
6 5 (0.65%) React
6 5 (0.65%) TensorFlow
7 4 (0.52%) AWS CDK
7 4 (0.52%) HTML
7 4 (0.52%) OAuth
7 4 (0.52%) OpenID
8 3 (0.39%) Elastic Stack
8 3 (0.39%) Plotly
8 3 (0.39%) SLSA
Miscellaneous
1 103 (13.43%) Data Centre
2 45 (5.87%) Security Posture
3 44 (5.74%) Hybrid Cloud
4 43 (5.61%) Cloud Native
5 25 (3.26%) Management Information System
5 25 (3.26%) Onboarding
6 24 (3.13%) IoT
6 24 (3.13%) PKI
6 24 (3.13%) Public Cloud
7 22 (2.87%) Operational Technology
8 21 (2.74%) Data Protection Act
9 19 (2.48%) Cyber Threat
9 19 (2.48%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 19 (2.48%) Product Ownership
10 16 (2.09%) Security Operations Centre
11 15 (1.96%) Analytical Mindset
12 11 (1.43%) Cyber Security Posture
12 11 (1.43%) Virtual Team
13 9 (1.17%) Clustering
13 9 (1.17%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 83 (10.82%) Windows
2 70 (9.13%) Linux
3 27 (3.52%) Windows Server
4 12 (1.56%) Unix
5 11 (1.43%) VMS
6 8 (1.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 7 (0.91%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.78%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.39%) SUSE
10 2 (0.26%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.13%) Android
11 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 171 (22.29%) Cybersecurity
2 121 (15.78%) Cloud Security
3 117 (15.25%) Problem-Solving
4 111 (14.47%) Security Architecture
5 110 (14.34%) Zero Trust
6 106 (13.82%) Migration
7 102 (13.30%) DevOps
8 100 (13.04%) SIEM
9 97 (12.65%) CI/CD
10 96 (12.52%) Infrastructure as Code
11 77 (10.04%) Incident Response
12 75 (9.78%) Threat Modelling
13 74 (9.65%) Continuous Improvement
14 73 (9.52%) Network Segmentation
15 71 (9.26%) Change Management
16 66 (8.60%) Security Operations
17 65 (8.47%) High Availability
17 65 (8.47%) Stakeholder Management
18 64 (8.34%) Identity Access Management
19 62 (8.08%) Agile
Programming Languages
1 107 (13.95%) Python
2 63 (8.21%) PowerShell
3 28 (3.65%) Bicep
4 27 (3.52%) Bash
5 26 (3.39%) SQL
6 25 (3.26%) JavaScript
7 15 (1.96%) Kusto Query Language
8 9 (1.17%) Go
9 8 (1.04%) Shell Script
10 7 (0.91%) Java
11 5 (0.65%) C#
12 4 (0.52%) C
12 4 (0.52%) PHP
13 3 (0.39%) C++
14 2 (0.26%) C-shell
14 2 (0.26%) Korn
14 2 (0.26%) Ruby
15 1 (0.13%) ActionScript
15 1 (0.13%) AppleScript
15 1 (0.13%) VBA
Qualifications
1 232 (30.25%) Security Cleared
2 165 (21.51%) SC Cleared
3 131 (17.08%) Cisco Certification
4 102 (13.30%) CCNP
5 95 (12.39%) CISSP
6 76 (9.91%) DV Cleared
7 53 (6.91%) CISM
8 49 (6.39%) CCNA
9 47 (6.13%) Degree
10 30 (3.91%) CCIE
11 28 (3.65%) Azure Certification
12 27 (3.52%) GIAC
13 23 (3.00%) CEH
14 20 (2.61%) AWS Certification
15 17 (2.22%) CCSP
15 17 (2.22%) CompTIA Security+
16 16 (2.09%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 12 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
17 12 (1.56%) TOGAF Certification
18 11 (1.43%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (11.47%) NIST
2 73 (9.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 47 (6.13%) GDPR
4 32 (4.17%) PCI DSS
5 21 (2.74%) NCSC
6 17 (2.22%) Cyber Essentials
7 15 (1.96%) GRC
8 13 (1.69%) SLA
9 9 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 9 (1.17%) SOC 2
10 8 (1.04%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (1.04%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 8 (1.04%) QA
11 6 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 5 (0.65%) PMO
13 4 (0.52%) JSP 440
13 4 (0.52%) RMADS
14 3 (0.39%) Disclosure Scotland
14 3 (0.39%) ISA99
15 2 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 52 (6.78%) VMware Infrastructure
2 48 (6.26%) Active Directory
3 23 (3.00%) VMware NSX
4 21 (2.74%) Docker
5 13 (1.69%) Virtual Machines
6 12 (1.56%) vSphere
7 11 (1.43%) Hyper-V
8 10 (1.30%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (1.04%) Firmware
10 4 (0.52%) ProxySG
10 4 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.26%) NFS
11 2 (0.26%) Postfix
11 2 (0.26%) Sendmail
11 2 (0.26%) Varnish
12 1 (0.13%) KVM
12 1 (0.13%) RHEV
12 1 (0.13%) Xen
12 1 (0.13%) XenApp
12 1 (0.13%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 115 (14.99%) Terraform
2 69 (9.00%) Ansible
3 58 (7.56%) Kubernetes
4 27 (3.52%) FortiGate
5 15 (1.96%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (1.83%) Nagios
7 12 (1.56%) Kibana
7 12 (1.56%) Microsoft Intune
8 11 (1.43%) vCenter Server
9 9 (1.17%) Microsoft Clustering
10 8 (1.04%) Grafana
11 7 (0.91%) Prometheus
12 5 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 5 (0.65%) CASB
12 5 (0.65%) Progress Chef
13 4 (0.52%) Istio
13 4 (0.52%) Puppet
14 3 (0.39%) Docker Swarm
14 3 (0.39%) SCOM
14 3 (0.39%) VxRail
Vendors
1 204 (26.60%) Cisco
2 121 (15.78%) Microsoft
3 118 (15.38%) Palo Alto
4 78 (10.17%) F5
5 67 (8.74%) VMware
6 59 (7.69%) Juniper
7 56 (7.30%) Fortinet
8 50 (6.52%) CheckPoint
9 42 (5.48%) Zscaler
10 31 (4.04%) Splunk
11 30 (3.91%) ServiceNow
12 29 (3.78%) Google
13 19 (2.48%) Aruba
13 19 (2.48%) Tenable
14 18 (2.35%) ForeScout
14 18 (2.35%) SolarWinds
15 16 (2.09%) Meraki
16 15 (1.96%) Databricks
16 15 (1.96%) Okta
17 12 (1.56%) Arista