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

6 months to
8 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 158 144 170
Rank change year-on-year -14 +26 +15
Contract jobs citing Network Security 782 583 583
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.65% 2.00% 1.35%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.15% 15.66% 10.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 536 349 403
10th Percentile £375 £363 £361
25th Percentile £430 £425 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £523 £575
Median % change year-on-year -2.39% -9.13% +1.77%
75th Percentile £614 £607 £666
90th Percentile £700 £675 £760
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 12 17
10th Percentile £32.00 £20.70 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £40.50 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.50 £62.84 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.24% +230.72% -64.53%
75th Percentile £74.07 £81.35 £41.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.03 -
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 4,560 3,723 5,506
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.61% 12.79% 12.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,831 2,290 3,296
10th Percentile £250 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.54% -2.50% -3.75%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £601
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +2.70% -2.63% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 235 173 417
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £40.54 £36.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.07% -8.75% +111.92%
75th Percentile £66.75 £57.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £74.75 £68.21
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £24.66 £45.88
% change year-on-year +92.62% -46.25% +148.00%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 -10 677 £513 -3.80% 237
UK excluding London -14 389 £500 +2.04% 184
London -19 286 £530 -7.50% 98
Work from Home +6 223 £528 +4.55% 124
North of England -1 138 £481 -3.75% 54
South East -35 103 £500 +2.04% 65
North West 0 85 £481 -3.75% 41
Midlands -37 62 £475 -13.64% 26
Yorkshire -18 51 £480 +20.00% 12
West Midlands -40 42 £435 -17.14% 19
East of England -21 36 £515 -8.44% 12
Scotland -2 30 £475 +11.76% 14
South West -39 29 £545 -0.91% 12
East Midlands -13 19 £638 -1.92% 7
North East -14 3 £538 -14.00% 1
Wales -16 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 (2.43%) Confluence
2 10 (1.28%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (0.77%) Apache
4 4 (0.51%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.13%) nginx
Applications
1 16 (2.05%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.41%) 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 (31.20%) Azure
2 166 (21.23%) AWS
3 98 (12.53%) GCP
4 55 (7.03%) Entra ID
5 32 (4.09%) GitHub
6 29 (3.71%) Azure Sentinel
7 27 (3.45%) Azure DevOps
7 27 (3.45%) GitHub Actions
8 19 (2.43%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 18 (2.30%) AWS CloudFormation
9 18 (2.30%) Azure AKS
9 18 (2.30%) Azure Key Vault
10 17 (2.17%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 15 (1.92%) Azure Monitor
11 15 (1.92%) Microsoft 365
12 14 (1.79%) Akamai
12 14 (1.79%) AWS Direct Connect
12 14 (1.79%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 14 (1.79%) SaaS
13 12 (1.53%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 362 (46.29%) Firewall
2 151 (19.31%) VPN
3 136 (17.39%) WAN
4 109 (13.94%) LAN
5 99 (12.66%) BGP
6 90 (11.51%) DNS
7 87 (11.13%) OSPF
8 77 (9.85%) SD-WAN
9 74 (9.46%) VLAN
10 61 (7.80%) TCP/IP
11 58 (7.42%) Wireless
12 46 (5.88%) MPLS
13 44 (5.63%) DHCP
14 38 (4.86%) Wi-Fi
15 34 (4.35%) Cisco ISE
16 33 (4.22%) Cisco ASA
16 33 (4.22%) IPsec
17 32 (4.09%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 32 (4.09%) Internet
17 32 (4.09%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.02%) Azure SQL Database
2 6 (0.77%) 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 (0.26%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 33 (4.22%) JIRA
2 23 (2.94%) Jenkins
3 16 (2.05%) GitLab
4 11 (1.41%) Git
5 8 (1.02%) Sonatype Nexus
6 7 (0.90%) Snyk
7 5 (0.64%) Browser DevTools
8 2 (0.26%) Postman
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
1 178 (22.76%) Social Skills
2 116 (14.83%) Finance
3 73 (9.34%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (7.67%) Public Sector
5 41 (5.24%) Banking
6 32 (4.09%) Documentation Skills
7 26 (3.32%) Telecoms
8 20 (2.56%) Financial Institution
9 12 (1.53%) Legal
10 9 (1.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (0.90%) Manufacturing
11 7 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (0.64%) Law
12 5 (0.64%) Local Government
12 5 (0.64%) Retail
13 4 (0.51%) Military
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 (25.83%) Network Engineer
2 174 (22.25%) Architect
3 101 (12.92%) Security Engineer
4 89 (11.38%) Security Architect
5 71 (9.08%) Senior
6 58 (7.42%) Network Architect
7 49 (6.27%) Network Security Engineer
8 29 (3.71%) Lead
9 28 (3.58%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 26 (3.32%) Consultant
11 25 (3.20%) Network Security Architect
12 24 (3.07%) Analyst
13 22 (2.81%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 22 (2.81%) Senior Network Engineer
14 21 (2.69%) Project Manager
15 20 (2.56%) Solutions Architect
16 19 (2.43%) Azure Architect
16 19 (2.43%) Cloud Engineer
17 18 (2.30%) Cloud Architect
17 18 (2.30%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (3.58%) 802.1X
2 14 (1.79%) LDAP
3 10 (1.28%) SAML
4 7 (0.90%) REST
5 6 (0.77%) 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 (15.35%) Data Centre
2 41 (5.24%) Cloud Native
3 39 (4.99%) Hybrid Cloud
3 39 (4.99%) Security Posture
4 32 (4.09%) Onboarding
5 27 (3.45%) PKI
6 26 (3.32%) Public Cloud
7 24 (3.07%) Data Protection Act
7 24 (3.07%) IoT
8 22 (2.81%) Cyber Threat
8 22 (2.81%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 22 (2.81%) Management Information System
9 20 (2.56%) Operational Technology
10 16 (2.05%) Product Ownership
11 13 (1.66%) Security Operations Centre
12 12 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
12 12 (1.53%) Virtual Team
13 11 (1.41%) Cyber Security Posture
14 9 (1.15%) Clustering
15 8 (1.02%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 74 (9.46%) Windows
2 65 (8.31%) Linux
3 24 (3.07%) Windows Server
4 13 (1.66%) Unix
5 9 (1.15%) VMS
6 6 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.77%) 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 (20.72%) Cybersecurity
2 133 (17.01%) Cloud Security
3 125 (15.98%) Zero Trust
4 117 (14.96%) Security Architecture
5 103 (13.17%) Migration
6 102 (13.04%) CI/CD
7 98 (12.53%) DevOps
7 98 (12.53%) Infrastructure as Code
7 98 (12.53%) SIEM
8 96 (12.28%) Problem-Solving
9 79 (10.10%) High Availability
10 78 (9.97%) Continuous Improvement
10 78 (9.97%) Threat Modelling
11 75 (9.59%) Incident Response
12 73 (9.34%) Network Segmentation
13 69 (8.82%) Stakeholder Management
14 66 (8.44%) Change Management
14 66 (8.44%) Identity Access Management
15 64 (8.18%) Agile
15 64 (8.18%) Application Security
Programming Languages
1 110 (14.07%) Python
2 62 (7.93%) PowerShell
3 30 (3.84%) Bash
4 24 (3.07%) JavaScript
5 23 (2.94%) Bicep
5 23 (2.94%) SQL
6 11 (1.41%) 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 (0.26%) C-shell
11 2 (0.26%) Korn
11 2 (0.26%) Ruby
12 1 (0.13%) ActionScript
12 1 (0.13%) AppleScript
12 1 (0.13%) VBA
Qualifications
1 233 (29.80%) Security Cleared
2 172 (21.99%) SC Cleared
3 151 (19.31%) Cisco Certification
4 107 (13.68%) CCNP
5 90 (11.51%) CISSP
6 70 (8.95%) DV Cleared
7 56 (7.16%) CCNA
8 49 (6.27%) Degree
9 48 (6.14%) CISM
10 30 (3.84%) Azure Certification
11 29 (3.71%) CCSP
12 28 (3.58%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 22 (2.81%) CCIE
14 19 (2.43%) AWS Certification
14 19 (2.43%) GIAC
15 16 (2.05%) CEH
16 14 (1.79%) CompTIA Security+
17 12 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
18 11 (1.41%) TOGAF Certification
19 10 (1.28%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 83 (10.61%) NIST
2 71 (9.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 43 (5.50%) GDPR
4 29 (3.71%) PCI DSS
5 21 (2.69%) NCSC
6 16 (2.05%) GRC
7 15 (1.92%) Cyber Essentials
8 13 (1.66%) QA
9 12 (1.53%) SLA
10 8 (1.02%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (1.02%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 8 (1.02%) SOC 2
11 7 (0.90%) Disclosure Scotland
11 7 (0.90%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 6 (0.77%) PMO
13 5 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 5 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 4 (0.51%) RMADS
15 3 (0.38%) ISA99
15 3 (0.38%) JSP 440
System Software
1 51 (6.52%) Active Directory
1 51 (6.52%) VMware Infrastructure
2 22 (2.81%) VMware NSX
3 16 (2.05%) Virtual Machines
4 15 (1.92%) Docker
5 13 (1.66%) Hyper-V
6 10 (1.28%) VMware ESXi
6 10 (1.28%) vSphere
7 7 (0.90%) Firmware
8 5 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.26%) NFS
9 2 (0.26%) Postfix
9 2 (0.26%) Sendmail
9 2 (0.26%) Varnish
10 1 (0.13%) KVM
10 1 (0.13%) ProxySG
10 1 (0.13%) RHEV
10 1 (0.13%) Squid
10 1 (0.13%) XenApp
10 1 (0.13%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 116 (14.83%) Terraform
2 76 (9.72%) Ansible
3 58 (7.42%) Kubernetes
4 33 (4.22%) FortiGate
5 15 (1.92%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (1.79%) Nagios
7 10 (1.28%) vCenter Server
8 9 (1.15%) Kibana
8 9 (1.15%) Microsoft Clustering
8 9 (1.15%) Microsoft Intune
9 8 (1.02%) Grafana
10 6 (0.77%) Prometheus
11 5 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 5 (0.64%) Istio
11 5 (0.64%) Progress Chef
11 5 (0.64%) QRadar
11 5 (0.64%) WSUS
12 4 (0.51%) CASB
13 3 (0.38%) Docker Swarm
13 3 (0.38%) Network Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 219 (28.01%) Cisco
2 131 (16.75%) Palo Alto
3 110 (14.07%) Microsoft
4 76 (9.72%) F5
5 66 (8.44%) VMware
6 58 (7.42%) Fortinet
7 56 (7.16%) Juniper
8 53 (6.78%) CheckPoint
9 48 (6.14%) Zscaler
10 32 (4.09%) ServiceNow
11 25 (3.20%) Splunk
12 22 (2.81%) ForeScout
13 20 (2.56%) Aruba
13 20 (2.56%) Google
13 20 (2.56%) SolarWinds
14 15 (1.92%) Citrix
15 14 (1.79%) Meraki
15 14 (1.79%) Tenable
16 12 (1.53%) Infoblox
16 12 (1.53%) Okta