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

6 months to
13 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 155 152 182
Rank change year-on-year -3 +30 -7
Contract jobs citing Network Security 848 548 560
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.70% 1.86% 1.28%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.77% 14.91% 10.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 581 331 382
10th Percentile £400 £364 £375
25th Percentile £447 £450 £453
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.48% -5.00% -1.79%
75th Percentile £623 £613 £666
90th Percentile £700 £700 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £491 £575
% change year-on-year +5.91% -14.61% +9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 9 18
10th Percentile £26.80 £65.13 -
25th Percentile £38.94 £80.34 £7.43
Median hourly rate £67.50 £81.35 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.03% +287.38% -61.82%
75th Percentile £74.00 £82.10 £41.25
90th Percentile - £87.20 £45.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.25 £81.35 £7.43
% change year-on-year -13.64% +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 4,772 3,676 5,422
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.54% 12.46% 12.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,925 2,260 3,210
10th Percentile £263 £220 £210
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £484 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.31% -3.20% -2.44%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £470 £488
% change year-on-year +2.20% -3.66% +2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 290 167 417
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £27.69 £44.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -37.07% +10.00% +110.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.69 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £80.41 £70.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.25 £31.79 £47.50
% change year-on-year -4.84% -33.07% +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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -3 735 £525 - 215
UK excluding London -14 406 £520 +5.91% 194
London +11 328 £550 -4.35% 68
Work from Home -6 249 £540 +5.88% 106
North of England +8 166 £500 - 53
South East -30 98 £523 +6.63% 60
North West +4 90 £500 -1.96% 39
Yorkshire -8 74 £500 +2.04% 12
Midlands -46 48 £449 -22.00% 24
Scotland -5 33 £538 +26.47% 18
East of England -20 33 £525 -8.70% 14
South West -17 32 £550 -4.35% 21
West Midlands -57 29 £420 -26.96% 12
East Midlands -5 18 £638 - 12
Wales -22 3 £600 +103.39% 6
North East -33 2 £675 +8.00% 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 23 (2.71%) Confluence
2 13 (1.53%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (0.94%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.24%) Apache
5 1 (0.12%) NetWeaver
5 1 (0.12%) nginx
Applications
1 15 (1.77%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.30%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.12%) InfoPath
5 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (0.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 261 (30.78%) Azure
2 185 (21.82%) AWS
3 111 (13.09%) GCP
4 74 (8.73%) Entra ID
5 35 (4.13%) GitHub
6 28 (3.30%) Azure Sentinel
6 28 (3.30%) GitHub Actions
7 27 (3.18%) Azure DevOps
8 22 (2.59%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 20 (2.36%) Microsoft 365
10 19 (2.24%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 19 (2.24%) Serverless
11 18 (2.12%) Azure Key Vault
11 18 (2.12%) SaaS
12 17 (2.00%) Azure AKS
13 16 (1.89%) Akamai
13 16 (1.89%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 16 (1.89%) Azure Monitor
14 14 (1.65%) AWS CloudFormation
15 13 (1.53%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 382 (45.05%) Firewall
2 160 (18.87%) VPN
3 148 (17.45%) WAN
4 118 (13.92%) LAN
5 101 (11.91%) BGP
6 97 (11.44%) DNS
7 86 (10.14%) OSPF
8 84 (9.91%) SD-WAN
9 77 (9.08%) VLAN
10 76 (8.96%) Wireless
11 65 (7.67%) TCP/IP
12 52 (6.13%) MPLS
13 50 (5.90%) DHCP
14 46 (5.42%) IPsec
15 42 (4.95%) SSL
15 42 (4.95%) Wi-Fi
16 40 (4.72%) Cisco ISE
17 33 (3.89%) Cisco ASA
18 31 (3.66%) Internet
18 31 (3.66%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (0.59%) SQL Server
3 4 (0.47%) Amazon RDS
3 4 (0.47%) Elasticsearch
3 4 (0.47%) Neo4j
3 4 (0.47%) Power BI
4 3 (0.35%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.35%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.24%) InfluxDB
5 2 (0.24%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.24%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.24%) 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 42 (4.95%) JIRA
2 25 (2.95%) GitLab
3 23 (2.71%) Jenkins
4 22 (2.59%) Git
5 8 (0.94%) Sonatype Nexus
6 7 (0.83%) Snyk
7 5 (0.59%) Browser DevTools
8 4 (0.47%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.35%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.24%) Postman
11 1 (0.12%) Burp Suite
11 1 (0.12%) Claude Code
11 1 (0.12%) JUnit
11 1 (0.12%) SoapUI
11 1 (0.12%) Zephyr
General
1 185 (21.82%) Social Skills
2 131 (15.45%) Finance
3 64 (7.55%) Public Sector
4 61 (7.19%) Analytical Skills
5 49 (5.78%) Banking
6 37 (4.36%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (2.83%) Telecoms
8 21 (2.48%) Financial Institution
9 13 (1.53%) Legal
10 12 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 11 (1.30%) Retail
12 8 (0.94%) Police
13 7 (0.83%) Local Government
13 7 (0.83%) Manufacturing
13 7 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
14 6 (0.71%) Law
15 5 (0.59%) Influencing Skills
15 5 (0.59%) Military
16 3 (0.35%) Billing
16 3 (0.35%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 222 (26.18%) Network Engineer
2 185 (21.82%) Architect
3 111 (13.09%) Security Engineer
4 93 (10.97%) Security Architect
5 80 (9.43%) Senior
6 61 (7.19%) Network Architect
7 57 (6.72%) Network Security Engineer
8 38 (4.48%) Consultant
8 38 (4.48%) Project Manager
9 31 (3.66%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 30 (3.54%) Lead
11 27 (3.18%) Cloud Engineer
11 27 (3.18%) Senior Network Engineer
12 26 (3.07%) Network Security Architect
12 26 (3.07%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 23 (2.71%) Network Manager
14 22 (2.59%) Azure Architect
14 22 (2.59%) Cloud Architect
15 20 (2.36%) Senior Architect
15 20 (2.36%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (4.48%) 802.1X
2 14 (1.65%) SAML
3 13 (1.53%) REST
4 9 (1.06%) ARM Templates
4 9 (1.06%) Kafka
5 8 (0.94%) LDAP
6 7 (0.83%) CSS
6 7 (0.83%) HTML
6 7 (0.83%) OAuth
7 6 (0.71%) OpenID
7 6 (0.71%) SLSA
8 5 (0.59%) OAuth2
9 4 (0.47%) AWS CDK
9 4 (0.47%) gRPC
9 4 (0.47%) Keycloak
9 4 (0.47%) Protocol Buffers
9 4 (0.47%) RESTful
10 3 (0.35%) Lambda Expressions
10 3 (0.35%) Plotly
10 3 (0.35%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 119 (14.03%) Data Centre
2 57 (6.72%) Security Posture
3 50 (5.90%) Cloud Native
4 41 (4.83%) Hybrid Cloud
5 34 (4.01%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 32 (3.77%) Onboarding
7 28 (3.30%) PKI
8 25 (2.95%) Data Protection Act
9 24 (2.83%) Public Cloud
10 23 (2.71%) Operational Technology
11 20 (2.36%) Product Ownership
12 19 (2.24%) IoT
12 19 (2.24%) Management Information System
13 17 (2.00%) Cyber Threat
14 14 (1.65%) Security Operations Centre
14 14 (1.65%) Self-Motivation
15 9 (1.06%) Linux Command Line
15 9 (1.06%) Replication
15 9 (1.06%) Virtual Team
16 8 (0.94%) Enterprise Cloud
Operating Systems
1 68 (8.02%) Linux
2 66 (7.78%) Windows
3 24 (2.83%) Windows Server
4 9 (1.06%) VMS
5 8 (0.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.71%) Ubuntu
6 6 (0.71%) Unix
7 5 (0.59%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.59%) Windows 10
8 3 (0.35%) SUSE
9 2 (0.24%) Android
10 1 (0.12%) Check Point GAiA
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 174 (20.52%) Cybersecurity
2 150 (17.69%) Cloud Security
3 138 (16.27%) Zero Trust
4 122 (14.39%) CI/CD
5 119 (14.03%) Security Architecture
6 115 (13.56%) Migration
7 114 (13.44%) DevOps
8 113 (13.33%) Infrastructure as Code
9 106 (12.50%) SIEM
10 96 (11.32%) Continuous Improvement
11 93 (10.97%) High Availability
12 86 (10.14%) Application Security
13 85 (10.02%) Problem-Solving
14 83 (9.79%) Network Segmentation
14 83 (9.79%) Threat Modelling
15 82 (9.67%) Identity Access Management
16 80 (9.43%) Stakeholder Management
17 79 (9.32%) Data Protection
17 79 (9.32%) Incident Response
18 78 (9.20%) Agile
Programming Languages
1 104 (12.26%) Python
2 42 (4.95%) PowerShell
3 36 (4.25%) Bash
4 30 (3.54%) Bicep
5 20 (2.36%) JavaScript
5 20 (2.36%) SQL
6 8 (0.94%) Shell Script
7 7 (0.83%) Java
8 5 (0.59%) Kusto Query Language
9 4 (0.47%) C
9 4 (0.47%) PHP
9 4 (0.47%) Rust
10 3 (0.35%) C++
11 2 (0.24%) Perl
11 2 (0.24%) Ruby
12 1 (0.12%) ActionScript
12 1 (0.12%) AppleScript
12 1 (0.12%) Go
12 1 (0.12%) Search Processing Language
12 1 (0.12%) VBA
Qualifications
1 245 (28.89%) Security Cleared
2 184 (21.70%) SC Cleared
3 159 (18.75%) Cisco Certification
4 101 (11.91%) CCNP
5 95 (11.20%) CISSP
6 71 (8.37%) DV Cleared
7 61 (7.19%) CCNA
7 61 (7.19%) Degree
8 57 (6.72%) CISM
9 36 (4.25%) CCSP
10 35 (4.13%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 30 (3.54%) Azure Certification
12 21 (2.48%) CCIE
13 20 (2.36%) AWS Certification
14 15 (1.77%) BPSS Clearance
15 14 (1.65%) CompTIA Security+
16 13 (1.53%) Computer Science Degree
16 13 (1.53%) GIAC
17 11 (1.30%) JNCIS
18 10 (1.18%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (11.08%) NIST
2 73 (8.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 39 (4.60%) GDPR
4 28 (3.30%) PCI DSS
5 24 (2.83%) NCSC
6 19 (2.24%) QA
7 18 (2.12%) GRC
8 16 (1.89%) Cyber Essentials
9 12 (1.42%) SLA
10 8 (0.94%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (0.94%) Disclosure Scotland
10 8 (0.94%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 8 (0.94%) SOC 2
11 7 (0.83%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 5 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 5 (0.59%) NIST 800
13 4 (0.47%) PMO
13 4 (0.47%) RMADS
14 3 (0.35%) ISA99
14 3 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 60 (7.08%) Active Directory
2 52 (6.13%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (2.71%) VMware NSX
4 22 (2.59%) Docker
5 21 (2.48%) Virtual Machines
6 11 (1.30%) VMware ESXi
7 10 (1.18%) vSphere
8 8 (0.94%) Hyper-V
9 5 (0.59%) Firmware
9 5 (0.59%) Squid
9 5 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.24%) NFS
10 2 (0.24%) Postfix
10 2 (0.24%) Sendmail
10 2 (0.24%) Varnish
10 2 (0.24%) VMware Workstation
11 1 (0.12%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 119 (14.03%) Terraform
2 76 (8.96%) Ansible
3 73 (8.61%) Kubernetes
4 40 (4.72%) FortiGate
5 18 (2.12%) Grafana
5 18 (2.12%) Single Sign-On
6 11 (1.30%) Microsoft Intune
6 11 (1.30%) vCenter Server
7 10 (1.18%) Prometheus
8 6 (0.71%) QRadar
9 5 (0.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 5 (0.59%) CASB
9 5 (0.59%) Istio
9 5 (0.59%) Puppet
9 5 (0.59%) Suricata
9 5 (0.59%) WSUS
10 4 (0.47%) Kustomize
10 4 (0.47%) Podman
11 3 (0.35%) Network Intrusion Detection System
11 3 (0.35%) VxRail
Vendors
1 238 (28.07%) Cisco
2 139 (16.39%) Palo Alto
3 117 (13.80%) Microsoft
4 76 (8.96%) F5
5 67 (7.90%) Fortinet
6 66 (7.78%) VMware
7 56 (6.60%) CheckPoint
8 53 (6.25%) Juniper
8 53 (6.25%) Zscaler
9 35 (4.13%) ServiceNow
10 30 (3.54%) Splunk
11 24 (2.83%) Aruba
12 21 (2.48%) ForeScout
12 21 (2.48%) Google
13 20 (2.36%) Citrix
13 20 (2.36%) SolarWinds
14 17 (2.00%) Tenable
15 13 (1.53%) Arista
15 13 (1.53%) Okta
16 12 (1.42%) Meraki