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 16 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 175 168 169
Rank change year-on-year -7 +1 -2
Contract jobs citing Network Security 862 573 569
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.59% 1.74% 1.49%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.01% 15.05% 12.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 561 339 383
10th Percentile £400 £380 £361
25th Percentile £463 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £530 £540
Median % change year-on-year +3.77% -1.85% -1.82%
75th Percentile £650 £630 £638
90th Percentile £730 £738 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £540 £492 £550
% change year-on-year +9.76% -10.55% +3.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 14 7
10th Percentile £21.80 £45.00 £32.90
25th Percentile £54.88 £55.00 £42.50
Median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.05% +40.32% -25.65%
75th Percentile £74.00 £84.09 £58.75
90th Percentile £85.00 £95.50 £82.79
UK excluding London median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £53.75
% change year-on-year +4.05% +30.53% +17.49%

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 5,069 3,807 4,537
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.34% 11.56% 11.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,937 2,354 2,642
10th Percentile £231 £225 £225
25th Percentile £389 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £476 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.04% -4.80% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £608
90th Percentile £675 £677 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £452 £500
% change year-on-year +5.20% -9.70% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 414 198 255
10th Percentile £14.46 £15.50 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £21.37
Median hourly rate £29.50 £43.00 £50.50
Median % change year-on-year -31.40% -14.85% -10.60%
75th Percentile £67.49 £64.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.67 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -38.49% -25.89% -0.26%

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 16 September 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 16 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Security in the UK

Network Security
Top 18 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 16 September 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 -17 751 £550 +4.76% 839
UK excluding London -27 425 £540 +9.76% 428
London -10 332 £550 - 461
Work from Home +9 261 £545 -0.91% 355
North of England +6 195 £537 +9.70% 94
North West -9 106 £537 +13.05% 59
South East -39 93 £559 +24.26% 135
Yorkshire +8 85 £540 +9.76% 27
Midlands -56 50 £450 -14.29% 68
East of England -4 38 £525 +10.53% 43
West Midlands -75 35 £450 -14.29% 48
Scotland -15 27 £600 +33.33% 31
South West -59 21 £600 -3.23% 42
East Midlands 0 14 £500 - 20
Channel Islands -1 6 £600 -17.24%
North East - 3 £678 - 9
Northern Ireland +4 1 - - 17
Wales -14 1 £650 +30.00% 5

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 (2.20%) Microsoft Exchange
2 16 (1.86%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.28%) Confluence
4 3 (0.35%) Apache
4 3 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.12%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.12%) IIS
5 1 (0.12%) NetWeaver
5 1 (0.12%) nginx
Applications
1 20 (2.32%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.81%) MS Visio
3 5 (0.58%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.12%) InfoPath
5 1 (0.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (0.70%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 297 (34.45%) Azure
2 200 (23.20%) AWS
3 102 (11.83%) GCP
4 89 (10.32%) Entra ID
5 46 (5.34%) Microsoft 365
6 40 (4.64%) GitHub
7 39 (4.52%) Azure DevOps
8 32 (3.71%) Azure Monitor
9 27 (3.13%) Serverless
10 25 (2.90%) SaaS
11 23 (2.67%) Azure Sentinel
12 21 (2.44%) GitHub Actions
13 20 (2.32%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 17 (1.97%) Azure AKS
14 17 (1.97%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 16 (1.86%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 16 (1.86%) Amazon EKS
16 15 (1.74%) OCI
16 15 (1.74%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 14 (1.62%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 392 (45.48%) Firewall
2 205 (23.78%) VPN
3 184 (21.35%) WAN
4 136 (15.78%) DNS
5 125 (14.50%) LAN
6 106 (12.30%) Wireless
7 92 (10.67%) BGP
8 89 (10.32%) TCP/IP
9 78 (9.05%) SD-WAN
10 74 (8.58%) DHCP
11 71 (8.24%) VLAN
12 65 (7.54%) OSPF
13 58 (6.73%) SSL
14 48 (5.57%) MPLS
14 48 (5.57%) Wi-Fi
15 45 (5.22%) IPsec
16 43 (4.99%) Cisco ISE
17 41 (4.76%) Internet
18 37 (4.29%) Cisco ASA
19 34 (3.94%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.51%) SQL Server
2 7 (0.81%) Amazon RDS
3 6 (0.70%) BigQuery
4 4 (0.46%) Elasticsearch
4 4 (0.46%) Neo4j
5 3 (0.35%) Azure SQL Database
5 3 (0.35%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.23%) Data Lake
6 2 (0.23%) Delta Lake
6 2 (0.23%) InfluxDB
6 2 (0.23%) Power BI
7 1 (0.12%) Data Mining
7 1 (0.12%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.12%) Looker
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.12%) Qlik Sense
7 1 (0.12%) Relational Database
7 1 (0.12%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (0.12%) Star Schema
7 1 (0.12%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 39 (4.52%) Git
2 31 (3.60%) JIRA
3 30 (3.48%) GitLab
4 28 (3.25%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.81%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (0.46%) MSBuild
6 4 (0.46%) SonarQube
6 4 (0.46%) Visual Studio
7 3 (0.35%) Artifactory
7 3 (0.35%) Browser DevTools
8 2 (0.23%) Claude Code
8 2 (0.23%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.12%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.12%) Postman
9 1 (0.12%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.12%) Subversion
General
1 230 (26.68%) Social Skills
2 148 (17.17%) Finance
3 86 (9.98%) Analytical Skills
4 62 (7.19%) Banking
5 45 (5.22%) Public Sector
6 43 (4.99%) Documentation Skills
7 28 (3.25%) Telecoms
8 26 (3.02%) Legal
9 17 (1.97%) Financial Institution
10 14 (1.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 14 (1.62%) Influencing Skills
10 14 (1.62%) Manufacturing
10 14 (1.62%) Retail
11 12 (1.39%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (1.04%) Presentation Skills
13 8 (0.93%) Local Government
14 7 (0.81%) Police
15 6 (0.70%) Automotive
15 6 (0.70%) Law
15 6 (0.70%) Military
Job Titles
1 246 (28.54%) Network Engineer
2 148 (17.17%) Architect
3 112 (12.99%) Security Engineer
4 105 (12.18%) Senior
5 82 (9.51%) Security Architect
6 67 (7.77%) Network Security Engineer
7 66 (7.66%) Consultant
8 54 (6.26%) Network Architect
9 49 (5.68%) Senior Network Engineer
10 45 (5.22%) Project Manager
11 43 (4.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 42 (4.87%) Cloud Engineer
13 35 (4.06%) Security Consultant
14 31 (3.60%) Lead
15 28 (3.25%) Analyst
16 27 (3.13%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
17 25 (2.90%) Azure Engineer
18 24 (2.78%) Network Manager
18 24 (2.78%) Network Security Architect
19 22 (2.55%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 129 (14.97%) Terraform
2 34 (3.94%) 802.1X
3 20 (2.32%) REST
4 15 (1.74%) ARM Templates
4 15 (1.74%) SAML
5 12 (1.39%) Kafka
6 8 (0.93%) JSON
6 8 (0.93%) NETCONF
7 6 (0.70%) gRPC
7 6 (0.70%) Keycloak
7 6 (0.70%) OpenID
8 5 (0.58%) Azure Blueprints
8 5 (0.58%) LDAP
8 5 (0.58%) OAuth
8 5 (0.58%) SLSA
8 5 (0.58%) Software Packaging
8 5 (0.58%) XML
8 5 (0.58%) YAML
9 4 (0.46%) CSS
9 4 (0.46%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 114 (13.23%) Data Centre
2 81 (9.40%) Security Posture
3 49 (5.68%) Onboarding
4 45 (5.22%) Cloud Native
5 44 (5.10%) Hybrid Cloud
6 42 (4.87%) Management Information System
7 32 (3.71%) Operational Technology
8 31 (3.60%) Cyber Threat
9 30 (3.48%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 26 (3.02%) PKI
11 22 (2.55%) Security Operations Centre
11 22 (2.55%) Self-Motivation
12 19 (2.20%) Cloud Security Posture
13 18 (2.09%) Data Protection Act
13 18 (2.09%) Public Cloud
14 15 (1.74%) Enterprise Software
15 13 (1.51%) Linux Command Line
16 12 (1.39%) Replication
17 9 (1.04%) Virtual Team
18 8 (0.93%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 98 (11.37%) Windows
2 80 (9.28%) Linux
3 37 (4.29%) Windows Server
4 16 (1.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 10 (1.16%) Windows 10
6 7 (0.81%) Unix
7 6 (0.70%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.58%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.35%) Check Point GAiA
9 3 (0.35%) SUSE
9 3 (0.35%) VMS
10 2 (0.23%) Android
10 2 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.23%) zOS
11 1 (0.12%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.12%) Rocky
11 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 173 (20.07%) Cloud Security
2 170 (19.72%) Cybersecurity
3 143 (16.59%) Stakeholder Management
4 130 (15.08%) CI/CD
5 129 (14.97%) Zero Trust
6 123 (14.27%) Incident Response
7 121 (14.04%) Continuous Improvement
8 120 (13.92%) Infrastructure as Code
9 115 (13.34%) SIEM
10 111 (12.88%) Change Management
10 111 (12.88%) DevOps
10 111 (12.88%) Migration
11 109 (12.65%) Problem-Solving
12 102 (11.83%) Security Architecture
13 96 (11.14%) Identity Access Management
14 88 (10.21%) Data Protection
14 88 (10.21%) High Availability
14 88 (10.21%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 85 (9.86%) Security Operations
15 85 (9.86%) Threat Modelling
Programming Languages
1 152 (17.63%) Python
2 86 (9.98%) PowerShell
3 74 (8.58%) Bash
4 34 (3.94%) Bicep
5 23 (2.67%) SQL
6 13 (1.51%) Go
7 12 (1.39%) Java
8 7 (0.81%) Search Processing Language
9 6 (0.70%) Kusto Query Language
9 6 (0.70%) Shell Script
10 4 (0.46%) ActionScript
10 4 (0.46%) Rust
11 3 (0.35%) JavaScript
11 3 (0.35%) Perl
11 3 (0.35%) VBScript
12 1 (0.12%) C
12 1 (0.12%) C++
12 1 (0.12%) Ruby
12 1 (0.12%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 234 (27.15%) Security Cleared
2 172 (19.95%) Cisco Certification
2 172 (19.95%) SC Cleared
3 107 (12.41%) CISSP
4 97 (11.25%) CCNP
5 67 (7.77%) DV Cleared
6 66 (7.66%) Degree
7 50 (5.80%) CCNA
7 50 (5.80%) CCSP
8 47 (5.45%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 47 (5.45%) CISM
9 36 (4.18%) Azure Certification
10 31 (3.60%) CCIE
11 28 (3.25%) AWS Certification
12 17 (1.97%) Computer Science Degree
13 13 (1.51%) GIAC
14 12 (1.39%) PMP
15 11 (1.28%) CEH
15 11 (1.28%) PMI Certification
16 10 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 72 (8.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 66 (7.66%) NIST
3 33 (3.83%) GDPR
4 28 (3.25%) NCSC
5 21 (2.44%) PCI DSS
6 14 (1.62%) Cyber Essentials
7 13 (1.51%) QA
8 12 (1.39%) GRC
9 11 (1.28%) SLA
10 9 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 9 (1.04%) NIST 800
11 8 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 7 (0.81%) Disclosure Scotland
13 5 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 4 (0.46%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 4 (0.46%) PMO
15 3 (0.35%) SOC 2
16 2 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
16 2 (0.23%) GxP
16 2 (0.23%) JSP 440
System Software
1 80 (9.28%) Active Directory
2 53 (6.15%) VMware Infrastructure
3 33 (3.83%) Docker
4 22 (2.55%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (1.86%) VMware NSX
6 14 (1.62%) Hyper-V
7 11 (1.28%) vSphere
8 10 (1.16%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (0.93%) Virtual Desktop
10 5 (0.58%) Firmware
10 5 (0.58%) Squid
11 4 (0.46%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.35%) FreeRADIUS
13 2 (0.23%) NFS
13 2 (0.23%) OpenSSH
13 2 (0.23%) VMware Workstation
14 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 1 (0.12%) Postfix
14 1 (0.12%) ProxySG
14 1 (0.12%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 99 (11.48%) Ansible
2 79 (9.16%) Kubernetes
3 47 (5.45%) FortiGate
4 26 (3.02%) Microsoft Intune
5 23 (2.67%) Grafana
6 16 (1.86%) Prometheus
7 15 (1.74%) Progress Chef
7 15 (1.74%) SCCM
8 13 (1.51%) Single Sign-On
9 10 (1.16%) CASB
10 9 (1.04%) QRadar
11 7 (0.81%) Cisco Prime
11 7 (0.81%) Puppet
11 7 (0.81%) vCenter Server
12 6 (0.70%) Cisco CUCM
13 5 (0.58%) Suricata
13 5 (0.58%) VxRail
13 5 (0.58%) WSUS
14 4 (0.46%) Podman
14 4 (0.46%) systemd
Vendors
1 253 (29.35%) Cisco
2 165 (19.14%) Palo Alto
3 163 (18.91%) Microsoft
4 93 (10.79%) Fortinet
5 84 (9.74%) F5
6 71 (8.24%) VMware
7 66 (7.66%) Zscaler
8 56 (6.50%) CheckPoint
9 46 (5.34%) Juniper
10 39 (4.52%) Splunk
11 36 (4.18%) SolarWinds
12 32 (3.71%) Aruba
13 28 (3.25%) Google
14 25 (2.90%) ServiceNow
15 21 (2.44%) Citrix
16 17 (1.97%) Meraki
17 15 (1.74%) CyberArk
18 14 (1.62%) Blue Coat
18 14 (1.62%) Tenable
19 12 (1.39%) ForeScout