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

6 months to
20 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 158 143 168
Rank change year-on-year -15 +25 +31
Contract jobs citing Network Security 780 588 630
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.69% 2.00% 1.44%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.39% 15.55% 11.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 527 361 438
10th Percentile £353 £362 £400
25th Percentile £425 £419 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £575
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -9.57% +2.45%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £650
90th Percentile £700 £675 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £490 £575
% change year-on-year +2.04% -14.78% +8.49%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 12 16
10th Percentile £31.20 £20.70 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £40.50 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.84 £18.25
Median % change year-on-year +3.44% +244.32% -64.99%
75th Percentile £74.13 £81.35 £41.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.03 -
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 4,486 3,781 5,724
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.70% 12.84% 13.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,811 2,343 3,430
10th Percentile £238 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £490
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -0.51% -5.77%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £465 £480
% change year-on-year +2.15% -3.02% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 206 171 426
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.86
25th Percentile £20.75 £21.00 £17.69
Median hourly rate £46.25 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +23.33% -6.25% +110.53%
75th Percentile £70.00 £61.38 £62.38
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £28.00 £46.39
% change year-on-year +96.43% -39.64% +150.76%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -19 677 £500 -5.21% 204
UK excluding London -12 399 £500 +2.04% 171
London -26 275 £515 -6.36% 76
Work from Home +10 217 £525 +5.00% 79
North of England -2 137 £481 -3.88% 48
South East -20 108 £500 +2.04% 53
North West 0 85 £489 -2.20% 32
Midlands -24 71 £500 -9.09% 18
Yorkshire -25 54 £425 +6.25% 11
West Midlands -33 53 £500 -4.76% 14
East of England -24 35 £505 -10.22% 21
Scotland +3 29 £509 +19.71% 11
South West -29 29 £545 -0.91% 12
East Midlands -17 17 £638 -1.92% 4
Wales -15 3 £513 +76.72% 8
North East -15 3 £550 -12.00% 5
Northern Ireland - 2 £500 - 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 18 (2.31%) Confluence
2 10 (1.28%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (0.77%) Apache
4 4 (0.51%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.13%) nginx
5 1 (0.13%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 22 (2.82%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.28%) 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
1 243 (31.15%) Azure
2 167 (21.41%) AWS
3 95 (12.18%) GCP
4 60 (7.69%) Entra ID
5 35 (4.49%) GitHub
6 30 (3.85%) GitHub Actions
7 29 (3.72%) Azure Sentinel
8 28 (3.59%) Azure DevOps
9 21 (2.69%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 19 (2.44%) Azure Key Vault
11 18 (2.31%) AWS CloudFormation
12 17 (2.18%) Azure AKS
13 16 (2.05%) Azure Monitor
13 16 (2.05%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 15 (1.92%) Microsoft 365
15 14 (1.79%) Google Kubernetes Engine
16 13 (1.67%) Akamai
16 13 (1.67%) Serverless
17 12 (1.54%) Amazon S3
18 11 (1.41%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 376 (48.21%) Firewall
2 151 (19.36%) VPN
3 134 (17.18%) WAN
4 108 (13.85%) LAN
5 101 (12.95%) BGP
6 85 (10.90%) DNS
6 85 (10.90%) OSPF
7 75 (9.62%) SD-WAN
8 73 (9.36%) VLAN
9 58 (7.44%) TCP/IP
10 50 (6.41%) Wireless
11 45 (5.77%) MPLS
12 40 (5.13%) DHCP
13 37 (4.74%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 36 (4.62%) Cisco ASA
14 36 (4.62%) Wi-Fi
15 34 (4.36%) Internet
16 30 (3.85%) Cisco ISE
16 30 (3.85%) IPsec
16 30 (3.85%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.03%) Azure SQL Database
2 6 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
3 5 (0.64%) InfluxDB
3 5 (0.64%) Relational Database
4 4 (0.51%) SQL Server
5 3 (0.38%) Amazon Athena
5 3 (0.38%) Data Lake
5 3 (0.38%) Power BI
6 2 (0.26%) Oracle Database
6 2 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 32 (4.10%) JIRA
2 23 (2.95%) Jenkins
3 16 (2.05%) GitLab
4 11 (1.41%) Git
5 8 (1.03%) 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
1 189 (24.23%) Social Skills
2 108 (13.85%) Finance
3 85 (10.90%) Analytical Skills
4 65 (8.33%) Public Sector
5 36 (4.62%) Banking
6 33 (4.23%) Documentation Skills
7 26 (3.33%) Telecoms
8 20 (2.56%) Financial Institution
9 9 (1.15%) Legal
10 8 (1.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 8 (1.03%) Manufacturing
10 8 (1.03%) Organisational Skills
11 5 (0.64%) Local Government
11 5 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (0.51%) Electronics
12 4 (0.51%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (0.51%) Investment Banking
12 4 (0.51%) Military
13 3 (0.38%) Pharmaceutical
13 3 (0.38%) Retail
Job Titles
1 184 (23.59%) Network Engineer
2 175 (22.44%) Architect
3 91 (11.67%) Security Engineer
4 90 (11.54%) Security Architect
5 62 (7.95%) Network Architect
6 61 (7.82%) Senior
7 44 (5.64%) Network Security Engineer
8 26 (3.33%) Analyst
8 26 (3.33%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 26 (3.33%) Lead
8 26 (3.33%) Network Security Architect
9 25 (3.21%) Consultant
10 21 (2.69%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 19 (2.44%) Azure Architect
12 18 (2.31%) Cloud Architect
12 18 (2.31%) Cloud Engineer
12 18 (2.31%) Project Manager
12 18 (2.31%) Solutions Architect
13 17 (2.18%) Security Specialist
14 16 (2.05%) Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (2.95%) 802.1X
2 13 (1.67%) LDAP
3 10 (1.28%) SAML
4 8 (1.03%) Node.js
5 6 (0.77%) .NET
5 6 (0.77%) REST
6 5 (0.64%) .NET Core
6 5 (0.64%) AngularJS
6 5 (0.64%) ARM Templates
6 5 (0.64%) OAuth
6 5 (0.64%) PyTorch
6 5 (0.64%) RabbitMQ
6 5 (0.64%) React
6 5 (0.64%) TensorFlow
7 4 (0.51%) AWS CDK
7 4 (0.51%) HTML
7 4 (0.51%) OpenID
8 3 (0.38%) CSS
8 3 (0.38%) Elastic Stack
8 3 (0.38%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 110 (14.10%) Data Centre
2 44 (5.64%) Cloud Native
2 44 (5.64%) Security Posture
3 40 (5.13%) Hybrid Cloud
4 28 (3.59%) Onboarding
5 27 (3.46%) Public Cloud
6 26 (3.33%) IoT
6 26 (3.33%) Management Information System
7 22 (2.82%) Operational Technology
7 22 (2.82%) PKI
8 21 (2.69%) Data Protection Act
9 19 (2.44%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 19 (2.44%) Product Ownership
10 18 (2.31%) Cyber Threat
11 15 (1.92%) Analytical Mindset
12 14 (1.79%) Security Operations Centre
13 13 (1.67%) Virtual Team
14 12 (1.54%) Cyber Security Posture
15 9 (1.15%) Legacy Systems
15 9 (1.15%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 83 (10.64%) Windows
2 69 (8.85%) Linux
3 30 (3.85%) Windows Server
4 13 (1.67%) Unix
5 10 (1.28%) VMS
6 8 (1.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 7 (0.90%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.77%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.51%) Windows 10
10 3 (0.38%) SUSE
11 1 (0.13%) Android
11 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 171 (21.92%) Cybersecurity
2 125 (16.03%) Cloud Security
3 115 (14.74%) Problem-Solving
3 115 (14.74%) Zero Trust
4 114 (14.62%) Security Architecture
5 104 (13.33%) Migration
6 102 (13.08%) CI/CD
7 98 (12.56%) DevOps
8 97 (12.44%) Infrastructure as Code
8 97 (12.44%) SIEM
9 78 (10.00%) Continuous Improvement
9 78 (10.00%) Threat Modelling
10 73 (9.36%) Network Segmentation
11 72 (9.23%) Incident Response
12 70 (8.97%) High Availability
13 69 (8.85%) Change Management
14 68 (8.72%) Stakeholder Management
15 65 (8.33%) Agile
15 65 (8.33%) Identity Access Management
16 63 (8.08%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 114 (14.62%) Python
2 65 (8.33%) PowerShell
3 30 (3.85%) Bash
4 26 (3.33%) Bicep
5 25 (3.21%) JavaScript
5 25 (3.21%) SQL
6 15 (1.92%) Kusto Query Language
7 9 (1.15%) Go
8 8 (1.03%) Shell Script
9 7 (0.90%) Java
10 5 (0.64%) C#
11 4 (0.51%) C
11 4 (0.51%) PHP
12 3 (0.38%) C++
13 2 (0.26%) C-shell
13 2 (0.26%) Korn
13 2 (0.26%) Ruby
14 1 (0.13%) ActionScript
14 1 (0.13%) AppleScript
14 1 (0.13%) VBA
Qualifications
1 233 (29.87%) Security Cleared
2 172 (22.05%) SC Cleared
3 139 (17.82%) Cisco Certification
4 101 (12.95%) CCNP
5 97 (12.44%) CISSP
6 71 (9.10%) DV Cleared
7 53 (6.79%) CISM
8 52 (6.67%) CCNA
8 52 (6.67%) Degree
9 32 (4.10%) Azure Certification
10 30 (3.85%) CCIE
11 25 (3.21%) GIAC
12 24 (3.08%) CCSP
13 23 (2.95%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 22 (2.82%) CEH
15 20 (2.56%) AWS Certification
16 16 (2.05%) CompTIA Security+
17 12 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
17 12 (1.54%) TOGAF Certification
18 10 (1.28%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (11.28%) NIST
2 74 (9.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 46 (5.90%) GDPR
4 30 (3.85%) PCI DSS
5 20 (2.56%) NCSC
6 15 (1.92%) Cyber Essentials
6 15 (1.92%) GRC
7 14 (1.79%) SLA
8 10 (1.28%) QA
8 10 (1.28%) SOC 2
9 8 (1.03%) Actionable Recommendations
9 8 (1.03%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 8 (1.03%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 6 (0.77%) PMO
11 5 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 5 (0.64%) Disclosure Scotland
11 5 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 4 (0.51%) RMADS
13 3 (0.38%) ISA99
13 3 (0.38%) JSP 440
System Software
1 54 (6.92%) VMware Infrastructure
2 50 (6.41%) Active Directory
3 22 (2.82%) Docker
3 22 (2.82%) VMware NSX
4 13 (1.67%) Hyper-V
4 13 (1.67%) Virtual Machines
5 12 (1.54%) vSphere
6 10 (1.28%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.90%) Firmware
8 5 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.51%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.26%) NFS
10 2 (0.26%) Postfix
10 2 (0.26%) Sendmail
10 2 (0.26%) Varnish
11 1 (0.13%) KVM
11 1 (0.13%) RHEV
11 1 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.13%) XenApp
11 1 (0.13%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 117 (15.00%) Terraform
2 75 (9.62%) Ansible
3 62 (7.95%) Kubernetes
4 31 (3.97%) FortiGate
5 15 (1.92%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (1.79%) Nagios
7 13 (1.67%) Microsoft Intune
8 12 (1.54%) Kibana
9 11 (1.41%) vCenter Server
10 9 (1.15%) Microsoft Clustering
11 7 (0.90%) Grafana
12 6 (0.77%) Prometheus
13 5 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 5 (0.64%) CASB
13 5 (0.64%) Istio
13 5 (0.64%) Progress Chef
14 4 (0.51%) Puppet
14 4 (0.51%) WSUS
15 3 (0.38%) Cisco Prime
15 3 (0.38%) SCOM
Vendors
1 213 (27.31%) Cisco
2 121 (15.51%) Microsoft
3 118 (15.13%) Palo Alto
4 79 (10.13%) F5
5 69 (8.85%) VMware
6 58 (7.44%) Juniper
7 57 (7.31%) Fortinet
8 51 (6.54%) CheckPoint
9 41 (5.26%) Zscaler
10 30 (3.85%) ServiceNow
11 27 (3.46%) Splunk
12 25 (3.21%) Google
13 19 (2.44%) SolarWinds
14 18 (2.31%) Aruba
14 18 (2.31%) ForeScout
15 17 (2.18%) Tenable
16 16 (2.05%) Meraki
17 15 (1.92%) Okta
18 14 (1.79%) Citrix
19 13 (1.67%) Databricks