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 24 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 174 156 154
Rank change year-on-year -18 -2 +78
Contract jobs citing Network Security 549 593 807
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.63% 1.60% 1.69%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 14.21% 13.24% 12.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 333 385 526
10th Percentile £368 £359 £400
25th Percentile £425 £438 £471
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £650
90th Percentile £724 £725 £734
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - +0.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 8 7
10th Percentile £45.00 £35.70 £44.90
25th Percentile £52.50 £40.88 £64.25
Median hourly rate £70.16 £47.50 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year +47.71% -34.48% +51.40%
75th Percentile £87.19 £58.75 £76.25
90th Percentile £97.50 £76.78 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.33 £57.50 £72.50
% change year-on-year +18.83% -20.69% +51.40%

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 3,863 4,479 6,564
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.49% 12.08% 13.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,493 2,566 4,099
10th Percentile £213 £224 £215
25th Percentile £358 £369 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £685 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £454 £475 £465
% change year-on-year -4.42% +2.15% +3.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 169 328
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.64 £17.24
25th Percentile £20.09 £26.25 £22.69
Median hourly rate £35.00 £48.56 £56.45
Median % change year-on-year -27.92% -13.97% +41.11%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.22 £50.00 £56.49
% change year-on-year -15.56% -11.49% +25.53%

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 24 October 2025.

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 24 October 2025.

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 24 October 2025. 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 -22 481 £525 -2.42% 271
UK excluding London -21 284 £500 -4.76% 240
London +2 206 £550 +2.56% 86
Work from Home -17 150 £550 +10.00% 170
North of England -23 95 £490 -2.10% 49
North West -3 65 £501 -8.86% 12
Midlands -25 64 £505 -12.17% 32
West Midlands +6 60 £505 -20.47% 21
South East -28 55 £460 -16.42% 98
Yorkshire -21 41 £490 -2.10% 26
South West +19 32 £640 +9.78% 24
East of England +1 22 £488 +77.27% 16
Scotland +8 19 £475 +18.75% 22
Wales -10 4 £500 +115.05% 2
East Midlands -22 4 - - 8
Channel Islands - 2 £725 -
Northern Ireland - 2 £563 - 4
North East -9 1 £550 -32.52% 13

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 5 (0.91%) Confluence
2 4 (0.73%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.18%) IIS
4 1 (0.18%) nginx
Applications
1 4 (0.73%) Microsoft Office
1 4 (0.73%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.36%) Chatbot
2 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.18%) Windchill
Cloud Services
1 138 (25.14%) Azure
2 117 (21.31%) AWS
3 44 (8.01%) GCP
4 29 (5.28%) Microsoft 365
5 22 (4.01%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 20 (3.64%) Amazon S3
7 18 (3.28%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 18 (3.28%) Entra ID
8 17 (3.10%) Azure DevOps
9 16 (2.91%) Amazon EC2
9 16 (2.91%) Amazon ELB
9 16 (2.91%) Azure Sentinel
10 14 (2.55%) Azure Key Vault
10 14 (2.55%) GitHub
11 12 (2.19%) GitHub Actions
12 10 (1.82%) Akamai
12 10 (1.82%) AWS CloudFormation
12 10 (1.82%) Azure Monitor
12 10 (1.82%) IaaS
13 8 (1.46%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 267 (48.63%) Firewall
2 118 (21.49%) VPN
3 106 (19.31%) DNS
4 88 (16.03%) WAN
5 71 (12.93%) BGP
6 66 (12.02%) TCP/IP
7 65 (11.84%) SSL
8 52 (9.47%) LAN
9 50 (9.11%) OSPF
10 49 (8.93%) SD-WAN
11 43 (7.83%) VLAN
11 43 (7.83%) Wireless
12 37 (6.74%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
13 30 (5.46%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
13 30 (5.46%) Intrusion Detection
14 29 (5.28%) DHCP
15 26 (4.74%) Cisco ISE
16 25 (4.55%) DMZ
17 23 (4.19%) IPsec
18 22 (4.01%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.55%) Amazon Athena
1 3 (0.55%) GIS
2 2 (0.36%) Amazon RDS
2 2 (0.36%) Azure SQL Database
2 2 (0.36%) DynamoDB
2 2 (0.36%) Power BI
3 1 (0.18%) Data Lake
3 1 (0.18%) MySQL
3 1 (0.18%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.18%) Redis
3 1 (0.18%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.18%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 27 (4.92%) Jenkins
2 24 (4.37%) GitLab
3 23 (4.19%) Git
4 11 (2.00%) JIRA
5 4 (0.73%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.18%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.18%) Metasploit
6 1 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.18%) Subversion
General
1 165 (30.05%) Social Skills
2 80 (14.57%) Analytical Skills
3 55 (10.02%) Finance
4 42 (7.65%) Public Sector
5 33 (6.01%) Banking
6 24 (4.37%) Telecoms
7 17 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
8 14 (2.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 13 (2.37%) Investment Banking
10 11 (2.00%) Legal
11 10 (1.82%) Law
12 8 (1.46%) Pharmaceutical
13 7 (1.28%) Military
14 6 (1.09%) Financial Institution
15 5 (0.91%) Manufacturing
15 5 (0.91%) Presentation Skills
16 4 (0.73%) Aerospace
17 3 (0.55%) Local Government
17 3 (0.55%) Organisational Skills
18 2 (0.36%) German Language
Job Titles
1 120 (21.86%) Network Engineer
2 101 (18.40%) Architect
3 99 (18.03%) Security Engineer
4 60 (10.93%) Security Architect
4 60 (10.93%) Senior
5 55 (10.02%) Network Security Engineer
6 37 (6.74%) Network Architect
7 36 (6.56%) Analyst
8 32 (5.83%) Consultant
9 22 (4.01%) Lead
10 20 (3.64%) Administrator
10 20 (3.64%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 19 (3.46%) Network Security Architect
11 19 (3.46%) SOC Analyst
12 17 (3.10%) Cybersecurity Engineer
13 16 (2.91%) Azure Engineer
14 15 (2.73%) Security Consultant
14 15 (2.73%) Systems Administrator
14 15 (2.73%) Wintel Administrator
14 15 (2.73%) Wintel Systems Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (2.73%) 802.1X
2 13 (2.37%) LDAP
3 10 (1.82%) ARM Templates
4 7 (1.28%) YAML
5 6 (1.09%) ADO
5 6 (1.09%) SAML
6 4 (0.73%) Elastic Stack
6 4 (0.73%) SailPoint
7 3 (0.55%) .NET
7 3 (0.55%) Lambda Expressions
7 3 (0.55%) OAuth
7 3 (0.55%) Plotly
8 2 (0.36%) OAuth2
8 2 (0.36%) OpenID
9 1 (0.18%) gRPC
9 1 (0.18%) OLE
9 1 (0.18%) OpenTelemetry
9 1 (0.18%) RabbitMQ
9 1 (0.18%) Web Services
9 1 (0.18%) web3js
Miscellaneous
1 40 (7.29%) Data Centre
1 40 (7.29%) Management Information System
1 40 (7.29%) Security Posture
2 29 (5.28%) Hybrid Cloud
3 22 (4.01%) Security Operations Centre
4 21 (3.83%) PKI
5 17 (3.10%) Operational Technology
6 16 (2.91%) Cloud Native
6 16 (2.91%) Onboarding
7 15 (2.73%) Analytical Mindset
8 14 (2.55%) Cyber Threat
8 14 (2.55%) Data Protection Act
9 11 (2.00%) Cloud Security Posture
9 11 (2.00%) Product Ownership
9 11 (2.00%) SCADA
10 10 (1.82%) Cyberattack
10 10 (1.82%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 10 (1.82%) Public Cloud
11 9 (1.64%) CSOC
11 9 (1.64%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 76 (13.84%) Windows
2 59 (10.75%) Linux
3 20 (3.64%) Windows Server
4 8 (1.46%) Unix
5 5 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (0.73%) Windows Server 2019
7 3 (0.55%) Check Point GAiA
7 3 (0.55%) VMS
8 2 (0.36%) Windows Server 2003
9 1 (0.18%) CentOS
9 1 (0.18%) Kali Linux
9 1 (0.18%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.18%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.18%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 129 (23.50%) Cybersecurity
2 107 (19.49%) SIEM
3 99 (18.03%) Incident Response
4 97 (17.67%) Problem-Solving
5 88 (16.03%) Cloud Security
6 71 (12.93%) DevOps
7 69 (12.57%) Infrastructure as Code
8 65 (11.84%) CI/CD
9 58 (10.56%) Identity Access Management
10 52 (9.47%) High Availability
11 51 (9.29%) Security Architecture
12 50 (9.11%) Security Operations
12 50 (9.11%) Vulnerability Management
13 49 (8.93%) Zero Trust
14 48 (8.74%) Change Management
15 47 (8.56%) Network Architecture
16 46 (8.38%) Information Security
16 46 (8.38%) Infrastructure Automation
16 46 (8.38%) Threat Modelling
17 45 (8.20%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 110 (20.04%) Python
2 64 (11.66%) PowerShell
3 42 (7.65%) Bash
4 15 (2.73%) Bicep
5 9 (1.64%) Perl
6 8 (1.46%) Kusto Query Language
7 7 (1.28%) SQL
8 4 (0.73%) JavaScript
9 3 (0.55%) Java
10 2 (0.36%) C
10 2 (0.36%) C++
10 2 (0.36%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.18%) Rust
11 1 (0.18%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.18%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 154 (28.05%) Security Cleared
2 106 (19.31%) SC Cleared
3 95 (17.30%) Cisco Certification
4 70 (12.75%) CCNP
5 69 (12.57%) CISSP
6 55 (10.02%) Degree
7 43 (7.83%) CISM
7 43 (7.83%) DV Cleared
8 28 (5.10%) CCIE
9 27 (4.92%) Computer Science Degree
10 19 (3.46%) GIAC
11 16 (2.91%) CCSA
11 16 (2.91%) CEH
12 15 (2.73%) AWS Certification
12 15 (2.73%) CCNA
13 13 (2.37%) CCSE
14 12 (2.19%) Azure Certification
14 12 (2.19%) CCSP
15 11 (2.00%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 11 (2.00%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 79 (14.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 72 (13.11%) NIST
3 49 (8.93%) GDPR
4 35 (6.38%) PCI DSS
5 20 (3.64%) NCSC
6 17 (3.10%) HIPAA
7 14 (2.55%) GRC
8 10 (1.82%) Cyber Essentials
8 10 (1.82%) SOC 2
9 5 (0.91%) SLA
10 4 (0.73%) PSD2
10 4 (0.73%) QA
10 4 (0.73%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.55%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 3 (0.55%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.36%) GxP
12 2 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 2 (0.36%) JSP 440
System Software
1 38 (6.92%) Docker
2 36 (6.56%) Active Directory
3 28 (5.10%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (1.64%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (1.46%) Firmware
6 5 (0.91%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.73%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.55%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.36%) ProxySG
10 1 (0.18%) KVM
10 1 (0.18%) RACF
10 1 (0.18%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 64 (11.66%) Terraform
2 55 (10.02%) Ansible
3 26 (4.74%) Kubernetes
4 22 (4.01%) FortiGate
5 14 (2.55%) QRadar
6 6 (1.09%) CASB
6 6 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
7 5 (0.91%) Grafana
7 5 (0.91%) Nessus
7 5 (0.91%) Prometheus
7 5 (0.91%) SCCM
8 4 (0.73%) CA Spectrum
8 4 (0.73%) HP Fortify
8 4 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (0.73%) OpenView
9 2 (0.36%) Backup Exec
9 2 (0.36%) Jamf Pro
9 2 (0.36%) Kustomize
9 2 (0.36%) Puppet
9 2 (0.36%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 147 (26.78%) Cisco
2 101 (18.40%) Palo Alto
3 96 (17.49%) F5
4 84 (15.30%) Microsoft
5 63 (11.48%) CheckPoint
6 54 (9.84%) Fortinet
7 49 (8.93%) Zscaler
8 44 (8.01%) VMware
9 42 (7.65%) Juniper
10 37 (6.74%) Splunk
11 29 (5.28%) SolarWinds
12 26 (4.74%) CrowdStrike
13 23 (4.19%) Meraki
14 18 (3.28%) Google
15 13 (2.37%) ServiceNow
16 12 (2.19%) Qualys
17 11 (2.00%) ArcSight
17 11 (2.00%) Blue Coat
18 10 (1.82%) Forcepoint
18 10 (1.82%) Tenable