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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 168 169 167
Rank change year-on-year +1 -2 +61
Contract jobs citing Network Security 573 569 770
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.74% 1.49% 1.55%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 15.05% 12.54% 11.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 339 383 492
10th Percentile £380 £361 £400
25th Percentile £450 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.85% -1.82% +2.33%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £725 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £550 £532
% change year-on-year -10.55% +3.48% +6.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 7 10
10th Percentile £45.00 £32.90 £49.10
25th Percentile £55.00 £42.50 £66.00
Median hourly rate £70.16 £50.00 £67.25
Median % change year-on-year +40.32% -25.65% +33.21%
75th Percentile £84.09 £58.75 £75.06
90th Percentile £95.50 £82.79 £76.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.16 £53.75 £45.75
% change year-on-year +30.53% +17.49% -8.86%

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 3,807 4,537 6,564
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.56% 11.86% 13.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,354 2,642 4,185
10th Percentile £225 £225 £226
25th Percentile £363 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £476 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.80% - -
75th Percentile £588 £608 £613
90th Percentile £677 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £452 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -9.70% +11.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 198 255 300
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.16 £16.77
25th Percentile £25.15 £21.37 £22.94
Median hourly rate £43.00 £50.50 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -14.85% -10.60% +36.12%
75th Percentile £64.69 £65.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £75.70
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £57.35 £57.50
% change year-on-year -25.89% -0.26% +27.78%

Network Security
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Network Security as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Network Security 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 17 September 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 17 September 2025.

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 17 September 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 +7 499 £525 -2.60% 301
UK excluding London -1 291 £492 -10.55% 262
London +39 211 £550 +4.60% 94
Work from Home -33 161 £550 +5.77% 99
North of England -10 87 £490 -12.98% 43
Midlands -12 65 £525 -12.50% 37
South East -2 64 £450 -14.29% 101
North West 0 63 £475 -25.49% 17
West Midlands +2 61 £525 -19.23% 19
South West +34 34 £620 +7.83% 19
Yorkshire -14 31 £492 -1.60% 24
East of England +9 20 £475 +72.73% 51
Scotland +1 20 £450 +8.43% 13
Wales +1 4 £500 +127.27% 3
East Midlands -16 4 - - 15
Channel Islands - 2 £725 -
Northern Ireland - 1 £625 - 4

Network Security
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 8 (1.40%) Confluence
2 4 (0.70%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.17%) Apache
4 1 (0.17%) IIS
4 1 (0.17%) nginx
Applications
1 5 (0.87%) MS Visio
2 4 (0.70%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (0.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.35%) Chatbot
3 2 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 141 (24.61%) Azure
2 118 (20.59%) AWS
3 50 (8.73%) GCP
4 28 (4.89%) Microsoft 365
5 17 (2.97%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 16 (2.79%) Amazon S3
6 16 (2.79%) Azure Sentinel
6 16 (2.79%) Entra ID
7 15 (2.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 14 (2.44%) Akamai
8 14 (2.44%) Azure DevOps
9 13 (2.27%) Amazon EC2
9 13 (2.27%) Amazon ELB
9 13 (2.27%) AWS CloudFormation
9 13 (2.27%) GitHub
10 12 (2.09%) GitHub Actions
11 11 (1.92%) Azure Key Vault
12 9 (1.57%) IaaS
12 9 (1.57%) Serverless
13 8 (1.40%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 281 (49.04%) Firewall
2 137 (23.91%) VPN
3 98 (17.10%) DNS
4 96 (16.75%) WAN
5 83 (14.49%) BGP
6 72 (12.57%) TCP/IP
7 68 (11.87%) OSPF
8 65 (11.34%) SSL
9 56 (9.77%) LAN
10 53 (9.25%) SD-WAN
11 51 (8.90%) Wireless
12 45 (7.85%) VLAN
13 34 (5.93%) Cisco ISE
14 33 (5.76%) Intrusion Detection
15 31 (5.41%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 29 (5.06%) DHCP
17 24 (4.19%) IPsec
18 23 (4.01%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
19 21 (3.66%) Cisco ASA
19 21 (3.66%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.70%) GIS
2 3 (0.52%) Amazon Athena
2 3 (0.52%) Data Lake
3 2 (0.35%) Amazon RDS
3 2 (0.35%) DynamoDB
3 2 (0.35%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.17%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.17%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (0.17%) MySQL
4 1 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.17%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 24 (4.19%) Jenkins
2 20 (3.49%) GitLab
3 18 (3.14%) Git
4 12 (2.09%) JIRA
5 5 (0.87%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.17%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.17%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.17%) Subversion
General
1 167 (29.14%) Social Skills
2 75 (13.09%) Analytical Skills
3 73 (12.74%) Finance
4 40 (6.98%) Public Sector
5 36 (6.28%) Banking
6 31 (5.41%) Telecoms
7 15 (2.62%) Documentation Skills
8 12 (2.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 11 (1.92%) Law
10 10 (1.75%) Financial Institution
10 10 (1.75%) Legal
11 9 (1.57%) Investment Banking
12 8 (1.40%) Pharmaceutical
13 7 (1.22%) Military
14 6 (1.05%) Manufacturing
15 4 (0.70%) Aerospace
16 3 (0.52%) French Language
16 3 (0.52%) Retail
17 2 (0.35%) German Language
17 2 (0.35%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 126 (21.99%) Network Engineer
2 106 (18.50%) Security Engineer
3 105 (18.32%) Architect
4 61 (10.65%) Senior
5 58 (10.12%) Security Architect
6 57 (9.95%) Network Security Engineer
7 41 (7.16%) Network Architect
8 35 (6.11%) Analyst
8 35 (6.11%) Consultant
9 26 (4.54%) Lead
10 24 (4.19%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 21 (3.66%) Cybersecurity Engineer
12 20 (3.49%) Administrator
12 20 (3.49%) Network Security Architect
13 19 (3.32%) Security Consultant
14 18 (3.14%) SOC Analyst
15 15 (2.62%) Cloud Engineer
15 15 (2.62%) Senior Architect
15 15 (2.62%) Senior Network Engineer
15 15 (2.62%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (3.32%) 802.1X
2 14 (2.44%) LDAP
3 8 (1.40%) ARM Templates
4 7 (1.22%) YAML
5 6 (1.05%) ADO
6 4 (0.70%) Elastic Stack
6 4 (0.70%) SailPoint
6 4 (0.70%) SAML
7 3 (0.52%) Lambda Expressions
7 3 (0.52%) Plotly
8 2 (0.35%) OAuth
9 1 (0.17%) .NET
9 1 (0.17%) gRPC
9 1 (0.17%) HTML
9 1 (0.17%) JSON
9 1 (0.17%) OLE
9 1 (0.17%) OpenTelemetry
9 1 (0.17%) Web Services
9 1 (0.17%) web3js
9 1 (0.17%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 55 (9.60%) Data Centre
2 54 (9.42%) Security Posture
3 37 (6.46%) Management Information System
4 23 (4.01%) Hybrid Cloud
5 22 (3.84%) PKI
5 22 (3.84%) Security Operations Centre
6 21 (3.66%) Cyber Threat
7 17 (2.97%) Operational Technology
8 15 (2.62%) Data Protection Act
8 15 (2.62%) Onboarding
9 13 (2.27%) Cloud Native
10 12 (2.09%) Analytical Mindset
11 11 (1.92%) Cyberattack
11 11 (1.92%) SCADA
11 11 (1.92%) Self-Motivation
12 10 (1.75%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
13 9 (1.57%) Cloud Security Posture
13 9 (1.57%) Virtual Team
14 8 (1.40%) CSOC
14 8 (1.40%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 69 (12.04%) Windows
2 57 (9.95%) Linux
3 20 (3.49%) Windows Server
4 9 (1.57%) Unix
5 6 (1.05%) Check Point GAiA
6 5 (0.87%) Windows Server 2019
7 3 (0.52%) Mac OS
7 3 (0.52%) Windows Server 2003
8 2 (0.35%) CentOS
8 2 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.35%) VMS
9 1 (0.17%) CatOS
9 1 (0.17%) Kali Linux
9 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 135 (23.56%) Cybersecurity
2 109 (19.02%) SIEM
3 93 (16.23%) Cloud Security
4 92 (16.06%) Problem-Solving
5 86 (15.01%) Incident Response
6 64 (11.17%) Infrastructure as Code
7 62 (10.82%) Security Operations
8 60 (10.47%) High Availability
9 57 (9.95%) DevOps
10 56 (9.77%) Vulnerability Management
11 55 (9.60%) CI/CD
11 55 (9.60%) Network Architecture
12 51 (8.90%) Information Security
13 49 (8.55%) Identity Access Management
14 48 (8.38%) Migration
14 48 (8.38%) Zero Trust
15 45 (7.85%) Change Management
15 45 (7.85%) Security Architecture
16 44 (7.68%) Agile
16 44 (7.68%) Threat Modelling
Programming Languages
1 108 (18.85%) Python
2 62 (10.82%) PowerShell
3 35 (6.11%) Bash
4 12 (2.09%) Bicep
5 10 (1.75%) Kusto Query Language
5 10 (1.75%) Perl
6 7 (1.22%) SQL
7 4 (0.70%) JavaScript
8 2 (0.35%) C
8 2 (0.35%) C++
8 2 (0.35%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.17%) Java
9 1 (0.17%) PHP
9 1 (0.17%) Rust
9 1 (0.17%) T-SQL
9 1 (0.17%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 157 (27.40%) Security Cleared
2 115 (20.07%) Cisco Certification
3 110 (19.20%) SC Cleared
4 81 (14.14%) CCNP
5 64 (11.17%) CISSP
6 55 (9.60%) Degree
7 42 (7.33%) DV Cleared
8 40 (6.98%) CISM
9 33 (5.76%) CCIE
10 27 (4.71%) Computer Science Degree
11 20 (3.49%) CCSA
11 20 (3.49%) CEH
12 19 (3.32%) CCSE
13 18 (3.14%) CCNA
14 17 (2.97%) GIAC
15 14 (2.44%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 14 (2.44%) CCSP
16 11 (1.92%) AWS Certification
16 11 (1.92%) Azure Certification
16 11 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (12.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 69 (12.04%) NIST
3 35 (6.11%) GDPR
4 34 (5.93%) PCI DSS
5 16 (2.79%) HIPAA
5 16 (2.79%) NCSC
6 13 (2.27%) GRC
7 11 (1.92%) SLA
8 8 (1.40%) SOC 2
9 5 (0.87%) Cyber Essentials
10 4 (0.70%) QA
11 3 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.52%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.52%) PSD2
12 2 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 2 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 2 (0.35%) NIST 800
13 1 (0.17%) Def Stans
13 1 (0.17%) Disclosure Scotland
13 1 (0.17%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 35 (6.11%) Active Directory
2 29 (5.06%) Docker
3 24 (4.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.92%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (1.75%) Firmware
6 7 (1.22%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.70%) VMware NSX
8 3 (0.52%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.35%) vSphere
10 1 (0.17%) KVM
10 1 (0.17%) RACF
Systems Management
1 62 (10.82%) Terraform
2 60 (10.47%) Ansible
3 25 (4.36%) FortiGate
4 19 (3.32%) Kubernetes
5 15 (2.62%) QRadar
6 9 (1.57%) Nessus
7 8 (1.40%) CASB
8 5 (0.87%) CA Spectrum
8 5 (0.87%) HP Fortify
9 4 (0.70%) OpenView
9 4 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
10 3 (0.52%) Backup Exec
10 3 (0.52%) Grafana
10 3 (0.52%) Microsoft Intune
10 3 (0.52%) Prometheus
10 3 (0.52%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.35%) Cisco CUCM
11 2 (0.35%) Kibana
11 2 (0.35%) Puppet
11 2 (0.35%) SCCM
Vendors
1 169 (29.49%) Cisco
2 102 (17.80%) Palo Alto
3 86 (15.01%) Microsoft
4 85 (14.83%) F5
5 71 (12.39%) CheckPoint
6 63 (10.99%) Fortinet
7 45 (7.85%) Juniper
7 45 (7.85%) Zscaler
8 40 (6.98%) VMware
9 34 (5.93%) SolarWinds
10 33 (5.76%) Splunk
11 26 (4.54%) CrowdStrike
11 26 (4.54%) Meraki
12 19 (3.32%) Google
13 17 (2.97%) ServiceNow
14 15 (2.62%) Qualys
15 11 (1.92%) Tenable
16 10 (1.75%) ArcSight
16 10 (1.75%) Forcepoint
17 9 (1.57%) Symantec