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 15 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 182 133 144
Rank change year-on-year -49 +11 +112
Contract jobs citing Network Security 585 622 719
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.58% 1.95% 1.70%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 15.00% 15.21% 12.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 352 389 497
10th Percentile £350 £350 £404
25th Percentile £413 £425 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £560
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -8.93% +1.82%
75th Percentile £580 £620 £650
90th Percentile £687 £700 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £550
% change year-on-year -5.00% -9.09% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 12 6
10th Percentile £36.90 £20.15 £50.63
25th Percentile £48.94 £35.75 £64.06
Median hourly rate £65.50 £41.00 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.76% -43.45% +93.33%
75th Percentile £77.19 £47.50 £76.25
90th Percentile £92.75 £49.75 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £43.00 £72.50
% change year-on-year +51.16% -40.69% +93.33%

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 3,899 4,090 5,753
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.51% 12.85% 13.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,557 2,397 3,542
10th Percentile £205 £213 £210
25th Percentile £356 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -2.44%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £687 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £470 £475
% change year-on-year -4.26% -1.05% +3.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 163 137 328
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.13 £17.74
25th Percentile £18.94 £21.25 £23.07
Median hourly rate £34.00 £32.50 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year +4.62% -42.47% +125.96%
75th Percentile £65.00 £52.50 £65.98
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.00 £75.08
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £31.08 £60.00
% change year-on-year +34.94% -48.20% +172.73%

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 15 January 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 15 January 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 15 January 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 -32 522 £500 -4.76% 262
UK excluding London -49 280 £475 -5.00% 234
London -19 232 £540 +0.37% 86
Work from Home -31 151 £515 +3.00% 84
North of England -25 102 £469 -6.23% 52
North West +3 70 £476 -3.54% 31
South East -15 70 £430 -21.82% 74
Midlands -22 58 £475 -18.52% 30
West Midlands -8 53 £438 -27.27% 18
Yorkshire -43 44 £205 -59.00% 17
East of England -24 24 £475 -14.80% 23
Scotland +4 20 £475 +18.75% 18
South West -30 20 £533 +1.43% 31
East Midlands -36 5 £650 +114.88% 12
Northern Ireland - 3 £500 - 3
North East -11 2 £475 -41.72% 4
Wales -11 2 £700 +139.32% 7

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 7 (1.20%) Confluence
2 6 (1.03%) SharePoint
3 5 (0.85%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (0.68%) Apache
5 1 (0.17%) IIS
5 1 (0.17%) nginx
5 1 (0.17%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 16 (2.74%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.71%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.17%) Windchill
Cloud Services
1 178 (30.43%) Azure
2 139 (23.76%) AWS
3 54 (9.23%) GCP
4 33 (5.64%) Entra ID
5 25 (4.27%) GitHub
5 25 (4.27%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 24 (4.10%) Amazon S3
6 24 (4.10%) Microsoft 365
7 22 (3.76%) GitHub Actions
8 20 (3.42%) Amazon EC2
8 20 (3.42%) Azure DevOps
9 18 (3.08%) Azure Sentinel
10 16 (2.74%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 16 (2.74%) Amazon ELB
11 15 (2.56%) Azure Key Vault
12 13 (2.22%) Serverless
13 12 (2.05%) IaaS
14 11 (1.88%) Azure Monitor
14 11 (1.88%) Google Workspace
15 10 (1.71%) Azure ExpressRoute
Communications & Networking
1 294 (50.26%) Firewall
2 125 (21.37%) VPN
3 91 (15.56%) WAN
4 86 (14.70%) DNS
5 68 (11.62%) LAN
6 60 (10.26%) TCP/IP
7 58 (9.91%) BGP
8 53 (9.06%) VLAN
9 52 (8.89%) SSL
10 45 (7.69%) OSPF
11 39 (6.67%) SD-WAN
12 36 (6.15%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
13 33 (5.64%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
13 33 (5.64%) Wireless
14 32 (5.47%) DMZ
15 29 (4.96%) Internet
16 22 (3.76%) Intrusion Detection
17 17 (2.91%) IPsec
17 17 (2.91%) Wi-Fi
17 17 (2.91%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
1 4 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
1 4 (0.68%) InfluxDB
1 4 (0.68%) Relational Database
2 3 (0.51%) Amazon Athena
3 2 (0.34%) Data Lake
3 2 (0.34%) Power BI
3 2 (0.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.17%) Redis
4 1 (0.17%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.17%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 30 (5.13%) Jenkins
2 22 (3.76%) GitLab
3 21 (3.59%) Git
4 4 (0.68%) JIRA
5 1 (0.17%) Metasploit
5 1 (0.17%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.17%) Subversion
General
1 177 (30.26%) Social Skills
2 88 (15.04%) Analytical Skills
3 63 (10.77%) Finance
4 51 (8.72%) Public Sector
5 34 (5.81%) Banking
6 24 (4.10%) Telecoms
7 22 (3.76%) Documentation Skills
8 15 (2.56%) Investment Banking
9 13 (2.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 9 (1.54%) Manufacturing
10 9 (1.54%) Military
11 8 (1.37%) Pharmaceutical
12 7 (1.20%) Legal
12 7 (1.20%) Presentation Skills
13 5 (0.85%) Financial Institution
13 5 (0.85%) Influencing Skills
13 5 (0.85%) Organisational Skills
14 4 (0.68%) Local Government
14 4 (0.68%) Marketing
15 3 (0.51%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 127 (21.71%) Network Engineer
2 106 (18.12%) Architect
3 89 (15.21%) Security Engineer
4 66 (11.28%) Security Architect
5 48 (8.21%) Senior
6 45 (7.69%) Network Architect
7 40 (6.84%) Network Security Engineer
8 32 (5.47%) Analyst
9 23 (3.93%) Network Security Architect
10 22 (3.76%) Cybersecurity Engineer
11 20 (3.42%) Lead
12 19 (3.25%) Administrator
13 18 (3.08%) Cloud Engineer
13 18 (3.08%) Security Analyst
14 17 (2.91%) Consultant
14 17 (2.91%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
15 16 (2.74%) Operations Engineer
16 15 (2.56%) IT Support
16 15 (2.56%) Wintel Administrator
16 15 (2.56%) Wintel Systems Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (2.39%) 802.1X
2 9 (1.54%) LDAP
3 8 (1.37%) .NET
3 8 (1.37%) Node.js
4 6 (1.03%) SAML
5 5 (0.85%) .NET Core
5 5 (0.85%) AngularJS
5 5 (0.85%) ARM Templates
5 5 (0.85%) Elastic Stack
5 5 (0.85%) PyTorch
5 5 (0.85%) RabbitMQ
5 5 (0.85%) React
5 5 (0.85%) TensorFlow
6 3 (0.51%) HTML
6 3 (0.51%) Lambda Expressions
6 3 (0.51%) Plotly
7 2 (0.34%) CSS
7 2 (0.34%) OAuth
7 2 (0.34%) OpenID
7 2 (0.34%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 70 (11.97%) Data Centre
2 37 (6.32%) Management Information System
3 36 (6.15%) Security Posture
4 34 (5.81%) Hybrid Cloud
5 28 (4.79%) Cloud Native
6 27 (4.62%) PKI
7 19 (3.25%) Cyber Threat
7 19 (3.25%) Onboarding
7 19 (3.25%) Public Cloud
8 16 (2.74%) Analytical Mindset
8 16 (2.74%) Security Operations Centre
9 15 (2.56%) Operational Technology
10 14 (2.39%) Cyber Security Posture
11 11 (1.88%) Data Protection Act
11 11 (1.88%) IoT
12 10 (1.71%) Cloud Security Posture
12 10 (1.71%) CSOC
12 10 (1.71%) Virtual Team
13 8 (1.37%) Cyberattack
14 7 (1.20%) Cyber Kill Chain
Operating Systems
1 90 (15.38%) Windows
2 66 (11.28%) Linux
3 28 (4.79%) Windows Server
4 14 (2.39%) Unix
5 8 (1.37%) VMS
6 4 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.51%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.17%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.17%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.17%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 136 (23.25%) Cybersecurity
2 113 (19.32%) Problem-Solving
2 113 (19.32%) SIEM
3 98 (16.75%) Incident Response
4 94 (16.07%) Cloud Security
5 85 (14.53%) CI/CD
6 77 (13.16%) DevOps
7 76 (12.99%) Infrastructure as Code
8 72 (12.31%) Zero Trust
9 66 (11.28%) Migration
10 63 (10.77%) Security Architecture
11 60 (10.26%) Change Management
12 57 (9.74%) Threat Modelling
13 55 (9.40%) Identity Access Management
14 51 (8.72%) Network Architecture
15 49 (8.38%) Load Balancing
16 48 (8.21%) Infrastructure Automation
17 47 (8.03%) Continuous Improvement
17 47 (8.03%) Vulnerability Management
18 46 (7.86%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 115 (19.66%) Python
2 71 (12.14%) PowerShell
3 37 (6.32%) Bash
4 19 (3.25%) SQL
5 14 (2.39%) Bicep
5 14 (2.39%) JavaScript
6 12 (2.05%) Kusto Query Language
7 10 (1.71%) Java
8 9 (1.54%) Go
9 5 (0.85%) C
9 5 (0.85%) C#
9 5 (0.85%) C++
10 4 (0.68%) Perl
10 4 (0.68%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.34%) C-shell
11 2 (0.34%) Korn
12 1 (0.17%) Rust
12 1 (0.17%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 192 (32.82%) Security Cleared
2 143 (24.44%) SC Cleared
3 114 (19.49%) Cisco Certification
4 88 (15.04%) CCNP
5 78 (13.33%) CISSP
6 57 (9.74%) DV Cleared
7 42 (7.18%) Degree
8 38 (6.50%) CCNA
9 33 (5.64%) CISM
10 30 (5.13%) CCIE
11 24 (4.10%) CEH
11 24 (4.10%) GIAC
12 23 (3.93%) Azure Certification
13 16 (2.74%) AWS Certification
13 16 (2.74%) CompTIA Security+
14 14 (2.39%) Computer Science Degree
15 13 (2.22%) CCSP
16 12 (2.05%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 10 (1.71%) CCSE
17 10 (1.71%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (11.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 65 (11.11%) NIST
3 40 (6.84%) GDPR
4 26 (4.44%) PCI DSS
5 17 (2.91%) NCSC
6 16 (2.74%) Cyber Essentials
7 7 (1.20%) HIPAA
8 6 (1.03%) GRC
8 6 (1.03%) SLA
9 5 (0.85%) JSP 440
9 5 (0.85%) PSD2
9 5 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 5 (0.85%) SOC 2
10 4 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 3 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.51%) PMO
11 3 (0.51%) RMADS
12 2 (0.34%) GxP
12 2 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 2 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 42 (7.18%) VMware Infrastructure
2 38 (6.50%) Active Directory
2 38 (6.50%) Docker
3 10 (1.71%) Hyper-V
3 10 (1.71%) VMware NSX
4 8 (1.37%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.85%) vSphere
6 4 (0.68%) Firmware
6 4 (0.68%) ProxySG
7 3 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.34%) KVM
8 2 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.17%) RACF
9 1 (0.17%) RHEV
9 1 (0.17%) Xen
9 1 (0.17%) XenApp
9 1 (0.17%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 101 (17.26%) Terraform
2 66 (11.28%) Ansible
3 36 (6.15%) Kubernetes
4 21 (3.59%) FortiGate
5 13 (2.22%) Nagios
6 11 (1.88%) QRadar
7 10 (1.71%) Kibana
8 9 (1.54%) Microsoft Intune
9 7 (1.20%) Grafana
9 7 (1.20%) Prometheus
10 6 (1.03%) Microsoft Clustering
10 6 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
11 4 (0.68%) CASB
11 4 (0.68%) Progress Chef
12 3 (0.51%) Icinga
12 3 (0.51%) Puppet
12 3 (0.51%) SCCM
13 2 (0.34%) Docker Swarm
13 2 (0.34%) Jamf Pro
14 1 (0.17%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 151 (25.81%) Cisco
2 115 (19.66%) Palo Alto
3 93 (15.90%) Microsoft
4 84 (14.36%) F5
5 60 (10.26%) CheckPoint
6 50 (8.55%) VMware
7 45 (7.69%) Juniper
8 43 (7.35%) Fortinet
8 43 (7.35%) Zscaler
9 29 (4.96%) Splunk
10 26 (4.44%) Google
11 23 (3.93%) SolarWinds
12 21 (3.59%) Meraki
13 16 (2.74%) ServiceNow
14 15 (2.56%) CrowdStrike
15 13 (2.22%) Aruba
15 13 (2.22%) Blue Coat
16 12 (2.05%) Tenable
17 10 (1.71%) Forcepoint
17 10 (1.71%) Tanium