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

6 months to
15 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 169 137 157
Rank change year-on-year -32 +20 +59
Contract jobs citing Network Security 719 598 712
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.66% 2.01% 1.60%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 16.37% 15.04% 11.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 483 369 492
10th Percentile £350 £339 £400
25th Percentile £425 £419 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -6.36% -
75th Percentile £600 £613 £650
90th Percentile £698 £675 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £575
% change year-on-year - -13.04% +9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 13 19
10th Percentile £36.61 £21.80 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £36.00 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.00 £41.00 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +58.54% +78.26% -42.21%
75th Percentile £77.19 £81.01 £41.25
90th Percentile £92.75 £81.95 £65.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.25 £80.68 £10.47
% change year-on-year -25.32% +670.90% -77.30%

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 4,391 3,975 5,956
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.16% 13.37% 13.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,837 2,439 3,581
10th Percentile £213 £210 £205
25th Percentile £368 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £498 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.01% +4.74% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £473 £475
% change year-on-year +0.53% -0.53% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 182 142 391
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.21 £21.46 £18.93
Median hourly rate £40.02 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +14.34% +7.69% +71.05%
75th Percentile £67.44 £63.06 £63.75
90th Percentile £79.95 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.25 £32.50 £45.88
% change year-on-year +30.00% -29.16% +148.00%

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 March 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 March 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 March 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 -22 636 £500 -7.41% 207
UK excluding London -20 360 £500 - 163
London -23 271 £525 -4.55% 74
Work from Home -12 193 £524 +4.75% 88
North of England -24 126 £481 -3.75% 42
South East -16 102 £500 -4.76% 45
North West +5 80 £492 -1.60% 34
Midlands -21 65 £500 -14.02% 22
Yorkshire -31 53 £335 -2.33% 7
West Midlands -31 53 £500 -14.02% 15
South West -33 29 £538 -2.27% 20
East of England -29 27 £475 -13.64% 27
Scotland +9 26 £543 +27.65% 6
East Midlands -27 12 £638 +50.00% 7
Wales -22 3 £513 +73.73% 4
North East -12 2 £475 -24.00% 1
Northern Ireland - 2 £500 - 1

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 (2.64%) Confluence
2 5 (0.70%) Apache
2 5 (0.70%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.14%) nginx
4 1 (0.14%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 19 (2.64%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.39%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.28%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.14%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 5 (0.70%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 223 (31.02%) Azure
2 155 (21.56%) AWS
3 87 (12.10%) GCP
4 54 (7.51%) Entra ID
5 35 (4.87%) GitHub
6 30 (4.17%) GitHub Actions
7 27 (3.76%) Azure DevOps
8 26 (3.62%) Azure Sentinel
9 21 (2.92%) Azure Key Vault
9 21 (2.92%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 17 (2.36%) AWS CloudFormation
10 17 (2.36%) Microsoft 365
11 16 (2.23%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 15 (2.09%) Azure Monitor
13 14 (1.95%) Amazon S3
13 14 (1.95%) Azure AKS
13 14 (1.95%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 13 (1.81%) Akamai
15 12 (1.67%) Power Platform
15 12 (1.67%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 352 (48.96%) Firewall
2 140 (19.47%) VPN
3 126 (17.52%) WAN
4 100 (13.91%) LAN
5 95 (13.21%) BGP
6 82 (11.40%) DNS
7 79 (10.99%) OSPF
8 65 (9.04%) SD-WAN
8 65 (9.04%) VLAN
9 55 (7.65%) TCP/IP
10 47 (6.54%) Wireless
11 43 (5.98%) MPLS
12 39 (5.42%) Cisco ASA
13 37 (5.15%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 30 (4.17%) DHCP
14 30 (4.17%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
14 30 (4.17%) Wi-Fi
15 29 (4.03%) Internet
15 29 (4.03%) SSL
16 26 (3.62%) DMZ
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (1.25%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
2 5 (0.70%) Power BI
3 4 (0.56%) InfluxDB
3 4 (0.56%) Relational Database
4 3 (0.42%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.42%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.28%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.14%) Redis
6 1 (0.14%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 27 (3.76%) JIRA
2 23 (3.20%) Jenkins
3 19 (2.64%) GitLab
4 12 (1.67%) Git
5 7 (0.97%) Snyk
5 7 (0.97%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.42%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (0.14%) JUnit
7 1 (0.14%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.14%) Postman
7 1 (0.14%) Zephyr
General
1 192 (26.70%) Social Skills
2 106 (14.74%) Finance
3 87 (12.10%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (8.21%) Public Sector
5 37 (5.15%) Banking
6 30 (4.17%) Documentation Skills
7 26 (3.62%) Telecoms
8 21 (2.92%) Financial Institution
9 11 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 9 (1.25%) Investment Banking
10 9 (1.25%) Legal
11 8 (1.11%) Manufacturing
12 7 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
13 6 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
14 5 (0.70%) Influencing Skills
14 5 (0.70%) Local Government
14 5 (0.70%) Pharmaceutical
15 4 (0.56%) Military
16 3 (0.42%) Electronics
16 3 (0.42%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 165 (22.95%) Architect
2 158 (21.97%) Network Engineer
3 86 (11.96%) Security Engineer
4 82 (11.40%) Security Architect
5 61 (8.48%) Network Architect
6 53 (7.37%) Senior
7 37 (5.15%) Network Security Engineer
8 31 (4.31%) Analyst
9 27 (3.76%) Network Security Architect
10 25 (3.48%) Lead
11 20 (2.78%) Azure Architect
12 19 (2.64%) Cloud Architect
12 19 (2.64%) Cloud Engineer
12 19 (2.64%) Consultant
12 19 (2.64%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 18 (2.50%) Security Analyst
14 17 (2.36%) Administrator
14 17 (2.36%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 17 (2.36%) Solutions Architect
15 15 (2.09%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (3.34%) 802.1X
2 13 (1.81%) LDAP
3 8 (1.11%) .NET
3 8 (1.11%) Node.js
3 8 (1.11%) SAML
4 6 (0.83%) ARM Templates
4 6 (0.83%) REST
5 5 (0.70%) .NET Core
5 5 (0.70%) AngularJS
5 5 (0.70%) OAuth
5 5 (0.70%) OAuth2
5 5 (0.70%) OpenID
5 5 (0.70%) PyTorch
5 5 (0.70%) RabbitMQ
5 5 (0.70%) React
5 5 (0.70%) TensorFlow
6 4 (0.56%) Elastic Stack
6 4 (0.56%) HTML
7 3 (0.42%) Lambda Expressions
7 3 (0.42%) Plotly
Miscellaneous
1 95 (13.21%) Data Centre
2 44 (6.12%) Cloud Native
2 44 (6.12%) Security Posture
3 41 (5.70%) Hybrid Cloud
4 29 (4.03%) Management Information System
5 27 (3.76%) PKI
5 27 (3.76%) Public Cloud
6 22 (3.06%) Onboarding
6 22 (3.06%) Operational Technology
7 21 (2.92%) IoT
8 19 (2.64%) Product Ownership
9 18 (2.50%) Data Protection Act
10 16 (2.23%) Analytical Mindset
10 16 (2.23%) Cyber Threat
10 16 (2.23%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 15 (2.09%) Security Operations Centre
12 11 (1.53%) Cyber Security Posture
13 8 (1.11%) BYOD
13 8 (1.11%) CSOC
13 8 (1.11%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 78 (10.85%) Windows
2 61 (8.48%) Linux
3 27 (3.76%) Windows Server
4 11 (1.53%) Unix
5 8 (1.11%) VMS
6 7 (0.97%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.70%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.14%) Android
8 1 (0.14%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.14%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 166 (23.09%) Cybersecurity
2 117 (16.27%) Problem-Solving
3 110 (15.30%) Cloud Security
4 106 (14.74%) Security Architecture
5 104 (14.46%) Zero Trust
6 102 (14.19%) SIEM
7 101 (14.05%) CI/CD
7 101 (14.05%) Migration
8 96 (13.35%) Infrastructure as Code
9 93 (12.93%) DevOps
10 76 (10.57%) Incident Response
11 71 (9.87%) Continuous Improvement
12 70 (9.74%) Network Segmentation
13 69 (9.60%) Change Management
14 66 (9.18%) Threat Modelling
15 64 (8.90%) Identity Access Management
16 61 (8.48%) Agile
16 61 (8.48%) Security Operations
17 59 (8.21%) Stakeholder Management
18 58 (8.07%) Load Balancing
Programming Languages
1 109 (15.16%) Python
2 61 (8.48%) PowerShell
3 27 (3.76%) Bash
3 27 (3.76%) Bicep
4 26 (3.62%) SQL
5 25 (3.48%) JavaScript
6 15 (2.09%) Kusto Query Language
7 9 (1.25%) Go
7 9 (1.25%) Java
8 6 (0.83%) Shell Script
9 5 (0.70%) C#
10 4 (0.56%) C
10 4 (0.56%) PHP
11 3 (0.42%) C++
12 2 (0.28%) C-shell
12 2 (0.28%) Korn
13 1 (0.14%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.14%) AppleScript
13 1 (0.14%) Perl
13 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 220 (30.60%) Security Cleared
2 156 (21.70%) SC Cleared
3 128 (17.80%) Cisco Certification
4 100 (13.91%) CCNP
5 93 (12.93%) CISSP
6 75 (10.43%) DV Cleared
7 50 (6.95%) CISM
7 50 (6.95%) Degree
8 47 (6.54%) CCNA
9 30 (4.17%) CCIE
10 26 (3.62%) GIAC
11 21 (2.92%) Azure Certification
11 21 (2.92%) CEH
12 18 (2.50%) CompTIA Security+
13 17 (2.36%) AWS Certification
14 16 (2.23%) CCSP
15 15 (2.09%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 14 (1.95%) TOGAF Certification
17 13 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
18 12 (1.67%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (12.24%) NIST
2 74 (10.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 51 (7.09%) GDPR
4 36 (5.01%) PCI DSS
5 20 (2.78%) Cyber Essentials
6 19 (2.64%) NCSC
7 15 (2.09%) GRC
8 14 (1.95%) SLA
9 10 (1.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 9 (1.25%) SOC 2
11 7 (0.97%) Actionable Recommendations
11 7 (0.97%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 6 (0.83%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 6 (0.83%) QA
13 5 (0.70%) PMO
14 4 (0.56%) HIPAA
14 4 (0.56%) JSP 440
14 4 (0.56%) RMADS
15 2 (0.28%) GxP
15 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 48 (6.68%) VMware Infrastructure
2 46 (6.40%) Active Directory
3 27 (3.76%) Docker
4 23 (3.20%) VMware NSX
5 9 (1.25%) vSphere
6 8 (1.11%) Hyper-V
6 8 (1.11%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.83%) Firmware
7 6 (0.83%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.56%) ProxySG
9 3 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.14%) KVM
10 1 (0.14%) NFS
10 1 (0.14%) Postfix
10 1 (0.14%) RHEV
10 1 (0.14%) Sendmail
10 1 (0.14%) Varnish
10 1 (0.14%) Xen
10 1 (0.14%) XenApp
10 1 (0.14%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 115 (15.99%) Terraform
2 69 (9.60%) Ansible
3 55 (7.65%) Kubernetes
4 27 (3.76%) FortiGate
5 15 (2.09%) Microsoft Intune
5 15 (2.09%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (1.95%) Nagios
7 12 (1.67%) Kibana
8 8 (1.11%) Grafana
9 7 (0.97%) Prometheus
9 7 (0.97%) vCenter Server
10 6 (0.83%) Microsoft Clustering
11 5 (0.70%) CASB
12 4 (0.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.56%) Istio
12 4 (0.56%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.56%) Puppet
13 3 (0.42%) Network Intrusion Detection System
13 3 (0.42%) SCCM
13 3 (0.42%) SCOM
Vendors
1 197 (27.40%) Cisco
2 117 (16.27%) Microsoft
3 116 (16.13%) Palo Alto
4 78 (10.85%) F5
5 63 (8.76%) VMware
6 60 (8.34%) Juniper
7 54 (7.51%) Fortinet
8 52 (7.23%) CheckPoint
9 43 (5.98%) Zscaler
10 29 (4.03%) Google
10 29 (4.03%) Splunk
11 28 (3.89%) ServiceNow
12 18 (2.50%) Aruba
12 18 (2.50%) Meraki
12 18 (2.50%) SolarWinds
12 18 (2.50%) Tenable
13 15 (2.09%) Databricks
13 15 (2.09%) ForeScout
14 13 (1.81%) Okta
15 12 (1.67%) Arista