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

6 months to
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 154 148 185
Rank change year-on-year -6 +37 -10
Contract jobs citing Network Security 849 559 555
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.71% 1.91% 1.28%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.68% 15.22% 10.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 582 336 380
10th Percentile £400 £363 £374
25th Percentile £448 £450 £458
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £514 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.19% -6.59% -
75th Percentile £619 £606 £667
90th Percentile £700 £688 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £519 £490 £575
% change year-on-year +5.92% -14.78% +9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 9 18
10th Percentile £26.60 £65.13 -
25th Percentile £37.34 £80.34 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.50 £81.35 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.48% +287.38% -61.82%
75th Percentile £74.00 £82.10 £41.25
90th Percentile £74.18 £87.20 £45.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.00 £81.35 £7.43
% change year-on-year -18.87% +994.89% -66.62%

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 4,801 3,672 5,408
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.66% 12.54% 12.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,942 2,266 3,205
10th Percentile £263 £216 £206
25th Percentile £400 £360 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £495
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -3.03% -3.41%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £466 £485
% change year-on-year +2.04% -3.92% +2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 283 165 420
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £27.88 £41.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.82% +3.75% +116.22%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.13 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £80.61 £70.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £31.08 £47.50
% change year-on-year +4.57% -34.57% +156.76%

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 9 June 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 9 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Security in the UK

Network Security
Top 16 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 9 June 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 -8 732 £525 - 263
UK excluding London -18 411 £519 +5.92% 248
London +5 320 £550 -4.35% 77
Work from Home +5 253 £539 +7.75% 111
North of England +6 160 £500 - 64
South East -16 108 £510 +4.08% 71
North West +5 88 £500 -0.99% 42
Yorkshire -17 70 £500 +2.04% 19
Midlands -47 49 £450 -18.18% 34
Scotland +1 34 £538 +26.47% 23
East of England -25 33 £525 -8.70% 22
South West -27 31 £550 -2.22% 24
West Midlands -60 30 £435 -20.91% 18
East Midlands -14 18 £638 - 16
Wales -20 3 £600 +103.39% 14
North East -24 2 £675 +8.00% 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 22 (2.59%) Confluence
2 13 (1.53%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (0.94%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.24%) Apache
5 1 (0.12%) NetWeaver
5 1 (0.12%) nginx
Applications
1 15 (1.77%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (1.41%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.12%) InfoPath
5 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (0.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 265 (31.21%) Azure
2 186 (21.91%) AWS
3 113 (13.31%) GCP
4 69 (8.13%) Entra ID
5 34 (4.00%) GitHub
6 28 (3.30%) Azure Sentinel
7 27 (3.18%) Azure DevOps
7 27 (3.18%) GitHub Actions
8 22 (2.59%) Microsoft 365
8 22 (2.59%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 21 (2.47%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 19 (2.24%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 19 (2.24%) SaaS
11 18 (2.12%) AWS CloudFormation
12 17 (2.00%) Azure Key Vault
13 16 (1.88%) Akamai
13 16 (1.88%) AWS Direct Connect
13 16 (1.88%) Azure AKS
13 16 (1.88%) Azure Monitor
13 16 (1.88%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 381 (44.88%) Firewall
2 171 (20.14%) VPN
3 149 (17.55%) WAN
4 119 (14.02%) LAN
5 101 (11.90%) BGP
6 100 (11.78%) DNS
7 88 (10.37%) OSPF
8 82 (9.66%) SD-WAN
9 80 (9.42%) VLAN
10 71 (8.36%) Wireless
11 70 (8.24%) TCP/IP
12 53 (6.24%) DHCP
13 51 (6.01%) MPLS
14 45 (5.30%) IPsec
15 43 (5.06%) SSL
16 39 (4.59%) Wi-Fi
17 37 (4.36%) Cisco ISE
18 33 (3.89%) Cisco ASA
19 32 (3.77%) Internet
20 30 (3.53%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (0.59%) SQL Server
3 4 (0.47%) Amazon RDS
3 4 (0.47%) Neo4j
4 3 (0.35%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.35%) Elasticsearch
4 3 (0.35%) InfluxDB
4 3 (0.35%) Power BI
5 2 (0.24%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.24%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.24%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.24%) Relational Database
5 2 (0.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.12%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.12%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 41 (4.83%) JIRA
2 24 (2.83%) GitLab
3 23 (2.71%) Jenkins
4 20 (2.36%) Git
5 8 (0.94%) Sonatype Nexus
6 7 (0.82%) Snyk
7 5 (0.59%) Browser DevTools
8 3 (0.35%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.35%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.24%) Postman
10 1 (0.12%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.12%) Claude Code
10 1 (0.12%) JUnit
10 1 (0.12%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.12%) Zephyr
General
1 188 (22.14%) Social Skills
2 128 (15.08%) Finance
3 65 (7.66%) Analytical Skills
3 65 (7.66%) Public Sector
4 48 (5.65%) Banking
5 39 (4.59%) Documentation Skills
6 24 (2.83%) Telecoms
7 21 (2.47%) Financial Institution
8 11 (1.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 11 (1.30%) Legal
9 10 (1.18%) Retail
10 8 (0.94%) Police
11 7 (0.82%) Manufacturing
11 7 (0.82%) Organisational Skills
12 6 (0.71%) Law
12 6 (0.71%) Local Government
13 5 (0.59%) Influencing Skills
13 5 (0.59%) Military
14 3 (0.35%) Billing
14 3 (0.35%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 221 (26.03%) Network Engineer
2 183 (21.55%) Architect
3 107 (12.60%) Security Engineer
4 91 (10.72%) Security Architect
5 81 (9.54%) Senior
6 61 (7.18%) Network Architect
7 56 (6.60%) Network Security Engineer
8 38 (4.48%) Project Manager
9 37 (4.36%) Consultant
10 31 (3.65%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 30 (3.53%) Lead
12 28 (3.30%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 27 (3.18%) Senior Network Engineer
14 26 (3.06%) Cloud Engineer
14 26 (3.06%) Network Security Architect
15 23 (2.71%) Azure Architect
16 22 (2.59%) Cloud Architect
17 21 (2.47%) Solutions Architect
18 20 (2.36%) Analyst
18 20 (2.36%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (4.12%) 802.1X
2 14 (1.65%) SAML
3 12 (1.41%) REST
4 10 (1.18%) LDAP
5 8 (0.94%) Kafka
6 7 (0.82%) ARM Templates
6 7 (0.82%) OAuth
7 6 (0.71%) CSS
7 6 (0.71%) HTML
7 6 (0.71%) OpenID
7 6 (0.71%) SLSA
8 5 (0.59%) OAuth2
9 4 (0.47%) AWS CDK
10 3 (0.35%) gRPC
10 3 (0.35%) Keycloak
10 3 (0.35%) Lambda Expressions
10 3 (0.35%) Plotly
10 3 (0.35%) Protocol Buffers
10 3 (0.35%) RabbitMQ
10 3 (0.35%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 126 (14.84%) Data Centre
2 54 (6.36%) Security Posture
3 50 (5.89%) Cloud Native
4 42 (4.95%) Hybrid Cloud
5 31 (3.65%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 30 (3.53%) Onboarding
7 29 (3.42%) PKI
8 25 (2.94%) Data Protection Act
9 23 (2.71%) Public Cloud
10 22 (2.59%) Operational Technology
11 21 (2.47%) Management Information System
12 19 (2.24%) Cyber Threat
12 19 (2.24%) IoT
12 19 (2.24%) Product Ownership
13 16 (1.88%) Security Operations Centre
14 14 (1.65%) Self-Motivation
15 11 (1.30%) Cyber Security Posture
16 10 (1.18%) Replication
17 9 (1.06%) Virtual Team
18 8 (0.94%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 68 (8.01%) Windows
2 66 (7.77%) Linux
3 25 (2.94%) Windows Server
4 9 (1.06%) VMS
5 8 (0.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.71%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.59%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.59%) Unix
7 5 (0.59%) Windows 10
8 3 (0.35%) SUSE
9 2 (0.24%) Android
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 177 (20.85%) Cybersecurity
2 143 (16.84%) Cloud Security
3 136 (16.02%) Zero Trust
4 117 (13.78%) CI/CD
5 115 (13.55%) Security Architecture
6 113 (13.31%) Infrastructure as Code
6 113 (13.31%) Migration
7 110 (12.96%) DevOps
7 110 (12.96%) SIEM
8 91 (10.72%) Continuous Improvement
8 91 (10.72%) High Availability
9 85 (10.01%) Problem-Solving
10 83 (9.78%) Network Segmentation
11 82 (9.66%) Threat Modelling
12 81 (9.54%) Application Security
12 81 (9.54%) Incident Response
13 78 (9.19%) Identity Access Management
14 77 (9.07%) Data Protection
15 76 (8.95%) Stakeholder Management
16 74 (8.72%) Agile
Programming Languages
1 109 (12.84%) Python
2 52 (6.12%) PowerShell
3 34 (4.00%) Bash
4 28 (3.30%) Bicep
5 19 (2.24%) JavaScript
5 19 (2.24%) SQL
6 10 (1.18%) Kusto Query Language
7 8 (0.94%) Shell Script
8 7 (0.82%) Java
9 4 (0.47%) C
9 4 (0.47%) PHP
10 3 (0.35%) C++
10 3 (0.35%) Rust
11 2 (0.24%) Go
11 2 (0.24%) Perl
11 2 (0.24%) Ruby
12 1 (0.12%) ActionScript
12 1 (0.12%) AppleScript
12 1 (0.12%) VBA
Qualifications
1 248 (29.21%) Security Cleared
2 186 (21.91%) SC Cleared
3 156 (18.37%) Cisco Certification
4 101 (11.90%) CCNP
5 99 (11.66%) CISSP
6 73 (8.60%) DV Cleared
7 60 (7.07%) Degree
8 59 (6.95%) CCNA
9 56 (6.60%) CISM
10 34 (4.00%) CCSP
11 33 (3.89%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 31 (3.65%) Azure Certification
13 19 (2.24%) CCIE
14 18 (2.12%) AWS Certification
14 18 (2.12%) GIAC
15 14 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
15 14 (1.65%) CEH
16 12 (1.41%) CompTIA Security+
16 12 (1.41%) Computer Science Degree
16 12 (1.41%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (10.60%) NIST
2 73 (8.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 40 (4.71%) GDPR
4 26 (3.06%) PCI DSS
5 24 (2.83%) NCSC
6 19 (2.24%) QA
7 18 (2.12%) GRC
8 16 (1.88%) Cyber Essentials
9 13 (1.53%) SLA
10 9 (1.06%) Actionable Recommendations
11 8 (0.94%) Disclosure Scotland
11 8 (0.94%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 8 (0.94%) SOC 2
12 7 (0.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 5 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 4 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 4 (0.47%) NIST 800
14 4 (0.47%) PMO
14 4 (0.47%) RMADS
15 3 (0.35%) ISA99
System Software
1 56 (6.60%) Active Directory
2 53 (6.24%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (2.83%) VMware NSX
4 21 (2.47%) Docker
4 21 (2.47%) Virtual Machines
5 11 (1.30%) VMware ESXi
5 11 (1.30%) vSphere
6 9 (1.06%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.59%) Firmware
7 5 (0.59%) Squid
7 5 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.24%) NFS
8 2 (0.24%) Postfix
8 2 (0.24%) Sendmail
8 2 (0.24%) Varnish
8 2 (0.24%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.12%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 120 (14.13%) Terraform
2 81 (9.54%) Ansible
3 69 (8.13%) Kubernetes
4 39 (4.59%) FortiGate
5 18 (2.12%) Single Sign-On
6 17 (2.00%) Grafana
7 12 (1.41%) Microsoft Intune
8 11 (1.30%) vCenter Server
9 9 (1.06%) Prometheus
10 8 (0.94%) Kibana
10 8 (0.94%) Nagios
11 6 (0.71%) QRadar
12 5 (0.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 5 (0.59%) CASB
12 5 (0.59%) Istio
12 5 (0.59%) Puppet
12 5 (0.59%) Suricata
12 5 (0.59%) WSUS
13 4 (0.47%) Kustomize
13 4 (0.47%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 236 (27.80%) Cisco
2 136 (16.02%) Palo Alto
3 117 (13.78%) Microsoft
4 75 (8.83%) F5
5 67 (7.89%) Fortinet
5 67 (7.89%) VMware
6 55 (6.48%) CheckPoint
7 54 (6.36%) Juniper
7 54 (6.36%) Zscaler
8 35 (4.12%) ServiceNow
9 29 (3.42%) Splunk
10 21 (2.47%) Aruba
10 21 (2.47%) ForeScout
10 21 (2.47%) Google
11 20 (2.36%) SolarWinds
12 19 (2.24%) Citrix
13 18 (2.12%) Tenable
14 13 (1.53%) Arista
14 13 (1.53%) Okta
15 12 (1.41%) Infoblox