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

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 164 136 153
Rank change year-on-year -28 +17 +65
Contract jobs citing Network Security 731 595 713
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.69% 2.03% 1.60%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 16.73% 15.16% 11.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 491 366 493
10th Percentile £350 £356 £400
25th Percentile £425 £425 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -5.45% -
75th Percentile £600 £613 £650
90th Percentile £688 £675 £749
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 4,369 3,926 5,953
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.10% 13.39% 13.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,821 2,412 3,581
10th Percentile £213 £213 £205
25th Percentile £369 £370 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% +5.26% -9.34%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £475
Number of hourly rates quoted 185 142 396
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.01 £14.08
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £18.70
Median hourly rate £37.50 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +7.69% +71.05%
75th Percentile £67.25 £63.06 £63.75
90th Percentile £78.70 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.10 £32.50 £45.88
% change year-on-year +29.52% -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 18 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 18 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 18 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 -21 646 £500 -9.09% 200
UK excluding London -16 368 £500 - 154
London -18 273 £525 -4.55% 69
Work from Home -14 195 £523 +4.50% 92
North of England -18 129 £480 -4.00% 41
South East -14 103 £500 -6.10% 41
North West -2 82 £492 -1.60% 32
Midlands -24 64 £500 -14.02% 16
Yorkshire -32 53 £335 -31.63% 8
West Midlands -24 52 £500 -14.02% 11
East of England -18 30 £488 -17.02% 24
South West -25 29 £538 -2.27% 24
Scotland +10 27 £543 +27.65% 7
East Midlands -34 12 £638 +50.00% 5
Wales -16 3 £513 +73.73% 3
North East -11 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 (2.60%) Confluence
2 5 (0.68%) Apache
2 5 (0.68%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.14%) nginx
4 1 (0.14%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 19 (2.60%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.37%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.27%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.14%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 5 (0.68%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 223 (30.51%) Azure
2 156 (21.34%) AWS
3 88 (12.04%) GCP
4 54 (7.39%) Entra ID
5 35 (4.79%) GitHub
6 30 (4.10%) GitHub Actions
7 27 (3.69%) Azure DevOps
8 26 (3.56%) Azure Sentinel
9 21 (2.87%) Azure Key Vault
9 21 (2.87%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 17 (2.33%) AWS CloudFormation
10 17 (2.33%) Microsoft 365
11 16 (2.19%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 15 (2.05%) Azure Monitor
13 14 (1.92%) Amazon S3
13 14 (1.92%) Azure AKS
13 14 (1.92%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 13 (1.78%) Akamai
15 12 (1.64%) Power Platform
15 12 (1.64%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 356 (48.70%) Firewall
2 144 (19.70%) VPN
3 127 (17.37%) WAN
4 100 (13.68%) LAN
5 95 (13.00%) BGP
6 82 (11.22%) DNS
7 79 (10.81%) OSPF
8 66 (9.03%) SD-WAN
9 65 (8.89%) VLAN
10 56 (7.66%) TCP/IP
11 47 (6.43%) Wireless
12 43 (5.88%) MPLS
13 39 (5.34%) Cisco ASA
14 37 (5.06%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 30 (4.10%) DHCP
15 30 (4.10%) Internet
15 30 (4.10%) SSL
15 30 (4.10%) Wi-Fi
16 29 (3.97%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
17 25 (3.42%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (1.23%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
2 5 (0.68%) Power BI
3 4 (0.55%) InfluxDB
3 4 (0.55%) Relational Database
4 3 (0.41%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.41%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.27%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.14%) Redis
6 1 (0.14%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 28 (3.83%) JIRA
2 23 (3.15%) Jenkins
3 19 (2.60%) GitLab
4 12 (1.64%) Git
5 7 (0.96%) Snyk
5 7 (0.96%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.41%) 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 (26.27%) Social Skills
2 106 (14.50%) Finance
3 87 (11.90%) Analytical Skills
4 61 (8.34%) Public Sector
5 36 (4.92%) Banking
6 30 (4.10%) Documentation Skills
7 27 (3.69%) Telecoms
8 21 (2.87%) Financial Institution
9 11 (1.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 9 (1.23%) Legal
11 8 (1.09%) Investment Banking
11 8 (1.09%) Manufacturing
12 7 (0.96%) Presentation Skills
13 6 (0.82%) Organisational Skills
14 5 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
14 5 (0.68%) Local Government
14 5 (0.68%) Pharmaceutical
15 4 (0.55%) Military
16 3 (0.41%) Billing
16 3 (0.41%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 166 (22.71%) Architect
2 161 (22.02%) Network Engineer
3 88 (12.04%) Security Engineer
4 82 (11.22%) Security Architect
5 62 (8.48%) Network Architect
6 56 (7.66%) Senior
7 38 (5.20%) Network Security Engineer
8 31 (4.24%) Analyst
9 27 (3.69%) Network Security Architect
10 26 (3.56%) Lead
11 20 (2.74%) Azure Architect
11 20 (2.74%) Cloud Architect
11 20 (2.74%) Consultant
12 19 (2.60%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 18 (2.46%) Cloud Engineer
13 18 (2.46%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 18 (2.46%) Security Analyst
14 17 (2.33%) Administrator
14 17 (2.33%) Solutions Architect
15 15 (2.05%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (3.28%) 802.1X
2 13 (1.78%) LDAP
3 8 (1.09%) .NET
3 8 (1.09%) Node.js
3 8 (1.09%) SAML
4 6 (0.82%) ARM Templates
4 6 (0.82%) REST
5 5 (0.68%) .NET Core
5 5 (0.68%) AngularJS
5 5 (0.68%) OAuth
5 5 (0.68%) OAuth2
5 5 (0.68%) OpenID
5 5 (0.68%) PyTorch
5 5 (0.68%) RabbitMQ
5 5 (0.68%) React
5 5 (0.68%) TensorFlow
6 4 (0.55%) Elastic Stack
6 4 (0.55%) HTML
7 3 (0.41%) CSS
7 3 (0.41%) Lambda Expressions
Miscellaneous
1 98 (13.41%) Data Centre
2 44 (6.02%) Cloud Native
2 44 (6.02%) Security Posture
3 42 (5.75%) Hybrid Cloud
4 30 (4.10%) Management Information System
5 29 (3.97%) PKI
6 27 (3.69%) Public Cloud
7 23 (3.15%) Operational Technology
8 22 (3.01%) Onboarding
9 21 (2.87%) IoT
10 19 (2.60%) Product Ownership
11 18 (2.46%) Data Protection Act
12 17 (2.33%) Cyber Threat
12 17 (2.33%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
13 16 (2.19%) Analytical Mindset
14 15 (2.05%) Security Operations Centre
15 11 (1.50%) Cyber Security Posture
16 9 (1.23%) BYOD
17 8 (1.09%) CSOC
17 8 (1.09%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 78 (10.67%) Windows
2 63 (8.62%) Linux
3 27 (3.69%) Windows Server
4 11 (1.50%) Unix
5 8 (1.09%) VMS
6 7 (0.96%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.68%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.14%) Android
8 1 (0.14%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.14%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 170 (23.26%) Cybersecurity
2 118 (16.14%) Problem-Solving
3 111 (15.18%) Cloud Security
4 105 (14.36%) Security Architecture
4 105 (14.36%) Zero Trust
5 102 (13.95%) Migration
6 101 (13.82%) SIEM
7 100 (13.68%) CI/CD
8 95 (13.00%) Infrastructure as Code
9 94 (12.86%) DevOps
10 80 (10.94%) Incident Response
11 72 (9.85%) Continuous Improvement
11 72 (9.85%) Network Segmentation
12 71 (9.71%) Change Management
13 65 (8.89%) Threat Modelling
14 64 (8.76%) Identity Access Management
15 63 (8.62%) Agile
16 62 (8.48%) Security Operations
17 61 (8.34%) Stakeholder Management
18 59 (8.07%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 111 (15.18%) Python
2 63 (8.62%) PowerShell
3 27 (3.69%) Bash
3 27 (3.69%) Bicep
4 26 (3.56%) SQL
5 25 (3.42%) JavaScript
6 15 (2.05%) Kusto Query Language
7 9 (1.23%) Go
7 9 (1.23%) Java
8 6 (0.82%) Shell Script
9 5 (0.68%) C#
10 4 (0.55%) C
10 4 (0.55%) PHP
11 3 (0.41%) C++
12 2 (0.27%) C-shell
12 2 (0.27%) Korn
13 1 (0.14%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.14%) AppleScript
13 1 (0.14%) Ruby
13 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 226 (30.92%) Security Cleared
2 160 (21.89%) SC Cleared
3 129 (17.65%) Cisco Certification
4 101 (13.82%) CCNP
5 94 (12.86%) CISSP
6 77 (10.53%) DV Cleared
7 51 (6.98%) CISM
7 51 (6.98%) Degree
8 48 (6.57%) CCNA
9 30 (4.10%) CCIE
10 26 (3.56%) GIAC
11 21 (2.87%) Azure Certification
11 21 (2.87%) CEH
12 18 (2.46%) CompTIA Security+
13 17 (2.33%) AWS Certification
14 16 (2.19%) CCSP
15 15 (2.05%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 14 (1.92%) TOGAF Certification
17 13 (1.78%) Computer Science Degree
18 12 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (12.04%) NIST
2 77 (10.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 52 (7.11%) GDPR
4 37 (5.06%) PCI DSS
5 21 (2.87%) NCSC
6 20 (2.74%) Cyber Essentials
7 15 (2.05%) GRC
8 14 (1.92%) SLA
9 11 (1.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 9 (1.23%) SOC 2
11 8 (1.09%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 7 (0.96%) Actionable Recommendations
12 7 (0.96%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 7 (0.96%) QA
13 5 (0.68%) PMO
14 4 (0.55%) HIPAA
14 4 (0.55%) JSP 440
14 4 (0.55%) RMADS
15 2 (0.27%) Disclosure Scotland
15 2 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 50 (6.84%) VMware Infrastructure
2 46 (6.29%) Active Directory
3 27 (3.69%) Docker
4 23 (3.15%) VMware NSX
5 9 (1.23%) vSphere
6 8 (1.09%) Hyper-V
6 8 (1.09%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.82%) Firmware
7 6 (0.82%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.55%) ProxySG
9 3 (0.41%) 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
1 114 (15.60%) Terraform
2 68 (9.30%) Ansible
3 56 (7.66%) Kubernetes
4 27 (3.69%) FortiGate
5 15 (2.05%) Microsoft Intune
5 15 (2.05%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (1.92%) Nagios
7 12 (1.64%) Kibana
8 8 (1.09%) Grafana
9 7 (0.96%) Prometheus
9 7 (0.96%) vCenter Server
10 6 (0.82%) Microsoft Clustering
11 5 (0.68%) CASB
12 4 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.55%) Istio
12 4 (0.55%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.55%) Puppet
13 3 (0.41%) Icinga
13 3 (0.41%) SCCM
13 3 (0.41%) SCOM
Vendors
1 201 (27.50%) Cisco
2 120 (16.42%) Microsoft
3 117 (16.01%) Palo Alto
4 79 (10.81%) F5
5 65 (8.89%) VMware
6 61 (8.34%) Juniper
7 56 (7.66%) Fortinet
8 52 (7.11%) CheckPoint
9 43 (5.88%) Zscaler
10 29 (3.97%) Google
10 29 (3.97%) Splunk
11 28 (3.83%) ServiceNow
12 18 (2.46%) Aruba
12 18 (2.46%) Meraki
12 18 (2.46%) SolarWinds
12 18 (2.46%) Tenable
13 15 (2.05%) Databricks
13 15 (2.05%) ForeScout
14 13 (1.78%) Okta
15 12 (1.64%) Arista