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 28 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 182 141 154
Rank change year-on-year -41 +13 +87
Contract jobs citing Network Security 587 637 793
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.63% 1.74% 1.74%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 14.72% 14.30% 12.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 363 403 533
10th Percentile £350 £363 £400
25th Percentile £413 £430 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £698 £725 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £491 £500 £545
% change year-on-year -1.80% -8.26% +3.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 13 5
10th Percentile £41.40 £21.80 £65.00
25th Percentile £45.00 £36.00 £68.75
Median hourly rate £70.16 £41.00 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year +71.12% -43.45% +61.11%
75th Percentile £85.00 £50.00 £76.25
90th Percentile £97.00 £58.75 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.50 £45.50 £72.50
% change year-on-year +46.15% -37.24% +61.11%

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 3,987 4,455 6,359
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.04% 12.17% 13.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,585 2,559 3,940
10th Percentile £206 £223 £211
25th Percentile £356 £370 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £613
90th Percentile £675 £686 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 194 173 347
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.53 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.56 £23.59 £22.88
Median hourly rate £34.00 £42.50 £56.40
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% -24.65% +35.90%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £76.16
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £48.03 £56.49
% change year-on-year -11.51% -14.98% +25.53%

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 28 November 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 28 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Security in the UK

Network Security
Top 18 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 28 November 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 -16 519 £500 -4.76% 221
UK excluding London -19 301 £491 -1.80% 181
London -4 231 £520 -0.95% 86
Work from Home -30 155 £525 +5.00% 95
North of England -33 100 £475 -5.00% 31
Midlands -12 73 £500 -14.24% 22
West Midlands -8 69 £500 -21.26% 15
North West 0 67 £485 -7.67% 19
South East -25 63 £425 -19.05% 90
Yorkshire -35 47 £238 -52.50% 10
South West +2 28 £620 +15.35% 18
East of England -15 23 £488 +44.44% 10
Scotland +2 21 £475 +18.75% 9
Wales -6 5 £500 +115.05% 2
East Midlands -24 4 £650 +73.33% 6
Northern Ireland - 3 £500 - 1
Channel Islands - 2 £725 -
North East -8 1 £550 -32.52% 2

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 5 (0.85%) Confluence
2 4 (0.68%) Apache
2 4 (0.68%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.51%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.17%) IIS
4 1 (0.17%) nginx
4 1 (0.17%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 15 (2.56%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (0.68%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.17%) Windchill
Cloud Services
1 154 (26.24%) Azure
2 129 (21.98%) AWS
3 44 (7.50%) GCP
4 29 (4.94%) Microsoft 365
5 27 (4.60%) Entra ID
6 23 (3.92%) Amazon S3
7 22 (3.75%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 21 (3.58%) Azure DevOps
9 19 (3.24%) Amazon EC2
10 16 (2.73%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 16 (2.73%) Amazon ELB
10 16 (2.73%) Azure Key Vault
10 16 (2.73%) GitHub
11 15 (2.56%) Azure Monitor
11 15 (2.56%) Azure Sentinel
12 14 (2.39%) GitHub Actions
13 13 (2.21%) Azure Logic Apps
14 12 (2.04%) IaaS
15 11 (1.87%) Azure Service Bus
15 11 (1.87%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 283 (48.21%) Firewall
2 111 (18.91%) VPN
3 102 (17.38%) DNS
4 89 (15.16%) WAN
5 63 (10.73%) BGP
6 61 (10.39%) SSL
7 58 (9.88%) TCP/IP
8 54 (9.20%) LAN
8 54 (9.20%) SD-WAN
9 47 (8.01%) OSPF
10 44 (7.50%) VLAN
11 41 (6.98%) Wireless
12 39 (6.64%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
13 32 (5.45%) DMZ
13 32 (5.45%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
14 28 (4.77%) Internet
14 28 (4.77%) Intrusion Detection
15 23 (3.92%) Cisco ISE
15 23 (3.92%) HTTP
16 21 (3.58%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.51%) Amazon Athena
1 3 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
1 3 (0.51%) Azure SQL Database
1 3 (0.51%) InfluxDB
1 3 (0.51%) Relational Database
2 2 (0.34%) Data Lake
2 2 (0.34%) Power BI
3 1 (0.17%) GIS
3 1 (0.17%) MySQL
3 1 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.17%) Redis
3 1 (0.17%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.17%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 24 (4.09%) Jenkins
2 22 (3.75%) GitLab
3 20 (3.41%) Git
4 10 (1.70%) JIRA
5 1 (0.17%) Burp Suite
5 1 (0.17%) Metasploit
5 1 (0.17%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.17%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.17%) Subversion
General
1 187 (31.86%) Social Skills
2 92 (15.67%) Analytical Skills
3 59 (10.05%) Finance
4 48 (8.18%) Public Sector
5 37 (6.30%) Banking
6 21 (3.58%) Documentation Skills
7 20 (3.41%) Telecoms
8 16 (2.73%) Investment Banking
9 12 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 10 (1.70%) Law
10 10 (1.70%) Legal
10 10 (1.70%) Pharmaceutical
11 7 (1.19%) Manufacturing
11 7 (1.19%) Military
11 7 (1.19%) Presentation Skills
12 6 (1.02%) Financial Institution
13 5 (0.85%) Influencing Skills
13 5 (0.85%) Organisational Skills
14 4 (0.68%) Aerospace
15 3 (0.51%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 125 (21.29%) Network Engineer
2 110 (18.74%) Security Engineer
3 104 (17.72%) Architect
4 60 (10.22%) Network Security Engineer
5 59 (10.05%) Security Architect
6 53 (9.03%) Senior
7 40 (6.81%) Analyst
8 39 (6.64%) Network Architect
9 31 (5.28%) Consultant
10 23 (3.92%) Lead
11 20 (3.41%) Administrator
11 20 (3.41%) Cybersecurity Engineer
12 19 (3.24%) SOC Analyst
13 18 (3.07%) Network Security Architect
14 17 (2.90%) Operations Engineer
14 17 (2.90%) Security Analyst
15 16 (2.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 16 (2.73%) IT Engineer
16 15 (2.56%) Project Manager
17 14 (2.39%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (2.73%) 802.1X
2 14 (2.39%) LDAP
3 10 (1.70%) ARM Templates
4 7 (1.19%) .NET
4 7 (1.19%) YAML
5 6 (1.02%) ADO
5 6 (1.02%) SAML
6 5 (0.85%) Node.js
7 4 (0.68%) .NET Core
7 4 (0.68%) AngularJS
7 4 (0.68%) PyTorch
7 4 (0.68%) RabbitMQ
7 4 (0.68%) React
7 4 (0.68%) TensorFlow
8 3 (0.51%) Elastic Stack
8 3 (0.51%) Lambda Expressions
8 3 (0.51%) Plotly
8 3 (0.51%) SailPoint
9 2 (0.34%) OAuth
9 2 (0.34%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 44 (7.50%) Data Centre
2 42 (7.16%) Security Posture
3 41 (6.98%) Management Information System
4 29 (4.94%) Hybrid Cloud
5 24 (4.09%) Cloud Native
6 20 (3.41%) Cyber Threat
7 19 (3.24%) Onboarding
7 19 (3.24%) Security Operations Centre
8 18 (3.07%) Operational Technology
8 18 (3.07%) PKI
9 16 (2.73%) Analytical Mindset
10 15 (2.56%) Public Cloud
10 15 (2.56%) Virtual Team
11 12 (2.04%) Cloud Security Posture
11 12 (2.04%) Data Protection Act
12 11 (1.87%) Cyberattack
13 10 (1.70%) CSOC
13 10 (1.70%) Cyber Security Posture
14 9 (1.53%) SCADA
15 8 (1.36%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 84 (14.31%) Windows
2 70 (11.93%) Linux
3 21 (3.58%) Windows Server
4 13 (2.21%) Unix
5 5 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (0.68%) VMS
7 3 (0.51%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.17%) CentOS
9 1 (0.17%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.17%) Kali Linux
9 1 (0.17%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.17%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 141 (24.02%) Cybersecurity
2 121 (20.61%) Problem-Solving
3 109 (18.57%) Incident Response
3 109 (18.57%) SIEM
4 92 (15.67%) Cloud Security
5 74 (12.61%) CI/CD
6 73 (12.44%) Infrastructure as Code
7 71 (12.10%) DevOps
8 60 (10.22%) Change Management
8 60 (10.22%) Identity Access Management
9 57 (9.71%) Migration
10 53 (9.03%) Zero Trust
11 52 (8.86%) Security Architecture
11 52 (8.86%) Security Operations
11 52 (8.86%) Vulnerability Management
12 51 (8.69%) Network Architecture
13 50 (8.52%) Threat Modelling
14 48 (8.18%) Agile
15 47 (8.01%) Infrastructure Automation
15 47 (8.01%) Load Balancing
Programming Languages
1 111 (18.91%) Python
2 68 (11.58%) PowerShell
3 38 (6.47%) Bash
4 20 (3.41%) Bicep
5 16 (2.73%) SQL
6 10 (1.70%) Kusto Query Language
7 9 (1.53%) JavaScript
8 6 (1.02%) Java
8 6 (1.02%) Perl
9 4 (0.68%) C#
10 3 (0.51%) Go
10 3 (0.51%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.34%) C
11 2 (0.34%) C++
12 1 (0.17%) Rust
12 1 (0.17%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.17%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 160 (27.26%) Security Cleared
2 109 (18.57%) SC Cleared
3 99 (16.87%) Cisco Certification
4 79 (13.46%) CISSP
5 76 (12.95%) CCNP
6 49 (8.35%) Degree
6 49 (8.35%) DV Cleared
7 43 (7.33%) CISM
8 30 (5.11%) CCIE
9 26 (4.43%) GIAC
10 24 (4.09%) CEH
11 20 (3.41%) Computer Science Degree
12 19 (3.24%) CCNA
13 17 (2.90%) CompTIA Security+
14 16 (2.73%) Azure Certification
15 15 (2.56%) AWS Certification
16 14 (2.39%) CCSA
17 13 (2.21%) CCSP
18 12 (2.04%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 9 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 79 (13.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 68 (11.58%) NIST
3 48 (8.18%) GDPR
4 33 (5.62%) PCI DSS
5 19 (3.24%) NCSC
6 12 (2.04%) Cyber Essentials
6 12 (2.04%) GRC
7 11 (1.87%) HIPAA
8 6 (1.02%) SLA
8 6 (1.02%) SOC 2
9 5 (0.85%) PSD2
9 5 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 4 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 3 (0.51%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.51%) JSP 440
11 3 (0.51%) QA
12 2 (0.34%) GxP
12 2 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 2 (0.34%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.34%) PMO
System Software
1 38 (6.47%) Docker
2 37 (6.30%) Active Directory
3 36 (6.13%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.87%) Virtual Machines
5 9 (1.53%) Firmware
6 6 (1.02%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.68%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.68%) ProxySG
7 4 (0.68%) vSphere
8 3 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.17%) KVM
9 1 (0.17%) RACF
9 1 (0.17%) XenApp
9 1 (0.17%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 78 (13.29%) Terraform
2 52 (8.86%) Ansible
3 31 (5.28%) Kubernetes
4 20 (3.41%) FortiGate
5 13 (2.21%) QRadar
6 7 (1.19%) Microsoft Intune
7 6 (1.02%) CASB
7 6 (1.02%) Grafana
7 6 (1.02%) Prometheus
7 6 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.85%) Kibana
8 5 (0.85%) SCCM
9 4 (0.68%) CA Spectrum
10 3 (0.51%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.34%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.34%) Nessus
11 2 (0.34%) Puppet
12 1 (0.17%) Fluentd
12 1 (0.17%) HP Fortify
12 1 (0.17%) VxRail
Vendors
1 144 (24.53%) Cisco
2 109 (18.57%) Palo Alto
3 96 (16.35%) Microsoft
4 94 (16.01%) F5
5 63 (10.73%) CheckPoint
6 49 (8.35%) Zscaler
7 48 (8.18%) Fortinet
8 47 (8.01%) VMware
9 44 (7.50%) Juniper
10 34 (5.79%) Splunk
11 26 (4.43%) Meraki
12 25 (4.26%) SolarWinds
13 24 (4.09%) CrowdStrike
13 24 (4.09%) Google
14 15 (2.56%) ServiceNow
15 14 (2.39%) Tenable
16 13 (2.21%) Blue Coat
17 11 (1.87%) ArcSight
17 11 (1.87%) Forcepoint
17 11 (1.87%) Qualys