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

6 months to
25 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 155 149 183
Rank change year-on-year -6 +34 -1
Contract jobs citing Network Security 809 553 544
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.67% 1.92% 1.28%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.38% 15.18% 10.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 548 334 373
10th Percentile £393 £368 £365
25th Percentile £438 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £524 £524 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.77% -4.35%
75th Percentile £619 £605 £666
90th Percentile £700 £688 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £505 £490 £575
% change year-on-year +3.06% -14.78% +9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 8 17
10th Percentile £27.20 £37.05 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £71.50 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.00 £81.01 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.77% +326.38% -63.55%
75th Percentile £74.00 £81.54 £41.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.67 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.50 £81.01 £7.43
% change year-on-year -19.15% +990.34% -83.88%

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 4,655 3,642 5,398
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.61% 12.65% 12.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,864 2,256 3,233
10th Percentile £263 £213 £206
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £490
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -0.51% -4.39%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +2.70% -2.63% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 265 156 414
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.30 £16.30
Median hourly rate £29.04 £38.41 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -24.39% -3.98% +116.22%
75th Percentile £65.00 £59.09 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £77.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.66 £28.00 £46.14
% change year-on-year +30.93% -39.31% +156.31%

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 25 May 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 25 May 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 25 May 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 -1 703 £525 -0.94% 257
UK excluding London -26 395 £505 +3.06% 203
London -3 303 £550 -4.35% 99
Work from Home +12 233 £528 +4.55% 128
North of England -5 156 £493 -1.35% 57
South East -26 97 £500 +2.04% 66
North West +2 90 £489 -4.12% 36
Yorkshire -25 63 £500 +1.83% 16
Midlands -45 50 £475 -9.52% 19
East of England -22 35 £525 -6.67% 15
South West -25 33 £550 +2.33% 16
West Midlands -62 31 £435 -17.14% 12
Scotland +4 29 £576 +35.47% 22
East Midlands -9 18 £638 - 7
Wales -17 3 £600 +106.90% 7
North East -23 3 £538 -14.00% 6

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 21 (2.60%) Confluence
2 11 (1.36%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (0.62%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.25%) Apache
5 1 (0.12%) nginx
Applications
1 14 (1.73%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.36%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (0.62%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 249 (30.78%) Azure
2 170 (21.01%) AWS
3 106 (13.10%) GCP
4 62 (7.66%) Entra ID
5 32 (3.96%) GitHub
6 30 (3.71%) Azure Sentinel
7 26 (3.21%) Azure DevOps
7 26 (3.21%) GitHub Actions
8 19 (2.35%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 19 (2.35%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 19 (2.35%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 18 (2.22%) Azure Key Vault
10 17 (2.10%) Azure AKS
10 17 (2.10%) Azure Monitor
10 17 (2.10%) Microsoft 365
11 16 (1.98%) Akamai
11 16 (1.98%) AWS CloudFormation
12 14 (1.73%) AWS Direct Connect
12 14 (1.73%) SaaS
13 11 (1.36%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 367 (45.36%) Firewall
2 165 (20.40%) VPN
3 144 (17.80%) WAN
4 117 (14.46%) LAN
5 101 (12.48%) BGP
6 95 (11.74%) DNS
7 88 (10.88%) OSPF
8 78 (9.64%) SD-WAN
9 77 (9.52%) VLAN
10 69 (8.53%) TCP/IP
11 66 (8.16%) Wireless
12 49 (6.06%) MPLS
13 48 (5.93%) DHCP
14 38 (4.70%) IPsec
14 38 (4.70%) Wi-Fi
15 37 (4.57%) SSL
16 35 (4.33%) Cisco ISE
17 31 (3.83%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 30 (3.71%) Cisco ASA
19 29 (3.58%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (0.62%) SQL Server
3 4 (0.49%) Neo4j
4 3 (0.37%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.37%) InfluxDB
4 3 (0.37%) Power BI
5 2 (0.25%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.25%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.25%) Relational Database
5 2 (0.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.12%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.12%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 38 (4.70%) JIRA
2 22 (2.72%) Jenkins
3 20 (2.47%) GitLab
4 17 (2.10%) Git
5 8 (0.99%) Sonatype Nexus
6 7 (0.87%) Snyk
7 5 (0.62%) Browser DevTools
8 3 (0.37%) Artifactory
9 2 (0.25%) 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%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.12%) Zephyr
General
1 176 (21.76%) Social Skills
2 117 (14.46%) Finance
3 67 (8.28%) Analytical Skills
4 58 (7.17%) Public Sector
5 45 (5.56%) Banking
6 37 (4.57%) Documentation Skills
7 27 (3.34%) Telecoms
8 20 (2.47%) Financial Institution
9 12 (1.48%) Legal
10 10 (1.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 9 (1.11%) Manufacturing
12 8 (0.99%) Retail
13 6 (0.74%) Law
13 6 (0.74%) Military
14 5 (0.62%) Influencing Skills
14 5 (0.62%) Local Government
14 5 (0.62%) Organisational Skills
14 5 (0.62%) Police
15 3 (0.37%) Electronics
15 3 (0.37%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 208 (25.71%) Network Engineer
2 175 (21.63%) Architect
3 103 (12.73%) Security Engineer
4 87 (10.75%) Security Architect
5 73 (9.02%) Senior
6 61 (7.54%) Network Architect
7 50 (6.18%) Network Security Engineer
8 31 (3.83%) Consultant
8 31 (3.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 29 (3.58%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 28 (3.46%) Lead
11 27 (3.34%) Project Manager
12 26 (3.21%) Cloud Engineer
12 26 (3.21%) Network Security Architect
13 23 (2.84%) Analyst
13 23 (2.84%) Azure Architect
13 23 (2.84%) Senior Network Engineer
14 22 (2.72%) Cloud Architect
15 19 (2.35%) Solutions Architect
16 18 (2.22%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (3.83%) 802.1X
2 13 (1.61%) LDAP
3 11 (1.36%) SAML
4 9 (1.11%) REST
5 6 (0.74%) ARM Templates
5 6 (0.74%) Kafka
5 6 (0.74%) SLSA
6 5 (0.62%) HTML
6 5 (0.62%) OAuth
7 4 (0.49%) AWS CDK
7 4 (0.49%) CSS
7 4 (0.49%) Node.js
7 4 (0.49%) OpenID
8 3 (0.37%) .NET
8 3 (0.37%) JSON
8 3 (0.37%) Lambda Expressions
8 3 (0.37%) OAuth2
8 3 (0.37%) Plotly
8 3 (0.37%) RabbitMQ
9 2 (0.25%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 126 (15.57%) Data Centre
2 48 (5.93%) Security Posture
3 44 (5.44%) Cloud Native
4 39 (4.82%) Hybrid Cloud
5 31 (3.83%) Onboarding
6 26 (3.21%) PKI
7 25 (3.09%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 23 (2.84%) Data Protection Act
8 23 (2.84%) IoT
9 22 (2.72%) Cyber Threat
9 22 (2.72%) Management Information System
9 22 (2.72%) Public Cloud
10 21 (2.60%) Operational Technology
11 16 (1.98%) Product Ownership
12 14 (1.73%) Security Operations Centre
13 12 (1.48%) Self-Motivation
14 11 (1.36%) Cyber Security Posture
15 10 (1.24%) Analytical Mindset
15 10 (1.24%) Replication
16 9 (1.11%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 76 (9.39%) Windows
2 61 (7.54%) Linux
3 27 (3.34%) Windows Server
4 9 (1.11%) VMS
5 8 (0.99%) Unix
6 7 (0.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 6 (0.74%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.62%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.62%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.37%) SUSE
10 1 (0.12%) Android
10 1 (0.12%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 164 (20.27%) Cybersecurity
2 137 (16.93%) Cloud Security
3 129 (15.95%) Zero Trust
4 113 (13.97%) Security Architecture
5 109 (13.47%) CI/CD
6 107 (13.23%) Migration
7 104 (12.86%) Infrastructure as Code
7 104 (12.86%) SIEM
8 102 (12.61%) DevOps
9 86 (10.63%) Problem-Solving
10 85 (10.51%) High Availability
11 82 (10.14%) Continuous Improvement
12 78 (9.64%) Threat Modelling
13 77 (9.52%) Application Security
14 76 (9.39%) Incident Response
14 76 (9.39%) Network Segmentation
15 72 (8.90%) Load Balancing
16 70 (8.65%) Identity Access Management
17 69 (8.53%) Agile
18 67 (8.28%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 112 (13.84%) Python
2 60 (7.42%) PowerShell
3 35 (4.33%) Bash
4 28 (3.46%) Bicep
5 22 (2.72%) JavaScript
6 18 (2.22%) SQL
7 10 (1.24%) Kusto Query Language
8 7 (0.87%) Go
9 6 (0.74%) Java
9 6 (0.74%) Shell Script
10 4 (0.49%) C
10 4 (0.49%) PHP
11 3 (0.37%) C++
12 2 (0.25%) C#
12 2 (0.25%) C-shell
12 2 (0.25%) Korn
12 2 (0.25%) Ruby
13 1 (0.12%) AppleScript
13 1 (0.12%) Perl
13 1 (0.12%) Rust
Qualifications
1 238 (29.42%) Security Cleared
2 180 (22.25%) SC Cleared
3 159 (19.65%) Cisco Certification
4 107 (13.23%) CCNP
5 94 (11.62%) CISSP
6 69 (8.53%) DV Cleared
7 61 (7.54%) CCNA
8 54 (6.67%) Degree
9 53 (6.55%) CISM
10 31 (3.83%) CCSP
11 30 (3.71%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 30 (3.71%) Azure Certification
12 20 (2.47%) CCIE
13 17 (2.10%) GIAC
14 16 (1.98%) AWS Certification
15 14 (1.73%) CEH
16 13 (1.61%) CompTIA Security+
16 13 (1.61%) JNCIS
17 12 (1.48%) BPSS Clearance
18 11 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 83 (10.26%) NIST
2 65 (8.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 38 (4.70%) GDPR
4 25 (3.09%) PCI DSS
5 19 (2.35%) NCSC
6 18 (2.22%) QA
7 16 (1.98%) GRC
8 13 (1.61%) Cyber Essentials
9 12 (1.48%) SLA
10 8 (0.99%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (0.99%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 8 (0.99%) SOC 2
11 7 (0.87%) Disclosure Scotland
11 7 (0.87%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 4 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 4 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 4 (0.49%) PMO
12 4 (0.49%) RMADS
13 3 (0.37%) ISA99
14 2 (0.25%) NIST 800
System Software
1 55 (6.80%) Active Directory
2 53 (6.55%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (2.84%) VMware NSX
4 20 (2.47%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (2.35%) Docker
6 15 (1.85%) Hyper-V
7 11 (1.36%) VMware ESXi
7 11 (1.36%) vSphere
8 6 (0.74%) Firmware
9 5 (0.62%) Squid
9 5 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.25%) NFS
10 2 (0.25%) Postfix
10 2 (0.25%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.25%) Sendmail
10 2 (0.25%) Varnish
10 2 (0.25%) VMware Workstation
11 1 (0.12%) KVM
11 1 (0.12%) RHEV
11 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 119 (14.71%) Terraform
2 80 (9.89%) Ansible
3 64 (7.91%) Kubernetes
4 39 (4.82%) FortiGate
5 17 (2.10%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (1.73%) Nagios
7 13 (1.61%) Grafana
8 11 (1.36%) Microsoft Intune
8 11 (1.36%) vCenter Server
9 9 (1.11%) Microsoft Clustering
10 8 (0.99%) Kibana
11 6 (0.74%) QRadar
12 5 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 5 (0.62%) CASB
12 5 (0.62%) Istio
12 5 (0.62%) Prometheus
12 5 (0.62%) Suricata
12 5 (0.62%) WSUS
13 4 (0.49%) Kustomize
14 3 (0.37%) VxRail
Vendors
1 230 (28.43%) Cisco
2 132 (16.32%) Palo Alto
3 111 (13.72%) Microsoft
4 78 (9.64%) F5
5 69 (8.53%) VMware
6 62 (7.66%) Fortinet
7 59 (7.29%) Juniper
8 52 (6.43%) CheckPoint
9 51 (6.30%) Zscaler
10 31 (3.83%) ServiceNow
11 25 (3.09%) Splunk
12 22 (2.72%) ForeScout
13 21 (2.60%) Aruba
13 21 (2.60%) Google
13 21 (2.60%) SolarWinds
14 16 (1.98%) Citrix
15 15 (1.85%) Tenable
16 12 (1.48%) Arista
16 12 (1.48%) Infoblox
16 12 (1.48%) Meraki