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

6 months to
22 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 185 138 150
Rank change year-on-year -47 +12 +102
Contract jobs citing Network Security 605 610 721
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.60% 1.92% 1.67%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 15.27% 14.95% 12.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 374 385 500
10th Percentile £340 £332 £407
25th Percentile £413 £425 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £508 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% -7.73% -
75th Percentile £580 £613 £650
90th Percentile £687 £700 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £550
% change year-on-year -5.00% -9.09% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 11 12
10th Percentile £36.00 £18.50 £7.96
25th Percentile £52.63 £35.50 £32.25
Median hourly rate £66.00 £41.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +60.98% -13.68% +26.67%
75th Percentile £79.38 £46.25 £76.25
90th Percentile £93.75 £47.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £41.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +58.54% -34.40% +66.67%

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 3,961 4,080 5,888
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.48% 12.87% 13.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,604 2,373 3,603
10th Percentile £204 £213 £209
25th Percentile £355 £363 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -2.91%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £467 £475
% change year-on-year -3.54% -1.79% +2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 166 140 362
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.16 £17.30
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.46 £23.00
Median hourly rate £32.00 £35.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.57% -36.36% +158.82%
75th Percentile £65.00 £58.09 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £32.50 £57.75
% change year-on-year +29.05% -43.72% +206.83%

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 22 January 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 22 January 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 22 January 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 -21 542 £500 -4.76% 300
UK excluding London -48 294 £475 -5.00% 284
London -29 237 £540 -1.68% 87
Work from Home -19 161 £508 +1.50% 139
North of England -39 106 £464 -7.25% 46
North West +1 72 £475 -5.00% 24
South East -23 71 £430 -19.25% 93
Midlands -30 61 £488 -16.38% 35
West Midlands -16 54 £500 -14.24% 22
Yorkshire -44 45 £205 -59.00% 16
South West -18 26 £533 +1.43% 43
East of England -21 23 £475 -14.80% 34
Scotland +1 20 £509 +27.19% 23
East Midlands -29 7 £447 +47.77% 13
Northern Ireland - 3 £500 - 4
North East -13 2 £475 -41.72% 6
Wales -15 2 £700 +141.38% 11

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 13 (2.15%) Confluence
2 7 (1.16%) SharePoint
3 5 (0.83%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (0.66%) Apache
5 2 (0.33%) nginx
6 1 (0.17%) IIS
6 1 (0.17%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 17 (2.81%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (1.98%) MS Visio
3 5 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.33%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.17%) Windchill
Cloud Services
1 175 (28.93%) Azure
2 136 (22.48%) AWS
3 56 (9.26%) GCP
4 35 (5.79%) Entra ID
5 28 (4.63%) GitHub
6 27 (4.46%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 26 (4.30%) Amazon S3
8 25 (4.13%) GitHub Actions
9 23 (3.80%) Microsoft 365
10 22 (3.64%) Azure DevOps
11 20 (3.31%) Amazon EC2
12 18 (2.98%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 16 (2.64%) Amazon ELB
13 16 (2.64%) Azure Key Vault
13 16 (2.64%) Azure Sentinel
14 13 (2.15%) AWS CloudFormation
14 13 (2.15%) Serverless
15 11 (1.82%) Azure ExpressRoute
15 11 (1.82%) Google Workspace
15 11 (1.82%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 298 (49.26%) Firewall
2 128 (21.16%) VPN
3 94 (15.54%) WAN
4 90 (14.88%) DNS
5 69 (11.40%) LAN
6 62 (10.25%) BGP
7 61 (10.08%) TCP/IP
8 51 (8.43%) VLAN
9 48 (7.93%) SSL
10 46 (7.60%) OSPF
11 42 (6.94%) SD-WAN
12 37 (6.12%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
13 35 (5.79%) Wireless
14 34 (5.62%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
15 31 (5.12%) DMZ
16 29 (4.79%) Internet
17 21 (3.47%) Intrusion Detection
18 19 (3.14%) Cisco ASA
18 19 (3.14%) Wi-Fi
19 17 (2.81%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
1 4 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
1 4 (0.66%) InfluxDB
1 4 (0.66%) Relational Database
2 3 (0.50%) Amazon Athena
3 2 (0.33%) Data Lake
3 2 (0.33%) Power BI
3 2 (0.33%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.17%) Redis
4 1 (0.17%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.17%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 33 (5.45%) Jenkins
2 25 (4.13%) GitLab
3 21 (3.47%) Git
4 11 (1.82%) JIRA
5 4 (0.66%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.33%) Snyk
7 1 (0.17%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.17%) Subversion
General
1 178 (29.42%) Social Skills
2 92 (15.21%) Analytical Skills
3 71 (11.74%) Finance
4 53 (8.76%) Public Sector
5 33 (5.45%) Banking
6 25 (4.13%) Telecoms
7 23 (3.80%) Documentation Skills
8 14 (2.31%) Investment Banking
9 13 (2.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 8 (1.32%) Manufacturing
10 8 (1.32%) Military
10 8 (1.32%) Pharmaceutical
11 7 (1.16%) Legal
11 7 (1.16%) Presentation Skills
12 5 (0.83%) Financial Institution
12 5 (0.83%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
13 4 (0.66%) Local Government
13 4 (0.66%) Marketing
14 3 (0.50%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 131 (21.65%) Network Engineer
2 109 (18.02%) Architect
3 93 (15.37%) Security Engineer
4 66 (10.91%) Security Architect
5 49 (8.10%) Senior
6 44 (7.27%) Network Architect
7 39 (6.45%) Network Security Engineer
8 30 (4.96%) Analyst
9 23 (3.80%) Network Security Architect
10 21 (3.47%) Cybersecurity Engineer
10 21 (3.47%) Lead
11 19 (3.14%) Administrator
12 18 (2.98%) Cloud Engineer
12 18 (2.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 18 (2.98%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 18 (2.98%) Security Analyst
12 18 (2.98%) SIEM Engineer
13 16 (2.64%) Operations Engineer
14 15 (2.48%) IT Engineer
14 15 (2.48%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (2.81%) 802.1X
2 10 (1.65%) LDAP
3 8 (1.32%) .NET
3 8 (1.32%) Node.js
3 8 (1.32%) SAML
4 5 (0.83%) .NET Core
4 5 (0.83%) AngularJS
4 5 (0.83%) Elastic Stack
4 5 (0.83%) PyTorch
4 5 (0.83%) RabbitMQ
4 5 (0.83%) React
4 5 (0.83%) TensorFlow
5 4 (0.66%) ARM Templates
5 4 (0.66%) OAuth
5 4 (0.66%) OAuth2
5 4 (0.66%) OpenID
6 3 (0.50%) HTML
6 3 (0.50%) Lambda Expressions
6 3 (0.50%) Plotly
7 2 (0.33%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 74 (12.23%) Data Centre
2 36 (5.95%) Security Posture
3 33 (5.45%) Hybrid Cloud
4 32 (5.29%) Cloud Native
4 32 (5.29%) Management Information System
5 29 (4.79%) PKI
6 20 (3.31%) Public Cloud
7 19 (3.14%) Onboarding
8 17 (2.81%) Cyber Security Posture
8 17 (2.81%) Cyber Threat
9 16 (2.64%) Operational Technology
10 14 (2.31%) Analytical Mindset
10 14 (2.31%) IoT
10 14 (2.31%) Security Operations Centre
11 12 (1.98%) Data Protection Act
12 10 (1.65%) Virtual Team
13 9 (1.49%) Cloud Security Posture
14 8 (1.32%) CSOC
14 8 (1.32%) Product Ownership
14 8 (1.32%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 89 (14.71%) Windows
2 70 (11.57%) Linux
3 29 (4.79%) Windows Server
4 11 (1.82%) Unix
5 8 (1.32%) VMS
6 4 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (0.66%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.50%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.17%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.17%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 152 (25.12%) Cybersecurity
2 115 (19.01%) Problem-Solving
3 110 (18.18%) SIEM
4 96 (15.87%) CI/CD
5 95 (15.70%) Incident Response
6 89 (14.71%) Cloud Security
7 85 (14.05%) Infrastructure as Code
8 84 (13.88%) DevOps
9 80 (13.22%) Zero Trust
10 74 (12.23%) Security Architecture
11 67 (11.07%) Migration
12 59 (9.75%) Change Management
12 59 (9.75%) Identity Access Management
12 59 (9.75%) Threat Modelling
13 52 (8.60%) Infrastructure Automation
14 51 (8.43%) Vulnerability Management
15 50 (8.26%) Continuous Improvement
16 49 (8.10%) Network Architecture
17 48 (7.93%) Load Balancing
18 47 (7.77%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 122 (20.17%) Python
2 72 (11.90%) PowerShell
3 39 (6.45%) Bash
4 19 (3.14%) SQL
5 15 (2.48%) Bicep
6 14 (2.31%) JavaScript
6 14 (2.31%) Kusto Query Language
7 10 (1.65%) Java
8 9 (1.49%) Go
9 5 (0.83%) C
9 5 (0.83%) C#
9 5 (0.83%) C++
10 4 (0.66%) Perl
10 4 (0.66%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.33%) C-shell
11 2 (0.33%) Korn
12 1 (0.17%) PHP
12 1 (0.17%) Rust
12 1 (0.17%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 202 (33.39%) Security Cleared
2 150 (24.79%) SC Cleared
3 116 (19.17%) Cisco Certification
4 91 (15.04%) CCNP
5 82 (13.55%) CISSP
6 60 (9.92%) DV Cleared
7 46 (7.60%) Degree
8 39 (6.45%) CCNA
9 37 (6.12%) CISM
10 30 (4.96%) CCIE
11 28 (4.63%) GIAC
12 27 (4.46%) CEH
13 21 (3.47%) Azure Certification
14 17 (2.81%) CompTIA Security+
15 16 (2.64%) Computer Science Degree
16 15 (2.48%) AWS Certification
17 12 (1.98%) CCSP
18 11 (1.82%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 10 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
19 10 (1.65%) CCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 72 (11.90%) NIST
2 70 (11.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 42 (6.94%) GDPR
4 28 (4.63%) PCI DSS
5 17 (2.81%) Cyber Essentials
6 16 (2.64%) NCSC
7 8 (1.32%) GRC
8 7 (1.16%) HIPAA
8 7 (1.16%) SOC 2
9 6 (0.99%) SLA
10 5 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 5 (0.83%) PSD2
10 5 (0.83%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 4 (0.66%) JSP 440
12 3 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.50%) PMO
12 3 (0.50%) RMADS
13 2 (0.33%) GxP
13 2 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 2 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 46 (7.60%) VMware Infrastructure
2 43 (7.11%) Active Directory
3 38 (6.28%) Docker
4 15 (2.48%) VMware NSX
5 10 (1.65%) Hyper-V
6 8 (1.32%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.99%) vSphere
8 4 (0.66%) Firmware
8 4 (0.66%) ProxySG
9 3 (0.50%) Virtual Servers
9 3 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.33%) KVM
10 2 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.17%) RACF
11 1 (0.17%) RHEV
11 1 (0.17%) Xen
11 1 (0.17%) XenApp
11 1 (0.17%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 109 (18.02%) Terraform
2 69 (11.40%) Ansible
3 43 (7.11%) Kubernetes
4 21 (3.47%) FortiGate
5 13 (2.15%) Kibana
5 13 (2.15%) Nagios
6 11 (1.82%) QRadar
7 10 (1.65%) Microsoft Intune
8 8 (1.32%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (1.16%) Grafana
9 7 (1.16%) Prometheus
10 6 (0.99%) Microsoft Clustering
11 4 (0.66%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.66%) Puppet
11 4 (0.66%) vCenter Server
12 3 (0.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 3 (0.50%) CASB
12 3 (0.50%) Icinga
12 3 (0.50%) SCCM
13 2 (0.33%) Docker Swarm
Vendors
1 158 (26.12%) Cisco
2 118 (19.50%) Palo Alto
3 94 (15.54%) Microsoft
4 86 (14.21%) F5
5 61 (10.08%) CheckPoint
6 55 (9.09%) VMware
7 46 (7.60%) Juniper
8 44 (7.27%) Zscaler
9 42 (6.94%) Fortinet
10 31 (5.12%) Splunk
11 25 (4.13%) Google
12 23 (3.80%) SolarWinds
13 22 (3.64%) Meraki
14 18 (2.98%) ServiceNow
15 14 (2.31%) Tenable
16 13 (2.15%) Aruba
16 13 (2.15%) Blue Coat
16 13 (2.15%) Databricks
16 13 (2.15%) FireEye
16 13 (2.15%) Tanium