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 10 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 177 175 165
Rank change year-on-year -2 -10 -7
Contract jobs citing Network Security 877 543 583
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.61% 1.64% 1.54%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.38% 14.40% 12.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 572 323 376
10th Percentile £400 £379 £358
25th Percentile £463 £450 £435
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £538 £526
Median % change year-on-year +2.33% +2.23% -4.41%
75th Percentile £650 £634 £626
90th Percentile £735 £738 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +10.00% -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 16 9
10th Percentile £27.00 £45.00 £31.70
25th Percentile £62.81 £52.50 £36.00
Median hourly rate £70.63 £70.16 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.66% +55.91% -37.93%
75th Percentile £73.94 £85.00 £58.75
90th Percentile £85.00 £97.50 £70.77
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.88 £70.16 £53.75
% change year-on-year +1.02% +30.53% -25.86%

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 5,047 3,770 4,549
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.25% 11.38% 11.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,920 2,391 2,612
10th Percentile £236 £214 £223
25th Percentile £391 £358 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £602
90th Percentile £680 £680 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £485
% change year-on-year +5.56% -7.21% +6.49%
Number of hourly rates quoted 434 192 190
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.50 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.50 £20.13 £24.18
Median hourly rate £32.50 £36.25 £48.78
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% -25.69% -13.65%
75th Percentile £68.69 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £92.11 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £41.72 £54.88
% change year-on-year -37.34% -23.97% -4.57%

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 10 October 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 10 October 2026.

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 10 October 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 -8 776 £550 +3.29% 729
UK excluding London +2 448 £550 +10.00% 371
London +2 334 £550 - 370
Work from Home +14 259 £540 -1.82% 299
North of England +10 205 £540 +10.83% 74
North West -8 112 £545 +14.74% 39
South East -32 92 £559 +21.69% 127
Yorkshire +20 89 £540 +9.76% 28
Midlands -53 54 £475 -9.52% 59
West Midlands -64 42 £450 -14.29% 34
East of England -18 38 £515 +3.00% 31
South West -29 31 £675 +5.47% 41
Scotland -9 27 £600 +26.32% 21
East Midlands -5 12 £500 - 25
Channel Islands 0 6 £600 -17.24%
North East - 3 £680 - 7
Northern Ireland +7 2 - - 13
Wales -14 1 £650 +30.00% 9

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 18 (2.05%) SharePoint
2 17 (1.94%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.37%) Confluence
4 4 (0.46%) Apache
4 4 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.23%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.23%) IIS
5 2 (0.23%) NetWeaver
5 2 (0.23%) nginx
6 1 (0.11%) CMS
6 1 (0.11%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 16 (1.82%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.80%) MS Visio
3 5 (0.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.57%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.11%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 6 (0.68%) Oracle ERP
2 2 (0.23%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 294 (33.52%) Azure
2 206 (23.49%) AWS
3 106 (12.09%) GCP
4 100 (11.40%) Entra ID
5 52 (5.93%) Microsoft 365
6 47 (5.36%) GitHub
7 40 (4.56%) Azure DevOps
8 37 (4.22%) Azure Monitor
9 32 (3.65%) Serverless
10 28 (3.19%) SaaS
11 25 (2.85%) Azure Sentinel
12 22 (2.51%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 21 (2.39%) GitHub Actions
14 19 (2.17%) Azure AKS
14 19 (2.17%) OCI
15 18 (2.05%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 18 (2.05%) Amazon EKS
15 18 (2.05%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 18 (2.05%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 16 (1.82%) AWS Direct Connect
Communications & Networking
1 404 (46.07%) Firewall
2 207 (23.60%) VPN
3 190 (21.66%) WAN
4 144 (16.42%) DNS
5 132 (15.05%) LAN
6 102 (11.63%) Wireless
7 95 (10.83%) BGP
8 93 (10.60%) TCP/IP
9 79 (9.01%) SD-WAN
10 73 (8.32%) DHCP
11 67 (7.64%) OSPF
12 64 (7.30%) VLAN
13 58 (6.61%) SSL
14 53 (6.04%) MPLS
15 43 (4.90%) IPsec
15 43 (4.90%) Wi-Fi
16 40 (4.56%) Cisco ISE
17 39 (4.45%) Cisco ASA
17 39 (4.45%) Internet
18 33 (3.76%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (1.25%) SQL Server
2 10 (1.14%) Amazon RDS
3 7 (0.80%) BigQuery
4 5 (0.57%) Delta Lake
4 5 (0.57%) Elasticsearch
5 4 (0.46%) Neo4j
5 4 (0.46%) Power BI
6 3 (0.34%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (0.34%) Data Lake
6 3 (0.34%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (0.23%) InfluxDB
7 2 (0.23%) Looker
7 2 (0.23%) Relational Database
7 2 (0.23%) SAP HANA
8 1 (0.11%) Amazon Athena
8 1 (0.11%) Amazon Aurora
8 1 (0.11%) Amazon Redshift
8 1 (0.11%) Big Data
8 1 (0.11%) Metadata
8 1 (0.11%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 41 (4.68%) Git
2 33 (3.76%) Jenkins
3 31 (3.53%) GitLab
4 28 (3.19%) JIRA
5 7 (0.80%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (0.46%) Claude Code
6 4 (0.46%) MSBuild
6 4 (0.46%) SonarQube
6 4 (0.46%) Visual Studio
7 3 (0.34%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.23%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.11%) Browser DevTools
9 1 (0.11%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.11%) Postman
9 1 (0.11%) REST Assured
9 1 (0.11%) Subversion
General
1 247 (28.16%) Social Skills
2 171 (19.50%) Finance
3 94 (10.72%) Analytical Skills
4 68 (7.75%) Banking
5 47 (5.36%) Public Sector
6 44 (5.02%) Documentation Skills
7 32 (3.65%) Legal
8 30 (3.42%) Telecoms
9 18 (2.05%) Financial Institution
10 16 (1.82%) Influencing Skills
11 14 (1.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 14 (1.60%) Manufacturing
11 14 (1.60%) Retail
12 12 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
13 11 (1.25%) Organisational Skills
14 7 (0.80%) Local Government
14 7 (0.80%) Military
15 6 (0.68%) Automotive
15 6 (0.68%) Law
15 6 (0.68%) Police
Job Titles
1 241 (27.48%) Network Engineer
2 148 (16.88%) Architect
3 116 (13.23%) Security Engineer
4 103 (11.74%) Senior
5 80 (9.12%) Security Architect
6 72 (8.21%) Consultant
7 67 (7.64%) Network Security Engineer
8 59 (6.73%) Network Architect
9 46 (5.25%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 46 (5.25%) Senior Network Engineer
10 45 (5.13%) Cloud Engineer
11 44 (5.02%) Project Manager
12 40 (4.56%) Security Consultant
13 35 (3.99%) Lead
14 30 (3.42%) Network Security Architect
15 29 (3.31%) Analyst
16 27 (3.08%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
17 23 (2.62%) Azure Engineer
17 23 (2.62%) Network Manager
18 22 (2.51%) Network Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 149 (16.99%) Terraform
2 37 (4.22%) 802.1X
3 24 (2.74%) REST
4 17 (1.94%) ARM Templates
5 14 (1.60%) Kafka
5 14 (1.60%) SAML
6 8 (0.91%) JSON
6 8 (0.91%) NETCONF
7 7 (0.80%) LDAP
8 6 (0.68%) gRPC
8 6 (0.68%) Keycloak
8 6 (0.68%) OAuth
8 6 (0.68%) OpenID
8 6 (0.68%) Software Packaging
8 6 (0.68%) YAML
9 5 (0.57%) Azure Blueprints
9 5 (0.57%) SLSA
9 5 (0.57%) XML
10 4 (0.46%) .NET
10 4 (0.46%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 121 (13.80%) Data Centre
2 81 (9.24%) Security Posture
3 57 (6.50%) Onboarding
4 49 (5.59%) Cloud Native
5 44 (5.02%) Hybrid Cloud
6 41 (4.68%) Management Information System
7 37 (4.22%) Operational Technology
8 34 (3.88%) Cyber Threat
9 28 (3.19%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 27 (3.08%) PKI
11 25 (2.85%) Self-Motivation
12 23 (2.62%) Public Cloud
12 23 (2.62%) Security Operations Centre
13 21 (2.39%) Data Protection Act
14 18 (2.05%) Cloud Security Posture
15 16 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
16 13 (1.48%) Replication
17 11 (1.25%) Linux Command Line
18 10 (1.14%) Video Conferencing
19 9 (1.03%) Cyber Defence
Operating Systems
1 108 (12.31%) Windows
2 93 (10.60%) Linux
3 46 (5.25%) Windows Server
4 21 (2.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 12 (1.37%) Unix
6 9 (1.03%) Windows 10
7 8 (0.91%) Ubuntu
8 3 (0.34%) Check Point GAiA
8 3 (0.34%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.34%) Oracle Linux
8 3 (0.34%) Rocky
9 2 (0.23%) Android
9 2 (0.23%) SUSE
9 2 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
9 2 (0.23%) zOS
10 1 (0.11%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 194 (22.12%) Cybersecurity
2 181 (20.64%) Cloud Security
3 158 (18.02%) Stakeholder Management
4 147 (16.76%) CI/CD
5 140 (15.96%) Zero Trust
6 136 (15.51%) Infrastructure as Code
7 126 (14.37%) Continuous Improvement
8 124 (14.14%) Incident Response
8 124 (14.14%) Problem-Solving
9 121 (13.80%) Migration
10 120 (13.68%) DevOps
11 119 (13.57%) SIEM
12 111 (12.66%) Change Management
13 108 (12.31%) Security Architecture
14 97 (11.06%) Identity Access Management
14 97 (11.06%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 93 (10.60%) Data Protection
16 92 (10.49%) Security Operations
17 91 (10.38%) Agile
17 91 (10.38%) Load Balancing
Programming Languages
1 170 (19.38%) Python
2 97 (11.06%) PowerShell
3 79 (9.01%) Bash
4 36 (4.10%) Bicep
5 29 (3.31%) SQL
6 15 (1.71%) Go
6 15 (1.71%) Java
7 8 (0.91%) ActionScript
8 7 (0.80%) Kusto Query Language
8 7 (0.80%) Search Processing Language
8 7 (0.80%) Shell Script
9 4 (0.46%) Rust
10 3 (0.34%) JavaScript
10 3 (0.34%) Perl
10 3 (0.34%) VBScript
11 1 (0.11%) ABAP
11 1 (0.11%) C
11 1 (0.11%) C#
11 1 (0.11%) C++
11 1 (0.11%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 248 (28.28%) Security Cleared
2 173 (19.73%) Cisco Certification
3 172 (19.61%) SC Cleared
4 111 (12.66%) CISSP
5 99 (11.29%) CCNP
6 81 (9.24%) DV Cleared
7 64 (7.30%) Degree
8 50 (5.70%) CCNA
9 49 (5.59%) CCSP
10 47 (5.36%) CISM
11 46 (5.25%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 36 (4.10%) CCIE
13 27 (3.08%) Azure Certification
14 25 (2.85%) AWS Certification
15 18 (2.05%) Computer Science Degree
16 12 (1.37%) BPSS Clearance
16 12 (1.37%) GIAC
17 11 (1.25%) JNCIP
17 11 (1.25%) PMI Certification
17 11 (1.25%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 79 (9.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 72 (8.21%) NIST
3 39 (4.45%) GDPR
4 32 (3.65%) PCI DSS
5 31 (3.53%) NCSC
6 18 (2.05%) Cyber Essentials
7 13 (1.48%) GRC
7 13 (1.48%) QA
8 11 (1.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 11 (1.25%) NIST 800
9 9 (1.03%) SLA
10 7 (0.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 6 (0.68%) Disclosure Scotland
12 5 (0.57%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 4 (0.46%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 4 (0.46%) Data Quality
13 4 (0.46%) PMO
14 3 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 3 (0.34%) SOC 2
15 2 (0.23%) P3O
System Software
1 91 (10.38%) Active Directory
2 58 (6.61%) VMware Infrastructure
3 38 (4.33%) Docker
4 18 (2.05%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (1.82%) VMware NSX
6 13 (1.48%) vSphere
7 12 (1.37%) Hyper-V
8 8 (0.91%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.91%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.57%) Squid
9 5 (0.57%) Virtual Servers
10 4 (0.46%) Firmware
10 4 (0.46%) FreeRADIUS
11 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 2 (0.23%) NFS
11 2 (0.23%) OpenSSH
11 2 (0.23%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.11%) ProxySG
12 1 (0.11%) Samba
Systems Management
1 103 (11.74%) Ansible
2 80 (9.12%) Kubernetes
3 46 (5.25%) FortiGate
4 32 (3.65%) Microsoft Intune
5 31 (3.53%) Grafana
6 22 (2.51%) Prometheus
7 18 (2.05%) Progress Chef
8 17 (1.94%) SCCM
9 12 (1.37%) Single Sign-On
10 11 (1.25%) CASB
11 9 (1.03%) Nagios
11 9 (1.03%) QRadar
12 7 (0.80%) Cisco CUCM
12 7 (0.80%) Puppet
13 5 (0.57%) Suricata
14 4 (0.46%) Cisco Prime
14 4 (0.46%) Kustomize
14 4 (0.46%) Podman
14 4 (0.46%) systemd
14 4 (0.46%) VxRail
Vendors
1 264 (30.10%) Cisco
2 173 (19.73%) Palo Alto
3 172 (19.61%) Microsoft
4 97 (11.06%) Fortinet
5 83 (9.46%) F5
6 77 (8.78%) VMware
7 67 (7.64%) Zscaler
8 58 (6.61%) CheckPoint
9 45 (5.13%) Juniper
10 42 (4.79%) SolarWinds
11 41 (4.68%) Splunk
12 35 (3.99%) Aruba
12 35 (3.99%) Google
13 28 (3.19%) ServiceNow
14 18 (2.05%) Meraki
15 16 (1.82%) Citrix
16 15 (1.71%) CyberArk
17 14 (1.60%) Oracle
18 13 (1.48%) Tenable
19 12 (1.37%) AlgoSec