OSCE Contract Job Trends

Offensive Security Certified Expert (OSCE)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for OSCE qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 19 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 578 541 597
Rank change year-on-year -37 +56 +195
Contract jobs citing OSCE 6 3 8
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.016% 0.009% 0.018%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.048% 0.029% 0.061%
Number of daily rates quoted 4 1 8
10th Percentile £419 - £486
25th Percentile £447 - £581
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £627
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -20.26% +25.40%
75th Percentile £528 - £632
90th Percentile £601 - £680
UK excluding London median daily rate - £500 £627
% change year-on-year - -20.26% -

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

OSCE falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 12,411 10,172 13,132
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.70% 29.75% 29.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,063 6,239 8,279
10th Percentile £313 £305 £300
25th Percentile £415 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £538
% change year-on-year -2.44% -4.65% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,013 485 733
10th Percentile £16.35 £19.72 £17.30
25th Percentile £19.38 £24.18 £27.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -37.13% -23.81% +16.67%
75th Percentile £52.31 £66.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £45.59 £51.90
% change year-on-year -44.83% -12.16% +16.11%

OSCE
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing OSCE relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

OSCE job vacancy trend in the UK

OSCE
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing OSCE.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing OSCE

OSCE
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing OSCE over the 6 months to 19 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for OSCE in the UK

OSCE
Top 3 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing OSCE within the UK over the 6 months to 19 December 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 -26 6 £475 -5.00% 12
London -7 5 £475 -
Work from Home +1 3 £475 -5.00%

OSCE
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:

Cloud Services
1 2 (33.33%) AWS
1 2 (33.33%) Azure
1 2 (33.33%) Entra ID
1 2 (33.33%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 3 (50.00%) Network Security
2 2 (33.33%) VLAN
2 2 (33.33%) VPN
Development Applications
1 2 (33.33%) Burp Suite
1 2 (33.33%) Metasploit
1 2 (33.33%) sqlmap
General
1 2 (33.33%) Analytical Skills
1 2 (33.33%) Electronics
1 2 (33.33%) Finance
1 2 (33.33%) Manufacturing
1 2 (33.33%) Marketing
1 2 (33.33%) Public Sector
1 2 (33.33%) Social Skills
1 2 (33.33%) Telecoms
2 1 (16.67%) Military
Job Titles
1 5 (83.33%) Penetration Tester
1 5 (83.33%) Tester
2 1 (16.67%) Senior
Miscellaneous
1 2 (33.33%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 3 (50.00%) Windows
2 2 (33.33%) Linux
3 1 (16.67%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (83.33%) Offensive Security
1 5 (83.33%) Penetration Testing
2 4 (66.67%) Agile
2 4 (66.67%) Application Security
3 3 (50.00%) MITRE ATT&CK
3 3 (50.00%) Red Team
4 2 (33.33%) Business Intelligence
4 2 (33.33%) Cloud Security
4 2 (33.33%) Cryptography
4 2 (33.33%) Customer Engagement
4 2 (33.33%) Digital Marketing
4 2 (33.33%) Impact Analysis
4 2 (33.33%) Incident Response
4 2 (33.33%) OWASP
4 2 (33.33%) Programme Management
4 2 (33.33%) Service Catalogue
4 2 (33.33%) Test Automation
4 2 (33.33%) Validation
4 2 (33.33%) Vulnerability Assessment
4 2 (33.33%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 6 (100.00%) Python
2 3 (50.00%) Bash
2 3 (50.00%) Go
2 3 (50.00%) PowerShell
3 1 (16.67%) C
3 1 (16.67%) C++
3 1 (16.67%) C-shell
3 1 (16.67%) Korn
3 1 (16.67%) Rust
Qualifications
1 6 (100.00%) GPEN
1 6 (100.00%) OSCP
2 4 (66.67%) GXPN
2 4 (66.67%) Security Cleared
3 3 (50.00%) CREST Certified
3 3 (50.00%) SC Cleared
4 2 (33.33%) GWAPT
4 2 (33.33%) SANS
5 1 (16.67%) CCSAS
System Software
1 2 (33.33%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 2 (33.33%) Nessus
1 2 (33.33%) Nmap
Vendors
1 2 (33.33%) SAP
1 2 (33.33%) ServiceNow