SANS Contracts

SANS Institute
UK

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

6 months to
6 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 505 534 585
Rank change year-on-year +29 +51 +212
Contract jobs citing SANS 43 51 98
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.14% 0.12% 0.17%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.44% 0.40% 0.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 14 36 60
10th Percentile £483 - £525
25th Percentile £564 £463 £609
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £656 £575 £700
Median % change year-on-year +14.13% -17.86% +5.66%
75th Percentile £728 £700 £750
90th Percentile £750 £770 £838
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £700
% change year-on-year +5.00% -28.57% +16.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 4
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £72.50
Median hourly rate - - £75.00
75th Percentile - - £77.56
90th Percentile - - £77.68
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £75.00
% change year-on-year - - +10.29%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

SANS 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 9,836 12,904 15,262
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 30.88% 29.80% 26.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,081 8,005 10,098
10th Percentile £275 £310 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £521 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.76% -4.55% +3.77%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £704 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 664 1,099 741
10th Percentile £17.87 £14.00 £15.25
25th Percentile £20.22 £20.12 £23.00
Median hourly rate £27.65 £40.94 £55.50
Median % change year-on-year -32.47% -26.23% +24.72%
75th Percentile £59.00 £64.63 £68.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.24 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.30 £43.00 £54.56
% change year-on-year -41.16% -21.19% +55.89%

SANS
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing SANS as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for SANS in the UK

SANS
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing SANS.

Daily rate trend for SANS in the UK

SANS
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SANS over the 6 months to 6 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SANS in the UK

SANS
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing SANS.

Hourly rate trend for SANS in the UK

SANS
Top 10 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SANS within the UK over the 6 months to 6 July 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 +31 24 £675 +35.00% 35
Work from Home +45 21 £663 +6.64% 23
London +34 16 £681 -9.17% 21
UK excluding London +28 10 £525 +5.00% 15
South East - 4 £613 - 4
West Midlands - 2 - - 1
Scotland - 2 £500 - 2
Midlands - 2 - - 1
Wales +7 1 £500 -24.95%
East of England - 1 - - 1

SANS
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Cloud Services
1 20 (46.51%) Azure
2 17 (39.53%) AWS
2 17 (39.53%) GCP
3 3 (6.98%) Azure Sentinel
3 3 (6.98%) OCI
4 2 (4.65%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (2.33%) Amazon ECS
5 1 (2.33%) Azure Monitor
5 1 (2.33%) Cloud Computing
5 1 (2.33%) Entra ID
5 1 (2.33%) Microsoft Purview
5 1 (2.33%) Tessian
Communications & Networking
1 9 (20.93%) Firewall
2 4 (9.30%) Network Security
3 3 (6.98%) Cisco Firepower
3 3 (6.98%) SSL
4 2 (4.65%) Intrusion Detection
5 1 (2.33%) NGFW
5 1 (2.33%) VPN
Development Applications
1 4 (9.30%) GitLab
2 3 (6.98%) Snyk
2 3 (6.98%) SonarQube
3 2 (4.65%) Jenkins
General
1 9 (20.93%) Social Skills
2 4 (9.30%) Analytical Skills
2 4 (9.30%) Public Sector
3 3 (6.98%) Finance
4 2 (4.65%) Legal
4 2 (4.65%) Telecoms
5 1 (2.33%) Banking
5 1 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
5 1 (2.33%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 8 (18.60%) Architect
2 7 (16.28%) Senior
3 6 (13.95%) Security Architect
3 6 (13.95%) Security Engineer
4 5 (11.63%) Consultant
5 4 (9.30%) Senior Architect
5 4 (9.30%) Senior Security Architect
6 3 (6.98%) Delivery Manager
6 3 (6.98%) Service Delivery Manager
6 3 (6.98%) Service Manager
7 2 (4.65%) Analyst
7 2 (4.65%) Cybersecurity Analyst
7 2 (4.65%) DevSecOps Engineer
7 2 (4.65%) Security Analyst
7 2 (4.65%) Security Consultant
8 1 (2.33%) Cloud Security Engineer
8 1 (2.33%) Cybersecurity Specialist
8 1 (2.33%) DevSecOps Consultant
8 1 (2.33%) Lead
8 1 (2.33%) SOC Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (6.98%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 4 (9.30%) PKI
2 3 (6.98%) Management Information System
2 3 (6.98%) Operational Technology
3 2 (4.65%) Algorithms
3 2 (4.65%) Hybrid Cloud
3 2 (4.65%) Security Posture
4 1 (2.33%) Cloud Native
4 1 (2.33%) Cyber Defence
4 1 (2.33%) Cyber Kill Chain
4 1 (2.33%) Cyber Security Posture
4 1 (2.33%) Cyberattack
4 1 (2.33%) Onboarding
4 1 (2.33%) SCADA
4 1 (2.33%) Security Operations Centre
4 1 (2.33%) YubiKey
Operating Systems
1 1 (2.33%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (44.19%) Incident Response
2 18 (41.86%) Cloud Security
2 18 (41.86%) Security Operations
3 15 (34.88%) Cybersecurity
3 15 (34.88%) MITRE ATT&CK
4 11 (25.58%) Risk Management
5 9 (20.93%) SIEM
5 9 (20.93%) Vulnerability Management
6 8 (18.60%) OWASP
7 7 (16.28%) DevOps
7 7 (16.28%) DevSecOps
7 7 (16.28%) SABSA
8 6 (13.95%) Information Security
8 6 (13.95%) Security Architecture
9 5 (11.63%) Data Loss Prevention
9 5 (11.63%) Penetration Testing
9 5 (11.63%) Secure Coding
9 5 (11.63%) Vulnerability Assessment
10 4 (9.30%) ITIL
10 4 (9.30%) Static Application Security Testing
Programming Languages
1 20 (46.51%) PowerShell
1 20 (46.51%) Python
2 4 (9.30%) Bash
3 3 (6.98%) Perl
4 1 (2.33%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 35 (81.40%) CISSP
2 29 (67.44%) GIAC
3 10 (23.26%) CISA
4 8 (18.60%) Cisco Certification
4 8 (18.60%) CISM
4 8 (18.60%) Security Cleared
5 7 (16.28%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 6 (13.95%) CCSK
6 6 (13.95%) SC Cleared
7 5 (11.63%) CRISC
8 4 (9.30%) Degree
8 4 (9.30%) ISACA
8 4 (9.30%) OSCP
9 3 (6.98%) CEH
9 3 (6.98%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (4.65%) CCSP
10 2 (4.65%) CompTIA Security+
10 2 (4.65%) CREST Certified
10 2 (4.65%) Master's Degree
11 1 (2.33%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (60.47%) NIST
2 15 (34.88%) PCI DSS
3 14 (32.56%) HIPAA
4 9 (20.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 6 (13.95%) NIST 800
6 3 (6.98%) GDPR
7 2 (4.65%) QA
System Software
1 1 (2.33%) Active Directory
1 1 (2.33%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (6.98%) FortiGate
2 2 (4.65%) Kubernetes
2 2 (4.65%) QRadar
3 1 (2.33%) Ansible
3 1 (2.33%) CASB
3 1 (2.33%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
3 1 (2.33%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (2.33%) Terraform
Vendors
1 16 (37.21%) Palo Alto
2 5 (11.63%) Cisco
3 4 (9.30%) Microsoft
3 4 (9.30%) Splunk
4 3 (6.98%) Coverity
4 3 (6.98%) Tenable
4 3 (6.98%) Veracode
5 2 (4.65%) CyberArk
6 1 (2.33%) Clearswift
6 1 (2.33%) CrowdStrike
6 1 (2.33%) Exabeam
6 1 (2.33%) F5
6 1 (2.33%) Forcepoint
6 1 (2.33%) Fortinet
6 1 (2.33%) Google
6 1 (2.33%) Oracle
6 1 (2.33%) Rapid7
6 1 (2.33%) Zscaler