SANS Contract Job Trends

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 20 September 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 528 541 538
Rank change year-on-year +13 -3 +249
Contract jobs citing SANS 34 16 106
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.10% 0.042% 0.21%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.33% 0.14% 0.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 10 9 65
10th Percentile £492 £225 £525
25th Percentile £608 £463 £600
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £656 £475 £675
Median % change year-on-year +38.16% -29.63% +12.50%
75th Percentile £844 £688 £750
90th Percentile £955 £705 £838
UK excluding London median daily rate £750 £475 £700
% change year-on-year +57.89% -32.14% +29.63%

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 10,357 11,257 14,032
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.48% 29.22% 28.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,472 6,913 9,030
10th Percentile £300 £313 £325
25th Percentile £413 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - +2.34%
Number of hourly rates quoted 839 651 744
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.00 £16.61
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.18 £25.88
Median hourly rate £25.15 £49.00 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year -48.67% -9.26% +20.00%
75th Percentile £43.88 £68.00 £68.97
90th Percentile £71.00 £76.25 £78.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £52.50 £51.89
% change year-on-year -52.10% +1.18% +15.52%

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
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

SANS
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SANS over the 6 months to 20 September 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SANS in the UK

SANS
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SANS.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SANS

SANS
Top 8 Contract Job 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 20 September 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
Work from Home +50 21 £656 - 12
England +15 17 £706 +48.68% 20
London +20 14 £644 +66.13% 11
UK excluding London +4 5 £750 +57.89% 16
East of England - 2 £850 - 4
Scotland - 1 - - 2
South East - 1 £750 - 8
Wales - 1 £500 -

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 (58.82%) Azure
2 17 (50.00%) AWS
3 16 (47.06%) GCP
4 3 (8.82%) Entra ID
5 2 (5.88%) Azure Sentinel
5 2 (5.88%) Microsoft 365
6 1 (2.94%) Microsoft Purview
6 1 (2.94%) Power Platform
6 1 (2.94%) Tessian
Communications & Networking
1 6 (17.65%) Firewall
2 3 (8.82%) SSL
3 2 (5.88%) Network Security
3 2 (5.88%) VLAN
3 2 (5.88%) VPN
4 1 (2.94%) Intrusion Detection
4 1 (2.94%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.94%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 2 (5.88%) Burp Suite
1 2 (5.88%) Metasploit
1 2 (5.88%) sqlmap
2 1 (2.94%) Jenkins
2 1 (2.94%) JIRA
2 1 (2.94%) SonarQube
General
1 7 (20.59%) Social Skills
2 4 (11.76%) Finance
3 3 (8.82%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (8.82%) Legal
3 3 (8.82%) Public Sector
4 2 (5.88%) Banking
5 1 (2.94%) Influencing Skills
5 1 (2.94%) Law
5 1 (2.94%) Organisational Skills
5 1 (2.94%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 5 (14.71%) Architect
1 5 (14.71%) Consultant
1 5 (14.71%) Senior
2 4 (11.76%) Security Architect
2 4 (11.76%) Security Engineer
3 2 (5.88%) Analyst
3 2 (5.88%) Cybersecurity Analyst
3 2 (5.88%) Head of Information Security
3 2 (5.88%) Penetration Tester
3 2 (5.88%) Security Analyst
3 2 (5.88%) Security Consultant
3 2 (5.88%) Senior Architect
3 2 (5.88%) Senior Consultant
3 2 (5.88%) Senior Security Architect
3 2 (5.88%) Tester
4 1 (2.94%) AWS Architect
4 1 (2.94%) Azure Architect
4 1 (2.94%) Head of Information
4 1 (2.94%) SOC Consultant
4 1 (2.94%) Vulnerability Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (2.94%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 5 (14.71%) Management Information System
1 5 (14.71%) Security Posture
2 3 (8.82%) PKI
3 2 (5.88%) Algorithms
3 2 (5.88%) Enterprise Software
3 2 (5.88%) Operational Technology
4 1 (2.94%) Cloud Native
4 1 (2.94%) Cyber Kill Chain
4 1 (2.94%) Cyber Security Posture
4 1 (2.94%) Data Centre
4 1 (2.94%) Hybrid Cloud
4 1 (2.94%) SCADA
4 1 (2.94%) Security Operations Centre
4 1 (2.94%) YubiKey
Operating Systems
1 3 (8.82%) Linux
1 3 (8.82%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (55.88%) Incident Response
2 18 (52.94%) Cloud Security
2 18 (52.94%) Security Operations
3 17 (50.00%) MITRE ATT&CK
4 9 (26.47%) Cybersecurity
5 8 (23.53%) OWASP
6 7 (20.59%) Vulnerability Management
7 6 (17.65%) Information Security
7 6 (17.65%) Risk Management
8 5 (14.71%) Application Security
8 5 (14.71%) Penetration Testing
8 5 (14.71%) SABSA
8 5 (14.71%) Security Architecture
8 5 (14.71%) SIEM
9 4 (11.76%) CI/CD
9 4 (11.76%) Infrastructure as Code
9 4 (11.76%) Offensive Security
9 4 (11.76%) Problem-Solving
9 4 (11.76%) Roadmaps
9 4 (11.76%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 19 (55.88%) Python
2 16 (47.06%) PowerShell
3 2 (5.88%) Bash
4 1 (2.94%) Java
4 1 (2.94%) Perl
4 1 (2.94%) SQL
Qualifications
1 27 (79.41%) CISSP
2 24 (70.59%) GIAC
3 7 (20.59%) CISA
4 5 (14.71%) CISM
5 4 (11.76%) CRISC
5 4 (11.76%) Security Cleared
6 3 (8.82%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 3 (8.82%) CCSK
6 3 (8.82%) Cisco Certification
6 3 (8.82%) Degree
6 3 (8.82%) ISACA
6 3 (8.82%) OSCP
7 2 (5.88%) CREST Certified
7 2 (5.88%) DV Cleared
7 2 (5.88%) GPEN
7 2 (5.88%) GSEC
7 2 (5.88%) GXPN
7 2 (5.88%) OSCE
7 2 (5.88%) SC Cleared
7 2 (5.88%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (70.59%) NIST
2 15 (44.12%) PCI DSS
3 14 (41.18%) HIPAA
4 10 (29.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (11.76%) NIST 800
6 2 (5.88%) GDPR
6 2 (5.88%) QA
System Software
1 3 (8.82%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 3 (8.82%) Ansible
2 2 (5.88%) Kubernetes
2 2 (5.88%) Nessus
2 2 (5.88%) Nmap
2 2 (5.88%) QRadar
2 2 (5.88%) Terraform
3 1 (2.94%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
3 1 (2.94%) Istio
3 1 (2.94%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 17 (50.00%) Palo Alto
2 5 (14.71%) Microsoft
3 2 (5.88%) Cisco
3 2 (5.88%) Clearswift
3 2 (5.88%) ServiceNow
3 2 (5.88%) Splunk
4 1 (2.94%) CrowdStrike
4 1 (2.94%) CyberArk
4 1 (2.94%) Exabeam
4 1 (2.94%) Fortinet
4 1 (2.94%) Qualys
4 1 (2.94%) Rapid7
4 1 (2.94%) Tenable
4 1 (2.94%) Zscaler