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 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 487 498 629
Rank change year-on-year +11 +131 +160
Contract jobs citing SANS 33 84 89
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.11% 0.19% 0.15%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.37% 0.63% 0.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 13 44 53
10th Percentile £490 £463 £488
25th Percentile £575 £491 £600
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £700 £675 £700
Median % change year-on-year +3.70% -3.57% +14.29%
75th Percentile £750 £770 £750
90th Percentile - £825 £838
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £500 £700
% change year-on-year +20.00% -28.57% +32.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 9
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £62.75
Median hourly rate - - £75.00
75th Percentile - - £77.50
90th Percentile - - £78.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £75.00
% change year-on-year - - +13.98%

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 8,993 13,316 16,299
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 30.72% 30.57% 27.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,686 8,190 10,861
10th Percentile £288 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £535 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.87% -2.73% +4.76%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £707 £743 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £501 £533 £530
% change year-on-year -6.10% +0.57% +6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 509 1,076 849
10th Percentile £18.13 £13.87 £15.25
25th Percentile £22.00 £17.88 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £40.00 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year - -25.93% +29.16%
75th Percentile £66.00 £61.60 £68.25
90th Percentile £80.20 £75.24 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £40.94 £49.57
% change year-on-year +3.81% -17.41% +53.14%

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 1 May 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 1 May 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 +3 26 £700 +3.70% 33
London +28 15 £700 -6.67% 13
Work from Home +14 11 £650 -4.94% 27
UK excluding London +16 10 £600 +20.00% 22
West Midlands - 4 £713 - 1
Midlands - 4 £713 - 1
South East +22 3 £550 - 3
South West +19 1 £600 +20.00% 1
East of England - 1 - - 2
Scotland - 1 £500 - 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 10 (30.30%) Azure
2 8 (24.24%) AWS
2 8 (24.24%) GCP
3 3 (9.09%) OCI
4 2 (6.06%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (3.03%) Amazon ECS
5 1 (3.03%) Azure Monitor
5 1 (3.03%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 8 (24.24%) Firewall
2 3 (9.09%) Cisco Firepower
2 3 (9.09%) Network Security
3 2 (6.06%) Intrusion Detection
4 1 (3.03%) VPN
Development Applications
1 7 (21.21%) GitLab
2 5 (15.15%) Snyk
2 5 (15.15%) SonarQube
3 4 (12.12%) Jenkins
General
1 7 (21.21%) Social Skills
2 3 (9.09%) Analytical Skills
3 2 (6.06%) Finance
3 2 (6.06%) Legal
3 2 (6.06%) Telecoms
4 1 (3.03%) Banking
4 1 (3.03%) Influencing Skills
4 1 (3.03%) Manufacturing
4 1 (3.03%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 8 (24.24%) Architect
2 7 (21.21%) Senior
3 6 (18.18%) Security Architect
4 5 (15.15%) Senior Architect
4 5 (15.15%) Senior Security Architect
5 3 (9.09%) Consultant
5 3 (9.09%) Delivery Manager
5 3 (9.09%) Security Engineer
5 3 (9.09%) Service Delivery Manager
5 3 (9.09%) Service Manager
6 2 (6.06%) Analyst
6 2 (6.06%) DevSecOps Engineer
6 2 (6.06%) Security Consultant
6 2 (6.06%) Software Engineer
7 1 (3.03%) Cloud Security Engineer
7 1 (3.03%) Cyber Defence Analyst
7 1 (3.03%) DevSecOps Consultant
7 1 (3.03%) Operations Analyst
7 1 (3.03%) Security Analyst
7 1 (3.03%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (15.15%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 3 (9.09%) Operational Technology
2 2 (6.06%) Cyber Defence
2 2 (6.06%) Hybrid Cloud
2 2 (6.06%) Management Information System
3 1 (3.03%) Cloud Native
3 1 (3.03%) Cyberattack
3 1 (3.03%) Onboarding
3 1 (3.03%) PKI
3 1 (3.03%) Public Cloud
3 1 (3.03%) Security Operations Centre
3 1 (3.03%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 2 (6.06%) Windows
2 1 (3.03%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (36.36%) Cybersecurity
2 11 (33.33%) Risk Management
3 10 (30.30%) Cloud Security
4 9 (27.27%) DevSecOps
4 9 (27.27%) Incident Response
5 8 (24.24%) SABSA
5 8 (24.24%) SIEM
6 7 (21.21%) DevOps
6 7 (21.21%) OWASP
6 7 (21.21%) Secure Coding
6 7 (21.21%) Security Operations
6 7 (21.21%) Static Application Security Testing
7 6 (18.18%) MITRE ATT&CK
7 6 (18.18%) Security Architecture
8 5 (15.15%) Data Loss Prevention
8 5 (15.15%) Information Security
8 5 (15.15%) ITIL
8 5 (15.15%) Vulnerability Assessment
8 5 (15.15%) Vulnerability Management
9 4 (12.12%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 12 (36.36%) PowerShell
1 12 (36.36%) Python
2 7 (21.21%) Bash
3 3 (9.09%) Perl
4 1 (3.03%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 25 (75.76%) CISSP
2 17 (51.52%) GIAC
3 10 (30.30%) CISA
4 8 (24.24%) Cisco Certification
5 7 (21.21%) (ISC)2 CCSP
5 7 (21.21%) CISM
6 6 (18.18%) CCSK
6 6 (18.18%) Security Cleared
7 5 (15.15%) CRISC
7 5 (15.15%) OSCP
8 4 (12.12%) Degree
8 4 (12.12%) SC Cleared
9 3 (9.09%) CompTIA Security+
9 3 (9.09%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (9.09%) ISACA
10 2 (6.06%) CCSP
10 2 (6.06%) CEH
10 2 (6.06%) Master's Degree
11 1 (3.03%) CCNA
11 1 (3.03%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (45.45%) NIST
2 9 (27.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (18.18%) NIST 800
3 6 (18.18%) PCI DSS
4 5 (15.15%) HIPAA
5 2 (6.06%) GDPR
6 1 (3.03%) SLA
System Software
1 1 (3.03%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (9.09%) FortiGate
2 1 (3.03%) CASB
2 1 (3.03%) Kubernetes
2 1 (3.03%) OPNET
2 1 (3.03%) QRadar
Vendors
1 6 (18.18%) Palo Alto
2 5 (15.15%) Coverity
2 5 (15.15%) Veracode
3 4 (12.12%) Cisco
4 3 (9.09%) Splunk
4 3 (9.09%) Tenable
5 2 (6.06%) Microsoft
6 1 (3.03%) CyberArk
6 1 (3.03%) F5
6 1 (3.03%) Forcepoint
6 1 (3.03%) Google
6 1 (3.03%) Oracle
6 1 (3.03%) Rapid7