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 4 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 529 540 468
Rank change year-on-year +11 -72 +288
Contract jobs citing SANS 36 13 165
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.10% 0.036% 0.35%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.32% 0.12% 1.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 18 6 52
10th Percentile £475 £225 £528
25th Percentile £510 £297 £571
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £539 £563 £650
Median % change year-on-year -4.27% -13.46% +10.64%
75th Percentile £689 £619 £700
90th Percentile £898 £700 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £537 £600 £648
% change year-on-year -10.50% -7.34% +26.34%

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 11,309 10,627 13,405
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.75% 29.27% 28.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,193 6,463 8,582
10th Percentile £299 £312 £305
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £635 £650
90th Percentile £713 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £518 £534
% change year-on-year -3.38% -3.09% +1.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 970 484 750
10th Percentile £17.29 £18.65 £17.72
25th Percentile £18.90 £24.18 £26.76
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -45.54% -12.04% +16.67%
75th Percentile £43.00 £67.01 £69.91
90th Percentile £70.24 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £48.18 £51.89
% change year-on-year -47.80% -7.15% +15.31%

SANS
Job Vacancy Trend

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

SANS job vacancy trend 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 4 November 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 11 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 4 November 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 -19 25 £539 -4.27% 9
Work from Home +23 19 £625 - 7
UK excluding London -7 14 £537 -10.50% 10
London -1 13 £619 +17.86% 1
South West +11 6 £537 -10.50% 3
South East - 4 £581 - 5
West Midlands - 2 - -
Midlands - 2 - -
East of England - 2 £850 -
Wales - 1 £500 -
Scotland - 1 - - 1

SANS
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 2 (5.56%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 20 (55.56%) AWS
2 17 (47.22%) Azure
3 11 (30.56%) GCP
4 3 (8.33%) Entra ID
5 2 (5.56%) Azure Sentinel
5 2 (5.56%) Microsoft 365
6 1 (2.78%) Microsoft Purview
6 1 (2.78%) OCI
6 1 (2.78%) Power Platform
6 1 (2.78%) Tessian
Communications & Networking
1 6 (16.67%) Firewall
2 3 (8.33%) SSL
3 2 (5.56%) Network Security
3 2 (5.56%) VLAN
3 2 (5.56%) VPN
4 1 (2.78%) Internet
4 1 (2.78%) Intranet
4 1 (2.78%) Intrusion Detection
4 1 (2.78%) NGFW
4 1 (2.78%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.78%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 3 (8.33%) Burp Suite
1 3 (8.33%) JIRA
2 2 (5.56%) Metasploit
2 2 (5.56%) sqlmap
3 1 (2.78%) Jenkins
3 1 (2.78%) SonarQube
General
1 12 (33.33%) Social Skills
2 6 (16.67%) Public Sector
3 3 (8.33%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (8.33%) Finance
3 3 (8.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 3 (8.33%) Legal
4 1 (2.78%) Banking
4 1 (2.78%) Influencing Skills
4 1 (2.78%) Law
4 1 (2.78%) Military
4 1 (2.78%) Organisational Skills
4 1 (2.78%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 12 (33.33%) Security Engineer
2 7 (19.44%) Analyst
2 7 (19.44%) Security Analyst
3 5 (13.89%) Consultant
4 3 (8.33%) Architect
4 3 (8.33%) Penetration Tester
4 3 (8.33%) Senior
4 3 (8.33%) Tester
5 2 (5.56%) Cybersecurity Specialist
5 2 (5.56%) Head of Information Security
5 2 (5.56%) Security Architect
5 2 (5.56%) Security Consultant
5 2 (5.56%) Security Specialist
5 2 (5.56%) Senior Consultant
5 2 (5.56%) Test Engineer
6 1 (2.78%) AWS Architect
6 1 (2.78%) Azure Architect
6 1 (2.78%) Head of Information
6 1 (2.78%) SOC Consultant
6 1 (2.78%) Vulnerability Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (2.78%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 6 (16.67%) Cyber Defence
1 6 (16.67%) Security Posture
2 5 (13.89%) Management Information System
3 3 (8.33%) PKI
3 3 (8.33%) Security Operations Centre
4 2 (5.56%) Algorithms
4 2 (5.56%) CSOC
4 2 (5.56%) Cyber Threat
4 2 (5.56%) Enterprise Software
4 2 (5.56%) Operational Technology
5 1 (2.78%) Cloud Native
5 1 (2.78%) Cyber Kill Chain
5 1 (2.78%) Cyber Security Posture
5 1 (2.78%) Data Centre
5 1 (2.78%) Hybrid Cloud
5 1 (2.78%) SCADA
5 1 (2.78%) YubiKey
Operating Systems
1 4 (11.11%) Linux
2 3 (8.33%) Windows
3 1 (2.78%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (52.78%) Cybersecurity
2 15 (41.67%) Incident Response
3 14 (38.89%) Cloud Security
4 13 (36.11%) MITRE ATT&CK
4 13 (36.11%) Security Operations
4 13 (36.11%) SIEM
5 12 (33.33%) Agile
6 11 (30.56%) OWASP
7 9 (25.00%) Vulnerability Management
8 8 (22.22%) Penetration Testing
9 7 (19.44%) Security Management
9 7 (19.44%) Test Automation
10 6 (16.67%) CI/CD
10 6 (16.67%) Impact Assessments
10 6 (16.67%) Information Security
11 5 (13.89%) Application Security
11 5 (13.89%) DevSecOps
11 5 (13.89%) Problem-Solving
11 5 (13.89%) Security Testing
12 4 (11.11%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 13 (36.11%) Python
2 10 (27.78%) PowerShell
3 2 (5.56%) Bash
4 1 (2.78%) Java
4 1 (2.78%) Perl
4 1 (2.78%) SQL
Qualifications
1 27 (75.00%) CISSP
2 17 (47.22%) GIAC
3 12 (33.33%) Degree
4 10 (27.78%) Security Cleared
5 8 (22.22%) SC Cleared
6 7 (19.44%) CISM
7 6 (16.67%) CompTIA CySA+
7 6 (16.67%) CREST Certified
7 6 (16.67%) Network+ Certification
7 6 (16.67%) OSCP
8 5 (13.89%) DV Cleared
9 4 (11.11%) CISA
10 3 (8.33%) CEH
10 3 (8.33%) ISACA
11 2 (5.56%) DBS Check
11 2 (5.56%) GPEN
11 2 (5.56%) GSEC
11 2 (5.56%) GXPN
11 2 (5.56%) OSCE
11 2 (5.56%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (52.78%) NIST
2 9 (25.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (25.00%) PCI DSS
3 8 (22.22%) HIPAA
4 3 (8.33%) NIST 800
5 2 (5.56%) GDPR
5 2 (5.56%) QA
System Software
1 3 (8.33%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 3 (8.33%) Ansible
1 3 (8.33%) Nessus
1 3 (8.33%) Nmap
2 2 (5.56%) Kubernetes
2 2 (5.56%) QRadar
2 2 (5.56%) Terraform
3 1 (2.78%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
3 1 (2.78%) Istio
3 1 (2.78%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 11 (30.56%) Palo Alto
2 5 (13.89%) Microsoft
3 2 (5.56%) Cisco
3 2 (5.56%) Clearswift
3 2 (5.56%) ServiceNow
3 2 (5.56%) Splunk
4 1 (2.78%) CrowdStrike
4 1 (2.78%) CyberArk
4 1 (2.78%) Exabeam
4 1 (2.78%) Fortinet
4 1 (2.78%) Qualys
4 1 (2.78%) Rapid7
4 1 (2.78%) Tenable
4 1 (2.78%) Zscaler