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 26 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 649 523 539
Rank change year-on-year -126 +16 +13
Contract jobs citing SANS 31 36 34
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.058% 0.11% 0.088%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.19% 0.35% 0.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 13 12 26
10th Percentile £611 £505 £431
25th Percentile £613 £592 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £713 £656 £500
Median % change year-on-year +8.57% +31.25% -25.93%
75th Percentile £825 £781 £688
90th Percentile - £943 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £630 £650 £500
% change year-on-year -3.08% +30.00% -28.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £51.25 - -
Median hourly rate £52.50 - -
75th Percentile £53.75 - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 - -

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 16,745 10,249 11,593
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.22% 31.33% 29.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,209 6,338 7,308
10th Percentile £350 £290 £313
25th Percentile £437 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £622 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £518 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,263 826 776
10th Percentile £17.44 £17.97 £14.49
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.23 £21.37
Median hourly rate £48.81 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +94.08% -44.11% -18.18%
75th Percentile £72.54 £53.50 £67.14
90th Percentile £87.96 £73.75 £77.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £48.56
% change year-on-year +89.03% -48.21% -6.42%

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 26 August 2026.

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 10 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 26 August 2026. 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 -99 30 £713 +4.59% 6
UK excluding London -76 18 £630 -3.08% 6
London -76 12 £800 +20.75% 1
South West - 9 £630 -
South East -66 7 - -
Work from Home -77 7 £625 -4.76% 3
Midlands -53 1 - - 2
West Midlands -59 1 - -
North West - 1 - - 3
North of England - 1 - - 3

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 1 (3.23%) Confluence
1 1 (3.23%) nginx
Applications
1 1 (3.23%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (3.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 1 (3.23%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (3.23%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 18 (58.06%) Azure
2 10 (32.26%) AWS
3 8 (25.81%) GCP
3 8 (25.81%) Microsoft 365
4 5 (16.13%) Entra ID
4 5 (16.13%) IaaS
4 5 (16.13%) PaaS
5 1 (3.23%) Akamai
5 1 (3.23%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (3.23%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (3.23%) Google Kubernetes Engine
5 1 (3.23%) Kong
5 1 (3.23%) Microsoft Copilot
5 1 (3.23%) Microsoft Purview
5 1 (3.23%) Power Platform
5 1 (3.23%) SaaS
5 1 (3.23%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 3 (9.68%) Network Security
2 2 (6.45%) Broadband
2 2 (6.45%) Firewall
2 2 (6.45%) TCP/IP
3 1 (3.23%) DNS
3 1 (3.23%) HTTP
3 1 (3.23%) Internet
3 1 (3.23%) Modbus
3 1 (3.23%) Reverse Proxy
3 1 (3.23%) SMTP
3 1 (3.23%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (3.23%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 2 (6.45%) JIRA
General
1 12 (38.71%) Social Skills
2 6 (19.35%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (9.68%) Influencing Skills
3 3 (9.68%) Military
4 2 (6.45%) Finance
4 2 (6.45%) Legal
4 2 (6.45%) Presentation Skills
4 2 (6.45%) Public Sector
5 1 (3.23%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (3.23%) Organisational Skills
5 1 (3.23%) Retail
Job Titles
1 10 (32.26%) Architect
1 10 (32.26%) Security Architect
2 9 (29.03%) Analyst
3 6 (19.35%) Cybersecurity Specialist
3 6 (19.35%) Security Specialist
4 5 (16.13%) Cybersecurity Analyst
4 5 (16.13%) Information Architect
4 5 (16.13%) Information Security Architect
4 5 (16.13%) Security Analyst
4 5 (16.13%) Security Technical Architect
4 5 (16.13%) SOC Analyst
4 5 (16.13%) Technical Architect
5 3 (9.68%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
5 3 (9.68%) Senior
6 2 (6.45%) Cybersecurity Architect
6 2 (6.45%) Security Engineer
6 2 (6.45%) Security Manager
6 2 (6.45%) Threat Hunter
7 1 (3.23%) Information Manager
7 1 (3.23%) Information Security Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (6.45%) PySpark
2 1 (3.23%) Elastic Stack
2 1 (3.23%) JWT
2 1 (3.23%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 8 (25.81%) Cyber Defence
2 5 (16.13%) Cyber Threat
2 5 (16.13%) Operational Technology
3 4 (12.90%) Cloud Native
3 4 (12.90%) SCADA
4 3 (9.68%) Analytical Mindset
4 3 (9.68%) Security Posture
4 3 (9.68%) Self-Motivation
5 2 (6.45%) AI Agents
5 2 (6.45%) Cyberattack
5 2 (6.45%) Social Media
6 1 (3.23%) CAN bus
6 1 (3.23%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (3.23%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 1 (3.23%) Distributed Systems
6 1 (3.23%) Insider Threat
6 1 (3.23%) Onboarding
6 1 (3.23%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 8 (25.81%) Linux
2 6 (19.35%) Windows
3 5 (16.13%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (70.97%) Cybersecurity
2 17 (54.84%) SIEM
3 15 (48.39%) Security Architecture
4 10 (32.26%) Analytics
5 9 (29.03%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
5 9 (29.03%) Information Security
5 9 (29.03%) SABSA
5 9 (29.03%) Threat Intelligence
5 9 (29.03%) Use Case
5 9 (29.03%) Vulnerability Management
6 8 (25.81%) OWASP
6 8 (25.81%) Risk Assessment
6 8 (25.81%) Risk Management
7 7 (22.58%) Incident Response
8 6 (19.35%) Architectural Patterns
8 6 (19.35%) CI/CD
8 6 (19.35%) Incident Management
8 6 (19.35%) ITSM
8 6 (19.35%) Technical Leadership
9 5 (16.13%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 3 (9.68%) Kusto Query Language
1 3 (9.68%) Python
2 2 (6.45%) SQL
3 1 (3.23%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 19 (61.29%) CISSP
2 14 (45.16%) Security Cleared
3 13 (41.94%) Degree
4 10 (32.26%) CISM
4 10 (32.26%) GIAC
5 9 (29.03%) OSCP
6 8 (25.81%) CRISC
7 7 (22.58%) DV Cleared
8 6 (19.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 6 (19.35%) CISA
8 6 (19.35%) Cisco Certification
9 5 (16.13%) CESG Certified Professional
9 5 (16.13%) GCIH
9 5 (16.13%) GSEC
10 4 (12.90%) GCIA
10 4 (12.90%) SC Cleared
10 4 (12.90%) SSCP
11 3 (9.68%) GCFA
11 3 (9.68%) ISSAP
11 3 (9.68%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (35.48%) NIST
2 10 (32.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (16.13%) Cyber Essentials
3 5 (16.13%) GDPR
3 5 (16.13%) GRC
3 5 (16.13%) ISO 31000
4 3 (9.68%) ISO/IEC 42001
4 3 (9.68%) PCI DSS
5 1 (3.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 1 (3.23%) NCSC
5 1 (3.23%) RMADS
System Software
1 6 (19.35%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 1 (3.23%) Istio
1 1 (3.23%) Network Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 11 (35.48%) Microsoft
2 5 (16.13%) ArcSight
3 2 (6.45%) Databricks
3 2 (6.45%) Splunk
4 1 (3.23%) BiZZdesign
4 1 (3.23%) BMC
4 1 (3.23%) CheckPoint
4 1 (3.23%) Cisco
4 1 (3.23%) F5
4 1 (3.23%) Google
4 1 (3.23%) Intel
4 1 (3.23%) NEC
4 1 (3.23%) Remedy
4 1 (3.23%) Siemens