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 23 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 599 490 472
Rank change year-on-year -109 -18 +162
Contract jobs citing SANS 16 31 117
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.034% 0.10% 0.27%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.11% 0.34% 0.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 13 45
10th Percentile £408 £490 £463
25th Percentile £481 £575 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £675 £700 £675
Median % change year-on-year -3.57% +3.70% -3.57%
75th Percentile £709 £750 £770
90th Percentile £825 - £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £650 £600 £500
% change year-on-year +8.33% +20.00% -28.57%

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 15,175 9,083 13,437
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.69% 30.76% 30.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,097 5,746 8,300
10th Percentile £350 £295 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £620 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £709 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,108 512 1,056
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.39 £13.77
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.27 £17.80
Median hourly rate £45.46 £41.38 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.87% +3.44% -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.54 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £45.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +1.02% +12.50% -20.00%

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 23 April 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 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 23 April 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 -110 15 £663 -5.36% 7
London -54 10 £563 -19.64% 1
Work from Home -36 4 £415 -36.15% 4
UK excluding London -113 3 £650 +8.33% 18
South West -31 1 £650 +8.33%
South East -54 1 £400 -27.27% 3
Yorkshire - 1 £675 -
North of England - 1 £675 - 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 (12.50%) Confluence
2 1 (6.25%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 7 (43.75%) AWS
1 7 (43.75%) Azure
2 3 (18.75%) Amazon ECS
2 3 (18.75%) AWS CloudFormation
2 3 (18.75%) GCP
2 3 (18.75%) GitHub
2 3 (18.75%) IaaS
2 3 (18.75%) OCI
2 3 (18.75%) PaaS
2 3 (18.75%) SaaS
3 1 (6.25%) Amazon ECR
3 1 (6.25%) Amazon EKS
3 1 (6.25%) AWS Fargate
3 1 (6.25%) Azure AKS
3 1 (6.25%) Azure Sentinel
3 1 (6.25%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 2 (12.50%) Network Security
1 2 (12.50%) Reverse Proxy
2 1 (6.25%) Firewall
2 1 (6.25%) Modbus
2 1 (6.25%) TCP/IP
2 1 (6.25%) Wireless
Development Applications
1 3 (18.75%) Git
1 3 (18.75%) JIRA
2 1 (6.25%) Burp Suite
General
1 5 (31.25%) Presentation Skills
2 4 (25.00%) Analytical Skills
2 4 (25.00%) Social Skills
3 2 (12.50%) Banking
3 2 (12.50%) Finance
3 2 (12.50%) Public Sector
3 2 (12.50%) Retail Banking
4 1 (6.25%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 8 (50.00%) Architect
1 8 (50.00%) Security Architect
2 3 (18.75%) Cloud Engineer
2 3 (18.75%) Cloud Security Engineer
2 3 (18.75%) Information Architect
2 3 (18.75%) Information Security Architect
2 3 (18.75%) Security Engineer
2 3 (18.75%) Security Specialist
2 3 (18.75%) Security Technical Architect
2 3 (18.75%) Technical Architect
3 2 (12.50%) Information Security Specialist
3 2 (12.50%) Information Specialist
3 2 (12.50%) Network Architect
3 2 (12.50%) Network Security Architect
3 2 (12.50%) Tester
4 1 (6.25%) CISSP Architect
4 1 (6.25%) Cybersecurity Architect
4 1 (6.25%) Penetration Tester
4 1 (6.25%) Security Tester
4 1 (6.25%) TOGAF Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (18.75%) .NET
2 1 (6.25%) REST
2 1 (6.25%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 2 (12.50%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
1 2 (12.50%) Hedge funds
1 2 (12.50%) Mobile App
1 2 (12.50%) Security Posture
2 1 (6.25%) CAN bus
2 1 (6.25%) Cloud Security Posture
2 1 (6.25%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 2 (12.50%) Android
1 2 (12.50%) Apple iOS
2 1 (6.25%) Kali Linux
2 1 (6.25%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (56.25%) Cybersecurity
1 9 (56.25%) Security Architecture
2 7 (43.75%) Information Security
2 7 (43.75%) Threat Modelling
3 6 (37.50%) SDLC
3 6 (37.50%) TOGAF
4 5 (31.25%) Application Security
4 5 (31.25%) Penetration Testing
4 5 (31.25%) Risk Assessment
4 5 (31.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 4 (25.00%) CI/CD
5 4 (25.00%) Cloud Security
5 4 (25.00%) Computer Science
5 4 (25.00%) DevSecOps
5 4 (25.00%) OWASP
5 4 (25.00%) Security Testing
6 3 (18.75%) AI
6 3 (18.75%) Data Protection
6 3 (18.75%) SABSA
6 3 (18.75%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 3 (18.75%) Java
1 3 (18.75%) Python
2 2 (12.50%) Kotlin
2 2 (12.50%) Swift
Qualifications
1 10 (62.50%) CISSP
2 7 (43.75%) OSCP
3 5 (31.25%) CISA
3 5 (31.25%) Degree
4 3 (18.75%) (ISC)2 CCSP
4 3 (18.75%) CCSP
4 3 (18.75%) CEH
4 3 (18.75%) Cisco Certification
4 3 (18.75%) CISM
4 3 (18.75%) Security Cleared
5 2 (12.50%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (12.50%) GIAC
5 2 (12.50%) Master's Degree
5 2 (12.50%) SC Cleared
6 1 (6.25%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (6.25%) CompTIA CySA+
6 1 (6.25%) CRISC
6 1 (6.25%) ISSAP
6 1 (6.25%) Network+ Certification
6 1 (6.25%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (50.00%) NIST
2 4 (25.00%) GRC
2 4 (25.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (18.75%) GDPR
3 3 (18.75%) NCSC
3 3 (18.75%) PCI DSS
4 1 (6.25%) NIST 800
4 1 (6.25%) RMADS
System Software
1 3 (18.75%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (18.75%) Kubernetes
1 3 (18.75%) Terraform
2 2 (12.50%) Network Intrusion Detection System
3 1 (6.25%) Nessus
3 1 (6.25%) Nmap
Vendors
1 3 (18.75%) Google
1 3 (18.75%) Rapid7
2 2 (12.50%) BiZZdesign
3 1 (6.25%) CheckPoint
3 1 (6.25%) Siemens