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 19 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 594 491 421
Rank change year-on-year -103 -70 +267
Contract jobs citing SANS 23 29 161
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.053% 0.099% 0.36%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.16% 0.32% 1.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 19 14 55
10th Percentile £407 £505 £463
25th Percentile £478 £581 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £688 £675
Median % change year-on-year -23.64% +1.85% +1.89%
75th Percentile £627 £747 £770
90th Percentile £688 £750 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £531 £600 £560
% change year-on-year -11.50% +7.14% +9.27%

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 14,632 8,936 13,549
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.76% 30.51% 30.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,630 5,648 8,380
10th Percentile £335 £288 £300
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £650
90th Percentile £719 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,082 472 1,010
10th Percentile £16.17 £18.51 £13.99
25th Percentile £19.72 £24.42 £17.85
Median hourly rate £29.61 £42.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.33% +13.33% -25.00%
75th Percentile £67.50 £67.50 £62.47
90th Percentile £84.00 £82.03 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £50.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -45.00% +33.33% -22.05%

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 19 March 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 19 March 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 -105 22 £525 -25.00% 6
UK excluding London -79 11 £531 -11.50% 6
London -54 9 £519 -25.89% 2
Work from Home -23 8 £476 -29.48% 2
South West -16 6 £537 -10.50% 2
South East -48 4 £406 -27.78%
West Midlands -60 2 - -
Midlands -69 2 - - 1
Yorkshire - 1 £675 - 1
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 3 (13.04%) SharePoint
2 2 (8.70%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 14 (60.87%) AWS
2 8 (34.78%) Azure
3 4 (17.39%) GCP
3 4 (17.39%) OCI
4 3 (13.04%) Amazon ECS
4 3 (13.04%) AWS CloudFormation
4 3 (13.04%) GitHub
4 3 (13.04%) IaaS
4 3 (13.04%) PaaS
4 3 (13.04%) SaaS
5 1 (4.35%) Amazon ECR
5 1 (4.35%) Amazon EKS
5 1 (4.35%) AWS Fargate
5 1 (4.35%) Azure AKS
5 1 (4.35%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (4.35%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 2 (8.70%) Network Security
1 2 (8.70%) Reverse Proxy
1 2 (8.70%) Wireless
2 1 (4.35%) Internet
2 1 (4.35%) Intranet
Development Applications
1 5 (21.74%) JIRA
2 3 (13.04%) Git
3 2 (8.70%) Burp Suite
General
1 8 (34.78%) Social Skills
2 5 (21.74%) Presentation Skills
2 5 (21.74%) Public Sector
3 3 (13.04%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (13.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 2 (8.70%) Banking
4 2 (8.70%) Finance
4 2 (8.70%) Retail Banking
5 1 (4.35%) Military
Job Titles
1 11 (47.83%) Security Engineer
2 6 (26.09%) Analyst
2 6 (26.09%) Security Analyst
3 5 (21.74%) Architect
3 5 (21.74%) Security Architect
4 4 (17.39%) Security Specialist
5 3 (13.04%) Cloud Engineer
5 3 (13.04%) Cloud Security Engineer
5 3 (13.04%) Tester
6 2 (8.70%) Cybersecurity Specialist
6 2 (8.70%) Information Security Specialist
6 2 (8.70%) Information Specialist
6 2 (8.70%) Network Architect
6 2 (8.70%) Network Security Architect
6 2 (8.70%) Penetration Tester
6 2 (8.70%) Test Engineer
7 1 (4.35%) Information Security Architect
7 1 (4.35%) Security Technical Architect
7 1 (4.35%) Security Tester
7 1 (4.35%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (13.04%) .NET
2 1 (4.35%) REST
2 1 (4.35%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 6 (26.09%) Cyber Defence
2 3 (13.04%) Security Posture
3 2 (8.70%) CSOC
3 2 (8.70%) Cyber Threat
3 2 (8.70%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
3 2 (8.70%) Hedge funds
3 2 (8.70%) Mobile App
3 2 (8.70%) Security Operations Centre
4 1 (4.35%) Cloud Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 2 (8.70%) Android
1 2 (8.70%) Apple iOS
1 2 (8.70%) Kali Linux
1 2 (8.70%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (78.26%) Cybersecurity
2 10 (43.48%) Agile
3 9 (39.13%) SDLC
3 9 (39.13%) SIEM
4 8 (34.78%) DevSecOps
5 7 (30.43%) Application Security
5 7 (30.43%) Cloud Security
5 7 (30.43%) OWASP
5 7 (30.43%) Penetration Testing
5 7 (30.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 7 (30.43%) Threat Modelling
6 6 (26.09%) CI/CD
6 6 (26.09%) Impact Assessments
6 6 (26.09%) Information Security
6 6 (26.09%) Risk Assessment
6 6 (26.09%) Security Architecture
6 6 (26.09%) Security Management
6 6 (26.09%) Test Automation
7 5 (21.74%) Computer Science
7 5 (21.74%) Security Testing
Programming Languages
1 3 (13.04%) Java
1 3 (13.04%) Python
2 2 (8.70%) Kotlin
2 2 (8.70%) Swift
Qualifications
1 15 (65.22%) CISSP
2 13 (56.52%) Degree
3 8 (34.78%) OSCP
3 8 (34.78%) Security Cleared
4 7 (30.43%) SC Cleared
5 6 (26.09%) CompTIA CySA+
5 6 (26.09%) Network+ Certification
6 5 (21.74%) CEH
6 5 (21.74%) CREST Certified
7 4 (17.39%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 4 (17.39%) CCSP
7 4 (17.39%) Cisco Certification
7 4 (17.39%) CISM
8 3 (13.04%) CISA
8 3 (13.04%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (13.04%) DV Cleared
8 3 (13.04%) Master's Degree
9 2 (8.70%) DBS Check
9 2 (8.70%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (52.17%) NIST
2 6 (26.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (13.04%) GDPR
3 3 (13.04%) NCSC
3 3 (13.04%) NIST 800
3 3 (13.04%) PCI DSS
4 2 (8.70%) GRC
System Software
1 3 (13.04%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (13.04%) Kubernetes
1 3 (13.04%) Terraform
2 2 (8.70%) Nessus
2 2 (8.70%) Network Intrusion Detection System
2 2 (8.70%) Nmap
Vendors
1 3 (13.04%) Google
1 3 (13.04%) Rapid7
2 2 (8.70%) BiZZdesign
3 1 (4.35%) CheckPoint