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 6 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 615 489 540
Rank change year-on-year -126 +51 +81
Contract jobs citing SANS 22 35 60
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.046% 0.12% 0.14%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.14% 0.39% 0.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 16 13 43
10th Percentile £408 £490 £463
25th Percentile £497 £575 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £675 £700 £675
Median % change year-on-year -3.57% +3.70% -3.57%
75th Percentile £755 £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%
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 15,291 9,019 13,187
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.11% 30.76% 30.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,164 5,698 8,137
10th Percentile £350 £287 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £707 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £530
% change year-on-year - -5.66% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,102 515 1,076
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £21.59 £17.86
Median hourly rate £47.50 £40.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.75% - -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.88 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £80.06 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £40.59 £40.94
% change year-on-year +17.02% -0.85% -17.41%

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 6 May 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 6 May 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 -107 21 £675 -3.57% 9
London -53 11 £638 -8.93% 2
UK excluding London -108 8 £650 +8.33% 16
South East -48 6 £400 -27.27% 3
Work from Home -44 5 £415 -36.15% 6
South West -34 1 £650 +8.33% 1
North of England - 1 £675 - 1
Yorkshire - 1 £675 -

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 (9.09%) Confluence
2 1 (4.55%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 13 (59.09%) Azure
2 8 (36.36%) AWS
2 8 (36.36%) IaaS
2 8 (36.36%) PaaS
3 5 (22.73%) Entra ID
3 5 (22.73%) Microsoft 365
4 4 (18.18%) SaaS
5 3 (13.64%) Amazon ECS
5 3 (13.64%) AWS CloudFormation
5 3 (13.64%) GCP
5 3 (13.64%) GitHub
5 3 (13.64%) OCI
6 1 (4.55%) Amazon ECR
6 1 (4.55%) Amazon EKS
6 1 (4.55%) AWS Fargate
6 1 (4.55%) Azure AKS
6 1 (4.55%) Azure Sentinel
6 1 (4.55%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 2 (9.09%) Network Security
1 2 (9.09%) Reverse Proxy
2 1 (4.55%) Firewall
2 1 (4.55%) Modbus
2 1 (4.55%) TCP/IP
2 1 (4.55%) Wireless
Development Applications
1 3 (13.64%) Git
1 3 (13.64%) JIRA
2 1 (4.55%) Burp Suite
General
1 9 (40.91%) Social Skills
2 5 (22.73%) Analytical Skills
2 5 (22.73%) Presentation Skills
3 2 (9.09%) Banking
3 2 (9.09%) Finance
3 2 (9.09%) Public Sector
3 2 (9.09%) Retail Banking
4 1 (4.55%) Influencing Skills
4 1 (4.55%) Military
4 1 (4.55%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 9 (40.91%) Architect
1 9 (40.91%) Security Architect
2 8 (36.36%) Security Specialist
3 6 (27.27%) Cybersecurity Specialist
4 4 (18.18%) Information Architect
4 4 (18.18%) Information Security Architect
4 4 (18.18%) Security Technical Architect
4 4 (18.18%) Technical Architect
5 3 (13.64%) Cloud Engineer
5 3 (13.64%) Cloud Security Engineer
5 3 (13.64%) Security Engineer
6 2 (9.09%) Information Security Specialist
6 2 (9.09%) Information Specialist
6 2 (9.09%) Network Architect
6 2 (9.09%) Network Security Architect
6 2 (9.09%) Tester
7 1 (4.55%) Cybersecurity Architect
7 1 (4.55%) Penetration Tester
7 1 (4.55%) Security Tester
7 1 (4.55%) TOGAF Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (13.64%) .NET
2 1 (4.55%) REST
2 1 (4.55%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 5 (22.73%) Operational Technology
2 4 (18.18%) Cyber Defence
2 4 (18.18%) SCADA
3 3 (13.64%) Security Posture
4 2 (9.09%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
4 2 (9.09%) Hedge funds
4 2 (9.09%) Mobile App
5 1 (4.55%) CAN bus
5 1 (4.55%) Cloud Security Posture
5 1 (4.55%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 6 (27.27%) Linux
2 5 (22.73%) Unix
2 5 (22.73%) Windows
3 2 (9.09%) Android
3 2 (9.09%) Apple iOS
4 1 (4.55%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (63.64%) Cybersecurity
1 14 (63.64%) Security Architecture
2 10 (45.45%) Risk Assessment
3 9 (40.91%) CI/CD
3 9 (40.91%) OWASP
3 9 (40.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 8 (36.36%) Information Security
4 8 (36.36%) SABSA
4 8 (36.36%) Threat Modelling
5 7 (31.82%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
5 7 (31.82%) SIEM
5 7 (31.82%) Threat Intelligence
6 6 (27.27%) Architectural Patterns
6 6 (27.27%) SDLC
6 6 (27.27%) TOGAF
6 6 (27.27%) Vulnerability Assessment
6 6 (27.27%) Vulnerability Management
7 5 (22.73%) Incident Management
7 5 (22.73%) ITSM
7 5 (22.73%) Penetration Testing
Programming Languages
1 3 (13.64%) Java
1 3 (13.64%) Python
2 2 (9.09%) Kotlin
2 2 (9.09%) Swift
Qualifications
1 16 (72.73%) CISSP
2 9 (40.91%) Degree
3 8 (36.36%) (ISC)2 CCSP
3 8 (36.36%) Cisco Certification
3 8 (36.36%) CISM
3 8 (36.36%) OSCP
4 7 (31.82%) GIAC
4 7 (31.82%) Security Cleared
5 6 (27.27%) CISA
5 6 (27.27%) CRISC
6 5 (22.73%) CESG Certified Professional
6 5 (22.73%) SC Cleared
7 4 (18.18%) CCSP
7 4 (18.18%) GSEC
7 4 (18.18%) SSCP
8 3 (13.64%) CEH
9 2 (9.09%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (9.09%) Master's Degree
10 1 (4.55%) CompTIA CySA+
10 1 (4.55%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (59.09%) NIST
2 9 (40.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (22.73%) Cyber Essentials
3 5 (22.73%) GRC
3 5 (22.73%) ISO 31000
4 4 (18.18%) NCSC
5 3 (13.64%) GDPR
5 3 (13.64%) PCI DSS
6 1 (4.55%) NIST 800
6 1 (4.55%) RMADS
System Software
1 5 (22.73%) Active Directory
2 3 (13.64%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (13.64%) Kubernetes
1 3 (13.64%) Terraform
2 2 (9.09%) Network Intrusion Detection System
3 1 (4.55%) Nessus
3 1 (4.55%) Nmap
Vendors
1 5 (22.73%) Microsoft
2 3 (13.64%) Google
2 3 (13.64%) Rapid7
3 2 (9.09%) BiZZdesign
4 1 (4.55%) CheckPoint
4 1 (4.55%) Siemens