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 24 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 563 536 438
Rank change year-on-year -27 -98 +288
Contract jobs citing SANS 23 17 154
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.062% 0.050% 0.36%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.18% 0.17% 1.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 16 8 46
10th Percentile £413 £556 £538
25th Percentile £509 £575 £568
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £531 £650 £672
Median % change year-on-year -18.31% -3.33% +15.68%
75th Percentile £599 £756 £725
90th Percentile £913 £790 £773
UK excluding London median daily rate £537 £600 £648
% change year-on-year -10.50% -7.34% +29.50%

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 12,475 10,109 12,976
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.72% 29.78% 29.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,125 6,192 8,169
10th Percentile £313 £301 £300
25th Percentile £416 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £505 £538
% change year-on-year -0.99% -6.05% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,006 481 729
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £17.10
25th Percentile £19.38 £24.00 £26.88
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -37.13% -23.81% +16.67%
75th Percentile £52.56 £66.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £51.89
% change year-on-year -44.11% -13.28% +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 24 December 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 9 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 24 December 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 -22 21 £525 -19.23% 73
London -12 11 £525 -25.00% 5
Work from Home +13 10 £537 - 78
UK excluding London -34 10 £537 -10.50% 77
South West 0 6 £537 -10.50% 9
South East - 3 £413 - 13
West Midlands -24 2 - - 10
Midlands -42 2 - - 19
East of England -15 1 £850 - 11

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
Cloud Services
1 15 (65.22%) AWS
2 10 (43.48%) Azure
3 5 (21.74%) GCP
4 2 (8.70%) Entra ID
4 2 (8.70%) OCI
5 1 (4.35%) Amazon ECR
5 1 (4.35%) Amazon ECS
5 1 (4.35%) Amazon EKS
5 1 (4.35%) AWS CloudFormation
5 1 (4.35%) AWS Fargate
5 1 (4.35%) Azure AKS
5 1 (4.35%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (4.35%) GitHub
5 1 (4.35%) Google Kubernetes Engine
5 1 (4.35%) IaaS
5 1 (4.35%) PaaS
5 1 (4.35%) Power Platform
5 1 (4.35%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (8.70%) Firewall
1 2 (8.70%) VLAN
1 2 (8.70%) VPN
2 1 (4.35%) Internet
2 1 (4.35%) Intranet
2 1 (4.35%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (4.35%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 4 (17.39%) JIRA
2 3 (13.04%) Burp Suite
3 2 (8.70%) Metasploit
3 2 (8.70%) sqlmap
4 1 (4.35%) Git
4 1 (4.35%) Jenkins
4 1 (4.35%) SonarQube
General
1 8 (34.78%) Social Skills
2 4 (17.39%) Public Sector
3 3 (13.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 2 (8.70%) Analytical Skills
4 2 (8.70%) Legal
4 2 (8.70%) Presentation Skills
5 1 (4.35%) Banking
5 1 (4.35%) Finance
5 1 (4.35%) Influencing Skills
5 1 (4.35%) Law
5 1 (4.35%) Military
5 1 (4.35%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 9 (39.13%) Security Engineer
2 6 (26.09%) Analyst
2 6 (26.09%) Security Analyst
3 4 (17.39%) Tester
4 3 (13.04%) Penetration Tester
4 3 (13.04%) Security Specialist
5 2 (8.70%) Architect
5 2 (8.70%) Consultant
5 2 (8.70%) Cybersecurity Specialist
5 2 (8.70%) Head of Information Security
5 2 (8.70%) Test Engineer
6 1 (4.35%) AWS Architect
6 1 (4.35%) AWS Infrastructure Architect
6 1 (4.35%) AWS Security Architect
6 1 (4.35%) Azure Architect
6 1 (4.35%) Cloud Engineer
6 1 (4.35%) Cloud Security Engineer
6 1 (4.35%) Head of Information
6 1 (4.35%) Vulnerability Consultant
6 1 (4.35%) Vulnerability Management Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (4.35%) .NET
1 1 (4.35%) JWT
1 1 (4.35%) REST
1 1 (4.35%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 6 (26.09%) Cyber Defence
1 6 (26.09%) Security Posture
2 3 (13.04%) Management Information System
3 2 (8.70%) CSOC
3 2 (8.70%) Cyber Threat
3 2 (8.70%) Enterprise Software
3 2 (8.70%) Security Operations Centre
4 1 (4.35%) Cloud Native
4 1 (4.35%) Cloud Security Posture
4 1 (4.35%) Data Centre
4 1 (4.35%) Hybrid Cloud
4 1 (4.35%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 4 (17.39%) Linux
2 3 (13.04%) Windows
3 1 (4.35%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (65.22%) Cybersecurity
2 11 (47.83%) Agile
3 10 (43.48%) SIEM
4 9 (39.13%) Cloud Security
5 8 (34.78%) OWASP
6 7 (30.43%) Security Management
6 7 (30.43%) Test Automation
7 6 (26.09%) Application Security
7 6 (26.09%) DevSecOps
7 6 (26.09%) Impact Assessments
7 6 (26.09%) Penetration Testing
8 5 (21.74%) CI/CD
8 5 (21.74%) Incident Response
8 5 (21.74%) Information Security
8 5 (21.74%) Infrastructure as Code
8 5 (21.74%) MITRE ATT&CK
8 5 (21.74%) Security Testing
9 4 (17.39%) Risk Assessment
9 4 (17.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 4 (17.39%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 5 (21.74%) Python
2 2 (8.70%) Bash
2 2 (8.70%) Java
3 1 (4.35%) PowerShell
3 1 (4.35%) SQL
Qualifications
1 17 (73.91%) CISSP
2 10 (43.48%) Degree
3 8 (34.78%) Security Cleared
4 7 (30.43%) OSCP
4 7 (30.43%) SC Cleared
5 6 (26.09%) CISM
5 6 (26.09%) CompTIA CySA+
5 6 (26.09%) GIAC
5 6 (26.09%) Network+ Certification
6 5 (21.74%) CREST Certified
7 4 (17.39%) CISA
7 4 (17.39%) DV Cleared
8 3 (13.04%) CEH
9 2 (8.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 2 (8.70%) CCSP
9 2 (8.70%) Cisco Certification
9 2 (8.70%) DBS Check
9 2 (8.70%) GSEC
9 2 (8.70%) OSCE
9 2 (8.70%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (47.83%) NIST
2 10 (43.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (13.04%) NIST 800
3 3 (13.04%) PCI DSS
4 2 (8.70%) GDPR
5 1 (4.35%) GRC
5 1 (4.35%) HIPAA
5 1 (4.35%) NCSC
System Software
1 2 (8.70%) Active Directory
2 1 (4.35%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (13.04%) Nessus
1 3 (13.04%) Nmap
2 2 (8.70%) Ansible
2 2 (8.70%) Kubernetes
2 2 (8.70%) Terraform
3 1 (4.35%) Istio
Vendors
1 2 (8.70%) Microsoft
1 2 (8.70%) Palo Alto
1 2 (8.70%) Rapid7
1 2 (8.70%) ServiceNow
2 1 (4.35%) CheckPoint
2 1 (4.35%) Clearswift
2 1 (4.35%) Google
2 1 (4.35%) Qualys
2 1 (4.35%) Tenable