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

6 months to
19 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 560 497 441
Rank change year-on-year -63 -56 +275
Contract jobs citing SANS 26 23 152
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.070% 0.073% 0.35%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.21% 0.25% 1.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 19 11 49
10th Percentile £407 £575 £550
25th Percentile £478 £588 £600
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £700 £673
Median % change year-on-year -25.00% +4.05% +17.00%
75th Percentile £627 £750 £770
90th Percentile £890 £775 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £531 £613 £659
% change year-on-year -13.31% -6.99% +31.70%

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 12,566 9,381 13,086
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.99% 29.80% 30.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,284 5,662 8,199
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £416 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £631 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £540
% change year-on-year - -7.41% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 947 465 800
10th Percentile £16.00 £19.72 £14.50
25th Percentile £19.10 £24.18 £21.64
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -37.13% -20.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £60.00 £66.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £76.58 £77.89 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £42.69 £50.00
% change year-on-year -41.09% -14.62% +11.11%

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 January 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 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 19 January 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 -53 26 £525 -25.00% 7
London -25 13 £525 -25.00% 1
UK excluding London -43 11 £531 -13.31% 8
Work from Home +4 10 £537 -14.08% 4
South West -4 6 £537 -10.50% 1
South East - 4 £406 - 3
West Midlands -34 2 - -
Midlands -39 2 - - 1
East of England -13 1 £850 -

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 (11.54%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 16 (61.54%) AWS
2 10 (38.46%) Azure
3 6 (23.08%) GCP
4 4 (15.38%) OCI
5 3 (11.54%) Amazon ECS
5 3 (11.54%) AWS CloudFormation
5 3 (11.54%) GitHub
5 3 (11.54%) IaaS
5 3 (11.54%) PaaS
5 3 (11.54%) SaaS
6 2 (7.69%) Entra ID
7 1 (3.85%) Amazon ECR
7 1 (3.85%) Amazon EKS
7 1 (3.85%) AWS Fargate
7 1 (3.85%) Azure AKS
7 1 (3.85%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (3.85%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 2 (7.69%) Firewall
1 2 (7.69%) VLAN
1 2 (7.69%) VPN
1 2 (7.69%) Wireless
2 1 (3.85%) Internet
2 1 (3.85%) Intranet
Development Applications
1 4 (15.38%) Burp Suite
2 3 (11.54%) Git
2 3 (11.54%) JIRA
3 2 (7.69%) Metasploit
3 2 (7.69%) sqlmap
4 1 (3.85%) Jenkins
4 1 (3.85%) SonarQube
General
1 8 (30.77%) Social Skills
2 5 (19.23%) Analytical Skills
2 5 (19.23%) Presentation Skills
2 5 (19.23%) Public Sector
3 3 (11.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 2 (7.69%) Legal
5 1 (3.85%) Law
5 1 (3.85%) Military
5 1 (3.85%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 11 (42.31%) Security Engineer
2 6 (23.08%) Analyst
2 6 (23.08%) Security Analyst
3 5 (19.23%) Tester
4 4 (15.38%) Penetration Tester
4 4 (15.38%) Security Specialist
5 3 (11.54%) Architect
5 3 (11.54%) Cloud Engineer
5 3 (11.54%) Cloud Security Engineer
5 3 (11.54%) Security Architect
6 2 (7.69%) Cybersecurity Specialist
6 2 (7.69%) Head of Information Security
6 2 (7.69%) Information Security Specialist
6 2 (7.69%) Information Specialist
6 2 (7.69%) Test Engineer
7 1 (3.85%) AWS Architect
7 1 (3.85%) Head of Security
7 1 (3.85%) Infrastructure Architect
7 1 (3.85%) Security Tester
7 1 (3.85%) Virtualisation Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (11.54%) .NET
2 1 (3.85%) JWT
2 1 (3.85%) REST
2 1 (3.85%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 7 (26.92%) Security Posture
2 6 (23.08%) Cyber Defence
3 3 (11.54%) Management Information System
4 2 (7.69%) CSOC
4 2 (7.69%) Cyber Threat
4 2 (7.69%) Mobile App
4 2 (7.69%) Security Operations Centre
5 1 (3.85%) Cloud Native
5 1 (3.85%) Cloud Security Posture
5 1 (3.85%) Data Centre
5 1 (3.85%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (3.85%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 5 (19.23%) Linux
2 3 (11.54%) Windows
3 2 (7.69%) Android
3 2 (7.69%) Apple iOS
3 2 (7.69%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (65.38%) Cybersecurity
2 12 (46.15%) Agile
3 10 (38.46%) Cloud Security
3 10 (38.46%) OWASP
3 10 (38.46%) SIEM
4 9 (34.62%) Penetration Testing
5 8 (30.77%) DevSecOps
5 8 (30.77%) Test Automation
6 7 (26.92%) Application Security
6 7 (26.92%) CI/CD
6 7 (26.92%) Information Security
6 7 (26.92%) Infrastructure as Code
6 7 (26.92%) SDLC
6 7 (26.92%) Security Management
7 6 (23.08%) Impact Assessments
8 5 (19.23%) Problem-Solving
8 5 (19.23%) Security Architecture
8 5 (19.23%) Security Testing
8 5 (19.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 5 (19.23%) Threat Modelling
Programming Languages
1 5 (19.23%) Python
2 3 (11.54%) Java
3 2 (7.69%) Bash
3 2 (7.69%) Kotlin
3 2 (7.69%) Swift
Qualifications
1 17 (65.38%) CISSP
2 12 (46.15%) Degree
3 9 (34.62%) OSCP
3 9 (34.62%) Security Cleared
4 7 (26.92%) CISM
4 7 (26.92%) SC Cleared
5 6 (23.08%) CompTIA CySA+
5 6 (23.08%) Network+ Certification
6 5 (19.23%) CREST Certified
7 4 (15.38%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 4 (15.38%) CCSP
7 4 (15.38%) CISA
7 4 (15.38%) Cisco Certification
7 4 (15.38%) DV Cleared
7 4 (15.38%) GIAC
8 3 (11.54%) CEH
8 3 (11.54%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (11.54%) Master's Degree
9 2 (7.69%) GXPN
9 2 (7.69%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (42.31%) NIST
2 9 (34.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (11.54%) GDPR
3 3 (11.54%) NCSC
3 3 (11.54%) NIST 800
3 3 (11.54%) PCI DSS
4 1 (3.85%) GRC
System Software
1 3 (11.54%) Docker
2 2 (7.69%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 4 (15.38%) Kubernetes
1 4 (15.38%) Nessus
1 4 (15.38%) Nmap
1 4 (15.38%) Terraform
2 2 (7.69%) Ansible
3 1 (3.85%) Istio
Vendors
1 3 (11.54%) Google
1 3 (11.54%) Rapid7
2 2 (7.69%) ServiceNow
3 1 (3.85%) CheckPoint
3 1 (3.85%) Clearswift