SANS Contracts

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 25 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 516 534 558
Rank change year-on-year +18 +24 +222
Contract jobs citing SANS 38 46 98
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.12% 0.11% 0.18%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.37% 0.38% 0.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 13 33 58
10th Percentile £455 - £551
25th Percentile £500 £463 £616
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £500 £700
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% -28.57% +7.69%
75th Percentile £694 £688 £750
90th Percentile £740 £700 £838
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £700
% change year-on-year +5.00% -28.57% +19.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 3
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £72.50
Median hourly rate - - £75.00
75th Percentile - - £77.50
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £75.00
% change year-on-year - - +10.29%

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 10,144 12,135 14,687
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 30.95% 29.91% 26.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,265 7,680 9,639
10th Percentile £279 £313 £347
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +2.80%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £702 £738 £741
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 755 940 711
10th Percentile £17.87 £14.24 £15.75
25th Percentile £19.38 £21.14 £26.04
Median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year -41.51% -25.22% +27.78%
75th Percentile £56.00 £65.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.32 £81.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year -41.51% -21.82% +31.18%

SANS
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing SANS as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for SANS in the UK

SANS
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing SANS.

Daily rate trend for SANS in the UK

SANS
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SANS over the 6 months to 25 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SANS in the UK

SANS
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing SANS.

Hourly rate trend for SANS in the UK

SANS
Top 10 Contract 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 25 July 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
Work from Home +44 22 £656 +5.63% 22
England -5 19 £644 +28.75% 36
London +27 11 £625 +19.62% 23
UK excluding London +1 10 £525 +5.00% 14
South East - 4 £613 - 4
Midlands - 2 - -
Scotland - 2 £500 - 1
West Midlands - 2 - -
Wales 0 1 £500 -24.95%
East of England - 1 - - 2

SANS
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Cloud Services
1 19 (50.00%) Azure
2 16 (42.11%) AWS
2 16 (42.11%) GCP
3 3 (7.89%) Azure Sentinel
4 2 (5.26%) Microsoft 365
4 2 (5.26%) OCI
5 1 (2.63%) Amazon ECS
5 1 (2.63%) Azure Monitor
5 1 (2.63%) Cloud Computing
5 1 (2.63%) Entra ID
5 1 (2.63%) Microsoft Purview
5 1 (2.63%) Power Platform
5 1 (2.63%) Tessian
Communications & Networking
1 9 (23.68%) Firewall
2 4 (10.53%) Network Security
3 3 (7.89%) Cisco Firepower
3 3 (7.89%) SSL
4 2 (5.26%) Intrusion Detection
5 1 (2.63%) NGFW
5 1 (2.63%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.63%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 1 (2.63%) JIRA
General
1 7 (18.42%) Social Skills
2 4 (10.53%) Analytical Skills
2 4 (10.53%) Finance
3 3 (7.89%) Public Sector
4 2 (5.26%) Banking
4 2 (5.26%) Legal
5 1 (2.63%) Influencing Skills
5 1 (2.63%) Manufacturing
5 1 (2.63%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 7 (18.42%) Senior
2 6 (15.79%) Architect
2 6 (15.79%) Security Engineer
3 5 (13.16%) Consultant
3 5 (13.16%) Security Architect
4 3 (7.89%) Delivery Manager
4 3 (7.89%) Senior Architect
4 3 (7.89%) Senior Security Architect
4 3 (7.89%) Service Delivery Manager
4 3 (7.89%) Service Manager
5 2 (5.26%) Analyst
5 2 (5.26%) Cybersecurity Analyst
5 2 (5.26%) Security Analyst
5 2 (5.26%) Security Consultant
5 2 (5.26%) Senior Consultant
6 1 (2.63%) Enterprise Architect
6 1 (2.63%) Network Engineer
6 1 (2.63%) Network Security Engineer
6 1 (2.63%) Principal Consultant
6 1 (2.63%) QA Engineer
Miscellaneous
1 4 (10.53%) PKI
2 3 (7.89%) Management Information System
2 3 (7.89%) Operational Technology
3 2 (5.26%) Algorithms
3 2 (5.26%) Hybrid Cloud
3 2 (5.26%) Security Posture
4 1 (2.63%) Cloud Native
4 1 (2.63%) Cyber Defence
4 1 (2.63%) Cyber Kill Chain
4 1 (2.63%) Cyber Security Posture
4 1 (2.63%) Cyberattack
4 1 (2.63%) Enterprise Software
4 1 (2.63%) SCADA
4 1 (2.63%) Security Operations Centre
4 1 (2.63%) YubiKey
Operating Systems
1 1 (2.63%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (50.00%) Incident Response
2 18 (47.37%) Security Operations
3 17 (44.74%) Cloud Security
4 15 (39.47%) MITRE ATT&CK
5 14 (36.84%) Cybersecurity
6 10 (26.32%) Risk Management
6 10 (26.32%) Vulnerability Management
7 9 (23.68%) SIEM
8 7 (18.42%) SABSA
9 6 (15.79%) Information Security
10 5 (13.16%) Data Loss Prevention
10 5 (13.16%) OWASP
10 5 (13.16%) Penetration Testing
10 5 (13.16%) Security Architecture
11 4 (10.53%) Data Protection
11 4 (10.53%) ITIL
12 3 (7.89%) Agile
12 3 (7.89%) Problem Management
12 3 (7.89%) Security Testing
12 3 (7.89%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 17 (44.74%) Python
2 16 (42.11%) PowerShell
3 1 (2.63%) Java
3 1 (2.63%) Perl
3 1 (2.63%) SQL
Qualifications
1 34 (89.47%) CISSP
2 28 (73.68%) GIAC
3 10 (26.32%) CISA
4 8 (21.05%) CISM
5 7 (18.42%) Security Cleared
6 6 (15.79%) Cisco Certification
6 6 (15.79%) SC Cleared
7 5 (13.16%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 5 (13.16%) CCSK
7 5 (13.16%) CRISC
8 4 (10.53%) ISACA
9 3 (7.89%) CEH
9 3 (7.89%) Degree
9 3 (7.89%) OSCP
10 2 (5.26%) CompTIA Security+
10 2 (5.26%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (5.26%) CREST Certified
11 1 (2.63%) Azure Certification
11 1 (2.63%) DV Cleared
11 1 (2.63%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (68.42%) NIST
2 15 (39.47%) PCI DSS
3 14 (36.84%) HIPAA
4 9 (23.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (13.16%) NIST 800
6 3 (7.89%) GDPR
7 2 (5.26%) QA
System Software
1 1 (2.63%) Active Directory
1 1 (2.63%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (7.89%) FortiGate
2 2 (5.26%) Kubernetes
2 2 (5.26%) QRadar
3 1 (2.63%) Ansible
3 1 (2.63%) CASB
3 1 (2.63%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
3 1 (2.63%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (2.63%) Terraform
Vendors
1 17 (44.74%) Palo Alto
2 5 (13.16%) Cisco
2 5 (13.16%) Microsoft
3 4 (10.53%) Tenable
4 3 (7.89%) Splunk
5 2 (5.26%) CyberArk
5 2 (5.26%) Rapid7
6 1 (2.63%) Clearswift
6 1 (2.63%) CrowdStrike
6 1 (2.63%) Exabeam
6 1 (2.63%) F5
6 1 (2.63%) Forcepoint
6 1 (2.63%) Fortinet
6 1 (2.63%) Google
6 1 (2.63%) Oracle
6 1 (2.63%) Qualys
6 1 (2.63%) Zscaler