Security Engineer Contract Job Trends

Security Engineer
UK

The median Security Engineer daily rate in the UK is £533, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 September 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 259 231 202
Rank change year-on-year -28 -29 +38
Contract jobs requiring a Security Engineer 557 374 463
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.02% 1.13% 1.21%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.11% 1.25% 1.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 342 220 346
10th Percentile £413 £361 £413
25th Percentile £463 £413 £439
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £515 £550
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -6.36% -4.35%
75th Percentile £606 £638 £638
90th Percentile £688 £726 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £550
% change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% -1.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 12 2
10th Percentile - £66.75 £64.25
25th Percentile £73.75 £83.06 £66.88
Median hourly rate £82.95 £90.50 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.34% +24.83% -13.07%
75th Percentile £89.68 £91.50 £76.88
90th Percentile £92.11 - £78.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.48 £90.50 £72.50
% change year-on-year -5.55% +24.83% -13.07%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 50,324 30,039 35,625
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 91.06% 93.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,923 18,938 22,148
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.32%
75th Percentile £625 £622 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,732 1,556 1,742
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.67 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.06 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.90 £70.16 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +12.50%

Security Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Security Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Security Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Security Engineer
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Security Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Security Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Security Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Security Engineer over the 6 months to 10 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Security Engineer in the UK

Security Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Security Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Security Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Security Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Security Engineer over the 6 months to 10 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Security Engineer in the UK

Security Engineer
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Security Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 10 September 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 -4 515 £525 +0.96% 615
UK excluding London -16 275 £525 +5.00% 382
London -34 237 £550 - 276
Work from Home +4 185 £533 +8.73% 200
North of England +16 143 £550 +14.58% 93
North West +21 120 £550 +15.18% 62
Midlands -18 56 £500 +25.00% 48
South East -34 54 £500 - 114
West Midlands -9 52 £500 +25.00% 33
East of England -29 32 £510 +2.00% 54
Yorkshire -31 21 £600 +11.11% 19
South West -43 15 £481 -6.10% 51
Scotland -44 9 £600 +14.29% 21
East Midlands -15 4 £338 -10.30% 15
Wales -13 2 £733 +22.08% 5
North East -47 1 - - 12

Security Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 10 September 2026, Security Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Security Engineer in the job title.

1 189 (33.93%) Azure
2 172 (30.88%) Cloud Security
3 171 (30.70%) Cybersecurity
4 144 (25.85%) AWS
5 131 (23.52%) Microsoft
6 127 (22.80%) SIEM
7 111 (19.93%) Python
8 110 (19.75%) Network Security
9 108 (19.39%) Firewall
10 97 (17.41%) Security Cleared
11 91 (16.34%) PowerShell
12 90 (16.16%) Terraform
13 89 (15.98%) Incident Response
14 88 (15.80%) Cisco
15 84 (15.08%) SC Cleared
16 83 (14.90%) CI/CD
17 82 (14.72%) GCP
18 79 (14.18%) Security Operations
19 74 (13.29%) VPN
20 72 (12.93%) Kubernetes
21 70 (12.57%) CISSP
22 68 (12.21%) DevSecOps
22 68 (12.21%) Infrastructure as Code
22 68 (12.21%) Threat Detection
23 66 (11.85%) Windows
24 64 (11.49%) Palo Alto
25 61 (10.95%) DevOps
25 61 (10.95%) F5
25 61 (10.95%) Vulnerability Management
26 57 (10.23%) Bash

Security Engineer Skill Set
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 9 (1.62%) IIS
2 8 (1.44%) Confluence
3 3 (0.54%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.36%) nginx
5 1 (0.18%) Apache
5 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.18%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.18%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (1.08%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.36%) Maximo
3 1 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 189 (33.93%) Azure
2 144 (25.85%) AWS
3 82 (14.72%) GCP
4 45 (8.08%) Microsoft 365
5 41 (7.36%) Entra ID
6 39 (7.00%) Microsoft Purview
7 30 (5.39%) Azure Sentinel
8 28 (5.03%) AWS CloudFormation
9 19 (3.41%) GitHub
10 18 (3.23%) SaaS
11 16 (2.87%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 15 (2.69%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 13 (2.33%) AWS CloudTrail
13 13 (2.33%) Azure DevOps
13 13 (2.33%) Serverless
14 11 (1.97%) Mimecast
15 10 (1.80%) Akamai
15 10 (1.80%) Amazon ECS
15 10 (1.80%) Amazon GuardDuty
15 10 (1.80%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 110 (19.75%) Network Security
2 108 (19.39%) Firewall
3 74 (13.29%) VPN
4 52 (9.34%) DNS
5 40 (7.18%) BGP
6 33 (5.92%) SSL
7 30 (5.39%) DMZ
7 30 (5.39%) WAN
8 28 (5.03%) Multicast
9 21 (3.77%) TCP/IP
10 20 (3.59%) HTTP
10 20 (3.59%) Internet
11 18 (3.23%) SD-WAN
12 16 (2.87%) Cisco ISE
12 16 (2.87%) Wireless
13 14 (2.51%) IPsec
14 13 (2.33%) Intrusion Detection
15 11 (1.97%) OSPF
16 10 (1.80%) DMVPN
16 10 (1.80%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.44%) Power BI
2 5 (0.90%) SQL Server
3 4 (0.72%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.54%) Big Data
4 3 (0.54%) Data Lake
4 3 (0.54%) MongoDB
5 2 (0.36%) DynamoDB
5 2 (0.36%) SAP HANA
6 1 (0.18%) Apache Cassandra
6 1 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.18%) Db2
6 1 (0.18%) Delta Lake
6 1 (0.18%) Elasticsearch
6 1 (0.18%) Metadata
6 1 (0.18%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.18%) RDBMS
6 1 (0.18%) Redis
6 1 (0.18%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 10 (1.80%) JIRA
2 9 (1.62%) GitLab
3 8 (1.44%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.90%) Burp Suite
4 5 (0.90%) Git
5 3 (0.54%) Claude Code
5 3 (0.54%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.36%) Snyk
7 1 (0.18%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.18%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.18%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (0.18%) Maven
7 1 (0.18%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.18%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.18%) sqlmap
7 1 (0.18%) TruffleHog
General
1 96 (17.24%) Social Skills
2 88 (15.80%) Finance
3 45 (8.08%) Analytical Skills
4 37 (6.64%) Banking
5 19 (3.41%) Documentation Skills
5 19 (3.41%) Investment Banking
5 19 (3.41%) Public Sector
6 9 (1.62%) Military
7 7 (1.26%) Back Office
7 7 (1.26%) Legal
7 7 (1.26%) Manufacturing
7 7 (1.26%) Marketing
7 7 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
8 6 (1.08%) Telecoms
9 5 (0.90%) Retail
10 4 (0.72%) Health Technology
11 3 (0.54%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.54%) Digital Health
11 3 (0.54%) Digital Healthcare
11 3 (0.54%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (16.16%) Terraform
2 13 (2.33%) JSON
3 12 (2.15%) 802.1X
4 9 (1.62%) SAML
5 8 (1.44%) LDAP
5 8 (1.44%) Regular Expression
6 7 (1.26%) REST
7 6 (1.08%) JWT
7 6 (1.08%) OpenID
8 5 (0.90%) ARM Templates
8 5 (0.90%) OAuth
9 4 (0.72%) Azure Blueprints
9 4 (0.72%) Elastic Stack
9 4 (0.72%) OAuth2
9 4 (0.72%) SLSA
10 3 (0.54%) Microsoft Graph
10 3 (0.54%) SailPoint
11 2 (0.36%) Model Context Protocol
12 1 (0.18%) LangChain
12 1 (0.18%) Semantic Kernel
Miscellaneous
1 99 (17.77%) Security Posture
2 58 (10.41%) Cloud Native
3 39 (7.00%) Management Information System
4 38 (6.82%) Cloud Security Posture
5 23 (4.13%) Cyber Threat
6 22 (3.95%) Enterprise Cloud
7 21 (3.77%) Onboarding
8 16 (2.87%) AI Agents
8 16 (2.87%) Data Centre
9 14 (2.51%) Operational Technology
10 13 (2.33%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 9 (1.62%) Cyber Defence
11 9 (1.62%) Hybrid Cloud
11 9 (1.62%) Security Operations Centre
12 8 (1.44%) CCTV
12 8 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
13 6 (1.08%) PKI
13 6 (1.08%) Public Cloud
13 6 (1.08%) SCADA
14 5 (0.90%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 66 (11.85%) Windows
2 43 (7.72%) Linux
3 18 (3.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 15 (2.69%) Windows Server
5 11 (1.97%) Apple iOS
6 7 (1.26%) Mac OS
7 6 (1.08%) Android
8 5 (0.90%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.36%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.18%) Unix
10 1 (0.18%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 172 (30.88%) Cloud Security
2 171 (30.70%) Cybersecurity
3 127 (22.80%) SIEM
4 89 (15.98%) Incident Response
5 83 (14.90%) CI/CD
6 79 (14.18%) Security Operations
7 68 (12.21%) DevSecOps
7 68 (12.21%) Infrastructure as Code
7 68 (12.21%) Threat Detection
8 61 (10.95%) DevOps
8 61 (10.95%) Vulnerability Management
9 54 (9.69%) Security Architecture
10 53 (9.52%) Threat Modelling
11 52 (9.34%) Zero Trust
12 50 (8.98%) Security Monitoring
13 47 (8.44%) AI
13 47 (8.44%) Load Balancing
14 46 (8.26%) Continuous Improvement
15 45 (8.08%) Application Security
15 45 (8.08%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 111 (19.93%) Python
2 91 (16.34%) PowerShell
3 57 (10.23%) Bash
4 23 (4.13%) Java
5 21 (3.77%) Bicep
6 7 (1.26%) Kusto Query Language
6 7 (1.26%) SQL
7 5 (0.90%) Go
8 4 (0.72%) Search Processing Language
9 3 (0.54%) Perl
10 1 (0.18%) C
10 1 (0.18%) C#
10 1 (0.18%) JavaScript
10 1 (0.18%) Korn
10 1 (0.18%) PHP
10 1 (0.18%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.18%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 97 (17.41%) Security Cleared
2 84 (15.08%) SC Cleared
3 70 (12.57%) CISSP
4 43 (7.72%) Degree
5 37 (6.64%) Cisco Certification
6 32 (5.75%) AWS Certification
7 28 (5.03%) CISM
8 25 (4.49%) DV Cleared
9 23 (4.13%) Azure Certification
10 22 (3.95%) CCNP
11 17 (3.05%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 17 (3.05%) CEH
12 13 (2.33%) OSCP
13 12 (2.15%) CCSP
13 12 (2.15%) GIAC
14 11 (1.97%) Microsoft Certification
15 10 (1.80%) CCIE
16 9 (1.62%) Computer Science Degree
17 8 (1.44%) CISA
17 8 (1.44%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 52 (9.34%) NIST
2 50 (8.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 22 (3.95%) GDPR
4 19 (3.41%) PCI DSS
5 17 (3.05%) NCSC
6 16 (2.87%) Cyber Essentials
7 12 (2.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 7 (1.26%) NIST 800
9 6 (1.08%) HIPAA
10 5 (0.90%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 4 (0.72%) GRC
11 4 (0.72%) SOC 2
12 3 (0.54%) ISA99
13 2 (0.36%) COBIT
13 2 (0.36%) ISO 31000
13 2 (0.36%) ISO 9001
13 2 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 2 (0.36%) JSP 440
13 2 (0.36%) SLA
14 1 (0.18%) QA
System Software
1 42 (7.54%) Active Directory
2 22 (3.95%) Docker
3 13 (2.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.97%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (1.44%) Hyper-V
6 7 (1.26%) NFS
7 6 (1.08%) VMware NSX
7 6 (1.08%) vSphere
8 3 (0.54%) Firmware
8 3 (0.54%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.36%) ISA Server
9 2 (0.36%) Squid
9 2 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.18%) RACF
Systems Management
1 72 (12.93%) Kubernetes
2 21 (3.77%) Ansible
3 16 (2.87%) Progress Chef
4 12 (2.15%) FortiGate
4 12 (2.15%) Microsoft Intune
5 10 (1.80%) Single Sign-On
6 8 (1.44%) Grafana
7 7 (1.26%) CASB
8 6 (1.08%) Istio
9 5 (0.90%) linkerd
9 5 (0.90%) QRadar
10 2 (0.36%) Prometheus
10 2 (0.36%) SCCM
11 1 (0.18%) Argo
11 1 (0.18%) CSIRT
11 1 (0.18%) Host Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.18%) HP Fortify
11 1 (0.18%) Network Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.18%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 131 (23.52%) Microsoft
2 88 (15.80%) Cisco
3 64 (11.49%) Palo Alto
4 61 (10.95%) F5
5 47 (8.44%) Zscaler
6 42 (7.54%) CrowdStrike
7 32 (5.75%) Splunk
8 31 (5.57%) CheckPoint
8 31 (5.57%) Fortinet
9 26 (4.67%) CyberArk
10 23 (4.13%) ServiceNow
11 21 (3.77%) VMware
12 20 (3.59%) Google
13 19 (3.41%) Red Hat
14 16 (2.87%) Blue Coat
15 14 (2.51%) Juniper
16 13 (2.33%) BeyondTrust
16 13 (2.33%) Netskope
16 13 (2.33%) Qualys
17 12 (2.15%) Tenable