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 27 August 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 262 227 199
Rank change year-on-year -35 -28 +34
Contract jobs requiring a Security Engineer 524 381 471
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.98% 1.16% 1.21%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.06% 1.27% 1.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 335 228 355
10th Percentile £413 £371 £409
25th Percentile £463 £413 £435
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £515 £550
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -6.36% -4.35%
75th Percentile £604 £641 £638
90th Percentile £688 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £533 £500 £543
% change year-on-year +6.60% -7.83% -1.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 12 2
10th Percentile £69.25 £66.75 £64.25
25th Percentile £73.75 £83.06 £66.88
Median hourly rate £77.50 £90.50 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year -14.36% +24.83% -13.07%
75th Percentile £85.40 £91.50 £76.88
90th Percentile £86.24 - £78.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £84.70 £90.50 £72.50
% change year-on-year -6.41% +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 49,647 29,883 36,109
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.47% 91.23% 93.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,658 18,862 22,923
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £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 3,547 1,583 1,920
10th Percentile £14.99 £13.66 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.51 £17.08 £19.50
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -1.44%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.93 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.20 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +7.50%

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 27 August 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 27 August 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 27 August 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 -19 480 £525 +1.94% 319
UK excluding London -20 252 £533 +6.60% 255
London -43 227 £530 +0.15% 91
Work from Home +1 193 £540 +8.00% 81
North of England +18 142 £550 +10.89% 58
North West +23 119 £550 +13.17% 35
South East -31 50 £500 - 63
Midlands -22 49 £500 +20.48% 34
West Midlands -18 48 £500 +11.11% 24
Yorkshire -35 21 £600 +11.11% 16
East of England -39 18 £510 +2.00% 38
South West -44 13 £488 -4.88% 58
Scotland -18 10 £600 +14.29% 6
Wales -15 2 £733 +33.18% 3
East Midlands -15 1 £338 -18.67% 10
North East -43 1 - - 7

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

For the 6 months to 27 August 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.

1 183 (34.92%) Azure
2 168 (32.06%) Cloud Security
3 150 (28.63%) Cybersecurity
4 140 (26.72%) AWS
5 128 (24.43%) Microsoft
6 120 (22.90%) SIEM
7 104 (19.85%) Network Security
8 103 (19.66%) Python
9 101 (19.27%) Firewall
10 89 (16.98%) Incident Response
11 85 (16.22%) CI/CD
12 82 (15.65%) Cisco
13 81 (15.46%) PowerShell
13 81 (15.46%) Terraform
14 79 (15.08%) GCP
15 75 (14.31%) Security Cleared
16 70 (13.36%) VPN
17 69 (13.17%) Security Operations
18 64 (12.21%) CISSP
18 64 (12.21%) Kubernetes
19 63 (12.02%) DevSecOps
19 63 (12.02%) SC Cleared
20 62 (11.83%) Infrastructure as Code
21 59 (11.26%) F5
22 55 (10.50%) Windows
23 54 (10.31%) Bash
23 54 (10.31%) Security Architecture
23 54 (10.31%) Vulnerability Management
23 54 (10.31%) Zero Trust
24 53 (10.11%) DNS

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 8 (1.53%) Confluence
2 3 (0.57%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.38%) nginx
4 1 (0.19%) Apache
4 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 1 (0.19%) Chatbot
1 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (1.15%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.38%) Maximo
3 1 (0.19%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 183 (34.92%) Azure
2 140 (26.72%) AWS
3 79 (15.08%) GCP
4 45 (8.59%) Microsoft 365
5 44 (8.40%) Microsoft Purview
6 40 (7.63%) Entra ID
7 28 (5.34%) AWS CloudFormation
7 28 (5.34%) Azure Sentinel
8 19 (3.63%) SaaS
9 16 (3.05%) GitHub
10 15 (2.86%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 15 (2.86%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 14 (2.67%) Akamai
11 14 (2.67%) Serverless
12 12 (2.29%) AWS CloudTrail
12 12 (2.29%) Azure DevOps
13 11 (2.10%) Amazon GuardDuty
13 11 (2.10%) Mimecast
14 10 (1.91%) Power Platform
15 9 (1.72%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 104 (19.85%) Network Security
2 101 (19.27%) Firewall
3 70 (13.36%) VPN
4 53 (10.11%) DNS
5 40 (7.63%) BGP
6 32 (6.11%) DMZ
7 30 (5.73%) Multicast
8 28 (5.34%) SSL
9 27 (5.15%) WAN
10 23 (4.39%) TCP/IP
11 19 (3.63%) SD-WAN
12 17 (3.24%) HTTP
13 16 (3.05%) Internet
14 15 (2.86%) Cisco ISE
15 13 (2.48%) Intrusion Detection
16 12 (2.29%) Wireless
17 9 (1.72%) IPsec
17 9 (1.72%) OSPF
17 9 (1.72%) VLAN
18 6 (1.15%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.53%) Power BI
2 5 (0.95%) SQL Server
3 4 (0.76%) Data Lake
3 4 (0.76%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (0.57%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.57%) Big Data
4 3 (0.57%) MongoDB
5 2 (0.38%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (0.38%) DynamoDB
5 2 (0.38%) Metadata
5 2 (0.38%) SAP HANA
6 1 (0.19%) Apache Cassandra
6 1 (0.19%) Db2
6 1 (0.19%) Delta Lake
6 1 (0.19%) Elasticsearch
6 1 (0.19%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.19%) RDBMS
6 1 (0.19%) Redis
6 1 (0.19%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 10 (1.91%) JIRA
2 9 (1.72%) GitLab
3 8 (1.53%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.76%) Burp Suite
4 4 (0.76%) Git
5 3 (0.57%) Claude Code
5 3 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.38%) Browser DevTools
6 2 (0.38%) Snyk
7 1 (0.19%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.19%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.19%) Maven
7 1 (0.19%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.19%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.19%) sqlmap
7 1 (0.19%) TruffleHog
General
1 92 (17.56%) Social Skills
2 88 (16.79%) Finance
3 47 (8.97%) Analytical Skills
4 39 (7.44%) Banking
5 20 (3.82%) Documentation Skills
5 20 (3.82%) Investment Banking
6 17 (3.24%) Public Sector
7 7 (1.34%) Marketing
8 6 (1.15%) Legal
8 6 (1.15%) Presentation Skills
8 6 (1.15%) Telecoms
9 5 (0.95%) Manufacturing
9 5 (0.95%) Retail
10 4 (0.76%) Health Technology
10 4 (0.76%) Military
11 3 (0.57%) Digital Health
11 3 (0.57%) Digital Healthcare
11 3 (0.57%) Italian Language
12 2 (0.38%) Advertising
12 2 (0.38%) Aerospace
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (15.46%) Terraform
2 8 (1.53%) 802.1X
2 8 (1.53%) SAML
3 5 (0.95%) REST
4 4 (0.76%) ARM Templates
4 4 (0.76%) Elastic Stack
4 4 (0.76%) JWT
4 4 (0.76%) Microsoft Graph
4 4 (0.76%) SLSA
5 3 (0.57%) Azure Blueprints
5 3 (0.57%) JSON
5 3 (0.57%) OAuth
5 3 (0.57%) OpenID
5 3 (0.57%) SailPoint
6 2 (0.38%) Model Context Protocol
6 2 (0.38%) OAuth2
7 1 (0.19%) AWS CDK
7 1 (0.19%) LangChain
7 1 (0.19%) Plotly
7 1 (0.19%) Vitest
Miscellaneous
1 94 (17.94%) Security Posture
2 57 (10.88%) Cloud Native
3 38 (7.25%) Cloud Security Posture
4 35 (6.68%) Management Information System
5 22 (4.20%) Enterprise Cloud
6 18 (3.44%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 18 (3.44%) Onboarding
7 17 (3.24%) AI Agents
8 14 (2.67%) Cyber Threat
9 13 (2.48%) Operational Technology
10 12 (2.29%) Hybrid Cloud
11 11 (2.10%) Data Centre
12 9 (1.72%) Data Protection Act
13 8 (1.53%) Cyber Defence
14 7 (1.34%) Security Operations Centre
15 6 (1.15%) PKI
15 6 (1.15%) SCADA
16 5 (0.95%) NHS
17 4 (0.76%) CCTV
17 4 (0.76%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 55 (10.50%) Windows
2 42 (8.02%) Linux
3 16 (3.05%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 12 (2.29%) Windows Server
5 7 (1.34%) Apple iOS
5 7 (1.34%) Mac OS
6 5 (0.95%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.38%) Android
7 2 (0.38%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.19%) Unix
8 1 (0.19%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 168 (32.06%) Cloud Security
2 150 (28.63%) Cybersecurity
3 120 (22.90%) SIEM
4 89 (16.98%) Incident Response
5 85 (16.22%) CI/CD
6 69 (13.17%) Security Operations
7 63 (12.02%) DevSecOps
8 62 (11.83%) Infrastructure as Code
9 54 (10.31%) Security Architecture
9 54 (10.31%) Vulnerability Management
9 54 (10.31%) Zero Trust
10 53 (10.11%) Threat Detection
11 52 (9.92%) DevOps
12 51 (9.73%) Load Balancing
13 50 (9.54%) Threat Modelling
14 46 (8.78%) Data Loss Prevention
15 43 (8.21%) Stakeholder Management
16 42 (8.02%) Continuous Improvement
17 41 (7.82%) Application Security
17 41 (7.82%) Information Security
Programming Languages
1 103 (19.66%) Python
2 81 (15.46%) PowerShell
3 54 (10.31%) Bash
4 20 (3.82%) Bicep
5 19 (3.63%) Java
6 9 (1.72%) Kusto Query Language
7 6 (1.15%) SQL
8 5 (0.95%) Go
9 4 (0.76%) Search Processing Language
10 3 (0.57%) Perl
11 1 (0.19%) C
11 1 (0.19%) C#
11 1 (0.19%) JavaScript
11 1 (0.19%) Korn
11 1 (0.19%) PHP
11 1 (0.19%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.19%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 75 (14.31%) Security Cleared
2 64 (12.21%) CISSP
3 63 (12.02%) SC Cleared
4 39 (7.44%) Degree
5 32 (6.11%) Cisco Certification
6 29 (5.53%) AWS Certification
7 26 (4.96%) CISM
8 21 (4.01%) CCNP
9 19 (3.63%) Azure Certification
10 17 (3.24%) CEH
10 17 (3.24%) DV Cleared
11 13 (2.48%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 13 (2.48%) OSCP
12 12 (2.29%) Microsoft Certification
13 10 (1.91%) CCIE
13 10 (1.91%) GIAC
14 9 (1.72%) Computer Science Degree
15 7 (1.34%) CCSP
15 7 (1.34%) CompTIA Security+
16 6 (1.15%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 49 (9.35%) NIST
2 46 (8.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 21 (4.01%) GDPR
4 19 (3.63%) PCI DSS
5 16 (3.05%) Cyber Essentials
6 15 (2.86%) NCSC
7 12 (2.29%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 6 (1.15%) HIPAA
9 5 (0.95%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 5 (0.95%) NIST 800
9 5 (0.95%) SLA
10 4 (0.76%) SOC 2
11 3 (0.57%) ISA99
12 2 (0.38%) COBIT
12 2 (0.38%) GRC
12 2 (0.38%) JSP 440
13 1 (0.19%) Data Quality
13 1 (0.19%) ISO 22301
13 1 (0.19%) QA
13 1 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 33 (6.30%) Active Directory
2 18 (3.44%) Docker
3 6 (1.15%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (1.15%) VMware NSX
3 6 (1.15%) vSphere
4 4 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.57%) Virtual Servers
6 2 (0.38%) Squid
6 2 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.19%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.19%) RACF
Systems Management
1 64 (12.21%) Kubernetes
2 18 (3.44%) Ansible
3 15 (2.86%) Progress Chef
4 12 (2.29%) FortiGate
5 11 (2.10%) Microsoft Intune
6 10 (1.91%) Single Sign-On
7 8 (1.53%) Grafana
8 6 (1.15%) Istio
9 5 (0.95%) CASB
9 5 (0.95%) linkerd
9 5 (0.95%) QRadar
10 2 (0.38%) Prometheus
11 1 (0.19%) Argo
11 1 (0.19%) CSIRT
11 1 (0.19%) Host Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.19%) HP Fortify
11 1 (0.19%) Network Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.19%) SCCM
11 1 (0.19%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 128 (24.43%) Microsoft
2 82 (15.65%) Cisco
3 59 (11.26%) F5
4 49 (9.35%) Palo Alto
5 39 (7.44%) CrowdStrike
6 35 (6.68%) Zscaler
7 30 (5.73%) Fortinet
8 26 (4.96%) CheckPoint
8 26 (4.96%) CyberArk
9 25 (4.77%) Splunk
10 23 (4.39%) ServiceNow
11 18 (3.44%) Google
12 17 (3.24%) Red Hat
13 14 (2.67%) VMware
14 13 (2.48%) BeyondTrust
14 13 (2.48%) Netskope
15 12 (2.29%) Blue Coat
15 12 (2.29%) Tenable
16 10 (1.91%) Qualys
17 9 (1.72%) Juniper