Security Engineer Contract Job Trends

Security Engineer
UK

The median Security Engineer daily rate in the UK is £540, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 March 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 233 276 296
Rank change year-on-year +43 +20 -69
Contract jobs requiring a Security Engineer 500 263 323
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.14% 0.90% 0.73%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.24% 0.97% 0.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 301 161 213
10th Percentile £400 £400 £408
25th Percentile £475 £413 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -1.82% -4.35%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £650
90th Percentile £675 £700 £710
UK excluding London median daily rate £540 £525 £550
% change year-on-year +2.86% -4.55% +2.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 2 10
10th Percentile £84.00 £69.78 £30.70
25th Percentile - £72.05 £82.48
Median hourly rate £85.40 £78.36 £83.40
Median % change year-on-year +8.98% -6.04% +0.11%
75th Percentile - £82.15 -
90th Percentile £88.24 £82.91 £83.41
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.40 £78.36 £83.40
% change year-on-year +8.98% -6.04% +0.11%

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 40,460 27,000 41,116
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.01% 92.90% 92.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,246 17,765 26,949
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.37%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.68% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,509 917 2,520
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.20 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £37.20 £32.50 £32.95
Median % change year-on-year +14.46% -1.36% -24.26%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.52 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £76.25 £72.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £31.76 £32.90
% change year-on-year +18.07% -3.45% -21.30%

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 26 March 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 26 March 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 26 March 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 +27 440 £540 +2.86% 341
UK excluding London +10 227 £540 +2.86% 288
London +29 212 £538 -2.27% 99
Work from Home +9 158 £539 +1.17% 80
North of England -14 89 £575 +4.55% 65
North West +12 73 £575 +4.55% 43
South East -32 48 £500 +11.11% 97
Midlands -36 45 £500 - 38
West Midlands -41 40 £540 +8.00% 19
South West -4 33 £531 +1.14% 35
Scotland +25 22 £675 +22.73% 13
Yorkshire -48 13 £600 +18.52% 17
East of England -23 12 £575 +74.24% 36
East Midlands - 5 £413 - 19
North East -17 3 £400 -23.81% 5
Northern Ireland - 3 - - 4

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

For the 6 months to 26 March 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.

1 173 (34.60%) Azure
2 172 (34.40%) Cybersecurity
3 155 (31.00%) AWS
4 141 (28.20%) Cloud Security
5 130 (26.00%) SIEM
6 116 (23.20%) Microsoft
7 112 (22.40%) Firewall
8 109 (21.80%) Security Cleared
9 104 (20.80%) Python
10 98 (19.60%) CI/CD
11 88 (17.60%) Network Security
12 87 (17.40%) Incident Response
13 84 (16.80%) SC Cleared
14 77 (15.40%) NIST
15 76 (15.20%) PowerShell
16 72 (14.40%) Security Operations
17 71 (14.20%) Infrastructure as Code
18 70 (14.00%) CISSP
19 68 (13.60%) Vulnerability Management
20 65 (13.00%) Cisco
20 65 (13.00%) DevOps
20 65 (13.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
21 62 (12.40%) GCP
21 62 (12.40%) Threat Modelling
22 55 (11.00%) Degree
22 55 (11.00%) VPN
23 53 (10.60%) DevSecOps
24 52 (10.40%) Data Loss Prevention
24 52 (10.40%) DNS
24 52 (10.40%) Kubernetes

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 19 (3.80%) Confluence
2 8 (1.60%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (0.80%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.40%) Apache
4 2 (0.40%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 3 (0.60%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.20%) SAP ERP
1 1 (0.20%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 173 (34.60%) Azure
2 155 (31.00%) AWS
3 62 (12.40%) GCP
4 52 (10.40%) Microsoft 365
5 48 (9.60%) Microsoft Purview
6 45 (9.00%) Entra ID
7 35 (7.00%) Azure Sentinel
8 25 (5.00%) AWS CloudFormation
9 24 (4.80%) GitHub
10 20 (4.00%) OpenShift
10 20 (4.00%) SaaS
11 17 (3.40%) Mimecast
12 16 (3.20%) Amazon GuardDuty
13 14 (2.80%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 12 (2.40%) Amazon ECS
14 12 (2.40%) AWS KMS
14 12 (2.40%) GitHub Actions
14 12 (2.40%) Serverless
15 11 (2.20%) AWS CloudTrail
15 11 (2.20%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 112 (22.40%) Firewall
2 88 (17.60%) Network Security
3 55 (11.00%) VPN
4 52 (10.40%) DNS
5 34 (6.80%) BGP
6 22 (4.40%) DMZ
6 22 (4.40%) Multicast
7 16 (3.20%) TCP/IP
8 15 (3.00%) WAN
9 12 (2.40%) SSL
10 10 (2.00%) Cisco ASA
10 10 (2.00%) HTTP
10 10 (2.00%) Wireless
11 9 (1.80%) Internet
12 8 (1.60%) NGFW
12 8 (1.60%) SD-WAN
13 7 (1.40%) Cisco IOS
13 7 (1.40%) DHCP
13 7 (1.40%) IPsec
13 7 (1.40%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (2.60%) Data Lake
2 5 (1.00%) BigQuery
3 4 (0.80%) Amazon Athena
3 4 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
3 4 (0.80%) Elasticsearch
4 3 (0.60%) Power BI
4 3 (0.60%) SQL Server
5 2 (0.40%) Amazon Redshift
5 2 (0.40%) Mixpanel
5 2 (0.40%) OLAP
5 2 (0.40%) OLTP
5 2 (0.40%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.20%) Apache Cassandra
6 1 (0.20%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.20%) DynamoDB
6 1 (0.20%) Metadata
6 1 (0.20%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.20%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.20%) RDBMS
6 1 (0.20%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 26 (5.20%) JIRA
2 20 (4.00%) GitLab
3 10 (2.00%) Jenkins
4 7 (1.40%) Git
4 7 (1.40%) Snyk
5 4 (0.80%) SonarQube
6 2 (0.40%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.40%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.40%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.20%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.20%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (0.20%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.20%) sqlmap
7 1 (0.20%) Travis CI
7 1 (0.20%) TruffleHog
General
1 105 (21.00%) Social Skills
2 68 (13.60%) Finance
3 49 (9.80%) Public Sector
4 47 (9.40%) Analytical Skills
5 26 (5.20%) Banking
6 14 (2.80%) Documentation Skills
6 14 (2.80%) Investment Banking
7 7 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 7 (1.40%) Legal
8 6 (1.20%) Financial Institution
8 6 (1.20%) Telecoms
9 5 (1.00%) Cyber-Physical System
9 5 (1.00%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (0.80%) Military
10 4 (0.80%) Pharmaceutical
11 3 (0.60%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.60%) Local Government
11 3 (0.60%) Manufacturing
11 3 (0.60%) Spanish Language
12 2 (0.40%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (3.60%) REST
2 12 (2.40%) Elastic Stack
3 10 (2.00%) LDAP
4 7 (1.40%) NestJS
4 7 (1.40%) Node.js
5 6 (1.20%) JSON
5 6 (1.20%) Kafka
5 6 (1.20%) LangChain
5 6 (1.20%) OAuth
5 6 (1.20%) PyTorch
5 6 (1.20%) SAML
5 6 (1.20%) scikit-learn
6 5 (1.00%) .NET
6 5 (1.00%) Microsoft Graph
6 5 (1.00%) SLSA
7 4 (0.80%) 802.1X
7 4 (0.80%) AWS CDK
7 4 (0.80%) SailPoint
7 4 (0.80%) SOAP
8 3 (0.60%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 66 (13.20%) Security Posture
2 36 (7.20%) Cloud Native
3 22 (4.40%) Management Information System
4 19 (3.80%) Cloud Security Posture
5 18 (3.60%) Data Centre
6 16 (3.20%) Onboarding
7 14 (2.80%) Hybrid Cloud
8 13 (2.60%) Data Protection Act
8 13 (2.60%) Operational Technology
9 11 (2.20%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 11 (2.20%) PKI
10 10 (2.00%) Cyber Defence
11 8 (1.60%) Security Operations Centre
12 7 (1.40%) Public Cloud
13 6 (1.20%) BYOD
14 5 (1.00%) Cyber Security Posture
14 5 (1.00%) Cyber Threat
14 5 (1.00%) Greenfield Project
14 5 (1.00%) Linux Command Line
15 4 (0.80%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 50 (10.00%) Linux
2 47 (9.40%) Windows
3 10 (2.00%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 7 (1.40%) Ubuntu
4 7 (1.40%) Unix
5 6 (1.20%) Android
5 6 (1.20%) Apple iOS
6 5 (1.00%) Mac OS
6 5 (1.00%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.40%) VMS
8 1 (0.20%) Rocky
8 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 172 (34.40%) Cybersecurity
2 141 (28.20%) Cloud Security
3 130 (26.00%) SIEM
4 98 (19.60%) CI/CD
5 87 (17.40%) Incident Response
6 72 (14.40%) Security Operations
7 71 (14.20%) Infrastructure as Code
8 68 (13.60%) Vulnerability Management
9 65 (13.00%) DevOps
10 62 (12.40%) Threat Modelling
11 53 (10.60%) DevSecOps
12 52 (10.40%) Data Loss Prevention
13 46 (9.20%) Agile
14 45 (9.00%) Information Security
15 43 (8.60%) Threat Detection
16 42 (8.40%) Security Architecture
17 41 (8.20%) Continuous Improvement
18 39 (7.80%) AI
19 37 (7.40%) SDLC
20 36 (7.20%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 104 (20.80%) Python
2 76 (15.20%) PowerShell
3 33 (6.60%) Bash
4 21 (4.20%) Kusto Query Language
5 18 (3.60%) Java
6 8 (1.60%) SQL
7 6 (1.20%) Bicep
8 5 (1.00%) JavaScript
9 4 (0.80%) BeanShell
9 4 (0.80%) PHP
9 4 (0.80%) TypeScript
10 2 (0.40%) C#
10 2 (0.40%) Go
10 2 (0.40%) Ruby
10 2 (0.40%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.20%) C
11 1 (0.20%) Kotlin
11 1 (0.20%) Objective-C
11 1 (0.20%) Scala
11 1 (0.20%) Swift
Qualifications
1 109 (21.80%) Security Cleared
2 84 (16.80%) SC Cleared
3 70 (14.00%) CISSP
4 55 (11.00%) Degree
5 41 (8.20%) CISM
6 27 (5.40%) DV Cleared
7 26 (5.20%) Cisco Certification
8 17 (3.40%) AWS Certification
8 17 (3.40%) Azure Certification
9 16 (3.20%) CompTIA Security+
10 14 (2.80%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 14 (2.80%) CEH
11 12 (2.40%) GIAC
12 11 (2.20%) Microsoft Certification
12 11 (2.20%) SANS
13 10 (2.00%) CCNP
14 8 (1.60%) CCSP
15 6 (1.20%) CESG Certified Professional
15 6 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
15 6 (1.20%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 77 (15.40%) NIST
2 65 (13.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 44 (8.80%) GDPR
4 25 (5.00%) Cyber Essentials
5 15 (3.00%) NCSC
5 15 (3.00%) PCI DSS
6 14 (2.80%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 14 (2.80%) HIPAA
7 10 (2.00%) GRC
8 7 (1.40%) NIST 800
8 7 (1.40%) RMADS
8 7 (1.40%) SLA
9 5 (1.00%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 4 (0.80%) Government Security Classifications
10 4 (0.80%) JSP 440
10 4 (0.80%) SOC 2
11 3 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.40%) Data Quality
12 2 (0.40%) ISA99
12 2 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 28 (5.60%) Active Directory
2 27 (5.40%) Docker
3 10 (2.00%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (1.80%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (1.40%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.80%) Firmware
7 2 (0.40%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.40%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.20%) GPFS
8 1 (0.20%) Lustre
8 1 (0.20%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.20%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 52 (10.40%) Kubernetes
1 52 (10.40%) Terraform
2 19 (3.80%) Microsoft Intune
3 11 (2.20%) Ansible
4 10 (2.00%) CASB
4 10 (2.00%) SCCM
5 9 (1.80%) Fluentd
6 8 (1.60%) Nessus
6 8 (1.60%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (1.40%) vCenter Server
8 6 (1.20%) Kibana
8 6 (1.20%) logstash
9 5 (1.00%) Functional Safety
9 5 (1.00%) Progress Chef
9 5 (1.00%) WSUS
10 4 (0.80%) AirWatch
10 4 (0.80%) QRadar
11 3 (0.60%) Argo
11 3 (0.60%) Icinga
11 3 (0.60%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 116 (23.20%) Microsoft
2 65 (13.00%) Cisco
3 39 (7.80%) F5
4 31 (6.20%) Splunk
5 27 (5.40%) Palo Alto
5 27 (5.40%) Tenable
6 24 (4.80%) CrowdStrike
7 23 (4.60%) Google
8 22 (4.40%) Fortinet
8 22 (4.40%) ServiceNow
9 15 (3.00%) Qualys
10 14 (2.80%) CyberArk
11 13 (2.60%) Zscaler
12 12 (2.40%) CheckPoint
12 12 (2.40%) VMware
13 9 (1.80%) Juniper
13 9 (1.80%) Netskope
14 8 (1.60%) Cribl.io
14 8 (1.60%) Ping Identity
14 8 (1.60%) Rapid7