Security Engineer Contract Job Trends

Security Engineer
UK

The median Security Engineer daily rate in the UK is £538, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 31 January 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 231 276 293
Rank change year-on-year +45 +17 -36
Contract jobs requiring a Security Engineer 462 286 349
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.19% 0.91% 0.78%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.30% 0.98% 0.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 260 164 226
10th Percentile £399 £400 £413
25th Percentile £463 £463 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% -4.35% -
75th Percentile £620 £638 £675
90th Percentile £686 £700 £768
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £529 £550
% change year-on-year -0.71% -3.86% +2.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 3 23
10th Percentile - £42.00 £55.65
25th Percentile - £43.13 £75.22
Median hourly rate £85.40 £45.00 £83.40
Median % change year-on-year +89.78% -46.04% +24.01%
75th Percentile £90.81 £61.68 -
90th Percentile £92.20 £71.69 £83.41
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.40 £73.31 £83.40
% change year-on-year +16.49% -12.10% +19.14%

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 35,445 29,208 41,662
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.48% 92.89% 93.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,347 17,858 27,594
10th Percentile £300 £296 £275
25th Percentile £405 £409 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £479 £495
% change year-on-year -0.84% -3.23% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,112 858 2,186
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.91 £13.25
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.00
Median hourly rate £29.60 £32.50 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.92% -10.96% +4.29%
75th Percentile £61.18 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £31.52 £38.00
% change year-on-year -12.75% -17.05% +26.67%

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 31 January 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 31 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Security Engineer in the UK

Security Engineer
Top 17 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 31 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 +39 393 £538 -2.27% 394
UK excluding London +26 203 £525 -0.71% 346
London +21 199 £538 -6.52% 119
Work from Home +31 135 £536 -2.58% 118
North of England -35 53 £563 +2.27% 79
South East -17 39 £475 +2.70% 104
North West -12 36 £575 +4.55% 48
Midlands -26 35 £500 - 46
South West +9 34 £531 -7.65% 45
Scotland +24 32 £575 +2.22% 28
West Midlands -31 29 £540 +8.00% 25
East of England -5 17 £550 +100.00% 42
Yorkshire -43 14 £540 +60.00% 21
East Midlands - 6 £450 - 21
Northern Ireland - 5 - - 2
North East -19 3 £400 -23.81% 10
Wales 0 2 £600 - 9

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

For the 6 months to 31 January 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.

1 176 (38.10%) Azure
2 167 (36.15%) Cybersecurity
3 131 (28.35%) AWS
4 116 (25.11%) SIEM
5 114 (24.68%) Microsoft
6 112 (24.24%) Cloud Security
7 110 (23.81%) Firewall
8 107 (23.16%) Security Cleared
9 95 (20.56%) Python
10 90 (19.48%) Network Security
11 85 (18.40%) NIST
12 83 (17.97%) SC Cleared
13 80 (17.32%) Incident Response
14 78 (16.88%) CI/CD
15 77 (16.67%) PowerShell
16 76 (16.45%) Security Operations
17 70 (15.15%) Infrastructure as Code
18 66 (14.29%) CISSP
19 62 (13.42%) Linux
19 62 (13.42%) Windows
20 61 (13.20%) DevOps
21 59 (12.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
22 56 (12.12%) Degree
22 56 (12.12%) GCP
23 53 (11.47%) Cisco
23 53 (11.47%) Entra ID
24 51 (11.04%) Microsoft 365
25 50 (10.82%) Problem-Solving
26 48 (10.39%) Terraform
27 47 (10.17%) Active Directory

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 10 (2.16%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (1.95%) Confluence
3 4 (0.87%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.43%) Apache
4 2 (0.43%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 5 (1.08%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.43%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 176 (38.10%) Azure
2 131 (28.35%) AWS
3 56 (12.12%) GCP
4 53 (11.47%) Entra ID
5 51 (11.04%) Microsoft 365
6 44 (9.52%) Azure Sentinel
7 42 (9.09%) Microsoft Purview
8 35 (7.58%) GitHub
9 23 (4.98%) AWS CloudFormation
10 20 (4.33%) OpenShift
11 15 (3.25%) Amazon GuardDuty
12 14 (3.03%) Azure Monitor
12 14 (3.03%) GitHub Actions
12 14 (3.03%) Mimecast
12 14 (3.03%) SaaS
13 12 (2.60%) Amazon ECS
13 12 (2.60%) Azure Key Vault
14 11 (2.38%) Azure DevOps
15 10 (2.16%) AWS KMS
16 9 (1.95%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 110 (23.81%) Firewall
2 90 (19.48%) Network Security
3 44 (9.52%) VPN
4 35 (7.58%) DNS
5 21 (4.55%) BGP
6 17 (3.68%) WAN
7 15 (3.25%) TCP/IP
8 13 (2.81%) Wireless
9 12 (2.60%) SSL
10 10 (2.16%) Cisco ASA
10 10 (2.16%) Intrusion Detection
11 8 (1.73%) DMZ
11 8 (1.73%) IPsec
11 8 (1.73%) Multicast
11 8 (1.73%) OSPF
12 7 (1.52%) DHCP
12 7 (1.52%) NGFW
12 7 (1.52%) Wi-Fi
13 6 (1.30%) Cisco IOS
13 6 (1.30%) DMVPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (2.81%) Data Lake
2 7 (1.52%) BigQuery
2 7 (1.52%) Elasticsearch
3 6 (1.30%) Oracle Database
4 4 (0.87%) Amazon Athena
4 4 (0.87%) Power BI
5 3 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
6 2 (0.43%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.43%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.43%) Mixpanel
6 2 (0.43%) OLAP
6 2 (0.43%) OLTP
7 1 (0.22%) Big Data
7 1 (0.22%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 20 (4.33%) GitLab
2 14 (3.03%) JIRA
3 11 (2.38%) Jenkins
4 10 (2.16%) Snyk
5 7 (1.52%) Git
5 7 (1.52%) SonarQube
6 6 (1.30%) ClearCase
7 4 (0.87%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.65%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.22%) Travis CI
General
1 113 (24.46%) Social Skills
2 60 (12.99%) Finance
3 52 (11.26%) Public Sector
4 44 (9.52%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (3.03%) Banking
5 14 (3.03%) Documentation Skills
6 10 (2.16%) Military
7 9 (1.95%) Legal
7 9 (1.95%) Telecoms
8 8 (1.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 6 (1.30%) Financial Institution
9 6 (1.30%) Investment Banking
9 6 (1.30%) Spanish Language
10 5 (1.08%) Cyber-Physical System
10 5 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (0.87%) Manufacturing
11 4 (0.87%) Organisational Skills
11 4 (0.87%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.65%) Local Government
13 2 (0.43%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (4.98%) REST
2 14 (3.03%) Elastic Stack
3 12 (2.60%) SAML
4 9 (1.95%) OAuth
5 8 (1.73%) LDAP
6 7 (1.52%) JSON
6 7 (1.52%) Node.js
6 7 (1.52%) SailPoint
7 6 (1.30%) 802.1X
7 6 (1.30%) Kafka
7 6 (1.30%) NestJS
7 6 (1.30%) OpenID
8 5 (1.08%) .NET
8 5 (1.08%) Microsoft Graph
9 4 (0.87%) SLSA
9 4 (0.87%) SOAP
10 3 (0.65%) Regular Expression
11 2 (0.43%) GraphQL
11 2 (0.43%) gRPC
11 2 (0.43%) Smart Contracts
Miscellaneous
1 53 (11.47%) Security Posture
2 28 (6.06%) Data Centre
3 24 (5.19%) Cloud Native
4 23 (4.98%) Onboarding
5 19 (4.11%) Management Information System
6 12 (2.60%) Data Protection Act
6 12 (2.60%) Operational Technology
7 11 (2.38%) Cyber Defence
8 10 (2.16%) Security Operations Centre
9 9 (1.95%) PKI
10 8 (1.73%) Cloud Security Posture
11 7 (1.52%) Cyber Security Posture
11 7 (1.52%) Hybrid Cloud
12 6 (1.30%) BYOD
12 6 (1.30%) Cyber Threat
12 6 (1.30%) Greenfield Project
13 5 (1.08%) Life Science
13 5 (1.08%) Mobile App
13 5 (1.08%) Public Cloud
14 4 (0.87%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 62 (13.42%) Linux
1 62 (13.42%) Windows
2 13 (2.81%) Windows Server
3 11 (2.38%) Mac OS
4 7 (1.52%) Unix
5 6 (1.30%) Android
5 6 (1.30%) Ubuntu
6 5 (1.08%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.87%) Windows 10
8 3 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.65%) VMS
9 1 (0.22%) Rocky
9 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 167 (36.15%) Cybersecurity
2 116 (25.11%) SIEM
3 112 (24.24%) Cloud Security
4 80 (17.32%) Incident Response
5 78 (16.88%) CI/CD
6 76 (16.45%) Security Operations
7 70 (15.15%) Infrastructure as Code
8 61 (13.20%) DevOps
9 50 (10.82%) Problem-Solving
10 45 (9.74%) SOAR
10 45 (9.74%) Vulnerability Management
11 44 (9.52%) DevSecOps
11 44 (9.52%) Threat Detection
12 43 (9.31%) Threat Modelling
13 40 (8.66%) Agile
14 39 (8.44%) Information Security
15 38 (8.23%) Continuous Improvement
16 37 (8.01%) Security Monitoring
17 34 (7.36%) Data Loss Prevention
18 33 (7.14%) MITRE ATT&CK
Programming Languages
1 95 (20.56%) Python
2 77 (16.67%) PowerShell
3 27 (5.84%) Bash
4 25 (5.41%) Kusto Query Language
5 22 (4.76%) Java
6 9 (1.95%) SQL
7 6 (1.30%) Bicep
7 6 (1.30%) C
8 5 (1.08%) JavaScript
8 5 (1.08%) Shell Script
9 4 (0.87%) BeanShell
10 3 (0.65%) C#
10 3 (0.65%) Kotlin
10 3 (0.65%) PHP
10 3 (0.65%) TypeScript
11 2 (0.43%) C++
11 2 (0.43%) Go
11 2 (0.43%) Ruby
11 2 (0.43%) Rust
12 1 (0.22%) Scala
Qualifications
1 107 (23.16%) Security Cleared
2 83 (17.97%) SC Cleared
3 66 (14.29%) CISSP
4 56 (12.12%) Degree
5 37 (8.01%) CISM
6 26 (5.63%) DV Cleared
7 22 (4.76%) Cisco Certification
8 18 (3.90%) Azure Certification
9 16 (3.46%) CompTIA Security+
10 15 (3.25%) CEH
11 13 (2.81%) AWS Certification
12 11 (2.38%) GIAC
12 11 (2.38%) SANS
13 10 (2.16%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 10 (2.16%) CCNP
14 8 (1.73%) Microsoft Certification
15 6 (1.30%) CCSP
15 6 (1.30%) Computer Science Degree
15 6 (1.30%) Network+ Certification
15 6 (1.30%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 85 (18.40%) NIST
2 59 (12.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 35 (7.58%) GDPR
4 20 (4.33%) Cyber Essentials
5 16 (3.46%) NCSC
6 11 (2.38%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 11 (2.38%) GRC
6 11 (2.38%) PCI DSS
7 10 (2.16%) HIPAA
7 10 (2.16%) NIST 800
8 7 (1.52%) JSP 440
8 7 (1.52%) RMADS
9 5 (1.08%) SOC 2
10 3 (0.65%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 3 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 2 (0.43%) Data Quality
11 2 (0.43%) EU AI Act
11 2 (0.43%) GxP
12 1 (0.22%) SLA
System Software
1 47 (10.17%) Active Directory
2 20 (4.33%) Docker
3 18 (3.90%) Virtual Machines
4 8 (1.73%) Firmware
5 7 (1.52%) Hyper-V
5 7 (1.52%) VMware Infrastructure
6 5 (1.08%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.22%) GPFS
8 1 (0.22%) Lustre
8 1 (0.22%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.22%) Snort
8 1 (0.22%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 48 (10.39%) Terraform
2 45 (9.74%) Kubernetes
3 21 (4.55%) Microsoft Intune
4 19 (4.11%) SCCM
5 14 (3.03%) Single Sign-On
6 13 (2.81%) Fluentd
7 10 (2.16%) Ansible
8 9 (1.95%) Kibana
8 9 (1.95%) logstash
9 8 (1.73%) CASB
10 7 (1.52%) WSUS
11 6 (1.30%) SCOrch
12 5 (1.08%) Functional Safety
12 5 (1.08%) Nessus
12 5 (1.08%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.87%) AirWatch
13 4 (0.87%) CSIRT
14 3 (0.65%) Argo
14 3 (0.65%) Icinga
14 3 (0.65%) QRadar
Vendors
1 114 (24.68%) Microsoft
2 53 (11.47%) Cisco
3 46 (9.96%) Splunk
4 36 (7.79%) Palo Alto
5 28 (6.06%) F5
6 27 (5.84%) Tenable
7 24 (5.19%) CrowdStrike
8 22 (4.76%) Fortinet
9 19 (4.11%) CheckPoint
10 18 (3.90%) Google
11 14 (3.03%) Juniper
12 13 (2.81%) Cribl.io
12 13 (2.81%) Qualys
13 11 (2.38%) ServiceNow
14 10 (2.16%) Zscaler
15 8 (1.73%) VMware
16 7 (1.52%) Blue Coat
16 7 (1.52%) CyberArk
16 7 (1.52%) Ping Identity
16 7 (1.52%) Rapid7