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 30 May 2026.

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

6 months to
30 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 226 276 270
Rank change year-on-year +50 -6 -48
Contract jobs requiring a Security Engineer 556 266 372
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.13% 0.92% 0.87%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.23% 1.00% 0.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 346 160 264
10th Percentile £413 £382 £413
25th Percentile £475 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £525 £560
Median % change year-on-year +2.86% -6.25% -2.61%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £650
90th Percentile £686 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £545 £500 £543
% change year-on-year +9.00% -7.83% +3.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 3 4
10th Percentile £80.27 £65.65 -
25th Percentile £84.00 £66.63 £30.70
Median hourly rate £85.40 £73.31 £48.40
Median % change year-on-year +16.49% +51.47% -41.97%
75th Percentile - £80.89 £70.63
90th Percentile £86.82 £82.40 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.40 £73.31 £48.40
% change year-on-year +16.49% +51.47% -41.94%

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 45,367 26,659 39,830
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.33% 92.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,689 17,296 25,850
10th Percentile £325 £290 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £504 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.69% -4.00% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,009 1,048 2,796
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.81
25th Percentile £20.50 £17.87 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.79% -25.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.25 £59.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.61 £25.31 £40.00
% change year-on-year +72.28% -36.73% -6.98%

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 30 May 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 30 May 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 30 May 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 +37 500 £538 +2.38% 336
UK excluding London +20 265 £545 +9.00% 304
London +30 236 £525 -4.55% 98
Work from Home +25 203 £550 +4.76% 96
North of England +3 121 £560 +6.67% 68
North West +23 97 £556 +5.95% 44
Midlands -16 58 £519 +3.75% 32
South East -40 56 £500 +11.11% 88
West Midlands -27 55 £539 +7.75% 23
South West -25 24 £525 +6.33% 40
Scotland +14 23 £650 +18.18% 49
Yorkshire -50 21 £600 +14.29% 19
East of England -23 18 £525 +10.53% 24
North East -29 3 £400 -23.81% 5
East Midlands - 3 £406 - 9
Wales - 2 £733 - 3

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

For the 6 months to 30 May 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.

1 206 (37.05%) Azure
2 170 (30.58%) Cybersecurity
3 157 (28.24%) AWS
4 144 (25.90%) Cloud Security
5 138 (24.82%) Python
6 129 (23.20%) SIEM
7 122 (21.94%) Microsoft
8 110 (19.78%) CI/CD
8 110 (19.78%) Firewall
9 106 (19.06%) Network Security
10 95 (17.09%) PowerShell
11 92 (16.55%) Security Cleared
12 87 (15.65%) Incident Response
13 82 (14.75%) Cisco
14 72 (12.95%) SC Cleared
15 71 (12.77%) VPN
16 70 (12.59%) DevOps
17 68 (12.23%) Terraform
18 67 (12.05%) Data Loss Prevention
18 67 (12.05%) Vulnerability Management
19 66 (11.87%) GCP
19 66 (11.87%) Windows
20 64 (11.51%) DNS
21 62 (11.15%) NIST
22 61 (10.97%) CISSP
23 60 (10.79%) Security Architecture
23 60 (10.79%) Security Operations
24 58 (10.43%) Information Security
24 58 (10.43%) Threat Modelling
25 55 (9.89%) Degree

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 22 (3.96%) Confluence
2 5 (0.90%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.36%) Apache
3 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.18%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (0.54%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 6 (1.08%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.36%) Maximo
3 1 (0.18%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 206 (37.05%) Azure
2 157 (28.24%) AWS
3 66 (11.87%) GCP
4 53 (9.53%) Microsoft 365
4 53 (9.53%) Microsoft Purview
5 39 (7.01%) Entra ID
6 23 (4.14%) Azure Sentinel
6 23 (4.14%) GitHub
7 21 (3.78%) SaaS
7 21 (3.78%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 20 (3.60%) AWS CloudFormation
9 18 (3.24%) Mimecast
10 16 (2.88%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 14 (2.52%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 11 (1.98%) AWS CloudTrail
12 11 (1.98%) OpenShift
13 10 (1.80%) Akamai
13 10 (1.80%) AWS KMS
13 10 (1.80%) Azure Key Vault
13 10 (1.80%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 110 (19.78%) Firewall
2 106 (19.06%) Network Security
3 71 (12.77%) VPN
4 64 (11.51%) DNS
5 45 (8.09%) BGP
6 35 (6.29%) DMZ
7 33 (5.94%) Multicast
8 27 (4.86%) TCP/IP
9 26 (4.68%) SSL
10 20 (3.60%) WAN
11 18 (3.24%) HTTP
12 17 (3.06%) SD-WAN
13 11 (1.98%) Internet
14 9 (1.62%) MPLS
14 9 (1.62%) NGFW
14 9 (1.62%) TACACS
14 9 (1.62%) Wireless
15 8 (1.44%) DHCP
15 8 (1.44%) IPsec
15 8 (1.44%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (1.62%) Power BI
2 7 (1.26%) Data Lake
3 5 (0.90%) SQL Server
4 4 (0.72%) Amazon Athena
4 4 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
4 4 (0.72%) Elasticsearch
4 4 (0.72%) MongoDB
4 4 (0.72%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (0.54%) Big Data
6 2 (0.36%) Amazon Redshift
6 2 (0.36%) Apache Cassandra
6 2 (0.36%) BigQuery
6 2 (0.36%) Mixpanel
6 2 (0.36%) NoSQL
6 2 (0.36%) OLAP
6 2 (0.36%) OLTP
6 2 (0.36%) RDBMS
6 2 (0.36%) Relational Database
7 1 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.18%) DB2
Development Applications
1 25 (4.50%) JIRA
2 11 (1.98%) GitLab
3 8 (1.44%) Git
3 8 (1.44%) Jenkins
4 6 (1.08%) Snyk
5 2 (0.36%) Browser DevTools
5 2 (0.36%) Burp Suite
5 2 (0.36%) Claude Code
5 2 (0.36%) SonarQube
5 2 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.18%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.18%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 1 (0.18%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.18%) Metasploit
6 1 (0.18%) sqlmap
6 1 (0.18%) Travis CI
6 1 (0.18%) TruffleHog
General
1 106 (19.06%) Social Skills
2 87 (15.65%) Finance
3 50 (8.99%) Analytical Skills
4 42 (7.55%) Banking
5 34 (6.12%) Public Sector
6 23 (4.14%) Investment Banking
7 15 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (1.44%) Legal
9 7 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
10 6 (1.08%) Marketing
10 6 (1.08%) Telecoms
11 5 (0.90%) Cyber-Physical System
12 4 (0.72%) Health Technology
12 4 (0.72%) Local Government
12 4 (0.72%) Manufacturing
13 3 (0.54%) Aerospace
13 3 (0.54%) Financial Institution
13 3 (0.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.54%) Military
14 1 (0.18%) Back Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (2.52%) Elastic Stack
2 10 (1.80%) LDAP
3 7 (1.26%) REST
4 6 (1.08%) LangChain
4 6 (1.08%) PyTorch
4 6 (1.08%) SAML
4 6 (1.08%) scikit-learn
5 5 (0.90%) 802.1X
5 5 (0.90%) Microsoft Graph
5 5 (0.90%) SLSA
6 4 (0.72%) .NET
6 4 (0.72%) Kafka
6 4 (0.72%) OAuth
7 3 (0.54%) ADO
7 3 (0.54%) AWS CDK
7 3 (0.54%) JSON
7 3 (0.54%) SailPoint
8 2 (0.36%) GraphQL
8 2 (0.36%) Great Expectations
8 2 (0.36%) NestJS
Miscellaneous
1 76 (13.67%) Security Posture
2 55 (9.89%) Cloud Native
3 33 (5.94%) Management Information System
4 24 (4.32%) Cloud Security Posture
5 19 (3.42%) Data Centre
6 17 (3.06%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 17 (3.06%) Operational Technology
7 13 (2.34%) Onboarding
8 12 (2.16%) Cyber Threat
8 12 (2.16%) Hybrid Cloud
8 12 (2.16%) PKI
9 10 (1.80%) Data Protection Act
10 9 (1.62%) AI Agents
10 9 (1.62%) Public Cloud
11 6 (1.08%) Cyber Defence
11 6 (1.08%) Linux Command Line
11 6 (1.08%) Security Operations Centre
12 5 (0.90%) Cyber Kill Chain
12 5 (0.90%) Enterprise Cloud
12 5 (0.90%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 66 (11.87%) Windows
2 55 (9.89%) Linux
3 13 (2.34%) Windows Server
4 12 (2.16%) Mac OS
4 12 (2.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (1.44%) Windows 10
6 7 (1.26%) Apple iOS
7 6 (1.08%) Ubuntu
8 4 (0.72%) Unix
9 2 (0.36%) Android
10 1 (0.18%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 170 (30.58%) Cybersecurity
2 144 (25.90%) Cloud Security
3 129 (23.20%) SIEM
4 110 (19.78%) CI/CD
5 87 (15.65%) Incident Response
6 70 (12.59%) DevOps
7 67 (12.05%) Data Loss Prevention
7 67 (12.05%) Vulnerability Management
8 60 (10.79%) Security Architecture
8 60 (10.79%) Security Operations
9 58 (10.43%) Information Security
9 58 (10.43%) Threat Modelling
10 53 (9.53%) Load Balancing
11 52 (9.35%) DevSecOps
11 52 (9.35%) Infrastructure as Code
12 48 (8.63%) Continuous Improvement
12 48 (8.63%) Zero Trust
13 46 (8.27%) Agile
14 42 (7.55%) AI
15 40 (7.19%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 138 (24.82%) Python
2 95 (17.09%) PowerShell
3 53 (9.53%) Bash
4 22 (3.96%) Java
5 18 (3.24%) Kusto Query Language
6 11 (1.98%) SQL
7 5 (0.90%) PHP
8 4 (0.72%) JavaScript
9 3 (0.54%) C#
9 3 (0.54%) Go
9 3 (0.54%) Search Processing Language
9 3 (0.54%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.36%) Bicep
10 2 (0.36%) Perl
10 2 (0.36%) Ruby
10 2 (0.36%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.18%) BeanShell
11 1 (0.18%) C
Qualifications
1 92 (16.55%) Security Cleared
2 72 (12.95%) SC Cleared
3 61 (10.97%) CISSP
4 55 (9.89%) Degree
5 29 (5.22%) Cisco Certification
6 27 (4.86%) AWS Certification
6 27 (4.86%) CISM
7 21 (3.78%) Azure Certification
8 18 (3.24%) DV Cleared
9 14 (2.52%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 14 (2.52%) CCNP
10 12 (2.16%) Computer Science Degree
11 11 (1.98%) CompTIA Security+
12 10 (1.80%) Microsoft Certification
13 7 (1.26%) CEH
13 7 (1.26%) GIAC
14 6 (1.08%) CCSP
15 5 (0.90%) CESG Certified Professional
15 5 (0.90%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
15 5 (0.90%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (11.15%) NIST
2 52 (9.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 34 (6.12%) GDPR
4 29 (5.22%) Cyber Essentials
5 21 (3.78%) PCI DSS
6 17 (3.06%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 10 (1.80%) NCSC
8 9 (1.62%) GRC
9 8 (1.44%) SLA
10 6 (1.08%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 6 (1.08%) HIPAA
10 6 (1.08%) NIST 800
10 6 (1.08%) RMADS
11 5 (0.90%) JSP 440
11 5 (0.90%) SOC 2
12 3 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
12 3 (0.54%) ISA99
13 2 (0.36%) FedRAMP
13 2 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 28 (5.04%) Active Directory
2 26 (4.68%) Docker
3 12 (2.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (1.44%) Virtual Machines
4 8 (1.44%) VMware ESXi
5 6 (1.08%) VMware NSX
5 6 (1.08%) vSphere
6 3 (0.54%) Firmware
6 3 (0.54%) Virtual Servers
7 2 (0.36%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.36%) Squid
7 2 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.18%) RACF
Systems Management
1 68 (12.23%) Terraform
2 53 (9.53%) Kubernetes
3 19 (3.42%) Microsoft Intune
4 17 (3.06%) Ansible
5 11 (1.98%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (1.80%) Progress Chef
7 7 (1.26%) vCenter Server
8 6 (1.08%) CASB
8 6 (1.08%) Nessus
9 5 (0.90%) FortiGate
9 5 (0.90%) Functional Safety
9 5 (0.90%) Kibana
10 4 (0.72%) AirWatch
10 4 (0.72%) logstash
11 3 (0.54%) Grafana
11 3 (0.54%) SCCM
11 3 (0.54%) SCOM
12 2 (0.36%) Icinga
12 2 (0.36%) QRadar
12 2 (0.36%) WSUS
Vendors
1 122 (21.94%) Microsoft
2 82 (14.75%) Cisco
3 55 (9.89%) F5
4 39 (7.01%) CrowdStrike
4 39 (7.01%) Palo Alto
5 29 (5.22%) Fortinet
6 27 (4.86%) Google
6 27 (4.86%) Zscaler
7 25 (4.50%) CyberArk
8 21 (3.78%) ServiceNow
9 19 (3.42%) Netskope
9 19 (3.42%) Tenable
9 19 (3.42%) VMware
10 18 (3.24%) Splunk
11 16 (2.88%) CheckPoint
12 14 (2.52%) Qualys
13 12 (2.16%) BeyondTrust
13 12 (2.16%) Red Hat
14 10 (1.80%) Blue Coat
15 9 (1.62%) Juniper