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 11 August 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 252 242 211
Rank change year-on-year -10 -31 +13
Contract jobs requiring a Security Engineer 542 378 456
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.01% 1.15% 1.17%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.10% 1.26% 1.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 359 232 348
10th Percentile £413 £364 £411
25th Percentile £466 £413 £435
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £507 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.23% -7.91% -2.65%
75th Percentile £612 £638 £638
90th Percentile £688 £738 £741
UK excluding London median daily rate £540 £500 £550
% change year-on-year +8.00% -9.09% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 11 2
10th Percentile £70.38 £65.00 £64.25
25th Percentile £73.75 £82.88 £66.88
Median hourly rate £77.50 £87.50 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.43% +20.69% -13.07%
75th Percentile £85.05 £91.50 £76.88
90th Percentile £86.03 - £78.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £84.00 £87.50 £72.50
% change year-on-year -4.00% +20.69% -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 49,431 30,083 36,174
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.55% 91.36% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,700 19,069 23,306
10th Percentile £328 £282 £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 £625 £638
90th Percentile £729 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,475 1,511 2,026
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.08 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.25 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.99% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.08 £45.00
% change year-on-year +69.49% -44.28% +28.57%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -20 500 £529 +3.22% 694
UK excluding London -4 261 £540 +8.00% 399
London -38 239 £525 -1.50% 338
Work from Home -1 201 £538 +7.50% 210
North of England +15 144 £591 +19.20% 112
North West +32 122 £575 +16.87% 83
Midlands -16 55 £500 +22.70% 41
West Midlands -17 54 £500 +25.00% 21
South East -48 51 £500 - 108
Yorkshire -31 20 £600 +14.29% 20
East of England -33 20 £510 +2.00% 45
South West -38 12 £481 -1.28% 66
Scotland -13 11 £600 +14.29% 24
Wales -11 2 £733 +46.50% 6
East Midlands -10 1 £338 -18.67% 20
North East -44 1 - - 9

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

For the 6 months to 11 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.

1 192 (35.42%) Azure
2 181 (33.39%) Cloud Security
3 154 (28.41%) Cybersecurity
4 150 (27.68%) AWS
5 132 (24.35%) SIEM
6 130 (23.99%) Microsoft
7 116 (21.40%) Python
8 113 (20.85%) Firewall
9 103 (19.00%) Network Security
10 100 (18.45%) CI/CD
11 88 (16.24%) PowerShell
12 85 (15.68%) Cisco
12 85 (15.68%) Incident Response
13 81 (14.94%) Terraform
14 78 (14.39%) Security Cleared
15 74 (13.65%) GCP
16 71 (13.10%) VPN
17 70 (12.92%) CISSP
17 70 (12.92%) Security Operations
18 67 (12.36%) SC Cleared
19 64 (11.81%) DevSecOps
19 64 (11.81%) Security Architecture
19 64 (11.81%) Vulnerability Management
20 63 (11.62%) Kubernetes
21 62 (11.44%) DevOps
21 62 (11.44%) Windows
22 61 (11.25%) Threat Modelling
23 60 (11.07%) DNS
23 60 (11.07%) F5
24 59 (10.89%) Infrastructure as Code

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 18 (3.32%) Confluence
2 3 (0.55%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.18%) Apache
3 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.18%) nginx
Applications
1 1 (0.18%) Chatbot
1 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (1.11%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.37%) Maximo
2 2 (0.37%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.18%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 192 (35.42%) Azure
2 150 (27.68%) AWS
3 74 (13.65%) GCP
4 49 (9.04%) Microsoft Purview
5 47 (8.67%) Microsoft 365
6 40 (7.38%) Entra ID
7 26 (4.80%) AWS CloudFormation
8 24 (4.43%) Azure Sentinel
9 22 (4.06%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 21 (3.87%) SaaS
11 18 (3.32%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 15 (2.77%) GitHub
13 13 (2.40%) Akamai
14 12 (2.21%) Amazon GuardDuty
14 12 (2.21%) Serverless
15 11 (2.03%) AWS CloudTrail
15 11 (2.03%) Azure DevOps
15 11 (2.03%) Mimecast
16 8 (1.48%) Amazon EC2
16 8 (1.48%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 113 (20.85%) Firewall
2 103 (19.00%) Network Security
3 71 (13.10%) VPN
4 60 (11.07%) DNS
5 42 (7.75%) BGP
6 34 (6.27%) DMZ
7 32 (5.90%) Multicast
8 29 (5.35%) SSL
9 27 (4.98%) WAN
10 26 (4.80%) TCP/IP
11 19 (3.51%) SD-WAN
12 17 (3.14%) HTTP
13 16 (2.95%) Internet
14 15 (2.77%) Cisco ISE
15 13 (2.40%) Wireless
16 11 (2.03%) Intrusion Detection
17 10 (1.85%) VLAN
18 9 (1.66%) IPsec
18 9 (1.66%) OSPF
19 7 (1.29%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.48%) Power BI
2 7 (1.29%) SQL Server
3 6 (1.11%) PostgreSQL
4 4 (0.74%) Data Lake
4 4 (0.74%) MongoDB
5 3 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
5 3 (0.55%) Big Data
6 2 (0.37%) Apache Cassandra
6 2 (0.37%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.37%) Metadata
6 2 (0.37%) NoSQL
6 2 (0.37%) RDBMS
6 2 (0.37%) Relational Database
7 1 (0.18%) Db2
7 1 (0.18%) DynamoDB
7 1 (0.18%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.18%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 21 (3.87%) JIRA
2 9 (1.66%) GitLab
3 7 (1.29%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.74%) Burp Suite
5 3 (0.55%) Claude Code
5 3 (0.55%) Git
6 2 (0.37%) Browser DevTools
6 2 (0.37%) Snyk
6 2 (0.37%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.18%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.18%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.18%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.18%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.18%) sqlmap
7 1 (0.18%) TruffleHog
General
1 98 (18.08%) Social Skills
2 92 (16.97%) Finance
3 46 (8.49%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (7.38%) Banking
5 21 (3.87%) Documentation Skills
5 21 (3.87%) Investment Banking
6 20 (3.69%) Public Sector
7 7 (1.29%) Legal
7 7 (1.29%) Marketing
7 7 (1.29%) Telecoms
8 6 (1.11%) Manufacturing
8 6 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
9 5 (0.92%) Retail
10 4 (0.74%) Health Technology
10 4 (0.74%) Military
11 3 (0.55%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.55%) Financial Institution
11 3 (0.55%) Italian Language
12 2 (0.37%) Digital Health
12 2 (0.37%) Digital Healthcare
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (1.66%) SAML
2 8 (1.48%) 802.1X
3 7 (1.29%) LangChain
4 6 (1.11%) PyTorch
4 6 (1.11%) scikit-learn
5 4 (0.74%) Elastic Stack
5 4 (0.74%) Microsoft Graph
5 4 (0.74%) SLSA
6 3 (0.55%) ARM Templates
6 3 (0.55%) OAuth
6 3 (0.55%) REST
6 3 (0.55%) SailPoint
7 2 (0.37%) Azure Blueprints
7 2 (0.37%) JWT
7 2 (0.37%) LDAP
7 2 (0.37%) OpenID
8 1 (0.18%) AWS CDK
8 1 (0.18%) JSON Web Signature
8 1 (0.18%) Kafka
8 1 (0.18%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 103 (19.00%) Security Posture
2 64 (11.81%) Cloud Native
3 41 (7.56%) Cloud Security Posture
4 39 (7.20%) Management Information System
5 22 (4.06%) Enterprise Cloud
6 17 (3.14%) AI Agents
7 16 (2.95%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 15 (2.77%) Onboarding
9 14 (2.58%) Hybrid Cloud
9 14 (2.58%) Operational Technology
10 13 (2.40%) Data Centre
11 12 (2.21%) Cyber Threat
12 9 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
12 9 (1.66%) Public Cloud
13 8 (1.48%) Cyber Defence
14 6 (1.11%) Linux Command Line
14 6 (1.11%) SCADA
14 6 (1.11%) Security Operations Centre
15 5 (0.92%) PKI
16 4 (0.74%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 62 (11.44%) Windows
2 50 (9.23%) Linux
3 17 (3.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 14 (2.58%) Windows Server
5 9 (1.66%) Mac OS
6 7 (1.29%) Apple iOS
7 6 (1.11%) Windows 10
8 2 (0.37%) Android
8 2 (0.37%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.37%) Unix
8 2 (0.37%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 181 (33.39%) Cloud Security
2 154 (28.41%) Cybersecurity
3 132 (24.35%) SIEM
4 100 (18.45%) CI/CD
5 85 (15.68%) Incident Response
6 70 (12.92%) Security Operations
7 64 (11.81%) DevSecOps
7 64 (11.81%) Security Architecture
7 64 (11.81%) Vulnerability Management
8 62 (11.44%) DevOps
9 61 (11.25%) Threat Modelling
10 59 (10.89%) Infrastructure as Code
11 57 (10.52%) Load Balancing
12 56 (10.33%) Data Loss Prevention
13 53 (9.78%) Zero Trust
14 50 (9.23%) Agile
14 50 (9.23%) Information Security
15 48 (8.86%) Threat Detection
16 45 (8.30%) Continuous Improvement
17 43 (7.93%) AI
Programming Languages
1 116 (21.40%) Python
2 88 (16.24%) PowerShell
3 58 (10.70%) Bash
4 19 (3.51%) Bicep
5 18 (3.32%) Java
6 10 (1.85%) Kusto Query Language
6 10 (1.85%) SQL
7 4 (0.74%) Search Processing Language
8 3 (0.55%) Go
8 3 (0.55%) Perl
8 3 (0.55%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.37%) JavaScript
10 1 (0.18%) C
10 1 (0.18%) C#
10 1 (0.18%) Korn
10 1 (0.18%) PHP
Qualifications
1 78 (14.39%) Security Cleared
2 70 (12.92%) CISSP
3 67 (12.36%) SC Cleared
4 42 (7.75%) Degree
5 35 (6.46%) Cisco Certification
6 32 (5.90%) CISM
7 30 (5.54%) AWS Certification
8 23 (4.24%) Azure Certification
9 17 (3.14%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 17 (3.14%) CCNP
9 17 (3.14%) CEH
10 14 (2.58%) DV Cleared
11 12 (2.21%) Microsoft Certification
12 11 (2.03%) Computer Science Degree
13 10 (1.85%) OSCP
14 8 (1.48%) CCIE
14 8 (1.48%) CompTIA Security+
14 8 (1.48%) GIAC
15 6 (1.11%) CCSP
15 6 (1.11%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (8.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 45 (8.30%) NIST
3 30 (5.54%) GDPR
4 16 (2.95%) PCI DSS
5 15 (2.77%) NCSC
6 14 (2.58%) Cyber Essentials
7 11 (2.03%) HIPAA
8 10 (1.85%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 6 (1.11%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 6 (1.11%) NIST 800
9 6 (1.11%) SLA
10 5 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 4 (0.74%) Government Security Classifications
11 4 (0.74%) SOC 2
12 3 (0.55%) ISA99
13 2 (0.37%) COBIT
13 2 (0.37%) GRC
13 2 (0.37%) JSP 440
14 1 (0.18%) QA
14 1 (0.18%) RMADS
System Software
1 32 (5.90%) Active Directory
2 26 (4.80%) Docker
3 6 (1.11%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (1.11%) VMware NSX
3 6 (1.11%) vSphere
4 5 (0.92%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.55%) Virtual Servers
6 2 (0.37%) Squid
6 2 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.18%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.18%) RACF
Systems Management
1 81 (14.94%) Terraform
2 63 (11.62%) Kubernetes
3 16 (2.95%) Ansible
4 14 (2.58%) Progress Chef
5 13 (2.40%) Microsoft Intune
6 12 (2.21%) FortiGate
7 11 (2.03%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (1.29%) Grafana
9 6 (1.11%) CASB
10 3 (0.55%) QRadar
11 2 (0.37%) Istio
11 2 (0.37%) linkerd
11 2 (0.37%) Nessus
11 2 (0.37%) Prometheus
12 1 (0.18%) Argo
12 1 (0.18%) CSIRT
12 1 (0.18%) Host Intrusion Detection System
12 1 (0.18%) HP Fortify
12 1 (0.18%) SCCM
12 1 (0.18%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 130 (23.99%) Microsoft
2 85 (15.68%) Cisco
3 60 (11.07%) F5
4 45 (8.30%) Palo Alto
5 38 (7.01%) CrowdStrike
6 35 (6.46%) Zscaler
7 30 (5.54%) Fortinet
8 29 (5.35%) CyberArk
9 28 (5.17%) ServiceNow
10 25 (4.61%) Google
11 24 (4.43%) CheckPoint
12 19 (3.51%) Splunk
13 18 (3.32%) Red Hat
14 14 (2.58%) Blue Coat
14 14 (2.58%) VMware
15 13 (2.40%) BeyondTrust
15 13 (2.40%) Netskope
15 13 (2.40%) Tenable
16 12 (2.21%) Qualys
17 10 (1.85%) Oracle