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 5 September 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 261 229 211
Rank change year-on-year -32 -18 +26
Contract jobs requiring a Security Engineer 542 370 463
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.00% 1.14% 1.22%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.09% 1.25% 1.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 337 220 348
10th Percentile £413 £350 £413
25th Percentile £463 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £515 £550
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -6.36% -4.35%
75th Percentile £608 £638 £638
90th Percentile £688 £738 £741
UK excluding London median daily rate £529 £500 £550
% change year-on-year +5.80% -9.09% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 12 2
10th Percentile £72.63 £66.75 £64.25
25th Percentile £73.75 £83.06 £66.88
Median hourly rate £79.70 £90.50 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.93% +24.83% -13.07%
75th Percentile £87.75 £91.50 £76.88
90th Percentile £92.11 - £78.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.40 £90.50 £72.50
% change year-on-year -5.64% +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 49,872 29,645 35,352
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.42% 91.14% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,754 18,681 22,225
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% -1.69%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £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 3,620 1,543 1,776
10th Percentile £14.85 £13.61 £14.47
25th Percentile £20.50 £16.98 £20.24
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.85 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £70.16 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +12.50%

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 5 September 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 5 September 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 5 September 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 -20 499 £525 +1.94% 751
UK excluding London -6 268 £529 +5.80% 441
London -41 228 £546 -0.68% 362
Work from Home +5 187 £540 +10.77% 216
North of England +16 141 £550 +14.58% 105
North West +17 118 £550 +15.18% 68
South East -39 54 £500 - 110
Midlands -20 53 £500 +22.70% 58
West Midlands -15 50 £500 +25.00% 38
East of England -27 29 £510 +2.00% 67
Yorkshire -31 21 £600 +11.11% 25
South West -38 15 £475 -7.32% 76
Scotland -35 10 £600 +14.29% 16
East Midlands -16 3 £338 -18.67% 19
Wales -18 2 £733 +22.08% 6
North East -40 1 - - 12

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

For the 6 months to 5 September 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.

1 182 (33.58%) Azure
2 168 (31.00%) Cloud Security
3 163 (30.07%) Cybersecurity
4 139 (25.65%) AWS
5 126 (23.25%) Microsoft
6 122 (22.51%) SIEM
7 109 (20.11%) Network Security
8 107 (19.74%) Python
9 105 (19.37%) Firewall
10 93 (17.16%) Security Cleared
11 88 (16.24%) PowerShell
12 87 (16.05%) Cisco
13 85 (15.68%) Incident Response
14 84 (15.50%) Terraform
15 83 (15.31%) CI/CD
16 80 (14.76%) GCP
16 80 (14.76%) SC Cleared
17 76 (14.02%) Security Operations
18 73 (13.47%) VPN
19 69 (12.73%) CISSP
20 68 (12.55%) Kubernetes
21 64 (11.81%) Infrastructure as Code
21 64 (11.81%) Threat Detection
21 64 (11.81%) Windows
22 63 (11.62%) DevSecOps
23 62 (11.44%) F5
24 61 (11.25%) Palo Alto
25 60 (11.07%) DevOps
26 59 (10.89%) Vulnerability Management
27 57 (10.52%) Bash

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 (1.48%) Confluence
2 7 (1.29%) IIS
3 3 (0.55%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.37%) nginx
5 1 (0.18%) Apache
5 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
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
3 1 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 182 (33.58%) Azure
2 139 (25.65%) AWS
3 80 (14.76%) GCP
4 44 (8.12%) Microsoft 365
5 40 (7.38%) Entra ID
5 40 (7.38%) Microsoft Purview
6 28 (5.17%) AWS CloudFormation
7 27 (4.98%) Azure Sentinel
8 18 (3.32%) SaaS
9 17 (3.14%) GitHub
10 16 (2.95%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 15 (2.77%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 13 (2.40%) AWS CloudTrail
12 13 (2.40%) Azure DevOps
12 13 (2.40%) Serverless
13 11 (2.03%) Mimecast
14 10 (1.85%) Amazon ECS
14 10 (1.85%) Amazon GuardDuty
14 10 (1.85%) Power Platform
15 9 (1.66%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 109 (20.11%) Network Security
2 105 (19.37%) Firewall
3 73 (13.47%) VPN
4 51 (9.41%) DNS
5 39 (7.20%) BGP
6 33 (6.09%) SSL
7 30 (5.54%) DMZ
7 30 (5.54%) WAN
8 28 (5.17%) Multicast
9 21 (3.87%) TCP/IP
10 18 (3.32%) HTTP
10 18 (3.32%) SD-WAN
11 17 (3.14%) Internet
12 16 (2.95%) Cisco ISE
12 16 (2.95%) Wireless
13 13 (2.40%) Intrusion Detection
13 13 (2.40%) IPsec
14 10 (1.85%) DMVPN
14 10 (1.85%) OSPF
15 9 (1.66%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.48%) Power BI
2 5 (0.92%) SQL Server
3 4 (0.74%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.55%) Big Data
4 3 (0.55%) Data Lake
4 3 (0.55%) MongoDB
5 2 (0.37%) DynamoDB
5 2 (0.37%) SAP HANA
6 1 (0.18%) Apache Cassandra
6 1 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.18%) Db2
6 1 (0.18%) Delta Lake
6 1 (0.18%) Elasticsearch
6 1 (0.18%) Metadata
6 1 (0.18%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.18%) RDBMS
6 1 (0.18%) Redis
6 1 (0.18%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 10 (1.85%) JIRA
2 9 (1.66%) GitLab
3 8 (1.48%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.92%) Git
5 4 (0.74%) Burp Suite
6 3 (0.55%) Claude Code
6 3 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.37%) Browser DevTools
7 2 (0.37%) Snyk
8 1 (0.18%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.18%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.18%) Maven
8 1 (0.18%) Metasploit
8 1 (0.18%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.18%) sqlmap
8 1 (0.18%) TruffleHog
General
1 91 (16.79%) Social Skills
2 88 (16.24%) Finance
3 44 (8.12%) Analytical Skills
4 37 (6.83%) Banking
5 19 (3.51%) Documentation Skills
5 19 (3.51%) Investment Banking
5 19 (3.51%) Public Sector
6 8 (1.48%) Military
7 7 (1.29%) Marketing
7 7 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
8 6 (1.11%) Legal
8 6 (1.11%) Manufacturing
8 6 (1.11%) Telecoms
9 5 (0.92%) Back Office
9 5 (0.92%) Retail
10 4 (0.74%) Health Technology
11 3 (0.55%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.55%) Digital Health
11 3 (0.55%) Digital Healthcare
11 3 (0.55%) Italian Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 84 (15.50%) Terraform
2 12 (2.21%) 802.1X
3 10 (1.85%) JSON
4 8 (1.48%) SAML
5 6 (1.11%) LDAP
5 6 (1.11%) Regular Expression
5 6 (1.11%) REST
6 5 (0.92%) ARM Templates
6 5 (0.92%) JWT
7 4 (0.74%) Azure Blueprints
7 4 (0.74%) Elastic Stack
7 4 (0.74%) OAuth
7 4 (0.74%) OpenID
7 4 (0.74%) SLSA
8 3 (0.55%) Microsoft Graph
8 3 (0.55%) OAuth2
8 3 (0.55%) SailPoint
9 2 (0.37%) Model Context Protocol
10 1 (0.18%) AWS CDK
10 1 (0.18%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 96 (17.71%) Security Posture
2 57 (10.52%) Cloud Native
3 39 (7.20%) Management Information System
4 38 (7.01%) Cloud Security Posture
5 22 (4.06%) Enterprise Cloud
6 20 (3.69%) Cyber Threat
7 19 (3.51%) Onboarding
8 16 (2.95%) Data Centre
9 15 (2.77%) AI Agents
10 14 (2.58%) Operational Technology
11 13 (2.40%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 9 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
12 9 (1.66%) Hybrid Cloud
13 8 (1.48%) Security Operations Centre
14 7 (1.29%) Cyber Defence
15 6 (1.11%) CCTV
15 6 (1.11%) PKI
15 6 (1.11%) Public Cloud
15 6 (1.11%) SCADA
16 5 (0.92%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 64 (11.81%) Windows
2 44 (8.12%) Linux
3 18 (3.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 15 (2.77%) Windows Server
5 9 (1.66%) Apple iOS
6 7 (1.29%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.92%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.74%) Android
9 2 (0.37%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.18%) Unix
10 1 (0.18%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 168 (31.00%) Cloud Security
2 163 (30.07%) Cybersecurity
3 122 (22.51%) SIEM
4 85 (15.68%) Incident Response
5 83 (15.31%) CI/CD
6 76 (14.02%) Security Operations
7 64 (11.81%) Infrastructure as Code
7 64 (11.81%) Threat Detection
8 63 (11.62%) DevSecOps
9 60 (11.07%) DevOps
10 59 (10.89%) Vulnerability Management
11 55 (10.15%) Security Architecture
12 52 (9.59%) Threat Modelling
12 52 (9.59%) Zero Trust
13 49 (9.04%) Load Balancing
14 47 (8.67%) Security Monitoring
15 46 (8.49%) Stakeholder Management
16 44 (8.12%) Application Security
16 44 (8.12%) Information Security
17 42 (7.75%) AI
Programming Languages
1 107 (19.74%) Python
2 88 (16.24%) PowerShell
3 57 (10.52%) Bash
4 22 (4.06%) Java
5 21 (3.87%) Bicep
6 7 (1.29%) Kusto Query Language
7 6 (1.11%) SQL
8 5 (0.92%) Go
9 4 (0.74%) Search Processing Language
10 3 (0.55%) Perl
11 1 (0.18%) C
11 1 (0.18%) C#
11 1 (0.18%) JavaScript
11 1 (0.18%) Korn
11 1 (0.18%) PHP
11 1 (0.18%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.18%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 93 (17.16%) Security Cleared
2 80 (14.76%) SC Cleared
3 69 (12.73%) CISSP
4 42 (7.75%) Degree
5 35 (6.46%) Cisco Certification
6 31 (5.72%) AWS Certification
7 28 (5.17%) CISM
8 22 (4.06%) Azure Certification
8 22 (4.06%) DV Cleared
9 21 (3.87%) CCNP
10 17 (3.14%) CEH
11 16 (2.95%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 13 (2.40%) OSCP
13 11 (2.03%) CCSP
13 11 (2.03%) GIAC
13 11 (2.03%) Microsoft Certification
14 10 (1.85%) CCIE
15 9 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
16 8 (1.48%) CISA
17 7 (1.29%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 51 (9.41%) NIST
2 49 (9.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 22 (4.06%) GDPR
4 19 (3.51%) PCI DSS
5 17 (3.14%) NCSC
6 16 (2.95%) Cyber Essentials
7 12 (2.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 6 (1.11%) HIPAA
8 6 (1.11%) NIST 800
9 5 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 4 (0.74%) GRC
10 4 (0.74%) SLA
10 4 (0.74%) SOC 2
11 3 (0.55%) ISA99
12 2 (0.37%) COBIT
12 2 (0.37%) ISO 31000
12 2 (0.37%) ISO 9001
12 2 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 2 (0.37%) JSP 440
13 1 (0.18%) PMO
System Software
1 39 (7.20%) Active Directory
2 21 (3.87%) Docker
3 11 (2.03%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (1.66%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (1.11%) Hyper-V
5 6 (1.11%) VMware NSX
5 6 (1.11%) vSphere
6 5 (0.92%) NFS
7 3 (0.55%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.37%) Firmware
8 2 (0.37%) ISA Server
8 2 (0.37%) Squid
8 2 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.18%) RACF
Systems Management
1 68 (12.55%) Kubernetes
2 20 (3.69%) Ansible
3 16 (2.95%) Progress Chef
4 12 (2.21%) FortiGate
4 12 (2.21%) Microsoft Intune
5 10 (1.85%) Single Sign-On
6 8 (1.48%) Grafana
7 7 (1.29%) CASB
8 6 (1.11%) Istio
9 5 (0.92%) linkerd
9 5 (0.92%) QRadar
10 2 (0.37%) Prometheus
10 2 (0.37%) SCCM
11 1 (0.18%) Argo
11 1 (0.18%) CSIRT
11 1 (0.18%) Host Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.18%) HP Fortify
11 1 (0.18%) Network Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.18%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 126 (23.25%) Microsoft
2 87 (16.05%) Cisco
3 62 (11.44%) F5
4 61 (11.25%) Palo Alto
5 43 (7.93%) Zscaler
6 41 (7.56%) CrowdStrike
7 31 (5.72%) CheckPoint
7 31 (5.72%) Fortinet
8 29 (5.35%) Splunk
9 26 (4.80%) CyberArk
10 23 (4.24%) ServiceNow
11 20 (3.69%) Google
12 19 (3.51%) Red Hat
12 19 (3.51%) VMware
13 16 (2.95%) Blue Coat
14 13 (2.40%) BeyondTrust
14 13 (2.40%) Juniper
14 13 (2.40%) Netskope
15 12 (2.21%) Qualys
15 12 (2.21%) Tenable