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 19 June 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 226 266 258
Rank change year-on-year +40 -8 -44
Contract jobs requiring a Security Engineer 550 293 407
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.09% 0.98% 0.93%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.18% 1.07% 1.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 346 173 301
10th Percentile £413 £386 £413
25th Percentile £475 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.38% -4.55% -2.65%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £650
90th Percentile £686 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £540 £500 £540
% change year-on-year +8.00% -7.45% +1.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 8 4
10th Percentile - £62.75 -
25th Percentile £73.75 £78.13 £30.70
Median hourly rate £84.00 £84.75 £48.40
Median % change year-on-year -0.88% +75.10% -41.97%
75th Percentile £85.40 £91.50 £70.63
90th Percentile £86.11 - £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.40 £84.75 £48.40
% change year-on-year +0.77% +75.10% -41.97%

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 46,676 27,509 40,765
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 92.24% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,368 17,700 26,113
10th Percentile £325 £290 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £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 3,110 1,183 2,977
10th Percentile £15.24 £13.88 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.92 £17.47 £16.37
Median hourly rate £43.69 £27.21 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +60.57% -27.44% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.85
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -1.45%

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 19 June 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 19 June 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 19 June 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 +26 494 £525 - 295
UK excluding London -2 258 £540 +8.00% 266
London +31 244 £525 -4.55% 79
Work from Home +29 205 £545 +3.81% 69
North of England +1 120 £569 +13.69% 77
North West +28 99 £558 +11.39% 46
Midlands -16 56 £500 -8.05% 37
West Midlands -22 53 £519 -4.60% 22
South East -44 50 £500 +11.11% 79
Scotland +8 24 £650 +18.18% 19
South West -17 22 £525 +7.69% 25
Yorkshire -46 20 £600 +14.29% 19
East of England -30 19 £525 +10.53% 26
East Midlands - 3 £406 - 15
Wales -15 2 £733 +46.50% 3
North East -42 1 - - 12

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

For the 6 months to 19 June 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.

1 198 (36.00%) Azure
2 169 (30.73%) Cybersecurity
3 151 (27.45%) AWS
3 151 (27.45%) Cloud Security
4 129 (23.45%) Python
5 126 (22.91%) Microsoft
6 123 (22.36%) SIEM
7 114 (20.73%) Firewall
7 114 (20.73%) Network Security
8 103 (18.73%) CI/CD
9 92 (16.73%) Security Cleared
10 90 (16.36%) PowerShell
11 85 (15.45%) Cisco
12 83 (15.09%) Incident Response
13 71 (12.91%) SC Cleared
13 71 (12.91%) VPN
14 66 (12.00%) Data Loss Prevention
14 66 (12.00%) Terraform
15 65 (11.82%) DevOps
15 65 (11.82%) Security Architecture
16 64 (11.64%) CISSP
16 64 (11.64%) GCP
16 64 (11.64%) Vulnerability Management
17 63 (11.45%) NIST
18 62 (11.27%) Windows
19 61 (11.09%) DNS
20 60 (10.91%) Security Operations
20 60 (10.91%) Threat Modelling
21 56 (10.18%) Microsoft Purview
22 55 (10.00%) ISO/IEC 27001

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 21 (3.82%) Confluence
2 3 (0.55%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.18%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (0.55%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 6 (1.09%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.36%) Maximo
2 2 (0.36%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.18%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 198 (36.00%) Azure
2 151 (27.45%) AWS
3 64 (11.64%) GCP
4 56 (10.18%) Microsoft Purview
5 50 (9.09%) Microsoft 365
6 39 (7.09%) Entra ID
7 21 (3.82%) Azure Sentinel
7 21 (3.82%) SaaS
8 20 (3.64%) GitHub
8 20 (3.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 19 (3.45%) AWS CloudFormation
10 17 (3.09%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 17 (3.09%) Mimecast
11 14 (2.55%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 12 (2.18%) Akamai
13 11 (2.00%) AWS CloudTrail
13 11 (2.00%) AWS KMS
13 11 (2.00%) OpenShift
14 9 (1.64%) Azure Key Vault
14 9 (1.64%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 114 (20.73%) Firewall
1 114 (20.73%) Network Security
2 71 (12.91%) VPN
3 61 (11.09%) DNS
4 48 (8.73%) BGP
5 35 (6.36%) DMZ
6 33 (6.00%) Multicast
7 24 (4.36%) SSL
7 24 (4.36%) TCP/IP
8 23 (4.18%) WAN
9 19 (3.45%) SD-WAN
10 18 (3.27%) HTTP
11 12 (2.18%) Internet
11 12 (2.18%) TACACS
12 11 (2.00%) VLAN
13 10 (1.82%) Cisco ISE
13 10 (1.82%) MPLS
13 10 (1.82%) Wireless
14 9 (1.64%) NGFW
15 8 (1.45%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (1.27%) Power BI
2 5 (0.91%) Data Lake
2 5 (0.91%) SQL Server
3 4 (0.73%) MongoDB
3 4 (0.73%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (0.55%) Big Data
5 2 (0.36%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (0.36%) Apache Cassandra
5 2 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
5 2 (0.36%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.36%) RDBMS
5 2 (0.36%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.18%) Amazon Athena
6 1 (0.18%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.18%) Db2
6 1 (0.18%) Metadata
6 1 (0.18%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 24 (4.36%) JIRA
2 11 (2.00%) GitLab
3 8 (1.45%) Git
3 8 (1.45%) Jenkins
4 7 (1.27%) Snyk
5 4 (0.73%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.36%) Browser DevTools
6 2 (0.36%) Claude Code
6 2 (0.36%) SonarQube
6 2 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.18%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.18%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.18%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.18%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.18%) sqlmap
7 1 (0.18%) TruffleHog
General
1 111 (20.18%) Social Skills
2 89 (16.18%) Finance
3 48 (8.73%) Analytical Skills
4 41 (7.45%) Banking
5 30 (5.45%) Public Sector
6 23 (4.18%) Investment Banking
7 16 (2.91%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (1.27%) Legal
8 7 (1.27%) Marketing
8 7 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
9 5 (0.91%) Cyber-Physical System
9 5 (0.91%) Telecoms
10 4 (0.73%) Health Technology
10 4 (0.73%) Manufacturing
11 3 (0.55%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.55%) Financial Institution
11 3 (0.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (0.55%) Local Government
11 3 (0.55%) Military
12 2 (0.36%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (1.82%) LDAP
2 8 (1.45%) SAML
3 7 (1.27%) Elastic Stack
4 6 (1.09%) LangChain
4 6 (1.09%) PyTorch
4 6 (1.09%) REST
4 6 (1.09%) scikit-learn
5 5 (0.91%) 802.1X
5 5 (0.91%) Microsoft Graph
5 5 (0.91%) SLSA
6 4 (0.73%) .NET
6 4 (0.73%) OAuth
7 3 (0.55%) AWS CDK
8 2 (0.36%) GraphQL
8 2 (0.36%) JSON
8 2 (0.36%) NestJS
8 2 (0.36%) SailPoint
8 2 (0.36%) Web Services
9 1 (0.18%) ADO
9 1 (0.18%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 80 (14.55%) Security Posture
2 57 (10.36%) Cloud Native
3 34 (6.18%) Management Information System
4 27 (4.91%) Cloud Security Posture
5 19 (3.45%) Data Centre
6 17 (3.09%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 17 (3.09%) Operational Technology
7 12 (2.18%) Cyber Threat
7 12 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
7 12 (2.18%) Hybrid Cloud
7 12 (2.18%) Onboarding
8 11 (2.00%) AI Agents
8 11 (2.00%) PKI
9 10 (1.82%) Public Cloud
10 8 (1.45%) Security Operations Centre
11 7 (1.27%) Enterprise Cloud
12 6 (1.09%) Cyber Defence
12 6 (1.09%) Linux Command Line
12 6 (1.09%) SCADA
13 5 (0.91%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 62 (11.27%) Windows
2 50 (9.09%) Linux
3 12 (2.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 12 (2.18%) Windows Server
4 11 (2.00%) Mac OS
5 8 (1.45%) Windows 10
6 7 (1.27%) Apple iOS
7 6 (1.09%) Ubuntu
8 4 (0.73%) Unix
9 2 (0.36%) Android
10 1 (0.18%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 169 (30.73%) Cybersecurity
2 151 (27.45%) Cloud Security
3 123 (22.36%) SIEM
4 103 (18.73%) CI/CD
5 83 (15.09%) Incident Response
6 66 (12.00%) Data Loss Prevention
7 65 (11.82%) DevOps
7 65 (11.82%) Security Architecture
8 64 (11.64%) Vulnerability Management
9 60 (10.91%) Security Operations
9 60 (10.91%) Threat Modelling
10 53 (9.64%) Information Security
10 53 (9.64%) Load Balancing
11 52 (9.45%) DevSecOps
12 48 (8.73%) Agile
12 48 (8.73%) Continuous Improvement
12 48 (8.73%) Infrastructure as Code
13 46 (8.36%) Zero Trust
14 43 (7.82%) Validation
15 40 (7.27%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 129 (23.45%) Python
2 90 (16.36%) PowerShell
3 48 (8.73%) Bash
4 20 (3.64%) Java
5 16 (2.91%) Kusto Query Language
6 9 (1.64%) SQL
7 5 (0.91%) PHP
7 5 (0.91%) Search Processing Language
8 4 (0.73%) Bicep
9 3 (0.55%) Perl
9 3 (0.55%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.36%) Go
10 2 (0.36%) JavaScript
10 2 (0.36%) Ruby
10 2 (0.36%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.18%) C
11 1 (0.18%) C#
Qualifications
1 92 (16.73%) Security Cleared
2 71 (12.91%) SC Cleared
3 64 (11.64%) CISSP
4 52 (9.45%) Degree
5 34 (6.18%) Cisco Certification
6 29 (5.27%) CISM
7 25 (4.55%) AWS Certification
8 20 (3.64%) Azure Certification
9 19 (3.45%) DV Cleared
10 17 (3.09%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 16 (2.91%) CCNP
12 11 (2.00%) CompTIA Security+
12 11 (2.00%) Computer Science Degree
12 11 (2.00%) Microsoft Certification
13 10 (1.82%) CEH
13 10 (1.82%) GIAC
14 8 (1.45%) CCSP
15 7 (1.27%) CCIE
16 6 (1.09%) OSCP
17 5 (0.91%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 63 (11.45%) NIST
2 55 (10.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 31 (5.64%) GDPR
4 28 (5.09%) Cyber Essentials
5 23 (4.18%) PCI DSS
6 16 (2.91%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 9 (1.64%) NCSC
8 8 (1.45%) SLA
9 7 (1.27%) HIPAA
10 6 (1.09%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 6 (1.09%) NIST 800
10 6 (1.09%) RMADS
11 5 (0.91%) GRC
11 5 (0.91%) JSP 440
12 4 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 4 (0.73%) SOC 2
13 3 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
13 3 (0.55%) Government Security Classifications
13 3 (0.55%) ISA99
14 2 (0.36%) COBIT
System Software
1 30 (5.45%) Active Directory
2 26 (4.73%) Docker
3 12 (2.18%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (1.45%) VMware ESXi
5 6 (1.09%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (1.09%) VMware NSX
5 6 (1.09%) vSphere
6 3 (0.55%) Firmware
7 2 (0.36%) Squid
7 2 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.36%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.18%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.18%) RACF
Systems Management
1 66 (12.00%) Terraform
2 55 (10.00%) Kubernetes
3 19 (3.45%) Ansible
4 17 (3.09%) Microsoft Intune
5 13 (2.36%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (1.82%) FortiGate
6 10 (1.82%) Progress Chef
7 7 (1.27%) vCenter Server
8 6 (1.09%) CASB
8 6 (1.09%) Nessus
9 5 (0.91%) Functional Safety
10 4 (0.73%) AirWatch
11 3 (0.55%) Grafana
11 3 (0.55%) Kibana
11 3 (0.55%) SCOM
12 2 (0.36%) logstash
12 2 (0.36%) QRadar
13 1 (0.18%) Host Intrusion Detection System
13 1 (0.18%) HP Fortify
13 1 (0.18%) SCCM
Vendors
1 126 (22.91%) Microsoft
2 85 (15.45%) Cisco
3 54 (9.82%) F5
4 42 (7.64%) CrowdStrike
5 41 (7.45%) Palo Alto
6 35 (6.36%) Fortinet
7 30 (5.45%) Zscaler
8 27 (4.91%) CyberArk
9 25 (4.55%) Google
10 22 (4.00%) Splunk
11 20 (3.64%) ServiceNow
12 19 (3.45%) CheckPoint
13 18 (3.27%) Netskope
13 18 (3.27%) VMware
14 17 (3.09%) Tenable
15 12 (2.18%) BeyondTrust
15 12 (2.18%) Qualys
15 12 (2.18%) Red Hat
16 11 (2.00%) Blue Coat
17 8 (1.45%) Oracle