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 24 June 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 225 266 243
Rank change year-on-year +41 -23 -32
Contract jobs requiring a Security Engineer 551 298 412
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.08% 0.99% 0.95%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.17% 1.08% 1.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 345 179 308
10th Percentile £413 £382 £413
25th Percentile £475 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year +2.86% -8.70% +1.77%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £650
90th Percentile £686 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £500 £550
% change year-on-year +10.00% -9.09% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 8 3
10th Percentile - £62.75 £37.06
25th Percentile £73.75 £78.13 £46.60
Median hourly rate £84.00 £84.75 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.88% +30.38% -22.06%
75th Percentile £85.40 £91.50 £73.75
90th Percentile - - £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.40 £84.75 £65.00
% change year-on-year +0.77% +30.38% -22.06%

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 47,021 27,678 40,406
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 92.16% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,598 17,771 25,926
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £414 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,150 1,209 2,937
10th Percentile £15.38 £13.84 £12.84
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.44 £16.37
Median hourly rate £43.00 £27.38 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.08% -27.00% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £74.00 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +76.94% -37.13% -

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 +21 497 £538 +4.37% 313
UK excluding London -1 255 £550 +10.00% 268
London +29 249 £525 -4.55% 90
Work from Home +20 210 £540 +5.37% 77
North of England -9 120 £560 +12.00% 70
North West +13 99 £555 +11.90% 39
Midlands -12 56 £500 -8.05% 36
West Midlands -18 53 £519 -4.60% 23
South East -42 47 £500 +11.11% 79
Scotland +4 24 £650 +18.18% 20
South West -24 22 £525 +7.69% 29
Yorkshire -39 20 £600 +14.29% 19
East of England -30 19 £525 +30.43% 34
East Midlands - 3 £406 - 13
Wales -12 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 24 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.

1 196 (35.57%) Azure
2 168 (30.49%) Cybersecurity
3 153 (27.77%) AWS
3 153 (27.77%) Cloud Security
4 130 (23.59%) Python
5 122 (22.14%) Microsoft
5 122 (22.14%) SIEM
6 115 (20.87%) Firewall
6 115 (20.87%) Network Security
7 103 (18.69%) CI/CD
8 90 (16.33%) Security Cleared
9 88 (15.97%) PowerShell
10 86 (15.61%) Cisco
11 82 (14.88%) Incident Response
12 73 (13.25%) VPN
13 71 (12.89%) SC Cleared
14 70 (12.70%) Security Architecture
15 67 (12.16%) Terraform
16 66 (11.98%) NIST
17 65 (11.80%) CISSP
17 65 (11.80%) GCP
18 64 (11.62%) Data Loss Prevention
18 64 (11.62%) DevOps
18 64 (11.62%) Security Operations
18 64 (11.62%) Vulnerability Management
19 62 (11.25%) Threat Modelling
20 61 (11.07%) DNS
20 61 (11.07%) Windows
21 56 (10.16%) DevSecOps
21 56 (10.16%) 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 (3.81%) Confluence
2 3 (0.54%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.18%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (0.54%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
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
1 196 (35.57%) Azure
2 153 (27.77%) AWS
3 65 (11.80%) GCP
4 52 (9.44%) Microsoft Purview
5 48 (8.71%) Microsoft 365
6 37 (6.72%) Entra ID
7 22 (3.99%) SaaS
8 21 (3.81%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 19 (3.45%) AWS CloudFormation
9 19 (3.45%) GitHub
10 18 (3.27%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 17 (3.09%) Azure Sentinel
12 16 (2.90%) Mimecast
13 14 (2.54%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 12 (2.18%) Akamai
14 12 (2.18%) AWS CloudTrail
15 11 (2.00%) AWS KMS
15 11 (2.00%) OpenShift
16 9 (1.63%) Azure DevOps
16 9 (1.63%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 115 (20.87%) Firewall
1 115 (20.87%) Network Security
2 73 (13.25%) VPN
3 61 (11.07%) DNS
4 49 (8.89%) BGP
5 35 (6.35%) DMZ
6 33 (5.99%) Multicast
7 25 (4.54%) TCP/IP
7 25 (4.54%) WAN
8 24 (4.36%) SSL
9 21 (3.81%) SD-WAN
10 18 (3.27%) HTTP
11 14 (2.54%) Internet
12 12 (2.18%) TACACS
13 11 (2.00%) VLAN
14 10 (1.81%) Cisco ISE
14 10 (1.81%) MPLS
14 10 (1.81%) Wireless
15 9 (1.63%) NGFW
15 9 (1.63%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.45%) 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 (0.54%) Big Data
5 2 (0.36%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (0.36%) Apache Cassandra
5 2 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
5 2 (0.36%) Metadata
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%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 25 (4.54%) 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%) 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
1 110 (19.96%) Social Skills
2 89 (16.15%) Finance
3 47 (8.53%) Analytical Skills
4 41 (7.44%) Banking
5 30 (5.44%) Public Sector
6 23 (4.17%) Investment Banking
7 17 (3.09%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (1.27%) Legal
8 7 (1.27%) Marketing
8 7 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
9 5 (0.91%) Telecoms
10 4 (0.73%) Cyber-Physical System
10 4 (0.73%) Health Technology
10 4 (0.73%) Manufacturing
11 3 (0.54%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.54%) Financial Institution
11 3 (0.54%) Local Government
11 3 (0.54%) Military
11 3 (0.54%) Retail
12 2 (0.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (1.81%) LDAP
2 9 (1.63%) SAML
3 7 (1.27%) Elastic Stack
3 7 (1.27%) REST
3 7 (1.27%) SLSA
4 6 (1.09%) LangChain
4 6 (1.09%) PyTorch
4 6 (1.09%) scikit-learn
5 5 (0.91%) 802.1X
6 4 (0.73%) .NET
6 4 (0.73%) Microsoft Graph
6 4 (0.73%) OAuth
7 3 (0.54%) 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%) JCE
9 1 (0.18%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 82 (14.88%) Security Posture
2 58 (10.53%) Cloud Native
3 33 (5.99%) Management Information System
4 28 (5.08%) Cloud Security Posture
5 19 (3.45%) Data Centre
6 17 (3.09%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 17 (3.09%) Operational Technology
7 13 (2.36%) AI Agents
8 12 (2.18%) Cyber Threat
8 12 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
8 12 (2.18%) Hybrid Cloud
8 12 (2.18%) Onboarding
9 11 (2.00%) PKI
10 10 (1.81%) Public Cloud
11 8 (1.45%) Enterprise Cloud
11 8 (1.45%) Security Operations Centre
12 6 (1.09%) Cyber Defence
12 6 (1.09%) Linux Command Line
12 6 (1.09%) SCADA
13 4 (0.73%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 61 (11.07%) Windows
2 50 (9.07%) Linux
3 12 (2.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 12 (2.18%) Windows Server
4 10 (1.81%) Mac OS
5 8 (1.45%) Windows 10
6 7 (1.27%) Apple iOS
7 6 (1.09%) Ubuntu
8 3 (0.54%) Unix
9 2 (0.36%) Android
10 1 (0.18%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 168 (30.49%) Cybersecurity
2 153 (27.77%) Cloud Security
3 122 (22.14%) SIEM
4 103 (18.69%) CI/CD
5 82 (14.88%) Incident Response
6 70 (12.70%) Security Architecture
7 64 (11.62%) Data Loss Prevention
7 64 (11.62%) DevOps
7 64 (11.62%) Security Operations
7 64 (11.62%) Vulnerability Management
8 62 (11.25%) Threat Modelling
9 56 (10.16%) DevSecOps
10 54 (9.80%) Information Security
10 54 (9.80%) Load Balancing
11 49 (8.89%) Infrastructure as Code
12 48 (8.71%) Agile
13 47 (8.53%) Continuous Improvement
14 46 (8.35%) Zero Trust
15 44 (7.99%) Validation
16 42 (7.62%) Application Security
Programming Languages
1 130 (23.59%) Python
2 88 (15.97%) PowerShell
3 48 (8.71%) Bash
4 20 (3.63%) Java
5 15 (2.72%) Kusto Query Language
6 9 (1.63%) SQL
7 5 (0.91%) PHP
7 5 (0.91%) Search Processing Language
8 4 (0.73%) Bicep
9 3 (0.54%) Perl
9 3 (0.54%) 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 90 (16.33%) Security Cleared
2 71 (12.89%) SC Cleared
3 65 (11.80%) CISSP
4 51 (9.26%) Degree
5 35 (6.35%) Cisco Certification
6 29 (5.26%) CISM
7 25 (4.54%) AWS Certification
8 19 (3.45%) DV Cleared
9 18 (3.27%) Azure Certification
10 17 (3.09%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 17 (3.09%) CCNP
11 11 (2.00%) CEH
11 11 (2.00%) CompTIA Security+
11 11 (2.00%) Computer Science Degree
11 11 (2.00%) GIAC
12 10 (1.81%) Microsoft Certification
13 8 (1.45%) CCIE
13 8 (1.45%) CCSP
14 7 (1.27%) OSCP
15 6 (1.09%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 66 (11.98%) NIST
2 56 (10.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 30 (5.44%) GDPR
4 28 (5.08%) Cyber Essentials
5 23 (4.17%) PCI DSS
6 16 (2.90%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 9 (1.63%) 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
11 5 (0.91%) GRC
11 5 (0.91%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 5 (0.91%) RMADS
12 4 (0.73%) JSP 440
13 3 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
13 3 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
13 3 (0.54%) ISA99
13 3 (0.54%) SOC 2
14 2 (0.36%) COBIT
System Software
1 30 (5.44%) Active Directory
2 26 (4.72%) 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 (0.54%) 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 67 (12.16%) Terraform
2 55 (9.98%) Kubernetes
3 20 (3.63%) Ansible
4 15 (2.72%) Microsoft Intune
5 14 (2.54%) Single Sign-On
6 11 (2.00%) FortiGate
7 10 (1.81%) Progress Chef
8 7 (1.27%) vCenter Server
9 6 (1.09%) CASB
10 5 (0.91%) Nessus
11 4 (0.73%) Functional Safety
12 3 (0.54%) AirWatch
12 3 (0.54%) Grafana
12 3 (0.54%) Kibana
12 3 (0.54%) SCOM
13 2 (0.36%) logstash
13 2 (0.36%) QRadar
14 1 (0.18%) CSIRT
14 1 (0.18%) Host Intrusion Detection System
14 1 (0.18%) HP Fortify
Vendors
1 122 (22.14%) Microsoft
2 86 (15.61%) Cisco
3 55 (9.98%) F5
4 43 (7.80%) CrowdStrike
5 42 (7.62%) Palo Alto
6 36 (6.53%) Fortinet
7 31 (5.63%) Zscaler
8 26 (4.72%) CyberArk
9 25 (4.54%) Google
10 21 (3.81%) Splunk
11 20 (3.63%) ServiceNow
12 19 (3.45%) CheckPoint
13 18 (3.27%) VMware
14 17 (3.09%) Netskope
15 16 (2.90%) Tenable
16 12 (2.18%) BeyondTrust
16 12 (2.18%) Qualys
16 12 (2.18%) Red Hat
17 11 (2.00%) Blue Coat
18 8 (1.45%) Oracle