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 16 February 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 234 280 301
Rank change year-on-year +46 +21 -57
Contract jobs requiring a Security Engineer 463 268 322
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.16% 0.87% 0.72%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.27% 0.94% 0.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 265 157 205
10th Percentile £400 £393 £413
25th Percentile £463 £425 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £560
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% -1.79% -2.61%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £675
90th Percentile £686 £700 £761
UK excluding London median daily rate £538 £525 £550
% change year-on-year +2.38% -4.55% +2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 3 20
10th Percentile - £42.00 £50.32
25th Percentile - £43.13 £78.69
Median hourly rate £85.40 £45.00 £83.40
Median % change year-on-year +89.78% -46.04% +8.80%
75th Percentile - £61.68 -
90th Percentile £92.50 £71.69 £83.41
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.40 £73.31 £83.40
% change year-on-year +16.49% -12.10% +0.11%

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 36,541 28,512 41,697
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.61% 92.94% 93.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,964 17,617 27,442
10th Percentile £304 £288 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £475 £489
% change year-on-year +0.53% -2.86% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,238 809 2,311
10th Percentile £14.61 £16.20 £13.13
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.30
Median hourly rate £30.00 £33.54 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.55% -4.17% -5.74%
75th Percentile £61.55 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £72.51 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.60 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -8.92% -7.14% -

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 16 February 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 16 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Security Engineer in the UK

Security Engineer
Top 17 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 16 February 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 +44 404 £538 -2.27% 332
London +32 205 £538 -6.52% 87
UK excluding London +15 203 £538 +2.38% 296
Work from Home +28 139 £537 -2.36% 90
North of England -37 60 £550 - 74
South East -14 45 £475 +5.56% 89
North West -9 41 £575 +4.55% 45
Midlands -27 40 £505 -1.46% 47
South West +2 34 £537 -2.36% 26
West Midlands -28 34 £570 +11.22% 36
Scotland +20 24 £632 +12.36% 24
Yorkshire -51 16 £540 +60.00% 18
East of England -16 12 £525 +90.91% 34
East Midlands - 6 £450 - 11
Northern Ireland - 5 - - 3
North East -15 3 £400 -23.81% 11
Wales -1 2 £600 - 6

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

For the 6 months to 16 February 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.

1 175 (37.80%) Azure
2 161 (34.77%) Cybersecurity
3 137 (29.59%) AWS
4 123 (26.57%) Cloud Security
5 114 (24.62%) Firewall
5 114 (24.62%) SIEM
6 112 (24.19%) Security Cleared
7 110 (23.76%) Microsoft
8 93 (20.09%) Network Security
9 90 (19.44%) Python
10 89 (19.22%) SC Cleared
11 85 (18.36%) NIST
12 84 (18.14%) CI/CD
13 80 (17.28%) Incident Response
14 79 (17.06%) Security Operations
15 75 (16.20%) PowerShell
16 72 (15.55%) Infrastructure as Code
17 69 (14.90%) CISSP
18 65 (14.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
19 63 (13.61%) DevOps
20 58 (12.53%) Cisco
21 55 (11.88%) GCP
22 54 (11.66%) Entra ID
23 53 (11.45%) Degree
23 53 (11.45%) Threat Modelling
24 52 (11.23%) Vulnerability Management
24 52 (11.23%) Windows
25 51 (11.02%) Linux
25 51 (11.02%) Microsoft 365
26 50 (10.80%) VPN

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 12 (2.59%) Confluence
2 10 (2.16%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (0.86%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.43%) Apache
4 2 (0.43%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 3 (0.65%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.22%) NetSuite
1 1 (0.22%) SAP ERP
1 1 (0.22%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 175 (37.80%) Azure
2 137 (29.59%) AWS
3 55 (11.88%) GCP
4 54 (11.66%) Entra ID
5 51 (11.02%) Microsoft 365
6 45 (9.72%) Azure Sentinel
7 42 (9.07%) Microsoft Purview
8 28 (6.05%) GitHub
9 23 (4.97%) AWS CloudFormation
10 20 (4.32%) OpenShift
11 16 (3.46%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 16 (3.46%) SaaS
12 14 (3.02%) Mimecast
13 13 (2.81%) Azure Monitor
13 13 (2.81%) GitHub Actions
14 12 (2.59%) Amazon ECS
14 12 (2.59%) Azure Key Vault
15 11 (2.38%) AWS KMS
16 10 (2.16%) AWS CloudTrail
16 10 (2.16%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 114 (24.62%) Firewall
2 93 (20.09%) Network Security
3 50 (10.80%) VPN
4 42 (9.07%) DNS
5 26 (5.62%) BGP
6 18 (3.89%) TCP/IP
7 16 (3.46%) WAN
8 13 (2.81%) Wireless
9 12 (2.59%) DMZ
9 12 (2.59%) Multicast
9 12 (2.59%) SSL
10 11 (2.38%) Cisco ASA
11 8 (1.73%) DHCP
11 8 (1.73%) NGFW
11 8 (1.73%) OSPF
12 7 (1.51%) Cisco IOS
12 7 (1.51%) Intrusion Detection
12 7 (1.51%) IPsec
12 7 (1.51%) Wi-Fi
13 6 (1.30%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (2.81%) Data Lake
2 7 (1.51%) Elasticsearch
3 5 (1.08%) BigQuery
4 4 (0.86%) Amazon Athena
4 4 (0.86%) Power BI
5 3 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
6 2 (0.43%) Mixpanel
6 2 (0.43%) OLAP
6 2 (0.43%) OLTP
7 1 (0.22%) DynamoDB
7 1 (0.22%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 20 (4.32%) GitLab
2 17 (3.67%) JIRA
3 11 (2.38%) Jenkins
4 10 (2.16%) Snyk
5 7 (1.51%) Git
6 6 (1.30%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.86%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.43%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.22%) Travis CI
General
1 118 (25.49%) Social Skills
2 60 (12.96%) Finance
3 58 (12.53%) Public Sector
4 45 (9.72%) Analytical Skills
5 17 (3.67%) Banking
6 14 (3.02%) Documentation Skills
7 9 (1.94%) Investment Banking
8 8 (1.73%) Legal
8 8 (1.73%) Telecoms
9 7 (1.51%) Military
10 6 (1.30%) Spanish Language
11 5 (1.08%) Cyber-Physical System
11 5 (1.08%) Financial Institution
11 5 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (0.86%) Organisational Skills
12 4 (0.86%) Pharmaceutical
13 3 (0.65%) Local Government
14 2 (0.43%) Retail
15 1 (0.22%) Italian Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (4.54%) REST
2 15 (3.24%) Elastic Stack
3 12 (2.59%) SAML
4 10 (2.16%) LDAP
5 9 (1.94%) OAuth
6 7 (1.51%) JSON
6 7 (1.51%) NestJS
6 7 (1.51%) Node.js
7 6 (1.30%) Kafka
7 6 (1.30%) OpenID
7 6 (1.30%) SailPoint
8 5 (1.08%) .NET
8 5 (1.08%) 802.1X
8 5 (1.08%) Microsoft Graph
9 4 (0.86%) SLSA
9 4 (0.86%) SOAP
10 3 (0.65%) AWS CDK
10 3 (0.65%) Regular Expression
10 3 (0.65%) Web Services
11 2 (0.43%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 50 (10.80%) Security Posture
2 25 (5.40%) Cloud Native
2 25 (5.40%) Data Centre
3 20 (4.32%) Onboarding
4 19 (4.10%) Management Information System
5 14 (3.02%) Data Protection Act
6 10 (2.16%) PKI
6 10 (2.16%) Security Operations Centre
7 9 (1.94%) Cyber Defence
7 9 (1.94%) Hybrid Cloud
7 9 (1.94%) Operational Technology
8 8 (1.73%) Cloud Security Posture
9 7 (1.51%) BYOD
10 6 (1.30%) Cyber Security Posture
10 6 (1.30%) Cyber Threat
10 6 (1.30%) Public Cloud
11 5 (1.08%) Greenfield Project
11 5 (1.08%) Mobile App
12 4 (0.86%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 4 (0.86%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 52 (11.23%) Windows
2 51 (11.02%) Linux
3 14 (3.02%) Windows Server
4 9 (1.94%) Unix
5 7 (1.51%) Mac OS
5 7 (1.51%) Ubuntu
6 6 (1.30%) Android
7 5 (1.08%) Apple iOS
7 5 (1.08%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.86%) VMS
9 3 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.22%) Rocky
10 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 161 (34.77%) Cybersecurity
2 123 (26.57%) Cloud Security
3 114 (24.62%) SIEM
4 84 (18.14%) CI/CD
5 80 (17.28%) Incident Response
6 79 (17.06%) Security Operations
7 72 (15.55%) Infrastructure as Code
8 63 (13.61%) DevOps
9 53 (11.45%) Threat Modelling
10 52 (11.23%) Vulnerability Management
11 44 (9.50%) DevSecOps
11 44 (9.50%) Information Security
11 44 (9.50%) Problem-Solving
12 43 (9.29%) Agile
13 40 (8.64%) Continuous Improvement
14 39 (8.42%) Threat Detection
15 38 (8.21%) SOAR
16 37 (7.99%) Security Monitoring
17 36 (7.78%) Migration
18 33 (7.13%) Data Loss Prevention
Programming Languages
1 90 (19.44%) Python
2 75 (16.20%) PowerShell
3 28 (6.05%) Bash
4 21 (4.54%) Kusto Query Language
5 16 (3.46%) Java
6 7 (1.51%) Bicep
7 6 (1.30%) JavaScript
8 4 (0.86%) BeanShell
8 4 (0.86%) PHP
8 4 (0.86%) TypeScript
9 3 (0.65%) C#
9 3 (0.65%) Kotlin
9 3 (0.65%) SQL
10 2 (0.43%) C++
10 2 (0.43%) Go
10 2 (0.43%) Ruby
10 2 (0.43%) Rust
11 1 (0.22%) Scala
11 1 (0.22%) Search Processing Language
11 1 (0.22%) Swift
Qualifications
1 112 (24.19%) Security Cleared
2 89 (19.22%) SC Cleared
3 69 (14.90%) CISSP
4 53 (11.45%) Degree
5 42 (9.07%) CISM
6 28 (6.05%) DV Cleared
7 23 (4.97%) Cisco Certification
8 17 (3.67%) Azure Certification
8 17 (3.67%) CompTIA Security+
9 15 (3.24%) CEH
10 13 (2.81%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 12 (2.59%) GIAC
12 11 (2.38%) AWS Certification
12 11 (2.38%) SANS
13 9 (1.94%) Microsoft Certification
14 8 (1.73%) CCNP
15 7 (1.51%) CCSP
16 6 (1.30%) Computer Science Degree
16 6 (1.30%) Network+ Certification
16 6 (1.30%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 85 (18.36%) NIST
2 65 (14.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 37 (7.99%) GDPR
4 22 (4.75%) Cyber Essentials
5 13 (2.81%) NCSC
6 12 (2.59%) PCI DSS
7 11 (2.38%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 10 (2.16%) GRC
8 10 (2.16%) HIPAA
9 7 (1.51%) NIST 800
9 7 (1.51%) RMADS
10 5 (1.08%) JSP 440
10 5 (1.08%) SOC 2
11 4 (0.86%) Government Security Classifications
12 3 (0.65%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.65%) SLA
13 2 (0.43%) Data Quality
13 2 (0.43%) GxP
13 2 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 1 (0.22%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 44 (9.50%) Active Directory
2 20 (4.32%) Docker
3 16 (3.46%) Virtual Machines
4 8 (1.73%) VMware Infrastructure
5 7 (1.51%) Hyper-V
6 6 (1.30%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (1.08%) Firmware
8 2 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.22%) GPFS
9 1 (0.22%) Lustre
9 1 (0.22%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.22%) Snort
9 1 (0.22%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 49 (10.58%) Terraform
2 46 (9.94%) Kubernetes
3 21 (4.54%) Microsoft Intune
4 18 (3.89%) SCCM
5 14 (3.02%) Single Sign-On
6 13 (2.81%) Fluentd
7 10 (2.16%) Ansible
8 9 (1.94%) CASB
8 9 (1.94%) Kibana
8 9 (1.94%) logstash
9 8 (1.73%) Nessus
10 7 (1.51%) WSUS
11 6 (1.30%) SCOrch
11 6 (1.30%) vCenter Server
12 5 (1.08%) Functional Safety
13 4 (0.86%) AirWatch
13 4 (0.86%) CSIRT
14 3 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 3 (0.65%) Argo
14 3 (0.65%) SCOM
Vendors
1 110 (23.76%) Microsoft
2 58 (12.53%) Cisco
3 42 (9.07%) Splunk
4 33 (7.13%) Palo Alto
5 31 (6.70%) F5
6 27 (5.83%) Tenable
7 23 (4.97%) Fortinet
8 21 (4.54%) CheckPoint
9 19 (4.10%) CrowdStrike
10 15 (3.24%) Google
10 15 (3.24%) ServiceNow
11 13 (2.81%) Zscaler
12 12 (2.59%) Cribl.io
12 12 (2.59%) Juniper
12 12 (2.59%) Qualys
13 9 (1.94%) CyberArk
13 9 (1.94%) VMware
14 8 (1.73%) Ping Identity
15 7 (1.51%) Checkmarx
15 7 (1.51%) Rapid7