Security Hardening Contracts

Security Hardening
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Security Hardening skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Security Hardening over the 6 months leading up to 12 August 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Aug 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 497 502 607
Rank change year-on-year +5 +105 +156
Contract jobs citing Security Hardening 51 57 60
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.15% 0.15% 0.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.17% 0.17% 0.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 33 38 38
10th Percentile £380 £400 £442
25th Percentile £425 £486 £516
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% -8.33% +1.69%
75th Percentile £650 £625 £738
90th Percentile £685 £629 £761
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £650
% change year-on-year - -15.38% +13.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 5 2
10th Percentile - - £61.63
25th Percentile - - £62.19
Median hourly rate - £23.80 £63.75
Median % change year-on-year - -62.67% -
75th Percentile - £71.25 £64.69
90th Percentile - £75.30 £64.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £72.75 £63.75
% change year-on-year - +14.12% -

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Security Hardening falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 29,869 33,284 47,171
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.47% 85.48% 89.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,656 21,283 32,342
10th Percentile £300 £310 £320
25th Percentile £404 £413 £426
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £546
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -3.76% -0.82%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,699 1,835 1,536
10th Percentile £14.19 £14.05 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £18.35 £18.74
Median hourly rate £25.15 £41.00 £41.80
Median % change year-on-year -38.66% -1.91% +57.74%
75th Percentile £47.50 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £75.00 £77.22
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.63 £42.50 £36.25
% change year-on-year -46.75% +17.24% +64.77%

Security Hardening
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Security Hardening as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Security Hardening in the UK

Security Hardening
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Security Hardening.

Daily rate trend for Security Hardening in the UK

Security Hardening
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Security Hardening over the 6 months to 12 August 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Security Hardening in the UK

Security Hardening
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Security Hardening.

Hourly rate trend for Security Hardening in the UK

Security Hardening
Top 11 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Security Hardening within the UK over the 6 months to 12 August 2025. 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 +15 43 £550 - 26
UK excluding London +14 36 £550 - 10
Work from Home +28 20 £575 +10.58% 11
South West +41 14 £485 -3.00%
North of England -7 11 £650 +188.89% 2
North West +4 9 £650 +188.89% 2
London -7 8 £450 -6.49% 19
South East +14 6 £600 - 4
Scotland -14 3 £483 -
East of England +6 2 £695 - 5
Yorkshire -4 2 £650 -

Security Hardening
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 4 (7.84%) Confluence
2 3 (5.88%) BizTalk Server
2 3 (5.88%) IIS
3 2 (3.92%) Apache
Applications
1 1 (1.96%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 12 (23.53%) AWS
1 12 (23.53%) Azure
2 5 (9.80%) GitHub
3 3 (5.88%) Cloud Computing
3 3 (5.88%) GitHub Actions
3 3 (5.88%) OpenShift
4 2 (3.92%) Amazon S3
4 2 (3.92%) Cohesity
4 2 (3.92%) Datadog
4 2 (3.92%) GCP
4 2 (3.92%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (1.96%) Entra ID
5 1 (1.96%) Google Kubernetes Engine
5 1 (1.96%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 13 (25.49%) Firewall
2 5 (9.80%) DNS
2 5 (9.80%) VSAN
3 4 (7.84%) TCP/IP
4 3 (5.88%) 4G
4 3 (5.88%) 5G
4 3 (5.88%) FTP
5 2 (3.92%) NAS
5 2 (3.92%) SAN
5 2 (3.92%) X.509
6 1 (1.96%) HTTP
6 1 (1.96%) HTTPS
6 1 (1.96%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (7.84%) SQL Server
2 2 (3.92%) MariaDB
2 2 (3.92%) MySQL
3 1 (1.96%) BigQuery
3 1 (1.96%) InfluxDB
3 1 (1.96%) Looker
3 1 (1.96%) MongoDB
3 1 (1.96%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 13 (25.49%) Jenkins
2 11 (21.57%) Git
3 10 (19.61%) JIRA
4 3 (5.88%) Artifactory
4 3 (5.88%) Rational DOORS
5 2 (3.92%) Bitbucket
5 2 (3.92%) Postman
5 2 (3.92%) SpecFlow
5 2 (3.92%) Subversion
5 2 (3.92%) TeamCity
5 2 (3.92%) Vagrant
6 1 (1.96%) SonarQube
General
1 15 (29.41%) Social Skills
2 5 (9.80%) Finance
3 4 (7.84%) Analytical Skills
3 4 (7.84%) Documentation Skills
4 3 (5.88%) Military
5 2 (3.92%) Public Sector
6 1 (1.96%) Banking
6 1 (1.96%) Financial Institution
6 1 (1.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.96%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 8 (15.69%) Administrator
2 7 (13.73%) Linux Administrator
3 5 (9.80%) Consultant
3 5 (9.80%) Software Engineer
4 4 (7.84%) Analyst
4 4 (7.84%) DevSecOps Engineer
4 4 (7.84%) Infrastructure Analyst
4 4 (7.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 4 (7.84%) Security Analyst
4 4 (7.84%) Senior
4 4 (7.84%) VMware Consultant
5 3 (5.88%) DevOps Administrator
5 3 (5.88%) DevOps Engineer
5 3 (5.88%) Engineering Specialist
5 3 (5.88%) Linux DevOps Administrator
5 3 (5.88%) Linux/Unix DevOps
5 3 (5.88%) Security Manager
5 3 (5.88%) Security Project Manager
5 3 (5.88%) Systems Administrator
5 3 (5.88%) Test Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (9.80%) .NET
2 4 (7.84%) REST
3 2 (3.92%) .NET Framework
3 2 (3.92%) AngularJS
3 2 (3.92%) Gherkin
3 2 (3.92%) LAMP
3 2 (3.92%) Playwright
3 2 (3.92%) Zend Framework
4 1 (1.96%) EDI
4 1 (1.96%) JSON
4 1 (1.96%) MSMQ
4 1 (1.96%) SOAP
4 1 (1.96%) WCF
4 1 (1.96%) XML
4 1 (1.96%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 6 (11.76%) Data Centre
2 5 (9.80%) PKI
3 4 (7.84%) Hybrid Cloud
3 4 (7.84%) Legacy Applications
3 4 (7.84%) Linux Command Line
4 3 (5.88%) Cloud Native
4 3 (5.88%) Clustering
4 3 (5.88%) Replication
5 2 (3.92%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (3.92%) Management Information System
6 1 (1.96%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (1.96%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 26 (50.98%) Windows
2 21 (41.18%) Linux
3 15 (29.41%) Windows Server
4 10 (19.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (9.80%) Ubuntu
6 4 (7.84%) Solaris
6 4 (7.84%) Unix
7 2 (3.92%) CentOS
7 2 (3.92%) Debian
8 1 (1.96%) AIX
8 1 (1.96%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (1.96%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (37.25%) DevOps
2 15 (29.41%) CI/CD
3 14 (27.45%) Infrastructure as Code
4 10 (19.61%) Agile
4 10 (19.61%) Disaster Recovery
5 9 (17.65%) Configuration Management
5 9 (17.65%) High Availability
6 8 (15.69%) Containerisation
6 8 (15.69%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 8 (15.69%) Problem-Solving
7 7 (13.73%) Vulnerability Management
8 6 (11.76%) Asset Management
8 6 (11.76%) Patch Management
9 5 (9.80%) Cloud Security
9 5 (9.80%) Cybersecurity
9 5 (9.80%) Software Engineering
9 5 (9.80%) Test Scripting
9 5 (9.80%) Unit Testing
9 5 (9.80%) Vulnerability Assessment
9 5 (9.80%) Vulnerability Scanning
Programming Languages
1 18 (35.29%) Python
2 13 (25.49%) Bash
3 9 (17.65%) Perl
4 6 (11.76%) PowerShell
5 4 (7.84%) JavaScript
5 4 (7.84%) SQL
6 3 (5.88%) C++
6 3 (5.88%) Java
7 2 (3.92%) C#
7 2 (3.92%) PHP
8 1 (1.96%) ActionScript
8 1 (1.96%) ActionScript 2.0
8 1 (1.96%) Go
8 1 (1.96%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 19 (37.25%) Security Cleared
2 15 (29.41%) SC Cleared
3 4 (7.84%) Azure Certification
4 3 (5.88%) Microsoft Certification
5 2 (3.92%) CCNA
5 2 (3.92%) Cisco Certification
5 2 (3.92%) CISSP
5 2 (3.92%) CompTIA Security+
5 2 (3.92%) DV Cleared
5 2 (3.92%) RHCE
5 2 (3.92%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 1 (1.96%) AWS Certification
6 1 (1.96%) OCP
6 1 (1.96%) Oracle Certification
6 1 (1.96%) Sun Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (5.88%) GDPR
1 3 (5.88%) NCSC
1 3 (5.88%) QA
2 2 (3.92%) Disclosure Scotland
2 2 (3.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
3 1 (1.96%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (1.96%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 1 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 13 (25.49%) VMware Infrastructure
2 12 (23.53%) Docker
3 7 (13.73%) VMware ESXi
4 4 (7.84%) Active Directory
5 3 (5.88%) VMware NSX
5 3 (5.88%) vSphere
6 2 (3.92%) NFS
6 2 (3.92%) Veritas File System
6 2 (3.92%) Veritas Volume Manager
6 2 (3.92%) VirtualBox
7 1 (1.96%) KVM
7 1 (1.96%) Veritas Cluster Server
7 1 (1.96%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (1.96%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 18 (35.29%) Ansible
2 14 (27.45%) Kubernetes
3 10 (19.61%) Terraform
4 6 (11.76%) Nessus
4 6 (11.76%) SCCM
5 5 (9.80%) Puppet
5 5 (9.80%) vCenter Server
5 5 (9.80%) WSUS
6 4 (7.84%) Grafana
6 4 (7.84%) Progress Chef
6 4 (7.84%) SCOM
7 3 (5.88%) Check_MK
7 3 (5.88%) Nagios
7 3 (5.88%) Podman
7 3 (5.88%) Prometheus
7 3 (5.88%) Red Hat Satellite
7 3 (5.88%) SELinux
7 3 (5.88%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (3.92%) Icinga
8 2 (3.92%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 20 (39.22%) VMware
2 9 (17.65%) Red Hat
3 8 (15.69%) Microsoft
4 6 (11.76%) Cisco
4 6 (11.76%) Qualys
5 5 (9.80%) Splunk
6 3 (5.88%) Dell
6 3 (5.88%) Dynatrace
6 3 (5.88%) Fortinet
6 3 (5.88%) IBM
6 3 (5.88%) Juniper
6 3 (5.88%) Oracle
6 3 (5.88%) ServiceNow
7 2 (3.92%) Atlassian
7 2 (3.92%) NetApp
7 2 (3.92%) New Relic
7 2 (3.92%) SolarWinds
7 2 (3.92%) Veeam
7 2 (3.92%) Veritas
7 2 (3.92%) Zend