Security Operations Centre Contracts

Security Operations Centre
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Security Operations Centre in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Security Operations Centre over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 435 437 551
Rank change year-on-year +2 +114 +170
Contract jobs citing Security Operations Centre 84 165 162
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.29% 0.38% 0.27%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.85% 1.25% 0.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 52 108 126
10th Percentile £375 £463 £322
25th Percentile £494 £513 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £618 £613
Median % change year-on-year -10.93% +0.82% -1.61%
75th Percentile £600 £691 £725
90th Percentile £625 £740 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £531 £615 £600
% change year-on-year -13.62% +2.50% +2.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 2 1
10th Percentile £30.66 - -
25th Percentile £54.82 - -
Median hourly rate £80.68 £11.25 £32.69
Median % change year-on-year +617.11% -65.59% +45.13%
75th Percentile £81.83 - -
90th Percentile £83.05 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £80.68 £11.25 -
% change year-on-year +617.11% - -

All Generic Skills
UK

Security Operations Centre falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 9,915 13,252 19,898
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.91% 30.40% 33.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,331 8,505 13,670
10th Percentile £300 £263 £308
25th Percentile £413 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.42% -2.18% -
75th Percentile £650 £660 £680
90th Percentile £775 £788 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £496 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.90% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 394 910 640
10th Percentile £16.46 £12.25 £9.80
25th Percentile £21.00 £15.17 £10.63
Median hourly rate £32.05 £30.00 £22.49
Median % change year-on-year +6.83% +33.42% -18.24%
75th Percentile £63.75 £60.66 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.99 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.93 £27.75 £22.00
% change year-on-year +11.46% +26.14% +9.64%

Security Operations Centre
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Security Operations Centre in the UK

Security Operations Centre
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for Security Operations Centre in the UK

Security Operations Centre
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Security Operations Centre over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Security Operations Centre in the UK

Security Operations Centre
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for Security Operations Centre in the UK

Security Operations Centre
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Security Operations Centre over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Security Operations Centre in the UK

Security Operations Centre
Top 12 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Security Operations Centre within the UK over the 6 months to 30 April 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 -12 74 £538 -12.60% 87
UK excluding London -23 46 £531 -13.62% 68
Work from Home +55 29 £525 -14.63% 44
London +35 25 £538 -15.69% 28
South East +59 19 £525 -7.08% 22
East of England +37 18 £600 -7.69% 18
Midlands -1 3 £525 -14.98% 5
West Midlands -7 3 £525 -14.98% 4
North of England +26 2 £525 -14.29% 15
North West +10 2 £525 -12.50% 12
Scotland +9 2 - - 3
South West -26 2 £494 -15.96% 4

Security Operations Centre
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 5 (5.95%) CMS
2 2 (2.38%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (3.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (1.19%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 15 (17.86%) Azure
2 6 (7.14%) Azure Sentinel
3 5 (5.95%) GCP
4 4 (4.76%) AWS
5 1 (1.19%) Akamai
5 1 (1.19%) Azure Key Vault
5 1 (1.19%) Cloudflare
5 1 (1.19%) OCI
5 1 (1.19%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 17 (20.24%) Firewall
2 15 (17.86%) DNS
2 15 (17.86%) Network Security
3 14 (16.67%) HTTP
3 14 (16.67%) SMTP
4 12 (14.29%) FTP
4 12 (14.29%) SSL
5 6 (7.14%) TCP/IP
6 5 (5.95%) DHCP
7 4 (4.76%) Intrusion Detection
7 4 (4.76%) VPN
8 3 (3.57%) 4G
8 3 (3.57%) Internet
8 3 (3.57%) LAN
8 3 (3.57%) WAN
8 3 (3.57%) Wireless
9 2 (2.38%) MPLS
9 2 (2.38%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.19%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 1 (1.19%) SonarQube
General
1 28 (33.33%) Social Skills
2 20 (23.81%) Analytical Skills
3 9 (10.71%) Finance
4 8 (9.52%) Public Sector
5 5 (5.95%) Legal
6 3 (3.57%) Law
6 3 (3.57%) Presentation Skills
7 2 (2.38%) Telecoms
8 1 (1.19%) Banking
8 1 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (1.19%) Financial Institution
8 1 (1.19%) Fire and Rescue
8 1 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (1.19%) Local Government
8 1 (1.19%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 41 (48.81%) Analyst
2 31 (36.90%) SOC Analyst
3 13 (15.48%) Security Analyst
4 9 (10.71%) Senior
5 8 (9.52%) Consultant
5 8 (9.52%) Operations Analyst
5 8 (9.52%) Security Operations Analyst
6 7 (8.33%) Splunk Consultant
7 6 (7.14%) Incident Analyst
7 6 (7.14%) Incident Responder
7 6 (7.14%) Lead
7 6 (7.14%) Security Incident Analyst
8 5 (5.95%) Splunk Support
8 5 (5.95%) Support Consultant
9 4 (4.76%) Cybersecurity Analyst
9 4 (4.76%) Senior Analyst
9 4 (4.76%) SOC Engineer
10 3 (3.57%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 3 (3.57%) Junior Analyst
10 3 (3.57%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (14.29%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 22 (26.19%) Cyber Threat
2 13 (15.48%) Cyberattack
3 11 (13.10%) Security Posture
4 10 (11.90%) CSOC
5 8 (9.52%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 8 (9.52%) Management Information System
6 6 (7.14%) Analytical Mindset
7 5 (5.95%) Virtual Team
8 4 (4.76%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (3.57%) Cyber Kill Chain
10 2 (2.38%) Client/Server
10 2 (2.38%) Cloud Native
10 2 (2.38%) Onboarding
11 1 (1.19%) Cyber Defence
11 1 (1.19%) Cyber Security Posture
11 1 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
11 1 (1.19%) Insider Threat
11 1 (1.19%) Operational Technology
11 1 (1.19%) Reinsurance
11 1 (1.19%) YARA
Operating Systems
1 13 (15.48%) Windows
2 10 (11.90%) Linux
3 2 (2.38%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (98.81%) Security Operations
2 50 (59.52%) Incident Response
2 50 (59.52%) SIEM
3 46 (54.76%) Cybersecurity
4 28 (33.33%) Threat Detection
5 21 (25.00%) Threat Intelligence
6 19 (22.62%) Incident Management
7 17 (20.24%) Security Monitoring
8 14 (16.67%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
8 14 (16.67%) Vulnerability Management
9 13 (15.48%) Use Case
10 12 (14.29%) Information Security
11 11 (13.10%) MITRE ATT&CK
12 10 (11.90%) Migration
12 10 (11.90%) Problem-Solving
13 9 (10.71%) Analytics
14 8 (9.52%) Artificial Intelligence
14 8 (9.52%) Information Management
14 8 (9.52%) Machine Learning
15 7 (8.33%) Network Packet Capture
Programming Languages
1 12 (14.29%) Python
2 11 (13.10%) PowerShell
3 6 (7.14%) Kusto Query Language
4 4 (4.76%) Bash
5 2 (2.38%) Search Processing Language
6 1 (1.19%) SQL
Qualifications
1 43 (51.19%) Security Cleared
2 36 (42.86%) SC Cleared
3 13 (15.48%) CISSP
4 11 (13.10%) DV Cleared
5 8 (9.52%) GCIH
5 8 (9.52%) GIAC
6 7 (8.33%) CISM
6 7 (8.33%) CompTIA Security+
6 7 (8.33%) GCIA
7 6 (7.14%) Microsoft Certification
8 5 (5.95%) CEH
9 4 (4.76%) CCNA
9 4 (4.76%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (4.76%) GCFA
10 3 (3.57%) CCNP
10 3 (3.57%) Degree
11 2 (2.38%) CISA
11 2 (2.38%) CompTIA CySA+
11 2 (2.38%) OSCP
12 1 (1.19%) CREST Certified
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (11.90%) NIST
2 9 (10.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (3.57%) GDPR
3 3 (3.57%) NIST 800
3 3 (3.57%) PCI DSS
4 2 (2.38%) Cyber Essentials
4 2 (2.38%) SLA
5 1 (1.19%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (1.19%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (1.19%) GRC
5 1 (1.19%) HIPAA
5 1 (1.19%) ISO 9001
5 1 (1.19%) SOC 2
Systems Management
1 5 (5.95%) QRadar
2 3 (3.57%) FortiGate
3 1 (1.19%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
3 1 (1.19%) CSIRT
3 1 (1.19%) Kubernetes
3 1 (1.19%) OPNET
Vendors
1 27 (32.14%) Splunk
2 14 (16.67%) Microsoft
3 6 (7.14%) LogRhythm
4 5 (5.95%) Darktrace
4 5 (5.95%) FireEye
5 4 (4.76%) Palo Alto
6 3 (3.57%) Cisco
6 3 (3.57%) IBM
6 3 (3.57%) IronPort
6 3 (3.57%) Symantec
7 2 (2.38%) ArcSight
7 2 (2.38%) Aruba
7 2 (2.38%) CrowdStrike
7 2 (2.38%) Rapid7
8 1 (1.19%) F5
8 1 (1.19%) Google
8 1 (1.19%) Imperva
8 1 (1.19%) Kenna
8 1 (1.19%) Veracode
8 1 (1.19%) VMware