SOC 2 Contract Job Trends

System and Organization Controls (SOC) 2
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring SOC 2 skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 593 487 545
Rank change year-on-year -106 +58 +42
Contract jobs citing SOC 2 78 60 26
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.15% 0.18% 0.067%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 0.85% 1.06% 0.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 55 38 10
10th Percentile £425 £373 £490
25th Percentile £500 £472 £547
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £585 £700 £644
Median % change year-on-year -16.43% +8.74% +3.00%
75th Percentile £651 £850 £694
90th Percentile £725 £950 £704
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £525 £613
% change year-on-year +14.29% -14.29% +36.11%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK

SOC 2 falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 9,228 5,638 5,254
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.22% 17.01% 13.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,926 3,628 3,263
10th Percentile £331 £281 £292
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year - -0.99% -3.81%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £625
90th Percentile £700 £716 £748
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +4.21% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 563 259 320
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.58 £11.07
25th Percentile £19.11 £17.40 £14.50
Median hourly rate £40.00 £27.53 £26.16
Median % change year-on-year +45.30% +5.23% -33.78%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £55.00
90th Percentile £81.52 £85.35 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £24.66 £25.77
% change year-on-year +62.21% -4.29% -27.93%

SOC 2
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SOC 2 relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

SOC 2 job vacancy trend in the UK

SOC 2
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SOC 2.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SOC 2

SOC 2
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SOC 2 over the 6 months to 9 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SOC 2 in the UK

SOC 2
Top 12 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SOC 2 within the UK over the 6 months to 9 August 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 -92 72 £600 +2.56% 144
London -74 44 £558 -23.10% 108
Work from Home -46 39 £600 - 62
UK excluding London -73 29 £600 +14.29% 45
South East -50 19 £650 - 17
North of England -68 4 £574 +11.90% 10
North West -44 3 £574 - 7
West Midlands -49 3 £463 +2.78% 5
Midlands -51 3 £463 +2.78% 7
East of England -19 2 £503 -4.29% 4
Yorkshire -42 1 - - 1
Scotland - 1 £400 - 5

SOC 2
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 4 (5.13%) Confluence
2 1 (1.28%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (1.28%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (3.85%) MS Visio
2 2 (2.56%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (2.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (3.85%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 26 (33.33%) Azure
2 18 (23.08%) AWS
3 13 (16.67%) GCP
4 9 (11.54%) Azure Sentinel
4 9 (11.54%) Entra ID
5 7 (8.97%) SaaS
6 6 (7.69%) OCI
7 5 (6.41%) Azure Key Vault
8 3 (3.85%) Azure AKS
8 3 (3.85%) Dynamics 365
8 3 (3.85%) GitHub
8 3 (3.85%) GitHub Actions
8 3 (3.85%) Microsoft 365
8 3 (3.85%) Power Automate
8 3 (3.85%) Power Platform
8 3 (3.85%) PowerApps
9 2 (2.56%) AWS Control Tower
9 2 (2.56%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 2 (2.56%) Azure Monitor
9 2 (2.56%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 5 (6.41%) Network Security
2 4 (5.13%) Firewall
3 2 (2.56%) DHCP
3 2 (2.56%) DNS
3 2 (2.56%) Internet
3 2 (2.56%) NGFW
3 2 (2.56%) VPN
3 2 (2.56%) X.509
4 1 (1.28%) Cisco IPT
4 1 (1.28%) Intrusion Detection
4 1 (1.28%) Kerberos
4 1 (1.28%) SMS
4 1 (1.28%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (2.56%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.28%) Azure SQL Database
2 1 (1.28%) Data Lake
2 1 (1.28%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 4 (5.13%) JIRA
2 2 (2.56%) Git
2 2 (2.56%) GitLab
2 2 (2.56%) Jenkins
3 1 (1.28%) Burp Suite
3 1 (1.28%) Postman
General
1 30 (38.46%) Finance
2 22 (28.21%) Social Skills
3 8 (10.26%) Legal
4 7 (8.97%) Documentation Skills
5 4 (5.13%) Analytical Skills
6 3 (3.85%) Banking
6 3 (3.85%) Manufacturing
7 1 (1.28%) Health Technology
7 1 (1.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (1.28%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 20 (25.64%) Project Manager
2 18 (23.08%) Security Manager
3 17 (21.79%) Security Project Manager
4 10 (12.82%) Senior
5 9 (11.54%) Analyst
5 9 (11.54%) Consultant
6 7 (8.97%) Cybersecurity Manager
6 7 (8.97%) Project Manager - Cybersecurity
7 6 (7.69%) Architect
7 6 (7.69%) Security Specialist
8 5 (6.41%) Lead
8 5 (6.41%) Project Assurance Manager
9 4 (5.13%) Business Analyst
9 4 (5.13%) Security Assurance Manager
9 4 (5.13%) Security Engineer
9 4 (5.13%) SOC Manager
10 3 (3.85%) Information Security Consultant
10 3 (3.85%) Security Consultant
10 3 (3.85%) Senior Manager
10 3 (3.85%) Senior Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (5.13%) SailPoint
2 2 (2.56%) 802.1X
2 2 (2.56%) Azure Blueprints
2 2 (2.56%) LDAP
2 2 (2.56%) OpenID
2 2 (2.56%) REST
2 2 (2.56%) SAML
3 1 (1.28%) AWS CDK
3 1 (1.28%) Django
3 1 (1.28%) FastAPI
3 1 (1.28%) FIDO
3 1 (1.28%) JSON
3 1 (1.28%) Keycloak
3 1 (1.28%) Microsoft Graph
3 1 (1.28%) Node.js
3 1 (1.28%) OAuth
3 1 (1.28%) Playwright
3 1 (1.28%) RESTful
3 1 (1.28%) WebAuthn
3 1 (1.28%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 10 (12.82%) Security Posture
2 9 (11.54%) Onboarding
3 8 (10.26%) Cloud Native
4 7 (8.97%) Operational Technology
5 6 (7.69%) Management Information System
6 4 (5.13%) CMDB
6 4 (5.13%) Virtual Team
7 3 (3.85%) PKI
7 3 (3.85%) Product Ownership
8 2 (2.56%) Algorithms
8 2 (2.56%) PMI
9 1 (1.28%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (1.28%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 1 (1.28%) Hybrid Cloud
9 1 (1.28%) Linux Command Line
9 1 (1.28%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 9 (11.54%) Linux
1 9 (11.54%) Windows
2 5 (6.41%) Windows Server
3 4 (5.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (3.85%) Ubuntu
5 2 (2.56%) AIX
5 2 (2.56%) Alpine Linux
5 2 (2.56%) Solaris
6 1 (1.28%) CentOS
6 1 (1.28%) CoreOS
6 1 (1.28%) Unix
6 1 (1.28%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (52.56%) Cybersecurity
2 32 (41.03%) Stakeholder Management
3 31 (39.74%) Risk Management
4 24 (30.77%) Change Management
5 18 (23.08%) Information Security
5 18 (23.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 17 (21.79%) Zero Trust
7 14 (17.95%) Data Protection
7 14 (17.95%) Matrix Organization
7 14 (17.95%) Security Operations
8 13 (16.67%) Budget Management
8 13 (16.67%) Regulatory Compliance
9 12 (15.38%) CI/CD
9 12 (15.38%) Infrastructure as Code
9 12 (15.38%) Vulnerability Management
10 11 (14.10%) BCP
10 11 (14.10%) Identity Access Management
10 11 (14.10%) Incident Response
11 10 (12.82%) Cloud Security
11 10 (12.82%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 10 (12.82%) PowerShell
1 10 (12.82%) Python
2 6 (7.69%) Bash
3 4 (5.13%) JavaScript
4 3 (3.85%) C#
5 2 (2.56%) Bicep
6 1 (1.28%) Go
6 1 (1.28%) Java
6 1 (1.28%) SQL
Qualifications
1 23 (29.49%) CISSP
2 19 (24.36%) CISM
3 13 (16.67%) PMI Certification
3 13 (16.67%) PMP
4 8 (10.26%) CRISC
4 8 (10.26%) Degree
5 6 (7.69%) CISA
6 3 (3.85%) AWS Certification
6 3 (3.85%) Azure Certification
6 3 (3.85%) CCSP
6 3 (3.85%) Cisco Certification
6 3 (3.85%) CompTIA Security+
6 3 (3.85%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
6 3 (3.85%) Security Cleared
7 2 (2.56%) CAPM
7 2 (2.56%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
7 2 (2.56%) ISSAP
7 2 (2.56%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (2.56%) SC Cleared
7 2 (2.56%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 67 (85.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 56 (71.79%) NIST
3 35 (44.87%) GDPR
4 15 (19.23%) GRC
4 15 (19.23%) PCI DSS
5 9 (11.54%) NIST 800
6 6 (7.69%) ISO 22301
7 5 (6.41%) HIPAA
7 5 (6.41%) PMO
7 5 (6.41%) SOC 1
8 4 (5.13%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 3 (3.85%) QA
10 2 (2.56%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (2.56%) COBIT
10 2 (2.56%) Data Quality
10 2 (2.56%) ISO 31000
10 2 (2.56%) SLA
11 1 (1.28%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 1 (1.28%) EU AI Act
11 1 (1.28%) NCSC
System Software
1 5 (6.41%) Active Directory
2 3 (3.85%) Docker
3 2 (2.56%) Virtual Servers
4 1 (1.28%) Ceph
4 1 (1.28%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (1.28%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 6 (7.69%) Terraform
2 4 (5.13%) Ansible
2 4 (5.13%) Kubernetes
2 4 (5.13%) Single Sign-On
3 2 (2.56%) CASB
3 2 (2.56%) Nexpose
3 2 (2.56%) Puppet
4 1 (1.28%) Argo
4 1 (1.28%) FreeIPA
4 1 (1.28%) Grafana
4 1 (1.28%) HP Fortify
4 1 (1.28%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (1.28%) Prometheus
4 1 (1.28%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 14 (17.95%) Microsoft
2 5 (6.41%) CyberArk
2 5 (6.41%) Qualys
2 5 (6.41%) Tenable
3 4 (5.13%) CrowdStrike
3 4 (5.13%) ServiceNow
3 4 (5.13%) Splunk
4 3 (3.85%) Google
4 3 (3.85%) Okta
4 3 (3.85%) Rapid7
5 2 (2.56%) TOWER Software
6 1 (1.28%) Commvault
6 1 (1.28%) Databricks
6 1 (1.28%) ForgeRock
6 1 (1.28%) Palo Alto
6 1 (1.28%) Red Hat
6 1 (1.28%) Remedy
6 1 (1.28%) Veeam
6 1 (1.28%) Veracode
6 1 (1.28%) VMware