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 1 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 531 488 573
Rank change year-on-year -43 +85 +105
Contract jobs citing SOC 2 73 39 20
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.13% 0.045%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 1.01% 0.86% 0.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 54 22 14
10th Percentile £413 £406 £425
25th Percentile £427 £516 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £626 £575
Median % change year-on-year -18.07% +8.78% +9.52%
75th Percentile £599 £751 £688
90th Percentile £650 £950 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £466 £494 £700
% change year-on-year -5.62% -29.46% +60.00%

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 7,235 4,555 6,464
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.43% 14.96% 14.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,660 2,793 4,180
10th Percentile £329 £258 £300
25th Percentile £413 £375 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £518
Median % change year-on-year - -3.38% -1.43%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 386 173 375
10th Percentile £15.46 £15.61 £11.97
25th Percentile £18.28 £22.00 £14.48
Median hourly rate £27.94 £31.76 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.03% +27.04% -23.08%
75th Percentile £64.38 £65.00 £48.75
90th Percentile £76.34 £78.45 £71.96
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.54 £31.76 £25.00
% change year-on-year -3.84% +27.04% -19.70%

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 1 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SOC 2 in the UK

SOC 2
Top 14 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 1 March 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 -40 65 £525 -12.50% 59
London -27 31 £525 -25.05% 30
Work from Home -6 28 £525 +5.00% 32
UK excluding London -63 28 £466 -5.62% 47
North of England -51 13 £497 +20.39% 11
Midlands - 7 £438 - 2
Yorkshire -63 6 £539 +30.58% 3
South East - 6 £600 - 21
North West -35 5 £499 +61.05% 5
West Midlands - 4 - - 2
East Midlands - 3 £438 -
North East - 2 £466 - 3
South West - 2 - - 1
Scotland - 1 £400 - 11

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 (5.48%) Confluence
2 2 (2.74%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (2.74%) SharePoint
3 1 (1.37%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 2 (2.74%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (2.74%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 36 (49.32%) Azure
2 26 (35.62%) AWS
3 19 (26.03%) GCP
4 17 (23.29%) Entra ID
5 9 (12.33%) Microsoft 365
6 8 (10.96%) Azure Sentinel
7 7 (9.59%) Amazon GuardDuty
8 6 (8.22%) AWS CloudFormation
8 6 (8.22%) GitHub
8 6 (8.22%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (6.85%) Power Platform
9 5 (6.85%) SaaS
10 4 (5.48%) Azure DevOps
10 4 (5.48%) Microsoft Purview
11 3 (4.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 3 (4.11%) AWS CloudTrail
11 3 (4.11%) Azure Key Vault
11 3 (4.11%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 3 (4.11%) Google Workspace
12 2 (2.74%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 10 (13.70%) Network Security
2 6 (8.22%) Firewall
3 5 (6.85%) Reverse Proxy
4 3 (4.11%) VPN
5 2 (2.74%) Kerberos
5 2 (2.74%) NGFW
5 2 (2.74%) SSH
6 1 (1.37%) BGP
6 1 (1.37%) DNS
6 1 (1.37%) Intrusion Detection
6 1 (1.37%) OSPF
6 1 (1.37%) SSL
6 1 (1.37%) TCP/IP
6 1 (1.37%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.37%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (1.37%) Data Lake
1 1 (1.37%) Data Vault
1 1 (1.37%) Looker
1 1 (1.37%) Power BI
1 1 (1.37%) Snowflake Schema
1 1 (1.37%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 2 (2.74%) GitLab
1 2 (2.74%) Jenkins
1 2 (2.74%) JIRA
2 1 (1.37%) Git
2 1 (1.37%) Postman
General
1 25 (34.25%) Social Skills
2 15 (20.55%) Finance
3 9 (12.33%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (8.22%) Legal
5 4 (5.48%) Banking
5 4 (5.48%) Documentation Skills
5 4 (5.48%) Public Sector
6 2 (2.74%) Organisational Skills
6 2 (2.74%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (1.37%) Law
Job Titles
1 8 (10.96%) Analyst
1 8 (10.96%) Senior
2 6 (8.22%) Architect
2 6 (8.22%) Project Manager
2 6 (8.22%) Security Engineer
3 5 (6.85%) Consultant
3 5 (6.85%) Platform Engineer
3 5 (6.85%) Security Specialist
4 3 (4.11%) Azure Engineer
4 3 (4.11%) Azure Security Engineer
4 3 (4.11%) Business Analyst
4 3 (4.11%) IT Manager
4 3 (4.11%) IT Project Manager
4 3 (4.11%) Lead
4 3 (4.11%) Security Architect
4 3 (4.11%) Security Manager
4 3 (4.11%) Security Project Manager
4 3 (4.11%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
4 3 (4.11%) Senior Security Specialist
4 3 (4.11%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (21.92%) SAML
2 14 (19.18%) OAuth
3 13 (17.81%) OpenID
4 8 (10.96%) OAuth2
5 6 (8.22%) Microsoft Graph
6 5 (6.85%) ARM Templates
6 5 (6.85%) LDAP
6 5 (6.85%) RESTful
7 3 (4.11%) Node.js
8 2 (2.74%) 802.1X
8 2 (2.74%) AWS CDK
8 2 (2.74%) Flash
8 2 (2.74%) GraphQL
8 2 (2.74%) JWT
8 2 (2.74%) Middleware
8 2 (2.74%) REST
8 2 (2.74%) Smart Contracts
9 1 (1.37%) JSON
9 1 (1.37%) Model Context Protocol
9 1 (1.37%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 10 (13.70%) Cloud Native
2 9 (12.33%) Security Posture
3 8 (10.96%) Onboarding
4 5 (6.85%) Management Information System
4 5 (6.85%) Product Ownership
5 4 (5.48%) Hybrid Cloud
6 3 (4.11%) Distributed Systems
6 3 (4.11%) Operational Technology
7 2 (2.74%) Blockchain
7 2 (2.74%) Cloud Security Posture
7 2 (2.74%) Cyber Threat
7 2 (2.74%) Data Centre
7 2 (2.74%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (2.74%) PMI
8 1 (1.37%) CMDB
8 1 (1.37%) Cyberattack
8 1 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
8 1 (1.37%) NHS
8 1 (1.37%) PKI
8 1 (1.37%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 8 (10.96%) Windows
2 7 (9.59%) Linux
3 4 (5.48%) AIX
3 4 (5.48%) Solaris
4 2 (2.74%) VMS
5 1 (1.37%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (36.99%) Cybersecurity
2 22 (30.14%) Risk Management
3 20 (27.40%) CI/CD
3 20 (27.40%) Infrastructure as Code
4 19 (26.03%) Cloud Security
5 18 (24.66%) DevOps
6 15 (20.55%) Stakeholder Management
6 15 (20.55%) Zero Trust
7 14 (19.18%) AI
7 14 (19.18%) Data Protection
7 14 (19.18%) Incident Response
8 13 (17.81%) SIEM
9 12 (16.44%) Agile
9 12 (16.44%) Information Security
10 11 (15.07%) DevSecOps
10 11 (15.07%) Problem-Solving
10 11 (15.07%) RBAC
11 10 (13.70%) Data Loss Prevention
11 10 (13.70%) Regulatory Compliance
11 10 (13.70%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 17 (23.29%) Python
2 15 (20.55%) PowerShell
3 10 (13.70%) Bash
4 8 (10.96%) Bicep
5 3 (4.11%) Go
5 3 (4.11%) Java
5 3 (4.11%) SQL
6 2 (2.74%) Rust
6 2 (2.74%) Solidity
7 1 (1.37%) JavaScript
7 1 (1.37%) Search Processing Language
7 1 (1.37%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 15 (20.55%) CISSP
2 12 (16.44%) CISM
2 12 (16.44%) Degree
3 7 (9.59%) AWS Certification
3 7 (9.59%) Azure Certification
4 6 (8.22%) CISA
4 6 (8.22%) CRISC
4 6 (8.22%) Security Cleared
5 4 (5.48%) Cisco Certification
5 4 (5.48%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
5 4 (5.48%) Microsoft Certification
5 4 (5.48%) PMI Certification
5 4 (5.48%) PMP
5 4 (5.48%) SC Cleared
6 3 (4.11%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 3 (4.11%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 3 (4.11%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (4.11%) Master's Degree
7 2 (2.74%) CBAP
7 2 (2.74%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 49 (67.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 33 (45.21%) NIST
3 30 (41.10%) GDPR
4 21 (28.77%) PCI DSS
5 12 (16.44%) GRC
6 10 (13.70%) HIPAA
7 5 (6.85%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 4 (5.48%) NIST 800
9 3 (4.11%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (4.11%) EU AI Act
9 3 (4.11%) PMO
10 2 (2.74%) COBIT
10 2 (2.74%) FedRAMP
10 2 (2.74%) ISO 22301
10 2 (2.74%) ISO 31000
10 2 (2.74%) SLA
11 1 (1.37%) Accessibility
11 1 (1.37%) Data Quality
11 1 (1.37%) NCSC
11 1 (1.37%) QA
System Software
1 13 (17.81%) Active Directory
2 2 (2.74%) Docker
Systems Management
1 19 (26.03%) Terraform
2 14 (19.18%) Single Sign-On
3 9 (12.33%) Kubernetes
4 2 (2.74%) Ansible
4 2 (2.74%) Argo
4 2 (2.74%) CASB
4 2 (2.74%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (2.74%) PingFederate
4 2 (2.74%) QRadar
5 1 (1.37%) CSIRT
5 1 (1.37%) Fluentd
5 1 (1.37%) Grafana
5 1 (1.37%) Kustomize
5 1 (1.37%) logstash
5 1 (1.37%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 17 (23.29%) Microsoft
2 8 (10.96%) Splunk
3 6 (8.22%) Google
4 4 (5.48%) CrowdStrike
4 4 (5.48%) Databricks
4 4 (5.48%) Ping Identity
5 3 (4.11%) CyberArk
5 3 (4.11%) Okta
5 3 (4.11%) ServiceNow
5 3 (4.11%) Tenable
6 2 (2.74%) BeyondTrust
6 2 (2.74%) Optimizely
6 2 (2.74%) Qualys
6 2 (2.74%) Salesforce
7 1 (1.37%) Cribl.io
7 1 (1.37%) ForgeRock
7 1 (1.37%) Informatica
7 1 (1.37%) Intel
7 1 (1.37%) Rapid7
7 1 (1.37%) Talend