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 20 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 611 496 531
Rank change year-on-year -115 +35 +44
Contract jobs citing SOC 2 63 66 26
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.12% 0.20% 0.067%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 0.66% 1.17% 0.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 36 40 11
10th Percentile £425 £261 £500
25th Percentile £472 £450 £531
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £570 £585 £638
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% -8.24% +2.00%
75th Percentile £675 £791 £688
90th Percentile £725 £954 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £553 £525 £538
% change year-on-year +5.24% -2.33% +19.44%

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 9,585 5,663 5,176
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.56% 17.21% 13.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,041 3,635 3,066
10th Percentile £325 £300 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year +0.10% -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £607 £625
90th Percentile £700 £706 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £480
% change year-on-year +2.63% -1.04% -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 629 265 259
10th Percentile £13.87 £13.60 £12.42
25th Percentile £16.60 £16.92 £15.18
Median hourly rate £32.40 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.98% +9.09% -22.82%
75th Percentile £67.50 £60.00 £59.38
90th Percentile £76.00 £81.65 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.00 £27.53 £27.50
% change year-on-year +19.87% +0.11% -30.56%

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 20 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SOC 2 in the UK

SOC 2
Top 10 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 20 September 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 -114 57 £600 +11.37% 291
London -70 42 £600 -5.88% 231
Work from Home -67 26 £600 +14.29% 122
UK excluding London -110 15 £553 +5.24% 74
South East -58 9 £650 - 18
Yorkshire -49 3 £456 -8.75% 5
North of England -71 3 £456 -8.75% 25
East of England -28 2 £503 -4.29% 5
West Midlands -49 1 £463 +2.78% 5
Midlands -52 1 £463 +2.78% 7

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 2 (3.17%) Apache Airflow
1 2 (3.17%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (3.17%) Chatbot
1 2 (3.17%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (3.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (4.76%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 31 (49.21%) Azure
2 22 (34.92%) AWS
3 18 (28.57%) GCP
4 17 (26.98%) Entra ID
5 11 (17.46%) Azure Sentinel
6 8 (12.70%) OCI
7 6 (9.52%) Power Platform
7 6 (9.52%) SaaS
8 4 (6.35%) Azure Key Vault
8 4 (6.35%) Rubrik
8 4 (6.35%) Snowflake
9 3 (4.76%) Azure AKS
9 3 (4.76%) Datadog
9 3 (4.76%) Dynamics 365
9 3 (4.76%) GitHub
9 3 (4.76%) GitHub Actions
9 3 (4.76%) Microsoft 365
9 3 (4.76%) Power Automate
9 3 (4.76%) PowerApps
10 2 (3.17%) Azure ExpressRoute
Communications & Networking
1 3 (4.76%) DNS
1 3 (4.76%) Firewall
1 3 (4.76%) Network Security
2 2 (3.17%) DHCP
2 2 (3.17%) Internet
2 2 (3.17%) Reverse Proxy
2 2 (3.17%) VPN
2 2 (3.17%) X.509
3 1 (1.59%) Cisco IPT
3 1 (1.59%) Kerberos
3 1 (1.59%) SMS
3 1 (1.59%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (4.76%) Power BI
2 2 (3.17%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (3.17%) SQL Server
2 2 (3.17%) Tableau
3 1 (1.59%) Chroma
3 1 (1.59%) Data Lake
3 1 (1.59%) Delta Lake
3 1 (1.59%) Parquet
3 1 (1.59%) Pinecone
3 1 (1.59%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 3 (4.76%) Git
1 3 (4.76%) Snyk
2 2 (3.17%) JIRA
2 2 (3.17%) Postman
3 1 (1.59%) MLflow
General
1 20 (31.75%) Finance
2 17 (26.98%) Social Skills
3 6 (9.52%) Legal
4 5 (7.94%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (7.94%) Documentation Skills
4 5 (7.94%) Manufacturing
5 2 (3.17%) Banking
6 1 (1.59%) Health Technology
6 1 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.59%) Local Government
6 1 (1.59%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 9 (14.29%) Project Manager
1 9 (14.29%) Security Manager
2 8 (12.70%) Architect
2 8 (12.70%) Consultant
2 8 (12.70%) Lead
2 8 (12.70%) Security Project Manager
3 6 (9.52%) Senior
4 4 (6.35%) Analyst
5 3 (4.76%) Cybersecurity Manager
5 3 (4.76%) Dynamics 365 Consultant
5 3 (4.76%) Information Security Consultant
5 3 (4.76%) Project Assurance Manager
5 3 (4.76%) Project Manager - Cybersecurity
5 3 (4.76%) Security Consultant
5 3 (4.76%) Security Engineer
5 3 (4.76%) Technical Manager
5 3 (4.76%) Vulnerability Management Engineer
6 2 (3.17%) DevSecOps Engineer
6 2 (3.17%) Senior Security Architect
6 2 (3.17%) Technical Programme Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (19.05%) Terraform
2 6 (9.52%) SailPoint
3 5 (7.94%) OpenID
3 5 (7.94%) SAML
4 4 (6.35%) OAuth
4 4 (6.35%) OAuth2
4 4 (6.35%) REST
5 2 (3.17%) Azure Blueprints
5 2 (3.17%) FastAPI
5 2 (3.17%) GraphQL
5 2 (3.17%) JWT
5 2 (3.17%) LangChain
5 2 (3.17%) LDAP
5 2 (3.17%) Middleware
5 2 (3.17%) Node.js
5 2 (3.17%) pgvector
5 2 (3.17%) React
5 2 (3.17%) RESTful
6 1 (1.59%) FIDO
6 1 (1.59%) WebAuthn
Miscellaneous
1 10 (15.87%) Cloud Native
2 8 (12.70%) Onboarding
2 8 (12.70%) Security Posture
3 6 (9.52%) Operational Technology
4 5 (7.94%) Management Information System
4 5 (7.94%) PKI
5 3 (4.76%) AI Agents
5 3 (4.76%) CMDB
5 3 (4.76%) Distributed Systems
6 2 (3.17%) Algorithms
6 2 (3.17%) Analytical Mindset
6 2 (3.17%) Life Science
6 2 (3.17%) Virtual Team
6 2 (3.17%) Web Conferencing
7 1 (1.59%) Cyber Kill Chain
7 1 (1.59%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (1.59%) Linux Command Line
7 1 (1.59%) Product Ownership
7 1 (1.59%) Security Operations Centre
7 1 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 7 (11.11%) Linux
2 6 (9.52%) Windows
3 5 (7.94%) Windows Server
4 4 (6.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (4.76%) Ubuntu
6 2 (3.17%) Alpine Linux
7 1 (1.59%) CentOS
7 1 (1.59%) CoreOS
7 1 (1.59%) Unix
7 1 (1.59%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (39.68%) Cybersecurity
2 19 (30.16%) Stakeholder Management
3 18 (28.57%) Risk Management
4 17 (26.98%) Infrastructure as Code
5 16 (25.40%) Change Management
6 15 (23.81%) CI/CD
7 14 (22.22%) AI
7 14 (22.22%) Information Security
7 14 (22.22%) Zero Trust
8 12 (19.05%) Runbook
8 12 (19.05%) Secrets Management
9 11 (17.46%) DevOps
9 11 (17.46%) Incident Response
10 10 (15.87%) Budget Management
10 10 (15.87%) Security Operations
10 10 (15.87%) Vulnerability Management
11 9 (14.29%) Cloud Security
11 9 (14.29%) RBAC
11 9 (14.29%) Remediation Plan
12 8 (12.70%) Matrix Organization
Programming Languages
1 20 (31.75%) Python
2 12 (19.05%) PowerShell
3 6 (9.52%) JavaScript
4 5 (7.94%) Bash
4 5 (7.94%) SQL
5 3 (4.76%) Bicep
5 3 (4.76%) C#
5 3 (4.76%) Go
6 2 (3.17%) Java
7 1 (1.59%) BeanShell
7 1 (1.59%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 15 (23.81%) CISSP
2 13 (20.63%) CISM
3 7 (11.11%) PMI Certification
3 7 (11.11%) PMP
4 5 (7.94%) Degree
5 4 (6.35%) AWS Certification
5 4 (6.35%) Azure Certification
6 3 (4.76%) CompTIA Security+
6 3 (4.76%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (4.76%) CRISC
7 2 (3.17%) CCSP
7 2 (3.17%) CISA
7 2 (3.17%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (3.17%) ISSAP
7 2 (3.17%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (3.17%) Security Cleared
7 2 (3.17%) SSCP
8 1 (1.59%) GCIH
8 1 (1.59%) GIAC
8 1 (1.59%) GSEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 50 (79.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 38 (60.32%) NIST
3 25 (39.68%) GDPR
4 8 (12.70%) GRC
4 8 (12.70%) HIPAA
5 6 (9.52%) ISO 22301
6 5 (7.94%) NIST 800
6 5 (7.94%) PCI DSS
7 4 (6.35%) SOC 1
8 3 (4.76%) QA
9 2 (3.17%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (3.17%) Data Quality
9 2 (3.17%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 1 (1.59%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 1 (1.59%) NCSC
10 1 (1.59%) PMO
System Software
1 8 (12.70%) Active Directory
2 4 (6.35%) Docker
3 2 (3.17%) Virtual Servers
4 1 (1.59%) Ceph
4 1 (1.59%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (1.59%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 7 (11.11%) Kubernetes
2 4 (6.35%) Ansible
2 4 (6.35%) Single Sign-On
3 2 (3.17%) Nexpose
3 2 (3.17%) Puppet
4 1 (1.59%) Argo
4 1 (1.59%) FreeIPA
4 1 (1.59%) Grafana
4 1 (1.59%) Prometheus
4 1 (1.59%) QRadar
Vendors
1 19 (30.16%) Microsoft
2 6 (9.52%) CyberArk
2 6 (9.52%) Google
3 5 (7.94%) Okta
3 5 (7.94%) ServiceNow
4 4 (6.35%) CrowdStrike
4 4 (6.35%) Splunk
5 3 (4.76%) OpenAI
5 3 (4.76%) Ping Identity
6 2 (3.17%) Qualys
6 2 (3.17%) Rapid7
6 2 (3.17%) Tenable
6 2 (3.17%) TOWER Software
7 1 (1.59%) Commvault
7 1 (1.59%) Databricks
7 1 (1.59%) Oracle
7 1 (1.59%) Palo Alto
7 1 (1.59%) Red Hat
7 1 (1.59%) Veeam
7 1 (1.59%) VMware