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

6 months to
6 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 621 496 548
Rank change year-on-year -125 +52 +36
Contract jobs citing SOC 2 65 65 25
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.12% 0.20% 0.065%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 0.69% 1.17% 0.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 37 40 10
10th Percentile £433 £396 £490
25th Percentile £500 £459 £528
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £585 £644
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -9.13% +3.00%
75th Percentile £675 £791 £694
90th Percentile £725 £965 £704
UK excluding London median daily rate £625 £525 £613
% change year-on-year +19.05% -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 9,471 5,570 5,126
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.52% 17.03% 13.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,017 3,565 3,110
10th Percentile £325 £294 £285
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £610 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £480
% change year-on-year +3.16% -1.04% -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 595 258 268
10th Percentile £13.86 £13.60 £12.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £16.92 £14.73
Median hourly rate £33.98 £30.00 £25.68
Median % change year-on-year +13.27% +16.81% -26.09%
75th Percentile £68.75 £62.25 £57.81
90th Percentile £77.80 £82.97 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.07 £27.54 £25.00
% change year-on-year +30.97% +10.16% -26.35%

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 6 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 6 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 -103 59 £600 +14.29% 161
London -63 40 £558 -12.55% 132
Work from Home -47 34 £600 +14.29% 58
UK excluding London -98 19 £625 +19.05% 38
South East -62 15 £650 - 11
East of England -24 2 £503 -4.29% 1
Yorkshire -43 1 - - 1
West Midlands -46 1 £463 +2.78% 5
Midlands -56 1 £463 +2.78% 6
North of England -78 1 - - 9

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 (3.08%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (1.54%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (3.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (1.54%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (4.62%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 28 (43.08%) Azure
2 22 (33.85%) AWS
3 13 (20.00%) Entra ID
3 13 (20.00%) GCP
4 9 (13.85%) Azure Sentinel
5 8 (12.31%) OCI
5 8 (12.31%) SaaS
6 5 (7.69%) Azure Key Vault
7 4 (6.15%) Azure AKS
7 4 (6.15%) GitHub
7 4 (6.15%) GitHub Actions
7 4 (6.15%) Power Platform
7 4 (6.15%) Rubrik
8 3 (4.62%) Azure Monitor
8 3 (4.62%) Dynamics 365
8 3 (4.62%) Power Automate
8 3 (4.62%) PowerApps
9 2 (3.08%) AWS Control Tower
9 2 (3.08%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 2 (3.08%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 3 (4.62%) DNS
1 3 (4.62%) Firewall
1 3 (4.62%) Network Security
2 2 (3.08%) DHCP
2 2 (3.08%) Internet
2 2 (3.08%) VPN
2 2 (3.08%) X.509
3 1 (1.54%) Cisco IPT
3 1 (1.54%) Kerberos
3 1 (1.54%) SMS
3 1 (1.54%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (3.08%) PostgreSQL
1 2 (3.08%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.54%) Azure SQL Database
2 1 (1.54%) Chroma
2 1 (1.54%) Data Lake
2 1 (1.54%) Delta Lake
2 1 (1.54%) Parquet
2 1 (1.54%) Pinecone
2 1 (1.54%) Power BI
2 1 (1.54%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 2 (3.08%) JIRA
2 1 (1.54%) Burp Suite
2 1 (1.54%) Git
2 1 (1.54%) GitLab
2 1 (1.54%) Jenkins
2 1 (1.54%) MLflow
2 1 (1.54%) Snyk
General
1 23 (35.38%) Finance
2 19 (29.23%) Social Skills
3 6 (9.23%) Legal
4 5 (7.69%) Documentation Skills
5 4 (6.15%) Analytical Skills
6 3 (4.62%) Manufacturing
7 2 (3.08%) Banking
8 1 (1.54%) Health Technology
8 1 (1.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (1.54%) Local Government
8 1 (1.54%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 15 (23.08%) Project Manager
2 14 (21.54%) Security Manager
3 13 (20.00%) Security Project Manager
4 8 (12.31%) Architect
4 8 (12.31%) Consultant
5 7 (10.77%) Senior
6 6 (9.23%) Lead
7 5 (7.69%) Analyst
7 5 (7.69%) Cybersecurity Manager
7 5 (7.69%) Project Assurance Manager
7 5 (7.69%) Project Manager - Cybersecurity
8 4 (6.15%) Security Assurance Manager
8 4 (6.15%) Security Engineer
9 3 (4.62%) Dynamics 365 Consultant
9 3 (4.62%) Information Security Consultant
9 3 (4.62%) Security Consultant
9 3 (4.62%) SOC Manager
9 3 (4.62%) Technical Manager
10 2 (3.08%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 2 (3.08%) Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (13.85%) Terraform
2 6 (9.23%) SailPoint
3 3 (4.62%) OpenID
3 3 (4.62%) SAML
4 2 (3.08%) Azure Blueprints
4 2 (3.08%) FastAPI
4 2 (3.08%) LangChain
4 2 (3.08%) LDAP
4 2 (3.08%) OAuth
4 2 (3.08%) OAuth2
4 2 (3.08%) pgvector
4 2 (3.08%) REST
5 1 (1.54%) FIDO
5 1 (1.54%) Flask
5 1 (1.54%) JSON
5 1 (1.54%) Keycloak
5 1 (1.54%) LlamaIndex
5 1 (1.54%) Model Context Protocol
5 1 (1.54%) Playwright
5 1 (1.54%) WebAuthn
Miscellaneous
1 8 (12.31%) Cloud Native
1 8 (12.31%) Onboarding
2 7 (10.77%) Security Posture
3 6 (9.23%) Management Information System
4 5 (7.69%) Operational Technology
4 5 (7.69%) PKI
5 4 (6.15%) Virtual Team
6 3 (4.62%) CMDB
7 2 (3.08%) Algorithms
7 2 (3.08%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (3.08%) Product Ownership
8 1 (1.54%) AI Agents
8 1 (1.54%) Cyber Kill Chain
8 1 (1.54%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 1 (1.54%) Distributed Systems
8 1 (1.54%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (1.54%) Linux Command Line
8 1 (1.54%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 7 (10.77%) Linux
2 6 (9.23%) Windows
3 5 (7.69%) Windows Server
4 4 (6.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (4.62%) Ubuntu
6 2 (3.08%) Alpine Linux
7 1 (1.54%) CentOS
7 1 (1.54%) CoreOS
7 1 (1.54%) Unix
7 1 (1.54%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (46.15%) Cybersecurity
2 24 (36.92%) Stakeholder Management
3 20 (30.77%) Change Management
4 19 (29.23%) Risk Management
5 15 (23.08%) Zero Trust
6 14 (21.54%) Infrastructure as Code
6 14 (21.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 13 (20.00%) CI/CD
7 13 (20.00%) Information Security
8 12 (18.46%) Incident Response
8 12 (18.46%) Security Operations
9 11 (16.92%) Budget Management
9 11 (16.92%) Matrix Organization
9 11 (16.92%) Vulnerability Management
10 10 (15.38%) AI
10 10 (15.38%) Project Delivery
10 10 (15.38%) Runbook
10 10 (15.38%) Secrets Management
11 9 (13.85%) BCP
11 9 (13.85%) Remediation Plan
Programming Languages
1 15 (23.08%) Python
2 11 (16.92%) PowerShell
3 6 (9.23%) Bash
4 4 (6.15%) JavaScript
5 3 (4.62%) Bicep
5 3 (4.62%) C#
6 2 (3.08%) Java
6 2 (3.08%) SQL
7 1 (1.54%) BeanShell
7 1 (1.54%) Go
7 1 (1.54%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 16 (24.62%) CISSP
2 14 (21.54%) CISM
3 8 (12.31%) PMI Certification
3 8 (12.31%) PMP
4 4 (6.15%) AWS Certification
4 4 (6.15%) Degree
5 3 (4.62%) Azure Certification
5 3 (4.62%) CompTIA Security+
5 3 (4.62%) CRISC
6 2 (3.08%) CCSP
6 2 (3.08%) CISA
6 2 (3.08%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (3.08%) ISSAP
6 2 (3.08%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (3.08%) Security Cleared
6 2 (3.08%) SSCP
7 1 (1.54%) GCIH
7 1 (1.54%) GIAC
7 1 (1.54%) GSEC
7 1 (1.54%) RHCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (84.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 42 (64.62%) NIST
3 27 (41.54%) GDPR
4 9 (13.85%) GRC
5 6 (9.23%) ISO 22301
5 6 (9.23%) PCI DSS
6 5 (7.69%) HIPAA
6 5 (7.69%) NIST 800
6 5 (7.69%) SOC 1
7 3 (4.62%) QA
8 2 (3.08%) Actionable Recommendations
8 2 (3.08%) Data Quality
8 2 (3.08%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 2 (3.08%) PMO
9 1 (1.54%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (1.54%) ISO 9001
9 1 (1.54%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 1 (1.54%) NCSC
System Software
1 8 (12.31%) Active Directory
2 5 (7.69%) Docker
3 2 (3.08%) Virtual Servers
4 1 (1.54%) Ceph
4 1 (1.54%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (1.54%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 6 (9.23%) Kubernetes
2 4 (6.15%) Ansible
3 3 (4.62%) Single Sign-On
4 2 (3.08%) Nexpose
4 2 (3.08%) Puppet
5 1 (1.54%) Argo
5 1 (1.54%) FreeIPA
5 1 (1.54%) Grafana
5 1 (1.54%) HP Fortify
5 1 (1.54%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (1.54%) Prometheus
5 1 (1.54%) QRadar
5 1 (1.54%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 16 (24.62%) Microsoft
2 6 (9.23%) CyberArk
3 4 (6.15%) CrowdStrike
3 4 (6.15%) Google
3 4 (6.15%) ServiceNow
3 4 (6.15%) Splunk
4 3 (4.62%) Okta
4 3 (4.62%) Qualys
4 3 (4.62%) Rapid7
4 3 (4.62%) Tenable
5 2 (3.08%) TOWER Software
6 1 (1.54%) Commvault
6 1 (1.54%) Databricks
6 1 (1.54%) Oracle
6 1 (1.54%) Palo Alto
6 1 (1.54%) Red Hat
6 1 (1.54%) Remedy
6 1 (1.54%) Veeam
6 1 (1.54%) Veracode
6 1 (1.54%) VMware