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 23 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 549 472 576
Rank change year-on-year -77 +104 +61
Contract jobs citing SOC 2 66 49 13
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.14% 0.17% 0.030%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 0.84% 1.07% 0.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 51 28 8
10th Percentile £413 £406 £457
25th Percentile £464 £525 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £574 £688 £550
Median % change year-on-year -16.58% +25.00% -
75th Percentile £650 £894 £616
90th Percentile £725 £950 £790
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £525 -
% change year-on-year +14.29% - -

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 7,848 4,573 6,284
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.91% 15.48% 14.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,074 2,937 3,977
10th Percentile £335 £264 £300
25th Percentile £413 £400 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £625
90th Percentile £700 £722 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% +4.21%
Number of hourly rates quoted 446 174 381
10th Percentile £14.02 £17.89 £10.95
25th Percentile £18.50 £22.17 £13.00
Median hourly rate £32.50 £33.81 £20.50
Median % change year-on-year -3.86% +64.90% -47.16%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £43.75
90th Percentile £81.00 £83.13 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.00 £35.13 £17.72
% change year-on-year +2.49% +98.22% -49.37%

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 23 April 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 23 April 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 -78 61 £580 -7.20% 45
UK excluding London -78 38 £600 +14.29% 23
Work from Home -12 34 £600 +14.29% 28
London -57 22 £540 -25.52% 27
South East -33 21 £650 - 10
North of England -59 9 £508 +23.15% 4
Midlands - 5 £438 - 2
Yorkshire -53 4 £500 +21.21% 1
North West - 4 £574 - 3
East Midlands - 3 £438 -
East of England -27 2 £503 -4.29% 5
West Midlands - 2 - - 2
Scotland - 1 £400 -
North East - 1 £466 -

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 (6.06%) Confluence
2 3 (4.55%) SharePoint
3 2 (3.03%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 3 (4.55%) MS Visio
2 2 (3.03%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 21 (31.82%) Azure
2 14 (21.21%) AWS
3 13 (19.70%) GCP
4 12 (18.18%) Entra ID
5 6 (9.09%) Azure Sentinel
5 6 (9.09%) Microsoft 365
6 4 (6.06%) Amazon GuardDuty
6 4 (6.06%) AWS CloudFormation
6 4 (6.06%) GitHub
6 4 (6.06%) GitHub Actions
6 4 (6.06%) SaaS
7 3 (4.55%) Azure AKS
7 3 (4.55%) Azure Key Vault
7 3 (4.55%) Google Workspace
7 3 (4.55%) OneDrive
8 2 (3.03%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 2 (3.03%) Cloud Run
8 2 (3.03%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 2 (3.03%) Microsoft Purview
8 2 (3.03%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 9 (13.64%) Network Security
2 5 (7.58%) Firewall
2 5 (7.58%) Reverse Proxy
3 2 (3.03%) NGFW
3 2 (3.03%) VPN
4 1 (1.52%) Intrusion Detection
4 1 (1.52%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.52%) Azure SQL Database
1 1 (1.52%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 2 (3.03%) GitLab
1 2 (3.03%) Jenkins
1 2 (3.03%) JIRA
2 1 (1.52%) Burp Suite
2 1 (1.52%) Git
2 1 (1.52%) Postman
General
1 23 (34.85%) Social Skills
2 19 (28.79%) Finance
3 6 (9.09%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (7.58%) Legal
5 3 (4.55%) Banking
6 2 (3.03%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (3.03%) Organisational Skills
6 2 (3.03%) Public Sector
7 1 (1.52%) Law
7 1 (1.52%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 20 (30.30%) Project Manager
2 15 (22.73%) Security Manager
2 15 (22.73%) Security Project Manager
3 8 (12.12%) Analyst
3 8 (12.12%) Senior
4 7 (10.61%) Cybersecurity Manager
4 7 (10.61%) Project Manager - Cybersecurity
5 6 (9.09%) Security Specialist
6 5 (7.58%) Project Assurance Manager
7 4 (6.06%) Architect
7 4 (6.06%) Business Analyst
7 4 (6.06%) IT Manager
7 4 (6.06%) IT Project Manager
7 4 (6.06%) Security Assurance Manager
7 4 (6.06%) Security Engineer
7 4 (6.06%) SOC Manager
8 3 (4.55%) IAM Project Manager
8 3 (4.55%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
8 3 (4.55%) Senior Manager
8 3 (4.55%) Senior Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (10.61%) OpenID
1 7 (10.61%) SAML
2 6 (9.09%) OAuth
3 5 (7.58%) OAuth2
4 4 (6.06%) Microsoft Graph
5 3 (4.55%) ARM Templates
5 3 (4.55%) Node.js
5 3 (4.55%) RESTful
6 2 (3.03%) 802.1X
6 2 (3.03%) JWT
6 2 (3.03%) Middleware
6 2 (3.03%) REST
7 1 (1.52%) AWS CDK
7 1 (1.52%) JSON
7 1 (1.52%) LDAP
7 1 (1.52%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 9 (13.64%) Cloud Native
2 8 (12.12%) Security Posture
3 7 (10.61%) Onboarding
3 7 (10.61%) Operational Technology
4 6 (9.09%) Product Ownership
5 4 (6.06%) Management Information System
5 4 (6.06%) Virtual Team
6 3 (4.55%) Distributed Systems
7 2 (3.03%) Cyber Threat
7 2 (3.03%) Hybrid Cloud
7 2 (3.03%) PMI
7 2 (3.03%) Security Operations Centre
8 1 (1.52%) Analytical Mindset
8 1 (1.52%) CMDB
8 1 (1.52%) Cyberattack
8 1 (1.52%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 1 (1.52%) Linux Command Line
8 1 (1.52%) NHS
8 1 (1.52%) PKI
8 1 (1.52%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 6 (9.09%) Windows
2 4 (6.06%) Linux
3 2 (3.03%) AIX
3 2 (3.03%) Solaris
4 1 (1.52%) CoreOS
4 1 (1.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (1.52%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 37 (56.06%) Cybersecurity
2 26 (39.39%) Risk Management
2 26 (39.39%) Stakeholder Management
3 19 (28.79%) Change Management
4 17 (25.76%) CI/CD
4 17 (25.76%) Data Protection
5 16 (24.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 15 (22.73%) Infrastructure as Code
7 14 (21.21%) Security Operations
7 14 (21.21%) SIEM
8 13 (19.70%) DevOps
8 13 (19.70%) Information Security
9 12 (18.18%) Agile
9 12 (18.18%) Zero Trust
10 11 (16.67%) Budget Management
10 11 (16.67%) Cloud Security
11 10 (15.15%) Incident Response
11 10 (15.15%) Matrix Organization
11 10 (15.15%) Regulatory Compliance
11 10 (15.15%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 12 (18.18%) Python
2 9 (13.64%) PowerShell
3 7 (10.61%) Bash
4 6 (9.09%) Bicep
5 4 (6.06%) Go
6 3 (4.55%) Java
7 1 (1.52%) JavaScript
7 1 (1.52%) SQL
Qualifications
1 17 (25.76%) CISSP
2 14 (21.21%) CISM
3 12 (18.18%) Degree
4 11 (16.67%) PMI Certification
4 11 (16.67%) PMP
5 7 (10.61%) CRISC
6 4 (6.06%) Azure Certification
6 4 (6.06%) CISA
6 4 (6.06%) Cisco Certification
6 4 (6.06%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
7 3 (4.55%) AWS Certification
7 3 (4.55%) CCSP
7 3 (4.55%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (4.55%) Master's Degree
7 3 (4.55%) Security Cleared
8 2 (3.03%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 2 (3.03%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (3.03%) CBAP
8 2 (3.03%) CompTIA Security+
8 2 (3.03%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 57 (86.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 40 (60.61%) NIST
3 35 (53.03%) GDPR
4 16 (24.24%) PCI DSS
5 14 (21.21%) GRC
6 5 (7.58%) HIPAA
6 5 (7.58%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 5 (7.58%) PMO
7 4 (6.06%) NIST 800
8 2 (3.03%) COBIT
8 2 (3.03%) EU AI Act
8 2 (3.03%) ISO 31000
8 2 (3.03%) SLA
9 1 (1.52%) Accessibility
9 1 (1.52%) FedRAMP
9 1 (1.52%) ISO 9001
9 1 (1.52%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 1 (1.52%) NCSC
9 1 (1.52%) QA
9 1 (1.52%) SOC 1
System Software
1 4 (6.06%) Active Directory
2 2 (3.03%) Docker
3 1 (1.52%) Ceph
3 1 (1.52%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (1.52%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 13 (19.70%) Terraform
2 10 (15.15%) Single Sign-On
3 9 (13.64%) Kubernetes
4 2 (3.03%) CASB
4 2 (3.03%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (1.52%) Ansible
5 1 (1.52%) Argo
5 1 (1.52%) CSIRT
5 1 (1.52%) Fluentd
5 1 (1.52%) Grafana
5 1 (1.52%) HP Fortify
5 1 (1.52%) logstash
5 1 (1.52%) Prometheus
5 1 (1.52%) QRadar
5 1 (1.52%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 10 (15.15%) Microsoft
2 5 (7.58%) Google
2 5 (7.58%) Splunk
3 3 (4.55%) Okta
3 3 (4.55%) Qualys
3 3 (4.55%) ServiceNow
3 3 (4.55%) Tenable
4 2 (3.03%) CrowdStrike
4 2 (3.03%) Databricks
4 2 (3.03%) Ping Identity
4 2 (3.03%) Rapid7
5 1 (1.52%) Checkmarx
5 1 (1.52%) Cribl.io
5 1 (1.52%) CyberArk
5 1 (1.52%) ForgeRock
5 1 (1.52%) Intel
5 1 (1.52%) OneTrust
5 1 (1.52%) Palo Alto
5 1 (1.52%) Veeam
5 1 (1.52%) Veracode