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

6 months to
28 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 554 484 572
Rank change year-on-year -70 +88 +93
Contract jobs citing SOC 2 70 41 16
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.16% 0.14% 0.036%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 0.91% 0.92% 0.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 55 24 10
10th Percentile £413 £406 £473
25th Percentile £449 £550 £492
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £688 £575
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +19.57% +15.00%
75th Percentile £638 £894 £634
90th Percentile £725 £950 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £469 -
% change year-on-year +28.00% - -

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 7,716 4,443 6,344
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.36% 15.29% 14.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,973 2,879 4,040
10th Percentile £336 £263 £300
25th Percentile £413 £384 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £622 £625
90th Percentile £700 £720 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £487
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.41% +2.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 419 175 375
10th Percentile £15.30 £17.45 £10.97
25th Percentile £18.50 £22.14 £13.41
Median hourly rate £30.58 £32.50 £21.73
Median % change year-on-year -5.91% +49.56% -45.68%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £45.00
90th Percentile £82.05 £81.26 £67.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.00 £32.25 £18.27
% change year-on-year -3.88% +76.52% -47.80%

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 28 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SOC 2 in the UK

SOC 2
Top 13 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 28 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 -80 64 £550 -12.00% 54
UK excluding London -72 34 £600 +28.00% 31
Work from Home -9 32 £600 +4.26% 24
London -48 25 £525 -27.59% 29
South East - 15 £650 - 19
North of England -61 11 £527 +27.82% 6
Midlands - 7 £438 - 2
Yorkshire -54 5 £539 +30.58% 2
North West - 5 £499 - 4
West Midlands - 4 - - 2
East Midlands - 3 £438 -
North East - 1 £466 -
Scotland - 1 £400 - 1

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 (5.71%) Confluence
2 3 (4.29%) SharePoint
3 2 (2.86%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (1.43%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 3 (4.29%) MS Visio
2 2 (2.86%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 27 (38.57%) Azure
2 18 (25.71%) AWS
3 16 (22.86%) GCP
4 12 (17.14%) Entra ID
5 6 (8.57%) GitHub
5 6 (8.57%) GitHub Actions
5 6 (8.57%) Microsoft 365
6 5 (7.14%) AWS CloudFormation
6 5 (7.14%) Azure Sentinel
6 5 (7.14%) Power Platform
7 4 (5.71%) Amazon GuardDuty
7 4 (5.71%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (5.71%) SaaS
8 3 (4.29%) Azure Key Vault
8 3 (4.29%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 3 (4.29%) Google Workspace
8 3 (4.29%) OneDrive
9 2 (2.86%) Azure Monitor
9 2 (2.86%) Cloud Run
9 2 (2.86%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 9 (12.86%) Network Security
2 5 (7.14%) Reverse Proxy
3 4 (5.71%) Firewall
4 2 (2.86%) Kerberos
4 2 (2.86%) NGFW
4 2 (2.86%) SSH
5 1 (1.43%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.43%) Azure SQL Database
1 1 (1.43%) Data Lake
1 1 (1.43%) Data Vault
1 1 (1.43%) Looker
1 1 (1.43%) Power BI
1 1 (1.43%) Snowflake Schema
1 1 (1.43%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 2 (2.86%) GitLab
1 2 (2.86%) Jenkins
1 2 (2.86%) JIRA
2 1 (1.43%) Burp Suite
2 1 (1.43%) Git
2 1 (1.43%) Postman
General
1 25 (35.71%) Social Skills
2 19 (27.14%) Finance
3 8 (11.43%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (8.57%) Legal
5 4 (5.71%) Banking
5 4 (5.71%) Documentation Skills
6 3 (4.29%) Public Sector
7 2 (2.86%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (2.86%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (1.43%) Law
Job Titles
1 17 (24.29%) Project Manager
2 13 (18.57%) Security Manager
2 13 (18.57%) Security Project Manager
3 9 (12.86%) Analyst
3 9 (12.86%) Senior
4 6 (8.57%) Cybersecurity Manager
4 6 (8.57%) Project Manager - Cybersecurity
4 6 (8.57%) Security Specialist
5 5 (7.14%) Architect
5 5 (7.14%) Platform Engineer
6 4 (5.71%) Business Analyst
6 4 (5.71%) IT Manager
6 4 (5.71%) IT Project Manager
6 4 (5.71%) Security Engineer
7 3 (4.29%) Project Assurance Manager
7 3 (4.29%) Security Architect
7 3 (4.29%) Security Assurance Manager
7 3 (4.29%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
7 3 (4.29%) Senior Project Manager
7 3 (4.29%) Senior Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (15.71%) SAML
2 10 (14.29%) OAuth
3 9 (12.86%) OpenID
4 6 (8.57%) OAuth2
5 5 (7.14%) ARM Templates
5 5 (7.14%) RESTful
6 4 (5.71%) Microsoft Graph
7 3 (4.29%) LDAP
7 3 (4.29%) Node.js
8 2 (2.86%) 802.1X
8 2 (2.86%) AWS CDK
8 2 (2.86%) Flash
8 2 (2.86%) GraphQL
8 2 (2.86%) JWT
8 2 (2.86%) Middleware
8 2 (2.86%) REST
8 2 (2.86%) Smart Contracts
9 1 (1.43%) JSON
9 1 (1.43%) Kafka
9 1 (1.43%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 9 (12.86%) Cloud Native
2 8 (11.43%) Security Posture
3 6 (8.57%) Management Information System
3 6 (8.57%) Operational Technology
3 6 (8.57%) Product Ownership
4 5 (7.14%) Onboarding
5 4 (5.71%) Hybrid Cloud
6 3 (4.29%) Distributed Systems
6 3 (4.29%) Virtual Team
7 2 (2.86%) Blockchain
7 2 (2.86%) Cyber Threat
7 2 (2.86%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (2.86%) PMI
8 1 (1.43%) CMDB
8 1 (1.43%) Cyberattack
8 1 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
8 1 (1.43%) NHS
8 1 (1.43%) PKI
8 1 (1.43%) Security Operations Centre
8 1 (1.43%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 8 (11.43%) Windows
2 5 (7.14%) Linux
3 4 (5.71%) AIX
3 4 (5.71%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 34 (48.57%) Cybersecurity
2 23 (32.86%) Risk Management
2 23 (32.86%) Stakeholder Management
3 19 (27.14%) CI/CD
4 17 (24.29%) Data Protection
4 17 (24.29%) Infrastructure as Code
5 14 (20.00%) DevOps
6 13 (18.57%) Agile
6 13 (18.57%) AI
6 13 (18.57%) Change Management
6 13 (18.57%) Cloud Security
6 13 (18.57%) Incident Response
6 13 (18.57%) Information Security
6 13 (18.57%) SIEM
6 13 (18.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 13 (18.57%) Zero Trust
7 12 (17.14%) Security Operations
8 11 (15.71%) RBAC
8 11 (15.71%) Regulatory Compliance
8 11 (15.71%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 16 (22.86%) Python
2 12 (17.14%) PowerShell
3 9 (12.86%) Bash
4 8 (11.43%) Bicep
5 3 (4.29%) Go
6 2 (2.86%) Java
6 2 (2.86%) Rust
6 2 (2.86%) Solidity
6 2 (2.86%) SQL
7 1 (1.43%) JavaScript
7 1 (1.43%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 17 (24.29%) CISSP
2 14 (20.00%) CISM
3 11 (15.71%) Degree
4 10 (14.29%) PMI Certification
4 10 (14.29%) PMP
5 6 (8.57%) CISA
5 6 (8.57%) CRISC
6 5 (7.14%) Security Cleared
7 4 (5.71%) AWS Certification
7 4 (5.71%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
8 3 (4.29%) Azure Certification
8 3 (4.29%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (4.29%) Master's Degree
8 3 (4.29%) SC Cleared
9 2 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (2.86%) CBAP
9 2 (2.86%) CCSK
9 2 (2.86%) CompTIA Security+
9 2 (2.86%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 2 (2.86%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 54 (77.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 37 (52.86%) NIST
3 33 (47.14%) GDPR
4 21 (30.00%) PCI DSS
5 13 (18.57%) GRC
6 8 (11.43%) HIPAA
7 5 (7.14%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
7 5 (7.14%) PMO
8 4 (5.71%) NIST 800
9 2 (2.86%) COBIT
9 2 (2.86%) EU AI Act
9 2 (2.86%) FedRAMP
9 2 (2.86%) ISO 31000
9 2 (2.86%) SLA
10 1 (1.43%) Accessibility
10 1 (1.43%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (1.43%) Data Quality
10 1 (1.43%) ISO 9001
10 1 (1.43%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 1 (1.43%) QA
System Software
1 6 (8.57%) Active Directory
2 2 (2.86%) Docker
Systems Management
1 16 (22.86%) Terraform
2 11 (15.71%) Single Sign-On
3 9 (12.86%) Kubernetes
4 2 (2.86%) CASB
4 2 (2.86%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (2.86%) QRadar
5 1 (1.43%) Argo
5 1 (1.43%) CSIRT
5 1 (1.43%) Fluentd
5 1 (1.43%) HP Fortify
5 1 (1.43%) Kustomize
5 1 (1.43%) logstash
5 1 (1.43%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 12 (17.14%) Microsoft
2 6 (8.57%) Google
2 6 (8.57%) Splunk
3 4 (5.71%) Databricks
3 4 (5.71%) Tenable
4 3 (4.29%) CrowdStrike
4 3 (4.29%) CyberArk
4 3 (4.29%) Okta
4 3 (4.29%) Qualys
4 3 (4.29%) ServiceNow
5 2 (2.86%) BeyondTrust
5 2 (2.86%) Optimizely
5 2 (2.86%) Ping Identity
5 2 (2.86%) Rapid7
6 1 (1.43%) ForgeRock
6 1 (1.43%) Informatica
6 1 (1.43%) Intel
6 1 (1.43%) Remedy
6 1 (1.43%) Talend
6 1 (1.43%) Veracode