NCSC Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the West Midlands requiring NCSC skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 112 109 110
Rank change year-on-year -3 +1 +62
Contract jobs citing NCSC 14 3 9
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 0.74% 0.16% 0.44%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 4.26% 1.00% 2.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 12 3 3
10th Percentile £588 £535 £440
25th Percentile - £550 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £700 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year +21.74% +4.55% +10.00%
75th Percentile £706 £681 £619
90th Percentile £838 £745 £660
England median daily rate £648 £525 £672
% change year-on-year +23.33% -21.88% +3.38%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
West Midlands

NCSC 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 in the West Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 329 301 315
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 17.46% 15.94% 15.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 221 187 209
10th Percentile £308 £211 £319
25th Percentile £400 £355 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.46% -2.40% -
75th Percentile £588 £591 £588
90th Percentile £705 £743 £688
England median daily rate £500 £513 £540
% change year-on-year -2.44% -5.09% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 15 17
10th Percentile £16.03 £12.00 £16.09
25th Percentile £16.13 £14.70 £23.22
Median hourly rate £27.50 £21.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +30.95% -23.64% +37.50%
75th Percentile £34.71 £41.34 £30.00
90th Percentile £40.46 £51.50 £51.70
England median hourly rate £32.50 £35.00 £36.00
% change year-on-year -7.14% -2.78% +53.19%

NCSC
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing NCSC relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands.

NCSC job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

NCSC
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing NCSC.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing NCSC

NCSC
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing NCSC in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 11 October 2025.

Daily rate histogram for NCSC in the West Midlands

NCSC
Contract Job Locations in the West Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing NCSC within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 11 October 2025. 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
Herefordshire +9 9 £700 +21.74%
Worcestershire - 9 £700 -
Coventry - 2 £650 -
Birmingham - 2 £550 - 1
NCSC
England

NCSC
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands 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:

Cloud Services
1 11 (78.57%) Azure
2 9 (64.29%) GitHub
3 1 (7.14%) Azure Sentinel
3 1 (7.14%) IaaS
3 1 (7.14%) PaaS
3 1 (7.14%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (14.29%) Modbus
2 1 (7.14%) Ethernet
2 1 (7.14%) Firewall
2 1 (7.14%) MQTT
2 1 (7.14%) Network Security
Development Applications
1 10 (71.43%) SonarQube
General
1 1 (7.14%) Documentation Skills
1 1 (7.14%) Social Skills
Job Titles
1 9 (64.29%) DevSecOps Engineer
2 2 (14.29%) Architect
3 1 (7.14%) Cybersecurity Engineer
3 1 (7.14%) Cybersecurity Specialist
3 1 (7.14%) Enterprise Architect
3 1 (7.14%) Enterprise Security Architect
3 1 (7.14%) IoT Architect
3 1 (7.14%) IT Architect
3 1 (7.14%) IT Security Architect
3 1 (7.14%) Security Architect
3 1 (7.14%) Security Engineer
3 1 (7.14%) Security Specialist
3 1 (7.14%) Systems Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (71.43%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 2 (14.29%) Operational Technology
1 2 (14.29%) SCADA
1 2 (14.29%) Security Posture
2 1 (7.14%) Industrial Internet of Things
2 1 (7.14%) IoT
2 1 (7.14%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 1 (7.14%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 10 (71.43%) Containerisation
1 10 (71.43%) DevOps
1 10 (71.43%) DevSecOps
1 10 (71.43%) Infrastructure as Code
1 10 (71.43%) Regulatory Compliance
1 10 (71.43%) Test Automation
2 9 (64.29%) CI/CD
2 9 (64.29%) Platform Engineering
3 4 (28.57%) Cybersecurity
4 1 (7.14%) Deployment Automation
4 1 (7.14%) Functional Testing
4 1 (7.14%) Mentoring
4 1 (7.14%) Non-Functional Testing
4 1 (7.14%) Performance Analysis
4 1 (7.14%) Project Management
4 1 (7.14%) SDLC
4 1 (7.14%) Security Operations
4 1 (7.14%) SIEM
4 1 (7.14%) Vulnerability Management
4 1 (7.14%) Vulnerability Scanning
Qualifications
1 10 (71.43%) SC Cleared
1 10 (71.43%) Security Cleared
2 9 (64.29%) DV Cleared
3 1 (7.14%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (21.43%) NIST
2 2 (14.29%) Cyber Essentials
2 2 (14.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (7.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 1 (7.14%) ISO 22301
3 1 (7.14%) NIST 800
System Software
1 10 (71.43%) Docker
Systems Management
1 10 (71.43%) Kubernetes
1 10 (71.43%) Terraform
2 1 (7.14%) Ansible
Vendors
1 2 (14.29%) Microsoft
2 1 (7.14%) Cisco