Security Operations Contracts

Security Operations (SecOps)
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Security Operations skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Security Operations over the 6 months to 9 June 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
9 Jun 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 241 304 362
Rank change year-on-year +63 +58 +72
Contract jobs citing Security Operations 435 483 651
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.00% 0.87% 0.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.18% 0.97% 0.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 303 348 468
10th Percentile £425 £404 £425
25th Percentile £469 £500 £495
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £600 £590
Median % change year-on-year - +1.69% +12.38%
75th Percentile £688 £725 £700
90th Percentile £775 £825 £779
UK excluding London median daily rate £570 £600 £575
% change year-on-year -5.00% +4.35% +12.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 4 3
10th Percentile - £44.86 £24.26
25th Percentile - £63.11 £28.76
Median hourly rate £11.25 £84.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -86.69% +125.33% +4.17%
75th Percentile £35.00 £95.31 £40.84
90th Percentile £49.25 £98.13 £42.09
UK excluding London median hourly rate £11.25 £92.50 £41.95
% change year-on-year -87.84% +120.50% +249.58%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Security Operations is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 36,914 49,809 79,437
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.21% 89.64% 90.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,592 34,469 55,846
10th Percentile £300 £325 £350
25th Percentile £413 £438 £435
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +2.33% +7.50%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £649
90th Percentile £750 £750 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £490
% change year-on-year - +2.04% +8.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,564 1,687 1,868
10th Percentile £12.75 £10.70 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.00 £15.75 £15.75
Median hourly rate £36.50 £35.80 £25.68
Median % change year-on-year +1.96% +39.41% +11.65%
75th Percentile £61.25 £65.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.12 £35.00 £20.51
% change year-on-year +8.91% +70.69% -2.36%

Security Operations
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Security Operations as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Security Operations in the UK

Security Operations
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Security Operations.

Daily rate trend for Security Operations in the UK

Security Operations
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Security Operations over the 6 months to 9 June 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Security Operations in the UK

Security Operations
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Security Operations.

Hourly rate trend for Security Operations in the UK

Security Operations
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Security Operations over the 6 months to 9 June 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Security Operations in the UK

Security Operations
Top 14 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Security Operations within the UK over the 6 months to 9 June 2024. 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 +51 391 £600 -1.84% 169
UK excluding London +50 259 £570 -5.00% 105
London +21 136 £600 -4.00% 67
South West +79 111 £570 -5.00% 16
Work from Home +31 105 £511 -18.20% 80
South East +40 55 £517 -17.36% 21
Midlands +8 40 £635 -1.85% 17
West Midlands +8 39 £640 -1.54% 12
Scotland +39 18 £500 +9.29% 8
East of England -3 18 £650 +140.74% 9
North of England -41 17 £625 +4.17% 31
North West -45 9 £625 +4.17% 18
Yorkshire 0 8 £663 +16.23% 12
East Midlands +4 1 £567 -6.44% 5

Security Operations
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 15 (3.45%) CMS
2 7 (1.61%) Confluence
3 2 (0.46%) Apache
3 2 (0.46%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.46%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (0.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 3 (0.69%) Dynamics GP
2 2 (0.46%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.23%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 69 (15.86%) Azure
2 26 (5.98%) Azure Sentinel
3 25 (5.75%) AWS
4 21 (4.83%) Microsoft 365
5 14 (3.22%) Power Platform
6 8 (1.84%) Entra ID
7 7 (1.61%) IaaS
7 7 (1.61%) SaaS
8 5 (1.15%) GCP
8 5 (1.15%) PaaS
9 4 (0.92%) Amazon GuardDuty
9 4 (0.92%) Microsoft Purview
10 3 (0.69%) Azure DevOps
11 2 (0.46%) Azure Stack
11 2 (0.46%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 2 (0.46%) GitHub
11 2 (0.46%) Mimecast
12 1 (0.23%) Akamai
12 1 (0.23%) AWS KMS
12 1 (0.23%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 56 (12.87%) Firewall
2 54 (12.41%) Network Security
3 29 (6.67%) Intrusion Detection
4 15 (3.45%) TCP/IP
5 11 (2.53%) DNS
6 6 (1.38%) HTTP
6 6 (1.38%) Internet
6 6 (1.38%) SSL
7 5 (1.15%) DHCP
7 5 (1.15%) FTP
8 4 (0.92%) tcpdump
8 4 (0.92%) VPN
8 4 (0.92%) WAN
8 4 (0.92%) Wireshark
9 3 (0.69%) Cisco ISE
9 3 (0.69%) LAN
9 3 (0.69%) SMTP
10 2 (0.46%) Broadband
10 2 (0.46%) Wi-Fi
10 2 (0.46%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (3.91%) Big Data
2 9 (2.07%) Elasticsearch
3 6 (1.38%) Power BI
4 3 (0.69%) Apache Hive
4 3 (0.69%) Hadoop
4 3 (0.69%) Tableau
5 2 (0.46%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
5 2 (0.46%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (0.46%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.23%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 7 (1.61%) JIRA
2 5 (1.15%) Git
3 4 (0.92%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.69%) Burp Suite
4 3 (0.69%) IDA Disassembler
4 3 (0.69%) Metasploit
5 2 (0.46%) Bitbucket
5 2 (0.46%) GitLab
5 2 (0.46%) Rational DOORS
6 1 (0.23%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 75 (17.24%) Analytical Skills
2 66 (15.17%) Social Skills
3 44 (10.11%) Finance
4 40 (9.20%) Public Sector
5 27 (6.21%) Banking
6 15 (3.45%) Manufacturing
7 13 (2.99%) Telecoms
8 10 (2.30%) Military
9 8 (1.84%) Legal
10 7 (1.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 7 (1.61%) Law
11 3 (0.69%) Financial Institution
11 3 (0.69%) Games
11 3 (0.69%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.46%) German Language
12 2 (0.46%) Marketing
12 2 (0.46%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.23%) Documentation Skills
13 1 (0.23%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.23%) Retail
Job Titles
1 151 (34.71%) Analyst
2 93 (21.38%) SOC Analyst
3 36 (8.28%) Security Analyst
3 36 (8.28%) Senior
4 32 (7.36%) Lead
5 31 (7.13%) Architect
5 31 (7.13%) Security Engineer
6 28 (6.44%) Threat Intelligence Analyst
7 27 (6.21%) SOC Engineer
8 26 (5.98%) Security Specialist
9 24 (5.52%) Consultant
10 20 (4.60%) Security Manager
11 17 (3.91%) Cyber Threat Analyst
11 17 (3.91%) Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst
12 16 (3.68%) SOC Manager
13 15 (3.45%) Security Architect
13 15 (3.45%) Senior Analyst
14 13 (2.99%) Cybersecurity Analyst
14 13 (2.99%) Operations Analyst
14 13 (2.99%) Security Operations Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (3.91%) Apache NiFi
2 9 (2.07%) Elastic Stack
3 8 (1.84%) AngularJS
3 8 (1.84%) CSS
4 7 (1.61%) HTML
4 7 (1.61%) XML
5 6 (1.38%) LDAP
6 5 (1.15%) JSON
6 5 (1.15%) SOAP
7 4 (0.92%) Ajax
7 4 (0.92%) Web Services
8 3 (0.69%) OLE
8 3 (0.69%) SAML
8 3 (0.69%) YAML
9 2 (0.46%) .NET
9 2 (0.46%) PySpark
10 1 (0.23%) J2EE
10 1 (0.23%) OAuth
10 1 (0.23%) OAuth2
10 1 (0.23%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 150 (34.48%) Security Operations Centre
2 83 (19.08%) Management Information System
3 82 (18.85%) Cyber Threat
4 49 (11.26%) CSOC
5 47 (10.80%) Cyber Defence
6 39 (8.97%) Security Posture
7 22 (5.06%) Cyber Kill Chain
8 21 (4.83%) Cyberattack
9 19 (4.37%) Distributed Applications
10 13 (2.99%) Operational Technology
11 12 (2.76%) Onboarding
12 11 (2.53%) CMDB
12 11 (2.53%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
13 8 (1.84%) CESG
14 6 (1.38%) Cloud Security Posture
14 6 (1.38%) Product Ownership
15 5 (1.15%) Data Centre
15 5 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
15 5 (1.15%) PKI
15 5 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 82 (18.85%) Windows
2 66 (15.17%) Linux
3 17 (3.91%) Unix
4 15 (3.45%) Android
4 15 (3.45%) Apple iOS
5 12 (2.76%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.69%) Kali Linux
7 2 (0.46%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.46%) Mac OS X
8 1 (0.23%) Oracle Linux
8 1 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.23%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.23%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 272 (62.53%) Cybersecurity
2 193 (44.37%) SIEM
3 189 (43.45%) Incident Response
4 132 (30.34%) Information Security
5 104 (23.91%) Threat Intelligence
6 87 (20.00%) Vulnerability Management
7 79 (18.16%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
8 64 (14.71%) MITRE ATT&CK
9 60 (13.79%) Use Case
10 58 (13.33%) Analytics
11 54 (12.41%) Problem-Solving
12 50 (11.49%) Continuous Improvement
13 46 (10.57%) Agile
13 46 (10.57%) Incident Management
14 42 (9.66%) Threat Detection
15 40 (9.20%) Security Architecture
16 39 (8.97%) Penetration Testing
16 39 (8.97%) SOAR
17 36 (8.28%) Cloud Security
17 36 (8.28%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 30 (6.90%) PowerShell
2 21 (4.83%) Python
3 15 (3.45%) Kusto Query Language
4 14 (3.22%) JavaScript
5 7 (1.61%) Bash
6 5 (1.15%) Perl
7 4 (0.92%) Search Processing Language
8 3 (0.69%) Java
8 3 (0.69%) SQL
9 2 (0.46%) C
9 2 (0.46%) C++
9 2 (0.46%) Go
9 2 (0.46%) Ruby
9 2 (0.46%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.23%) C#
Qualifications
1 189 (43.45%) Security Cleared
2 115 (26.44%) DV Cleared
3 71 (16.32%) Degree
4 69 (15.86%) SC Cleared
5 68 (15.63%) CISSP
6 31 (7.13%) CISM
7 27 (6.21%) SANS
8 26 (5.98%) CEH
9 21 (4.83%) Computer Science Degree
10 19 (4.37%) CompTIA Security+
11 18 (4.14%) Microsoft Certification
12 16 (3.68%) GIAC
13 11 (2.53%) Azure Certification
13 11 (2.53%) GCIH
13 11 (2.53%) ITIL Certification
14 10 (2.30%) CISA
15 9 (2.07%) GCIA
16 8 (1.84%) CISMP
16 8 (1.84%) ISACA
16 8 (1.84%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (12.64%) NIST
2 45 (10.34%) GDPR
3 33 (7.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 21 (4.83%) PCI DSS
5 20 (4.60%) NCSC
6 17 (3.91%) Actionable Recommendations
6 17 (3.91%) NIST 800
7 11 (2.53%) HIPAA
8 8 (1.84%) GRC
9 6 (1.38%) Cyber Essentials
10 5 (1.15%) Data Quality
11 4 (0.92%) Disclosure Scotland
11 4 (0.92%) QA
11 4 (0.92%) SLA
12 2 (0.46%) COBIT
12 2 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 2 (0.46%) RMADS
13 1 (0.23%) California Consumer Privacy Act
System Software
1 25 (5.75%) Active Directory
2 11 (2.53%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (1.15%) Hyper-V
4 3 (0.69%) Docker
4 3 (0.69%) Snort
4 3 (0.69%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.46%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 13 (2.99%) Terraform
2 12 (2.76%) Kibana
2 12 (2.76%) Nessus
3 10 (2.30%) CSIRT
4 9 (2.07%) logstash
4 9 (2.07%) SCCM
5 7 (1.61%) Kubernetes
6 6 (1.38%) QRadar
6 6 (1.38%) Single Sign-On
7 5 (1.15%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 4 (0.92%) CASB
8 4 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
9 3 (0.69%) Ansible
10 2 (0.46%) Network Intrusion Detection System
10 2 (0.46%) SCOrch
10 2 (0.46%) WSUS
11 1 (0.23%) FortiGate
11 1 (0.23%) Grafana
11 1 (0.23%) Puppet
11 1 (0.23%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 109 (25.06%) Microsoft
2 42 (9.66%) Splunk
3 32 (7.36%) LogRhythm
4 23 (5.29%) Qualys
5 20 (4.60%) ServiceNow
6 19 (4.37%) Varonis
7 17 (3.91%) Darktrace
7 17 (3.91%) Red Hat
8 16 (3.68%) FireEye
8 16 (3.68%) Forcepoint
9 13 (2.99%) CrowdStrike
10 10 (2.30%) Cisco
10 10 (2.30%) Palo Alto
11 7 (1.61%) Virgin Media
12 6 (1.38%) Oracle
13 5 (1.15%) Rapid7
14 4 (0.92%) BeyondTrust
14 4 (0.92%) ForeScout
14 4 (0.92%) Google
14 4 (0.92%) VMware