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 1 June 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
1 Jun 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 233 297 362
Rank change year-on-year +64 +65 +82
Contract jobs citing Security Operations 432 489 640
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.00% 0.87% 0.73%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.17% 0.97% 0.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 299 350 462
10th Percentile £425 £400 £425
25th Percentile £481 £505 £496
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £603 £600
Median % change year-on-year -0.50% +0.50% +15.72%
75th Percentile £688 £724 £700
90th Percentile £775 £825 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £570 £606 £575
% change year-on-year -5.94% +5.39% +16.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 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 - £95.31 £40.84
90th Percentile - £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 36,802 50,277 79,372
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.47% 89.69% 90.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,632 34,811 55,790
10th Percentile £300 £325 £345
25th Percentile £413 £438 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +2.33% +7.50%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £644
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £488
% change year-on-year - +2.56% +9.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,530 1,673 1,868
10th Percentile £12.75 £10.63 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.00 £15.72 £15.63
Median hourly rate £36.50 £36.25 £25.68
Median % change year-on-year +0.69% +41.16% +9.74%
75th Percentile £60.75 £65.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.12 £35.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year +8.91% +75.00% -4.76%

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 1 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
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 1 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 +51 387 £600 -2.04% 194
UK excluding London +52 263 £570 -5.94% 117
London +20 129 £650 +4.00% 87
South West +78 115 £570 -5.00% 12
Work from Home +27 103 £519 -18.63% 88
South East +33 53 £517 -18.98% 32
Midlands +11 40 £635 -2.31% 13
West Midlands +11 39 £640 -1.54% 10
Scotland +37 19 £488 +6.56% 12
East of England 0 19 £650 +49.43% 9
North of England -42 17 £625 +3.65% 34
North West -40 9 £625 +4.17% 17
Yorkshire +9 8 £663 +16.23% 16
East Midlands +4 1 £567 -6.44% 3

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 16 (3.70%) CMS
2 6 (1.39%) 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 4 (0.93%) Dynamics GP
2 2 (0.46%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.23%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 72 (16.67%) Azure
2 27 (6.25%) Azure Sentinel
3 25 (5.79%) AWS
4 23 (5.32%) Microsoft 365
5 15 (3.47%) Power Platform
6 8 (1.85%) Entra ID
7 7 (1.62%) IaaS
7 7 (1.62%) SaaS
8 5 (1.16%) GCP
8 5 (1.16%) PaaS
9 4 (0.93%) Amazon GuardDuty
9 4 (0.93%) 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%) Dynamics 365
11 2 (0.46%) GitHub
11 2 (0.46%) Mimecast
12 1 (0.23%) AWS KMS
12 1 (0.23%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 56 (12.96%) Firewall
2 54 (12.50%) Network Security
3 29 (6.71%) Intrusion Detection
4 14 (3.24%) TCP/IP
5 9 (2.08%) DNS
6 6 (1.39%) Internet
6 6 (1.39%) SSL
7 4 (0.93%) DHCP
7 4 (0.93%) HTTP
7 4 (0.93%) tcpdump
7 4 (0.93%) VPN
7 4 (0.93%) WAN
7 4 (0.93%) Wireshark
8 3 (0.69%) Cisco ISE
8 3 (0.69%) FTP
8 3 (0.69%) LAN
9 2 (0.46%) Broadband
9 2 (0.46%) SMTP
9 2 (0.46%) Wi-Fi
9 2 (0.46%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (3.94%) Big Data
2 9 (2.08%) Elasticsearch
3 6 (1.39%) 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 6 (1.39%) JIRA
2 5 (1.16%) Git
3 4 (0.93%) 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 (17.36%) Analytical Skills
2 65 (15.05%) Social Skills
3 45 (10.42%) Finance
4 41 (9.49%) Public Sector
5 26 (6.02%) Banking
6 15 (3.47%) Manufacturing
7 13 (3.01%) Telecoms
8 10 (2.31%) Military
9 7 (1.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 7 (1.62%) Law
9 7 (1.62%) Legal
10 3 (0.69%) Financial Institution
10 3 (0.69%) Games
10 3 (0.69%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (0.46%) German Language
11 2 (0.46%) Marketing
11 2 (0.46%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.23%) Documentation Skills
12 1 (0.23%) Health Technology
12 1 (0.23%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 154 (35.65%) Analyst
2 95 (21.99%) SOC Analyst
3 38 (8.80%) Senior
4 35 (8.10%) Security Analyst
5 31 (7.18%) Architect
5 31 (7.18%) Lead
5 31 (7.18%) Security Engineer
6 30 (6.94%) Threat Intelligence Analyst
7 27 (6.25%) SOC Engineer
8 26 (6.02%) Security Specialist
9 21 (4.86%) Security Manager
10 20 (4.63%) Consultant
11 18 (4.17%) Cyber Threat Analyst
11 18 (4.17%) Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst
12 17 (3.94%) Senior Analyst
13 16 (3.70%) SOC Manager
14 15 (3.47%) Security Architect
15 13 (3.01%) Operations Analyst
15 13 (3.01%) Security Operations Analyst
16 12 (2.78%) Cybersecurity Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (3.94%) Apache NiFi
2 9 (2.08%) Elastic Stack
3 8 (1.85%) AngularJS
3 8 (1.85%) CSS
4 7 (1.62%) HTML
4 7 (1.62%) XML
5 5 (1.16%) JSON
5 5 (1.16%) LDAP
5 5 (1.16%) SOAP
6 4 (0.93%) Ajax
6 4 (0.93%) Web Services
7 3 (0.69%) OLE
7 3 (0.69%) SAML
7 3 (0.69%) YAML
8 2 (0.46%) .NET
8 2 (0.46%) PySpark
9 1 (0.23%) EDI
9 1 (0.23%) J2EE
9 1 (0.23%) JDBC
9 1 (0.23%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 152 (35.19%) Security Operations Centre
2 84 (19.44%) Management Information System
3 81 (18.75%) Cyber Threat
4 49 (11.34%) CSOC
5 47 (10.88%) Cyber Defence
6 39 (9.03%) Security Posture
7 22 (5.09%) Cyber Kill Chain
7 22 (5.09%) Cyberattack
8 19 (4.40%) Distributed Applications
9 13 (3.01%) Operational Technology
10 12 (2.78%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 12 (2.78%) Onboarding
11 10 (2.31%) CMDB
12 8 (1.85%) CESG
13 6 (1.39%) Cloud Security Posture
13 6 (1.39%) PKI
13 6 (1.39%) Product Ownership
14 5 (1.16%) Data Centre
15 4 (0.93%) Cloud Native
15 4 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 84 (19.44%) Windows
2 66 (15.28%) Linux
3 17 (3.94%) Unix
4 15 (3.47%) Android
4 15 (3.47%) Apple iOS
5 13 (3.01%) 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
1 273 (63.19%) Cybersecurity
2 195 (45.14%) SIEM
3 188 (43.52%) Incident Response
4 129 (29.86%) Information Security
5 104 (24.07%) Threat Intelligence
6 84 (19.44%) Vulnerability Management
7 79 (18.29%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
8 66 (15.28%) MITRE ATT&CK
9 61 (14.12%) Use Case
10 57 (13.19%) Analytics
11 54 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
12 48 (11.11%) Continuous Improvement
13 46 (10.65%) Incident Management
14 45 (10.42%) Agile
15 43 (9.95%) Threat Detection
16 41 (9.49%) Security Architecture
16 41 (9.49%) SOAR
17 40 (9.26%) Penetration Testing
18 38 (8.80%) ITIL
19 35 (8.10%) Cloud Security
Programming Languages
1 32 (7.41%) PowerShell
2 21 (4.86%) Python
3 15 (3.47%) Kusto Query Language
4 14 (3.24%) JavaScript
5 7 (1.62%) Bash
6 4 (0.93%) Perl
6 4 (0.93%) Search Processing Language
7 3 (0.69%) Java
7 3 (0.69%) SQL
8 2 (0.46%) C
8 2 (0.46%) C++
8 2 (0.46%) Go
8 2 (0.46%) Ruby
8 2 (0.46%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.23%) C#
Qualifications
1 188 (43.52%) Security Cleared
2 117 (27.08%) DV Cleared
3 70 (16.20%) Degree
4 67 (15.51%) CISSP
4 67 (15.51%) SC Cleared
5 31 (7.18%) CISM
6 26 (6.02%) CEH
6 26 (6.02%) SANS
7 21 (4.86%) Computer Science Degree
8 19 (4.40%) Microsoft Certification
9 18 (4.17%) CompTIA Security+
10 14 (3.24%) GIAC
11 12 (2.78%) ITIL Certification
12 11 (2.55%) Azure Certification
13 10 (2.31%) CISA
14 9 (2.08%) GCIH
15 8 (1.85%) CISMP
15 8 (1.85%) ISACA
15 8 (1.85%) MCSE
15 8 (1.85%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (12.73%) NIST
2 45 (10.42%) GDPR
3 34 (7.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 21 (4.86%) PCI DSS
5 20 (4.63%) NCSC
6 17 (3.94%) Actionable Recommendations
6 17 (3.94%) NIST 800
7 11 (2.55%) HIPAA
8 7 (1.62%) GRC
9 6 (1.39%) Cyber Essentials
10 5 (1.16%) Data Quality
10 5 (1.16%) Disclosure Scotland
11 4 (0.93%) QA
11 4 (0.93%) 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 26 (6.02%) Active Directory
2 10 (2.31%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (1.39%) 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 (3.01%) Terraform
2 12 (2.78%) Kibana
3 11 (2.55%) Nessus
4 10 (2.31%) SCCM
5 9 (2.08%) logstash
6 8 (1.85%) CSIRT
7 7 (1.62%) Kubernetes
8 6 (1.39%) Single Sign-On
9 5 (1.16%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 5 (1.16%) QRadar
10 4 (0.93%) CASB
10 4 (0.93%) Microsoft Intune
11 3 (0.69%) Ansible
12 2 (0.46%) Network Intrusion Detection System
12 2 (0.46%) SCOrch
12 2 (0.46%) WSUS
13 1 (0.23%) FortiGate
13 1 (0.23%) Grafana
13 1 (0.23%) Puppet
13 1 (0.23%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 110 (25.46%) Microsoft
2 45 (10.42%) Splunk
3 33 (7.64%) LogRhythm
4 23 (5.32%) Qualys
5 19 (4.40%) Varonis
6 18 (4.17%) Darktrace
7 17 (3.94%) FireEye
7 17 (3.94%) Red Hat
7 17 (3.94%) ServiceNow
8 16 (3.70%) Forcepoint
9 12 (2.78%) CrowdStrike
10 10 (2.31%) Cisco
10 10 (2.31%) Palo Alto
11 7 (1.62%) Virgin Media
12 5 (1.16%) Oracle
12 5 (1.16%) Rapid7
13 4 (0.93%) ForeScout
13 4 (0.93%) Google
13 4 (0.93%) VMware
14 3 (0.69%) Netskope