SOC Analyst Contracts

Security Operations Centre Analyst
UK

The median Security Operations Centre Analyst daily rate in the UK is £538 according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months to 1 June 2024.

The first table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics including a comparison to same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
1 Jun 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 416 531 746
Rank change year-on-year +115 +215 -69
Contract jobs requiring a SOC Analyst 159 152 92
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.37% 0.27% 0.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.40% 0.29% 0.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 102 124 67
10th Percentile £388 £325 £354
25th Percentile £425 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.38% +5.00% +17.65%
75th Percentile £650 £631 £575
90th Percentile £700 £810 £705
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £494 £525
% change year-on-year +6.33% -5.95% +23.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 2 2
10th Percentile - £72.58 -
25th Percentile - £72.69 £56.25
Median hourly rate £11.25 £75.25 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -85.05% +20.40% +25.00%
75th Percentile £43.75 £77.69 £68.75
90th Percentile £63.25 £77.73 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £11.25 £75.25 £62.50
% change year-on-year -85.05% +20.40% +25.00%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

The following table is for comparison with the above and includes summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 39,969 53,015 83,520
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.83% 94.58% 95.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,870 37,031 58,844
10th Percentile £280 £313 £315
25th Percentile £409 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £540 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% +2.86% +7.69%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -2.50% +5.26% +10.21%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,841 1,476 1,963
10th Percentile £12.86 £14.25 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.30 £19.06 £15.90
Median hourly rate £37.50 £45.00 £24.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +83.67% +12.28%
75th Percentile £61.60 £65.75 £49.33
90th Percentile £73.75 £76.13 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £42.50 £20.00
% change year-on-year -5.88% +112.50% +5.26%

SOC Analyst
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured SOC Analyst in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for SOC Analyst in the UK

SOC Analyst
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing SOC Analyst.

Daily rate trend for SOC Analyst in the UK

SOC Analyst
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SOC Analyst over the 6 months to 1 June 2024.

Daily rate histogram for SOC Analyst in the UK

SOC Analyst
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing SOC Analyst.

Hourly rate trend for SOC Analyst in the UK

SOC Analyst
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SOC Analyst over the 6 months to 1 June 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for SOC Analyst in the UK

SOC Analyst
Top 13 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SOC Analyst 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 +98 152 £538 -2.27% 27
UK excluding London +64 130 £525 +6.33% 24
South West +29 53 £550 +15.79% 2
Midlands +53 36 £525 +31.25% 2
West Midlands +46 36 £525 +50.00% 2
East of England +4 20 £650 +18.18% 5
London +71 19 £500 -23.08% 3
Work from Home +83 18 £450 -21.74% 7
South East +5 13 £450 -27.30% 4
North West +14 4 £450 -25.00% 6
North of England +7 4 £450 -26.53% 11
Scotland +31 3 £300 -33.33% 1
Wales - 1 £145 -

SOC Analyst Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 June 2024, SOC Analyst contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring SOC Analyst in the job title.

1 108 (67.92%) Security Cleared
2 95 (59.75%) Security Operations
3 93 (58.49%) Cybersecurity
4 84 (52.83%) SIEM
4 84 (52.83%) Incident Response
5 66 (41.51%) Security Operations Centre
6 57 (35.85%) DV Cleared
7 44 (27.67%) SC Cleared
8 39 (24.53%) Linux
9 37 (23.27%) Use Case
9 37 (23.27%) Splunk
9 37 (23.27%) MITRE ATT&CK
10 35 (22.01%) Microsoft
11 34 (21.38%) CSOC
12 33 (20.75%) Management Information System
12 33 (20.75%) Information Security
13 32 (20.13%) Firewall
13 32 (20.13%) Threat Intelligence
14 31 (19.50%) Azure
15 30 (18.87%) Windows
16 29 (18.24%) Degree
16 29 (18.24%) GDPR
17 28 (17.61%) Vulnerability Management
17 28 (17.61%) LogRhythm
18 24 (15.09%) Continuous Improvement
19 23 (14.47%) Incident Management
20 21 (13.21%) Threat Detection
21 20 (12.58%) Darktrace
21 20 (12.58%) Analytics
21 20 (12.58%) FireEye

SOC Analyst Skill Set
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 19 (11.95%) CMS
Applications
1 1 (0.63%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.63%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 31 (19.50%) Azure
2 19 (11.95%) Azure Sentinel
3 6 (3.77%) AWS
4 2 (1.26%) Microsoft 365
4 2 (1.26%) Sumo Logic
5 1 (0.63%) IaaS
5 1 (0.63%) PaaS
5 1 (0.63%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 32 (20.13%) Firewall
2 4 (2.52%) DNS
2 4 (2.52%) FTP
2 4 (2.52%) HTTP
2 4 (2.52%) Network Security
2 4 (2.52%) SMTP
2 4 (2.52%) SSL
3 3 (1.89%) Intrusion Detection
3 3 (1.89%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.63%) SD-WAN
4 1 (0.63%) WAN
4 1 (0.63%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (5.66%) Elasticsearch
General
1 19 (11.95%) Public Sector
2 18 (11.32%) Analytical Skills
3 15 (9.43%) Social Skills
4 11 (6.92%) Legal
5 9 (5.66%) Finance
6 6 (3.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (2.52%) Banking
8 3 (1.89%) Games
9 1 (0.63%) Electronics
9 1 (0.63%) Fire and Rescue
9 1 (0.63%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.63%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.63%) Marketing
9 1 (0.63%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.63%) Police
9 1 (0.63%) Presentation Skills
9 1 (0.63%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (5.66%) Elastic Stack
2 4 (2.52%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 66 (41.51%) Security Operations Centre
2 34 (21.38%) CSOC
3 33 (20.75%) Management Information System
4 17 (10.69%) Cyberattack
5 15 (9.43%) Cyber Threat
6 12 (7.55%) Cyber Kill Chain
7 11 (6.92%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 10 (6.29%) Private Cloud
9 9 (5.66%) Cyber Defence
10 8 (5.03%) Security Posture
11 4 (2.52%) Onboarding
12 2 (1.26%) CCTV
12 2 (1.26%) Cloud Security Posture
12 2 (1.26%) Self-Motivation
13 1 (0.63%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 39 (24.53%) Linux
2 30 (18.87%) Windows
3 13 (8.18%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 95 (59.75%) Security Operations
2 93 (58.49%) Cybersecurity
3 84 (52.83%) Incident Response
3 84 (52.83%) SIEM
4 37 (23.27%) MITRE ATT&CK
4 37 (23.27%) Use Case
5 33 (20.75%) Information Security
6 32 (20.13%) Threat Intelligence
7 28 (17.61%) Vulnerability Management
8 24 (15.09%) Continuous Improvement
9 23 (14.47%) Incident Management
10 21 (13.21%) Threat Detection
11 20 (12.58%) Analytics
12 17 (10.69%) ITIL
13 16 (10.06%) Problem-Solving
13 16 (10.06%) Time Management
14 15 (9.43%) Risk Management
14 15 (9.43%) Threat Analysis
15 14 (8.81%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
16 12 (7.55%) Purple Team
Programming Languages
1 7 (4.40%) Kusto Query Language
2 4 (2.52%) Search Processing Language
3 3 (1.89%) PowerShell
4 2 (1.26%) Python
5 1 (0.63%) Bash
5 1 (0.63%) JavaScript
5 1 (0.63%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 108 (67.92%) Security Cleared
2 57 (35.85%) DV Cleared
3 44 (27.67%) SC Cleared
4 29 (18.24%) Degree
5 18 (11.32%) SANS
6 17 (10.69%) CISSP
7 10 (6.29%) CEH
7 10 (6.29%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (3.77%) CISM
9 3 (1.89%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (1.89%) CompTIA Security+
9 3 (1.89%) GIAC
10 2 (1.26%) CCNA
10 2 (1.26%) CCSP
10 2 (1.26%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (1.26%) GCIA
10 2 (1.26%) GCIH
11 1 (0.63%) ISSEP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (18.24%) GDPR
2 16 (10.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 15 (9.43%) NIST
4 14 (8.81%) NCSC
5 11 (6.92%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 11 (6.92%) HIPAA
6 4 (2.52%) SLA
System Software
1 2 (1.26%) Virtual Machines
2 1 (0.63%) Snort
Systems Management
1 9 (5.66%) Kibana
1 9 (5.66%) logstash
2 5 (3.14%) QRadar
3 3 (1.89%) Nessus
4 2 (1.26%) CSIRT
5 1 (0.63%) Nmap
Vendors
1 37 (23.27%) Splunk
2 35 (22.01%) Microsoft
3 28 (17.61%) LogRhythm
4 20 (12.58%) Darktrace
4 20 (12.58%) FireEye
5 7 (4.40%) Qualys
6 6 (3.77%) CrowdStrike
6 6 (3.77%) Forcepoint
6 6 (3.77%) Varonis
7 4 (2.52%) IronPort
7 4 (2.52%) Symantec
8 3 (1.89%) Sage
9 2 (1.26%) AlienVault
9 2 (1.26%) ArcSight
9 2 (1.26%) BeyondTrust
9 2 (1.26%) CyberArk
9 2 (1.26%) Oracle
9 2 (1.26%) Rapid7
10 1 (0.63%) Virgin Media
10 1 (0.63%) Zscaler