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 20 May 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
20 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 409 542 770
Rank change year-on-year +133 +228 -109
Contract jobs requiring a SOC Analyst 172 152 93
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.40% 0.27% 0.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.44% 0.28% 0.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 114 126 65
10th Percentile £390 £325 £353
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 £600
90th Percentile £700 £718 £710
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% +23.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 3 2
10th Percentile - £64.70 -
25th Percentile - £67.63 £56.25
Median hourly rate £11.25 £75.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -85.00% +20.00% +25.00%
75th Percentile - £77.63 £68.75
90th Percentile - £77.70 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £11.25 £75.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -85.00% +20.00% +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 39,468 54,175 84,246
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.79% 94.61% 95.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,716 37,826 59,224
10th Percentile £280 £313 £313
25th Percentile £410 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £543 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.23% +3.33% +8.47%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £489 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -2.20% +5.26% +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,674 1,504 2,051
10th Percentile £12.83 £14.25 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.30 £19.06 £15.82
Median hourly rate £36.50 £45.00 £23.91
Median % change year-on-year -18.89% +88.21% +6.27%
75th Percentile £61.30 £65.75 £49.25
90th Percentile £72.90 £76.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £42.50 £20.00
% change year-on-year -5.88% +112.50% +4.19%

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 20 May 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
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 20 May 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 +138 164 £538 -2.27% 38
UK excluding London +85 140 £525 +5.00% 30
South West +40 63 £550 +15.79% 3
West Midlands +53 36 £525 +50.00% 4
Midlands +48 36 £525 +31.25% 4
London +79 20 £508 -11.74% 10
East of England +7 20 £650 +8.33% 6
Work from Home +87 18 £450 -18.18% 12
South East +16 13 £450 -26.17% 5
North of England +14 4 £450 -26.53% 12
North West +9 4 £450 -25.00% 3
Scotland +36 3 £300 -33.33% 1
Wales - 1 £145 -

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

For the 6 months to 20 May 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.

1 115 (66.86%) Security Cleared
2 100 (58.14%) Security Operations
3 98 (56.98%) Cybersecurity
4 93 (54.07%) SIEM
5 86 (50.00%) Incident Response
6 68 (39.53%) Security Operations Centre
7 65 (37.79%) DV Cleared
8 46 (26.74%) SC Cleared
9 40 (23.26%) Microsoft
9 40 (23.26%) Linux
10 37 (21.51%) Azure
10 37 (21.51%) Use Case
10 37 (21.51%) Splunk
10 37 (21.51%) MITRE ATT&CK
11 36 (20.93%) Vulnerability Management
11 36 (20.93%) Information Security
12 34 (19.77%) CSOC
13 33 (19.19%) Management Information System
14 32 (18.60%) Firewall
14 32 (18.60%) Windows
14 32 (18.60%) Threat Intelligence
15 29 (16.86%) GDPR
15 29 (16.86%) Degree
16 28 (16.28%) LogRhythm
17 23 (13.37%) Continuous Improvement
17 23 (13.37%) Incident Management
18 22 (12.79%) Threat Detection
19 20 (11.63%) Analytical Skills
19 20 (11.63%) FireEye
19 20 (11.63%) Darktrace

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 (11.05%) CMS
Applications
1 1 (0.58%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.58%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 37 (21.51%) Azure
2 19 (11.05%) Azure Sentinel
3 6 (3.49%) AWS
4 2 (1.16%) Sumo Logic
5 1 (0.58%) Azure Stack
5 1 (0.58%) IaaS
5 1 (0.58%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (0.58%) PaaS
5 1 (0.58%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 32 (18.60%) Firewall
2 6 (3.49%) Network Security
3 5 (2.91%) DNS
3 5 (2.91%) TCP/IP
4 3 (1.74%) FTP
4 3 (1.74%) HTTP
4 3 (1.74%) Intrusion Detection
4 3 (1.74%) SMTP
4 3 (1.74%) SSL
4 3 (1.74%) Wireshark
5 1 (0.58%) SD-WAN
5 1 (0.58%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (5.23%) Elasticsearch
General
1 20 (11.63%) Analytical Skills
2 19 (11.05%) Public Sector
3 17 (9.88%) Social Skills
4 11 (6.40%) Legal
5 9 (5.23%) Finance
6 6 (3.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (2.33%) Banking
8 3 (1.74%) Games
9 1 (0.58%) Electronics
9 1 (0.58%) Fire and Rescue
9 1 (0.58%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.58%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.58%) Marketing
9 1 (0.58%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.58%) Police
9 1 (0.58%) Presentation Skills
9 1 (0.58%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (5.23%) Elastic Stack
2 3 (1.74%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 68 (39.53%) Security Operations Centre
2 34 (19.77%) CSOC
3 33 (19.19%) Management Information System
4 17 (9.88%) Cyberattack
5 16 (9.30%) Cyber Threat
6 12 (6.98%) Cyber Kill Chain
7 11 (6.40%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 11 (6.40%) Private Cloud
8 9 (5.23%) Cyber Defence
9 8 (4.65%) Security Posture
10 4 (2.33%) Onboarding
11 2 (1.16%) Analytical Mindset
11 2 (1.16%) CCTV
11 2 (1.16%) Cloud Security Posture
11 2 (1.16%) Self-Motivation
12 1 (0.58%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 40 (23.26%) Linux
2 32 (18.60%) Windows
3 13 (7.56%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (58.14%) Security Operations
2 98 (56.98%) Cybersecurity
3 93 (54.07%) SIEM
4 86 (50.00%) Incident Response
5 37 (21.51%) MITRE ATT&CK
5 37 (21.51%) Use Case
6 36 (20.93%) Information Security
6 36 (20.93%) Vulnerability Management
7 32 (18.60%) Threat Intelligence
8 23 (13.37%) Continuous Improvement
8 23 (13.37%) Incident Management
9 22 (12.79%) Threat Detection
10 19 (11.05%) Analytics
10 19 (11.05%) Problem-Solving
11 17 (9.88%) ITIL
12 16 (9.30%) Time Management
13 15 (8.72%) Risk Management
14 14 (8.14%) Information Assurance
14 14 (8.14%) Threat Analysis
15 13 (7.56%) SOAR
Programming Languages
1 6 (3.49%) Kusto Query Language
2 4 (2.33%) Python
2 4 (2.33%) Search Processing Language
3 3 (1.74%) PowerShell
4 1 (0.58%) Bash
4 1 (0.58%) JavaScript
4 1 (0.58%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 115 (66.86%) Security Cleared
2 65 (37.79%) DV Cleared
3 46 (26.74%) SC Cleared
4 29 (16.86%) Degree
5 18 (10.47%) CISSP
5 18 (10.47%) SANS
6 10 (5.81%) CEH
6 10 (5.81%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (3.49%) CISM
8 4 (2.33%) CompTIA Security+
9 3 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (1.74%) GIAC
10 2 (1.16%) CCNA
10 2 (1.16%) CCSP
10 2 (1.16%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (1.16%) GCIA
10 2 (1.16%) GCIH
11 1 (0.58%) ISSEP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (16.86%) GDPR
2 18 (10.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 15 (8.72%) NIST
4 14 (8.14%) NCSC
5 11 (6.40%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 11 (6.40%) HIPAA
6 4 (2.33%) SLA
7 2 (1.16%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 2 (1.16%) Virtual Machines
2 1 (0.58%) Snort
Systems Management
1 9 (5.23%) Kibana
1 9 (5.23%) logstash
2 5 (2.91%) Nessus
2 5 (2.91%) QRadar
3 3 (1.74%) Nmap
4 2 (1.16%) CSIRT
Vendors
1 40 (23.26%) Microsoft
2 37 (21.51%) Splunk
3 28 (16.28%) LogRhythm
4 20 (11.63%) Darktrace
4 20 (11.63%) FireEye
5 7 (4.07%) Qualys
6 6 (3.49%) CrowdStrike
6 6 (3.49%) Forcepoint
6 6 (3.49%) Varonis
7 3 (1.74%) IronPort
7 3 (1.74%) Sage
7 3 (1.74%) Symantec
8 2 (1.16%) AlienVault
8 2 (1.16%) ArcSight
8 2 (1.16%) BeyondTrust
8 2 (1.16%) CyberArk
8 2 (1.16%) Oracle
8 2 (1.16%) Rapid7
8 2 (1.16%) Sun
9 1 (0.58%) Virgin Media