Security Specialist
UK

The median Security Specialist salary in the UK is £50,500 per year according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months to 28 April 2024.

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

6 months to
28 Apr 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 705 741 971
Rank change year-on-year +36 +230 -262
Permanent jobs requiring a Security Specialist 201 233 252
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.20% 0.22% 0.16%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.22% 0.24% 0.17%
Number of salaries quoted 168 166 185
10th Percentile £45,000 £44,118 £41,750
25th Percentile £45,938 £55,000 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,500 £65,000 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year -22.31% +4.00% -
75th Percentile £62,500 £80,000 £81,250
90th Percentile £75,000 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,500 £57,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year -12.17% -4.17% -2.04%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
UK

The following table is for comparison with the above and includes summary statistics for all permanent 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 permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 92,813 95,219 148,250
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.61% 91.52% 96.06%
Number of salaries quoted 66,625 59,878 85,347
10th Percentile £28,500 £32,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £38,500 £45,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,550 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -12.42% - +9.09%
75th Percentile £71,250 £81,250 £78,750
90th Percentile £90,000 £100,000 £96,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% +5.26%

Security Specialist
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Security Specialist in the UK

Security Specialist
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing Security Specialist.

Salary trend for Security Specialist in the UK

Security Specialist
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Security Specialist over the 6 months to 28 April 2024.

Salary histogram for Security Specialist in the UK

Security Specialist
Top 13 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Security Specialist within the UK over the 6 months to 28 April 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +98 192 £50,500 -23.48% 34
UK excluding London +31 156 £50,500 -12.17% 27
South East +61 76 £50,500 +7.24% 4
North of England +39 40 £56,250 -14.77% 1
London +71 39 £75,000 - 12
North West +32 36 £56,250 -14.77%
Work from Home +17 35 £50,000 -23.08% 14
East of England +29 19 £47,500 - 10
South West -15 14 £60,000 -52.00% 2
Scotland -76 5 £66,000 +20.00% 5
Yorkshire +82 4 £49,375 -27.39% 1
Midlands -12 2 - - 6
East Midlands - 2 - -

Security Specialist Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 28 April 2024, Security Specialist 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 permanent job ads featuring Security Specialist in the job title.

1 142 (70.65%) Cybersecurity
2 100 (49.75%) NIST
3 72 (35.82%) GRC
4 68 (33.83%) Def Stans
5 54 (26.87%) Information Security
6 37 (18.41%) Incident Response
7 35 (17.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 32 (15.92%) Risk Management
9 29 (14.43%) Degree
10 27 (13.43%) Finance
10 27 (13.43%) Microsoft
11 25 (12.44%) Social Skills
12 23 (11.44%) Problem-Solving
12 23 (11.44%) Windows
12 23 (11.44%) Firewall
12 23 (11.44%) Security Cleared
12 23 (11.44%) Azure
13 21 (10.45%) Linux
14 17 (8.46%) Penetration Testing
14 17 (8.46%) Vulnerability Management
15 16 (7.96%) Analytical Skills
15 16 (7.96%) Aerospace
15 16 (7.96%) VMware
16 15 (7.46%) CISSP
16 15 (7.46%) Cisco
16 15 (7.46%) Operational Technology
17 14 (6.97%) OWASP
17 14 (6.97%) Microsoft 365
18 13 (6.47%) Cyber Essentials
18 13 (6.47%) AWS

Security Specialist 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:

Cloud Services
1 23 (11.44%) Azure
2 14 (6.97%) Microsoft 365
3 13 (6.47%) AWS
4 6 (2.99%) Microsoft Purview
5 4 (1.99%) Serverless
6 3 (1.49%) Azure Sentinel
7 2 (1.00%) Entra ID
7 2 (1.00%) OneDrive
7 2 (1.00%) SaaS
8 1 (0.50%) IaaS
8 1 (0.50%) OCI
8 1 (0.50%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 23 (11.44%) Firewall
2 12 (5.97%) Network Security
3 9 (4.48%) DNS
4 8 (3.98%) Intrusion Detection
5 3 (1.49%) Wireshark
5 3 (1.49%) X.509
6 2 (1.00%) Internet
6 2 (1.00%) NAS
6 2 (1.00%) SAN
7 1 (0.50%) Cisco ASA
7 1 (0.50%) LAN
7 1 (0.50%) tcpdump
7 1 (0.50%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.99%) Metadata
2 1 (0.50%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 1 (0.50%) Burp Suite
1 1 (0.50%) SonarQube
General
1 27 (13.43%) Finance
2 25 (12.44%) Social Skills
3 16 (7.96%) Aerospace
3 16 (7.96%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (4.48%) Manufacturing
5 8 (3.98%) Banking
5 8 (3.98%) Law
6 7 (3.48%) Legal
6 7 (3.48%) Retail
7 4 (1.99%) Military
7 4 (1.99%) Presentation Skills
8 3 (1.49%) Multimedia
9 2 (1.00%) Automotive
9 2 (1.00%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.50%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.50%) Mandarin Language
10 1 (0.50%) Marketing
10 1 (0.50%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (1.00%) Sass
2 1 (0.50%) J2EE
2 1 (0.50%) LDAP
2 1 (0.50%) OAuth
2 1 (0.50%) OAuth2
2 1 (0.50%) OpenID
2 1 (0.50%) REST
2 1 (0.50%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 15 (7.46%) Operational Technology
2 13 (6.47%) Management Information System
3 9 (4.48%) Cyber Threat
3 9 (4.48%) Industrial Internet of Things
4 5 (2.49%) Onboarding
4 5 (2.49%) PKI
5 4 (1.99%) Security Posture
6 3 (1.49%) Greenfield Project
6 3 (1.49%) Security Operations Centre
6 3 (1.49%) Smart Energy
7 2 (1.00%) Algorithms
7 2 (1.00%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 2 (1.00%) Mainframe
7 2 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
8 1 (0.50%) Client/Server
8 1 (0.50%) Cyber Kill Chain
8 1 (0.50%) Cyberattack
8 1 (0.50%) Data Centre
8 1 (0.50%) Enterprise Software
8 1 (0.50%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 23 (11.44%) Windows
2 21 (10.45%) Linux
3 9 (4.48%) Unix
4 6 (2.99%) Windows Server
5 4 (1.99%) Kali Linux
5 4 (1.99%) Ubuntu
5 4 (1.99%) Windows 10
5 4 (1.99%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 142 (70.65%) Cybersecurity
2 54 (26.87%) Information Security
3 37 (18.41%) Incident Response
4 32 (15.92%) Risk Management
5 23 (11.44%) Problem-Solving
6 17 (8.46%) Penetration Testing
6 17 (8.46%) Vulnerability Management
7 14 (6.97%) OWASP
8 12 (5.97%) Change Management
8 12 (5.97%) SIEM
9 11 (5.47%) Mentoring
10 9 (4.48%) Agile
10 9 (4.48%) Application Security
10 9 (4.48%) Coaching
10 9 (4.48%) Cryptography
10 9 (4.48%) Data Loss Prevention
10 9 (4.48%) Information Management
10 9 (4.48%) Project Management
10 9 (4.48%) Threat Management
11 8 (3.98%) Static Application Security Testing
Programming Languages
1 1 (0.50%) Java
1 1 (0.50%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 29 (14.43%) Degree
2 23 (11.44%) Security Cleared
3 15 (7.46%) CISSP
4 9 (4.48%) DV Cleared
4 9 (4.48%) OSCP
5 8 (3.98%) CISA
6 7 (3.48%) CISM
7 6 (2.99%) CEH
7 6 (2.99%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (2.99%) Master's Degree
8 5 (2.49%) AWS Certification
9 4 (1.99%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 4 (1.99%) GSEC
10 3 (1.49%) Cisco Certification
10 3 (1.49%) CompTIA Security+
11 2 (1.00%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 2 (1.00%) Azure Certification
11 2 (1.00%) CompTIA CySA+
11 2 (1.00%) SC Cleared
12 1 (0.50%) CCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 100 (49.75%) NIST
2 72 (35.82%) GRC
3 68 (33.83%) Def Stans
4 35 (17.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (6.47%) Cyber Essentials
6 9 (4.48%) NCSC
7 8 (3.98%) NIST 800
8 7 (3.48%) GDPR
9 5 (2.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 4 (1.99%) Data Quality
10 4 (1.99%) PCI DSS
11 2 (1.00%) COBIT
11 2 (1.00%) HIPAA
11 2 (1.00%) ISO 31000
11 2 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 2 (1.00%) TickIT
12 1 (0.50%) SOC 2
System Software
1 13 (6.47%) VMware Infrastructure
2 4 (1.99%) Active Directory
2 4 (1.99%) Terminal Services
3 2 (1.00%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 8 (3.98%) SCCM
2 4 (1.99%) Microsoft Intune
3 3 (1.49%) SELinux
4 2 (1.00%) vCenter Server
5 1 (0.50%) CASB
5 1 (0.50%) FortiGate
5 1 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 27 (13.43%) Microsoft
2 16 (7.96%) VMware
3 15 (7.46%) Cisco
4 11 (5.47%) Qualys
5 10 (4.98%) Palo Alto
6 9 (4.48%) Blue Coat
6 9 (4.48%) CheckPoint
6 9 (4.48%) Infoblox
6 9 (4.48%) Juniper
6 9 (4.48%) Riverbed
7 3 (1.49%) LogRhythm
7 3 (1.49%) ServiceNow
8 2 (1.00%) Forcepoint
8 2 (1.00%) Splunk
8 2 (1.00%) Varonis
9 1 (0.50%) CA
9 1 (0.50%) Dell
9 1 (0.50%) HP
9 1 (0.50%) Salesforce
9 1 (0.50%) Sun