NCSC Job Trends in the South West

National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the South West requiring NCSC skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 168 175 234
Rank change year-on-year +7 +59 -8
Permanent jobs citing NCSC 25 3 19
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 0.43% 0.083% 0.29%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 4.11% 0.54% 2.04%
Number of salaries quoted 20 3 16
10th Percentile £48,867 £68,000 -
25th Percentile £60,938 £78,125 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £95,000 £61,601
Median % change year-on-year -21.05% +54.22% -15.03%
75th Percentile £81,250 - £73,750
90th Percentile £90,000 - £78,125
England median annual salary £70,000 £75,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year -6.67% +15.38% -3.70%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
South West

NCSC falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills in the South West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 608 559 930
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South West 10.47% 15.54% 14.00%
Number of salaries quoted 327 252 717
10th Percentile £31,250 £35,000 £26,500
25th Percentile £41,250 £38,250 £35,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £55,000 £52,396
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +4.97% +4.79%
75th Percentile £73,750 £68,568 £67,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £77,500 £79,250
England median annual salary £59,111 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -1.48% +9.09% -4.35%

NCSC
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing NCSC relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the South West.

NCSC job vacancy trend in the South West

NCSC
Salary Trend in the South West

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing NCSC.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing NCSC

NCSC
Salary Histogram in the South West

Salary distribution for jobs citing NCSC in the South West over the 6 months to 14 February 2026.

Salary histogram for NCSC in the South West

NCSC
Job Locations in the South West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing NCSC within the South West region over the 6 months to 14 February 2026. 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
Bristol +15 14 £77,500 -18.42% 6
Wiltshire - 5 £62,500 - 2
Devon - 4 £77,500 - 1
Gloucestershire - 1 - - 3
NCSC
England

NCSC
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Cloud Services
1 10 (40.00%) Azure
2 7 (28.00%) AWS
3 3 (12.00%) Entra ID
3 3 (12.00%) Google Workspace
4 2 (8.00%) GCP
5 1 (4.00%) Google Kubernetes Engine
5 1 (4.00%) IaaS
5 1 (4.00%) Mimecast
5 1 (4.00%) OCI
5 1 (4.00%) PaaS
5 1 (4.00%) SaaS
5 1 (4.00%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 3 (12.00%) Broadband
1 3 (12.00%) Firewall
1 3 (12.00%) Network Security
2 1 (4.00%) DMZ
2 1 (4.00%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (4.00%) Data Lake
1 1 (4.00%) Data Warehouse
1 1 (4.00%) Weaviate
General
1 4 (16.00%) Analytical Skills
2 3 (12.00%) Organisational Skills
2 3 (12.00%) Public Sector
2 3 (12.00%) Social Skills
3 1 (4.00%) Finance
Job Titles
1 7 (28.00%) Architect
2 6 (24.00%) Consultant
2 6 (24.00%) Cybersecurity Consultant
2 6 (24.00%) Security Consultant
3 5 (20.00%) Security Architect
4 3 (12.00%) Applications Engineer
4 3 (12.00%) Security Engineer
5 2 (8.00%) Security Manager
6 1 (4.00%) Analyst
6 1 (4.00%) Business Analyst
6 1 (4.00%) Data Architect
6 1 (4.00%) Developer
6 1 (4.00%) Information Security Officer
6 1 (4.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 1 (4.00%) IT Manager
6 1 (4.00%) IT Security Manager
6 1 (4.00%) Operations Manager
6 1 (4.00%) Security Officer
6 1 (4.00%) Security Operations Manager
6 1 (4.00%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (12.00%) GraphQL
1 3 (12.00%) LDAP
1 3 (12.00%) OAuth
1 3 (12.00%) OpenID
1 3 (12.00%) React
1 3 (12.00%) REST
1 3 (12.00%) SAML
1 3 (12.00%) SOAP
1 3 (12.00%) Spring Boot
2 1 (4.00%) Faiss
2 1 (4.00%) LangChain
2 1 (4.00%) LangGraph
2 1 (4.00%) Ollama
2 1 (4.00%) vLLM
Miscellaneous
1 5 (20.00%) PKI
2 3 (12.00%) Cyber Threat
2 3 (12.00%) Cyberattack
2 3 (12.00%) Management Information System
3 2 (8.00%) Cloud Native
4 1 (4.00%) Cloud Security Posture
4 1 (4.00%) CUDA
4 1 (4.00%) Cyber Kill Chain
4 1 (4.00%) Data Protection Act
4 1 (4.00%) Onboarding
4 1 (4.00%) Private Cloud
4 1 (4.00%) Public Cloud
4 1 (4.00%) Security Posture
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (76.00%) Cybersecurity
2 8 (32.00%) Security Architecture
3 7 (28.00%) Threat Modelling
4 6 (24.00%) Cloud Security
4 6 (24.00%) Identity Access Management
5 5 (20.00%) Cryptography
5 5 (20.00%) Penetration Testing
5 5 (20.00%) SABSA
6 4 (16.00%) Analytical Thinking
6 4 (16.00%) Architectural Patterns
6 4 (16.00%) Collaborative Culture
6 4 (16.00%) Decision-Making
6 4 (16.00%) Microservices
6 4 (16.00%) Privileged Access Management
6 4 (16.00%) Risk Analysis
6 4 (16.00%) TOGAF
7 3 (12.00%) Application Security
7 3 (12.00%) Programme Delivery
7 3 (12.00%) RBAC
7 3 (12.00%) Regulatory Compliance
Programming Languages
1 4 (16.00%) Bash
2 3 (12.00%) Java
2 3 (12.00%) PowerShell
2 3 (12.00%) SQL
2 3 (12.00%) T-SQL
3 2 (8.00%) Python
Qualifications
1 14 (56.00%) Security Cleared
2 12 (48.00%) SC Cleared
3 9 (36.00%) CISM
3 9 (36.00%) CISSP
4 7 (28.00%) DV Cleared
5 4 (16.00%) AWS Certification
5 4 (16.00%) Azure Certification
5 4 (16.00%) CISA
5 4 (16.00%) TOGAF Certification
6 1 (4.00%) CESG Certified Professional
6 1 (4.00%) Chartered Engineer
6 1 (4.00%) CISMP
6 1 (4.00%) GCIH
6 1 (4.00%) GIAC
6 1 (4.00%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (68.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 17 (68.00%) NIST
2 9 (36.00%) GDPR
3 5 (20.00%) PCI DSS
4 4 (16.00%) Cyber Essentials
4 4 (16.00%) GRC
5 2 (8.00%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 1 (4.00%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 1 (4.00%) ISO/IEC 42001
6 1 (4.00%) JSP 440
System Software
1 3 (12.00%) Active Directory
2 1 (4.00%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 2 (8.00%) Kubernetes
2 1 (4.00%) Single Sign-On
2 1 (4.00%) Terraform
Vendors
1 2 (8.00%) Microsoft
2 1 (4.00%) Google
2 1 (4.00%) NVIDIA
2 1 (4.00%) Splunk