Network Security Job Trends in the South West

Network Security
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the South West requiring Network Security skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 7 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 120 128 157
Rank change year-on-year +8 +29 +11
Permanent jobs citing Network Security 60 63 68
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 1.18% 1.48% 1.48%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 9.90% 12.94% 8.68%
Number of salaries quoted 50 42 52
10th Percentile £30,000 £34,464 £36,375
25th Percentile £47,500 £50,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £67,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -25.93% +42.11% -0.57%
75th Percentile £64,688 £83,750 £64,063
90th Percentile £82,500 £97,250 £67,500
England median annual salary £58,099 £65,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year -10.62% +4.00% +8.70%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
South West

Network Security falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills in the South West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 606 487 783
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South West 11.96% 11.43% 16.99%
Number of salaries quoted 356 282 601
10th Percentile £25,375 £30,000 £29,500
25th Percentile £29,000 £32,500 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £34,000 £51,529 £49,000
Median % change year-on-year -34.02% +5.16% +3.16%
75th Percentile £52,500 £71,250 £60,000
90th Percentile £66,875 £85,900 £70,000
England median annual salary £40,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -27.27% +10.00% -4.76%

Network Security
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

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

Network Security job vacancy trend in the South West

Network Security
Salary Trend in the South West

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Network Security.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Network Security

Network Security
Salary Histogram in the South West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Network Security in the South West over the 6 months to 7 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Network Security in the South West

Network Security
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 Network Security within the South West region over the 6 months to 7 January 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 +7 26 £50,000 -24.53% 8
Wiltshire +8 10 £73,750 -19.40% 3
Dorset +10 9 £30,000 -29.41% 3
Gloucestershire +22 5 £52,500 -8.70% 3
Cornwall - 5 £75,000 -
Devon +2 3 £32,500 -7.18% 11
Somerset -19 2 £57,110 -22.56% 2
Network Security
England

Network Security
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 17 (28.33%) Azure
2 6 (10.00%) AWS
3 4 (6.67%) Microsoft 365
4 2 (3.33%) OCI
4 2 (3.33%) Power Platform
4 2 (3.33%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 1 (1.67%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 1 (1.67%) Amazon EC2
5 1 (1.67%) Amazon ECR
5 1 (1.67%) Amazon ECS
5 1 (1.67%) Amazon S3
5 1 (1.67%) AWS Lambda
5 1 (1.67%) CloudFront
5 1 (1.67%) GCP
5 1 (1.67%) Google Kubernetes Engine
5 1 (1.67%) IaaS
5 1 (1.67%) PaaS
5 1 (1.67%) SaaS
5 1 (1.67%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 21 (35.00%) Firewall
2 9 (15.00%) VPN
3 6 (10.00%) TCP/IP
3 6 (10.00%) WAN
4 5 (8.33%) BGP
4 5 (8.33%) OSPF
4 5 (8.33%) VLAN
4 5 (8.33%) Wi-Fi
5 4 (6.67%) LAN
5 4 (6.67%) MPLS
5 4 (6.67%) SD-WAN
6 3 (5.00%) Cisco ASA
7 2 (3.33%) DHCP
7 2 (3.33%) DNS
7 2 (3.33%) LTE
7 2 (3.33%) NGFW
7 2 (3.33%) SNMP
7 2 (3.33%) SSH
7 2 (3.33%) VoIP
7 2 (3.33%) VSAT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (3.33%) Power BI
2 1 (1.67%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 1 (1.67%) Bitbucket
1 1 (1.67%) Jenkins
General
1 22 (36.67%) Analytical Skills
2 20 (33.33%) Manufacturing
2 20 (33.33%) Public Sector
3 19 (31.67%) Telecoms
4 17 (28.33%) Finance
5 16 (26.67%) Electronics
5 16 (26.67%) Marketing
6 15 (25.00%) Social Skills
7 2 (3.33%) Police
8 1 (1.67%) Local Government
8 1 (1.67%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 17 (28.33%) Consultant
1 17 (28.33%) Cybersecurity Consultant
1 17 (28.33%) Security Consultant
2 9 (15.00%) Network Engineer
2 9 (15.00%) Senior
3 7 (11.67%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 5 (8.33%) Information Manager
4 5 (8.33%) Information Services Manager
4 5 (8.33%) Security Engineer
4 5 (8.33%) Service Manager
5 4 (6.67%) Network Manager
6 3 (5.00%) Architect
6 3 (5.00%) Engineering Manager
6 3 (5.00%) Infrastructure Security Engineer
6 3 (5.00%) Principal Engineer
6 3 (5.00%) Principal Security Engineer
6 3 (5.00%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 3 (5.00%) Senior Network Engineer
6 3 (5.00%) Senior Security Engineer
6 3 (5.00%) Technical Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (3.33%) ModSecurity
Miscellaneous
1 16 (26.67%) Analytical Mindset
2 5 (8.33%) YubiKey
3 4 (6.67%) CMDB
3 4 (6.67%) Data Centre
4 3 (5.00%) Cyber Threat
4 3 (5.00%) Driving Licence
5 2 (3.33%) Cloud Native
5 2 (3.33%) Digital Signage
5 2 (3.33%) e-Learning
5 2 (3.33%) Operational Technology
5 2 (3.33%) Public Cloud
5 2 (3.33%) Security Posture
6 1 (1.67%) Cloud Security Posture
6 1 (1.67%) Cyber Kill Chain
6 1 (1.67%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (1.67%) IoT
6 1 (1.67%) Management Information System
6 1 (1.67%) PKI
6 1 (1.67%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 9 (15.00%) Windows
2 5 (8.33%) Linux
3 4 (6.67%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (50.00%) Cybersecurity
2 22 (36.67%) Mentoring
2 22 (36.67%) Vulnerability Management
3 16 (26.67%) Business Intelligence
3 16 (26.67%) Digital Marketing
3 16 (26.67%) Programme Management
4 10 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
4 10 (16.67%) SIEM
5 7 (11.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 6 (10.00%) Incident Response
6 6 (10.00%) Threat Detection
7 5 (8.33%) Cloud Security
7 5 (8.33%) Data Loss Prevention
7 5 (8.33%) Proactive Monitoring
7 5 (8.33%) Project Management
7 5 (8.33%) Use Case
7 5 (8.33%) Vulnerability Assessment
8 4 (6.67%) ITIL
8 4 (6.67%) ITSM
8 4 (6.67%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 5 (8.33%) Bash
1 5 (8.33%) Python
2 4 (6.67%) PowerShell
3 3 (5.00%) SQL
4 1 (1.67%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 33 (55.00%) Security Cleared
2 18 (30.00%) CompTIA Security+
3 17 (28.33%) CEH
4 16 (26.67%) CISSP
5 12 (20.00%) Cisco Certification
6 10 (16.67%) SC Cleared
7 9 (15.00%) DV Cleared
8 6 (10.00%) CCNP
9 5 (8.33%) CCNA
10 4 (6.67%) CCIE
10 4 (6.67%) Degree
11 3 (5.00%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (5.00%) Master's Degree
12 2 (3.33%) JNCIA
13 1 (1.67%) AWS Certification
13 1 (1.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 1 (1.67%) CREST Certified
13 1 (1.67%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (46.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 25 (41.67%) NIST
3 17 (28.33%) PCI DSS
4 6 (10.00%) Cyber Essentials
5 3 (5.00%) NCSC
6 2 (3.33%) GDPR
7 1 (1.67%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (1.67%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 1 (1.67%) JSP 440
System Software
1 8 (13.33%) VMware Infrastructure
2 6 (10.00%) Active Directory
3 5 (8.33%) Hyper-V
4 1 (1.67%) Docker
4 1 (1.67%) iptables
4 1 (1.67%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 5 (8.33%) Terraform
2 4 (6.67%) Ansible
2 4 (6.67%) Microsoft Intune
2 4 (6.67%) Nagios
3 2 (3.33%) WSUS
4 1 (1.67%) FortiGate
4 1 (1.67%) Grafana
4 1 (1.67%) Kubernetes
4 1 (1.67%) Progress Chef
4 1 (1.67%) Prometheus
4 1 (1.67%) Puppet
4 1 (1.67%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 16 (26.67%) SAP
2 14 (23.33%) Cisco
3 12 (20.00%) Microsoft
4 8 (13.33%) Fortinet
4 8 (13.33%) VMware
5 6 (10.00%) CheckPoint
6 5 (8.33%) SolarWinds
6 5 (8.33%) Tenable
7 4 (6.67%) F5
7 4 (6.67%) Splunk
8 3 (5.00%) Palo Alto
8 3 (5.00%) Qualys
9 2 (3.33%) Freshdesk
9 2 (3.33%) Meraki
9 2 (3.33%) SonicWALL
10 1 (1.67%) Citrix
10 1 (1.67%) Google
10 1 (1.67%) HP