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 6 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 176 105 137
Rank change year-on-year -71 +32 +4
Permanent jobs citing Network Security 65 63 104
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 0.67% 1.82% 1.35%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 9.66% 11.41% 12.89%
Number of salaries quoted 44 57 74
10th Percentile £31,250 £34,600 £28,650
25th Percentile £37,500 £47,500 £51,563
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £50,000 £80,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.00% -37.50% +33.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £55,000 £97,250
90th Percentile £103,625 £65,000 -
England median annual salary £65,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +8.33% - -

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 673 552 807
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South West 6.92% 15.97% 10.48%
Number of salaries quoted 377 352 531
10th Percentile £28,000 £28,300 £28,500
25th Percentile £31,250 £30,500 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £38,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +11.84% -24.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £63,750 £53,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £65,000 £81,250
England median annual salary £47,500 £41,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +14.46% -17.00% -3.85%

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 6 September 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 6 September 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
Gloucestershire -25 22 £88,000 +67.62% 5
Somerset -20 15 £50,000 -31.03% 6
Wiltshire -7 12 £57,500 +33.72% 11
Devon -20 7 £32,500 -37.17%
Bristol -62 7 £65,000 +30.00% 11
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:

Application Platforms
1 8 (12.31%) Microsoft Exchange
2 4 (6.15%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 1 (1.54%) Oracle Payables
Cloud Services
1 36 (55.38%) Azure
2 27 (41.54%) Entra ID
3 20 (30.77%) Microsoft 365
4 16 (24.62%) AWS
5 9 (13.85%) Azure AKS
5 9 (13.85%) Azure DevOps
5 9 (13.85%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 5 (7.69%) OCI
7 4 (6.15%) GCP
8 3 (4.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 3 (4.62%) Amazon ECS
8 3 (4.62%) SaaS
9 2 (3.08%) IaaS
9 2 (3.08%) PaaS
10 1 (1.54%) Mimecast
Communications & Networking
1 39 (60.00%) Firewall
2 19 (29.23%) VLAN
2 19 (29.23%) VPN
3 15 (23.08%) WAN
4 11 (16.92%) DHCP
4 11 (16.92%) DNS
4 11 (16.92%) LAN
5 8 (12.31%) SD-WAN
5 8 (12.31%) Wi-Fi
6 7 (10.77%) BGP
6 7 (10.77%) TCP/IP
7 6 (9.23%) Software-Defined Networking
8 5 (7.69%) DMZ
8 5 (7.69%) VoIP
8 5 (7.69%) Wireless
9 4 (6.15%) Ethernet VPN
9 4 (6.15%) OSPF
9 4 (6.15%) Wireshark
10 3 (4.62%) NGFW
10 3 (4.62%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.54%) RDBMS
1 1 (1.54%) Relational Database
1 1 (1.54%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 9 (13.85%) JIRA
2 3 (4.62%) GitLab
3 1 (1.54%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 12 (18.46%) Finance
1 12 (18.46%) Social Skills
2 9 (13.85%) Automotive
2 9 (13.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 6 (9.23%) Aerospace
4 3 (4.62%) Public Sector
5 2 (3.08%) Analytical Skills
5 2 (3.08%) Retail
6 1 (1.54%) Fire and Rescue
6 1 (1.54%) Police
Job Titles
1 23 (35.38%) Support Engineer
2 21 (32.31%) IT Support
3 19 (29.23%) IT Engineer
3 19 (29.23%) IT Support Engineer
4 12 (18.46%) Architect
5 10 (15.38%) Network Engineer
6 9 (13.85%) Azure Architect
6 9 (13.85%) Azure Engineer
6 9 (13.85%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
6 9 (13.85%) Server Engineer
6 9 (13.85%) Server Support
6 9 (13.85%) Technical Architect
7 8 (12.31%) Infrastructure Support
8 7 (10.77%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 7 (10.77%) Systems Engineer
8 7 (10.77%) Systems Support
8 7 (10.77%) Systems Support Engineer
9 6 (9.23%) Cybersecurity Specialist
9 6 (9.23%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
9 6 (9.23%) Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (26.15%) Terraform
2 1 (1.54%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 11 (16.92%) Hybrid Cloud
2 4 (6.15%) Cyber Threat
2 4 (6.15%) Driving Licence
3 3 (4.62%) Data Centre
4 2 (3.08%) Cloud Native
5 1 (1.54%) Blog
5 1 (1.54%) Cloud Security Posture
5 1 (1.54%) Cyber Kill Chain
5 1 (1.54%) Distributed Architecture
5 1 (1.54%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (1.54%) PKI
5 1 (1.54%) Private Cloud
5 1 (1.54%) Product Ownership
5 1 (1.54%) Replication
5 1 (1.54%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 15 (23.08%) Windows
2 11 (16.92%) Windows Server
3 9 (13.85%) Linux
4 4 (6.15%) Windows Server 2012
4 4 (6.15%) Windows Server 2016
4 4 (6.15%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (30.77%) Cybersecurity
2 16 (24.62%) Infrastructure as Code
3 13 (20.00%) Containerisation
3 13 (20.00%) Network Virtualisation
4 12 (18.46%) CI/CD
4 12 (18.46%) Cloud Security
4 12 (18.46%) DevOps
5 11 (16.92%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 10 (15.38%) Disaster Recovery
6 10 (15.38%) Problem-Solving
7 9 (13.85%) Continuous Improvement
7 9 (13.85%) Continuous Integration
7 9 (13.85%) DevSecOps
7 9 (13.85%) Edge Computing
7 9 (13.85%) GitOps
7 9 (13.85%) Hardware-in-the-Loop
7 9 (13.85%) Software Licensing
7 9 (13.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 8 (12.31%) Incident Management
8 8 (12.31%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 9 (13.85%) Bicep
2 6 (9.23%) Python
3 2 (3.08%) Bash
4 1 (1.54%) PL/SQL
4 1 (1.54%) PowerShell
4 1 (1.54%) SQL
4 1 (1.54%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 21 (32.31%) Security Cleared
2 14 (21.54%) DV Cleared
3 13 (20.00%) SC Cleared
4 7 (10.77%) Cisco Certification
5 6 (9.23%) Azure Certification
6 4 (6.15%) AWS Certification
6 4 (6.15%) CCNA
6 4 (6.15%) MCSA
6 4 (6.15%) Microsoft Certification
6 4 (6.15%) Microsoft Certified Professional
7 3 (4.62%) CCNP
8 2 (3.08%) CCIE
8 2 (3.08%) CISSP
8 2 (3.08%) CompTIA Security+
8 2 (3.08%) Network+ Certification
8 2 (3.08%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 1 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (1.54%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (1.54%) Degree
9 1 (1.54%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (26.15%) Cyber Essentials
2 12 (18.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 9 (13.85%) NIST
4 7 (10.77%) GRC
5 5 (7.69%) GDPR
6 2 (3.08%) PCI DSS
7 1 (1.54%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 1 (1.54%) JSP 440
7 1 (1.54%) NCSC
System Software
1 28 (43.08%) Active Directory
2 19 (29.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (18.46%) Docker
3 12 (18.46%) Hyper-V
4 2 (3.08%) VMware NSX
5 1 (1.54%) Firmware
5 1 (1.54%) KVM
5 1 (1.54%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 12 (18.46%) Kubernetes
2 7 (10.77%) Ansible
3 4 (6.15%) Iperf
4 3 (4.62%) Grafana
4 3 (4.62%) Prometheus
5 2 (3.08%) FortiGate
6 1 (1.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 1 (1.54%) Oracle RMAN
6 1 (1.54%) Proxmox
6 1 (1.54%) SCCM
6 1 (1.54%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (1.54%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 37 (56.92%) Microsoft
2 19 (29.23%) VMware
3 11 (16.92%) Cisco
4 8 (12.31%) Fortinet
5 4 (6.15%) Oracle
5 4 (6.15%) Ruckus Wireless
5 4 (6.15%) SonicWALL
5 4 (6.15%) Veeam
6 3 (4.62%) Aruba
6 3 (4.62%) Palo Alto
7 1 (1.54%) Arista
7 1 (1.54%) CheckPoint
7 1 (1.54%) Google
7 1 (1.54%) Juniper
7 1 (1.54%) SolarWinds
7 1 (1.54%) Sophos
7 1 (1.54%) WatchGuard