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 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 145 113 172
Rank change year-on-year -32 +59 -20
Permanent jobs citing Network Security 48 65 81
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 0.83% 1.81% 1.22%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.15% 14.77% 8.23%
Number of salaries quoted 38 46 68
10th Percentile £30,000 £35,625 £35,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £46,563 £44,520
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £54,310 £65,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -16.45% +18.18% +10.00%
75th Percentile £70,000 £78,750 £95,563
90th Percentile £83,250 £96,125 £107,500
England median annual salary £60,000 £62,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year -4.00% - +5.00%

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 589 440 984
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South West 10.15% 12.23% 14.81%
Number of salaries quoted 332 250 799
10th Percentile £25,116 £30,000 £27,338
25th Percentile £28,250 £34,250 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £33,000 £51,029 £48,750
Median % change year-on-year -35.33% +4.67% +8.33%
75th Percentile £48,750 £71,250 £58,525
90th Percentile £68,750 £82,500 £70,000
England median annual salary £40,970 £55,000 £49,990
% change year-on-year -25.51% +10.02% -3.71%

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 14 February 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 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
Devon +6 13 £52,500 +49.94% 8
Wiltshire -5 10 £80,000 +18.52% 8
Bristol -18 9 £54,350 -7.88% 3
Gloucestershire +7 6 £52,500 -6.67% 4
Dorset -5 5 £30,000 -33.33% 1
Cornwall - 3 £75,000 -
Somerset -29 2 £57,110 -21.23% 4
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 15 (31.25%) Azure
2 8 (16.67%) AWS
3 6 (12.50%) Microsoft 365
4 4 (8.33%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 3 (6.25%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 3 (6.25%) Amazon EC2
5 3 (6.25%) Amazon ECR
5 3 (6.25%) Amazon ECS
5 3 (6.25%) Amazon S3
5 3 (6.25%) AWS Lambda
5 3 (6.25%) CloudFront
5 3 (6.25%) Serverless
6 2 (4.17%) OCI
6 2 (4.17%) Power Platform
7 1 (2.08%) GCP
7 1 (2.08%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 1 (2.08%) IaaS
7 1 (2.08%) PaaS
7 1 (2.08%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 22 (45.83%) Firewall
2 9 (18.75%) VPN
2 9 (18.75%) WAN
3 8 (16.67%) TCP/IP
4 7 (14.58%) VLAN
5 6 (12.50%) LAN
6 5 (10.42%) BGP
6 5 (10.42%) OSPF
6 5 (10.42%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (8.33%) DMZ
7 4 (8.33%) DNS
7 4 (8.33%) SD-WAN
8 3 (6.25%) DHCP
8 3 (6.25%) MPLS
8 3 (6.25%) NGFW
8 3 (6.25%) SSL
9 2 (4.17%) Cisco ASA
9 2 (4.17%) SNMP
9 2 (4.17%) SSH
9 2 (4.17%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (6.25%) Amazon RDS
2 2 (4.17%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 3 (6.25%) Bitbucket
1 3 (6.25%) Jenkins
General
1 16 (33.33%) Social Skills
2 6 (12.50%) Public Sector
3 5 (10.42%) Manufacturing
4 3 (6.25%) Analytical Skills
5 2 (4.17%) Finance
5 2 (4.17%) Police
6 1 (2.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (2.08%) Local Government
6 1 (2.08%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 13 (27.08%) Senior
2 10 (20.83%) Network Engineer
3 8 (16.67%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 5 (10.42%) Account Director
4 5 (10.42%) Information Manager
4 5 (10.42%) Information Services Manager
4 5 (10.42%) Security Engineer
4 5 (10.42%) Service Manager
5 4 (8.33%) Architect
5 4 (8.33%) IT Engineer
5 4 (8.33%) Network Manager
5 4 (8.33%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
6 3 (6.25%) Azure Architect
6 3 (6.25%) Engineering Manager
6 3 (6.25%) Infrastructure Security Engineer
6 3 (6.25%) Lead
6 3 (6.25%) Senior DevOps
6 3 (6.25%) Senior DevOps Engineer
6 3 (6.25%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 3 (6.25%) Senior Security Engineer
Miscellaneous
1 7 (14.58%) Data Centre
2 5 (10.42%) CMDB
2 5 (10.42%) YubiKey
3 4 (8.33%) Security Posture
4 2 (4.17%) Cloud Native
4 2 (4.17%) Driving Licence
4 2 (4.17%) e-Learning
4 2 (4.17%) Operational Technology
4 2 (4.17%) Public Cloud
5 1 (2.08%) Cloud Security Posture
5 1 (2.08%) Cyber Kill Chain
5 1 (2.08%) Cyber Threat
5 1 (2.08%) Digital Signage
5 1 (2.08%) Hybrid Cloud
5 1 (2.08%) IoT
5 1 (2.08%) PKI
5 1 (2.08%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 16 (33.33%) Windows
2 12 (25.00%) Linux
3 5 (10.42%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (37.50%) Cybersecurity
2 10 (20.83%) SIEM
3 8 (16.67%) Incident Response
3 8 (16.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 7 (14.58%) Mentoring
4 7 (14.58%) Vulnerability Management
5 6 (12.50%) Infrastructure as Code
5 6 (12.50%) ITIL
5 6 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
5 6 (12.50%) Threat Detection
5 6 (12.50%) Use Case
6 5 (10.42%) Asset Management
6 5 (10.42%) Change Control
6 5 (10.42%) Cloud Security
6 5 (10.42%) Data Loss Prevention
6 5 (10.42%) ITSM
6 5 (10.42%) Penetration Testing
6 5 (10.42%) Project Management
6 5 (10.42%) Vulnerability Assessment
7 4 (8.33%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 7 (14.58%) Bash
1 7 (14.58%) Python
2 3 (6.25%) PowerShell
2 3 (6.25%) SQL
3 1 (2.08%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 15 (31.25%) Security Cleared
2 12 (25.00%) Cisco Certification
3 10 (20.83%) SC Cleared
4 9 (18.75%) DV Cleared
5 7 (14.58%) CCNP
6 5 (10.42%) CCIE
7 4 (8.33%) CCNA
7 4 (8.33%) Degree
8 3 (6.25%) AWS Certification
8 3 (6.25%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 3 (6.25%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (6.25%) Master's Degree
9 1 (2.08%) CompTIA Security+
9 1 (2.08%) CREST Certified
9 1 (2.08%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (33.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 10 (20.83%) NIST
3 7 (14.58%) Cyber Essentials
4 5 (10.42%) GDPR
5 3 (6.25%) NCSC
6 1 (2.08%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 1 (2.08%) GRC
6 1 (2.08%) ISO/IEC 42001
6 1 (2.08%) JSP 440
6 1 (2.08%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 10 (20.83%) Active Directory
2 6 (12.50%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (10.42%) Hyper-V
4 3 (6.25%) Docker
4 3 (6.25%) iptables
4 3 (6.25%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (2.08%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (2.08%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 7 (14.58%) Terraform
2 6 (12.50%) Ansible
3 5 (10.42%) Nagios
4 3 (6.25%) FortiGate
4 3 (6.25%) Grafana
4 3 (6.25%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (6.25%) Progress Chef
4 3 (6.25%) Prometheus
4 3 (6.25%) Puppet
5 2 (4.17%) WSUS
6 1 (2.08%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 1 (2.08%) Kubernetes
6 1 (2.08%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 13 (27.08%) Microsoft
2 11 (22.92%) Cisco
3 9 (18.75%) Fortinet
3 9 (18.75%) VMware
4 7 (14.58%) CheckPoint
5 5 (10.42%) F5
5 5 (10.42%) Tenable
6 4 (8.33%) Splunk
7 3 (6.25%) CrowdStrike
7 3 (6.25%) Dell
7 3 (6.25%) Palo Alto
7 3 (6.25%) Qualys
8 2 (4.17%) SolarWinds
8 2 (4.17%) SonicWALL
9 1 (2.08%) Google