Cyber Essentials PLUS Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Cyber Essentials PLUS
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Cyber Essentials PLUS skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

	6 months to 16 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	501	471	495
Rank change year-on-year	-30	+24	-34
Permanent jobs citing Cyber Essentials PLUS	170	69	121
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London	0.19%	0.20%	0.24%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category	2.01%	1.50%	1.83%
Number of salaries quoted	124	59	43
10^th Percentile	£31,250	£30,500	£42,500
25^th Percentile	£38,500	£32,500	£44,246
Median annual salary (50^th Percentile)	£51,250	£41,500	£51,485
Median % change year-on-year	+23.49%	-19.39%	-6.39%
75^th Percentile	£65,000	£55,000	£69,960
90^th Percentile	£81,250	£73,750	£89,750
UK median annual salary	£60,000	£55,000	£67,155
% change year-on-year	+9.09%	-18.10%	+7.45%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK excluding London

Cyber Essentials PLUS 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 UK excluding London.

	6 months to 16 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Permanent vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills	8,465	4,602	6,603
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London	9.70%	13.49%	13.27%
Number of salaries quoted	5,285	2,455	2,818
10^th Percentile	£30,000	£28,750	£28,000
25^th Percentile	£37,000	£33,000	£35,000
Median annual salary (50^th Percentile)	£50,000	£50,000	£50,000
Median % change year-on-year	-	-	-4.76%
75^th Percentile	£66,250	£66,250	£67,500
90^th Percentile	£81,250	£80,000	£81,250
UK median annual salary	£55,000	£57,500	£58,465
% change year-on-year	-4.35%	-1.65%	-2.56%

Cyber Essentials PLUS Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Cyber Essentials PLUS relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Cyber Essentials PLUS Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Cyber Essentials PLUS.

Cyber Essentials PLUS Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Cyber Essentials PLUS in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 16 October 2026.

Salary histogram for Cyber Essentials PLUS in the UK excluding London

Cyber Essentials PLUS Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Cyber Essentials PLUS within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 16 October 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
South East	-35	51	£40,000	-3.61%	22
North of England	-40	40	£56,675	+3.05%	27
Midlands	-27	29	£54,000	+54.29%	18
Yorkshire	-11	27	£60,000	+9.09%	13
South West	-51	27	£53,750	+16.22%	11
East Midlands	-24	18	£58,589	+67.40%	5
East of England	-32	16	£35,000	-53.95%	4
West Midlands	-38	11	£47,500	+46.15%	13
North West	-28	8	£45,000	+63.64%	14
Scotland	+6	5	£76,000	+102.67%	8
North East	-71	5	£40,000	-56.76%	1
Northern Ireland	-	2	£47,500	-	1
Cyber Essentials PLUS UK

Cyber Essentials PLUS Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 16 October 2026, job vacancies citing Cyber Essentials PLUS also mentioned the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads across the UK excluding London region with a requirement for Cyber Essentials PLUS.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Cyber Essentials	100.0%	170
2	Cybersecurity	62.9%	107
3	Microsoft	62.4%	106
4	ISO/IEC 27001	57.6%	98
5	Microsoft 365	51.2%	87
6	Azure	50.6%	86
7	Entra ID	41.2%	70
8	Windows	31.8%	54
9	Risk Management	31.2%	53
10	Continuous Improvement	30.6%	52
11	Microsoft Intune	28.2%	48
12	Information Security	26.5%	45
13	Disaster Recovery	25.3%	43
14	Incident Response	24.1%	41
15	Active Directory	23.5%	40
16	Degree	22.9%	39
17	Problem-Solving	21.2%	36
18	Project Delivery	20.0%	34
19	Data Protection	19.4%	33
19	Firewall	19.4%	33
21	GDPR	18.8%	32
22	Vulnerability Management	18.2%	31
22	Windows Server	18.2%	31
24	ISMS	17.6%	30
25	ITIL	16.5%	28
25	Security Management	16.5%	28
25	Service Management	16.5%	28
28	AI	15.3%	26
28	CISSP	15.3%	26
28	NIST	15.3%	26

Cyber Essentials PLUS Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Quality Assurance & Compliance

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Cyber Essentials	100.0%	170
2	ISO/IEC 27001	57.6%	98
3	GDPR	18.8%	32
4	NIST	15.3%	26
5	ISO 9001	10.6%	18
6	ISO 14001	7.1%	12
7	GRC	6.5%	11
8	ISO/IEC 20000	5.9%	10
9	NCSC	4.1%	7
10	PCI DSS	3.5%	6
10	SLA	3.5%	6
12	SOC 2	2.9%	5
13	Data Quality	1.8%	3
13	ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)	1.8%	3
13	QA	1.8%	3
16	Accessibility	1.2%	2
16	GxP	1.2%	2
16	ISO 22301	1.2%	2
16	NIST 800	1.2%	2
16	RMADS	1.2%	2