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 27 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 418 443 523
Rank change year-on-year +25 +80 +159
Permanent jobs citing Cyber Essentials PLUS 101 119 105
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.23% 0.34% 0.24%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 2.06% 2.16% 1.70%
Number of salaries quoted 88 44 84
10th Percentile £26,250 £39,000 £31,075
25th Percentile £38,250 £42,375 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £53,750 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.33% +7.50% -16.67%
75th Percentile £65,000 £60,313 £63,750
90th Percentile £74,125 £85,375 £75,500
UK median annual salary £64,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +16.36% -4.35% -4.17%

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.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 4,897 5,499 6,189
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 11.01% 15.77% 13.87%
Number of salaries quoted 2,583 2,315 4,400
10th Percentile £29,000 £30,625 £26,250
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £53,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% -
75th Percentile £65,640 £71,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £82,500 £83,750 £78,088
UK median annual salary £59,514 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -0.81% +9.09% -4.35%

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 job vacancy trend 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.

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 27 January 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 27 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
South East +4 36 £65,000 +18.18% 15
Midlands +20 28 £55,000 +10.00% 9
North of England +9 22 £45,000 +12.50% 10
West Midlands +36 18 £55,000 +5.36% 5
South West -9 11 £55,000 -2.22% 6
Yorkshire -12 11 £45,000 -37.93% 3
East Midlands -10 10 £55,000 +25.71% 4
North West +15 7 £27,500 -31.25% 5
North East +3 4 £105,000 +191.67% 2
Scotland -8 2 £63,750 +27.50% 1
East of England - 2 £62,262 - 8
Cyber Essentials PLUS
UK

Cyber Essentials PLUS
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 23 (22.77%) SharePoint
2 17 (16.83%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (9.90%) WordPress
4 5 (4.95%) Drupal
4 5 (4.95%) nginx
5 2 (1.98%) Exchange Server 2013
6 1 (0.99%) CMS
Applications
1 6 (5.94%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (1.98%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 47 (46.53%) Microsoft 365
2 29 (28.71%) Azure
3 22 (21.78%) Entra ID
4 21 (20.79%) AWS
5 12 (11.88%) OneDrive
6 9 (8.91%) SaaS
7 8 (7.92%) Cloud Computing
7 8 (7.92%) Dynamics 365
8 7 (6.93%) Power Platform
9 5 (4.95%) Azure Sentinel
9 5 (4.95%) Power Automate
10 4 (3.96%) Microsoft Purview
11 3 (2.97%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 3 (2.97%) IaaS
11 3 (2.97%) PaaS
12 1 (0.99%) AWS Control Tower
12 1 (0.99%) Azure AKS
12 1 (0.99%) Azure Key Vault
12 1 (0.99%) GCP
12 1 (0.99%) Mimecast
Communications & Networking
1 12 (11.88%) DHCP
1 12 (11.88%) DNS
1 12 (11.88%) Firewall
2 10 (9.90%) VPN
3 9 (8.91%) WAN
4 8 (7.92%) LAN
5 7 (6.93%) Wi-Fi
6 3 (2.97%) Network Security
6 3 (2.97%) VLAN
7 2 (1.98%) SAN
8 1 (0.99%) BGP
8 1 (0.99%) Internet
8 1 (0.99%) SD-WAN
8 1 (0.99%) Unified Communications
8 1 (0.99%) Wireless
8 1 (0.99%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (5.94%) Power BI
2 5 (4.95%) MariaDB
3 4 (3.96%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (0.99%) Burp Suite
1 1 (0.99%) JIRA
1 1 (0.99%) Metasploit
General
1 51 (50.50%) Social Skills
2 16 (15.84%) Organisational Skills
3 13 (12.87%) Analytical Skills
4 11 (10.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 7 (6.93%) Finance
5 7 (6.93%) Public Sector
6 5 (4.95%) Local Government
6 5 (4.95%) Police
7 4 (3.96%) Influencing Skills
7 4 (3.96%) Manufacturing
8 2 (1.98%) Legal
9 1 (0.99%) Banking
9 1 (0.99%) Electronics
9 1 (0.99%) Games
9 1 (0.99%) Law
9 1 (0.99%) Marketing
9 1 (0.99%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 29 (28.71%) Security Manager
2 20 (19.80%) Cybersecurity Manager
3 16 (15.84%) IT Manager
3 16 (15.84%) Security Assurance Manager
4 12 (11.88%) IT Support
5 9 (8.91%) Analyst
5 9 (8.91%) IT Engineer
6 8 (7.92%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 8 (7.92%) Operations Manager
7 7 (6.93%) Infrastructure Support
7 7 (6.93%) IT Operations Manager
7 7 (6.93%) IT Security Manager
8 6 (5.94%) Head of IT
8 6 (5.94%) Information Security Manager
8 6 (5.94%) Support Engineer
8 6 (5.94%) Support Technician
9 5 (4.95%) Infrastructure Manager
9 5 (4.95%) Infrastructure Specialist
9 5 (4.95%) Security Specialist
9 5 (4.95%) Support Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (4.95%) HTML
2 1 (0.99%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 17 (16.83%) Security Posture
2 14 (13.86%) Onboarding
3 11 (10.89%) Management Information System
4 9 (8.91%) Replication
5 7 (6.93%) Cyber Threat
6 6 (5.94%) Driving Licence
6 6 (5.94%) Security Operations Centre
7 5 (4.95%) Video Conferencing
8 4 (3.96%) Cyber Security Posture
8 4 (3.96%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (3.96%) Self-Motivation
9 2 (1.98%) Analytical Mindset
9 2 (1.98%) Cloud Native
9 2 (1.98%) Cloud Security Posture
9 2 (1.98%) Educational Technology
9 2 (1.98%) NHS
10 1 (0.99%) Legacy Applications
10 1 (0.99%) Legacy Systems
10 1 (0.99%) Robotics
10 1 (0.99%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 23 (22.77%) Windows
2 11 (10.89%) Windows 10
3 4 (3.96%) Windows Server
3 4 (3.96%) Windows Server 2019
4 2 (1.98%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.99%) Android
5 1 (0.99%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.99%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 64 (63.37%) Cybersecurity
2 43 (42.57%) Information Security
3 37 (36.63%) Continuous Improvement
4 27 (26.73%) Problem-Solving
5 16 (15.84%) Disaster Recovery
5 16 (15.84%) ITIL
5 16 (15.84%) Security Operations
6 15 (14.85%) Business Continuity
7 14 (13.86%) Incident Response
8 13 (12.87%) Risk Management
8 13 (12.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 12 (11.88%) Agile
10 11 (10.89%) Cloud Security
10 11 (10.89%) Migration
10 11 (10.89%) Roadmaps
11 10 (9.90%) Data Protection
12 9 (8.91%) Process Improvement
12 9 (8.91%) Regulatory Change
12 9 (8.91%) Threat Detection
13 8 (7.92%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 10 (9.90%) PowerShell
2 3 (2.97%) SQL
3 2 (1.98%) Bicep
3 2 (1.98%) Kusto Query Language
4 1 (0.99%) Python
Qualifications
1 18 (17.82%) CISSP
1 18 (17.82%) CREST Certified
2 17 (16.83%) CISM
3 12 (11.88%) Microsoft Certification
4 10 (9.90%) Security Cleared
5 9 (8.91%) AWS Certification
5 9 (8.91%) SC Cleared
6 8 (7.92%) BPSS Clearance
6 8 (7.92%) Degree
7 6 (5.94%) CRISC
8 5 (4.95%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 5 (4.95%) A+ Certification
8 5 (4.95%) CCSP
8 5 (4.95%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (3.96%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 4 (3.96%) Azure Certification
9 4 (3.96%) CEH
9 4 (3.96%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (3.96%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 4 (3.96%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 101 (100.00%) Cyber Essentials
2 80 (79.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 29 (28.71%) NIST
4 28 (27.72%) GDPR
5 25 (24.75%) GRC
6 20 (19.80%) NCSC
6 20 (19.80%) SOC 2
7 18 (17.82%) PCI DSS
8 16 (15.84%) SOC 3
9 6 (5.94%) ISO 9001
10 4 (3.96%) ISO 22301
10 4 (3.96%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 4 (3.96%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 2 (1.98%) Actionable Recommendations
12 1 (0.99%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 1 (0.99%) ISO 14001
System Software
1 17 (16.83%) Active Directory
2 5 (4.95%) Docker
3 4 (3.96%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (2.97%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.99%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 14 (13.86%) Microsoft Intune
2 2 (1.98%) SCCM
2 2 (1.98%) Terraform
3 1 (0.99%) Jamf Pro
3 1 (0.99%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.99%) Nessus
3 1 (0.99%) Nmap
3 1 (0.99%) RSA Archer
3 1 (0.99%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 48 (47.52%) Microsoft
2 8 (7.92%) Cisco
3 7 (6.93%) Meraki
3 7 (6.93%) VMware
4 4 (3.96%) Palo Alto
5 3 (2.97%) Google
5 3 (2.97%) Infor
5 3 (2.97%) Tenable
6 2 (1.98%) arcserve
7 1 (0.99%) Acronis
7 1 (0.99%) Avaya
7 1 (0.99%) ForgeRock
7 1 (0.99%) Genesys
7 1 (0.99%) HubSpot
7 1 (0.99%) IBM
7 1 (0.99%) Qualys
7 1 (0.99%) SAP
7 1 (0.99%) ServiceNow
7 1 (0.99%) Trend Micro
7 1 (0.99%) Xero