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

6 months to
6 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 421 423 598
Rank change year-on-year +2 +175 +74
Permanent jobs citing Cyber Essentials PLUS 124 69 117
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.21% 0.27% 0.18%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 2.20% 1.68% 1.31%
Number of salaries quoted 110 36 98
10th Percentile £30,125 £34,625 £30,325
25th Percentile £39,066 £39,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.33%
75th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £68,438
90th Percentile £73,750 £82,500 £79,000
UK median annual salary £64,000 £57,500 £57,500
% change year-on-year +11.30% - -10.16%

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 5,625 4,096 8,901
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 9.54% 15.82% 13.85%
Number of salaries quoted 3,152 2,343 6,133
10th Percentile £29,750 £28,822 £25,750
25th Percentile £37,500 £37,500 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £53,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -0.94% +11.58% -5.00%
75th Percentile £67,500 £68,659 £63,750
90th Percentile £83,750 £83,750 £77,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year - +14.29% -8.70%

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 6 April 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 6 April 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 -21 48 £65,000 +18.18% 16
Midlands -1 35 £55,000 +10.00% 5
West Midlands +14 27 £52,500 - 4
North of England -50 24 £44,250 +10.63% 10
Yorkshire -38 15 £30,000 -58.62% 1
South West -49 10 £42,500 -38.18% 3
East Midlands -40 8 £55,000 +37.50% 1
North West -30 7 £50,000 +25.00% 8
East of England -27 4 £37,262 - 4
Scotland -24 3 £60,000 +37.14% 1
North East -26 2 £105,000 +191.67% 1
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 (18.55%) SharePoint
2 20 (16.13%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (4.03%) Drupal
3 5 (4.03%) nginx
3 5 (4.03%) WordPress
4 1 (0.81%) CMS
Applications
1 1 (0.81%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.81%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 50 (40.32%) Microsoft 365
2 34 (27.42%) Azure
3 28 (22.58%) Entra ID
4 17 (13.71%) AWS
5 8 (6.45%) SaaS
6 7 (5.65%) OneDrive
7 4 (3.23%) Azure Sentinel
8 3 (2.42%) Amazon GuardDuty
8 3 (2.42%) Cloud Computing
8 3 (2.42%) IaaS
8 3 (2.42%) PaaS
9 2 (1.61%) Power Automate
10 1 (0.81%) Amazon EKS
10 1 (0.81%) AWS Control Tower
10 1 (0.81%) Azure AKS
10 1 (0.81%) GCP
10 1 (0.81%) Microsoft Purview
10 1 (0.81%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 20 (16.13%) Firewall
2 13 (10.48%) DHCP
2 13 (10.48%) DNS
2 13 (10.48%) Wi-Fi
3 11 (8.87%) LAN
3 11 (8.87%) VPN
3 11 (8.87%) WAN
4 5 (4.03%) Network Security
5 2 (1.61%) VLAN
6 1 (0.81%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.81%) Unified Communications
6 1 (0.81%) Wireless
6 1 (0.81%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (4.03%) MariaDB
1 5 (4.03%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (0.81%) Burp Suite
1 1 (0.81%) JIRA
1 1 (0.81%) Metasploit
General
1 51 (41.13%) Social Skills
2 21 (16.94%) Organisational Skills
3 18 (14.52%) Analytical Skills
4 16 (12.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 11 (8.87%) Public Sector
6 7 (5.65%) Finance
7 6 (4.84%) Influencing Skills
7 6 (4.84%) Manufacturing
8 5 (4.03%) Local Government
8 5 (4.03%) Police
9 4 (3.23%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (3.23%) Retail
10 2 (1.61%) Legal
10 2 (1.61%) Social Housing
11 1 (0.81%) Banking
11 1 (0.81%) Electronics
11 1 (0.81%) Games
11 1 (0.81%) Marketing
11 1 (0.81%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 39 (31.45%) Security Manager
2 26 (20.97%) Cybersecurity Manager
3 22 (17.74%) IT Manager
4 20 (16.13%) IT Engineer
5 19 (15.32%) Security Assurance Manager
6 16 (12.90%) IT Support
7 12 (9.68%) Support Engineer
8 11 (8.87%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 11 (8.87%) IT Support Engineer
9 9 (7.26%) Analyst
9 9 (7.26%) Information Security Manager
9 9 (7.26%) Infrastructure Operations Engineer
9 9 (7.26%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
9 9 (7.26%) Operations Engineer
10 8 (6.45%) IT Security Manager
10 8 (6.45%) Operations Manager
11 7 (5.65%) Compliance Manager
11 7 (5.65%) Information Manager
11 7 (5.65%) IT Operations Manager
12 6 (4.84%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (0.81%) OAuth
1 1 (0.81%) SAP CAF
Miscellaneous
1 21 (16.94%) Security Posture
2 15 (12.10%) Driving Licence
3 12 (9.68%) Cyber Threat
4 11 (8.87%) Onboarding
5 9 (7.26%) Management Information System
6 8 (6.45%) Analytical Mindset
6 8 (6.45%) Security Operations Centre
7 7 (5.65%) Replication
8 4 (3.23%) Cyber Security Posture
9 3 (2.42%) NHS
10 2 (1.61%) Cloud Native
10 2 (1.61%) Cloud Security Posture
10 2 (1.61%) Educational Technology
10 2 (1.61%) Housing Association
11 1 (0.81%) Mobile App
11 1 (0.81%) Public Cloud
11 1 (0.81%) Robotics
11 1 (0.81%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 25 (20.16%) Windows
2 4 (3.23%) Linux
2 4 (3.23%) Mac OS
2 4 (3.23%) Windows 10
3 3 (2.42%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.81%) Android
4 1 (0.81%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.81%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 75 (60.48%) Cybersecurity
2 54 (43.55%) Continuous Improvement
3 41 (33.06%) Information Security
4 30 (24.19%) Disaster Recovery
5 24 (19.35%) ITIL
6 23 (18.55%) Problem-Solving
6 23 (18.55%) Risk Management
7 18 (14.52%) Incident Response
8 16 (12.90%) Service Delivery
9 15 (12.10%) Business Continuity
9 15 (12.10%) Security Operations
10 14 (11.29%) Cloud Security
10 14 (11.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 13 (10.48%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 12 (9.68%) IT Strategy
13 11 (8.87%) Change Management
13 11 (8.87%) Data Security
13 11 (8.87%) Migration
13 11 (8.87%) Regulatory Change
14 10 (8.06%) Penetration Testing
Programming Languages
1 8 (6.45%) PowerShell
2 3 (2.42%) SQL
3 2 (1.61%) Bicep
3 2 (1.61%) JavaScript
4 1 (0.81%) C
4 1 (0.81%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 21 (16.94%) CREST Certified
2 19 (15.32%) CISSP
3 15 (12.10%) Security Cleared
4 14 (11.29%) CISM
4 14 (11.29%) SC Cleared
5 12 (9.68%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (9.68%) Microsoft Certification
6 8 (6.45%) Degree
7 7 (5.65%) AWS Certification
8 6 (4.84%) Cisco Certification
9 5 (4.03%) CEH
10 4 (3.23%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 4 (3.23%) CCSP
11 3 (2.42%) Azure Certification
11 3 (2.42%) CISA
11 3 (2.42%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (2.42%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
12 2 (1.61%) AAT
12 2 (1.61%) CCNP
12 2 (1.61%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 124 (100.00%) Cyber Essentials
2 96 (77.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 37 (29.84%) GDPR
4 32 (25.81%) NIST
5 29 (23.39%) GRC
6 23 (18.55%) NCSC
7 22 (17.74%) SOC 2
8 20 (16.13%) PCI DSS
9 18 (14.52%) SOC 3
10 14 (11.29%) ISO 9001
11 9 (7.26%) Actionable Recommendations
11 9 (7.26%) ISO 14001
12 6 (4.84%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 4 (3.23%) ISO 22301
14 3 (2.42%) Def Stans
15 1 (0.81%) California Consumer Privacy Act
System Software
1 26 (20.97%) Active Directory
2 5 (4.03%) Docker
3 2 (1.61%) Hyper-V
3 2 (1.61%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (1.61%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.81%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 20 (16.13%) Microsoft Intune
2 2 (1.61%) Terraform
3 1 (0.81%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.81%) Nessus
3 1 (0.81%) Nmap
3 1 (0.81%) RSA Archer
3 1 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 52 (41.94%) Microsoft
2 10 (8.06%) Cisco
3 9 (7.26%) Meraki
4 5 (4.03%) VMware
5 4 (3.23%) Palo Alto
5 4 (3.23%) SAP
5 4 (3.23%) Ubiquiti
6 3 (2.42%) Google
6 3 (2.42%) Infor
6 3 (2.42%) Tenable
6 3 (2.42%) Xero
7 1 (0.81%) Acronis
7 1 (0.81%) Autodesk
7 1 (0.81%) Avaya
7 1 (0.81%) ForgeRock
7 1 (0.81%) Genesys
7 1 (0.81%) HubSpot
7 1 (0.81%) Qualys
7 1 (0.81%) ServiceNow
7 1 (0.81%) Trend Micro