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 2 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 431 444 529
Rank change year-on-year +13 +85 +160
Permanent jobs citing Cyber Essentials PLUS 96 119 111
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.21% 0.35% 0.23%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 1.96% 2.16% 1.66%
Number of salaries quoted 83 43 90
10th Percentile £26,250 £39,000 £31,000
25th Percentile £40,631 £42,250 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year - +10.00% -16.67%
75th Percentile £65,000 £61,875 £63,750
90th Percentile £74,750 £86,500 £76,375
UK median annual salary £65,000 £55,000 £59,500
% change year-on-year +18.18% -7.56% -4.80%

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 4,898 5,508 6,683
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.80% 16.03% 13.80%
Number of salaries quoted 2,564 2,283 4,803
10th Percentile £28,750 £30,750 £26,250
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £53,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.54% +7.00% -
75th Percentile £65,640 £71,125 £65,000
90th Percentile £82,500 £83,750 £78,750
UK median annual salary £59,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -1.67% +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 2 February 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 2 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
South East +18 36 £65,000 +18.18% 17
Midlands +25 25 £55,000 +10.00% 8
North of England -16 22 £45,000 +12.50% 14
West Midlands +33 16 £57,500 +10.15% 3
Yorkshire -19 11 £45,000 -37.93% 3
East Midlands -3 9 £55,000 +25.71% 5
South West -15 9 £52,500 -6.67% 10
North West +10 7 £27,500 -31.25% 10
North East +1 4 £105,000 +191.67% 1
East of England +19 2 £62,262 - 9
Scotland -15 2 £63,750 +27.50% 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 (23.96%) SharePoint
2 15 (15.63%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (10.42%) WordPress
4 5 (5.21%) Drupal
4 5 (5.21%) nginx
5 1 (1.04%) CMS
5 1 (1.04%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 5 (5.21%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 45 (46.88%) Microsoft 365
2 28 (29.17%) Azure
3 22 (22.92%) Entra ID
4 20 (20.83%) AWS
5 12 (12.50%) OneDrive
6 9 (9.38%) SaaS
7 8 (8.33%) Cloud Computing
8 7 (7.29%) Dynamics 365
8 7 (7.29%) Power Platform
9 5 (5.21%) Azure Sentinel
9 5 (5.21%) Power Automate
10 4 (4.17%) Microsoft Purview
11 3 (3.13%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 3 (3.13%) IaaS
11 3 (3.13%) PaaS
12 1 (1.04%) AWS Control Tower
12 1 (1.04%) Azure AKS
12 1 (1.04%) Azure Key Vault
12 1 (1.04%) GCP
12 1 (1.04%) Mimecast
Communications & Networking
1 12 (12.50%) Firewall
2 11 (11.46%) DHCP
2 11 (11.46%) DNS
3 9 (9.38%) VPN
4 8 (8.33%) WAN
5 7 (7.29%) LAN
6 6 (6.25%) Wi-Fi
7 3 (3.13%) Network Security
8 2 (2.08%) VLAN
9 1 (1.04%) BGP
9 1 (1.04%) Internet
9 1 (1.04%) SAN
9 1 (1.04%) SD-WAN
9 1 (1.04%) Unified Communications
9 1 (1.04%) Wireless
9 1 (1.04%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (6.25%) Power BI
2 5 (5.21%) MariaDB
3 4 (4.17%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (1.04%) Burp Suite
1 1 (1.04%) JIRA
1 1 (1.04%) Metasploit
General
1 50 (52.08%) Social Skills
2 16 (16.67%) Organisational Skills
3 13 (13.54%) Analytical Skills
4 11 (11.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 7 (7.29%) Finance
5 7 (7.29%) Public Sector
6 5 (5.21%) Local Government
6 5 (5.21%) Police
7 4 (4.17%) Influencing Skills
7 4 (4.17%) Manufacturing
8 2 (2.08%) Legal
9 1 (1.04%) Banking
9 1 (1.04%) Electronics
9 1 (1.04%) Games
9 1 (1.04%) Marketing
9 1 (1.04%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 30 (31.25%) Security Manager
2 20 (20.83%) Cybersecurity Manager
3 17 (17.71%) IT Manager
4 16 (16.67%) Security Assurance Manager
5 12 (12.50%) IT Support
6 9 (9.38%) IT Engineer
7 8 (8.33%) IT Security Manager
7 8 (8.33%) Operations Manager
8 7 (7.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 7 (7.29%) IT Operations Manager
9 6 (6.25%) Analyst
9 6 (6.25%) Head of IT
9 6 (6.25%) Information Security Manager
9 6 (6.25%) Infrastructure Support
10 5 (5.21%) Infrastructure Manager
10 5 (5.21%) Security Specialist
10 5 (5.21%) Support Engineer
10 5 (5.21%) Support Officer
10 5 (5.21%) Support Specialist
10 5 (5.21%) Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (5.21%) HTML
2 1 (1.04%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 16 (16.67%) Security Posture
2 13 (13.54%) Onboarding
3 11 (11.46%) Management Information System
4 8 (8.33%) Cyber Threat
4 8 (8.33%) Replication
5 6 (6.25%) Driving Licence
5 6 (6.25%) Security Operations Centre
6 5 (5.21%) Video Conferencing
7 4 (4.17%) Cyber Security Posture
7 4 (4.17%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (4.17%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (2.08%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (2.08%) Cloud Native
8 2 (2.08%) Cloud Security Posture
8 2 (2.08%) Educational Technology
8 2 (2.08%) NHS
9 1 (1.04%) AS400
9 1 (1.04%) Enterprise Storage
9 1 (1.04%) iSeries
9 1 (1.04%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 21 (21.88%) Windows
2 10 (10.42%) Windows 10
3 4 (4.17%) Windows Server 2019
4 3 (3.13%) Windows Server
5 1 (1.04%) Android
5 1 (1.04%) Apple iOS
5 1 (1.04%) Linux
5 1 (1.04%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 64 (66.67%) Cybersecurity
2 38 (39.58%) Information Security
3 37 (38.54%) Continuous Improvement
4 26 (27.08%) Problem-Solving
5 17 (17.71%) Disaster Recovery
6 15 (15.63%) Incident Response
6 15 (15.63%) Security Operations
7 14 (14.58%) Business Continuity
7 14 (14.58%) ITIL
8 13 (13.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 11 (11.46%) Cloud Security
9 11 (11.46%) Risk Management
9 11 (11.46%) Roadmaps
10 10 (10.42%) Agile
10 10 (10.42%) Migration
11 9 (9.38%) Regulatory Change
11 9 (9.38%) Threat Detection
12 8 (8.33%) Data Protection
12 8 (8.33%) Service Delivery
13 7 (7.29%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 10 (10.42%) PowerShell
2 3 (3.13%) SQL
3 2 (2.08%) Bicep
3 2 (2.08%) Kusto Query Language
4 1 (1.04%) Python
Qualifications
1 18 (18.75%) CISSP
1 18 (18.75%) CREST Certified
2 17 (17.71%) CISM
3 11 (11.46%) Microsoft Certification
4 10 (10.42%) Security Cleared
5 9 (9.38%) AWS Certification
5 9 (9.38%) SC Cleared
6 8 (8.33%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (7.29%) Degree
8 6 (6.25%) CRISC
9 5 (5.21%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 5 (5.21%) A+ Certification
9 5 (5.21%) CCSP
9 5 (5.21%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (4.17%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 4 (4.17%) Azure Certification
10 4 (4.17%) CEH
10 4 (4.17%) Computer Science Degree
10 4 (4.17%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 4 (4.17%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 96 (100.00%) Cyber Essentials
2 76 (79.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 29 (30.21%) GDPR
3 29 (30.21%) NIST
4 23 (23.96%) GRC
5 20 (20.83%) NCSC
5 20 (20.83%) SOC 2
6 18 (18.75%) PCI DSS
7 16 (16.67%) SOC 3
8 6 (6.25%) ISO 9001
9 4 (4.17%) ISO 22301
9 4 (4.17%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 3 (3.13%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (2.08%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 1 (1.04%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 1 (1.04%) ISO 14001
System Software
1 16 (16.67%) Active Directory
2 5 (5.21%) Docker
3 3 (3.13%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (2.08%) Hyper-V
5 1 (1.04%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 13 (13.54%) Microsoft Intune
2 2 (2.08%) Terraform
3 1 (1.04%) Jamf Pro
3 1 (1.04%) Kubernetes
3 1 (1.04%) Nessus
3 1 (1.04%) Nmap
3 1 (1.04%) RSA Archer
3 1 (1.04%) SCCM
3 1 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 46 (47.92%) Microsoft
2 8 (8.33%) Cisco
3 7 (7.29%) Meraki
4 6 (6.25%) VMware
5 4 (4.17%) Palo Alto
6 3 (3.13%) Google
6 3 (3.13%) Infor
6 3 (3.13%) Tenable
7 1 (1.04%) Acronis
7 1 (1.04%) arcserve
7 1 (1.04%) Avaya
7 1 (1.04%) CrowdStrike
7 1 (1.04%) Exabeam
7 1 (1.04%) Genesys
7 1 (1.04%) IBM
7 1 (1.04%) Okta
7 1 (1.04%) Qualys
7 1 (1.04%) SAP
7 1 (1.04%) Trend Micro
7 1 (1.04%) Xero