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

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 414 435 462
Rank change year-on-year +21 +27 +238
Permanent jobs citing Cyber Essentials PLUS 92 116 98
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.22% 0.32% 0.28%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 1.94% 2.05% 2.00%
Number of salaries quoted 81 42 77
10th Percentile £26,250 £33,600 £31,150
25th Percentile £32,500 £42,125 £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 £64,500 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £72,500 £87,625 £72,116
UK median annual salary £62,500 £65,000 £58,500
% change year-on-year -3.85% +11.11% -2.50%

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 4,737 5,664 4,907
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 11.29% 15.75% 14.15%
Number of salaries quoted 2,482 2,369 3,432
10th Percentile £29,000 £30,000 £27,750
25th Percentile £35,000 £38,734 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +3.96% +1.00%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £82,500 £83,750 £78,750
UK median annual salary £58,000 £60,000 £57,965
% change year-on-year -3.33% +3.51% +0.81%

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 12 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 12 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 +13 33 £62,500 +13.64% 18
Midlands +30 25 £55,000 - 13
North of England +5 22 £45,000 +12.50% 8
West Midlands +29 15 £57,500 -5.86% 8
Yorkshire -10 11 £45,000 -14.29% 1
South West +4 10 £55,000 - 10
East Midlands -3 10 £46,250 -2.63% 5
North West +24 7 £27,500 -31.25% 4
North East +8 4 £105,000 +191.67% 3
Scotland 0 2 £63,750 +27.50% 2
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 17 (18.48%) Microsoft Exchange
2 16 (17.39%) SharePoint
3 10 (10.87%) WordPress
4 5 (5.43%) Drupal
4 5 (5.43%) nginx
5 4 (4.35%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 8 (8.70%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (4.35%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 44 (47.83%) Microsoft 365
2 28 (30.43%) Azure
3 22 (23.91%) AWS
4 19 (20.65%) Entra ID
5 10 (10.87%) Dynamics 365
5 10 (10.87%) OneDrive
6 8 (8.70%) Cloud Computing
6 8 (8.70%) SaaS
7 7 (7.61%) Power Platform
8 5 (5.43%) Azure Sentinel
8 5 (5.43%) Power Automate
9 4 (4.35%) Microsoft Purview
10 3 (3.26%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 3 (3.26%) IaaS
10 3 (3.26%) PaaS
11 1 (1.09%) Amazon EKS
11 1 (1.09%) AWS Control Tower
11 1 (1.09%) Azure Key Vault
11 1 (1.09%) GCP
11 1 (1.09%) Mimecast
Communications & Networking
1 12 (13.04%) DHCP
1 12 (13.04%) DNS
1 12 (13.04%) Firewall
2 10 (10.87%) VPN
3 9 (9.78%) WAN
4 8 (8.70%) LAN
5 7 (7.61%) Wi-Fi
6 5 (5.43%) VLAN
7 4 (4.35%) SAN
8 3 (3.26%) Network Security
9 1 (1.09%) BGP
9 1 (1.09%) Internet
9 1 (1.09%) SD-WAN
9 1 (1.09%) Unified Communications
9 1 (1.09%) Wireless
9 1 (1.09%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (6.52%) Power BI
2 5 (5.43%) MariaDB
3 2 (2.17%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (1.09%) Burp Suite
1 1 (1.09%) JIRA
1 1 (1.09%) Metasploit
General
1 48 (52.17%) Social Skills
2 14 (15.22%) Organisational Skills
3 12 (13.04%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (9.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 7 (7.61%) Public Sector
6 5 (5.43%) Finance
6 5 (5.43%) Local Government
6 5 (5.43%) Police
7 3 (3.26%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (2.17%) Legal
8 2 (2.17%) Manufacturing
9 1 (1.09%) Electronics
9 1 (1.09%) Law
9 1 (1.09%) Marketing
9 1 (1.09%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 24 (26.09%) Security Manager
2 16 (17.39%) Cybersecurity Manager
3 14 (15.22%) IT Manager
3 14 (15.22%) Security Assurance Manager
4 12 (13.04%) Analyst
5 10 (10.87%) IT Support
6 9 (9.78%) Infrastructure Support
7 8 (8.70%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 8 (8.70%) Support Technician
8 7 (7.61%) IT Security Manager
9 6 (6.52%) Head of IT
9 6 (6.52%) Operations Manager
9 6 (6.52%) Support Engineer
10 5 (5.43%) Information Security Manager
10 5 (5.43%) Infrastructure Manager
10 5 (5.43%) Infrastructure Specialist
10 5 (5.43%) Infrastructure Support Specialist
10 5 (5.43%) IT Operations Manager
10 5 (5.43%) Security Specialist
10 5 (5.43%) Support Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (5.43%) HTML
2 1 (1.09%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 16 (17.39%) Onboarding
2 14 (15.22%) Security Posture
3 10 (10.87%) Management Information System
4 9 (9.78%) Replication
5 5 (5.43%) Cyber Threat
5 5 (5.43%) Video Conferencing
6 4 (4.35%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (4.35%) Driving Licence
6 4 (4.35%) Security Operations Centre
6 4 (4.35%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (2.17%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (2.17%) Cloud Native
7 2 (2.17%) Cloud Security Posture
7 2 (2.17%) Cyber Security Posture
7 2 (2.17%) Educational Technology
8 1 (1.09%) iSeries
8 1 (1.09%) Legacy Applications
8 1 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (1.09%) Robotics
8 1 (1.09%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 23 (25.00%) Windows
2 13 (14.13%) Windows 10
3 6 (6.52%) Windows Server
4 4 (4.35%) Mac OS
4 4 (4.35%) Windows Server 2019
5 1 (1.09%) Android
5 1 (1.09%) Apple iOS
5 1 (1.09%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 57 (61.96%) Cybersecurity
2 42 (45.65%) Information Security
3 31 (33.70%) Continuous Improvement
4 27 (29.35%) Problem-Solving
5 17 (18.48%) ITIL
6 15 (16.30%) Agile
7 14 (15.22%) Business Continuity
7 14 (15.22%) Security Operations
8 13 (14.13%) Risk Management
9 12 (13.04%) Disaster Recovery
10 11 (11.96%) Migration
10 11 (11.96%) Process Improvement
10 11 (11.96%) Roadmaps
10 11 (11.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 10 (10.87%) Data Protection
11 10 (10.87%) Incident Response
12 9 (9.78%) Cloud Security
12 9 (9.78%) Service Management
12 9 (9.78%) Threat Detection
13 8 (8.70%) Regulatory Change
Programming Languages
1 8 (8.70%) PowerShell
2 3 (3.26%) SQL
3 2 (2.17%) Bicep
3 2 (2.17%) Kusto Query Language
4 1 (1.09%) Python
Qualifications
1 16 (17.39%) CREST Certified
2 15 (16.30%) CISSP
3 14 (15.22%) CISM
4 12 (13.04%) Microsoft Certification
5 10 (10.87%) Degree
6 9 (9.78%) AWS Certification
7 5 (5.43%) A+ Certification
7 5 (5.43%) SC Cleared
7 5 (5.43%) Security Cleared
8 4 (4.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 4 (4.35%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 4 (4.35%) Azure Certification
8 4 (4.35%) BPSS Clearance
8 4 (4.35%) CEH
8 4 (4.35%) Cisco Certification
8 4 (4.35%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (4.35%) CRISC
8 4 (4.35%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 4 (4.35%) Master's Degree
8 4 (4.35%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (100.00%) Cyber Essentials
2 71 (77.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 25 (27.17%) NIST
4 23 (25.00%) GDPR
4 23 (25.00%) GRC
5 18 (19.57%) SOC 2
6 17 (18.48%) NCSC
7 15 (16.30%) PCI DSS
8 14 (15.22%) SOC 3
9 6 (6.52%) ISO 9001
10 4 (4.35%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 4 (4.35%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 2 (2.17%) ISO 22301
12 1 (1.09%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 1 (1.09%) ISO 14001
System Software
1 17 (18.48%) Active Directory
2 6 (6.52%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (5.43%) Docker
3 5 (5.43%) Hyper-V
4 1 (1.09%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 14 (15.22%) Microsoft Intune
2 4 (4.35%) SCCM
3 2 (2.17%) Terraform
4 1 (1.09%) Jamf Pro
4 1 (1.09%) Kubernetes
4 1 (1.09%) Nessus
4 1 (1.09%) Nmap
4 1 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 45 (48.91%) Microsoft
2 9 (9.78%) VMware
3 6 (6.52%) Cisco
4 5 (5.43%) Meraki
5 4 (4.35%) arcserve
5 4 (4.35%) Palo Alto
6 3 (3.26%) Google
6 3 (3.26%) Tenable
7 1 (1.09%) Acronis
7 1 (1.09%) Avaya
7 1 (1.09%) CrowdStrike
7 1 (1.09%) Exabeam
7 1 (1.09%) Genesys
7 1 (1.09%) IBM
7 1 (1.09%) Infor
7 1 (1.09%) Okta
7 1 (1.09%) Qualys
7 1 (1.09%) SAP
7 1 (1.09%) Trend Micro