SOC 2 Job Trends in the UK excluding London

System and Organization Controls (SOC) 2
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring SOC 2 skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 471 534 552
Rank change year-on-year +63 +18 +198
Permanent jobs citing SOC 2 38 32 21
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.090% 0.089% 0.061%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 0.80% 0.57% 0.43%
Number of salaries quoted 33 12 19
10th Percentile £48,250 £54,375 £42,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £60,000 £48,125
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £74,250 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -12.46% +35.00% -19.71%
75th Percentile £75,000 £85,625 £63,750
90th Percentile £93,000 £102,500 £72,500
UK median annual salary £65,000 £82,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year -21.21% +32.00% -25.37%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK excluding London

SOC 2 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 4,774 5,654 4,882
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 11.26% 15.74% 14.15%
Number of salaries quoted 2,514 2,359 3,409
10th Percentile £29,000 £30,229 £27,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £39,750 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -
75th Percentile £65,543 £70,821 £65,000
90th Percentile £82,500 £83,750 £78,750
UK median annual salary £58,500 £60,000 £57,965
% change year-on-year -2.50% +3.51% +0.81%

SOC 2
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing SOC 2 relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

SOC 2 job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

SOC 2
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SOC 2.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SOC 2

SOC 2
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing SOC 2 in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 14 January 2026.

Salary histogram for SOC 2 in the UK excluding London

SOC 2
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 SOC 2 within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 14 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 +49 21 £65,000 +8.33% 40
North of England +12 5 £45,000 - 26
Yorkshire - 5 £45,000 - 15
Wales - 4 £85,000 - 8
South West +14 3 £50,000 -28.57% 19
East of England +22 2 £100,000 +250.88% 24
West Midlands +19 2 £55,000 -45.00% 4
Midlands +19 2 £55,000 -45.00% 17
Scotland -4 1 £70,000 -6.67% 5
SOC 2
UK

SOC 2
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:

Applications
1 1 (2.63%) Trello
Cloud Services
1 12 (31.58%) AWS
2 11 (28.95%) Azure
2 11 (28.95%) SaaS
3 7 (18.42%) GCP
4 2 (5.26%) Amazon Bedrock
4 2 (5.26%) Amazon EKS
4 2 (5.26%) Amazon EventBridge
4 2 (5.26%) Amazon GuardDuty
4 2 (5.26%) Amazon Kinesis
4 2 (5.26%) Amazon SQS
4 2 (5.26%) AWS Lambda
4 2 (5.26%) AWS Step Functions
4 2 (5.26%) Azure AKS
4 2 (5.26%) Microsoft 365
4 2 (5.26%) Serverless
5 1 (2.63%) Asana
5 1 (2.63%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (2.63%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (2.63%) OCI
5 1 (2.63%) Zapier
Communications & Networking
1 6 (15.79%) Firewall
2 4 (10.53%) DNS
2 4 (10.53%) SSL
3 2 (5.26%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (5.26%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 1 (2.63%) Burp Suite
1 1 (2.63%) Git
1 1 (2.63%) GitLab
1 1 (2.63%) Jenkins
General
1 18 (47.37%) Social Skills
2 16 (42.11%) Organisational Skills
3 9 (23.68%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (10.53%) Finance
4 4 (10.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 3 (7.89%) Influencing Skills
5 3 (7.89%) Legal
6 2 (5.26%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (2.63%) Automotive
7 1 (2.63%) Law
7 1 (2.63%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 19 (50.00%) Security Manager
2 16 (42.11%) Cybersecurity Manager
3 14 (36.84%) Security Assurance Manager
4 4 (10.53%) Analyst
4 4 (10.53%) Cloud Engineer
4 4 (10.53%) Head of Cybersecurity
4 4 (10.53%) Head of IT
4 4 (10.53%) Risk Manager
4 4 (10.53%) Security Analyst
5 3 (7.89%) IT Analyst
5 3 (7.89%) IT Manager
5 3 (7.89%) IT Risk Manager
5 3 (7.89%) IT Security Analyst
5 3 (7.89%) IT Security Manager
6 2 (5.26%) Applications Engineer
6 2 (5.26%) Cloud Software Engineer
6 2 (5.26%) Consultant
6 2 (5.26%) Principal Engineer
6 2 (5.26%) Principal Software Engineer
6 2 (5.26%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (5.26%) AngularJS
1 2 (5.26%) Hugging Face
1 2 (5.26%) Kafka
1 2 (5.26%) Node.js
1 2 (5.26%) Nuxt
1 2 (5.26%) RabbitMQ
1 2 (5.26%) React
1 2 (5.26%) SLSA
1 2 (5.26%) Vue
2 1 (2.63%) .NET
2 1 (2.63%) .NET Framework
2 1 (2.63%) ASP.NET Web API
2 1 (2.63%) OpenAPI
2 1 (2.63%) REST
2 1 (2.63%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 14 (36.84%) Security Posture
2 6 (15.79%) Onboarding
3 4 (10.53%) Cloud Native
3 4 (10.53%) Cyber Threat
3 4 (10.53%) Digital Media
3 4 (10.53%) Security Operations Centre
4 3 (7.89%) Management Information System
5 2 (5.26%) Analytical Mindset
5 2 (5.26%) Cloud Security Posture
5 2 (5.26%) Distributed Systems
5 2 (5.26%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (2.63%) IoT
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (71.05%) Cybersecurity
2 23 (60.53%) Information Security
3 22 (57.89%) Continuous Improvement
4 8 (21.05%) Cloud Security
4 8 (21.05%) Incident Response
4 8 (21.05%) Regulatory Change
5 7 (18.42%) Data Protection
5 7 (18.42%) Risk Management
5 7 (18.42%) SIEM
6 6 (15.79%) CI/CD
6 6 (15.79%) Problem-Solving
7 5 (13.16%) Risk Register
7 5 (13.16%) Roadmaps
7 5 (13.16%) Security Operations
7 5 (13.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 4 (10.53%) Computer Science
8 4 (10.53%) Identity Management
8 4 (10.53%) ITIL
8 4 (10.53%) Network Architecture
8 4 (10.53%) Risk Assessment
Programming Languages
1 2 (5.26%) Bicep
1 2 (5.26%) Python
2 1 (2.63%) C#
2 1 (2.63%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 15 (39.47%) CREST Certified
2 7 (18.42%) CISSP
3 6 (15.79%) CEH
4 5 (13.16%) Degree
4 5 (13.16%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
5 4 (10.53%) CISM
5 4 (10.53%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
6 2 (5.26%) AWS Certification
6 2 (5.26%) AWS Certified Developer
6 2 (5.26%) CISA
6 2 (5.26%) CompTIA CySA+
6 2 (5.26%) CompTIA Security+
6 2 (5.26%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (94.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 31 (81.58%) GDPR
3 29 (76.32%) NIST
4 26 (68.42%) Cyber Essentials
5 21 (55.26%) GRC
6 18 (47.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 16 (42.11%) PCI DSS
8 15 (39.47%) NCSC
9 14 (36.84%) SOC 3
10 4 (10.53%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (5.26%) HIPAA
11 2 (5.26%) QA
11 2 (5.26%) SLA
12 1 (2.63%) COBIT
12 1 (2.63%) NIST 800
12 1 (2.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 2 (5.26%) Docker
Systems Management
1 4 (10.53%) Kubernetes
1 4 (10.53%) Terraform
2 1 (2.63%) Ansible
2 1 (2.63%) CASB
2 1 (2.63%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 5 (13.16%) Microsoft
2 2 (5.26%) OpenAI
3 1 (2.63%) DocuSign
3 1 (2.63%) Oracle
3 1 (2.63%) Salesforce
3 1 (2.63%) ServiceNow
3 1 (2.63%) Tenable