Cybersecurity Engineer Job Trends

Cybersecurity Engineer
UK

The median Cybersecurity Engineer salary in the UK is £70,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 6 October 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 609 598 644
Rank change year-on-year -11 +46 -77
Permanent jobs requiring a Cybersecurity Engineer 210 68 125
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.14% 0.17%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.19% 0.15% 0.18%
Number of salaries quoted 155 61 90
10th Percentile £46,939 £50,000 -
25th Percentile £55,500 £53,750 £46,713
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £65,000 £58,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% +12.07% -10.08%
75th Percentile £77,000 £77,500 £81,250
90th Percentile £83,500 £95,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £60,000 £50,309
% change year-on-year +8.33% +19.26% -16.15%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 109,799 44,474 69,871
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.81% 89.76% 95.31%
Number of salaries quoted 74,691 25,606 40,305
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,000 £31,000
25th Percentile £40,750 £35,718 £41,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,589 £54,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.50% -0.91% -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,000 £73,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £46,566 £50,000
% change year-on-year +18.11% -6.87% -4.76%

Cybersecurity Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Cybersecurity Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Cybersecurity Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Cybersecurity Engineer
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Cybersecurity Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Cybersecurity Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Cybersecurity Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Cybersecurity Engineer over the 6 months to 6 October 2026.

Salary histogram for Cybersecurity Engineer in the UK

Cybersecurity Engineer
Top 16 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Cybersecurity Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 6 October 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
England +8 200 £70,000 +7.69% 186
UK excluding London -46 145 £65,000 +8.33% 129
Work from Home +1 66 £73,500 +9.39% 81
Midlands +3 62 £65,000 +22.42% 19
London -24 62 £76,000 -10.59% 75
East Midlands - 48 £65,000 - 5
South East -25 42 £70,000 +7.69% 36
North of England -50 24 £55,000 -15.38% 26
West Midlands -24 14 £60,000 +13.01% 14
Yorkshire - 11 £55,000 - 7
North West -29 10 £55,000 -15.38% 16
East of England -27 8 £80,000 +57.50% 14
Scotland +1 4 £35,000 -39.13% 17
Northern Ireland -85 4 - - 7
North East - 3 £50,000 - 3
South West -75 1 £40,000 -36.00% 9

Cybersecurity Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 6 October 2026, Cybersecurity Engineer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads featuring Cybersecurity Engineer in the job title.

1 210 (100.00%) Cybersecurity
2 80 (38.10%) Azure
3 65 (30.95%) SIEM
4 64 (30.48%) Security Operations
5 61 (29.05%) Microsoft
6 50 (23.81%) Vulnerability Management
7 47 (22.38%) AI
8 43 (20.48%) Incident Response
9 42 (20.00%) Firewall
10 41 (19.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 38 (18.10%) Python
11 38 (18.10%) Threat Detection
12 37 (17.62%) NIST
13 36 (17.14%) Cloud Security
14 35 (16.67%) Entra ID
15 34 (16.19%) CISSP
16 30 (14.29%) Azure Sentinel
16 30 (14.29%) Degree
17 29 (13.81%) DevOps
18 28 (13.33%) Microsoft 365
19 27 (12.86%) Problem-Solving
19 27 (12.86%) Software Engineering
20 26 (12.38%) Penetration Testing
21 24 (11.43%) AWS
21 24 (11.43%) Information Security
22 23 (10.95%) Business Continuity
22 23 (10.95%) CompTIA Security+
22 23 (10.95%) Palo Alto
23 22 (10.48%) CrowdStrike
23 22 (10.48%) Data Loss Prevention

Cybersecurity Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 11 (5.24%) IIS
2 3 (1.43%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.95%) Microsoft Exchange
Business Applications
1 1 (0.48%) FLEXCUBE
Cloud Services
1 80 (38.10%) Azure
2 35 (16.67%) Entra ID
3 30 (14.29%) Azure Sentinel
4 28 (13.33%) Microsoft 365
5 24 (11.43%) AWS
6 19 (9.05%) Microsoft Purview
7 15 (7.14%) Mimecast
8 14 (6.67%) GCP
9 6 (2.86%) Microsoft Copilot
10 4 (1.90%) Akamai
11 2 (0.95%) AWS CloudFormation
11 2 (0.95%) Cloud Computing
11 2 (0.95%) Cloudflare
11 2 (0.95%) Serverless
11 2 (0.95%) Sumo Logic
12 1 (0.48%) Amazon Kinesis
12 1 (0.48%) Amazon S3
12 1 (0.48%) Tessian
Communications & Networking
1 42 (20.00%) Firewall
2 17 (8.10%) Network Security
3 14 (6.67%) Internet
3 14 (6.67%) LAN
3 14 (6.67%) VPN
3 14 (6.67%) WAN
3 14 (6.67%) Wi-Fi
4 11 (5.24%) Cisco Nexus
5 8 (3.81%) Cisco ISE
6 4 (1.90%) TCP/IP
7 3 (1.43%) Intrusion Detection
8 2 (0.95%) DHCP
8 2 (0.95%) DNS
8 2 (0.95%) HTTP
8 2 (0.95%) SSH
8 2 (0.95%) SSL
9 1 (0.48%) BGP
9 1 (0.48%) EIGRP
9 1 (0.48%) IPsec
9 1 (0.48%) OSPF
Development Applications
1 4 (1.90%) JIRA
2 1 (0.48%) Yeoman
General
1 33 (15.71%) Social Skills
2 16 (7.62%) Finance
2 16 (7.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 14 (6.67%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (4.29%) Law
5 7 (3.33%) Cyber-Physical System
6 6 (2.86%) Legal
7 5 (2.38%) Retail
8 4 (1.90%) Banking
9 3 (1.43%) Automotive
9 3 (1.43%) Public Sector
10 2 (0.95%) Back Office
10 2 (0.95%) Police
11 1 (0.48%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (4.29%) Terraform
2 4 (1.90%) Regular Expression
3 3 (1.43%) Node.js
3 3 (1.43%) React
4 2 (0.95%) JSON
4 2 (0.95%) LDAP
5 1 (0.48%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 42 (20.00%) Cyber Threat
2 27 (12.86%) Security Posture
3 18 (8.57%) Operational Technology
4 13 (6.19%) Security Operations Centre
5 11 (5.24%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 11 (5.24%) Management Information System
6 7 (3.33%) AI Agents
6 7 (3.33%) Embedded Systems
6 7 (3.33%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (2.38%) Cyber Kill Chain
7 5 (2.38%) Cyberattack
8 4 (1.90%) Cyber Defence
8 4 (1.90%) Onboarding
8 4 (1.90%) SCADA
8 4 (1.90%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (1.43%) Hackathon
9 3 (1.43%) PKI
10 2 (0.95%) Cloud Security Posture
10 2 (0.95%) Cyber Security Posture
10 2 (0.95%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 17 (8.10%) Linux
2 15 (7.14%) Windows
3 9 (4.29%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.95%) Windows Server 2016
4 2 (0.95%) Windows Server 2019
5 1 (0.48%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 210 (100.00%) Cybersecurity
2 65 (30.95%) SIEM
3 64 (30.48%) Security Operations
4 50 (23.81%) Vulnerability Management
5 47 (22.38%) AI
6 43 (20.48%) Incident Response
7 38 (18.10%) Threat Detection
8 36 (17.14%) Cloud Security
9 29 (13.81%) DevOps
10 27 (12.86%) Problem-Solving
10 27 (12.86%) Software Engineering
11 26 (12.38%) Penetration Testing
12 24 (11.43%) Information Security
13 23 (10.95%) Business Continuity
14 22 (10.48%) Data Loss Prevention
15 20 (9.52%) Continuous Improvement
16 19 (9.05%) Risk Management
16 19 (9.05%) Security Architecture
17 18 (8.57%) Disaster Recovery
17 18 (8.57%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 38 (18.10%) Python
2 19 (9.05%) PowerShell
3 10 (4.76%) SQL
4 6 (2.86%) C++
5 5 (2.38%) JavaScript
5 5 (2.38%) TypeScript
6 4 (1.90%) Bash
7 3 (1.43%) Kusto Query Language
7 3 (1.43%) Rust
8 1 (0.48%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 34 (16.19%) CISSP
2 30 (14.29%) Degree
3 23 (10.95%) CompTIA Security+
4 18 (8.57%) SC Cleared
4 18 (8.57%) Security Cleared
5 16 (7.62%) CISM
6 14 (6.67%) CEH
6 14 (6.67%) Cisco Certification
7 10 (4.76%) CCNA
7 10 (4.76%) Master's Degree
8 8 (3.81%) GIAC
9 7 (3.33%) Computer Science Degree
10 6 (2.86%) CompTIA CySA+
11 5 (2.38%) SANS
12 4 (1.90%) CCNP
12 4 (1.90%) DBS Check
13 3 (1.43%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 3 (1.43%) CCSP
13 3 (1.43%) GCIA
14 2 (0.95%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (19.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 37 (17.62%) NIST
3 21 (10.00%) Cyber Essentials
4 9 (4.29%) PCI DSS
5 7 (3.33%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 6 (2.86%) GDPR
6 6 (2.86%) GRC
7 4 (1.90%) NCSC
8 1 (0.48%) SLA
System Software
1 18 (8.57%) Firmware
2 13 (6.19%) Active Directory
3 3 (1.43%) Docker
4 2 (0.95%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.95%) NFS
4 2 (0.95%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.95%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 11 (5.24%) Single Sign-On
2 9 (4.29%) Kubernetes
3 7 (3.33%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (0.95%) Ansible
4 2 (0.95%) Nessus
4 2 (0.95%) Progress Chef
5 1 (0.48%) Network Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 61 (29.05%) Microsoft
2 23 (10.95%) Palo Alto
3 22 (10.48%) CrowdStrike
3 22 (10.48%) Qualys
4 20 (9.52%) Cisco
5 11 (5.24%) Aruba
6 8 (3.81%) Splunk
7 7 (3.33%) CyberArk
7 7 (3.33%) Rapid7
8 5 (2.38%) Netskope
9 4 (1.90%) New Relic
9 4 (1.90%) SolarWinds
9 4 (1.90%) Zerto
10 3 (1.43%) AlienVault
10 3 (1.43%) Google
11 2 (0.95%) Darktrace
11 2 (0.95%) Fortinet
11 2 (0.95%) Tenable
11 2 (0.95%) VMware
12 1 (0.48%) Exabeam