Cybersecurity Engineer Job Trends

Cybersecurity Engineer
UK

The median Cybersecurity Engineer salary in the UK is £66,250 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 2 September 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 624 601 673
Rank change year-on-year -23 +72 -71
Permanent jobs requiring a Cybersecurity Engineer 169 70 130
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.15% 0.14% 0.16%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.16% 0.16% 0.17%
Number of salaries quoted 120 63 104
10th Percentile £46,939 £50,000 £39,750
25th Percentile £55,000 £53,719 £46,713
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £66,250 £65,000 £58,000
Median % change year-on-year +1.92% +12.07% -10.77%
75th Percentile £75,688 £77,500 £81,250
90th Percentile £80,000 £95,000 £92,500
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 103,220 44,750 77,447
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.83% 89.79% 95.18%
Number of salaries quoted 70,976 26,578 49,466
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,750 £73,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £95,000 £91,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -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 2 September 2026.

Salary histogram for Cybersecurity Engineer in the UK

Cybersecurity Engineer
Top 15 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 2 September 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 -7 162 £68,000 +4.62% 111
UK excluding London -34 118 £65,000 +8.33% 84
Work from Home 0 55 £72,500 +4.49% 46
Midlands +6 51 £65,000 +22.42% 18
London -27 46 £75,000 -13.04% 34
East Midlands - 44 £65,000 - 9
South East -24 37 £70,000 +7.69% 19
North of England -43 19 £55,000 -15.38% 14
North West -14 10 £55,000 -15.38% 8
Yorkshire -38 9 £55,000 +4.76% 4
West Midlands -24 7 £60,000 +13.01% 9
East of England -24 5 £80,000 +73.75% 24
Northern Ireland -81 4 - -
Scotland +1 1 - - 6
South West -71 1 £40,000 -36.00% 6

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

For the 6 months to 2 September 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.

1 169 (100.00%) Cybersecurity
2 63 (37.28%) Azure
3 58 (34.32%) Security Operations
4 57 (33.73%) SIEM
5 48 (28.40%) Microsoft
6 41 (24.26%) Vulnerability Management
7 38 (22.49%) Firewall
8 36 (21.30%) Incident Response
9 34 (20.12%) Threat Detection
10 33 (19.53%) AI
11 32 (18.93%) Python
12 31 (18.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 31 (18.34%) NIST
13 30 (17.75%) Cloud Security
14 29 (17.16%) Azure Sentinel
15 27 (15.98%) CISSP
15 27 (15.98%) Degree
16 26 (15.38%) Information Security
17 25 (14.79%) Entra ID
18 24 (14.20%) Microsoft 365
19 23 (13.61%) Penetration Testing
19 23 (13.61%) Qualys
20 22 (13.02%) Software Engineering
21 21 (12.43%) Business Continuity
22 20 (11.83%) Palo Alto
22 20 (11.83%) SC Cleared
22 20 (11.83%) Security Cleared
23 19 (11.24%) DevOps
24 18 (10.65%) PowerShell
24 18 (10.65%) Problem-Solving

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 8 (4.73%) IIS
2 2 (1.18%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
Business Applications
1 1 (0.59%) FLEXCUBE
Cloud Services
1 63 (37.28%) Azure
2 29 (17.16%) Azure Sentinel
3 25 (14.79%) Entra ID
4 24 (14.20%) Microsoft 365
5 17 (10.06%) AWS
6 14 (8.28%) Microsoft Purview
7 10 (5.92%) Mimecast
8 8 (4.73%) GCP
9 3 (1.78%) Akamai
10 2 (1.18%) Cloud Computing
10 2 (1.18%) Serverless
10 2 (1.18%) Sumo Logic
11 1 (0.59%) Cloudflare
11 1 (0.59%) Microsoft Copilot
11 1 (0.59%) Tessian
Communications & Networking
1 38 (22.49%) Firewall
2 14 (8.28%) Network Security
3 13 (7.69%) Internet
3 13 (7.69%) LAN
3 13 (7.69%) WAN
3 13 (7.69%) Wi-Fi
4 10 (5.92%) Cisco Nexus
4 10 (5.92%) VPN
5 5 (2.96%) Cisco ISE
5 5 (2.96%) Intrusion Detection
6 4 (2.37%) TCP/IP
7 2 (1.18%) SSH
7 2 (1.18%) SSL
8 1 (0.59%) BGP
8 1 (0.59%) Cisco Firepower
8 1 (0.59%) DMARC
8 1 (0.59%) DNS
8 1 (0.59%) IPsec
8 1 (0.59%) NGFW
8 1 (0.59%) OSPF
Development Applications
1 4 (2.37%) JIRA
2 1 (0.59%) Yeoman
General
1 27 (15.98%) Social Skills
2 20 (11.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 15 (8.88%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (5.92%) Law
4 10 (5.92%) Retail
5 8 (4.73%) Finance
6 7 (4.14%) Cyber-Physical System
7 6 (3.55%) Legal
7 6 (3.55%) Police
8 3 (1.78%) Banking
9 1 (0.59%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.59%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (3.55%) Regular Expression
2 4 (2.37%) Terraform
3 1 (0.59%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 30 (17.75%) Cyber Threat
2 21 (12.43%) Security Posture
3 15 (8.88%) Management Information System
3 15 (8.88%) Operational Technology
3 15 (8.88%) Security Operations Centre
4 9 (5.33%) Cyberattack
5 7 (4.14%) AI Agents
5 7 (4.14%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 7 (4.14%) Legacy Systems
5 7 (4.14%) Onboarding
6 6 (3.55%) Low-Code
7 5 (2.96%) Cyber Kill Chain
8 4 (2.37%) Embedded Systems
8 4 (2.37%) SCADA
8 4 (2.37%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (1.78%) Driving Licence
10 2 (1.18%) Cloud Security Posture
10 2 (1.18%) PKI
11 1 (0.59%) Data Protection Act
11 1 (0.59%) Online Banking
Operating Systems
1 12 (7.10%) Linux
2 10 (5.92%) Windows
3 7 (4.14%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.59%) Unix
4 1 (0.59%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.59%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 169 (100.00%) Cybersecurity
2 58 (34.32%) Security Operations
3 57 (33.73%) SIEM
4 41 (24.26%) Vulnerability Management
5 36 (21.30%) Incident Response
6 34 (20.12%) Threat Detection
7 33 (19.53%) AI
8 30 (17.75%) Cloud Security
9 26 (15.38%) Information Security
10 23 (13.61%) Penetration Testing
11 22 (13.02%) Software Engineering
12 21 (12.43%) Business Continuity
13 19 (11.24%) DevOps
14 18 (10.65%) Problem-Solving
15 17 (10.06%) Computer Science
15 17 (10.06%) Continuous Improvement
15 17 (10.06%) Data Loss Prevention
15 17 (10.06%) Disaster Recovery
15 17 (10.06%) Risk Management
16 16 (9.47%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 32 (18.93%) Python
2 18 (10.65%) PowerShell
3 8 (4.73%) SQL
4 5 (2.96%) C++
5 3 (1.78%) Bash
6 2 (1.18%) JavaScript
6 2 (1.18%) Kusto Query Language
6 2 (1.18%) Rust
7 1 (0.59%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 27 (15.98%) CISSP
1 27 (15.98%) Degree
2 20 (11.83%) SC Cleared
2 20 (11.83%) Security Cleared
3 15 (8.88%) CompTIA Security+
4 13 (7.69%) CEH
5 12 (7.10%) Cisco Certification
6 11 (6.51%) CISM
7 10 (5.92%) Master's Degree
8 8 (4.73%) CCNA
9 7 (4.14%) Computer Science Degree
9 7 (4.14%) GIAC
10 5 (2.96%) SANS
11 4 (2.37%) CCNP
11 4 (2.37%) CompTIA CySA+
11 4 (2.37%) DBS Check
12 3 (1.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 3 (1.78%) CCSP
12 3 (1.78%) GCIA
13 2 (1.18%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (18.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 31 (18.34%) NIST
2 16 (9.47%) Cyber Essentials
3 7 (4.14%) PCI DSS
4 6 (3.55%) GDPR
5 5 (2.96%) GRC
6 4 (2.37%) NCSC
7 3 (1.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (0.59%) SLA
System Software
1 14 (8.28%) Firmware
2 7 (4.14%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 7 (4.14%) Single Sign-On
2 6 (3.55%) Microsoft Intune
3 5 (2.96%) Kubernetes
4 2 (1.18%) Nessus
5 1 (0.59%) Network Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 48 (28.40%) Microsoft
2 23 (13.61%) Qualys
3 20 (11.83%) Palo Alto
4 16 (9.47%) Cisco
5 15 (8.88%) CrowdStrike
6 10 (5.92%) Aruba
7 7 (4.14%) Splunk
8 4 (2.37%) New Relic
8 4 (2.37%) SolarWinds
8 4 (2.37%) Tenable
8 4 (2.37%) Zerto
9 3 (1.78%) AlienVault
9 3 (1.78%) CyberArk
9 3 (1.78%) Rapid7
10 2 (1.18%) Darktrace
10 2 (1.18%) Fortinet
10 2 (1.18%) Thales
11 1 (0.59%) Exabeam
11 1 (0.59%) iManage
11 1 (0.59%) Netskope