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 10 October 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 592 598 627
Rank change year-on-year +6 +29 -54
Permanent jobs requiring a Cybersecurity Engineer 215 69 125
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.14% 0.17%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.20% 0.16% 0.18%
Number of salaries quoted 159 62 90
10th Percentile £46,939 £50,000 -
25th Percentile £55,500 £53,750 £46,713
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £65,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% +13.04% -11.20%
75th Percentile £77,250 £83,438 £81,250
90th Percentile £85,000 £94,625 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £59,750 £50,309
% change year-on-year +8.79% +18.77% -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 109,405 44,412 69,302
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.66% 89.84% 95.38%
Number of salaries quoted 74,287 25,750 39,695
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,750 £35,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,396 £53,688 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.77% -2.39% -8.33%
75th Percentile £76,250 £73,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £46,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +19.57% -8.00% -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 10 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 10 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 +12 205 £70,000 +7.69% 204
UK excluding London -28 148 £65,000 +8.79% 155
Work from Home -12 68 £73,500 +13.08% 90
Midlands +20 65 £65,000 +22.42% 23
London -2 64 £77,000 -10.98% 80
East Midlands - 50 £65,000 - 6
South East -37 42 £70,000 +7.69% 37
North of England -42 24 £55,000 -15.38% 31
West Midlands -35 15 £65,000 +22.42% 17
Yorkshire - 12 £55,000 - 8
North West -21 9 £55,000 -15.38% 20
East of England -34 8 £80,000 +57.50% 13
Scotland +12 4 £35,000 -39.13% 22
Northern Ireland -75 4 - - 8
North East - 3 £50,000 - 3
South West -75 1 £40,000 -29.02% 15

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

For the 6 months to 10 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.

1 215 (100.00%) Cybersecurity
2 84 (39.07%) Azure
3 64 (29.77%) Microsoft
4 63 (29.30%) SIEM
5 60 (27.91%) Security Operations
6 50 (23.26%) Vulnerability Management
7 48 (22.33%) AI
8 42 (19.53%) Incident Response
8 42 (19.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 39 (18.14%) Firewall
9 39 (18.14%) Python
10 38 (17.67%) Cloud Security
10 38 (17.67%) Threat Detection
11 37 (17.21%) Entra ID
12 36 (16.74%) NIST
13 33 (15.35%) CISSP
14 30 (13.95%) DevOps
15 29 (13.49%) Azure Sentinel
15 29 (13.49%) Microsoft 365
15 29 (13.49%) Software Engineering
16 28 (13.02%) Degree
17 26 (12.09%) Problem-Solving
18 25 (11.63%) Penetration Testing
19 24 (11.16%) AWS
19 24 (11.16%) CrowdStrike
20 23 (10.70%) Business Continuity
20 23 (10.70%) CompTIA Security+
20 23 (10.70%) Data Loss Prevention
20 23 (10.70%) Information Security
20 23 (10.70%) Palo Alto

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 (5.12%) IIS
2 3 (1.40%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.93%) Microsoft Exchange
Business Applications
1 1 (0.47%) FLEXCUBE
Cloud Services
1 84 (39.07%) Azure
2 37 (17.21%) Entra ID
3 29 (13.49%) Azure Sentinel
3 29 (13.49%) Microsoft 365
4 24 (11.16%) AWS
5 21 (9.77%) Microsoft Purview
6 16 (7.44%) Mimecast
7 15 (6.98%) GCP
8 7 (3.26%) Microsoft Copilot
9 4 (1.86%) Akamai
10 2 (0.93%) AWS CloudFormation
10 2 (0.93%) Cloud Computing
10 2 (0.93%) Cloudflare
10 2 (0.93%) Serverless
10 2 (0.93%) Sumo Logic
11 1 (0.47%) Amazon Kinesis
11 1 (0.47%) Amazon S3
11 1 (0.47%) SaaS
11 1 (0.47%) Tessian
Communications & Networking
1 39 (18.14%) Firewall
2 18 (8.37%) Network Security
3 14 (6.51%) Internet
3 14 (6.51%) LAN
3 14 (6.51%) VPN
3 14 (6.51%) WAN
3 14 (6.51%) Wi-Fi
4 11 (5.12%) Cisco Nexus
5 8 (3.72%) Cisco ISE
6 3 (1.40%) TCP/IP
7 2 (0.93%) DHCP
7 2 (0.93%) DNS
7 2 (0.93%) HTTP
7 2 (0.93%) Intrusion Detection
7 2 (0.93%) SSH
7 2 (0.93%) SSL
8 1 (0.47%) BGP
8 1 (0.47%) Broadband
8 1 (0.47%) EIGRP
8 1 (0.47%) OSPF
Development Applications
1 4 (1.86%) JIRA
2 1 (0.47%) Yeoman
General
1 32 (14.88%) Social Skills
2 16 (7.44%) Finance
3 15 (6.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 12 (5.58%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (3.72%) Law
6 7 (3.26%) Cyber-Physical System
7 6 (2.79%) Legal
8 4 (1.86%) Automotive
8 4 (1.86%) Banking
9 3 (1.40%) Public Sector
9 3 (1.40%) Retail
10 2 (0.93%) Back Office
11 1 (0.47%) Documentation Skills
11 1 (0.47%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.47%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (4.65%) Terraform
2 4 (1.86%) Node.js
2 4 (1.86%) React
3 3 (1.40%) Regular Expression
4 2 (0.93%) JSON
4 2 (0.93%) LDAP
5 1 (0.47%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 41 (19.07%) Cyber Threat
2 26 (12.09%) Security Posture
3 19 (8.84%) Operational Technology
4 12 (5.58%) Security Operations Centre
5 11 (5.12%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 8 (3.72%) Embedded Systems
6 8 (3.72%) Management Information System
7 7 (3.26%) AI Agents
7 7 (3.26%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (2.33%) Cyber Defence
8 5 (2.33%) Cyber Kill Chain
9 4 (1.86%) Cyberattack
9 4 (1.86%) Hackathon
9 4 (1.86%) SCADA
10 3 (1.40%) Onboarding
10 3 (1.40%) PKI
11 2 (0.93%) Cloud Security Posture
11 2 (0.93%) Cyber Security Posture
11 2 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
11 2 (0.93%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 18 (8.37%) Linux
2 17 (7.91%) Windows
3 9 (4.19%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.93%) Windows Server 2016
4 2 (0.93%) Windows Server 2019
5 1 (0.47%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 215 (100.00%) Cybersecurity
2 63 (29.30%) SIEM
3 60 (27.91%) Security Operations
4 50 (23.26%) Vulnerability Management
5 48 (22.33%) AI
6 42 (19.53%) Incident Response
7 38 (17.67%) Cloud Security
7 38 (17.67%) Threat Detection
8 30 (13.95%) DevOps
9 29 (13.49%) Software Engineering
10 26 (12.09%) Problem-Solving
11 25 (11.63%) Penetration Testing
12 23 (10.70%) Business Continuity
12 23 (10.70%) Data Loss Prevention
12 23 (10.70%) Information Security
13 21 (9.77%) Security Architecture
14 19 (8.84%) Continuous Improvement
14 19 (8.84%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 19 (8.84%) SOAR
15 18 (8.37%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 39 (18.14%) Python
2 19 (8.84%) PowerShell
3 11 (5.12%) SQL
4 6 (2.79%) C++
4 6 (2.79%) JavaScript
4 6 (2.79%) TypeScript
5 5 (2.33%) Bash
6 3 (1.40%) Kusto Query Language
6 3 (1.40%) Rust
7 1 (0.47%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 33 (15.35%) CISSP
2 28 (13.02%) Degree
3 23 (10.70%) CompTIA Security+
4 17 (7.91%) CISM
4 17 (7.91%) SC Cleared
4 17 (7.91%) Security Cleared
5 14 (6.51%) CEH
6 13 (6.05%) Cisco Certification
7 9 (4.19%) CCNA
7 9 (4.19%) GIAC
7 9 (4.19%) Master's Degree
8 6 (2.79%) CompTIA CySA+
9 4 (1.86%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (1.86%) DBS Check
9 4 (1.86%) SANS
10 3 (1.40%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 3 (1.40%) CCNP
10 3 (1.40%) CCSP
11 2 (0.93%) GCIA
11 2 (0.93%) GSEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (19.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 36 (16.74%) NIST
3 21 (9.77%) Cyber Essentials
4 9 (4.19%) PCI DSS
5 8 (3.72%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 6 (2.79%) GDPR
6 6 (2.79%) GRC
7 4 (1.86%) NCSC
8 1 (0.47%) SLA
System Software
1 18 (8.37%) Firmware
2 13 (6.05%) Active Directory
3 4 (1.86%) Docker
4 2 (0.93%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.93%) NFS
4 2 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.93%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 11 (5.12%) Kubernetes
1 11 (5.12%) Single Sign-On
2 7 (3.26%) Microsoft Intune
3 2 (0.93%) Ansible
3 2 (0.93%) Nessus
3 2 (0.93%) Progress Chef
4 1 (0.47%) Network Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 64 (29.77%) Microsoft
2 24 (11.16%) CrowdStrike
3 23 (10.70%) Palo Alto
4 22 (10.23%) Qualys
5 20 (9.30%) Cisco
6 11 (5.12%) Aruba
7 8 (3.72%) CyberArk
7 8 (3.72%) Rapid7
7 8 (3.72%) Splunk
8 6 (2.79%) Netskope
9 4 (1.86%) Google
9 4 (1.86%) New Relic
9 4 (1.86%) SolarWinds
9 4 (1.86%) Zerto
10 3 (1.40%) AlienVault
11 2 (0.93%) Darktrace
11 2 (0.93%) Fortinet
11 2 (0.93%) Tenable
11 2 (0.93%) VMware
12 1 (0.47%) Exabeam