Cybersecurity Engineer Job Trends

Cybersecurity Engineer
UK

The median Cybersecurity Engineer salary in the UK is £67,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 18 September 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 623 605 662
Rank change year-on-year -18 +57 -64
Permanent jobs requiring a Cybersecurity Engineer 183 70 129
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.16% 0.14% 0.17%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.17% 0.16% 0.17%
Number of salaries quoted 131 64 94
10th Percentile £46,939 £50,000 -
25th Percentile £55,000 £56,094 £46,713
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £65,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.85% +8.33% -6.98%
75th Percentile £76,125 £78,750 £85,938
90th Percentile £80,000 £95,000 £94,625
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £62,500 £50,309
% change year-on-year +4.00% +24.23% -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 107,455 44,314 74,420
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.24% 89.66% 95.24%
Number of salaries quoted 73,770 26,055 44,614
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,250 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,589 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +6.53% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £75,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £92,500
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 18 September 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 18 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 +6 176 £68,500 +5.38% 186
UK excluding London -52 130 £65,000 +4.00% 125
Midlands +9 57 £65,000 +22.42% 32
Work from Home +7 57 £73,500 +3.61% 62
London -25 49 £75,000 -13.04% 63
East Midlands - 48 £65,000 - 10
South East -29 38 £70,000 +7.69% 29
North of England -51 24 £55,000 -15.38% 28
North West -11 12 £55,000 -15.38% 19
Yorkshire - 11 £55,000 - 5
West Midlands -39 9 £60,000 +13.01% 22
East of England -31 5 £80,000 +90.09% 23
Northern Ireland -74 4 - - 1
Scotland +3 1 - - 10
South West -86 1 £40,000 -36.00% 2
North East - 1 £50,000 - 4

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

For the 6 months to 18 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.

1 183 (100.00%) Cybersecurity
2 68 (37.16%) Azure
3 64 (34.97%) Security Operations
4 62 (33.88%) SIEM
5 53 (28.96%) Microsoft
6 45 (24.59%) Vulnerability Management
7 40 (21.86%) Firewall
8 39 (21.31%) AI
8 39 (21.31%) Incident Response
9 38 (20.77%) Threat Detection
10 35 (19.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 33 (18.03%) NIST
11 33 (18.03%) Python
12 31 (16.94%) Cloud Security
13 30 (16.39%) Azure Sentinel
14 29 (15.85%) Entra ID
15 28 (15.30%) CISSP
16 27 (14.75%) DevOps
17 26 (14.21%) Degree
18 25 (13.66%) Microsoft 365
19 24 (13.11%) Information Security
19 24 (13.11%) Penetration Testing
20 23 (12.57%) Qualys
21 22 (12.02%) Business Continuity
21 22 (12.02%) Palo Alto
21 22 (12.02%) Software Engineering
22 21 (11.48%) SC Cleared
22 21 (11.48%) Security Cleared
23 20 (10.93%) Problem-Solving
24 19 (10.38%) AWS

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 (4.37%) IIS
2 2 (1.09%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
Business Applications
1 1 (0.55%) FLEXCUBE
Cloud Services
1 68 (37.16%) Azure
2 30 (16.39%) Azure Sentinel
3 29 (15.85%) Entra ID
4 25 (13.66%) Microsoft 365
5 19 (10.38%) AWS
6 16 (8.74%) Microsoft Purview
7 13 (7.10%) Mimecast
8 9 (4.92%) GCP
9 4 (2.19%) Akamai
10 3 (1.64%) Microsoft Copilot
11 2 (1.09%) Cloud Computing
11 2 (1.09%) Cloudflare
11 2 (1.09%) Serverless
11 2 (1.09%) Sumo Logic
12 1 (0.55%) Amazon Kinesis
12 1 (0.55%) Amazon S3
12 1 (0.55%) AWS CloudFormation
12 1 (0.55%) Tessian
Communications & Networking
1 40 (21.86%) Firewall
2 15 (8.20%) Network Security
3 14 (7.65%) Internet
3 14 (7.65%) LAN
3 14 (7.65%) WAN
3 14 (7.65%) Wi-Fi
4 12 (6.56%) VPN
5 11 (6.01%) Cisco Nexus
6 7 (3.83%) Cisco ISE
7 4 (2.19%) Intrusion Detection
7 4 (2.19%) TCP/IP
8 2 (1.09%) SSH
8 2 (1.09%) SSL
9 1 (0.55%) Cisco Firepower
9 1 (0.55%) DMARC
9 1 (0.55%) DNS
9 1 (0.55%) IPsec
9 1 (0.55%) NetScaler
9 1 (0.55%) NGFW
9 1 (0.55%) Unified Communications
Development Applications
1 4 (2.19%) JIRA
2 1 (0.55%) Yeoman
General
1 31 (16.94%) Social Skills
2 20 (10.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 15 (8.20%) Analytical Skills
4 11 (6.01%) Finance
4 11 (6.01%) Law
5 9 (4.92%) Retail
6 7 (3.83%) Cyber-Physical System
7 6 (3.28%) Legal
7 6 (3.28%) Police
8 4 (2.19%) Banking
9 2 (1.09%) Public Sector
10 1 (0.55%) Automotive
10 1 (0.55%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (3.28%) Regular Expression
2 5 (2.73%) Terraform
3 1 (0.55%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 34 (18.58%) Cyber Threat
2 24 (13.11%) Security Posture
3 15 (8.20%) Management Information System
3 15 (8.20%) Operational Technology
3 15 (8.20%) Security Operations Centre
4 10 (5.46%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 9 (4.92%) Cyberattack
6 7 (3.83%) AI Agents
6 7 (3.83%) Legacy Systems
6 7 (3.83%) Onboarding
7 6 (3.28%) Low-Code
8 5 (2.73%) Cyber Kill Chain
8 5 (2.73%) Embedded Systems
9 4 (2.19%) SCADA
9 4 (2.19%) Self-Motivation
10 2 (1.09%) Cloud Security Posture
10 2 (1.09%) Data Protection Act
10 2 (1.09%) Driving Licence
10 2 (1.09%) PKI
11 1 (0.55%) Cyber Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 14 (7.65%) Linux
2 10 (5.46%) Windows
3 7 (3.83%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.55%) Unix
4 1 (0.55%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 183 (100.00%) Cybersecurity
2 64 (34.97%) Security Operations
3 62 (33.88%) SIEM
4 45 (24.59%) Vulnerability Management
5 39 (21.31%) AI
5 39 (21.31%) Incident Response
6 38 (20.77%) Threat Detection
7 31 (16.94%) Cloud Security
8 27 (14.75%) DevOps
9 24 (13.11%) Information Security
9 24 (13.11%) Penetration Testing
10 22 (12.02%) Business Continuity
10 22 (12.02%) Software Engineering
11 20 (10.93%) Problem-Solving
12 19 (10.38%) Continuous Improvement
13 18 (9.84%) Data Loss Prevention
13 18 (9.84%) Disaster Recovery
13 18 (9.84%) Risk Management
14 17 (9.29%) Computer Science
15 16 (8.74%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 33 (18.03%) Python
2 18 (9.84%) PowerShell
3 8 (4.37%) SQL
4 5 (2.73%) C++
5 3 (1.64%) Bash
5 3 (1.64%) Kusto Query Language
6 2 (1.09%) JavaScript
6 2 (1.09%) Rust
7 1 (0.55%) Search Processing Language
7 1 (0.55%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 28 (15.30%) CISSP
2 26 (14.21%) Degree
3 21 (11.48%) SC Cleared
3 21 (11.48%) Security Cleared
4 19 (10.38%) CompTIA Security+
5 13 (7.10%) CISM
6 12 (6.56%) CEH
6 12 (6.56%) Cisco Certification
7 10 (5.46%) Master's Degree
8 8 (4.37%) CCNA
9 7 (3.83%) Computer Science Degree
9 7 (3.83%) GIAC
10 6 (3.28%) CompTIA CySA+
11 5 (2.73%) SANS
12 4 (2.19%) CCNP
12 4 (2.19%) DBS Check
13 3 (1.64%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 3 (1.64%) CCSP
13 3 (1.64%) GCIA
14 2 (1.09%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (19.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 33 (18.03%) NIST
3 18 (9.84%) Cyber Essentials
4 9 (4.92%) PCI DSS
5 6 (3.28%) GDPR
6 5 (2.73%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 5 (2.73%) GRC
7 4 (2.19%) NCSC
8 1 (0.55%) SLA
System Software
1 15 (8.20%) Firmware
2 7 (3.83%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 9 (4.92%) Single Sign-On
2 6 (3.28%) Microsoft Intune
3 5 (2.73%) Kubernetes
4 2 (1.09%) Nessus
5 1 (0.55%) Ansible
5 1 (0.55%) Network Intrusion Detection System
5 1 (0.55%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 53 (28.96%) Microsoft
2 23 (12.57%) Qualys
3 22 (12.02%) Palo Alto
4 19 (10.38%) Cisco
5 18 (9.84%) CrowdStrike
6 11 (6.01%) Aruba
7 8 (4.37%) Splunk
8 4 (2.19%) CyberArk
8 4 (2.19%) New Relic
8 4 (2.19%) Rapid7
8 4 (2.19%) SolarWinds
8 4 (2.19%) Zerto
9 3 (1.64%) AlienVault
9 3 (1.64%) Netskope
9 3 (1.64%) Tenable
10 2 (1.09%) Darktrace
10 2 (1.09%) Fortinet
11 1 (0.55%) F5
11 1 (0.55%) Oracle
11 1 (0.55%) Thales