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 21 September 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 609 594 667
Rank change year-on-year -15 +73 -83
Permanent jobs requiring a Cybersecurity Engineer 190 71 129
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.16% 0.14% 0.17%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.18% 0.16% 0.17%
Number of salaries quoted 135 65 94
10th Percentile £48,163 £50,000 -
25th Percentile £55,000 £56,875 £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 £77,000 £77,500 £85,938
90th Percentile £80,000 £95,000 £94,625
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £63,750 £50,309
% change year-on-year +1.96% +26.72% -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 108,248 44,029 73,823
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.20% 89.64% 95.26%
Number of salaries quoted 74,086 25,880 44,136
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,500 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.27% - -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 21 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 21 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 +3 183 £68,500 +5.38% 202
UK excluding London -29 135 £65,000 +1.96% 126
Midlands +3 60 £65,000 +22.42% 27
Work from Home -13 59 £73,500 +5.93% 73
London -36 51 £75,000 -13.04% 85
East Midlands - 50 £65,000 - 6
South East -44 39 £70,000 +7.69% 28
North of England -53 24 £55,000 -15.38% 28
North West -29 12 £55,000 -15.38% 17
Yorkshire - 11 £55,000 - 7
West Midlands -42 10 £60,000 +13.01% 21
East of England -37 6 £80,000 +90.09% 24
Northern Ireland -78 4 - - 1
Scotland +13 1 - - 13
South West -70 1 £40,000 -36.00% 4
North East - 1 £50,000 - 4

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

For the 6 months to 21 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.

1 190 (100.00%) Cybersecurity
2 70 (36.84%) Azure
3 65 (34.21%) Security Operations
4 63 (33.16%) SIEM
5 55 (28.95%) Microsoft
6 45 (23.68%) Vulnerability Management
7 40 (21.05%) AI
7 40 (21.05%) Firewall
7 40 (21.05%) Incident Response
8 39 (20.53%) Threat Detection
9 36 (18.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 34 (17.89%) Python
11 33 (17.37%) NIST
12 31 (16.32%) Cloud Security
13 30 (15.79%) Azure Sentinel
13 30 (15.79%) CISSP
13 30 (15.79%) Entra ID
14 27 (14.21%) DevOps
15 26 (13.68%) Degree
15 26 (13.68%) Microsoft 365
16 24 (12.63%) Information Security
16 24 (12.63%) Penetration Testing
17 23 (12.11%) Qualys
18 22 (11.58%) Business Continuity
18 22 (11.58%) Palo Alto
18 22 (11.58%) Software Engineering
19 21 (11.05%) Problem-Solving
19 21 (11.05%) SC Cleared
19 21 (11.05%) Security Cleared
20 20 (10.53%) CompTIA Security+

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 10 (5.26%) IIS
2 2 (1.05%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
Business Applications
1 1 (0.53%) FLEXCUBE
Cloud Services
1 70 (36.84%) Azure
2 30 (15.79%) Azure Sentinel
2 30 (15.79%) Entra ID
3 26 (13.68%) Microsoft 365
4 19 (10.00%) AWS
5 17 (8.95%) Microsoft Purview
6 14 (7.37%) Mimecast
7 9 (4.74%) GCP
8 4 (2.11%) Akamai
8 4 (2.11%) Microsoft Copilot
9 2 (1.05%) Cloud Computing
9 2 (1.05%) Cloudflare
9 2 (1.05%) Serverless
9 2 (1.05%) Sumo Logic
10 1 (0.53%) Amazon Kinesis
10 1 (0.53%) Amazon S3
10 1 (0.53%) AWS CloudFormation
10 1 (0.53%) Tessian
Communications & Networking
1 40 (21.05%) Firewall
2 15 (7.89%) Network Security
3 14 (7.37%) Internet
3 14 (7.37%) LAN
3 14 (7.37%) WAN
3 14 (7.37%) Wi-Fi
4 12 (6.32%) VPN
5 11 (5.79%) Cisco Nexus
6 7 (3.68%) Cisco ISE
7 4 (2.11%) Intrusion Detection
7 4 (2.11%) TCP/IP
8 2 (1.05%) SSH
8 2 (1.05%) SSL
9 1 (0.53%) BGP
9 1 (0.53%) Broadband
9 1 (0.53%) DHCP
9 1 (0.53%) DNS
9 1 (0.53%) EIGRP
9 1 (0.53%) HTTP
9 1 (0.53%) OSPF
Development Applications
1 4 (2.11%) JIRA
2 1 (0.53%) Yeoman
General
1 32 (16.84%) Social Skills
2 20 (10.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 15 (7.89%) Analytical Skills
4 12 (6.32%) Finance
5 11 (5.79%) Law
6 9 (4.74%) Retail
7 7 (3.68%) Cyber-Physical System
8 6 (3.16%) Legal
8 6 (3.16%) Police
9 4 (2.11%) Banking
10 2 (1.05%) Public Sector
11 1 (0.53%) Automotive
11 1 (0.53%) Back Office
11 1 (0.53%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (3.68%) Regular Expression
2 5 (2.63%) Terraform
3 1 (0.53%) JSON
3 1 (0.53%) LDAP
3 1 (0.53%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 35 (18.42%) Cyber Threat
2 24 (12.63%) Security Posture
3 16 (8.42%) Operational Technology
3 16 (8.42%) Security Operations Centre
4 15 (7.89%) Management Information System
5 10 (5.26%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 9 (4.74%) Cyberattack
7 7 (3.68%) AI Agents
7 7 (3.68%) Legacy Systems
7 7 (3.68%) Onboarding
8 6 (3.16%) Low-Code
9 5 (2.63%) Cyber Kill Chain
9 5 (2.63%) Embedded Systems
10 4 (2.11%) SCADA
10 4 (2.11%) Self-Motivation
11 2 (1.05%) Cloud Security Posture
11 2 (1.05%) Data Protection Act
11 2 (1.05%) Driving Licence
11 2 (1.05%) PKI
12 1 (0.53%) Cloud Native
Operating Systems
1 14 (7.37%) Linux
2 11 (5.79%) Windows
3 7 (3.68%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.53%) Unix
4 1 (0.53%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.53%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 190 (100.00%) Cybersecurity
2 65 (34.21%) Security Operations
3 63 (33.16%) SIEM
4 45 (23.68%) Vulnerability Management
5 40 (21.05%) AI
5 40 (21.05%) Incident Response
6 39 (20.53%) Threat Detection
7 31 (16.32%) Cloud Security
8 27 (14.21%) DevOps
9 24 (12.63%) Information Security
9 24 (12.63%) Penetration Testing
10 22 (11.58%) Business Continuity
10 22 (11.58%) Software Engineering
11 21 (11.05%) Problem-Solving
12 19 (10.00%) Continuous Improvement
12 19 (10.00%) Data Loss Prevention
13 18 (9.47%) Disaster Recovery
13 18 (9.47%) Risk Management
14 17 (8.95%) Computer Science
14 17 (8.95%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 34 (17.89%) Python
2 19 (10.00%) PowerShell
3 9 (4.74%) SQL
4 5 (2.63%) C++
5 3 (1.58%) Bash
5 3 (1.58%) Kusto Query Language
6 2 (1.05%) JavaScript
6 2 (1.05%) Rust
7 1 (0.53%) Search Processing Language
7 1 (0.53%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 30 (15.79%) CISSP
2 26 (13.68%) Degree
3 21 (11.05%) SC Cleared
3 21 (11.05%) Security Cleared
4 20 (10.53%) CompTIA Security+
5 14 (7.37%) CISM
6 13 (6.84%) CEH
6 13 (6.84%) Cisco Certification
7 10 (5.26%) Master's Degree
8 9 (4.74%) CCNA
9 7 (3.68%) Computer Science Degree
9 7 (3.68%) GIAC
10 6 (3.16%) CompTIA CySA+
11 5 (2.63%) SANS
12 4 (2.11%) CCNP
12 4 (2.11%) DBS Check
13 3 (1.58%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 3 (1.58%) CCSP
13 3 (1.58%) GCIA
14 2 (1.05%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (18.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 33 (17.37%) NIST
3 19 (10.00%) Cyber Essentials
4 9 (4.74%) PCI DSS
5 6 (3.16%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 6 (3.16%) GDPR
6 5 (2.63%) GRC
7 4 (2.11%) NCSC
8 1 (0.53%) SLA
System Software
1 16 (8.42%) Firmware
2 8 (4.21%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.53%) Hyper-V
3 1 (0.53%) NFS
3 1 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.53%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 9 (4.74%) Single Sign-On
2 6 (3.16%) Microsoft Intune
3 5 (2.63%) Kubernetes
4 2 (1.05%) Nessus
5 1 (0.53%) Ansible
5 1 (0.53%) Network Intrusion Detection System
5 1 (0.53%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 55 (28.95%) Microsoft
2 23 (12.11%) Qualys
3 22 (11.58%) Palo Alto
4 19 (10.00%) Cisco
4 19 (10.00%) CrowdStrike
5 11 (5.79%) Aruba
6 8 (4.21%) Splunk
7 5 (2.63%) CyberArk
7 5 (2.63%) Rapid7
8 4 (2.11%) Netskope
8 4 (2.11%) New Relic
8 4 (2.11%) SolarWinds
8 4 (2.11%) Zerto
9 3 (1.58%) AlienVault
9 3 (1.58%) Tenable
10 2 (1.05%) Darktrace
10 2 (1.05%) Fortinet
11 1 (0.53%) Cribl.io
11 1 (0.53%) Exabeam
11 1 (0.53%) Thales