GCFA Job Trends

GIAC Certified Forensic Analyst (GCFA)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies with a requirement for GCFA qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months leading up to 14 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 639 682 700
Rank change year-on-year +43 +18 +306
Permanent jobs citing GCFA 14 17 21
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.023% 0.032% 0.038%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.073% 0.087% 0.13%
Number of salaries quoted 13 15 20
10th Percentile - £63,750 £42,063
25th Percentile £75,000 £70,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £90,000 £75,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% +66.67% +5.88%
75th Percentile £92,500 £84,000 £52,813
90th Percentile £99,000 £93,000 £66,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £101,250 - £45,000
% change year-on-year - - +12.50%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

GCFA falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 19,162 19,568 16,260
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 31.94% 36.57% 29.20%
Number of salaries quoted 7,764 7,644 10,980
10th Percentile £28,250 £32,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £36,250 £45,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £59,518 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -7.59% +3.51% -
75th Percentile £75,900 £77,500 £75,000
90th Percentile £90,976 £92,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £51,300
% change year-on-year -9.09% +7.21% +1.40%

GCFA
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing GCFA relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

GCFA job vacancy trend in the UK

GCFA
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing GCFA.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing GCFA

GCFA
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing GCFA over the 6 months to 14 January 2026.

Salary histogram for GCFA in the UK

GCFA
Top 7 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing GCFA within the UK over the 6 months to 14 January 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 +59 14 £90,000 +20.00% 4
London +55 12 £80,000 +14.29%
Work from Home - 12 £85,000 - 3
UK excluding London +57 2 £101,250 - 3
North of England - 2 £101,250 - 1
Yorkshire - 1 £90,000 -
North West - 1 £112,500 - 1

GCFA
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:

Cloud Services
1 1 (7.14%) AWS
1 1 (7.14%) Azure
1 1 (7.14%) Azure Sentinel
1 1 (7.14%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 10 (71.43%) Wireshark
2 4 (28.57%) VPN
3 2 (14.29%) SSL
4 1 (7.14%) Modbus
General
1 6 (42.86%) Finance
2 2 (14.29%) Banking
2 2 (14.29%) Financial Institution
2 2 (14.29%) Legal
3 1 (7.14%) Analytical Skills
3 1 (7.14%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 5 (35.71%) Incident Manager
2 4 (28.57%) Analyst
2 4 (28.57%) Forensic Manager
2 4 (28.57%) Information Analyst
2 4 (28.57%) Information Security Analyst
2 4 (28.57%) Security Analyst
3 2 (14.29%) Cybersecurity Specialist
3 2 (14.29%) Lead
4 1 (7.14%) Incident Responder
4 1 (7.14%) Incident Response Lead
4 1 (7.14%) IT Manager
4 1 (7.14%) Operational Security Manager
4 1 (7.14%) Operations Manager
4 1 (7.14%) Security Manager
4 1 (7.14%) Security Operations Manager
4 1 (7.14%) SIEM Engineer
4 1 (7.14%) SOC Manager
Miscellaneous
1 11 (78.57%) Cyber Kill Chain
2 3 (21.43%) Security Posture
3 2 (14.29%) Hybrid Cloud
4 1 (7.14%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (7.14%) Cyber Defence
4 1 (7.14%) Cyber Threat
4 1 (7.14%) Operational Technology
4 1 (7.14%) SCADA
4 1 (7.14%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 12 (85.71%) Linux
2 11 (78.57%) Windows
3 6 (42.86%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (100.00%) Incident Response
2 13 (92.86%) MITRE ATT&CK
2 13 (92.86%) SIEM
2 13 (92.86%) Threat Intelligence
3 12 (85.71%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
3 12 (85.71%) Cybersecurity
3 12 (85.71%) Security Monitoring
4 11 (78.57%) Threat Detection
5 10 (71.43%) Use Case
5 10 (71.43%) Vulnerability Management
6 8 (57.14%) Data Loss Prevention
6 8 (57.14%) Forensic Analysis
7 7 (50.00%) Security Operations
8 6 (42.86%) Cloud Security
8 6 (42.86%) Threat Modelling
8 6 (42.86%) Vulnerability Remediation
9 5 (35.71%) Digital Forensics
9 5 (35.71%) Information Security
9 5 (35.71%) Penetration Testing
9 5 (35.71%) Red Team
Programming Languages
1 1 (7.14%) Bash
1 1 (7.14%) Perl
1 1 (7.14%) PowerShell
1 1 (7.14%) Python
Qualifications
1 12 (85.71%) GCIH
2 11 (78.57%) GCIA
3 6 (42.86%) GIAC
4 3 (21.43%) CISM
4 3 (21.43%) CISSP
4 3 (21.43%) GCFE
5 1 (7.14%) CEH
5 1 (7.14%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (7.14%) Degree
5 1 (7.14%) GPEN
5 1 (7.14%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (78.57%) NIST
2 2 (14.29%) COBIT
3 1 (7.14%) GDPR
System Software
1 4 (28.57%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 4 (28.57%) QRadar
2 2 (14.29%) Suricata
3 1 (7.14%) CSIRT
Vendors
1 4 (28.57%) Splunk
1 4 (28.57%) VMware
2 1 (7.14%) Microsoft