SANS Institute
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies with a requirement for SANS qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months leading up to 10 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 616 597 820
Rank change year-on-year -19 +223 -8
Permanent jobs citing SANS 97 49 64
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.11% 0.11% 0.066%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.44% 0.28% 0.25%
Number of salaries quoted 74 26 43
10th Percentile £55,000 £53,094 £38,750
25th Percentile £83,125 £58,438 £53,375
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £90,000 £70,000 £58,000
Median % change year-on-year +28.57% +20.69% -22.67%
75th Percentile £122,500 £86,250 £73,750
90th Percentile - £111,250 £83,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £85,000 £67,500 £56,500
% change year-on-year +25.93% +19.47% -19.29%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

SANS 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 21,885 17,397 25,979
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 24.09% 39.76% 26.92%
Number of salaries quoted 9,044 7,735 17,218
10th Percentile £29,000 £31,250 £28,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £41,250 £38,355
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £54,237
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% +1.41% -7.29%
75th Percentile £77,500 £73,750 £71,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £92,500 £87,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £53,750 £51,999 £50,000
% change year-on-year +3.37% +4.00% -1.96%

SANS
Job Vacancy Trend

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

SANS job vacancy trend in the UK

SANS
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SANS.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SANS

SANS
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing SANS over the 6 months to 10 May 2026.

Salary histogram for SANS in the UK

SANS
Top 11 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing SANS within the UK over the 6 months to 10 May 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 +5 86 £90,000 +28.57% 13
London +39 60 £105,000 +9.09% 3
Work from Home +33 45 £105,000 +58.49% 6
UK excluding London -57 32 £85,000 +25.93% 14
Midlands -19 10 £38,500 -28.29% 2
East Midlands - 10 £38,500 - 2
South West -52 7 £90,000 +20.00%
Scotland -5 6 £85,000 +6.25% 4
South East -24 6 £70,000 +12.00% 5
North of England -52 3 - - 2
Yorkshire -58 3 - -

SANS
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:

Applications
1 4 (4.12%) Microsoft Excel
1 4 (4.12%) Microsoft Office
1 4 (4.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 4 (4.12%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 12 (12.37%) GitHub
1 12 (12.37%) GitHub Actions
2 10 (10.31%) Azure
3 7 (7.22%) AWS
4 6 (6.19%) GCP
5 5 (5.15%) Entra ID
6 3 (3.09%) Microsoft 365
7 1 (1.03%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (1.03%) Cloud Computing
7 1 (1.03%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 29 (29.90%) CHAP
2 9 (9.28%) Firewall
2 9 (9.28%) Network Security
3 8 (8.25%) DNS
4 7 (7.22%) TCP/IP
5 5 (5.15%) DHCP
6 3 (3.09%) HTTP
6 3 (3.09%) VPN
7 1 (1.03%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.09%) DB2
Development Applications
1 18 (18.56%) Jenkins
2 5 (5.15%) Git
General
1 59 (60.82%) Finance
2 53 (54.64%) Social Skills
3 29 (29.90%) Banking
3 29 (29.90%) Financial Institution
4 23 (23.71%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (18.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 7 (7.22%) Legal
7 5 (5.15%) Law
8 2 (2.06%) Retail
Job Titles
1 29 (29.90%) Auditor
2 28 (28.87%) Security Auditor
3 26 (26.80%) Internal Auditor
4 25 (25.77%) Analyst
5 18 (18.56%) Security Analyst
6 16 (16.49%) Cybersecurity Analyst
7 15 (15.46%) IT Analyst
8 14 (14.43%) Security Engineer
9 13 (13.40%) IT Security Analyst
10 12 (12.37%) Applications Engineer
11 11 (11.34%) Lead
12 10 (10.31%) Senior
13 5 (5.15%) Cyber Threat Analyst
13 5 (5.15%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
13 5 (5.15%) Senior Technical Consultant
13 5 (5.15%) Senior Technical Manager
13 5 (5.15%) Senior Technical Specialist
13 5 (5.15%) Senior Unix Technical Specialist
13 5 (5.15%) Technical Manager
13 5 (5.15%) Technical Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (5.15%) OAuth
1 5 (5.15%) OpenID
1 5 (5.15%) SAML
2 4 (4.12%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 31 (31.96%) Management Information System
2 15 (15.46%) Blockchain
2 15 (15.46%) CSOC
3 13 (13.40%) Self-Motivation
4 12 (12.37%) Cyber Threat
5 10 (10.31%) Security Posture
6 9 (9.28%) Cyberattack
7 7 (7.22%) Cyber Defence
8 6 (6.19%) Security Operations Centre
9 5 (5.15%) Cloud Native
10 3 (3.09%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (3.09%) Cyber Kill Chain
10 3 (3.09%) Operational Technology
11 2 (2.06%) Insider Threat
12 1 (1.03%) Data Centre
12 1 (1.03%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 1 (1.03%) Hybrid Cloud
12 1 (1.03%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 11 (11.34%) Linux
2 9 (9.28%) Windows
3 5 (5.15%) Unix
4 3 (3.09%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (69.07%) Cybersecurity
2 57 (58.76%) Incident Response
3 48 (49.48%) Information Security
4 44 (45.36%) Risk Management
5 40 (41.24%) Agile
6 35 (36.08%) Validation
7 34 (35.05%) Project Management
8 33 (34.02%) Vulnerability Management
9 31 (31.96%) Analytics
9 31 (31.96%) Threat Management
10 30 (30.93%) Data Protection
10 30 (30.93%) Internal Audit
10 30 (30.93%) SIEM
10 30 (30.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 29 (29.90%) Data Analytics
11 29 (29.90%) PRINCE2
11 29 (29.90%) Risk Assessment
11 29 (29.90%) Test Strategy
12 28 (28.87%) Problem-Solving
13 23 (23.71%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 13 (13.40%) Python
2 12 (12.37%) Bash
2 12 (12.37%) PowerShell
3 6 (6.19%) Kusto Query Language
4 3 (3.09%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 75 (77.32%) CISSP
2 46 (47.42%) CISM
3 41 (42.27%) CISA
4 30 (30.93%) CGEIT
4 30 (30.93%) FFIEC
5 29 (29.90%) Degree
6 23 (23.71%) Security Cleared
7 22 (22.68%) GIAC
8 18 (18.56%) CREST Certified
8 18 (18.56%) SC Cleared
9 16 (16.49%) ISACA
10 10 (10.31%) CompTIA Security+
11 9 (9.28%) GCIH
12 7 (7.22%) Computer Science Degree
13 6 (6.19%) CEH
13 6 (6.19%) CRISC
13 6 (6.19%) GCIA
14 5 (5.15%) Cisco Certification
14 5 (5.15%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
15 4 (4.12%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (63.92%) NIST
2 38 (39.18%) GDPR
3 30 (30.93%) COBIT
4 24 (24.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 12 (12.37%) Accessibility
5 12 (12.37%) NIST 800
6 11 (11.34%) GRC
7 7 (7.22%) PCI DSS
8 6 (6.19%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (3.09%) NCSC
10 1 (1.03%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 1 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (1.03%) Data Quality
10 1 (1.03%) SLA
System Software
1 5 (5.15%) Active Directory
1 5 (5.15%) Docker
1 5 (5.15%) IAG
Systems Management
1 13 (13.40%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
2 11 (11.34%) RSA Archer
3 6 (6.19%) Ansible
4 5 (5.15%) Kubernetes
5 3 (3.09%) Computer Incident Response Team
5 3 (3.09%) Kibana
Vendors
1 21 (21.65%) Microsoft
2 6 (6.19%) Splunk
3 5 (5.15%) ForgeRock
3 5 (5.15%) Google
3 5 (5.15%) Okta
4 4 (4.12%) CrowdStrike
5 3 (3.09%) Carbon Black
5 3 (3.09%) Citrix
6 1 (1.03%) LogRhythm