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 30 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 663 850 824
Rank change year-on-year +187 -26 +227
Permanent jobs citing SANS 46 62 138
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.083% 0.060% 0.14%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.17% 0.22% 0.42%
Number of salaries quoted 25 42 81
10th Percentile £52,500 £38,750 £53,750
25th Percentile £56,250 £55,500 £63,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £59,000 £75,000
Median % change year-on-year +18.64% -21.33% -
75th Percentile £87,500 £73,750 £106,250
90th Percentile £111,250 £83,750 £121,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £67,500 £56,500 £70,000
% change year-on-year +19.47% -19.29% +16.67%

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 27,102 27,804 32,509
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 48.91% 26.92% 33.46%
Number of salaries quoted 10,972 17,251 14,583
10th Percentile £31,750 £28,500 £32,000
25th Percentile £43,546 £38,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £53,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.80% -10.83% +9.09%
75th Percentile £68,750 £71,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £82,500 £87,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% +5.00%

SANS
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing SANS as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for SANS in the UK

SANS
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing SANS.

Salary trend for SANS in the UK

SANS
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing SANS over the 6 months to 30 May 2025.

Salary histogram for SANS in the UK

SANS
Top 13 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 30 May 2025. 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 +145 43 £70,000 +20.69% 26
UK excluding London +189 27 £67,500 +19.47% 31
Work from Home +114 25 £68,750 -1.79% 23
London +110 19 £96,250 +32.76% 4
Midlands +90 12 £53,688 -7.43% 1
West Midlands +64 12 £53,688 -7.43%
South West +105 6 £75,000 - 6
North of England +43 5 £55,000 -2.65% 6
North West - 4 £60,000 - 4
Scotland - 2 £80,000 - 1
South East +86 1 £70,000 +16.67% 5
Yorkshire +53 1 £45,000 -20.35% 2
Wales - 1 £52,500 - 7

SANS
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Applications
1 1 (2.17%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (2.17%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (2.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 1 (2.17%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 11 (23.91%) AWS
2 10 (21.74%) Azure
3 6 (13.04%) SaaS
4 5 (10.87%) IaaS
5 4 (8.70%) Microsoft 365
6 2 (4.35%) Azure Sentinel
6 2 (4.35%) PaaS
7 1 (2.17%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (2.17%) GCP
7 1 (2.17%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 20 (43.48%) Firewall
2 10 (21.74%) SAN
3 6 (13.04%) Intrusion Detection
4 5 (10.87%) Network Security
5 2 (4.35%) Internet
5 2 (4.35%) VPN
6 1 (2.17%) Cisco Firepower
6 1 (2.17%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (4.35%) SQL Server
2 1 (2.17%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (2.17%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 1 (2.17%) Bugzilla
1 1 (2.17%) Burp Suite
1 1 (2.17%) Cypress.io
1 1 (2.17%) ESLint
1 1 (2.17%) Gatling
1 1 (2.17%) Git
1 1 (2.17%) JIRA
1 1 (2.17%) JMeter
General
1 22 (47.83%) Finance
2 9 (19.57%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (10.87%) Social Skills
4 4 (8.70%) Retail
5 3 (6.52%) Banking
6 2 (4.35%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (4.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (4.35%) Law
6 2 (4.35%) Legal
6 2 (4.35%) Police
7 1 (2.17%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 15 (32.61%) Security Engineer
2 13 (28.26%) Analyst
3 11 (23.91%) Security Analyst
4 9 (19.57%) CISSP Analyst
4 9 (19.57%) Cybersecurity Engineer
4 9 (19.57%) Incident Analyst
4 9 (19.57%) Junior
4 9 (19.57%) Junior Analyst
4 9 (19.57%) Junior Operations Analyst
4 9 (19.57%) Junior Security Analyst
4 9 (19.57%) Operations Analyst
4 9 (19.57%) Security Incident Analyst
4 9 (19.57%) Security Operations Analyst
4 9 (19.57%) SIEM Analyst
5 5 (10.87%) Architect
5 5 (10.87%) Security Architect
6 4 (8.70%) Applications Engineer
6 4 (8.70%) Head of Operations
6 4 (8.70%) Head of Security
7 3 (6.52%) Enterprise Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (2.17%) AngularJS
1 1 (2.17%) Jest
1 1 (2.17%) Node.js
1 1 (2.17%) Prisma
Miscellaneous
1 9 (19.57%) Hedge funds
1 9 (19.57%) Podcast
2 6 (13.04%) Management Information System
3 5 (10.87%) Security Posture
4 3 (6.52%) Cyber Threat
5 2 (4.35%) Data Protection Act
5 2 (4.35%) Hybrid Cloud
5 2 (4.35%) PKI
5 2 (4.35%) Security Operations Centre
6 1 (2.17%) Insider Threat
Operating Systems
1 11 (23.91%) Windows
2 2 (4.35%) Linux
3 1 (2.17%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 36 (78.26%) Cybersecurity
2 23 (50.00%) Incident Response
3 21 (45.65%) SIEM
4 15 (32.61%) Information Security
5 13 (28.26%) Risk Management
5 13 (28.26%) Security Operations
6 9 (19.57%) Cloud Security
6 9 (19.57%) Computer Science
6 9 (19.57%) Continuous Improvement
6 9 (19.57%) Roadmaps
6 9 (19.57%) Security Architecture
7 8 (17.39%) Agile
7 8 (17.39%) Application Security
8 7 (15.22%) Data Loss Prevention
8 7 (15.22%) Incident Management
8 7 (15.22%) Penetration Testing
8 7 (15.22%) Security Testing
8 7 (15.22%) Strategic Roadmap
9 6 (13.04%) Data Protection
9 6 (13.04%) Problem Management
Programming Languages
1 13 (28.26%) PowerShell
2 10 (21.74%) Python
3 2 (4.35%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 40 (86.96%) CISSP
2 21 (45.65%) Degree
3 19 (41.30%) CISM
4 18 (39.13%) GCIH
5 17 (36.96%) CEH
5 17 (36.96%) GIAC
6 14 (30.43%) CISA
7 13 (28.26%) GCIA
8 12 (26.09%) OSCP
9 11 (23.91%) CompTIA Security+
9 11 (23.91%) ISACA
10 10 (21.74%) Computer Science Degree
11 9 (19.57%) Security Cleared
12 8 (17.39%) SC Cleared
13 6 (13.04%) CRISC
14 4 (8.70%) AWS Certification
14 4 (8.70%) CREST Certified
15 3 (6.52%) GCED
15 3 (6.52%) GREM
15 3 (6.52%) GSEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (30.43%) NIST
2 11 (23.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (13.04%) GRC
3 6 (13.04%) NIST 800
4 5 (10.87%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 5 (10.87%) JSP 440
4 5 (10.87%) NCSC
5 4 (8.70%) Accessibility
5 4 (8.70%) COBIT
5 4 (8.70%) GDPR
6 3 (6.52%) Cyber Essentials
6 3 (6.52%) PCI DSS
7 2 (4.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 2 (4.35%) SOC 2
8 1 (2.17%) SLA
System Software
1 1 (2.17%) Snort
1 1 (2.17%) Virtual Machines
1 1 (2.17%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 3 (6.52%) Microsoft Intune
1 3 (6.52%) Nessus
2 2 (4.35%) Ansible
2 2 (4.35%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
3 1 (2.17%) FortiGate
3 1 (2.17%) Progress Chef
3 1 (2.17%) Puppet
3 1 (2.17%) RSA Archer
3 1 (2.17%) Terraform
Vendors
1 16 (34.78%) Microsoft
2 11 (23.91%) CrowdStrike
3 4 (8.70%) Cisco
4 3 (6.52%) Splunk
4 3 (6.52%) Tenable
5 2 (4.35%) Fortinet
5 2 (4.35%) VMware
6 1 (2.17%) HP
6 1 (2.17%) LogRhythm
6 1 (2.17%) Palo Alto
6 1 (2.17%) Qualys
6 1 (2.17%) Zscaler