Security Operations Job Trends

Security Operations (SecOps)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Security Operations skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 31 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 221 380 309
Rank change year-on-year +159 -71 -21
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 934 351 716
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.85% 0.70% 0.88%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.16% 0.79% 1.09%
Number of salaries quoted 669 265 437
10th Percentile £42,350 £37,500 £38,880
25th Percentile £53,200 £47,000 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £62,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +12.00% +4.17% -4.00%
75th Percentile £85,000 £78,750 £78,750
90th Percentile £97,500 £96,250 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £55,000 £54,500
% change year-on-year +18.18% +0.92% -12.80%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Security Operations falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 80,366 44,460 65,769
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.09% 88.73% 80.84%
Number of salaries quoted 55,743 25,365 40,240
10th Percentile £31,125 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,250 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £56,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -1.79% -6.67%
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,250 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £51,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -6.86% -7.07%

Security Operations
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Security Operations job vacancy trend in the UK

Security Operations
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Security Operations.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Security Operations

Security Operations
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Security Operations over the 6 months to 31 August 2026.

Salary histogram for Security Operations in the UK

Security Operations
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Security Operations within the UK over the 6 months to 31 August 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 +132 838 £70,000 +12.00% 434
UK excluding London +96 575 £65,000 +18.18% 251
London +101 312 £75,000 -3.23% 224
Work from Home +72 259 £70,000 +7.69% 175
South East +94 205 £59,000 -5.60% 87
North of England +9 122 £70,000 +19.15% 55
Midlands -1 87 £65,000 +26.21% 28
North West +48 80 £75,000 +36.36% 39
East Midlands +27 57 £65,000 +6.34% 14
East of England +4 50 £61,250 -1.21% 22
South West -44 45 £65,000 +27.31% 47
Yorkshire -15 38 £55,000 -15.38% 15
Wales -34 36 £45,000 -18.18% 6
West Midlands -45 30 £67,500 +31.07% 14
Scotland +22 29 £75,000 +30.43% 6
North East -60 4 £75,000 +30.43% 1
Northern Ireland - 3 £42,500 - 3

Security Operations
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 12 (1.28%) SharePoint
2 5 (0.54%) Confluence
3 3 (0.32%) Apache Spark
3 3 (0.32%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.32%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 192 (20.56%) Azure
2 118 (12.63%) AWS
3 95 (10.17%) Microsoft 365
4 81 (8.67%) Azure Sentinel
5 70 (7.49%) Entra ID
6 42 (4.50%) GCP
7 28 (3.00%) Microsoft Purview
8 24 (2.57%) Azure Logic Apps
9 19 (2.03%) SaaS
10 18 (1.93%) Mimecast
11 14 (1.50%) Anthropic Claude
12 12 (1.28%) Zapier
13 9 (0.96%) Amazon GuardDuty
14 8 (0.86%) AWS CloudFormation
15 7 (0.75%) Cloudflare
15 7 (0.75%) IaaS
15 7 (0.75%) PaaS
16 6 (0.64%) GitHub
16 6 (0.64%) Google Workspace
16 6 (0.64%) Sumo Logic
Communications & Networking
1 151 (16.17%) Firewall
2 105 (11.24%) Network Security
3 54 (5.78%) WAN
4 52 (5.57%) LAN
5 46 (4.93%) TCP/IP
5 46 (4.93%) VPN
6 36 (3.85%) DNS
7 30 (3.21%) Wi-Fi
8 27 (2.89%) Internet
9 25 (2.68%) Cisco Nexus
10 24 (2.57%) Intrusion Detection
11 19 (2.03%) HTTP
12 14 (1.50%) SSL
13 13 (1.39%) FTP
13 13 (1.39%) SMTP
14 11 (1.18%) Cisco ISE
15 6 (0.64%) IPsec
15 6 (0.64%) NGFW
15 6 (0.64%) SD-WAN
16 5 (0.54%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.64%) SQL Server
2 5 (0.54%) MongoDB
3 3 (0.32%) Hadoop
3 3 (0.32%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.21%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.11%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.11%) Big Data
5 1 (0.11%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 8 (0.86%) JIRA
2 5 (0.54%) Jenkins
3 2 (0.21%) Maven
3 2 (0.21%) Team Foundation Server
3 2 (0.21%) Yeoman
4 1 (0.11%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.11%) Metasploit
General
1 197 (21.09%) Social Skills
2 107 (11.46%) Analytical Skills
3 100 (10.71%) Finance
4 42 (4.50%) Legal
5 41 (4.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 39 (4.18%) Law
7 35 (3.75%) Aerospace
7 35 (3.75%) Public Sector
8 27 (2.89%) Retail
9 16 (1.71%) Military
10 15 (1.61%) Influencing Skills
11 14 (1.50%) Banking
12 9 (0.96%) Financial Institution
13 8 (0.86%) Documentation Skills
14 6 (0.64%) Police
15 5 (0.54%) Advertising
15 5 (0.54%) Manufacturing
15 5 (0.54%) Organisational Skills
16 4 (0.43%) Digital Health
16 4 (0.43%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 228 (24.41%) Analyst
2 162 (17.34%) Senior
3 154 (16.49%) Security Analyst
4 127 (13.60%) Security Manager
5 125 (13.38%) Security Engineer
6 115 (12.31%) Lead
7 95 (10.17%) Senior Analyst
8 77 (8.24%) Cybersecurity Analyst
9 72 (7.71%) SOC Analyst
10 67 (7.17%) Cybersecurity Manager
11 63 (6.75%) Senior Security Analyst
12 62 (6.64%) Operational Security Manager
12 62 (6.64%) Security Operations Manager
13 58 (6.21%) Operations Manager
14 57 (6.10%) Architect
14 57 (6.10%) Cybersecurity Engineer
15 54 (5.78%) SOC Engineer
16 43 (4.60%) Security Specialist
17 38 (4.07%) Security Architect
18 35 (3.75%) Operations Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (3.32%) Terraform
2 17 (1.82%) LDAP
3 15 (1.61%) ModSecurity
4 7 (0.75%) REST
5 6 (0.64%) ARM Templates
5 6 (0.64%) Regular Expression
6 4 (0.43%) OpenID
6 4 (0.43%) SAML
7 3 (0.32%) JSON
7 3 (0.32%) Kafka
7 3 (0.32%) Smart Contracts
7 3 (0.32%) SOAP
8 2 (0.21%) HTML
8 2 (0.21%) RESTful
9 1 (0.11%) CSS
9 1 (0.11%) FFmpeg
9 1 (0.11%) GStreamer
9 1 (0.11%) TAPI
9 1 (0.11%) WPF
9 1 (0.11%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 216 (23.13%) Security Operations Centre
2 167 (17.88%) Security Posture
3 89 (9.53%) Cyber Defence
4 77 (8.24%) Cyber Threat
5 63 (6.75%) Management Information System
6 38 (4.07%) CSOC
7 34 (3.64%) Cloud Native
7 34 (3.64%) Onboarding
8 29 (3.10%) Data Centre
9 19 (2.03%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 17 (1.82%) Self-Motivation
11 14 (1.50%) Cloud Security Posture
12 12 (1.28%) Cyberattack
12 12 (1.28%) Hybrid Cloud
12 12 (1.28%) Social Media
13 11 (1.18%) AI Agents
14 10 (1.07%) Cyber Security Posture
15 9 (0.96%) Client/Server
16 8 (0.86%) Operational Technology
16 8 (0.86%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 91 (9.74%) Windows
2 63 (6.75%) Linux
3 10 (1.07%) Windows 10
4 8 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 8 (0.86%) Unix
4 8 (0.86%) Windows Server
5 5 (0.54%) Mac OS
6 4 (0.43%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.11%) CentOS
7 1 (0.11%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 539 (57.71%) Cybersecurity
2 347 (37.15%) SIEM
3 340 (36.40%) Incident Response
4 232 (24.84%) Vulnerability Management
5 214 (22.91%) Continuous Improvement
6 202 (21.63%) Information Security
7 176 (18.84%) Cloud Security
8 155 (16.60%) Threat Detection
9 137 (14.67%) Risk Management
10 121 (12.96%) Threat Intelligence
11 120 (12.85%) Problem-Solving
12 101 (10.81%) AI
12 101 (10.81%) Security Monitoring
13 99 (10.60%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
14 94 (10.06%) SOAR
15 86 (9.21%) Disaster Recovery
16 85 (9.10%) Stakeholder Management
17 83 (8.89%) Mentoring
18 82 (8.78%) Penetration Testing
19 81 (8.67%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 103 (11.03%) PowerShell
2 94 (10.06%) Python
3 43 (4.60%) Kusto Query Language
4 23 (2.46%) Bash
5 12 (1.28%) SQL
6 11 (1.18%) C++
7 10 (1.07%) Perl
8 9 (0.96%) Search Processing Language
9 8 (0.86%) Bicep
10 6 (0.64%) C
10 6 (0.64%) JavaScript
11 5 (0.54%) Java
12 4 (0.43%) Go
13 3 (0.32%) C#
13 3 (0.32%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.11%) MATLAB
14 1 (0.11%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 191 (20.45%) Security Cleared
2 140 (14.99%) CISSP
3 130 (13.92%) SC Cleared
4 80 (8.57%) CompTIA Security+
5 77 (8.24%) Degree
6 71 (7.60%) CISM
7 52 (5.57%) Cisco Certification
7 52 (5.57%) DV Cleared
8 45 (4.82%) GIAC
9 43 (4.60%) CEH
10 29 (3.10%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 29 (3.10%) CompTIA CySA+
11 24 (2.57%) Computer Science Degree
12 23 (2.46%) GCIH
12 23 (2.46%) SANS
13 22 (2.36%) GCIA
14 20 (2.14%) Azure Certification
14 20 (2.14%) CCSP
15 19 (2.03%) CCNP
16 18 (1.93%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 197 (21.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 158 (16.92%) NIST
3 71 (7.60%) GDPR
4 63 (6.75%) GRC
5 54 (5.78%) Cyber Essentials
6 31 (3.32%) PCI DSS
7 23 (2.46%) SOC 2
8 20 (2.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 17 (1.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 14 (1.50%) SLA
11 12 (1.28%) NCSC
12 11 (1.18%) Data Quality
13 6 (0.64%) NIST 800
14 5 (0.54%) Accessibility
15 4 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
16 2 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
16 2 (0.21%) COBIT
16 2 (0.21%) ISO 22301
16 2 (0.21%) ISO 9001
16 2 (0.21%) PMO
System Software
1 28 (3.00%) Active Directory
2 8 (0.86%) Docker
2 8 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (0.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.21%) Firmware
5 1 (0.11%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 37 (3.96%) Microsoft Intune
2 30 (3.21%) Single Sign-On
3 28 (3.00%) QRadar
4 26 (2.78%) Kubernetes
5 18 (1.93%) SCCM
6 8 (0.86%) Ansible
7 7 (0.75%) FortiGate
7 7 (0.75%) Graylog
7 7 (0.75%) Nessus
8 6 (0.64%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 5 (0.54%) McAfee ePO
9 5 (0.54%) Nagios
9 5 (0.54%) Red Hat Satellite
10 3 (0.32%) CASB
10 3 (0.32%) Computer Incident Response Team
10 3 (0.32%) Kibana
10 3 (0.32%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
11 2 (0.21%) Argo
11 2 (0.21%) Istio
11 2 (0.21%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 250 (26.77%) Microsoft
2 80 (8.57%) Splunk
3 65 (6.96%) Palo Alto
4 60 (6.42%) Cisco
5 56 (6.00%) Qualys
6 50 (5.35%) CrowdStrike
7 46 (4.93%) ServiceNow
8 25 (2.68%) Aruba
8 25 (2.68%) Fortinet
9 23 (2.46%) Tenable
10 18 (1.93%) Google
11 16 (1.71%) OpenAI
11 16 (1.71%) Rapid7
12 11 (1.18%) SolarWinds
12 11 (1.18%) Zscaler
13 10 (1.07%) CyberArk
14 9 (0.96%) iManage
14 9 (0.96%) LogRhythm
14 9 (0.96%) Meraki
14 9 (0.96%) Red Hat