Security Operations Job Trends

Security Operations (SecOps)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs citing Security Operations skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 24 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

	6 months to 24 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	227	340	253
Rank change year-on-year	+113	-87	+24
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations	1,046	380	728
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK	0.86%	0.77%	1.06%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category	1.18%	0.87%	1.28%
Number of salaries quoted	660	274	432
10^th Percentile	£43,975	£40,000	£40,029
25^th Percentile	£55,000	£48,894	£47,500
Median annual salary (50^th Percentile)	£70,000	£65,000	£60,000
Median % change year-on-year	+7.69%	+8.33%	-4.00%
75^th Percentile	£86,250	£82,500	£78,750
90^th Percentile	£100,000	£100,000	£97,425
UK excluding London median annual salary	£65,000	£57,500	£55,000
% change year-on-year	+13.04%	+4.55%	-12.00%

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 citing process or methodology skills.

	6 months to 24 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Permanent vacancies citing process or methodology skills	88,926	43,671	56,803
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK	73.53%	88.34%	82.43%
Number of salaries quoted	60,277	24,895	30,230
10^th Percentile	£31,250	£28,250	£33,500
25^th Percentile	£41,250	£35,750	£45,000
Median annual salary (50^th Percentile)	£60,000	£54,625	£60,000
Median % change year-on-year	+9.84%	-8.96%	-
75^th Percentile	£77,500	£75,000	£78,750
90^th Percentile	£100,000	£95,000	£97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary	£55,000	£46,000	£54,000
% change year-on-year	+19.57%	-14.81%	+1.89%

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 Salary Trend

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 24 October 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 24 October 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	Job Ads Past 6 Months	Median Salary Past 6 Months	Median Salary % Change on Same Period Last Year	Live Jobs
England	+99	949	£70,000	+7.69%	770
UK excluding London	+95	616	£65,000	+13.04%	447
London	+91	387	£77,500	-	368
Work from Home	+28	260	£70,000	+3.70%	365
South East	+56	234	£63,750	-1.92%	115
North of England	+17	120	£72,500	+31.82%	132
Midlands	-22	87	£65,000	+23.81%	48
North West	+26	82	£75,000	+66.67%	72
South West	-35	61	£70,000	+35.32%	45
East Midlands	+7	54	£65,000	+30.65%	18
East of England	-28	51	£69,699	-7.07%	27
Scotland	+31	36	£75,000	-	47
Yorkshire	-10	36	£62,500	-3.85%	44
West Midlands	-53	33	£52,500	-0.47%	30
Wales	-48	26	£47,500	-24.90%	13
Northern Ireland	-73	5	£52,250	-	24
North East	-75	2	£42,500	-51.43%	16

Security Operations Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 24 October 2026, job vacancies citing Security Operations also mentioned 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 citing Security Operations.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Cybersecurity	61.6%	644
2	Incident Response	38.8%	406
3	SIEM	33.5%	350
4	Microsoft	28.5%	298
5	Vulnerability Management	27.7%	290
6	Information Security	24.8%	259
7	Continuous Improvement	23.7%	248
8	Azure	22.8%	239
9	ISO/IEC 27001	22.4%	234
10	Cloud Security	19.7%	206
11	Security Cleared	18.6%	195
12	Threat Detection	17.7%	185
13	Risk Management	17.3%	181
14	NIST	16.9%	177
15	CISSP	16.5%	173
16	Firewall	14.7%	154
16	Threat Intelligence	14.7%	154
18	AWS	13.9%	145
19	AI	13.8%	144
20	Security Monitoring	13.6%	142
21	Stakeholder Management	13.5%	141
22	Problem-Solving	12.1%	127
23	Cyber Threat Intelligence	11.9%	124
24	SC Cleared	11.7%	122
25	Microsoft 365	10.8%	113
26	Entra ID	10.3%	108
27	PowerShell	10.0%	105
28	Network Security	9.8%	102
29	Python	9.7%	101
30	Incident Management	9.4%	98

Security Operations Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Processes & Methodologies

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Cybersecurity	61.6%	644
2	Incident Response	38.8%	406
3	SIEM	33.5%	350
4	Vulnerability Management	27.7%	290
5	Information Security	24.8%	259
6	Continuous Improvement	23.7%	248
7	Cloud Security	19.7%	206
8	Threat Detection	17.7%	185
9	Risk Management	17.3%	181
10	Threat Intelligence	14.7%	154
11	AI	13.8%	144
12	Security Monitoring	13.6%	142
13	Stakeholder Management	13.5%	141
14	Problem-Solving	12.1%	127
15	Cyber Threat Intelligence	11.9%	124
16	Incident Management	9.4%	98
17	Disaster Recovery	9.2%	96
18	Mentoring	9.1%	95
19	Penetration Testing	8.6%	90
20	SOAR	8.5%	89