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 30 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 267 334 358
Rank change year-on-year +67 +24 -23
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 620 386 769
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.69% 0.91% 0.80%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.92% 0.98% 0.94%
Number of salaries quoted 413 281 607
10th Percentile £41,250 £42,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £50,697 £49,000 £47,724
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £62,500 £60,500
Median % change year-on-year +12.00% +3.31% -6.92%
75th Percentile £80,000 £78,750 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,000 £110,000 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £54,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% +1.85% -6.59%

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 67,118 39,358 81,956
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 74.74% 92.84% 85.64%
Number of salaries quoted 41,692 22,603 59,642
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,000 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,946 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.42% +9.09% -10.57%
75th Percentile £78,344 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%

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 30 April 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 30 April 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 +59 563 £70,000 +10.24% 174
UK excluding London +43 373 £60,000 +9.09% 130
Work from Home +80 240 £57,500 -4.17% 62
London +28 201 £74,250 -1.00% 67
North of England +2 109 £70,000 +27.27% 32
South East +20 106 £52,500 -12.50% 41
Midlands -7 63 £52,500 -4.55% 20
North West +7 57 £70,000 +16.67% 17
South West -30 41 £65,000 +27.31% 14
Yorkshire -39 41 £50,000 -4.76% 10
East Midlands -12 36 £45,000 -37.93% 13
West Midlands -30 27 £67,500 +22.73% 6
Wales -11 24 £24,500 -65.61% 4
East of England -28 20 £68,750 +44.74% 16
North East -25 11 £75,000 +66.67% 5
Scotland -27 7 £60,000 -2.04% 6
Northern Ireland -37 3 £35,750 - 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 8 (1.29%) SharePoint
2 7 (1.13%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.16%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 1 (0.16%) Exchequer
Cloud Services
1 140 (22.58%) Azure
2 70 (11.29%) AWS
3 66 (10.65%) Microsoft 365
4 60 (9.68%) Azure Sentinel
5 36 (5.81%) Entra ID
6 34 (5.48%) GCP
7 19 (3.06%) SaaS
8 17 (2.74%) Mimecast
9 13 (2.10%) Microsoft Purview
10 9 (1.45%) GitHub
10 9 (1.45%) GitHub Actions
10 9 (1.45%) IaaS
10 9 (1.45%) PaaS
11 8 (1.29%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (0.97%) Datadog
13 4 (0.65%) Azure Logic Apps
13 4 (0.65%) Dynamics 365
13 4 (0.65%) OneDrive
13 4 (0.65%) Power Platform
13 4 (0.65%) Tessian
Communications & Networking
1 91 (14.68%) Firewall
2 70 (11.29%) Network Security
3 33 (5.32%) VPN
4 27 (4.35%) DNS
5 24 (3.87%) TCP/IP
6 21 (3.39%) Intrusion Detection
7 8 (1.29%) Cisco ISE
8 7 (1.13%) SSL
8 7 (1.13%) WAN
9 6 (0.97%) HTTP
10 5 (0.81%) DHCP
10 5 (0.81%) LAN
11 4 (0.65%) Cisco Nexus
11 4 (0.65%) HTTPS
11 4 (0.65%) SAN
12 3 (0.48%) Internet
12 3 (0.48%) SCCP
12 3 (0.48%) SD-WAN
12 3 (0.48%) SMTP
13 2 (0.32%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
1 3 (0.48%) Power BI
2 1 (0.16%) Metadata
2 1 (0.16%) MongoDB
2 1 (0.16%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.16%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 6 (0.97%) CircleCI
1 6 (0.97%) Jenkins
2 4 (0.65%) Bitbucket
2 4 (0.65%) Metasploit
3 2 (0.32%) JIRA
General
1 148 (23.87%) Social Skills
2 91 (14.68%) Analytical Skills
3 77 (12.42%) Finance
4 50 (8.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 30 (4.84%) Law
6 29 (4.68%) Retail
7 23 (3.71%) Public Sector
8 21 (3.39%) Legal
9 14 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
10 13 (2.10%) Banking
11 9 (1.45%) Financial Institution
12 7 (1.13%) Back Office
12 7 (1.13%) Organisational Skills
12 7 (1.13%) Police
13 6 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
14 5 (0.81%) Aviation
15 4 (0.65%) Advertising
16 3 (0.48%) Documentation Skills
16 3 (0.48%) Manufacturing
16 3 (0.48%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 131 (21.13%) Analyst
2 103 (16.61%) Lead
3 89 (14.35%) Security Analyst
4 77 (12.42%) Security Manager
5 76 (12.26%) Security Engineer
6 65 (10.48%) Senior
7 52 (8.39%) Cybersecurity Analyst
8 44 (7.10%) Operational Security Manager
8 44 (7.10%) Security Operations Manager
9 42 (6.77%) Operations Manager
10 37 (5.97%) Cybersecurity Manager
11 35 (5.65%) SOC Analyst
12 33 (5.32%) SOC Engineer
13 29 (4.68%) Architect
14 24 (3.87%) Infrastructure Manager
14 24 (3.87%) Security Architect
15 23 (3.71%) Cybersecurity Engineer
16 22 (3.55%) Team Leader
17 20 (3.23%) Infrastructure Support
17 20 (3.23%) SOC Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (1.29%) ARM Templates
2 6 (0.97%) Regular Expression
3 4 (0.65%) LDAP
3 4 (0.65%) REST
4 1 (0.16%) EDI
4 1 (0.16%) SailPoint
4 1 (0.16%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 193 (31.13%) Security Operations Centre
2 94 (15.16%) Cyber Threat
3 81 (13.06%) Security Posture
4 57 (9.19%) Cyber Defence
5 55 (8.87%) Cyber Kill Chain
6 54 (8.71%) Operational Technology
7 37 (5.97%) Management Information System
8 25 (4.03%) CSOC
9 20 (3.23%) Cloud Native
10 17 (2.74%) Onboarding
11 12 (1.94%) Analytical Mindset
12 11 (1.77%) Cyberattack
13 10 (1.61%) Self-Motivation
14 9 (1.45%) Data Centre
15 7 (1.13%) Hybrid Cloud
16 6 (0.97%) Cloud Security Posture
16 6 (0.97%) Driving Licence
16 6 (0.97%) Insider Threat
16 6 (0.97%) Life Science
16 6 (0.97%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 90 (14.52%) Windows
2 53 (8.55%) Linux
3 23 (3.71%) Windows 10
4 12 (1.94%) Unix
5 11 (1.77%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.65%) Kali Linux
6 4 (0.65%) Windows Server 2012
6 4 (0.65%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.32%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.16%) CentOS
8 1 (0.16%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.16%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 284 (45.81%) Cybersecurity
2 227 (36.61%) Incident Response
3 219 (35.32%) SIEM
4 143 (23.06%) Threat Intelligence
5 141 (22.74%) Vulnerability Management
6 129 (20.81%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
7 124 (20.00%) Continuous Improvement
8 115 (18.55%) Cloud Security
9 106 (17.10%) Risk Management
10 95 (15.32%) Information Security
10 95 (15.32%) Roadmaps
11 94 (15.16%) Mentoring
12 88 (14.19%) Threat and Vulnerability Management
13 82 (13.23%) ITIL
14 81 (13.06%) Problem-Solving
15 80 (12.90%) Stakeholder Management
16 75 (12.10%) Threat Detection
17 66 (10.65%) Cyber Intelligence
17 66 (10.65%) SOAR
18 63 (10.16%) MITRE ATT&CK
Programming Languages
1 100 (16.13%) PowerShell
2 86 (13.87%) Python
3 23 (3.71%) Bash
4 21 (3.39%) Kusto Query Language
5 11 (1.77%) Bicep
6 8 (1.29%) SQL
7 4 (0.65%) Perl
8 3 (0.48%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.32%) C
9 2 (0.32%) C#
9 2 (0.32%) C++
9 2 (0.32%) Go
9 2 (0.32%) JavaScript
10 1 (0.16%) Java
Qualifications
1 107 (17.26%) Security Cleared
2 95 (15.32%) SC Cleared
3 89 (14.35%) CISSP
4 61 (9.84%) Degree
5 53 (8.55%) CompTIA Security+
6 41 (6.61%) GIAC
7 36 (5.81%) CISM
8 31 (5.00%) Cisco Certification
9 23 (3.71%) CEH
10 22 (3.55%) SANS
11 21 (3.39%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 21 (3.39%) GCIH
12 19 (3.06%) CompTIA CySA+
12 19 (3.06%) Computer Science Degree
13 17 (2.74%) CREST Certified
14 13 (2.10%) Azure Certification
14 13 (2.10%) CCSP
15 12 (1.94%) CISA
16 11 (1.77%) DV Cleared
16 11 (1.77%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 161 (25.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 157 (25.32%) NIST
3 52 (8.39%) GDPR
4 49 (7.90%) ISO/IEC 27005
5 41 (6.61%) GRC
6 39 (6.29%) Cyber Essentials
7 32 (5.16%) PCI DSS
8 21 (3.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 17 (2.74%) SOC 2
10 15 (2.42%) NCSC
11 8 (1.29%) SLA
12 5 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 5 (0.81%) SOC 3
13 4 (0.65%) COBIT
13 4 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 3 (0.48%) ITGC
15 2 (0.32%) Accessibility
15 2 (0.32%) ISO 22301
15 2 (0.32%) ISO 9001
16 1 (0.16%) California Consumer Privacy Act
System Software
1 24 (3.87%) Active Directory
2 13 (2.10%) Docker
3 4 (0.65%) VMware ESXi
4 3 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.32%) Firmware
5 2 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.16%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 30 (4.84%) SCCM
2 26 (4.19%) Microsoft Intune
3 24 (3.87%) Terraform
4 23 (3.71%) Kubernetes
5 21 (3.39%) QRadar
6 14 (2.26%) Ansible
7 8 (1.29%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.97%) CASB
8 6 (0.97%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 6 (0.97%) Grafana
9 5 (0.81%) Computer Incident Response Team
9 5 (0.81%) vCenter Server
10 3 (0.48%) ArcSight ESM
10 3 (0.48%) CSIRT
10 3 (0.48%) Graylog
11 2 (0.32%) FortiGate
12 1 (0.16%) Host Intrusion Detection System
12 1 (0.16%) Kibana
12 1 (0.16%) Nessus
12 1 (0.16%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 189 (30.48%) Microsoft
2 56 (9.03%) ServiceNow
3 40 (6.45%) Splunk
4 30 (4.84%) CrowdStrike
5 27 (4.35%) SolarWinds
6 18 (2.90%) Cisco
7 16 (2.58%) Qualys
8 11 (1.77%) Tenable
9 9 (1.45%) VMware
10 8 (1.29%) Fortinet
10 8 (1.29%) Palo Alto
10 8 (1.29%) Sophos
11 7 (1.13%) Okta
11 7 (1.13%) Rapid7
12 6 (0.97%) Zscaler
13 5 (0.81%) CheckPoint
13 5 (0.81%) Google
13 5 (0.81%) NetApp
13 5 (0.81%) Veeam
14 4 (0.65%) 3PAR