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 20 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 239 389 333
Rank change year-on-year +150 -56 +4
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 764 321 890
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.81% 0.72% 0.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.11% 0.77% 1.00%
Number of salaries quoted 575 231 649
10th Percentile £41,450 £41,750 £37,500
25th Percentile £51,250 £48,894 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £62,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +12.90% +3.33% -4.00%
75th Percentile £82,500 £77,500 £77,500
90th Percentile £94,910 £110,000 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £55,000 £54,000
% change year-on-year +18.18% +1.85% -6.09%

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 68,746 41,496 89,251
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.03% 92.46% 81.73%
Number of salaries quoted 47,319 22,262 63,244
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,822 £29,750
25th Percentile £41,250 £39,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.54%
75th Percentile £78,750 £77,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £92,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +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 20 June 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 20 June 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 +113 688 £70,000 +12.00% 171
UK excluding London +121 445 £65,000 +18.18% 152
London +85 265 £75,000 -3.23% 67
Work from Home +112 241 £65,000 +18.18% 90
South East +64 133 £60,000 -7.69% 51
North of England +60 121 £70,000 +16.67% 35
Midlands +9 80 £60,000 +9.09% 18
North West +56 72 £75,000 +30.43% 20
East Midlands +12 47 £55,000 -3.51% 8
Yorkshire -8 43 £62,500 - 12
South West -50 36 £65,000 +27.31% 16
West Midlands -28 33 £67,500 +22.73% 10
East of England -5 30 £57,500 +5.02% 11
Wales -18 29 £25,000 -52.56% 9
Scotland +19 16 £75,000 +36.36% 10
North East -46 6 £75,000 +22.45% 3
Northern Ireland - 2 £40,750 - 10

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 (1.57%) SharePoint
2 4 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.26%) Confluence
4 1 (0.13%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
1 1 (0.13%) Exchequer
Cloud Services
1 164 (21.47%) Azure
2 89 (11.65%) AWS
3 76 (9.95%) Microsoft 365
4 62 (8.12%) Azure Sentinel
5 49 (6.41%) Entra ID
6 41 (5.37%) GCP
7 23 (3.01%) SaaS
8 15 (1.96%) Mimecast
9 14 (1.83%) Anthropic Claude
10 13 (1.70%) Microsoft Purview
11 12 (1.57%) Zapier
12 10 (1.31%) Azure Logic Apps
13 9 (1.18%) GitHub
13 9 (1.18%) GitHub Actions
14 8 (1.05%) AWS CloudFormation
15 7 (0.92%) IaaS
15 7 (0.92%) PaaS
16 6 (0.79%) Cloudflare
16 6 (0.79%) Google Workspace
17 5 (0.65%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 112 (14.66%) Firewall
2 79 (10.34%) Network Security
3 35 (4.58%) TCP/IP
4 34 (4.45%) DNS
4 34 (4.45%) WAN
5 31 (4.06%) LAN
5 31 (4.06%) VPN
6 17 (2.23%) HTTP
6 17 (2.23%) Intrusion Detection
7 15 (1.96%) Wi-Fi
8 14 (1.83%) Cisco Nexus
9 13 (1.70%) Internet
10 11 (1.44%) FTP
10 11 (1.44%) SMTP
11 10 (1.31%) Cisco ISE
12 8 (1.05%) SSL
13 7 (0.92%) SD-WAN
14 5 (0.65%) NGFW
15 4 (0.52%) HTTPS
16 3 (0.39%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.39%) Power BI
1 3 (0.39%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.26%) Elasticsearch
2 2 (0.26%) MongoDB
2 2 (0.26%) Relational Database
3 1 (0.13%) Azure SQL Database
3 1 (0.13%) Big Data
3 1 (0.13%) Hadoop
3 1 (0.13%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.13%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 7 (0.92%) Jenkins
2 4 (0.52%) Bitbucket
2 4 (0.52%) CircleCI
2 4 (0.52%) Metasploit
3 3 (0.39%) JIRA
General
1 164 (21.47%) Social Skills
2 100 (13.09%) Analytical Skills
3 87 (11.39%) Finance
4 50 (6.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 39 (5.10%) Law
6 34 (4.45%) Public Sector
7 33 (4.32%) Legal
8 26 (3.40%) Retail
9 17 (2.23%) Influencing Skills
10 14 (1.83%) Banking
11 10 (1.31%) Aerospace
12 8 (1.05%) Financial Institution
13 6 (0.79%) Advertising
13 6 (0.79%) Aviation
13 6 (0.79%) Organisational Skills
13 6 (0.79%) Police
13 6 (0.79%) Presentation Skills
14 5 (0.65%) Back Office
15 4 (0.52%) Manufacturing
15 4 (0.52%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 186 (24.35%) Analyst
2 137 (17.93%) Security Analyst
3 116 (15.18%) Senior
4 96 (12.57%) Security Engineer
5 93 (12.17%) Security Manager
6 84 (10.99%) Lead
7 80 (10.47%) Cybersecurity Analyst
8 58 (7.59%) Senior Analyst
9 52 (6.81%) Cybersecurity Manager
9 52 (6.81%) SOC Engineer
10 49 (6.41%) Operational Security Manager
10 49 (6.41%) Security Operations Manager
11 46 (6.02%) Operations Manager
12 45 (5.89%) Architect
12 45 (5.89%) SOC Analyst
13 44 (5.76%) Senior Security Analyst
14 37 (4.84%) Cybersecurity Engineer
15 34 (4.45%) Operations Analyst
16 33 (4.32%) Security Specialist
17 29 (3.80%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (1.70%) LDAP
2 6 (0.79%) Regular Expression
3 5 (0.65%) REST
4 4 (0.52%) ARM Templates
5 3 (0.39%) JSON
6 2 (0.26%) OpenID
6 2 (0.26%) RESTful
6 2 (0.26%) SAML
7 1 (0.13%) EDI
7 1 (0.13%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (0.13%) FFmpeg
7 1 (0.13%) GStreamer
7 1 (0.13%) HTML
7 1 (0.13%) Kafka
7 1 (0.13%) SailPoint
7 1 (0.13%) Smart Contracts
7 1 (0.13%) TAPI
7 1 (0.13%) Unreal Engine
7 1 (0.13%) WebRTC
7 1 (0.13%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 189 (24.74%) Security Operations Centre
2 121 (15.84%) Security Posture
3 70 (9.16%) Cyber Defence
4 51 (6.68%) Cyber Threat
5 50 (6.54%) Management Information System
6 37 (4.84%) CSOC
7 30 (3.93%) Cloud Native
8 23 (3.01%) Onboarding
9 14 (1.83%) Data Centre
10 13 (1.70%) Cyberattack
10 13 (1.70%) Self-Motivation
11 12 (1.57%) Cloud Security Posture
12 9 (1.18%) AI Agents
12 9 (1.18%) Client/Server
12 9 (1.18%) Hybrid Cloud
13 7 (0.92%) Analytical Mindset
13 7 (0.92%) Virtual Team
14 6 (0.79%) Cyber Kill Chain
14 6 (0.79%) Insider Threat
14 6 (0.79%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 93 (12.17%) Windows
2 60 (7.85%) Linux
3 16 (2.09%) Windows 10
4 13 (1.70%) Unix
5 7 (0.92%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.52%) Kali Linux
7 3 (0.39%) Mac OS
7 3 (0.39%) Windows Server 2012
7 3 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.13%) CentOS
9 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.13%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 426 (55.76%) Cybersecurity
2 286 (37.43%) SIEM
3 263 (34.42%) Incident Response
4 167 (21.86%) Continuous Improvement
5 149 (19.50%) Vulnerability Management
6 148 (19.37%) Cloud Security
7 136 (17.80%) Information Security
8 115 (15.05%) Threat Intelligence
9 100 (13.09%) Problem-Solving
10 98 (12.83%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
11 94 (12.30%) Threat Detection
12 91 (11.91%) Risk Management
13 85 (11.13%) SOAR
14 72 (9.42%) MITRE ATT&CK
15 70 (9.16%) AI
16 69 (9.03%) Security Monitoring
17 66 (8.64%) Mentoring
17 66 (8.64%) Roadmaps
18 58 (7.59%) Penetration Testing
19 56 (7.33%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 104 (13.61%) PowerShell
2 91 (11.91%) Python
3 30 (3.93%) Kusto Query Language
4 24 (3.14%) Bash
5 13 (1.70%) SQL
6 9 (1.18%) C++
6 9 (1.18%) Perl
7 6 (0.79%) Bicep
7 6 (0.79%) JavaScript
8 5 (0.65%) C
8 5 (0.65%) Search Processing Language
9 3 (0.39%) C#
10 2 (0.26%) Go
10 2 (0.26%) Java
10 2 (0.26%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.13%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 151 (19.76%) Security Cleared
2 115 (15.05%) SC Cleared
3 98 (12.83%) CISSP
4 68 (8.90%) CompTIA Security+
5 58 (7.59%) Degree
6 50 (6.54%) GIAC
7 47 (6.15%) CISM
8 33 (4.32%) CEH
9 32 (4.19%) Cisco Certification
10 29 (3.80%) DV Cleared
11 26 (3.40%) SANS
12 21 (2.75%) Computer Science Degree
12 21 (2.75%) CREST Certified
13 20 (2.62%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 20 (2.62%) CompTIA CySA+
14 19 (2.49%) GCIH
15 16 (2.09%) CISA
15 16 (2.09%) GCIA
16 15 (1.96%) CCSP
17 14 (1.83%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 150 (19.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 140 (18.32%) NIST
3 64 (8.38%) GDPR
4 47 (6.15%) GRC
5 46 (6.02%) Cyber Essentials
6 34 (4.45%) PCI DSS
7 21 (2.75%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 17 (2.23%) NCSC
8 17 (2.23%) SOC 2
9 16 (2.09%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 10 (1.31%) SLA
11 5 (0.65%) Accessibility
11 5 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 3 (0.39%) COBIT
12 3 (0.39%) NIST 800
12 3 (0.39%) SOC 3
13 2 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
13 2 (0.26%) Data Quality
13 2 (0.26%) ISO 22301
13 2 (0.26%) PMO
System Software
1 27 (3.53%) Active Directory
2 11 (1.44%) Docker
3 5 (0.65%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
4 3 (0.39%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.26%) Firmware
6 1 (0.13%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 33 (4.32%) Microsoft Intune
2 27 (3.53%) Terraform
3 25 (3.27%) SCCM
4 24 (3.14%) QRadar
5 23 (3.01%) Kubernetes
6 14 (1.83%) Ansible
7 11 (1.44%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.92%) FortiGate
9 6 (0.79%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 6 (0.79%) Graylog
10 4 (0.52%) Computer Incident Response Team
10 4 (0.52%) Grafana
10 4 (0.52%) vCenter Server
11 3 (0.39%) CASB
11 3 (0.39%) Kibana
11 3 (0.39%) Nessus
12 2 (0.26%) CSIRT
12 2 (0.26%) Red Hat Satellite
13 1 (0.13%) Host Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 224 (29.32%) Microsoft
2 62 (8.12%) Splunk
3 48 (6.28%) ServiceNow
4 39 (5.10%) CrowdStrike
5 36 (4.71%) Qualys
6 32 (4.19%) Cisco
7 21 (2.75%) Palo Alto
8 19 (2.49%) SolarWinds
8 19 (2.49%) Tenable
9 16 (2.09%) OpenAI
10 14 (1.83%) Fortinet
10 14 (1.83%) Google
11 11 (1.44%) Aruba
12 10 (1.31%) Rapid7
13 9 (1.18%) Sophos
14 8 (1.05%) iManage
14 8 (1.05%) VMware
15 7 (0.92%) Okta
15 7 (0.92%) Zscaler
16 6 (0.79%) Carbon Black