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 15 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 233 377 334
Rank change year-on-year +144 -43 -12
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 828 338 828
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.84% 0.69% 0.82%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.14% 0.76% 1.00%
Number of salaries quoted 611 246 591
10th Percentile £42,000 £41,250 £37,500
25th Percentile £53,750 £48,249 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £62,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +12.00% +4.17% -4.00%
75th Percentile £82,500 £77,500 £81,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £55,000 £54,000
% change year-on-year +18.18% +1.85% -10.00%

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 requiring process or methodology skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 72,817 44,332 83,106
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.70% 90.20% 82.17%
Number of salaries quoted 50,259 24,803 58,175
10th Percentile £30,250 £28,750 £29,750
25th Percentile £41,250 £38,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -8.84%
75th Percentile £78,750 £77,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £98,750 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +10.00% - -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 15 July 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 15 July 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 +130 740 £70,000 +12.00% 241
UK excluding London +114 491 £65,000 +18.18% 180
London +91 281 £75,000 - 98
Work from Home +80 244 £70,000 +16.67% 118
South East +81 159 £60,000 -7.69% 51
North of England +44 119 £70,000 +16.67% 41
Midlands -1 79 £65,000 +18.18% 23
North West +42 72 £75,000 +36.36% 24
East Midlands +18 46 £55,000 -10.02% 16
East of England -7 43 £67,500 +8.87% 24
Yorkshire -5 41 £50,000 -20.00% 14
South West -52 36 £67,500 +32.20% 24
West Midlands -40 33 £67,500 +22.73% 7
Wales -24 32 £32,250 -41.36% 8
Scotland +32 22 £75,000 +30.43% 12
North East -55 6 £75,000 +30.43% 3
Northern Ireland - 3 £42,500 - 6

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 10 (1.21%) SharePoint
2 4 (0.48%) Confluence
3 3 (0.36%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.36%) Distributed Ledger
2 1 (0.12%) Exchequer
Cloud Services
1 177 (21.38%) Azure
2 98 (11.84%) AWS
3 79 (9.54%) Microsoft 365
4 69 (8.33%) Azure Sentinel
5 57 (6.88%) Entra ID
6 41 (4.95%) GCP
7 24 (2.90%) SaaS
8 16 (1.93%) Microsoft Purview
9 15 (1.81%) Mimecast
10 14 (1.69%) Anthropic Claude
10 14 (1.69%) Azure Logic Apps
11 12 (1.45%) Zapier
12 10 (1.21%) IaaS
12 10 (1.21%) PaaS
13 8 (0.97%) Amazon GuardDuty
13 8 (0.97%) AWS CloudFormation
13 8 (0.97%) GitHub
13 8 (0.97%) GitHub Actions
14 6 (0.72%) Cloudflare
14 6 (0.72%) Sumo Logic
Communications & Networking
1 125 (15.10%) Firewall
2 81 (9.78%) Network Security
3 43 (5.19%) WAN
4 40 (4.83%) LAN
4 40 (4.83%) TCP/IP
5 35 (4.23%) VPN
6 32 (3.86%) DNS
7 24 (2.90%) Wi-Fi
8 22 (2.66%) Cisco Nexus
9 21 (2.54%) Internet
10 18 (2.17%) Intrusion Detection
11 17 (2.05%) HTTP
12 11 (1.33%) FTP
12 11 (1.33%) SMTP
13 10 (1.21%) Cisco ISE
14 8 (0.97%) SSL
15 7 (0.85%) SD-WAN
16 5 (0.60%) NGFW
17 4 (0.48%) HTTPS
17 4 (0.48%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.60%) SQL Server
2 4 (0.48%) MongoDB
3 3 (0.36%) Hadoop
3 3 (0.36%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
4 2 (0.24%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.12%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.12%) Big Data
5 1 (0.12%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 6 (0.72%) Jenkins
2 5 (0.60%) JIRA
3 4 (0.48%) Bitbucket
3 4 (0.48%) Metasploit
4 3 (0.36%) CircleCI
5 1 (0.12%) Yeoman
General
1 168 (20.29%) Social Skills
2 105 (12.68%) Finance
3 104 (12.56%) Analytical Skills
4 48 (5.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 43 (5.19%) Law
6 36 (4.35%) Public Sector
7 35 (4.23%) Legal
8 29 (3.50%) Retail
9 18 (2.17%) Influencing Skills
10 16 (1.93%) Banking
11 14 (1.69%) Aerospace
12 11 (1.33%) Financial Institution
13 6 (0.72%) Advertising
13 6 (0.72%) Back Office
13 6 (0.72%) Organisational Skills
13 6 (0.72%) Police
14 5 (0.60%) Presentation Skills
15 4 (0.48%) Documentation Skills
15 4 (0.48%) Games
15 4 (0.48%) Military
Job Titles
1 196 (23.67%) Analyst
2 142 (17.15%) Security Analyst
3 131 (15.82%) Senior
4 109 (13.16%) Security Manager
5 101 (12.20%) Security Engineer
6 92 (11.11%) Lead
7 79 (9.54%) Cybersecurity Analyst
8 72 (8.70%) Senior Analyst
9 57 (6.88%) SOC Engineer
10 56 (6.76%) Cybersecurity Manager
11 54 (6.52%) Operational Security Manager
11 54 (6.52%) Security Operations Manager
12 52 (6.28%) Senior Security Analyst
13 50 (6.04%) SOC Analyst
14 49 (5.92%) Architect
14 49 (5.92%) Operations Manager
15 43 (5.19%) Cybersecurity Engineer
16 37 (4.47%) Security Specialist
17 35 (4.23%) Operations Analyst
18 33 (3.99%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (1.69%) LDAP
2 7 (0.85%) ARM Templates
3 6 (0.72%) Regular Expression
4 4 (0.48%) OpenID
4 4 (0.48%) REST
4 4 (0.48%) SAML
5 3 (0.36%) JSON
5 3 (0.36%) Kafka
5 3 (0.36%) Smart Contracts
6 2 (0.24%) RESTful
7 1 (0.12%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (0.12%) FFmpeg
7 1 (0.12%) GStreamer
7 1 (0.12%) HTML
7 1 (0.12%) SailPoint
7 1 (0.12%) TAPI
7 1 (0.12%) Unreal Engine
7 1 (0.12%) WebRTC
7 1 (0.12%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 201 (24.28%) Security Operations Centre
2 141 (17.03%) Security Posture
3 77 (9.30%) Cyber Defence
4 55 (6.64%) Cyber Threat
5 53 (6.40%) Management Information System
6 38 (4.59%) CSOC
7 32 (3.86%) Cloud Native
8 29 (3.50%) Onboarding
9 20 (2.42%) Data Centre
10 14 (1.69%) Cloud Security Posture
11 13 (1.57%) Cyberattack
11 13 (1.57%) Hybrid Cloud
11 13 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
12 9 (1.09%) AI Agents
12 9 (1.09%) Client/Server
13 7 (0.85%) Linux Command Line
13 7 (0.85%) Virtual Team
14 6 (0.72%) Analytical Mindset
14 6 (0.72%) Insider Threat
14 6 (0.72%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 94 (11.35%) Windows
2 66 (7.97%) Linux
3 14 (1.69%) Windows 10
4 12 (1.45%) Unix
5 4 (0.48%) Kali Linux
5 4 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (0.48%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.36%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.12%) CentOS
7 1 (0.12%) Data ONTAP
7 1 (0.12%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 466 (56.28%) Cybersecurity
2 312 (37.68%) SIEM
3 294 (35.51%) Incident Response
4 183 (22.10%) Continuous Improvement
5 182 (21.98%) Vulnerability Management
6 167 (20.17%) Cloud Security
7 156 (18.84%) Information Security
8 123 (14.86%) Threat Intelligence
9 115 (13.89%) Threat Detection
10 114 (13.77%) Risk Management
11 106 (12.80%) Problem-Solving
12 102 (12.32%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
13 88 (10.63%) SOAR
14 80 (9.66%) AI
15 74 (8.94%) MITRE ATT&CK
15 74 (8.94%) Penetration Testing
15 74 (8.94%) Security Monitoring
16 71 (8.57%) Roadmaps
17 68 (8.21%) Mentoring
18 67 (8.09%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 108 (13.04%) PowerShell
2 91 (10.99%) Python
3 35 (4.23%) Kusto Query Language
4 23 (2.78%) Bash
5 11 (1.33%) SQL
6 9 (1.09%) Bicep
6 9 (1.09%) C++
7 8 (0.97%) Perl
8 7 (0.85%) Search Processing Language
9 5 (0.60%) C
9 5 (0.60%) JavaScript
10 4 (0.48%) Java
11 3 (0.36%) C#
12 2 (0.24%) Go
12 2 (0.24%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.12%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 162 (19.57%) Security Cleared
2 121 (14.61%) SC Cleared
3 112 (13.53%) CISSP
4 70 (8.45%) CompTIA Security+
5 62 (7.49%) Degree
6 57 (6.88%) CISM
7 50 (6.04%) GIAC
8 35 (4.23%) CEH
8 35 (4.23%) Cisco Certification
9 34 (4.11%) DV Cleared
10 26 (3.14%) SANS
11 24 (2.90%) Computer Science Degree
12 23 (2.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 23 (2.78%) CompTIA CySA+
13 22 (2.66%) CISA
13 22 (2.66%) GCIH
14 21 (2.54%) CREST Certified
15 20 (2.42%) GCIA
16 19 (2.29%) CCSP
17 16 (1.93%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 173 (20.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 156 (18.84%) NIST
3 73 (8.82%) GDPR
4 53 (6.40%) GRC
5 47 (5.68%) Cyber Essentials
6 35 (4.23%) PCI DSS
7 25 (3.02%) SOC 2
8 20 (2.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 17 (2.05%) NCSC
9 17 (2.05%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 10 (1.21%) SLA
11 5 (0.60%) Accessibility
11 5 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 4 (0.48%) COBIT
12 4 (0.48%) Data Quality
13 3 (0.36%) NIST 800
13 3 (0.36%) SOC 3
14 2 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
14 2 (0.24%) ISO 22301
14 2 (0.24%) PMO
System Software
1 23 (2.78%) Active Directory
2 10 (1.21%) Docker
3 7 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (0.60%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.24%) Firmware
6 1 (0.12%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 32 (3.86%) Microsoft Intune
2 29 (3.50%) Terraform
3 27 (3.26%) QRadar
4 23 (2.78%) Kubernetes
5 22 (2.66%) SCCM
6 18 (2.17%) Single Sign-On
7 11 (1.33%) Ansible
8 7 (0.85%) FortiGate
9 6 (0.72%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 6 (0.72%) Graylog
10 4 (0.48%) Computer Incident Response Team
10 4 (0.48%) Red Hat Satellite
11 3 (0.36%) CASB
11 3 (0.36%) Grafana
11 3 (0.36%) Kibana
11 3 (0.36%) Nessus
12 1 (0.12%) Host Intrusion Detection System
12 1 (0.12%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 234 (28.26%) Microsoft
2 72 (8.70%) Splunk
3 49 (5.92%) ServiceNow
4 48 (5.80%) Qualys
5 44 (5.31%) CrowdStrike
6 41 (4.95%) Cisco
7 35 (4.23%) Palo Alto
8 24 (2.90%) Tenable
9 19 (2.29%) Aruba
10 16 (1.93%) OpenAI
11 15 (1.81%) Fortinet
11 15 (1.81%) Google
12 14 (1.69%) Rapid7
12 14 (1.69%) SolarWinds
13 10 (1.21%) Sophos
14 9 (1.09%) iManage
15 8 (0.97%) Zscaler
16 7 (0.85%) Carbon Black
16 7 (0.85%) Meraki
16 7 (0.85%) Okta