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

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 291 298 347
Rank change year-on-year +7 +49 -17
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 552 401 769
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.66% 0.98% 0.83%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.87% 1.05% 0.97%
Number of salaries quoted 347 302 617
10th Percentile £45,000 £42,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £51,250 £51,195 £47,725
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £62,500 £62,000
Median % change year-on-year +12.00% +0.81% -4.62%
75th Percentile £80,000 £81,875 £77,500
90th Percentile £92,500 £110,000 £98,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +18.18% - -5.89%

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 63,393 38,022 79,332
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 76.08% 92.93% 86.08%
Number of salaries quoted 39,190 22,514 58,792
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,008
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -10.57%
75th Percentile £77,500 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £53,688 £50,000
% change year-on-year -6.87% +7.38% -7.94%

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 10 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 10 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 +16 511 £70,000 +12.00% 153
UK excluding London +13 328 £65,000 +18.18% 113
Work from Home +61 242 £60,000 -4.00% 74
London -1 180 £75,000 - 63
South East +15 96 £65,000 +8.33% 41
North of England -21 91 £65,000 +23.81% 25
Midlands -27 61 £50,000 -9.09% 13
North West -9 41 £64,250 +8.44% 17
South West -28 40 £70,000 +24.26% 16
Yorkshire -36 38 £50,000 - 5
East Midlands - 31 £45,000 - 4
West Midlands -24 30 £65,000 +18.18% 9
East of England -41 20 £80,000 +68.42% 12
North East -22 12 £75,000 +66.67% 3
Wales -26 10 £55,000 -37.14% 4
Scotland -20 8 £64,210 +2.74% 4
Northern Ireland -36 2 £32,500 - 2

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 7 (1.27%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (1.09%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.18%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 1 (0.18%) Exchequer
Cloud Services
1 121 (21.92%) Azure
2 63 (11.41%) AWS
3 48 (8.70%) Microsoft 365
4 46 (8.33%) Azure Sentinel
5 34 (6.16%) GCP
6 24 (4.35%) SaaS
7 23 (4.17%) Entra ID
8 15 (2.72%) Mimecast
9 12 (2.17%) IaaS
9 12 (2.17%) Microsoft Purview
9 12 (2.17%) PaaS
10 11 (1.99%) GitHub
10 11 (1.99%) GitHub Actions
11 8 (1.45%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (1.09%) Datadog
13 4 (0.72%) Azure DevOps
13 4 (0.72%) OneDrive
13 4 (0.72%) Power Platform
14 3 (0.54%) Azure Logic Apps
14 3 (0.54%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 77 (13.95%) Firewall
2 61 (11.05%) Network Security
3 29 (5.25%) VPN
4 23 (4.17%) Intrusion Detection
5 15 (2.72%) DNS
6 14 (2.54%) TCP/IP
7 6 (1.09%) DHCP
8 5 (0.91%) Cisco ISE
8 5 (0.91%) SAN
9 4 (0.72%) Cisco Nexus
9 4 (0.72%) HTTPS
9 4 (0.72%) Internet
9 4 (0.72%) WAN
9 4 (0.72%) Wireshark
10 3 (0.54%) SCCP
11 2 (0.36%) DKIM
11 2 (0.36%) DMARC
11 2 (0.36%) LAN
11 2 (0.36%) SSL
12 1 (0.18%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.54%) Elasticsearch
1 3 (0.54%) Power BI
2 1 (0.18%) Metadata
2 1 (0.18%) MongoDB
2 1 (0.18%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.18%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 6 (1.09%) CircleCI
1 6 (1.09%) Jenkins
2 4 (0.72%) Bitbucket
2 4 (0.72%) Metasploit
3 2 (0.36%) JIRA
4 1 (0.18%) IDA Disassembler
General
1 137 (24.82%) Social Skills
2 84 (15.22%) Analytical Skills
3 81 (14.67%) Finance
4 50 (9.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 32 (5.80%) Law
6 24 (4.35%) Retail
7 23 (4.17%) Public Sector
8 18 (3.26%) Legal
9 17 (3.08%) Banking
10 16 (2.90%) Influencing Skills
11 11 (1.99%) Financial Institution
12 10 (1.81%) Back Office
13 8 (1.45%) Organisational Skills
13 8 (1.45%) Presentation Skills
14 6 (1.09%) Police
15 4 (0.72%) Advertising
15 4 (0.72%) Aviation
16 3 (0.54%) Documentation Skills
16 3 (0.54%) Games
16 3 (0.54%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 113 (20.47%) Lead
2 112 (20.29%) Analyst
3 79 (14.31%) Security Analyst
4 69 (12.50%) Security Manager
5 63 (11.41%) Security Engineer
6 60 (10.87%) Senior
7 43 (7.79%) Cybersecurity Analyst
8 36 (6.52%) Operational Security Manager
8 36 (6.52%) Security Operations Manager
9 34 (6.16%) Operations Manager
10 31 (5.62%) Cybersecurity Manager
11 26 (4.71%) SOC Analyst
12 24 (4.35%) SOC Engineer
13 19 (3.44%) Architect
13 19 (3.44%) Consultant
13 19 (3.44%) Infrastructure Manager
13 19 (3.44%) SOC Manager
14 18 (3.26%) Head of Security
15 17 (3.08%) Cloud Engineer
15 17 (3.08%) Cybersecurity Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (1.63%) ARM Templates
2 5 (0.91%) Regular Expression
3 3 (0.54%) REST
4 2 (0.36%) LDAP
5 1 (0.18%) EDI
5 1 (0.18%) Flash
5 1 (0.18%) SailPoint
5 1 (0.18%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 201 (36.41%) Security Operations Centre
2 104 (18.84%) Cyber Threat
3 77 (13.95%) Cyber Kill Chain
3 77 (13.95%) Security Posture
4 72 (13.04%) Operational Technology
5 50 (9.06%) Cyber Defence
6 30 (5.43%) Management Information System
7 23 (4.17%) Cloud Native
8 19 (3.44%) CSOC
9 15 (2.72%) Onboarding
10 10 (1.81%) Analytical Mindset
10 10 (1.81%) Cyberattack
11 7 (1.27%) Cyber Security Posture
11 7 (1.27%) Driving Licence
11 7 (1.27%) Self-Motivation
12 6 (1.09%) Data Centre
12 6 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
12 6 (1.09%) Hybrid Cloud
12 6 (1.09%) Life Science
12 6 (1.09%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 75 (13.59%) Windows
2 46 (8.33%) Linux
3 18 (3.26%) Windows 10
4 12 (2.17%) Windows Server
5 11 (1.99%) Unix
6 5 (0.91%) Mac OS
6 5 (0.91%) Windows Server 2012
6 5 (0.91%) Windows Server 2019
7 4 (0.72%) Kali Linux
8 1 (0.18%) CentOS
8 1 (0.18%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.18%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 231 (41.85%) Cybersecurity
2 211 (38.22%) Incident Response
3 193 (34.96%) SIEM
4 154 (27.90%) Threat Intelligence
5 143 (25.91%) Vulnerability Management
6 138 (25.00%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
7 119 (21.56%) Risk Management
8 117 (21.20%) Continuous Improvement
9 110 (19.93%) Roadmaps
10 107 (19.38%) Mentoring
11 104 (18.84%) Threat and Vulnerability Management
12 97 (17.57%) Stakeholder Management
13 94 (17.03%) Cloud Security
14 90 (16.30%) ITIL
15 87 (15.76%) Information Security
16 81 (14.67%) Cyber Intelligence
17 80 (14.49%) Coaching
18 75 (13.59%) Problem-Solving
19 71 (12.86%) Business Strategy
19 71 (12.86%) Technology Roadmap
Programming Languages
1 89 (16.12%) PowerShell
2 75 (13.59%) Python
3 22 (3.99%) Bash
4 18 (3.26%) Kusto Query Language
5 12 (2.17%) Bicep
6 9 (1.63%) SQL
7 3 (0.54%) C
7 3 (0.54%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.36%) JavaScript
8 2 (0.36%) Perl
9 1 (0.18%) C++
9 1 (0.18%) Java
Qualifications
1 85 (15.40%) Security Cleared
2 83 (15.04%) CISSP
3 73 (13.22%) SC Cleared
4 61 (11.05%) Degree
5 41 (7.43%) CompTIA Security+
6 37 (6.70%) GIAC
7 34 (6.16%) CISM
8 28 (5.07%) Cisco Certification
9 22 (3.99%) CEH
10 19 (3.44%) GCIH
11 18 (3.26%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 18 (3.26%) CompTIA CySA+
12 17 (3.08%) Computer Science Degree
13 16 (2.90%) CREST Certified
14 15 (2.72%) SANS
15 13 (2.36%) CISA
16 12 (2.17%) Azure Certification
16 12 (2.17%) DV Cleared
17 11 (1.99%) CCSP
18 10 (1.81%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 166 (30.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 166 (30.07%) NIST
2 68 (12.32%) ISO/IEC 27005
3 51 (9.24%) GDPR
4 37 (6.70%) Cyber Essentials
5 34 (6.16%) GRC
5 34 (6.16%) PCI DSS
6 22 (3.99%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 21 (3.80%) SOC 2
8 14 (2.54%) NCSC
9 11 (1.99%) SLA
10 6 (1.09%) SOC 3
11 4 (0.72%) COBIT
11 4 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 4 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.54%) ITGC
13 1 (0.18%) Accessibility
13 1 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
13 1 (0.18%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 1 (0.18%) HIPAA
System Software
1 18 (3.26%) Active Directory
2 14 (2.54%) Docker
3 5 (0.91%) VMware ESXi
4 3 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.36%) Firmware
5 2 (0.36%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.18%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 27 (4.89%) Terraform
2 25 (4.53%) Kubernetes
3 24 (4.35%) SCCM
4 19 (3.44%) Microsoft Intune
5 18 (3.26%) QRadar
6 14 (2.54%) Ansible
7 6 (1.09%) Grafana
7 6 (1.09%) vCenter Server
8 5 (0.91%) CASB
8 5 (0.91%) Computer Incident Response Team
8 5 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
9 3 (0.54%) ArcSight ESM
9 3 (0.54%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 3 (0.54%) CSIRT
10 1 (0.18%) Host Intrusion Detection System
10 1 (0.18%) Nessus
10 1 (0.18%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 163 (29.53%) Microsoft
2 50 (9.06%) ServiceNow
3 37 (6.70%) Splunk
4 23 (4.17%) CrowdStrike
4 23 (4.17%) SolarWinds
5 15 (2.72%) Qualys
6 14 (2.54%) Cisco
7 12 (2.17%) Tenable
8 10 (1.81%) VMware
9 7 (1.27%) Okta
9 7 (1.27%) Sophos
10 6 (1.09%) NetApp
10 6 (1.09%) Veeam
10 6 (1.09%) Zscaler
11 5 (0.91%) 3PAR
11 5 (0.91%) CheckPoint
11 5 (0.91%) Fortinet
11 5 (0.91%) Google
11 5 (0.91%) LogRhythm
11 5 (0.91%) Palo Alto