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 4 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 284 283 301
Rank change year-on-year -1 +18 +21
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 496 499 739
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.70% 1.10% 0.94%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.88% 1.17% 1.07%
Number of salaries quoted 303 336 604
10th Percentile £43,000 £42,500 £36,265
25th Percentile £51,250 £51,251 £47,931
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £65,000 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% +4.00% -6.72%
75th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £76,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £110,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £55,000 £55,750
% change year-on-year +18.18% -1.35% -7.08%

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 56,068 42,498 69,118
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 78.66% 93.26% 87.85%
Number of salaries quoted 33,637 21,727 52,919
10th Percentile £29,087 £32,750 £29,290
25th Percentile £38,750 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £77,125 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +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 4 March 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 4 March 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 -8 457 £70,000 +7.69% 173
UK excluding London +18 296 £65,000 +18.18% 131
Work from Home +54 230 £62,500 - 90
London -4 165 £77,500 +3.33% 55
South East +22 107 £63,750 +2.00% 50
North of England -41 63 £65,500 +31.00% 24
Midlands +3 53 £50,000 -9.09% 30
South West -3 33 £75,000 +36.15% 7
West Midlands 0 27 £55,000 - 19
North West -13 27 £63,000 +26.00% 19
Yorkshire -45 26 £65,000 +30.00% 4
East Midlands - 26 £42,000 - 11
East of England -8 18 £80,000 +30.08% 17
Scotland -17 13 £70,000 +12.00% 2
North East -10 10 £105,000 +133.33% 1
Wales -3 7 £55,000 -37.14% 4
Northern Ireland -26 3 £32,500 - 1

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 9 (1.81%) Microsoft Exchange
2 8 (1.61%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.40%) Palantir Foundry
4 1 (0.20%) Confluence
4 1 (0.20%) IIS
Business Applications
1 1 (0.20%) Exchequer
Cloud Services
1 116 (23.39%) Azure
2 65 (13.10%) AWS
3 43 (8.67%) Microsoft 365
4 35 (7.06%) GCP
5 30 (6.05%) Azure Sentinel
6 24 (4.84%) Entra ID
6 24 (4.84%) SaaS
7 15 (3.02%) Mimecast
8 14 (2.82%) PaaS
9 12 (2.42%) IaaS
9 12 (2.42%) Microsoft Purview
10 10 (2.02%) GitHub
11 9 (1.81%) GitHub Actions
12 7 (1.41%) AWS CloudFormation
13 6 (1.21%) Azure DevOps
13 6 (1.21%) Datadog
13 6 (1.21%) Tessian
14 5 (1.01%) Power Platform
15 4 (0.81%) Dynamics 365
15 4 (0.81%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 82 (16.53%) Firewall
2 64 (12.90%) Network Security
3 34 (6.85%) VPN
4 22 (4.44%) Intrusion Detection
5 21 (4.23%) DNS
6 18 (3.63%) TCP/IP
7 11 (2.22%) DHCP
8 8 (1.61%) SAN
9 5 (1.01%) WAN
10 4 (0.81%) Cisco ISE
10 4 (0.81%) Wireshark
11 3 (0.60%) Cisco Nexus
11 3 (0.60%) HTTPS
11 3 (0.60%) Internet
11 3 (0.60%) LAN
11 3 (0.60%) SCCP
12 2 (0.40%) DKIM
12 2 (0.40%) DMARC
12 2 (0.40%) SD-WAN
12 2 (0.40%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.81%) Elasticsearch
2 3 (0.60%) Power BI
3 2 (0.40%) Metadata
4 1 (0.20%) Apache Cassandra
4 1 (0.20%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.20%) MySQL
4 1 (0.20%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.20%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 6 (1.21%) CircleCI
1 6 (1.21%) Jenkins
2 3 (0.60%) Bitbucket
2 3 (0.60%) Metasploit
3 2 (0.40%) JIRA
4 1 (0.20%) Git
4 1 (0.20%) IDA Disassembler
4 1 (0.20%) MSBuild
General
1 125 (25.20%) Social Skills
2 90 (18.15%) Finance
3 72 (14.52%) Analytical Skills
4 42 (8.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 24 (4.84%) Law
6 21 (4.23%) Banking
6 21 (4.23%) Legal
7 17 (3.43%) Retail
8 15 (3.02%) Influencing Skills
8 15 (3.02%) Public Sector
9 10 (2.02%) Back Office
9 10 (2.02%) Financial Institution
10 9 (1.81%) Advertising
11 7 (1.41%) Organisational Skills
11 7 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (0.60%) Aviation
12 3 (0.60%) Documentation Skills
12 3 (0.60%) Games
12 3 (0.60%) Pharmaceutical
13 1 (0.20%) Military
Job Titles
1 119 (23.99%) Lead
2 101 (20.36%) Analyst
3 71 (14.31%) Security Analyst
4 60 (12.10%) Security Engineer
4 60 (12.10%) Senior
5 51 (10.28%) Security Manager
6 38 (7.66%) Cybersecurity Analyst
7 29 (5.85%) Cybersecurity Manager
8 25 (5.04%) SOC Analyst
9 20 (4.03%) Operational Security Manager
9 20 (4.03%) Operations Manager
9 20 (4.03%) Security Operations Manager
10 19 (3.83%) Consultant
10 19 (3.83%) Senior Security Engineer
10 19 (3.83%) SOC Manager
11 18 (3.63%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 18 (3.63%) Infrastructure Manager
12 17 (3.43%) Senior Analyst
13 16 (3.23%) Information Analyst
13 16 (3.23%) Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (1.61%) ARM Templates
2 2 (0.40%) Elastic Stack
2 2 (0.40%) OpenTelemetry
2 2 (0.40%) REST
3 1 (0.20%) .NET
3 1 (0.20%) ASP.NET
3 1 (0.20%) EDI
3 1 (0.20%) Flash
3 1 (0.20%) LDAP
3 1 (0.20%) OAuth
3 1 (0.20%) OpenID
3 1 (0.20%) SAML
3 1 (0.20%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 193 (38.91%) Security Operations Centre
2 113 (22.78%) Cyber Threat
3 77 (15.52%) Cyber Kill Chain
4 72 (14.52%) Operational Technology
5 66 (13.31%) Security Posture
6 38 (7.66%) Cyber Defence
7 20 (4.03%) Management Information System
8 19 (3.83%) Cloud Native
9 13 (2.62%) CSOC
10 10 (2.02%) Analytical Mindset
11 9 (1.81%) Onboarding
12 8 (1.61%) Cyberattack
13 7 (1.41%) Cyber Security Posture
13 7 (1.41%) Hybrid Cloud
14 6 (1.21%) Driving Licence
14 6 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
14 6 (1.21%) PKI
15 5 (1.01%) Data Centre
15 5 (1.01%) Data Protection Act
15 5 (1.01%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 71 (14.31%) Windows
2 44 (8.87%) Linux
3 17 (3.43%) Windows Server
4 13 (2.62%) Windows 10
5 11 (2.22%) Unix
6 8 (1.61%) Windows Server 2012
6 8 (1.61%) Windows Server 2019
7 5 (1.01%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.60%) Kali Linux
9 1 (0.20%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 205 (41.33%) Incident Response
2 204 (41.13%) Cybersecurity
3 175 (35.28%) SIEM
4 148 (29.84%) Threat Intelligence
5 137 (27.62%) Vulnerability Management
6 129 (26.01%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
7 109 (21.98%) Risk Management
8 108 (21.77%) Mentoring
9 103 (20.77%) Continuous Improvement
10 102 (20.56%) Roadmaps
11 99 (19.96%) Threat and Vulnerability Management
12 98 (19.76%) Stakeholder Management
13 92 (18.55%) Information Security
14 91 (18.35%) ITIL
15 81 (16.33%) Cyber Intelligence
16 79 (15.93%) Coaching
17 74 (14.92%) Business Strategy
18 73 (14.72%) Cloud Security
19 72 (14.52%) Technology Roadmap
20 69 (13.91%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 68 (13.71%) PowerShell
2 61 (12.30%) Python
3 23 (4.64%) Bash
4 16 (3.23%) Kusto Query Language
5 11 (2.22%) SQL
6 9 (1.81%) Bicep
7 3 (0.60%) JavaScript
7 3 (0.60%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.40%) Perl
9 1 (0.20%) C
9 1 (0.20%) C#
9 1 (0.20%) C++
9 1 (0.20%) PHP
Qualifications
1 86 (17.34%) CISSP
2 74 (14.92%) Security Cleared
3 63 (12.70%) Degree
4 60 (12.10%) SC Cleared
5 44 (8.87%) CompTIA Security+
6 36 (7.26%) CISM
7 30 (6.05%) GIAC
8 27 (5.44%) Cisco Certification
9 21 (4.23%) GCIH
10 18 (3.63%) CEH
10 18 (3.63%) Computer Science Degree
11 17 (3.43%) CompTIA CySA+
11 17 (3.43%) CREST Certified
12 14 (2.82%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 13 (2.62%) CCNA
13 13 (2.62%) DV Cleared
14 12 (2.42%) Azure Certification
14 12 (2.42%) CISA
14 12 (2.42%) Microsoft Certification
15 11 (2.22%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 167 (33.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 160 (32.26%) NIST
3 68 (13.71%) ISO/IEC 27005
4 55 (11.09%) GDPR
5 45 (9.07%) Cyber Essentials
6 37 (7.46%) PCI DSS
7 30 (6.05%) GRC
8 23 (4.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 21 (4.23%) SOC 2
10 15 (3.02%) NCSC
11 12 (2.42%) SLA
12 6 (1.21%) SOC 3
13 4 (0.81%) COBIT
13 4 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 3 (0.60%) Accessibility
14 3 (0.60%) ITGC
14 3 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 2 (0.40%) QA
16 1 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
16 1 (0.20%) HIPAA
System Software
1 19 (3.83%) Active Directory
2 16 (3.23%) Docker
3 10 (2.02%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (0.40%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 26 (5.24%) Terraform
2 25 (5.04%) Kubernetes
3 21 (4.23%) SCCM
4 17 (3.43%) Microsoft Intune
5 15 (3.02%) Ansible
6 13 (2.62%) QRadar
7 8 (1.61%) Single Sign-On
7 8 (1.61%) vCenter Server
8 6 (1.21%) Grafana
9 5 (1.01%) CASB
9 5 (1.01%) Computer Incident Response Team
10 4 (0.81%) CSIRT
11 3 (0.60%) ArcSight ESM
12 2 (0.40%) Nessus
12 2 (0.40%) Prometheus
13 1 (0.20%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
13 1 (0.20%) Host Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 135 (27.22%) Microsoft
2 39 (7.86%) ServiceNow
3 28 (5.65%) Splunk
4 22 (4.44%) SolarWinds
5 19 (3.83%) CrowdStrike
6 14 (2.82%) VMware
7 11 (2.22%) Tenable
8 9 (1.81%) NetApp
8 9 (1.81%) Qualys
9 8 (1.61%) 3PAR
9 8 (1.61%) Veeam
10 7 (1.41%) Cisco
10 7 (1.41%) Palo Alto
11 6 (1.21%) Google
11 6 (1.21%) Okta
12 5 (1.01%) CheckPoint
13 4 (0.81%) Fortinet
13 4 (0.81%) LogRhythm
13 4 (0.81%) McAfee
13 4 (0.81%) Zscaler