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 22 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 267 366 333
Rank change year-on-year +99 -33 -3
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 658 328 798
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.71% 0.76% 0.82%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.97% 0.82% 0.97%
Number of salaries quoted 492 235 596
10th Percentile £41,250 £42,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £51,188 £51,875 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £62,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +12.00% +4.17% -4.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £79,375 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,250 £110,750 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £55,000 £54,500
% change year-on-year +18.18% +0.92% -5.54%

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 68,138 40,050 82,452
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.73% 93.30% 84.76%
Number of salaries quoted 44,115 21,094 59,611
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,795 £41,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £59,648 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +0.59% +8.45% -9.84%
75th Percentile £78,750 £78,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £101,250 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £52,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +0.96% +4.00% -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 22 May 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 22 May 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 +90 599 £70,000 +9.80% 218
UK excluding London +98 382 £65,000 +18.18% 176
London +50 226 £72,500 -4.92% 92
Work from Home +104 212 £57,500 -2.95% 98
North of England +40 115 £70,000 +16.67% 40
South East +33 105 £52,500 -19.23% 61
Midlands -7 68 £53,750 -2.27% 26
North West +41 64 £75,000 +25.00% 19
Yorkshire -17 43 £62,500 +4.17% 17
South West -39 41 £65,000 +25.65% 26
East Midlands 0 37 £52,500 -27.59% 8
West Midlands -32 31 £58,750 +6.82% 17
Wales -13 26 £25,000 -54.55% 6
East of England -17 18 £50,000 -19.35% 9
Scotland -11 8 £61,710 +2.85% 11
North East -29 8 £75,000 +7.14% 4
Northern Ireland - 1 £39,000 - 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 (1.22%) SharePoint
2 6 (0.91%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.15%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.15%) Exchequer
Cloud Services
1 143 (21.73%) Azure
2 72 (10.94%) AWS
2 72 (10.94%) Microsoft 365
3 59 (8.97%) Azure Sentinel
4 41 (6.23%) Entra ID
5 35 (5.32%) GCP
6 24 (3.65%) SaaS
7 17 (2.58%) Mimecast
8 10 (1.52%) Microsoft Purview
9 8 (1.22%) AWS CloudFormation
9 8 (1.22%) GitHub
9 8 (1.22%) GitHub Actions
10 7 (1.06%) IaaS
10 7 (1.06%) PaaS
11 6 (0.91%) Datadog
12 4 (0.61%) Anthropic Claude
12 4 (0.61%) Cloudflare
12 4 (0.61%) Power Platform
12 4 (0.61%) Sumo Logic
12 4 (0.61%) Zapier
Communications & Networking
1 92 (13.98%) Firewall
2 74 (11.25%) Network Security
3 32 (4.86%) VPN
4 31 (4.71%) TCP/IP
5 29 (4.41%) DNS
6 19 (2.89%) Intrusion Detection
7 14 (2.13%) WAN
8 12 (1.82%) HTTP
9 11 (1.67%) LAN
10 9 (1.37%) Cisco ISE
11 8 (1.22%) SMTP
11 8 (1.22%) SSL
12 7 (1.06%) FTP
13 5 (0.76%) Internet
13 5 (0.76%) SD-WAN
14 4 (0.61%) Cisco Nexus
14 4 (0.61%) DHCP
14 4 (0.61%) HTTPS
14 4 (0.61%) SAN
15 3 (0.46%) SCCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.46%) Power BI
2 2 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
2 2 (0.30%) Relational Database
3 1 (0.15%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.15%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.15%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 6 (0.91%) CircleCI
1 6 (0.91%) Jenkins
2 4 (0.61%) Bitbucket
2 4 (0.61%) Metasploit
3 2 (0.30%) JIRA
General
1 151 (22.95%) Social Skills
2 100 (15.20%) Analytical Skills
3 81 (12.31%) Finance
4 46 (6.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 31 (4.71%) Law
6 28 (4.26%) Public Sector
6 28 (4.26%) Retail
7 26 (3.95%) Legal
8 16 (2.43%) Influencing Skills
9 14 (2.13%) Banking
10 9 (1.37%) Financial Institution
11 8 (1.22%) Organisational Skills
12 7 (1.06%) Aerospace
12 7 (1.06%) Back Office
12 7 (1.06%) Police
13 6 (0.91%) Advertising
13 6 (0.91%) Aviation
13 6 (0.91%) Presentation Skills
14 4 (0.61%) Documentation Skills
15 3 (0.46%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 154 (23.40%) Analyst
2 103 (15.65%) Security Analyst
3 90 (13.68%) Security Manager
4 76 (11.55%) Security Engineer
4 76 (11.55%) Senior
5 62 (9.42%) Lead
6 55 (8.36%) Cybersecurity Analyst
7 54 (8.21%) Operational Security Manager
7 54 (8.21%) Security Operations Manager
8 51 (7.75%) Operations Manager
9 49 (7.45%) Cybersecurity Manager
10 44 (6.69%) SOC Engineer
11 39 (5.93%) SOC Analyst
12 36 (5.47%) Architect
13 29 (4.41%) Operations Analyst
13 29 (4.41%) Senior Analyst
14 28 (4.26%) Security Specialist
15 27 (4.10%) Security Architect
16 25 (3.80%) Cybersecurity Engineer
17 23 (3.50%) Team Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (1.37%) LDAP
2 6 (0.91%) Regular Expression
3 5 (0.76%) ARM Templates
4 4 (0.61%) REST
5 1 (0.15%) EDI
5 1 (0.15%) SailPoint
5 1 (0.15%) SOAP
5 1 (0.15%) TAPI
Miscellaneous
1 157 (23.86%) Security Operations Centre
2 89 (13.53%) Security Posture
3 65 (9.88%) Cyber Defence
4 46 (6.99%) Management Information System
5 44 (6.69%) Cyber Threat
6 30 (4.56%) CSOC
7 25 (3.80%) Cloud Native
8 23 (3.50%) Onboarding
9 13 (1.98%) Data Centre
10 12 (1.82%) Analytical Mindset
10 12 (1.82%) Cyberattack
11 10 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
12 9 (1.37%) Cloud Security Posture
13 8 (1.22%) AI Agents
14 7 (1.06%) Client/Server
14 7 (1.06%) Driving Licence
15 6 (0.91%) Cyber Kill Chain
15 6 (0.91%) Life Science
15 6 (0.91%) PKI
15 6 (0.91%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 97 (14.74%) Windows
2 55 (8.36%) Linux
3 22 (3.34%) Windows 10
4 12 (1.82%) Unix
5 10 (1.52%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.61%) Kali Linux
6 4 (0.61%) Windows Server 2012
6 4 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
7 3 (0.46%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.15%) CentOS
8 1 (0.15%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.15%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 335 (50.91%) Cybersecurity
2 234 (35.56%) Incident Response
3 231 (35.11%) SIEM
4 141 (21.43%) Continuous Improvement
5 118 (17.93%) Cloud Security
6 108 (16.41%) Information Security
7 98 (14.89%) Vulnerability Management
8 93 (14.13%) Threat Intelligence
9 85 (12.92%) Problem-Solving
10 79 (12.01%) Threat Detection
11 77 (11.70%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
12 73 (11.09%) SOAR
13 69 (10.49%) Risk Management
14 64 (9.73%) MITRE ATT&CK
15 56 (8.51%) Security Monitoring
16 55 (8.36%) Roadmaps
16 55 (8.36%) Use Case
17 52 (7.90%) Mentoring
18 51 (7.75%) ITSM
19 47 (7.14%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 102 (15.50%) PowerShell
2 87 (13.22%) Python
3 22 (3.34%) Bash
4 20 (3.04%) Kusto Query Language
5 9 (1.37%) Perl
5 9 (1.37%) SQL
6 7 (1.06%) Bicep
6 7 (1.06%) C++
7 3 (0.46%) C
7 3 (0.46%) JavaScript
8 2 (0.30%) C#
8 2 (0.30%) Go
8 2 (0.30%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.15%) Java
Qualifications
1 122 (18.54%) Security Cleared
2 102 (15.50%) SC Cleared
3 89 (13.53%) CISSP
4 56 (8.51%) CompTIA Security+
4 56 (8.51%) Degree
5 43 (6.53%) GIAC
6 40 (6.08%) CISM
7 31 (4.71%) Cisco Certification
8 29 (4.41%) CEH
9 24 (3.65%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 24 (3.65%) SANS
10 21 (3.19%) CREST Certified
11 19 (2.89%) Computer Science Degree
12 18 (2.74%) GCIH
13 16 (2.43%) CCSP
14 15 (2.28%) CompTIA CySA+
15 14 (2.13%) Azure Certification
16 13 (1.98%) DV Cleared
17 11 (1.67%) CISA
17 11 (1.67%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 122 (18.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 116 (17.63%) NIST
3 55 (8.36%) GDPR
4 48 (7.29%) GRC
5 43 (6.53%) Cyber Essentials
6 34 (5.17%) PCI DSS
7 22 (3.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 18 (2.74%) SOC 2
9 16 (2.43%) NCSC
10 10 (1.52%) SLA
11 7 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 5 (0.76%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 5 (0.76%) SOC 3
13 4 (0.61%) Accessibility
13 4 (0.61%) COBIT
14 3 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
15 2 (0.30%) ISO 22301
15 2 (0.30%) ISO 9001
15 2 (0.30%) NIST 800
16 1 (0.15%) HIPAA
System Software
1 25 (3.80%) Active Directory
2 13 (1.98%) Docker
3 4 (0.61%) VMware ESXi
4 3 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.30%) Firmware
5 2 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.15%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 30 (4.56%) SCCM
2 28 (4.26%) Microsoft Intune
3 23 (3.50%) Kubernetes
4 22 (3.34%) QRadar
5 20 (3.04%) Terraform
6 14 (2.13%) Ansible
7 11 (1.67%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.91%) CASB
8 6 (0.91%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 6 (0.91%) Grafana
9 5 (0.76%) Computer Incident Response Team
9 5 (0.76%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.61%) FortiGate
10 4 (0.61%) Graylog
11 3 (0.46%) CSIRT
12 2 (0.30%) Kibana
13 1 (0.15%) Host Intrusion Detection System
13 1 (0.15%) Nessus
13 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 200 (30.40%) Microsoft
2 55 (8.36%) ServiceNow
3 43 (6.53%) Splunk
4 30 (4.56%) CrowdStrike
5 26 (3.95%) SolarWinds
6 20 (3.04%) Qualys
7 19 (2.89%) Cisco
8 14 (2.13%) Tenable
9 10 (1.52%) Fortinet
10 9 (1.37%) Google
10 9 (1.37%) Sophos
11 8 (1.22%) VMware
12 7 (1.06%) Okta
12 7 (1.06%) Rapid7
12 7 (1.06%) Zscaler
13 5 (0.76%) CheckPoint
13 5 (0.76%) NetApp
13 5 (0.76%) OpenAI
13 5 (0.76%) Palo Alto
13 5 (0.76%) Veeam