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 12 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 224 361 295
Rank change year-on-year +137 -66 -11
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 962 357 727
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.85% 0.72% 0.92%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.16% 0.81% 1.14%
Number of salaries quoted 678 264 427
10th Percentile £41,250 £37,500 £39,552
25th Percentile £53,050 £47,750 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £65,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% +8.33% -4.00%
75th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £100,000 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +18.18% - -12.00%

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 82,683 43,966 63,604
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 72.91% 88.62% 80.92%
Number of salaries quoted 57,515 24,838 36,851
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,875
25th Percentile £41,500 £36,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £80,000 £75,000 £76,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,375 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +15.79% -9.52% -3.37%

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 12 September 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 12 September 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 +123 864 £70,000 +7.69% 633
UK excluding London +98 581 £65,000 +18.18% 357
London +98 330 £75,000 -3.23% 339
Work from Home +80 266 £70,000 +3.70% 254
South East +83 208 £58,000 -7.20% 128
North of England +21 120 £70,000 +19.15% 73
Midlands +2 89 £65,000 +25.00% 43
North West +36 79 £75,000 +36.36% 51
East Midlands +21 60 £65,000 +6.34% 20
South West -46 51 £65,000 +27.31% 40
East of England -8 48 £61,250 -10.58% 34
Yorkshire -25 38 £60,000 -7.69% 17
Wales -36 36 £45,000 -35.71% 19
West Midlands -56 29 £67,500 +29.81% 23
Scotland +31 28 £75,000 +27.66% 15
North East -63 3 £75,000 +30.43% 5
Northern Ireland - 3 £42,500 - 11

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 16 (1.66%) SharePoint
2 5 (0.52%) Confluence
2 5 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.31%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.10%) IIS
4 1 (0.10%) SharePoint Server
4 1 (0.10%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 1 (0.10%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.31%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 201 (20.89%) Azure
2 127 (13.20%) AWS
3 102 (10.60%) Microsoft 365
4 85 (8.84%) Entra ID
5 84 (8.73%) Azure Sentinel
6 52 (5.41%) GCP
7 31 (3.22%) Microsoft Purview
8 24 (2.49%) Azure Logic Apps
9 19 (1.98%) Mimecast
10 18 (1.87%) SaaS
11 14 (1.46%) Anthropic Claude
12 12 (1.25%) Zapier
13 9 (0.94%) Amazon GuardDuty
14 8 (0.83%) AWS CloudFormation
14 8 (0.83%) Cloudflare
14 8 (0.83%) IaaS
15 7 (0.73%) Microsoft Copilot
15 7 (0.73%) PaaS
16 6 (0.62%) Google Workspace
16 6 (0.62%) Sumo Logic
Communications & Networking
1 153 (15.90%) Firewall
2 103 (10.71%) Network Security
3 55 (5.72%) WAN
4 53 (5.51%) LAN
5 49 (5.09%) VPN
6 46 (4.78%) TCP/IP
7 36 (3.74%) DNS
8 31 (3.22%) Wi-Fi
9 28 (2.91%) Internet
10 26 (2.70%) Cisco Nexus
11 24 (2.49%) Intrusion Detection
12 20 (2.08%) HTTP
13 14 (1.46%) SMTP
13 14 (1.46%) SSL
14 13 (1.35%) Cisco ISE
14 13 (1.35%) FTP
15 6 (0.62%) IPsec
15 6 (0.62%) NGFW
15 6 (0.62%) SD-WAN
16 5 (0.52%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.62%) SQL Server
2 5 (0.52%) MongoDB
3 3 (0.31%) Hadoop
3 3 (0.31%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.21%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.10%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.10%) Big Data
5 1 (0.10%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 10 (1.04%) JIRA
2 5 (0.52%) Jenkins
3 2 (0.21%) Maven
3 2 (0.21%) Team Foundation Server
3 2 (0.21%) Yeoman
General
1 201 (20.89%) Social Skills
2 114 (11.85%) Analytical Skills
3 102 (10.60%) Finance
4 47 (4.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 43 (4.47%) Law
5 43 (4.47%) Legal
6 39 (4.05%) Public Sector
7 37 (3.85%) Aerospace
8 34 (3.53%) Retail
9 18 (1.87%) Banking
9 18 (1.87%) Influencing Skills
9 18 (1.87%) Military
10 9 (0.94%) Documentation Skills
11 8 (0.83%) Financial Institution
12 6 (0.62%) Police
13 5 (0.52%) Advertising
13 5 (0.52%) Manufacturing
14 4 (0.42%) Local Government
14 4 (0.42%) Organisational Skills
14 4 (0.42%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 237 (24.64%) Analyst
2 175 (18.19%) Senior
3 159 (16.53%) Security Analyst
4 137 (14.24%) Security Engineer
5 124 (12.89%) Security Manager
6 122 (12.68%) Lead
7 99 (10.29%) Senior Analyst
8 79 (8.21%) Cybersecurity Analyst
9 76 (7.90%) SOC Analyst
10 68 (7.07%) Cybersecurity Manager
11 65 (6.76%) Senior Security Analyst
12 63 (6.55%) Cybersecurity Engineer
13 61 (6.34%) Architect
14 59 (6.13%) Operational Security Manager
14 59 (6.13%) Security Operations Manager
15 57 (5.93%) Operations Manager
16 49 (5.09%) SOC Engineer
17 43 (4.47%) Security Specialist
18 39 (4.05%) Security Architect
18 39 (4.05%) Senior Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (3.01%) Terraform
2 17 (1.77%) LDAP
3 16 (1.66%) ModSecurity
4 9 (0.94%) REST
5 6 (0.62%) ARM Templates
5 6 (0.62%) Regular Expression
6 5 (0.52%) SOAP
7 4 (0.42%) JSON
7 4 (0.42%) OpenID
7 4 (0.42%) SAML
8 3 (0.31%) Kafka
8 3 (0.31%) Smart Contracts
9 2 (0.21%) HTML
9 2 (0.21%) RESTful
10 1 (0.10%) CSS
10 1 (0.10%) FFmpeg
10 1 (0.10%) GStreamer
10 1 (0.10%) TAPI
10 1 (0.10%) WPF
10 1 (0.10%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 219 (22.77%) Security Operations Centre
2 179 (18.61%) Security Posture
3 87 (9.04%) Cyber Defence
4 84 (8.73%) Cyber Threat
5 66 (6.86%) Management Information System
6 38 (3.95%) CSOC
7 35 (3.64%) Cloud Native
7 35 (3.64%) Onboarding
8 33 (3.43%) Data Centre
9 22 (2.29%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 17 (1.77%) Self-Motivation
11 15 (1.56%) Cloud Security Posture
12 13 (1.35%) Hybrid Cloud
13 12 (1.25%) AI Agents
13 12 (1.25%) Cyberattack
13 12 (1.25%) Social Media
14 10 (1.04%) Cyber Security Posture
15 9 (0.94%) Client/Server
15 9 (0.94%) Virtual Team
16 8 (0.83%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 92 (9.56%) Windows
2 66 (6.86%) Linux
3 9 (0.94%) Windows Server
4 8 (0.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 8 (0.83%) Windows 10
5 7 (0.73%) Mac OS
5 7 (0.73%) Unix
6 4 (0.42%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.21%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.10%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 568 (59.04%) Cybersecurity
2 354 (36.80%) SIEM
3 351 (36.49%) Incident Response
4 248 (25.78%) Vulnerability Management
5 225 (23.39%) Continuous Improvement
6 215 (22.35%) Information Security
7 186 (19.33%) Cloud Security
8 165 (17.15%) Threat Detection
9 145 (15.07%) Risk Management
10 131 (13.62%) Problem-Solving
11 124 (12.89%) Threat Intelligence
12 112 (11.64%) AI
12 112 (11.64%) Security Monitoring
13 101 (10.50%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
14 96 (9.98%) Stakeholder Management
15 94 (9.77%) SOAR
16 90 (9.36%) Mentoring
17 88 (9.15%) Disaster Recovery
18 85 (8.84%) Incident Management
19 83 (8.63%) Penetration Testing
Programming Languages
1 100 (10.40%) PowerShell
2 92 (9.56%) Python
3 46 (4.78%) Kusto Query Language
4 24 (2.49%) Bash
5 12 (1.25%) SQL
6 11 (1.14%) C++
7 10 (1.04%) Perl
8 9 (0.94%) Search Processing Language
9 8 (0.83%) JavaScript
10 6 (0.62%) Bicep
10 6 (0.62%) C
10 6 (0.62%) Go
10 6 (0.62%) Java
11 3 (0.31%) C#
11 3 (0.31%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.10%) MATLAB
12 1 (0.10%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 198 (20.58%) Security Cleared
2 149 (15.49%) CISSP
3 133 (13.83%) SC Cleared
4 83 (8.63%) CompTIA Security+
5 79 (8.21%) CISM
6 78 (8.11%) Degree
7 56 (5.82%) DV Cleared
8 53 (5.51%) Cisco Certification
9 46 (4.78%) GIAC
10 42 (4.37%) CEH
11 32 (3.33%) CompTIA CySA+
12 30 (3.12%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 24 (2.49%) Computer Science Degree
14 23 (2.39%) GCIH
14 23 (2.39%) SANS
15 22 (2.29%) AWS Certification
15 22 (2.29%) GCIA
16 21 (2.18%) CCSP
17 19 (1.98%) CCNP
17 19 (1.98%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 206 (21.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 165 (17.15%) NIST
3 73 (7.59%) GDPR
4 64 (6.65%) GRC
5 56 (5.82%) Cyber Essentials
6 39 (4.05%) PCI DSS
7 23 (2.39%) SOC 2
8 21 (2.18%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 17 (1.77%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 15 (1.56%) NCSC
10 15 (1.56%) SLA
11 11 (1.14%) Data Quality
12 7 (0.73%) NIST 800
13 5 (0.52%) Accessibility
14 3 (0.31%) COBIT
14 3 (0.31%) ISO 22301
14 3 (0.31%) ISO 9001
14 3 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 2 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 2 (0.21%) QA
System Software
1 34 (3.53%) Active Directory
2 9 (0.94%) Docker
3 7 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
3 7 (0.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.21%) Firmware
5 1 (0.10%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 38 (3.95%) Microsoft Intune
2 33 (3.43%) Single Sign-On
3 30 (3.12%) QRadar
4 28 (2.91%) Kubernetes
5 16 (1.66%) SCCM
6 8 (0.83%) Ansible
7 7 (0.73%) FortiGate
7 7 (0.73%) Graylog
7 7 (0.73%) Nessus
8 5 (0.52%) McAfee ePO
8 5 (0.52%) Nagios
8 5 (0.52%) Red Hat Satellite
9 4 (0.42%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
10 3 (0.31%) CASB
10 3 (0.31%) Computer Incident Response Team
10 3 (0.31%) Kibana
10 3 (0.31%) Progress Chef
10 3 (0.31%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
11 2 (0.21%) Argo
11 2 (0.21%) Istio
Vendors
1 262 (27.23%) Microsoft
2 85 (8.84%) Splunk
3 67 (6.96%) Palo Alto
4 63 (6.55%) Cisco
5 57 (5.93%) Qualys
6 55 (5.72%) CrowdStrike
7 46 (4.78%) ServiceNow
8 26 (2.70%) Aruba
9 25 (2.60%) Fortinet
10 24 (2.49%) Google
11 23 (2.39%) Tenable
12 16 (1.66%) OpenAI
12 16 (1.66%) Rapid7
13 12 (1.25%) Meraki
13 12 (1.25%) Zscaler
14 9 (0.94%) CyberArk
14 9 (0.94%) LogRhythm
14 9 (0.94%) Red Hat
14 9 (0.94%) SolarWinds
15 8 (0.83%) Sophos