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 8 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 231 392 318
Rank change year-on-year +161 -74 -28
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 893 338 702
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.85% 0.68% 0.85%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.15% 0.76% 1.04%
Number of salaries quoted 654 247 472
10th Percentile £42,150 £40,550 £37,638
25th Percentile £53,050 £48,165 £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 £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £96,000 £96,750 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +18.18% +4.76% -12.50%

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 77,565 44,386 67,277
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.71% 89.40% 81.08%
Number of salaries quoted 53,403 25,236 43,866
10th Percentile £30,580 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,170 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.71%
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £48,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +13.40% -3.00% -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 8 August 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 8 August 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 +130 801 £70,000 +12.00% 436
UK excluding London +109 550 £65,000 +18.18% 260
London +97 293 £75,000 -6.25% 227
Work from Home +80 244 £70,000 +14.29% 180
South East +95 189 £60,000 -4.00% 87
North of England +35 124 £70,000 +16.67% 72
Midlands +2 85 £65,000 +21.07% 31
North West +51 79 £75,000 +36.36% 44
East Midlands +30 56 £58,500 -4.29% 13
East of England -9 47 £61,250 -1.21% 11
South West -46 44 £65,000 +27.31% 34
Yorkshire -10 40 £55,000 -12.00% 24
Wales -27 34 £42,250 -23.18% 6
West Midlands -45 29 £67,500 +25.73% 18
Scotland +30 26 £75,000 +30.43% 15
North East -51 5 £75,000 +17.65% 5
Northern Ireland - 3 £42,500 - 8

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 (1.01%) SharePoint
2 5 (0.56%) Confluence
3 3 (0.34%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.34%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 177 (19.82%) Azure
2 105 (11.76%) AWS
3 85 (9.52%) Microsoft 365
4 72 (8.06%) Azure Sentinel
5 55 (6.16%) Entra ID
6 40 (4.48%) GCP
7 22 (2.46%) SaaS
8 20 (2.24%) Microsoft Purview
9 17 (1.90%) Azure Logic Apps
10 16 (1.79%) Mimecast
11 14 (1.57%) Anthropic Claude
12 12 (1.34%) Zapier
13 9 (1.01%) Amazon GuardDuty
13 9 (1.01%) IaaS
13 9 (1.01%) PaaS
14 8 (0.90%) AWS CloudFormation
15 6 (0.67%) Cloudflare
15 6 (0.67%) GitHub
15 6 (0.67%) GitHub Actions
15 6 (0.67%) Sumo Logic
Communications & Networking
1 138 (15.45%) Firewall
2 99 (11.09%) Network Security
3 48 (5.38%) WAN
4 46 (5.15%) LAN
5 45 (5.04%) TCP/IP
6 40 (4.48%) VPN
7 35 (3.92%) DNS
8 27 (3.02%) Wi-Fi
9 24 (2.69%) Cisco Nexus
9 24 (2.69%) Internet
10 23 (2.58%) Intrusion Detection
11 18 (2.02%) HTTP
12 12 (1.34%) FTP
12 12 (1.34%) SMTP
13 11 (1.23%) SSL
14 10 (1.12%) Cisco ISE
15 6 (0.67%) NGFW
15 6 (0.67%) SD-WAN
16 5 (0.56%) Kerberos
17 4 (0.45%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.67%) SQL Server
2 5 (0.56%) MongoDB
3 3 (0.34%) Hadoop
3 3 (0.34%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.22%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.11%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.11%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 5 (0.56%) JIRA
2 4 (0.45%) Bitbucket
2 4 (0.45%) Metasploit
3 3 (0.34%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.11%) Yeoman
General
1 176 (19.71%) Social Skills
2 106 (11.87%) Analytical Skills
3 99 (11.09%) Finance
4 50 (5.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 39 (4.37%) Law
6 38 (4.26%) Legal
6 38 (4.26%) Public Sector
7 27 (3.02%) Retail
8 26 (2.91%) Aerospace
9 18 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
10 14 (1.57%) Banking
11 11 (1.23%) Military
12 9 (1.01%) Financial Institution
13 7 (0.78%) Organisational Skills
14 6 (0.67%) Advertising
14 6 (0.67%) Documentation Skills
14 6 (0.67%) Police
15 4 (0.45%) Digital Health
15 4 (0.45%) Games
15 4 (0.45%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 223 (24.97%) Analyst
2 156 (17.47%) Security Analyst
3 148 (16.57%) Senior
4 125 (14.00%) Security Manager
5 108 (12.09%) Security Engineer
6 103 (11.53%) Lead
7 87 (9.74%) Senior Analyst
8 86 (9.63%) Cybersecurity Analyst
9 64 (7.17%) Cybersecurity Manager
10 61 (6.83%) SOC Analyst
11 60 (6.72%) Operational Security Manager
11 60 (6.72%) Security Operations Manager
11 60 (6.72%) SOC Engineer
12 59 (6.61%) Senior Security Analyst
13 56 (6.27%) Operations Manager
14 51 (5.71%) Architect
14 51 (5.71%) Cybersecurity Engineer
15 40 (4.48%) Security Specialist
16 35 (3.92%) Security Architect
17 34 (3.81%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (1.79%) LDAP
2 8 (0.90%) ModSecurity
3 6 (0.67%) ARM Templates
3 6 (0.67%) Regular Expression
4 4 (0.45%) OpenID
4 4 (0.45%) REST
4 4 (0.45%) SAML
5 3 (0.34%) JSON
5 3 (0.34%) Kafka
5 3 (0.34%) Smart Contracts
6 2 (0.22%) RESTful
7 1 (0.11%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (0.11%) FFmpeg
7 1 (0.11%) GStreamer
7 1 (0.11%) HTML
7 1 (0.11%) SailPoint
7 1 (0.11%) TAPI
7 1 (0.11%) Unreal Engine
7 1 (0.11%) WebRTC
7 1 (0.11%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 213 (23.85%) Security Operations Centre
2 157 (17.58%) Security Posture
3 89 (9.97%) Cyber Defence
4 71 (7.95%) Cyber Threat
5 59 (6.61%) Management Information System
6 45 (5.04%) CSOC
7 32 (3.58%) Onboarding
8 31 (3.47%) Cloud Native
9 23 (2.58%) Data Centre
10 17 (1.90%) Self-Motivation
11 16 (1.79%) Cyberattack
12 14 (1.57%) Cloud Security Posture
13 12 (1.34%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
13 12 (1.34%) Hybrid Cloud
14 10 (1.12%) AI Agents
14 10 (1.12%) Social Media
15 9 (1.01%) Client/Server
15 9 (1.01%) Cyber Security Posture
16 7 (0.78%) Insider Threat
16 7 (0.78%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 96 (10.75%) Windows
2 66 (7.39%) Linux
3 12 (1.34%) Windows 10
4 11 (1.23%) Unix
5 7 (0.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.67%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.56%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.45%) Kali Linux
9 3 (0.34%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.11%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 507 (56.77%) Cybersecurity
2 333 (37.29%) SIEM
3 319 (35.72%) Incident Response
4 206 (23.07%) Vulnerability Management
5 203 (22.73%) Continuous Improvement
6 186 (20.83%) Information Security
7 171 (19.15%) Cloud Security
8 140 (15.68%) Threat Detection
9 124 (13.89%) Threat Intelligence
10 122 (13.66%) Risk Management
11 110 (12.32%) Problem-Solving
12 101 (11.31%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
13 94 (10.53%) AI
14 90 (10.08%) SOAR
15 83 (9.29%) Stakeholder Management
16 82 (9.18%) Security Monitoring
17 78 (8.73%) Penetration Testing
18 76 (8.51%) Incident Management
18 76 (8.51%) Mentoring
19 73 (8.17%) MITRE ATT&CK
Programming Languages
1 103 (11.53%) PowerShell
2 90 (10.08%) Python
3 38 (4.26%) Kusto Query Language
4 23 (2.58%) Bash
5 11 (1.23%) SQL
6 10 (1.12%) C++
7 9 (1.01%) Perl
8 8 (0.90%) Bicep
8 8 (0.90%) Search Processing Language
9 6 (0.67%) C
10 5 (0.56%) Java
11 4 (0.45%) JavaScript
12 3 (0.34%) C#
13 2 (0.22%) Go
13 2 (0.22%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.11%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 181 (20.27%) Security Cleared
2 133 (14.89%) CISSP
3 128 (14.33%) SC Cleared
4 83 (9.29%) CompTIA Security+
5 71 (7.95%) Degree
6 64 (7.17%) CISM
7 48 (5.38%) Cisco Certification
7 48 (5.38%) GIAC
8 41 (4.59%) CEH
9 39 (4.37%) DV Cleared
10 28 (3.14%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 28 (3.14%) CompTIA CySA+
10 28 (3.14%) SANS
11 25 (2.80%) GCIH
12 22 (2.46%) CISA
12 22 (2.46%) Computer Science Degree
12 22 (2.46%) GCIA
13 19 (2.13%) CCSP
14 18 (2.02%) CREST Certified
15 17 (1.90%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 188 (21.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 159 (17.81%) NIST
3 76 (8.51%) GDPR
4 54 (6.05%) GRC
5 52 (5.82%) Cyber Essentials
6 31 (3.47%) PCI DSS
7 25 (2.80%) SOC 2
8 21 (2.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 18 (2.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 15 (1.68%) SLA
11 14 (1.57%) NCSC
12 8 (0.90%) Data Quality
13 7 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 5 (0.56%) Accessibility
15 4 (0.45%) NIST 800
16 2 (0.22%) Actionable Recommendations
16 2 (0.22%) COBIT
16 2 (0.22%) ISO 22301
16 2 (0.22%) ISO 9001
16 2 (0.22%) PMO
System Software
1 23 (2.58%) Active Directory
2 8 (0.90%) Docker
2 8 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (0.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.22%) Firmware
5 1 (0.11%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 32 (3.58%) Microsoft Intune
2 28 (3.14%) Terraform
3 27 (3.02%) QRadar
4 23 (2.58%) Kubernetes
5 22 (2.46%) Single Sign-On
6 20 (2.24%) SCCM
7 10 (1.12%) Ansible
8 7 (0.78%) FortiGate
8 7 (0.78%) Nessus
9 6 (0.67%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 6 (0.67%) Graylog
10 5 (0.56%) Red Hat Satellite
11 3 (0.34%) Computer Incident Response Team
11 3 (0.34%) Kibana
11 3 (0.34%) McAfee ePO
11 3 (0.34%) Nagios
12 2 (0.22%) Jamf Pro
12 2 (0.22%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
13 1 (0.11%) CASB
13 1 (0.11%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 242 (27.10%) Microsoft
2 75 (8.40%) Splunk
3 54 (6.05%) Palo Alto
4 53 (5.94%) Cisco
5 52 (5.82%) Qualys
6 46 (5.15%) ServiceNow
7 45 (5.04%) CrowdStrike
8 23 (2.58%) Fortinet
9 22 (2.46%) Aruba
9 22 (2.46%) Tenable
10 16 (1.79%) Google
10 16 (1.79%) OpenAI
11 15 (1.68%) Rapid7
12 12 (1.34%) SolarWinds
13 10 (1.12%) Sophos
14 9 (1.01%) iManage
14 9 (1.01%) Zscaler
15 8 (0.90%) CyberArk
15 8 (0.90%) LogRhythm
15 8 (0.90%) Red Hat