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

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 227 366 310
Rank change year-on-year +139 -56 -24
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 935 353 717
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.85% 0.71% 0.88%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.16% 0.80% 1.09%
Number of salaries quoted 671 266 437
10th Percentile £42,500 £37,500 £38,880
25th Percentile £52,750 £47,188 £48,750
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 £78,438 £78,750
90th Percentile £97,500 £96,250 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £55,000 £54,500
% change year-on-year +18.18% +0.92% -12.80%

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 80,269 44,315 65,850
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.06% 88.64% 80.88%
Number of salaries quoted 55,761 25,263 40,217
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,250 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £56,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -1.79% -6.67%
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,250 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £51,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -6.86% -6.87%

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 1 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 1 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 +126 840 £70,000 +12.00% 687
UK excluding London +108 575 £65,000 +18.18% 364
London +96 312 £75,000 -3.23% 389
Work from Home +88 257 £70,000 +7.69% 299
South East +87 205 £58,000 -7.20% 116
North of England +30 123 £70,000 +19.15% 79
Midlands -8 87 £65,000 +26.21% 39
North West +38 80 £75,000 +36.36% 54
East Midlands +32 57 £65,000 +6.34% 19
East of England -5 49 £61,250 -1.21% 27
South West -47 46 £65,000 +27.31% 62
Yorkshire -14 39 £55,000 -15.38% 22
Wales -33 36 £45,000 -18.18% 8
West Midlands -41 30 £67,500 +31.07% 20
Scotland +19 28 £75,000 +30.43% 25
North East -60 4 £75,000 +30.43% 3
Northern Ireland - 3 £42,500 - 12

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 13 (1.39%) SharePoint
2 5 (0.53%) Confluence
3 3 (0.32%) Apache Spark
3 3 (0.32%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.32%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 194 (20.75%) Azure
2 119 (12.73%) AWS
3 97 (10.37%) Microsoft 365
4 81 (8.66%) Azure Sentinel
5 72 (7.70%) Entra ID
6 42 (4.49%) GCP
7 28 (2.99%) Microsoft Purview
8 24 (2.57%) Azure Logic Apps
9 18 (1.93%) Mimecast
9 18 (1.93%) SaaS
10 14 (1.50%) Anthropic Claude
11 12 (1.28%) Zapier
12 9 (0.96%) Amazon GuardDuty
13 8 (0.86%) AWS CloudFormation
14 7 (0.75%) Cloudflare
14 7 (0.75%) IaaS
14 7 (0.75%) PaaS
15 6 (0.64%) GitHub
15 6 (0.64%) GitHub Actions
15 6 (0.64%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 150 (16.04%) Firewall
2 104 (11.12%) Network Security
3 54 (5.78%) WAN
4 52 (5.56%) LAN
5 46 (4.92%) TCP/IP
5 46 (4.92%) VPN
6 36 (3.85%) DNS
7 30 (3.21%) Wi-Fi
8 27 (2.89%) Internet
9 25 (2.67%) Cisco Nexus
10 24 (2.57%) Intrusion Detection
11 19 (2.03%) HTTP
12 14 (1.50%) SSL
13 13 (1.39%) FTP
13 13 (1.39%) SMTP
14 11 (1.18%) Cisco ISE
15 6 (0.64%) IPsec
15 6 (0.64%) NGFW
15 6 (0.64%) SD-WAN
16 5 (0.53%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.64%) SQL Server
2 5 (0.53%) MongoDB
3 3 (0.32%) Hadoop
3 3 (0.32%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.21%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.11%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.11%) Big Data
5 1 (0.11%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 9 (0.96%) JIRA
2 5 (0.53%) Jenkins
3 2 (0.21%) Maven
3 2 (0.21%) Team Foundation Server
3 2 (0.21%) Yeoman
4 1 (0.11%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.11%) Metasploit
General
1 195 (20.86%) Social Skills
2 107 (11.44%) Analytical Skills
3 99 (10.59%) Finance
4 42 (4.49%) Legal
5 41 (4.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 39 (4.17%) Law
7 36 (3.85%) Public Sector
8 35 (3.74%) Aerospace
9 28 (2.99%) Retail
10 16 (1.71%) Military
11 15 (1.60%) Influencing Skills
12 14 (1.50%) Banking
13 9 (0.96%) Financial Institution
14 8 (0.86%) Documentation Skills
15 6 (0.64%) Police
16 5 (0.53%) Advertising
16 5 (0.53%) Manufacturing
16 5 (0.53%) Organisational Skills
17 4 (0.43%) Digital Health
17 4 (0.43%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 229 (24.49%) Analyst
2 163 (17.43%) Senior
3 154 (16.47%) Security Analyst
4 126 (13.48%) Security Engineer
4 126 (13.48%) Security Manager
5 115 (12.30%) Lead
6 96 (10.27%) Senior Analyst
7 77 (8.24%) Cybersecurity Analyst
8 73 (7.81%) SOC Analyst
9 67 (7.17%) Cybersecurity Manager
10 63 (6.74%) Senior Security Analyst
11 61 (6.52%) Operational Security Manager
11 61 (6.52%) Security Operations Manager
12 58 (6.20%) Cybersecurity Engineer
13 57 (6.10%) Architect
13 57 (6.10%) Operations Manager
14 53 (5.67%) SOC Engineer
15 43 (4.60%) Security Specialist
16 38 (4.06%) Security Architect
17 35 (3.74%) Operations Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (3.21%) Terraform
2 17 (1.82%) LDAP
3 15 (1.60%) ModSecurity
4 8 (0.86%) REST
5 6 (0.64%) ARM Templates
5 6 (0.64%) Regular Expression
6 4 (0.43%) OpenID
6 4 (0.43%) SAML
6 4 (0.43%) SOAP
7 3 (0.32%) JSON
7 3 (0.32%) Kafka
7 3 (0.32%) Smart Contracts
8 2 (0.21%) HTML
8 2 (0.21%) RESTful
9 1 (0.11%) CSS
9 1 (0.11%) GStreamer
9 1 (0.11%) SailPoint
9 1 (0.11%) TAPI
9 1 (0.11%) WPF
9 1 (0.11%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 216 (23.10%) Security Operations Centre
2 168 (17.97%) Security Posture
3 88 (9.41%) Cyber Defence
4 79 (8.45%) Cyber Threat
5 63 (6.74%) Management Information System
6 38 (4.06%) CSOC
7 34 (3.64%) Cloud Native
7 34 (3.64%) Onboarding
8 29 (3.10%) Data Centre
9 19 (2.03%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 17 (1.82%) Self-Motivation
11 14 (1.50%) Cloud Security Posture
12 12 (1.28%) Cyberattack
12 12 (1.28%) Hybrid Cloud
12 12 (1.28%) Social Media
13 11 (1.18%) AI Agents
14 10 (1.07%) Cyber Security Posture
15 9 (0.96%) Client/Server
16 8 (0.86%) Operational Technology
16 8 (0.86%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 91 (9.73%) Windows
2 63 (6.74%) Linux
3 10 (1.07%) Windows 10
4 8 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 8 (0.86%) Unix
4 8 (0.86%) Windows Server
5 5 (0.53%) Mac OS
6 4 (0.43%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.11%) CentOS
7 1 (0.11%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 542 (57.97%) Cybersecurity
2 346 (37.01%) SIEM
3 340 (36.36%) Incident Response
4 231 (24.71%) Vulnerability Management
5 214 (22.89%) Continuous Improvement
6 202 (21.60%) Information Security
7 178 (19.04%) Cloud Security
8 155 (16.58%) Threat Detection
9 137 (14.65%) Risk Management
10 121 (12.94%) Threat Intelligence
11 120 (12.83%) Problem-Solving
12 102 (10.91%) AI
13 101 (10.80%) Security Monitoring
14 99 (10.59%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
15 94 (10.05%) SOAR
16 86 (9.20%) Disaster Recovery
16 86 (9.20%) Stakeholder Management
17 84 (8.98%) Mentoring
18 82 (8.77%) Incident Management
19 81 (8.66%) Penetration Testing
Programming Languages
1 103 (11.02%) PowerShell
2 94 (10.05%) Python
3 43 (4.60%) Kusto Query Language
4 23 (2.46%) Bash
5 12 (1.28%) SQL
6 11 (1.18%) C++
7 10 (1.07%) Perl
8 9 (0.96%) Search Processing Language
9 8 (0.86%) Bicep
10 7 (0.75%) JavaScript
11 6 (0.64%) C
12 5 (0.53%) Java
13 4 (0.43%) Go
14 3 (0.32%) C#
14 3 (0.32%) Shell Script
15 1 (0.11%) MATLAB
15 1 (0.11%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 191 (20.43%) Security Cleared
2 141 (15.08%) CISSP
3 131 (14.01%) SC Cleared
4 81 (8.66%) CompTIA Security+
5 77 (8.24%) Degree
6 72 (7.70%) CISM
7 52 (5.56%) Cisco Certification
7 52 (5.56%) DV Cleared
8 45 (4.81%) GIAC
9 43 (4.60%) CEH
10 30 (3.21%) CompTIA CySA+
11 29 (3.10%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 24 (2.57%) Computer Science Degree
13 23 (2.46%) GCIH
13 23 (2.46%) SANS
14 22 (2.35%) GCIA
15 20 (2.14%) Azure Certification
15 20 (2.14%) CCSP
16 19 (2.03%) AWS Certification
16 19 (2.03%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 196 (20.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 158 (16.90%) NIST
3 70 (7.49%) GDPR
4 62 (6.63%) GRC
5 54 (5.78%) Cyber Essentials
6 32 (3.42%) PCI DSS
7 22 (2.35%) SOC 2
8 20 (2.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 17 (1.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 14 (1.50%) SLA
11 12 (1.28%) NCSC
12 11 (1.18%) Data Quality
13 6 (0.64%) NIST 800
14 5 (0.53%) Accessibility
15 4 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
16 2 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
16 2 (0.21%) COBIT
16 2 (0.21%) ISO 22301
16 2 (0.21%) ISO 9001
16 2 (0.21%) PMO
System Software
1 29 (3.10%) Active Directory
2 8 (0.86%) Docker
2 8 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (0.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.21%) Firmware
5 1 (0.11%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 37 (3.96%) Microsoft Intune
2 30 (3.21%) Single Sign-On
3 28 (2.99%) QRadar
4 26 (2.78%) Kubernetes
5 18 (1.93%) SCCM
6 8 (0.86%) Ansible
7 7 (0.75%) FortiGate
7 7 (0.75%) Graylog
7 7 (0.75%) Nessus
8 5 (0.53%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 5 (0.53%) McAfee ePO
8 5 (0.53%) Nagios
8 5 (0.53%) Red Hat Satellite
9 3 (0.32%) CASB
9 3 (0.32%) Computer Incident Response Team
9 3 (0.32%) Kibana
9 3 (0.32%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
10 2 (0.21%) Istio
10 2 (0.21%) Jamf Pro
10 2 (0.21%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 252 (26.95%) Microsoft
2 80 (8.56%) Splunk
3 65 (6.95%) Palo Alto
4 60 (6.42%) Cisco
5 56 (5.99%) Qualys
6 50 (5.35%) CrowdStrike
7 47 (5.03%) ServiceNow
8 25 (2.67%) Aruba
8 25 (2.67%) Fortinet
9 23 (2.46%) Tenable
10 18 (1.93%) Google
11 16 (1.71%) OpenAI
11 16 (1.71%) Rapid7
12 11 (1.18%) SolarWinds
12 11 (1.18%) Zscaler
13 10 (1.07%) CyberArk
13 10 (1.07%) Meraki
14 9 (0.96%) iManage
14 9 (0.96%) LogRhythm
14 9 (0.96%) Red Hat