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 28 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 237 379 318
Rank change year-on-year +142 -61 -8
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 868 334 746
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.85% 0.68% 0.85%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.16% 0.76% 1.04%
Number of salaries quoted 643 245 516
10th Percentile £42,000 £41,250 £37,500
25th Percentile £52,500 £48,165 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £62,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +12.00% +4.17% -3.23%
75th Percentile £85,000 £78,750 £81,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £96,250 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £55,000 £53,136
% change year-on-year +18.18% +3.51% -11.44%

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 74,833 44,225 71,828
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.64% 89.70% 81.44%
Number of salaries quoted 51,638 25,059 48,434
10th Percentile £30,500 £28,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.66%
75th Percentile £78,750 £76,250 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +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 28 July 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 28 July 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 +155 776 £70,000 +12.00% 258
UK excluding London +114 529 £65,000 +18.18% 159
London +100 285 £75,000 -6.25% 137
Work from Home +80 244 £70,000 +12.00% 109
South East +105 177 £65,000 +4.00% 59
North of England +40 120 £70,000 +16.67% 40
Midlands -1 86 £65,000 +18.18% 22
North West +54 75 £75,000 +36.36% 24
East Midlands +27 54 £58,500 -4.29% 11
East of England 0 45 £56,250 -9.27% 5
South West -37 43 £65,000 +27.31% 19
Yorkshire -13 39 £52,500 -16.00% 13
Wales -29 34 £42,250 -23.18% 4
West Midlands -30 32 £67,500 +22.73% 11
Scotland +31 23 £75,000 +30.43% 10
North East -45 6 £75,000 +17.65% 3
Northern Ireland - 3 £42,500 - 4

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 10 (1.15%) SharePoint
2 4 (0.46%) Confluence
3 3 (0.35%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.35%) Distributed Ledger
2 1 (0.12%) Exchequer
Cloud Services
1 178 (20.51%) Azure
2 100 (11.52%) AWS
3 80 (9.22%) Microsoft 365
4 71 (8.18%) Azure Sentinel
5 55 (6.34%) Entra ID
6 41 (4.72%) GCP
7 22 (2.53%) SaaS
8 18 (2.07%) Microsoft Purview
9 16 (1.84%) Mimecast
10 15 (1.73%) Azure Logic Apps
11 14 (1.61%) Anthropic Claude
12 12 (1.38%) Zapier
13 10 (1.15%) IaaS
13 10 (1.15%) PaaS
14 9 (1.04%) AWS CloudFormation
15 8 (0.92%) Amazon GuardDuty
16 7 (0.81%) GitHub
16 7 (0.81%) GitHub Actions
17 6 (0.69%) Google Workspace
17 6 (0.69%) Sumo Logic
Communications & Networking
1 130 (14.98%) Firewall
2 91 (10.48%) Network Security
3 43 (4.95%) TCP/IP
3 43 (4.95%) WAN
4 41 (4.72%) LAN
5 36 (4.15%) VPN
6 35 (4.03%) DNS
7 25 (2.88%) Wi-Fi
8 23 (2.65%) Cisco Nexus
9 22 (2.53%) Internet
10 20 (2.30%) Intrusion Detection
11 17 (1.96%) HTTP
12 11 (1.27%) FTP
12 11 (1.27%) SMTP
13 9 (1.04%) Cisco ISE
13 9 (1.04%) SSL
14 6 (0.69%) NGFW
14 6 (0.69%) SD-WAN
15 4 (0.46%) HTTPS
15 4 (0.46%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.58%) SQL Server
2 4 (0.46%) MongoDB
3 3 (0.35%) Hadoop
3 3 (0.35%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.23%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.12%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.12%) Big Data
5 1 (0.12%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 5 (0.58%) Jenkins
2 4 (0.46%) Bitbucket
2 4 (0.46%) JIRA
2 4 (0.46%) Metasploit
3 2 (0.23%) CircleCI
4 1 (0.12%) Yeoman
General
1 168 (19.35%) Social Skills
2 102 (11.75%) Analytical Skills
3 98 (11.29%) Finance
4 48 (5.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 39 (4.49%) Law
6 37 (4.26%) Public Sector
7 35 (4.03%) Legal
8 27 (3.11%) Retail
9 19 (2.19%) Aerospace
9 19 (2.19%) Influencing Skills
10 15 (1.73%) Banking
11 9 (1.04%) Financial Institution
12 7 (0.81%) Organisational Skills
13 6 (0.69%) Advertising
13 6 (0.69%) Military
13 6 (0.69%) Police
14 5 (0.58%) Documentation Skills
15 4 (0.46%) Digital Health
15 4 (0.46%) Games
15 4 (0.46%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 211 (24.31%) Analyst
2 148 (17.05%) Security Analyst
3 140 (16.13%) Senior
4 123 (14.17%) Security Manager
5 103 (11.87%) Security Engineer
6 97 (11.18%) Lead
7 84 (9.68%) Cybersecurity Analyst
8 80 (9.22%) Senior Analyst
9 64 (7.37%) Cybersecurity Manager
10 60 (6.91%) Operational Security Manager
10 60 (6.91%) Security Operations Manager
10 60 (6.91%) SOC Engineer
11 57 (6.57%) SOC Analyst
12 56 (6.45%) Operations Manager
13 55 (6.34%) Senior Security Analyst
14 50 (5.76%) Architect
15 47 (5.41%) Cybersecurity Engineer
16 36 (4.15%) Security Specialist
17 34 (3.92%) Security Architect
18 33 (3.80%) Operations Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (1.61%) LDAP
2 7 (0.81%) ARM Templates
3 6 (0.69%) Regular Expression
4 4 (0.46%) OpenID
4 4 (0.46%) REST
4 4 (0.46%) SAML
5 3 (0.35%) JSON
5 3 (0.35%) Kafka
5 3 (0.35%) ModSecurity
5 3 (0.35%) Smart Contracts
6 2 (0.23%) RESTful
7 1 (0.12%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (0.12%) FFmpeg
7 1 (0.12%) GStreamer
7 1 (0.12%) HTML
7 1 (0.12%) SailPoint
7 1 (0.12%) TAPI
7 1 (0.12%) Unreal Engine
7 1 (0.12%) WebRTC
7 1 (0.12%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 217 (25.00%) Security Operations Centre
2 145 (16.71%) Security Posture
3 85 (9.79%) Cyber Defence
4 63 (7.26%) Cyber Threat
5 58 (6.68%) Management Information System
6 45 (5.18%) CSOC
7 33 (3.80%) Cloud Native
8 31 (3.57%) Onboarding
9 23 (2.65%) Data Centre
10 15 (1.73%) Self-Motivation
11 14 (1.61%) Cloud Security Posture
11 14 (1.61%) Cyberattack
12 13 (1.50%) Hybrid Cloud
13 9 (1.04%) AI Agents
13 9 (1.04%) Client/Server
14 7 (0.81%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
14 7 (0.81%) Virtual Team
15 6 (0.69%) Insider Threat
15 6 (0.69%) Linux Command Line
15 6 (0.69%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 92 (10.60%) Windows
2 64 (7.37%) Linux
3 13 (1.50%) Windows 10
4 11 (1.27%) Unix
5 5 (0.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (0.46%) Kali Linux
6 4 (0.46%) Windows Server
7 3 (0.35%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.12%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 496 (57.14%) Cybersecurity
2 323 (37.21%) SIEM
3 302 (34.79%) Incident Response
4 197 (22.70%) Vulnerability Management
5 193 (22.24%) Continuous Improvement
6 173 (19.93%) Information Security
7 172 (19.82%) Cloud Security
8 125 (14.40%) Threat Detection
9 122 (14.06%) Threat Intelligence
10 119 (13.71%) Risk Management
11 107 (12.33%) Problem-Solving
12 99 (11.41%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
13 89 (10.25%) SOAR
14 86 (9.91%) AI
15 77 (8.87%) Stakeholder Management
16 76 (8.76%) Security Monitoring
17 75 (8.64%) Penetration Testing
18 73 (8.41%) Mentoring
19 71 (8.18%) Roadmaps
20 70 (8.06%) MITRE ATT&CK
Programming Languages
1 103 (11.87%) PowerShell
2 88 (10.14%) Python
3 36 (4.15%) Kusto Query Language
4 23 (2.65%) Bash
5 11 (1.27%) SQL
6 9 (1.04%) Bicep
6 9 (1.04%) C++
7 8 (0.92%) Perl
8 7 (0.81%) Search Processing Language
9 6 (0.69%) C
10 5 (0.58%) JavaScript
11 4 (0.46%) Java
12 3 (0.35%) C#
13 2 (0.23%) Go
13 2 (0.23%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.12%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 172 (19.82%) Security Cleared
2 128 (14.75%) SC Cleared
3 124 (14.29%) CISSP
4 76 (8.76%) CompTIA Security+
5 68 (7.83%) Degree
6 64 (7.37%) CISM
7 48 (5.53%) GIAC
8 40 (4.61%) Cisco Certification
9 37 (4.26%) CEH
10 34 (3.92%) DV Cleared
11 27 (3.11%) SANS
12 26 (3.00%) CompTIA CySA+
13 25 (2.88%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 25 (2.88%) Computer Science Degree
14 22 (2.53%) CISA
14 22 (2.53%) GCIH
15 21 (2.42%) GCIA
16 20 (2.30%) CREST Certified
17 18 (2.07%) CCSP
18 17 (1.96%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 180 (20.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 155 (17.86%) NIST
3 76 (8.76%) GDPR
4 54 (6.22%) GRC
5 49 (5.65%) Cyber Essentials
6 33 (3.80%) PCI DSS
7 25 (2.88%) SOC 2
8 21 (2.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 17 (1.96%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 14 (1.61%) NCSC
11 11 (1.27%) SLA
12 6 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 5 (0.58%) Accessibility
13 5 (0.58%) Data Quality
14 3 (0.35%) NIST 800
15 2 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
15 2 (0.23%) COBIT
15 2 (0.23%) ISO 22301
15 2 (0.23%) ISO 9001
15 2 (0.23%) PMO
System Software
1 20 (2.30%) Active Directory
2 10 (1.15%) Docker
3 7 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (0.58%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.23%) Firmware
6 1 (0.12%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 33 (3.80%) Microsoft Intune
2 29 (3.34%) Terraform
3 26 (3.00%) QRadar
4 23 (2.65%) Kubernetes
5 21 (2.42%) SCCM
6 20 (2.30%) Single Sign-On
7 11 (1.27%) Ansible
8 7 (0.81%) FortiGate
9 6 (0.69%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 6 (0.69%) Graylog
10 5 (0.58%) Nessus
11 4 (0.46%) Red Hat Satellite
12 3 (0.35%) Computer Incident Response Team
12 3 (0.35%) Kibana
13 2 (0.23%) CASB
13 2 (0.23%) Grafana
14 1 (0.12%) Host Intrusion Detection System
14 1 (0.12%) Jamf Pro
14 1 (0.12%) McAfee ePO
14 1 (0.12%) Nagios
Vendors
1 238 (27.42%) Microsoft
2 71 (8.18%) Splunk
3 49 (5.65%) Qualys
4 46 (5.30%) Cisco
5 45 (5.18%) ServiceNow
6 44 (5.07%) CrowdStrike
7 43 (4.95%) Palo Alto
8 22 (2.53%) Tenable
9 20 (2.30%) Aruba
10 19 (2.19%) Fortinet
11 16 (1.84%) OpenAI
12 15 (1.73%) Google
13 14 (1.61%) Rapid7
14 13 (1.50%) SolarWinds
15 11 (1.27%) Sophos
16 9 (1.04%) iManage
17 8 (0.92%) Meraki
17 8 (0.92%) Zscaler
18 7 (0.81%) CyberArk
18 7 (0.81%) Okta