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 14 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 231 386 329
Rank change year-on-year +155 -57 +2
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 743 319 891
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.80% 0.72% 0.83%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.10% 0.77% 1.01%
Number of salaries quoted 560 225 654
10th Percentile £41,250 £42,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £51,250 £49,000 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £62,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +12.90% +3.33% -4.00%
75th Percentile £81,563 £77,500 £77,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £110,000 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £55,000 £54,000
% change year-on-year +18.18% +1.85% -6.09%

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 67,701 41,203 88,451
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 72.85% 92.64% 82.16%
Number of salaries quoted 46,469 21,965 62,595
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,000 £29,613
25th Percentile £41,250 £39,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.69%
75th Percentile £78,750 £77,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -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 14 June 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 14 June 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 +134 672 £70,000 +12.00% 197
UK excluding London +103 434 £65,000 +18.18% 164
London +89 256 £75,000 -3.23% 74
Work from Home +113 237 £62,500 +13.64% 95
South East +62 130 £55,000 -13.73% 65
North of England +45 119 £70,000 +14.75% 37
Midlands +15 81 £60,000 +9.09% 13
North West +41 70 £75,000 +25.00% 20
East Midlands +20 47 £55,000 -3.51% 7
Yorkshire -13 42 £62,500 -3.85% 14
South West -38 37 £65,000 +27.31% 22
West Midlands -29 34 £66,250 +20.45% 6
Wales -18 27 £25,000 -52.56% 9
East of England -18 26 £56,250 +2.74% 8
Scotland +25 14 £75,000 +36.36% 11
North East -39 7 £75,000 +22.45% 3
Northern Ireland - 2 £40,750 - 6

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 (1.35%) SharePoint
2 4 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.27%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.13%) Exchequer
Cloud Services
1 155 (20.86%) Azure
2 85 (11.44%) AWS
3 73 (9.83%) Microsoft 365
4 61 (8.21%) Azure Sentinel
5 44 (5.92%) Entra ID
6 41 (5.52%) GCP
7 23 (3.10%) SaaS
8 15 (2.02%) Mimecast
9 14 (1.88%) Anthropic Claude
10 12 (1.62%) Microsoft Purview
10 12 (1.62%) Zapier
11 8 (1.08%) AWS CloudFormation
11 8 (1.08%) Azure Logic Apps
11 8 (1.08%) GitHub
11 8 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
12 7 (0.94%) IaaS
12 7 (0.94%) PaaS
13 6 (0.81%) Cloudflare
13 6 (0.81%) Google Workspace
14 5 (0.67%) Sumo Logic
Communications & Networking
1 107 (14.40%) Firewall
2 74 (9.96%) Network Security
3 35 (4.71%) DNS
4 34 (4.58%) TCP/IP
5 29 (3.90%) WAN
6 28 (3.77%) VPN
7 26 (3.50%) LAN
8 16 (2.15%) HTTP
8 16 (2.15%) Intrusion Detection
9 12 (1.62%) Cisco Nexus
10 11 (1.48%) Internet
10 11 (1.48%) Wi-Fi
11 10 (1.35%) Cisco ISE
11 10 (1.35%) FTP
11 10 (1.35%) SMTP
12 9 (1.21%) SSL
13 7 (0.94%) SD-WAN
14 5 (0.67%) NGFW
15 4 (0.54%) HTTPS
15 4 (0.54%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.40%) Power BI
1 3 (0.40%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.27%) Elasticsearch
2 2 (0.27%) MongoDB
2 2 (0.27%) Relational Database
3 1 (0.13%) Big Data
3 1 (0.13%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 6 (0.81%) Jenkins
2 4 (0.54%) Bitbucket
2 4 (0.54%) CircleCI
2 4 (0.54%) Metasploit
3 3 (0.40%) JIRA
General
1 163 (21.94%) Social Skills
2 100 (13.46%) Analytical Skills
3 83 (11.17%) Finance
4 50 (6.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 38 (5.11%) Law
6 34 (4.58%) Legal
7 33 (4.44%) Public Sector
8 27 (3.63%) Retail
9 18 (2.42%) Influencing Skills
10 13 (1.75%) Banking
11 9 (1.21%) Aerospace
12 8 (1.08%) Financial Institution
13 7 (0.94%) Advertising
13 7 (0.94%) Organisational Skills
14 6 (0.81%) Aviation
14 6 (0.81%) Back Office
14 6 (0.81%) Police
14 6 (0.81%) Presentation Skills
15 4 (0.54%) Games
15 4 (0.54%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 182 (24.50%) Analyst
2 133 (17.90%) Security Analyst
3 105 (14.13%) Senior
4 91 (12.25%) Security Manager
5 90 (12.11%) Security Engineer
6 80 (10.77%) Lead
7 76 (10.23%) Cybersecurity Analyst
8 52 (7.00%) Senior Analyst
9 51 (6.86%) Cybersecurity Manager
9 51 (6.86%) SOC Engineer
10 49 (6.59%) Operational Security Manager
10 49 (6.59%) Security Operations Manager
11 46 (6.19%) Operations Manager
12 44 (5.92%) Architect
12 44 (5.92%) SOC Analyst
13 39 (5.25%) Senior Security Analyst
14 35 (4.71%) Cybersecurity Engineer
15 33 (4.44%) Operations Analyst
15 33 (4.44%) Security Specialist
16 28 (3.77%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (1.62%) LDAP
2 6 (0.81%) Regular Expression
3 5 (0.67%) REST
4 4 (0.54%) ARM Templates
5 3 (0.40%) JSON
6 2 (0.27%) OpenID
6 2 (0.27%) RESTful
6 2 (0.27%) SAML
7 1 (0.13%) EDI
7 1 (0.13%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (0.13%) FFmpeg
7 1 (0.13%) GStreamer
7 1 (0.13%) HTML
7 1 (0.13%) SailPoint
7 1 (0.13%) SOAP
7 1 (0.13%) TAPI
7 1 (0.13%) Unreal Engine
7 1 (0.13%) WebRTC
7 1 (0.13%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 183 (24.63%) Security Operations Centre
2 118 (15.88%) Security Posture
3 69 (9.29%) Cyber Defence
4 52 (7.00%) Cyber Threat
5 50 (6.73%) Management Information System
6 37 (4.98%) CSOC
7 27 (3.63%) Cloud Native
8 22 (2.96%) Onboarding
9 13 (1.75%) Cyberattack
9 13 (1.75%) Data Centre
9 13 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
10 12 (1.62%) Cloud Security Posture
11 10 (1.35%) Analytical Mindset
12 8 (1.08%) AI Agents
12 8 (1.08%) Client/Server
13 7 (0.94%) Virtual Team
14 6 (0.81%) Cyber Kill Chain
14 6 (0.81%) Driving Licence
14 6 (0.81%) Insider Threat
14 6 (0.81%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 94 (12.65%) Windows
2 60 (8.08%) Linux
3 17 (2.29%) Windows 10
4 13 (1.75%) Unix
5 8 (1.08%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.54%) Kali Linux
6 4 (0.54%) Windows Server 2012
6 4 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
7 3 (0.40%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.13%) CentOS
9 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.13%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 408 (54.91%) Cybersecurity
2 274 (36.88%) SIEM
3 258 (34.72%) Incident Response
4 164 (22.07%) Continuous Improvement
5 139 (18.71%) Cloud Security
6 136 (18.30%) Vulnerability Management
7 134 (18.03%) Information Security
8 111 (14.94%) Threat Intelligence
9 95 (12.79%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
9 95 (12.79%) Problem-Solving
10 93 (12.52%) Threat Detection
11 86 (11.57%) Risk Management
12 83 (11.17%) SOAR
13 69 (9.29%) MITRE ATT&CK
14 65 (8.75%) Roadmaps
15 64 (8.61%) AI
15 64 (8.61%) Security Monitoring
16 61 (8.21%) Mentoring
17 55 (7.40%) Incident Management
17 55 (7.40%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 102 (13.73%) PowerShell
2 91 (12.25%) Python
3 30 (4.04%) Kusto Query Language
4 25 (3.36%) Bash
5 11 (1.48%) SQL
6 10 (1.35%) Perl
7 9 (1.21%) C++
8 6 (0.81%) Bicep
9 5 (0.67%) C
9 5 (0.67%) JavaScript
10 4 (0.54%) Search Processing Language
11 3 (0.40%) C#
12 2 (0.27%) Go
12 2 (0.27%) Java
12 2 (0.27%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.13%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 144 (19.38%) Security Cleared
2 112 (15.07%) SC Cleared
3 96 (12.92%) CISSP
4 66 (8.88%) CompTIA Security+
5 58 (7.81%) Degree
6 48 (6.46%) GIAC
7 43 (5.79%) CISM
8 32 (4.31%) CEH
8 32 (4.31%) Cisco Certification
9 26 (3.50%) SANS
10 24 (3.23%) DV Cleared
11 22 (2.96%) Computer Science Degree
11 22 (2.96%) CREST Certified
12 21 (2.83%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 19 (2.56%) CompTIA CySA+
13 19 (2.56%) GCIH
14 15 (2.02%) CCSP
14 15 (2.02%) GCIA
15 14 (1.88%) Azure Certification
15 14 (1.88%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 143 (19.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 136 (18.30%) NIST
3 61 (8.21%) GDPR
4 48 (6.46%) GRC
5 47 (6.33%) Cyber Essentials
6 36 (4.85%) PCI DSS
7 23 (3.10%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 18 (2.42%) NCSC
9 16 (2.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 16 (2.15%) SOC 2
10 10 (1.35%) SLA
11 5 (0.67%) Accessibility
11 5 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 4 (0.54%) SOC 3
13 3 (0.40%) COBIT
13 3 (0.40%) NIST 800
14 2 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
14 2 (0.27%) ISO 22301
14 2 (0.27%) ISO 9001
14 2 (0.27%) PMO
System Software
1 27 (3.63%) Active Directory
2 11 (1.48%) Docker
3 4 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
3 4 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
4 3 (0.40%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.27%) Firmware
6 1 (0.13%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 31 (4.17%) Microsoft Intune
2 25 (3.36%) SCCM
3 24 (3.23%) QRadar
4 23 (3.10%) Terraform
5 22 (2.96%) Kubernetes
6 13 (1.75%) Ansible
7 12 (1.62%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.94%) FortiGate
9 6 (0.81%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 6 (0.81%) Graylog
10 5 (0.67%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.54%) CASB
11 4 (0.54%) Computer Incident Response Team
11 4 (0.54%) Grafana
12 3 (0.40%) CSIRT
12 3 (0.40%) Kibana
12 3 (0.40%) Nessus
13 2 (0.27%) Red Hat Satellite
14 1 (0.13%) Host Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 220 (29.61%) Microsoft
2 57 (7.67%) Splunk
3 50 (6.73%) ServiceNow
4 38 (5.11%) CrowdStrike
5 30 (4.04%) Cisco
5 30 (4.04%) Qualys
6 21 (2.83%) SolarWinds
7 16 (2.15%) Palo Alto
7 16 (2.15%) Tenable
8 15 (2.02%) OpenAI
9 14 (1.88%) Fortinet
9 14 (1.88%) Google
10 10 (1.35%) Rapid7
11 9 (1.21%) Aruba
11 9 (1.21%) Sophos
11 9 (1.21%) VMware
12 7 (0.94%) Okta
12 7 (0.94%) Zscaler
13 6 (0.81%) Carbon Black
13 6 (0.81%) iManage