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

6 months to
2 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 258 367 328
Rank change year-on-year +109 -39 +11
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 694 327 844
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.75% 0.75% 0.83%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.01% 0.80% 0.99%
Number of salaries quoted 525 231 623
10th Percentile £41,250 £42,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £51,250 £50,822 £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 £80,000 £77,500 £78,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £111,250 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £55,000 £53,136
% change year-on-year +18.18% +3.51% -6.92%

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 68,751 40,768 85,185
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.84% 93.20% 83.29%
Number of salaries quoted 44,945 21,478 61,112
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,625 £29,250
25th Percentile £41,000 £40,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.54%
75th Percentile £78,750 £78,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,967 £50,000
% change year-on-year +3.01% +1.93% -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 2 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 2 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 +107 631 £70,000 +12.00% 287
UK excluding London +97 404 £65,000 +18.18% 219
London +71 241 £71,250 -8.06% 121
Work from Home +123 233 £63,750 +15.29% 135
North of England +51 120 £70,000 +16.67% 52
South East +56 114 £52,750 -17.25% 74
Midlands +7 75 £60,000 +9.09% 26
North West +43 69 £75,000 +25.00% 29
Yorkshire -13 43 £62,500 +4.17% 21
East Midlands +10 41 £55,000 -3.51% 11
South West -45 37 £65,000 +25.65% 31
West Midlands -34 34 £65,000 +18.18% 15
Wales -11 27 £25,000 -52.56% 8
East of England -12 19 £50,000 -8.68% 15
Scotland +5 11 £64,210 +7.02% 18
North East -34 8 £75,000 +7.14% 2
Northern Ireland - 1 £39,000 - 3

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 8 (1.15%) SharePoint
2 4 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.14%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.14%) Exchequer
Cloud Services
1 147 (21.18%) Azure
2 78 (11.24%) AWS
3 71 (10.23%) Microsoft 365
4 59 (8.50%) Azure Sentinel
5 43 (6.20%) GCP
6 39 (5.62%) Entra ID
7 23 (3.31%) SaaS
8 14 (2.02%) Mimecast
9 13 (1.87%) Anthropic Claude
10 12 (1.73%) Zapier
11 10 (1.44%) Microsoft Purview
12 8 (1.15%) AWS CloudFormation
12 8 (1.15%) GitHub
12 8 (1.15%) GitHub Actions
13 7 (1.01%) IaaS
13 7 (1.01%) PaaS
14 5 (0.72%) Azure Logic Apps
14 5 (0.72%) Datadog
14 5 (0.72%) Sumo Logic
15 4 (0.58%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 98 (14.12%) Firewall
2 73 (10.52%) Network Security
3 33 (4.76%) TCP/IP
4 31 (4.47%) DNS
5 29 (4.18%) VPN
6 22 (3.17%) WAN
7 19 (2.74%) LAN
8 16 (2.31%) Intrusion Detection
9 15 (2.16%) HTTP
10 10 (1.44%) FTP
10 10 (1.44%) SMTP
11 9 (1.30%) Cisco ISE
11 9 (1.30%) Cisco Nexus
11 9 (1.30%) Internet
11 9 (1.30%) SSL
12 6 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
13 5 (0.72%) SD-WAN
14 4 (0.58%) DHCP
14 4 (0.58%) HTTPS
14 4 (0.58%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.43%) Power BI
2 2 (0.29%) Elasticsearch
2 2 (0.29%) Relational Database
2 2 (0.29%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.14%) Big Data
3 1 (0.14%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.14%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 6 (0.86%) Jenkins
2 5 (0.72%) CircleCI
3 4 (0.58%) Bitbucket
3 4 (0.58%) Metasploit
4 2 (0.29%) JIRA
General
1 160 (23.05%) Social Skills
2 95 (13.69%) Analytical Skills
3 81 (11.67%) Finance
4 46 (6.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 34 (4.90%) Law
6 31 (4.47%) Public Sector
7 30 (4.32%) Legal
8 28 (4.03%) Retail
9 17 (2.45%) Influencing Skills
10 14 (2.02%) Banking
11 8 (1.15%) Aerospace
11 8 (1.15%) Financial Institution
11 8 (1.15%) Organisational Skills
12 7 (1.01%) Police
13 6 (0.86%) Advertising
13 6 (0.86%) Aviation
13 6 (0.86%) Back Office
13 6 (0.86%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (0.43%) Games
14 3 (0.43%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 164 (23.63%) Analyst
2 115 (16.57%) Security Analyst
3 89 (12.82%) Senior
4 87 (12.54%) Security Manager
5 80 (11.53%) Security Engineer
6 69 (9.94%) Lead
7 63 (9.08%) Cybersecurity Analyst
8 49 (7.06%) Cybersecurity Manager
8 49 (7.06%) Operational Security Manager
8 49 (7.06%) Security Operations Manager
9 46 (6.63%) Operations Manager
10 45 (6.48%) Architect
10 45 (6.48%) SOC Engineer
11 42 (6.05%) SOC Analyst
12 38 (5.48%) Senior Analyst
13 33 (4.76%) Operations Analyst
14 30 (4.32%) Cybersecurity Engineer
15 28 (4.03%) Security Architect
15 28 (4.03%) Security Specialist
16 26 (3.75%) Senior Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (1.59%) LDAP
2 6 (0.86%) Regular Expression
3 5 (0.72%) REST
4 4 (0.58%) ARM Templates
5 2 (0.29%) JSON
6 1 (0.14%) EDI
6 1 (0.14%) FFmpeg
6 1 (0.14%) GStreamer
6 1 (0.14%) HTML
6 1 (0.14%) RESTful
6 1 (0.14%) SailPoint
6 1 (0.14%) SOAP
6 1 (0.14%) TAPI
6 1 (0.14%) Unreal Engine
6 1 (0.14%) WebRTC
6 1 (0.14%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 163 (23.49%) Security Operations Centre
2 98 (14.12%) Security Posture
3 68 (9.80%) Cyber Defence
4 46 (6.63%) Cyber Threat
5 45 (6.48%) Management Information System
6 33 (4.76%) CSOC
7 26 (3.75%) Cloud Native
8 22 (3.17%) Onboarding
9 13 (1.87%) Data Centre
10 12 (1.73%) Cyberattack
11 11 (1.59%) Analytical Mindset
12 10 (1.44%) Cloud Security Posture
12 10 (1.44%) Self-Motivation
13 8 (1.15%) AI Agents
13 8 (1.15%) Client/Server
14 6 (0.86%) Cyber Kill Chain
14 6 (0.86%) Driving Licence
14 6 (0.86%) Low-Code
14 6 (0.86%) Virtual Team
15 5 (0.72%) Insider Threat
Operating Systems
1 93 (13.40%) Windows
2 55 (7.93%) Linux
3 20 (2.88%) Windows 10
4 12 (1.73%) Unix
5 8 (1.15%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.58%) Kali Linux
6 4 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
6 4 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
7 3 (0.43%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.14%) CentOS
8 1 (0.14%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.14%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 362 (52.16%) Cybersecurity
2 250 (36.02%) SIEM
3 245 (35.30%) Incident Response
4 152 (21.90%) Continuous Improvement
5 126 (18.16%) Cloud Security
6 120 (17.29%) Information Security
7 114 (16.43%) Vulnerability Management
8 102 (14.70%) Threat Intelligence
9 86 (12.39%) Threat Detection
10 84 (12.10%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
10 84 (12.10%) Problem-Solving
11 78 (11.24%) SOAR
12 73 (10.52%) Risk Management
13 67 (9.65%) MITRE ATT&CK
14 63 (9.08%) Roadmaps
15 58 (8.36%) Mentoring
15 58 (8.36%) Security Monitoring
16 57 (8.21%) AI
17 55 (7.93%) Use Case
18 50 (7.20%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 103 (14.84%) PowerShell
2 91 (13.11%) Python
3 24 (3.46%) Bash
3 24 (3.46%) Kusto Query Language
4 11 (1.59%) SQL
5 10 (1.44%) Perl
6 9 (1.30%) C++
7 6 (0.86%) Bicep
8 5 (0.72%) JavaScript
9 4 (0.58%) C
10 3 (0.43%) C#
11 2 (0.29%) Go
11 2 (0.29%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.14%) Java
12 1 (0.14%) MATLAB
12 1 (0.14%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 129 (18.59%) Security Cleared
2 104 (14.99%) SC Cleared
3 93 (13.40%) CISSP
4 58 (8.36%) CompTIA Security+
5 55 (7.93%) Degree
6 43 (6.20%) GIAC
7 42 (6.05%) CISM
8 33 (4.76%) Cisco Certification
9 31 (4.47%) CEH
10 23 (3.31%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 23 (3.31%) SANS
11 22 (3.17%) Computer Science Degree
11 22 (3.17%) CREST Certified
12 17 (2.45%) DV Cleared
12 17 (2.45%) GCIH
13 15 (2.16%) CCSP
13 15 (2.16%) CompTIA CySA+
14 13 (1.87%) Azure Certification
14 13 (1.87%) Microsoft Certification
15 12 (1.73%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 129 (18.59%) NIST
2 127 (18.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 53 (7.64%) GDPR
4 47 (6.77%) GRC
5 43 (6.20%) Cyber Essentials
6 33 (4.76%) PCI DSS
7 20 (2.88%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 17 (2.45%) NCSC
9 16 (2.31%) SOC 2
10 15 (2.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 10 (1.44%) SLA
12 5 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 5 (0.72%) SOC 3
13 4 (0.58%) Accessibility
14 3 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
14 3 (0.43%) COBIT
15 2 (0.29%) ISO 22301
15 2 (0.29%) ISO 9001
15 2 (0.29%) NIST 800
15 2 (0.29%) PMO
System Software
1 25 (3.60%) Active Directory
2 12 (1.73%) Docker
3 4 (0.58%) VMware ESXi
4 3 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.29%) Firmware
5 2 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.14%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 30 (4.32%) Microsoft Intune
2 28 (4.03%) SCCM
3 23 (3.31%) QRadar
4 22 (3.17%) Kubernetes
5 21 (3.03%) Terraform
6 13 (1.87%) Ansible
7 11 (1.59%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.86%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 5 (0.72%) CASB
9 5 (0.72%) FortiGate
9 5 (0.72%) Grafana
9 5 (0.72%) Graylog
9 5 (0.72%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.58%) Computer Incident Response Team
11 3 (0.43%) CSIRT
12 2 (0.29%) Kibana
13 1 (0.14%) Host Intrusion Detection System
13 1 (0.14%) Nessus
13 1 (0.14%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 203 (29.25%) Microsoft
2 53 (7.64%) ServiceNow
3 48 (6.92%) Splunk
4 34 (4.90%) CrowdStrike
5 24 (3.46%) Cisco
5 24 (3.46%) SolarWinds
6 22 (3.17%) Qualys
7 14 (2.02%) OpenAI
8 13 (1.87%) Tenable
9 12 (1.73%) Google
10 11 (1.59%) Fortinet
10 11 (1.59%) Palo Alto
11 9 (1.30%) Rapid7
11 9 (1.30%) Sophos
12 8 (1.15%) VMware
13 7 (1.01%) Okta
13 7 (1.01%) Zscaler
14 6 (0.86%) Carbon Black
15 5 (0.72%) CheckPoint
15 5 (0.72%) Veeam