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

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 216 355 273
Rank change year-on-year +139 -82 +1
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 1,030 365 745
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.87% 0.74% 1.00%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.19% 0.83% 1.22%
Number of salaries quoted 697 264 428
10th Percentile £41,250 £37,500 £40,000
25th Percentile £53,750 £48,165 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £65,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% +8.33% -4.00%
75th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £78,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £57,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +14.04% +3.64% -12.00%

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 86,281 44,107 61,151
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.16% 89.14% 81.78%
Number of salaries quoted 59,444 24,402 33,284
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £41,750 £36,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £58,274
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -5.62% -2.88%
75th Percentile £79,091 £75,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,250 £96,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +15.79% -9.52% -2.78%

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 October 2026.

Salary histogram for Security Operations in the UK

Security Operations
Top 16 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 October 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 +135 929 £70,000 +7.69% 803
UK excluding London +112 617 £65,000 +14.04% 463
London +99 365 £77,500 +1.64% 391
Work from Home +71 281 £70,000 +3.70% 359
South East +67 221 £60,000 -5.88% 146
North of England +21 134 £70,000 +24.44% 123
North West +41 95 £75,000 +50.00% 73
Midlands +1 91 £65,000 +23.81% 43
East Midlands +22 60 £65,000 +6.34% 22
South West -36 54 £63,750 +24.86% 57
East of England -6 51 £61,250 -14.63% 30
Yorkshire -7 39 £62,500 -3.85% 41
Wales -39 36 £45,000 -18.18% 9
West Midlands -56 31 £67,500 +28.57% 21
Scotland +35 29 £75,000 +13.12% 41
Northern Ireland - 3 £42,500 - 21

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 18 (1.75%) SharePoint
2 10 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (0.39%) Confluence
4 3 (0.29%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.29%) IIS
5 1 (0.097%) SharePoint Server
5 1 (0.097%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 1 (0.097%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.097%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.29%) Distributed Ledger
2 1 (0.097%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 219 (21.26%) Azure
2 135 (13.11%) AWS
3 106 (10.29%) Microsoft 365
4 100 (9.71%) Entra ID
5 85 (8.25%) Azure Sentinel
6 65 (6.31%) GCP
7 35 (3.40%) Microsoft Purview
8 26 (2.52%) Azure Logic Apps
9 25 (2.43%) SaaS
10 19 (1.84%) Mimecast
11 14 (1.36%) Anthropic Claude
12 12 (1.17%) Zapier
13 10 (0.97%) AWS CloudFormation
13 10 (0.97%) IaaS
14 9 (0.87%) Microsoft Copilot
15 8 (0.78%) Amazon GuardDuty
15 8 (0.78%) Cloudflare
16 7 (0.68%) PaaS
17 6 (0.58%) Google Workspace
17 6 (0.58%) Sumo Logic
Communications & Networking
1 161 (15.63%) Firewall
2 107 (10.39%) Network Security
3 59 (5.73%) WAN
4 57 (5.53%) LAN
5 50 (4.85%) TCP/IP
5 50 (4.85%) VPN
6 39 (3.79%) DNS
7 31 (3.01%) Wi-Fi
8 27 (2.62%) Internet
9 25 (2.43%) Cisco Nexus
10 24 (2.33%) HTTP
11 23 (2.23%) Intrusion Detection
12 16 (1.55%) SMTP
13 15 (1.46%) FTP
14 14 (1.36%) SSL
15 13 (1.26%) Cisco ISE
16 8 (0.78%) Wireless
17 6 (0.58%) IPsec
17 6 (0.58%) NGFW
17 6 (0.58%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.49%) SQL Server
2 4 (0.39%) MongoDB
3 3 (0.29%) Azure SQL Database
3 3 (0.29%) Hadoop
3 3 (0.29%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.19%) Power BI
4 2 (0.19%) Power Query
4 2 (0.19%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.097%) Big Data
5 1 (0.097%) Data Mining
5 1 (0.097%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 9 (0.87%) JIRA
2 6 (0.58%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.29%) Maven
3 3 (0.29%) Team Foundation Server
4 2 (0.19%) Yeoman
5 1 (0.097%) Git
5 1 (0.097%) GitLab
General
1 209 (20.29%) Social Skills
2 123 (11.94%) Finance
3 116 (11.26%) Analytical Skills
4 56 (5.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 52 (5.05%) Law
6 48 (4.66%) Legal
6 48 (4.66%) Public Sector
7 42 (4.08%) Aerospace
8 41 (3.98%) Retail
9 28 (2.72%) Banking
10 23 (2.23%) Influencing Skills
11 21 (2.04%) Military
12 11 (1.07%) Documentation Skills
13 9 (0.87%) Financial Institution
14 6 (0.58%) Back Office
14 6 (0.58%) Investment Banking
14 6 (0.58%) Police
15 5 (0.49%) Advertising
15 5 (0.49%) Aviation
15 5 (0.49%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 259 (25.15%) Analyst
2 195 (18.93%) Senior
3 177 (17.18%) Security Analyst
4 147 (14.27%) Security Engineer
5 145 (14.08%) Lead
6 128 (12.43%) Security Manager
7 107 (10.39%) Senior Analyst
8 84 (8.16%) Cybersecurity Analyst
8 84 (8.16%) SOC Analyst
9 73 (7.09%) Cybersecurity Manager
10 71 (6.89%) Senior Security Analyst
11 67 (6.50%) Cybersecurity Engineer
12 64 (6.21%) Architect
13 62 (6.02%) Operational Security Manager
13 62 (6.02%) Security Operations Manager
14 54 (5.24%) Operations Manager
15 47 (4.56%) SOC Engineer
16 44 (4.27%) Senior Security Engineer
17 43 (4.17%) Operations Analyst
18 42 (4.08%) Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (3.59%) Terraform
2 21 (2.04%) LDAP
3 16 (1.55%) ModSecurity
4 14 (1.36%) REST
5 8 (0.78%) Regular Expression
6 7 (0.68%) JSON
7 6 (0.58%) ARM Templates
7 6 (0.58%) SOAP
8 4 (0.39%) OpenID
8 4 (0.39%) SAML
9 3 (0.29%) HTML
9 3 (0.29%) Kafka
9 3 (0.29%) SailPoint
9 3 (0.29%) Smart Contracts
10 2 (0.19%) CSS
10 2 (0.19%) Elastic Stack
10 2 (0.19%) RESTful
10 2 (0.19%) XML
11 1 (0.097%) WPF
11 1 (0.097%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 233 (22.62%) Security Operations Centre
2 185 (17.96%) Security Posture
3 96 (9.32%) Cyber Threat
4 90 (8.74%) Cyber Defence
5 73 (7.09%) Management Information System
6 44 (4.27%) Data Centre
7 41 (3.98%) CSOC
8 39 (3.79%) Cloud Native
9 36 (3.50%) Onboarding
10 24 (2.33%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 18 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
12 15 (1.46%) Cloud Security Posture
12 15 (1.46%) Hybrid Cloud
13 13 (1.26%) AI Agents
14 12 (1.17%) Social Media
15 11 (1.07%) Cyberattack
15 11 (1.07%) PKI
16 10 (0.97%) Cyber Security Posture
16 10 (0.97%) Public Cloud
16 10 (0.97%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 99 (9.61%) Windows
2 73 (7.09%) Linux
3 13 (1.26%) Windows Server
4 12 (1.17%) Mac OS
5 9 (0.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 8 (0.78%) Unix
7 7 (0.68%) Windows 10
8 6 (0.58%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.49%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.19%) Kali Linux
11 1 (0.097%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 608 (59.03%) Cybersecurity
2 372 (36.12%) Incident Response
3 363 (35.24%) SIEM
4 271 (26.31%) Vulnerability Management
5 248 (24.08%) Continuous Improvement
6 240 (23.30%) Information Security
7 190 (18.45%) Cloud Security
8 178 (17.28%) Threat Detection
9 160 (15.53%) Risk Management
10 138 (13.40%) Threat Intelligence
11 135 (13.11%) Problem-Solving
12 127 (12.33%) AI
13 121 (11.75%) Security Monitoring
14 120 (11.65%) Stakeholder Management
15 110 (10.68%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
16 96 (9.32%) Disaster Recovery
16 96 (9.32%) Mentoring
17 95 (9.22%) Incident Management
18 94 (9.13%) SOAR
19 85 (8.25%) Penetration Testing
Programming Languages
1 109 (10.58%) PowerShell
2 103 (10.00%) Python
3 51 (4.95%) Kusto Query Language
4 29 (2.82%) Bash
5 15 (1.46%) SQL
6 13 (1.26%) C++
7 12 (1.17%) Perl
8 10 (0.97%) Search Processing Language
9 9 (0.87%) Go
9 9 (0.87%) JavaScript
10 8 (0.78%) Bicep
11 6 (0.58%) C
11 6 (0.58%) Java
12 4 (0.39%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.29%) C#
14 1 (0.097%) MATLAB
14 1 (0.097%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 206 (20.00%) Security Cleared
2 158 (15.34%) CISSP
3 137 (13.30%) SC Cleared
4 84 (8.16%) CISM
5 81 (7.86%) Degree
6 78 (7.57%) CompTIA Security+
7 63 (6.12%) DV Cleared
8 48 (4.66%) Cisco Certification
9 44 (4.27%) GIAC
10 37 (3.59%) CEH
11 33 (3.20%) CompTIA CySA+
12 26 (2.52%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 26 (2.52%) AWS Certification
13 25 (2.43%) SANS
14 24 (2.33%) Computer Science Degree
15 23 (2.23%) GCIA
15 23 (2.23%) GCIH
16 19 (1.84%) Azure Certification
17 18 (1.75%) CCNP
17 18 (1.75%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 221 (21.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 167 (16.21%) NIST
3 73 (7.09%) Cyber Essentials
4 72 (6.99%) GDPR
5 69 (6.70%) GRC
6 49 (4.76%) PCI DSS
7 27 (2.62%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 23 (2.23%) SOC 2
9 22 (2.14%) NCSC
10 19 (1.84%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 18 (1.75%) SLA
12 12 (1.17%) Data Quality
13 6 (0.58%) NIST 800
14 5 (0.49%) Accessibility
15 3 (0.29%) COBIT
15 3 (0.29%) ISO 22301
15 3 (0.29%) ISO 9001
15 3 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
16 2 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
16 2 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 42 (4.08%) Active Directory
2 13 (1.26%) Docker
3 11 (1.07%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.87%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.19%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.19%) NFS
5 2 (0.19%) Snort
5 2 (0.19%) VMware Workstation
6 1 (0.097%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 39 (3.79%) Kubernetes
2 38 (3.69%) Microsoft Intune
3 37 (3.59%) Single Sign-On
4 30 (2.91%) QRadar
5 15 (1.46%) SCCM
6 10 (0.97%) Ansible
7 7 (0.68%) FortiGate
7 7 (0.68%) Graylog
7 7 (0.68%) Nessus
8 6 (0.58%) Progress Chef
9 5 (0.49%) McAfee ePO
9 5 (0.49%) Nagios
10 4 (0.39%) Kibana
10 4 (0.39%) Red Hat Satellite
11 3 (0.29%) CASB
11 3 (0.29%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
11 3 (0.29%) Computer Incident Response Team
11 3 (0.29%) Puppet
11 3 (0.29%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
12 2 (0.19%) Istio
Vendors
1 276 (26.80%) Microsoft
2 86 (8.35%) Splunk
3 68 (6.60%) Palo Alto
4 63 (6.12%) Cisco
5 58 (5.63%) CrowdStrike
6 55 (5.34%) Qualys
7 44 (4.27%) ServiceNow
8 33 (3.20%) Google
9 26 (2.52%) Aruba
10 24 (2.33%) Fortinet
11 22 (2.14%) Tenable
12 16 (1.55%) OpenAI
13 15 (1.46%) Rapid7
14 14 (1.36%) Meraki
15 13 (1.26%) VMware
15 13 (1.26%) Zscaler
16 9 (0.87%) Carbon Black
17 8 (0.78%) CyberArk
17 8 (0.78%) iManage
17 8 (0.78%) SolarWinds