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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 265 371 337
Rank change year-on-year +106 -34 -1
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 675 316 819
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.73% 0.74% 0.83%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.98% 0.80% 0.98%
Number of salaries quoted 508 222 601
10th Percentile £41,250 £42,586 £37,500
25th Percentile £51,250 £52,500 £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 £78,500 £80,000
90th Percentile £94,843 £111,250 £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 68,715 39,643 83,325
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.91% 93.27% 84.01%
Number of salaries quoted 44,731 20,766 60,219
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,750 £29,250
25th Percentile £40,839 £41,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £58,375 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.78% +6.14% -9.84%
75th Percentile £78,750 £78,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,410 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £51,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +1.94% +3.00% -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 27 May 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 27 May 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 +107 613 £70,000 +10.67% 241
UK excluding London +103 393 £65,000 +18.18% 191
London +70 231 £72,500 -6.45% 101
Work from Home +119 222 £60,000 - 99
North of England +53 116 £70,000 +16.67% 39
South East +59 109 £52,500 -19.23% 70
Midlands -1 69 £55,000 - 26
North West +35 65 £75,000 +25.00% 22
Yorkshire -10 43 £62,500 +4.17% 16
South West -36 43 £65,000 +25.65% 33
East Midlands +2 37 £52,500 -27.59% 9
West Midlands -41 32 £65,000 +18.18% 17
Wales -15 26 £25,000 -54.55% 9
East of England -28 19 £50,000 -19.35% 11
Scotland -6 10 £63,419 +5.70% 10
North East -32 8 £75,000 +7.14% 1
Northern Ireland - 1 £39,000 - 2

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 (1.19%) SharePoint
2 5 (0.74%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.15%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.15%) Exchequer
Cloud Services
1 149 (22.07%) Azure
2 77 (11.41%) AWS
3 70 (10.37%) Microsoft 365
4 60 (8.89%) Azure Sentinel
5 42 (6.22%) GCP
6 40 (5.93%) Entra ID
7 24 (3.56%) SaaS
8 16 (2.37%) Mimecast
9 10 (1.48%) Microsoft Purview
10 9 (1.33%) GitHub
10 9 (1.33%) GitHub Actions
11 8 (1.19%) Anthropic Claude
11 8 (1.19%) AWS CloudFormation
11 8 (1.19%) Zapier
12 7 (1.04%) IaaS
12 7 (1.04%) PaaS
13 6 (0.89%) Datadog
14 5 (0.74%) Sumo Logic
15 4 (0.59%) Cloudflare
15 4 (0.59%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 93 (13.78%) Firewall
2 74 (10.96%) Network Security
3 32 (4.74%) TCP/IP
4 31 (4.59%) DNS
4 31 (4.59%) VPN
5 18 (2.67%) Intrusion Detection
6 15 (2.22%) WAN
7 13 (1.93%) HTTP
8 12 (1.78%) LAN
9 9 (1.33%) Cisco ISE
9 9 (1.33%) SMTP
9 9 (1.33%) SSL
10 8 (1.19%) FTP
11 5 (0.74%) Internet
11 5 (0.74%) SD-WAN
12 4 (0.59%) Cisco Nexus
12 4 (0.59%) DHCP
12 4 (0.59%) HTTPS
12 4 (0.59%) SAN
13 3 (0.44%) SCCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.44%) Power BI
2 2 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
2 2 (0.30%) Relational Database
3 1 (0.15%) Big Data
3 1 (0.15%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.15%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.15%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 7 (1.04%) Jenkins
2 6 (0.89%) CircleCI
3 4 (0.59%) Bitbucket
3 4 (0.59%) Metasploit
4 2 (0.30%) JIRA
General
1 155 (22.96%) Social Skills
2 99 (14.67%) Analytical Skills
3 84 (12.44%) Finance
4 48 (7.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 32 (4.74%) Law
6 30 (4.44%) Public Sector
7 29 (4.30%) Retail
8 27 (4.00%) Legal
9 16 (2.37%) Banking
9 16 (2.37%) Influencing Skills
10 9 (1.33%) Financial Institution
11 8 (1.19%) Aerospace
11 8 (1.19%) Organisational Skills
12 7 (1.04%) Back Office
12 7 (1.04%) Police
13 6 (0.89%) Advertising
13 6 (0.89%) Aviation
13 6 (0.89%) Presentation Skills
14 4 (0.59%) Documentation Skills
15 3 (0.44%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 155 (22.96%) Analyst
2 105 (15.56%) Security Analyst
3 87 (12.89%) Security Manager
4 81 (12.00%) Security Engineer
4 81 (12.00%) Senior
5 65 (9.63%) Lead
6 54 (8.00%) Cybersecurity Analyst
7 53 (7.85%) Operational Security Manager
7 53 (7.85%) Security Operations Manager
8 50 (7.41%) Operations Manager
9 48 (7.11%) Cybersecurity Manager
10 45 (6.67%) SOC Engineer
11 41 (6.07%) SOC Analyst
12 40 (5.93%) Architect
13 31 (4.59%) Operations Analyst
14 30 (4.44%) Senior Analyst
15 29 (4.30%) Cybersecurity Engineer
16 28 (4.15%) Security Specialist
17 27 (4.00%) Security Architect
18 23 (3.41%) Information Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (1.48%) LDAP
2 6 (0.89%) Regular Expression
3 5 (0.74%) ARM Templates
3 5 (0.74%) REST
4 1 (0.15%) EDI
4 1 (0.15%) SailPoint
4 1 (0.15%) SOAP
4 1 (0.15%) TAPI
Miscellaneous
1 162 (24.00%) Security Operations Centre
2 88 (13.04%) Security Posture
3 66 (9.78%) Cyber Defence
4 44 (6.52%) Cyber Threat
4 44 (6.52%) Management Information System
5 33 (4.89%) CSOC
6 25 (3.70%) Cloud Native
7 23 (3.41%) Onboarding
8 13 (1.93%) Data Centre
9 12 (1.78%) Analytical Mindset
9 12 (1.78%) Cyberattack
10 10 (1.48%) Self-Motivation
11 9 (1.33%) Cloud Security Posture
12 8 (1.19%) AI Agents
12 8 (1.19%) Client/Server
13 7 (1.04%) Driving Licence
14 6 (0.89%) Cyber Kill Chain
14 6 (0.89%) Life Science
14 6 (0.89%) Low-Code
14 6 (0.89%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 96 (14.22%) Windows
2 57 (8.44%) Linux
3 22 (3.26%) Windows 10
4 12 (1.78%) Unix
5 8 (1.19%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.59%) Kali Linux
6 4 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
6 4 (0.59%) Windows Server 2019
7 3 (0.44%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.15%) CentOS
8 1 (0.15%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.15%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 346 (51.26%) Cybersecurity
2 239 (35.41%) Incident Response
2 239 (35.41%) SIEM
3 148 (21.93%) Continuous Improvement
4 122 (18.07%) Cloud Security
5 113 (16.74%) Information Security
6 104 (15.41%) Vulnerability Management
7 99 (14.67%) Threat Intelligence
8 85 (12.59%) Problem-Solving
9 81 (12.00%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
10 79 (11.70%) Threat Detection
11 77 (11.41%) SOAR
12 69 (10.22%) Risk Management
13 66 (9.78%) MITRE ATT&CK
14 60 (8.89%) Roadmaps
15 58 (8.59%) Security Monitoring
16 56 (8.30%) Use Case
17 55 (8.15%) Mentoring
18 51 (7.56%) AI
18 51 (7.56%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 105 (15.56%) PowerShell
2 91 (13.48%) Python
3 24 (3.56%) Bash
4 20 (2.96%) Kusto Query Language
5 10 (1.48%) Perl
6 9 (1.33%) SQL
7 8 (1.19%) C++
8 7 (1.04%) Bicep
9 5 (0.74%) JavaScript
10 3 (0.44%) C
11 2 (0.30%) C#
11 2 (0.30%) Go
11 2 (0.30%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.15%) Java
Qualifications
1 127 (18.81%) Security Cleared
2 105 (15.56%) SC Cleared
3 89 (13.19%) CISSP
4 58 (8.59%) CompTIA Security+
5 54 (8.00%) Degree
6 43 (6.37%) GIAC
7 39 (5.78%) CISM
8 32 (4.74%) Cisco Certification
9 31 (4.59%) CEH
10 23 (3.41%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 23 (3.41%) SANS
11 22 (3.26%) CREST Certified
12 20 (2.96%) Computer Science Degree
13 18 (2.67%) GCIH
14 15 (2.22%) CCSP
14 15 (2.22%) CompTIA CySA+
15 14 (2.07%) DV Cleared
16 12 (1.78%) Azure Certification
16 12 (1.78%) CISA
17 11 (1.63%) GCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 126 (18.67%) NIST
2 125 (18.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 53 (7.85%) GDPR
4 48 (7.11%) GRC
5 44 (6.52%) Cyber Essentials
6 34 (5.04%) PCI DSS
7 20 (2.96%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 18 (2.67%) SOC 2
9 16 (2.37%) NCSC
10 11 (1.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 10 (1.48%) SLA
12 5 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 5 (0.74%) SOC 3
13 4 (0.59%) Accessibility
13 4 (0.59%) COBIT
14 3 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
15 2 (0.30%) ISO 22301
15 2 (0.30%) ISO 9001
15 2 (0.30%) NIST 800
15 2 (0.30%) PMO
System Software
1 25 (3.70%) Active Directory
2 13 (1.93%) Docker
3 4 (0.59%) VMware ESXi
4 3 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.30%) Firmware
5 2 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.15%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 30 (4.44%) SCCM
2 28 (4.15%) Microsoft Intune
3 23 (3.41%) Kubernetes
3 23 (3.41%) QRadar
3 23 (3.41%) Terraform
4 14 (2.07%) Ansible
5 11 (1.63%) Single Sign-On
6 6 (0.89%) CASB
6 6 (0.89%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
6 6 (0.89%) Grafana
7 5 (0.74%) FortiGate
7 5 (0.74%) Graylog
7 5 (0.74%) vCenter Server
8 4 (0.59%) Computer Incident Response Team
9 3 (0.44%) CSIRT
10 2 (0.30%) Kibana
11 1 (0.15%) Host Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.15%) Nessus
11 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 201 (29.78%) Microsoft
2 55 (8.15%) ServiceNow
3 45 (6.67%) Splunk
4 34 (5.04%) CrowdStrike
5 26 (3.85%) SolarWinds
6 19 (2.81%) Cisco
7 18 (2.67%) Qualys
8 14 (2.07%) Tenable
9 11 (1.63%) Fortinet
9 11 (1.63%) Google
10 9 (1.33%) OpenAI
10 9 (1.33%) Rapid7
10 9 (1.33%) Sophos
11 8 (1.19%) VMware
12 7 (1.04%) Okta
12 7 (1.04%) Zscaler
13 6 (0.89%) Palo Alto
14 5 (0.74%) CheckPoint
14 5 (0.74%) NetApp
14 5 (0.74%) Veeam