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

6 months to
3 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 252 376 330
Rank change year-on-year +124 -46 +6
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 697 326 848
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 526 230 625
10th Percentile £41,250 £42,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £51,250 £50,607 £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 68,780 40,561 85,340
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.82% 93.18% 83.19%
Number of salaries quoted 44,959 21,364 61,218
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,500 £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% -9.69%
75th Percentile £78,750 £77,750 £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 3 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 3 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 +114 633 £70,000 +12.00% 299
UK excluding London +106 407 £65,000 +18.18% 229
London +78 241 £72,500 -6.45% 125
Work from Home +125 235 £62,500 +13.03% 149
North of England +52 120 £70,000 +15.70% 60
South East +56 114 £52,500 -17.65% 76
Midlands +1 76 £60,000 +9.09% 26
North West +48 69 £75,000 +25.00% 32
Yorkshire -17 43 £62,500 - 25
East Midlands +25 42 £55,000 -3.51% 13
South West -47 37 £65,000 +25.65% 32
West Midlands -44 34 £65,000 +18.18% 13
Wales -16 27 £25,000 -52.56% 9
East of England -22 20 £52,500 -4.11% 12
Scotland -2 11 £64,210 +7.02% 17
North East -40 8 £75,000 +7.14% 3
Northern Ireland - 2 £40,750 - 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 (0.57%) 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
1 150 (21.52%) Azure
2 81 (11.62%) AWS
3 71 (10.19%) Microsoft 365
4 60 (8.61%) Azure Sentinel
5 43 (6.17%) GCP
6 39 (5.60%) Entra ID
7 23 (3.30%) SaaS
8 14 (2.01%) Mimecast
9 13 (1.87%) Anthropic Claude
10 12 (1.72%) Zapier
11 10 (1.43%) Microsoft Purview
12 9 (1.29%) GitHub
12 9 (1.29%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (1.15%) AWS CloudFormation
14 7 (1.00%) IaaS
14 7 (1.00%) PaaS
15 5 (0.72%) Azure Logic Apps
15 5 (0.72%) Cloudflare
15 5 (0.72%) Datadog
15 5 (0.72%) Sumo Logic
Communications & Networking
1 98 (14.06%) Firewall
2 72 (10.33%) Network Security
3 33 (4.73%) TCP/IP
4 31 (4.45%) DNS
5 29 (4.16%) VPN
6 22 (3.16%) WAN
7 19 (2.73%) LAN
8 16 (2.30%) Intrusion Detection
9 15 (2.15%) HTTP
10 10 (1.43%) FTP
10 10 (1.43%) SMTP
11 9 (1.29%) Cisco ISE
11 9 (1.29%) Cisco Nexus
11 9 (1.29%) Internet
11 9 (1.29%) SSL
12 6 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
13 5 (0.72%) SD-WAN
14 4 (0.57%) DHCP
14 4 (0.57%) HTTPS
14 4 (0.57%) 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 7 (1.00%) Jenkins
2 5 (0.72%) CircleCI
3 4 (0.57%) Bitbucket
3 4 (0.57%) Metasploit
4 2 (0.29%) JIRA
General
1 160 (22.96%) Social Skills
2 95 (13.63%) Analytical Skills
3 81 (11.62%) Finance
4 47 (6.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 35 (5.02%) Law
6 31 (4.45%) Legal
6 31 (4.45%) Public Sector
7 28 (4.02%) Retail
8 17 (2.44%) Influencing Skills
9 14 (2.01%) Banking
10 8 (1.15%) Aerospace
10 8 (1.15%) Financial Institution
11 7 (1.00%) Organisational Skills
11 7 (1.00%) Police
12 6 (0.86%) Advertising
12 6 (0.86%) Aviation
12 6 (0.86%) Back Office
12 6 (0.86%) Presentation Skills
13 4 (0.57%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.43%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 164 (23.53%) Analyst
2 114 (16.36%) Security Analyst
3 89 (12.77%) Senior
4 87 (12.48%) Security Manager
5 82 (11.76%) Security Engineer
6 69 (9.90%) Lead
7 62 (8.90%) Cybersecurity Analyst
8 49 (7.03%) Cybersecurity Manager
8 49 (7.03%) Operational Security Manager
8 49 (7.03%) Security Operations Manager
9 46 (6.60%) Operations Manager
9 46 (6.60%) SOC Engineer
10 45 (6.46%) Architect
11 43 (6.17%) SOC Analyst
12 38 (5.45%) Senior Analyst
13 33 (4.73%) Operations Analyst
14 30 (4.30%) Cybersecurity Engineer
15 28 (4.02%) Security Architect
16 27 (3.87%) Security Specialist
17 26 (3.73%) Senior Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (1.58%) LDAP
2 6 (0.86%) Regular Expression
3 5 (0.72%) REST
4 4 (0.57%) 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 (23.39%) Security Operations Centre
2 99 (14.20%) Security Posture
3 66 (9.47%) Cyber Defence
4 46 (6.60%) Cyber Threat
5 45 (6.46%) Management Information System
6 33 (4.73%) CSOC
7 27 (3.87%) Cloud Native
8 22 (3.16%) Onboarding
9 13 (1.87%) Data Centre
10 12 (1.72%) Cyberattack
11 11 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
11 11 (1.58%) Cloud Security Posture
12 10 (1.43%) 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%) Operational Technology
14 6 (0.86%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 93 (13.34%) Windows
2 55 (7.89%) Linux
3 20 (2.87%) Windows 10
4 12 (1.72%) Unix
5 8 (1.15%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.57%) Kali Linux
6 4 (0.57%) Windows Server 2012
6 4 (0.57%) 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 (51.94%) Cybersecurity
2 251 (36.01%) SIEM
3 246 (35.29%) Incident Response
4 153 (21.95%) Continuous Improvement
5 127 (18.22%) Cloud Security
6 120 (17.22%) Information Security
7 115 (16.50%) Vulnerability Management
8 102 (14.63%) Threat Intelligence
9 85 (12.20%) Problem-Solving
9 85 (12.20%) Threat Detection
10 84 (12.05%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
11 78 (11.19%) SOAR
12 74 (10.62%) Risk Management
13 67 (9.61%) MITRE ATT&CK
14 64 (9.18%) Roadmaps
15 59 (8.46%) AI
15 59 (8.46%) Mentoring
16 57 (8.18%) Security Monitoring
17 54 (7.75%) Use Case
18 50 (7.17%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 102 (14.63%) PowerShell
2 90 (12.91%) Python
3 24 (3.44%) Bash
3 24 (3.44%) Kusto Query Language
4 11 (1.58%) SQL
5 10 (1.43%) Perl
6 9 (1.29%) C++
7 6 (0.86%) Bicep
8 5 (0.72%) JavaScript
9 4 (0.57%) 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
1 130 (18.65%) Security Cleared
2 104 (14.92%) SC Cleared
3 92 (13.20%) CISSP
4 58 (8.32%) CompTIA Security+
5 55 (7.89%) Degree
6 42 (6.03%) CISM
6 42 (6.03%) GIAC
7 32 (4.59%) Cisco Certification
8 31 (4.45%) CEH
9 23 (3.30%) SANS
10 22 (3.16%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 22 (3.16%) Computer Science Degree
11 21 (3.01%) CREST Certified
12 18 (2.58%) GCIH
13 17 (2.44%) DV Cleared
14 16 (2.30%) CompTIA CySA+
15 15 (2.15%) CCSP
16 14 (2.01%) Azure Certification
17 13 (1.87%) Microsoft Certification
18 12 (1.72%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 129 (18.51%) NIST
2 128 (18.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 53 (7.60%) GDPR
4 47 (6.74%) GRC
5 44 (6.31%) Cyber Essentials
6 33 (4.73%) PCI DSS
7 20 (2.87%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 16 (2.30%) NCSC
9 15 (2.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 15 (2.15%) SOC 2
10 10 (1.43%) SLA
11 5 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 4 (0.57%) Accessibility
12 4 (0.57%) SOC 3
13 3 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
13 3 (0.43%) COBIT
14 2 (0.29%) ISO 22301
14 2 (0.29%) ISO 9001
14 2 (0.29%) NIST 800
14 2 (0.29%) PMO
System Software
1 26 (3.73%) Active Directory
2 12 (1.72%) Docker
3 4 (0.57%) 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 (4.30%) Microsoft Intune
2 28 (4.02%) SCCM
3 24 (3.44%) QRadar
4 22 (3.16%) Kubernetes
4 22 (3.16%) Terraform
5 13 (1.87%) Ansible
6 11 (1.58%) Single Sign-On
7 6 (0.86%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 5 (0.72%) CASB
8 5 (0.72%) FortiGate
8 5 (0.72%) Grafana
8 5 (0.72%) Graylog
8 5 (0.72%) vCenter Server
9 4 (0.57%) Computer Incident Response Team
10 3 (0.43%) CSIRT
11 2 (0.29%) Kibana
12 1 (0.14%) Host Intrusion Detection System
12 1 (0.14%) Nessus
12 1 (0.14%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 202 (28.98%) Microsoft
2 53 (7.60%) ServiceNow
3 49 (7.03%) Splunk
4 35 (5.02%) CrowdStrike
5 24 (3.44%) Cisco
5 24 (3.44%) SolarWinds
6 22 (3.16%) Qualys
7 14 (2.01%) OpenAI
7 14 (2.01%) Tenable
8 12 (1.72%) Google
9 11 (1.58%) Fortinet
9 11 (1.58%) Palo Alto
10 9 (1.29%) Rapid7
10 9 (1.29%) Sophos
11 8 (1.15%) VMware
12 7 (1.00%) Okta
12 7 (1.00%) Zscaler
13 6 (0.86%) Carbon Black
14 5 (0.72%) CheckPoint
14 5 (0.72%) Veeam