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

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 269 336 347
Rank change year-on-year +67 +11 -14
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 627 362 772
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.69% 0.83% 0.80%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.93% 0.89% 0.94%
Number of salaries quoted 466 260 603
10th Percentile £41,250 £42,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £50,125 £49,750 £48,237
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 £80,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £110,000 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £62,500 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +13.64% - -4.42%

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 67,106 40,605 82,127
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.79% 93.31% 85.17%
Number of salaries quoted 43,167 22,159 59,545
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - +9.09% -10.10%
75th Percentile £78,750 £78,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £101,250 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £52,500 £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 15 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 15 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 +84 570 £70,000 +11.11% 235
UK excluding London +77 364 £62,500 +13.64% 176
London +31 215 £72,500 -3.33% 100
Work from Home +93 204 £57,500 -4.17% 104
South East +33 105 £52,500 -16.00% 61
North of England +30 105 £70,000 +18.14% 37
Midlands -5 64 £52,500 -4.55% 26
North West +37 57 £75,000 +25.00% 24
Yorkshire -32 40 £62,500 +13.64% 10
South West -34 40 £65,000 +25.65% 26
East Midlands +13 35 £52,500 -27.59% 6
West Midlands -35 29 £52,500 -4.55% 19
Wales -9 25 £25,000 -64.91% 4
East of England -16 17 £53,750 +13.16% 13
North East -31 8 £75,000 +30.43% 3
Scotland -12 7 £60,000 -2.04% 13
Northern Ireland -34 1 £39,000 - 1

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 (1.28%) SharePoint
2 6 (0.96%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.16%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.16%) Exchequer
Cloud Services
1 149 (23.76%) Azure
2 74 (11.80%) AWS
3 73 (11.64%) Microsoft 365
4 61 (9.73%) Azure Sentinel
5 40 (6.38%) Entra ID
6 36 (5.74%) GCP
7 22 (3.51%) SaaS
8 16 (2.55%) Mimecast
9 10 (1.59%) Microsoft Purview
10 8 (1.28%) AWS CloudFormation
10 8 (1.28%) GitHub
10 8 (1.28%) GitHub Actions
11 7 (1.12%) IaaS
11 7 (1.12%) PaaS
12 6 (0.96%) Datadog
13 4 (0.64%) Cloudflare
13 4 (0.64%) OneDrive
13 4 (0.64%) Power Platform
13 4 (0.64%) Sumo Logic
14 3 (0.48%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 88 (14.04%) Firewall
2 74 (11.80%) Network Security
3 31 (4.94%) VPN
4 29 (4.63%) DNS
4 29 (4.63%) TCP/IP
5 18 (2.87%) Intrusion Detection
6 10 (1.59%) HTTP
6 10 (1.59%) WAN
7 9 (1.44%) Cisco ISE
8 8 (1.28%) LAN
8 8 (1.28%) SSL
9 6 (0.96%) SMTP
10 5 (0.80%) FTP
11 4 (0.64%) Cisco Nexus
11 4 (0.64%) DHCP
11 4 (0.64%) HTTPS
11 4 (0.64%) Internet
11 4 (0.64%) SAN
11 4 (0.64%) SD-WAN
12 3 (0.48%) SCCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.48%) Power BI
2 2 (0.32%) Elasticsearch
3 1 (0.16%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.16%) Relational Database
3 1 (0.16%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.16%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 6 (0.96%) CircleCI
1 6 (0.96%) Jenkins
2 4 (0.64%) Bitbucket
2 4 (0.64%) Metasploit
3 2 (0.32%) JIRA
General
1 150 (23.92%) Social Skills
2 97 (15.47%) Analytical Skills
3 81 (12.92%) Finance
4 45 (7.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 30 (4.78%) Law
6 29 (4.63%) Retail
7 26 (4.15%) Public Sector
8 24 (3.83%) Legal
9 15 (2.39%) Influencing Skills
10 14 (2.23%) Banking
11 9 (1.44%) Financial Institution
12 7 (1.12%) Back Office
12 7 (1.12%) Organisational Skills
12 7 (1.12%) Police
13 6 (0.96%) Aviation
13 6 (0.96%) Presentation Skills
14 5 (0.80%) Advertising
14 5 (0.80%) Aerospace
15 3 (0.48%) Manufacturing
15 3 (0.48%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 149 (23.76%) Analyst
2 101 (16.11%) Security Analyst
3 86 (13.72%) Security Manager
4 76 (12.12%) Security Engineer
5 72 (11.48%) Senior
6 57 (9.09%) Lead
7 54 (8.61%) Cybersecurity Analyst
8 50 (7.97%) Operational Security Manager
8 50 (7.97%) Security Operations Manager
9 48 (7.66%) Operations Manager
10 44 (7.02%) Cybersecurity Manager
11 42 (6.70%) SOC Engineer
12 37 (5.90%) SOC Analyst
13 31 (4.94%) Architect
14 29 (4.63%) Operations Analyst
15 27 (4.31%) Security Architect
16 26 (4.15%) Senior Analyst
17 25 (3.99%) Security Specialist
18 24 (3.83%) Cybersecurity Engineer
19 23 (3.67%) Infrastructure Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (1.12%) LDAP
2 6 (0.96%) ARM Templates
2 6 (0.96%) Regular Expression
3 3 (0.48%) REST
4 1 (0.16%) EDI
4 1 (0.16%) SailPoint
4 1 (0.16%) SOAP
4 1 (0.16%) TAPI
Miscellaneous
1 152 (24.24%) Security Operations Centre
2 88 (14.04%) Security Posture
3 61 (9.73%) Cyber Defence
4 47 (7.50%) Cyber Threat
5 43 (6.86%) Management Information System
6 29 (4.63%) CSOC
7 24 (3.83%) Cloud Native
8 21 (3.35%) Onboarding
9 13 (2.07%) Analytical Mindset
10 12 (1.91%) Cyberattack
11 11 (1.75%) Data Centre
12 10 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
13 8 (1.28%) Cloud Security Posture
14 6 (0.96%) AI Agents
14 6 (0.96%) Cyber Kill Chain
14 6 (0.96%) Driving Licence
14 6 (0.96%) Insider Threat
14 6 (0.96%) Life Science
14 6 (0.96%) Low-Code
14 6 (0.96%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 97 (15.47%) Windows
2 56 (8.93%) Linux
3 23 (3.67%) Windows 10
4 12 (1.91%) Unix
5 10 (1.59%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.64%) Kali Linux
6 4 (0.64%) Windows Server 2012
6 4 (0.64%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.32%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.16%) CentOS
8 1 (0.16%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.16%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 319 (50.88%) Cybersecurity
2 230 (36.68%) SIEM
3 227 (36.20%) Incident Response
4 137 (21.85%) Continuous Improvement
5 119 (18.98%) Cloud Security
6 101 (16.11%) Information Security
7 95 (15.15%) Vulnerability Management
8 93 (14.83%) Threat Intelligence
9 84 (13.40%) Problem-Solving
10 79 (12.60%) Threat Detection
11 77 (12.28%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
12 71 (11.32%) SOAR
13 65 (10.37%) MITRE ATT&CK
14 64 (10.21%) Risk Management
15 56 (8.93%) Security Monitoring
16 53 (8.45%) Use Case
17 50 (7.97%) ITSM
17 50 (7.97%) Mentoring
18 48 (7.66%) Roadmaps
19 47 (7.50%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 102 (16.27%) PowerShell
2 86 (13.72%) Python
3 21 (3.35%) Bash
4 20 (3.19%) Kusto Query Language
5 9 (1.44%) SQL
6 8 (1.28%) Bicep
7 7 (1.12%) Perl
8 5 (0.80%) C++
9 2 (0.32%) C
9 2 (0.32%) C#
9 2 (0.32%) Go
9 2 (0.32%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.32%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.16%) Java
Qualifications
1 116 (18.50%) Security Cleared
2 101 (16.11%) SC Cleared
3 89 (14.19%) CISSP
4 56 (8.93%) Degree
5 53 (8.45%) CompTIA Security+
6 44 (7.02%) GIAC
7 38 (6.06%) CISM
8 31 (4.94%) Cisco Certification
9 26 (4.15%) CEH
10 24 (3.83%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 24 (3.83%) SANS
11 19 (3.03%) CREST Certified
11 19 (3.03%) GCIH
12 18 (2.87%) Computer Science Degree
13 16 (2.55%) CCSP
13 16 (2.55%) CompTIA CySA+
14 14 (2.23%) Azure Certification
15 12 (1.91%) CISA
16 11 (1.75%) Microsoft Certification
17 10 (1.59%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 118 (18.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 111 (17.70%) NIST
3 54 (8.61%) GDPR
4 44 (7.02%) GRC
5 41 (6.54%) Cyber Essentials
6 36 (5.74%) PCI DSS
7 21 (3.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 18 (2.87%) SOC 2
9 16 (2.55%) NCSC
10 9 (1.44%) SLA
11 5 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 5 (0.80%) SOC 3
12 4 (0.64%) Accessibility
12 4 (0.64%) COBIT
13 3 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 2 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
14 2 (0.32%) ISO 22301
14 2 (0.32%) ISO 9001
14 2 (0.32%) NIST 800
15 1 (0.16%) HIPAA
System Software
1 26 (4.15%) Active Directory
2 13 (2.07%) Docker
3 4 (0.64%) VMware ESXi
4 3 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.32%) Firmware
5 2 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.16%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 31 (4.94%) SCCM
2 28 (4.47%) Microsoft Intune
3 23 (3.67%) Kubernetes
4 21 (3.35%) Terraform
5 20 (3.19%) QRadar
6 14 (2.23%) Ansible
7 10 (1.59%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.96%) CASB
8 6 (0.96%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 6 (0.96%) Grafana
9 5 (0.80%) Computer Incident Response Team
9 5 (0.80%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.64%) Graylog
11 3 (0.48%) CSIRT
11 3 (0.48%) FortiGate
12 2 (0.32%) Kibana
13 1 (0.16%) Host Intrusion Detection System
13 1 (0.16%) Nessus
13 1 (0.16%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 198 (31.58%) Microsoft
2 52 (8.29%) ServiceNow
3 38 (6.06%) Splunk
4 30 (4.78%) CrowdStrike
5 27 (4.31%) SolarWinds
6 19 (3.03%) Cisco
7 18 (2.87%) Qualys
8 12 (1.91%) Tenable
9 9 (1.44%) Fortinet
9 9 (1.44%) Sophos
9 9 (1.44%) VMware
10 8 (1.28%) Google
11 7 (1.12%) Okta
11 7 (1.12%) Rapid7
11 7 (1.12%) Zscaler
12 5 (0.80%) CheckPoint
12 5 (0.80%) NetApp
12 5 (0.80%) Palo Alto
12 5 (0.80%) Veeam
13 4 (0.64%) LogRhythm