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

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 225 365 292
Rank change year-on-year +140 -73 -3
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 961 354 723
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.85% 0.71% 0.92%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.16% 0.80% 1.14%
Number of salaries quoted 681 263 422
10th Percentile £41,250 £37,500 £38,992
25th Percentile £53,000 £47,750 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £64,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.38% +6.67% -4.00%
75th Percentile £85,000 £78,750 £80,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £96,250 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +18.18% - -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 82,520 44,009 63,385
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.04% 88.59% 80.80%
Number of salaries quoted 57,449 24,888 36,814
10th Percentile £31,000 £28,500 £31,875
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £80,000 £75,000 £76,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,288 £95,000
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 10 September 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 10 September 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 +122 864 £70,000 +7.69% 693
UK excluding London +106 585 £65,000 +18.18% 376
London +91 326 £75,000 -3.23% 397
Work from Home +65 265 £70,000 +7.69% 279
South East +93 208 £58,000 -7.20% 116
North of England +24 122 £70,000 +19.15% 81
Midlands -5 89 £65,000 +25.00% 39
North West +43 80 £75,000 +36.36% 56
East Midlands +31 59 £65,000 +6.34% 17
South West -47 52 £65,000 +27.31% 55
East of England -7 49 £61,250 -10.58% 33
Yorkshire -21 38 £58,750 -9.62% 22
Wales -41 36 £45,000 -35.71% 11
West Midlands -44 30 £67,500 +29.81% 22
Scotland +28 28 £75,000 +30.43% 32
North East -59 4 £75,000 +30.43% 4
Northern Ireland - 3 £42,500 - 13

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 16 (1.66%) SharePoint
2 5 (0.52%) Confluence
2 5 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.31%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.10%) IIS
4 1 (0.10%) SharePoint Server
4 1 (0.10%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 1 (0.10%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.31%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 200 (20.81%) Azure
2 125 (13.01%) AWS
3 102 (10.61%) Microsoft 365
4 83 (8.64%) Entra ID
5 82 (8.53%) Azure Sentinel
6 49 (5.10%) GCP
7 30 (3.12%) Microsoft Purview
8 24 (2.50%) Azure Logic Apps
9 19 (1.98%) Mimecast
10 17 (1.77%) SaaS
11 14 (1.46%) Anthropic Claude
12 12 (1.25%) Zapier
13 9 (0.94%) Amazon GuardDuty
14 8 (0.83%) AWS CloudFormation
14 8 (0.83%) Cloudflare
14 8 (0.83%) IaaS
15 7 (0.73%) PaaS
16 6 (0.62%) GitHub
16 6 (0.62%) Google Workspace
16 6 (0.62%) Sumo Logic
Communications & Networking
1 154 (16.02%) Firewall
2 104 (10.82%) Network Security
3 55 (5.72%) WAN
4 53 (5.52%) LAN
5 49 (5.10%) VPN
6 46 (4.79%) TCP/IP
7 36 (3.75%) DNS
8 31 (3.23%) Wi-Fi
9 28 (2.91%) Internet
10 26 (2.71%) Cisco Nexus
11 24 (2.50%) Intrusion Detection
12 20 (2.08%) HTTP
13 14 (1.46%) SMTP
13 14 (1.46%) SSL
14 13 (1.35%) Cisco ISE
14 13 (1.35%) FTP
15 6 (0.62%) IPsec
15 6 (0.62%) NGFW
15 6 (0.62%) SD-WAN
16 5 (0.52%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.62%) SQL Server
2 5 (0.52%) MongoDB
3 3 (0.31%) Hadoop
3 3 (0.31%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.21%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.10%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.10%) Big Data
5 1 (0.10%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 10 (1.04%) JIRA
2 5 (0.52%) Jenkins
3 2 (0.21%) Maven
3 2 (0.21%) Team Foundation Server
3 2 (0.21%) Yeoman
General
1 200 (20.81%) Social Skills
2 112 (11.65%) Analytical Skills
3 102 (10.61%) Finance
4 46 (4.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 44 (4.58%) Legal
6 42 (4.37%) Law
7 39 (4.06%) Public Sector
8 37 (3.85%) Aerospace
9 31 (3.23%) Retail
10 18 (1.87%) Influencing Skills
10 18 (1.87%) Military
11 15 (1.56%) Banking
12 9 (0.94%) Documentation Skills
13 8 (0.83%) Financial Institution
14 6 (0.62%) Police
15 5 (0.52%) Advertising
15 5 (0.52%) Manufacturing
16 4 (0.42%) Digital Health
16 4 (0.42%) Organisational Skills
16 4 (0.42%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 237 (24.66%) Analyst
2 173 (18.00%) Senior
3 159 (16.55%) Security Analyst
4 135 (14.05%) Security Engineer
5 124 (12.90%) Security Manager
6 118 (12.28%) Lead
7 99 (10.30%) Senior Analyst
8 80 (8.32%) Cybersecurity Analyst
9 76 (7.91%) SOC Analyst
10 67 (6.97%) Cybersecurity Manager
11 65 (6.76%) Senior Security Analyst
12 62 (6.45%) Cybersecurity Engineer
13 60 (6.24%) Architect
14 59 (6.14%) Operational Security Manager
14 59 (6.14%) Security Operations Manager
15 57 (5.93%) Operations Manager
16 50 (5.20%) SOC Engineer
17 44 (4.58%) Security Specialist
18 40 (4.16%) Security Architect
19 38 (3.95%) Senior Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (3.02%) Terraform
2 17 (1.77%) LDAP
3 16 (1.66%) ModSecurity
4 9 (0.94%) REST
5 6 (0.62%) ARM Templates
5 6 (0.62%) Regular Expression
6 5 (0.52%) SOAP
7 4 (0.42%) JSON
7 4 (0.42%) OpenID
7 4 (0.42%) SAML
8 3 (0.31%) Kafka
8 3 (0.31%) Smart Contracts
9 2 (0.21%) HTML
9 2 (0.21%) RESTful
10 1 (0.10%) CSS
10 1 (0.10%) FFmpeg
10 1 (0.10%) GStreamer
10 1 (0.10%) SailPoint
10 1 (0.10%) TAPI
10 1 (0.10%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 220 (22.89%) Security Operations Centre
2 176 (18.31%) Security Posture
3 88 (9.16%) Cyber Defence
4 84 (8.74%) Cyber Threat
5 65 (6.76%) Management Information System
6 38 (3.95%) CSOC
7 35 (3.64%) Onboarding
8 34 (3.54%) Cloud Native
9 31 (3.23%) Data Centre
10 22 (2.29%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 17 (1.77%) Self-Motivation
12 15 (1.56%) Cloud Security Posture
13 13 (1.35%) Hybrid Cloud
14 12 (1.25%) Cyberattack
14 12 (1.25%) Social Media
15 11 (1.14%) AI Agents
16 10 (1.04%) Cyber Security Posture
17 9 (0.94%) Client/Server
17 9 (0.94%) Virtual Team
18 8 (0.83%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 93 (9.68%) Windows
2 66 (6.87%) Linux
3 9 (0.94%) Windows 10
3 9 (0.94%) Windows Server
4 8 (0.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (0.73%) Unix
6 6 (0.62%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.42%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.10%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.10%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 566 (58.90%) Cybersecurity
2 354 (36.84%) SIEM
3 348 (36.21%) Incident Response
4 246 (25.60%) Vulnerability Management
5 225 (23.41%) Continuous Improvement
6 210 (21.85%) Information Security
7 186 (19.35%) Cloud Security
8 161 (16.75%) Threat Detection
9 146 (15.19%) Risk Management
10 129 (13.42%) Problem-Solving
11 125 (13.01%) Threat Intelligence
12 109 (11.34%) AI
13 108 (11.24%) Security Monitoring
14 103 (10.72%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
15 95 (9.89%) Stakeholder Management
16 94 (9.78%) SOAR
17 89 (9.26%) Mentoring
18 88 (9.16%) Disaster Recovery
19 85 (8.84%) Incident Management
20 84 (8.74%) Penetration Testing
Programming Languages
1 101 (10.51%) PowerShell
2 91 (9.47%) Python
3 44 (4.58%) Kusto Query Language
4 23 (2.39%) Bash
5 12 (1.25%) SQL
6 11 (1.14%) C++
7 10 (1.04%) Perl
8 9 (0.94%) Search Processing Language
9 8 (0.83%) JavaScript
10 6 (0.62%) Bicep
10 6 (0.62%) C
11 5 (0.52%) Go
11 5 (0.52%) Java
12 3 (0.31%) C#
12 3 (0.31%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.10%) MATLAB
13 1 (0.10%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 198 (20.60%) Security Cleared
2 148 (15.40%) CISSP
3 132 (13.74%) SC Cleared
4 82 (8.53%) CompTIA Security+
5 79 (8.22%) CISM
6 76 (7.91%) Degree
7 56 (5.83%) DV Cleared
8 53 (5.52%) Cisco Certification
9 46 (4.79%) GIAC
10 42 (4.37%) CEH
11 31 (3.23%) CompTIA CySA+
12 30 (3.12%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 24 (2.50%) Computer Science Degree
14 23 (2.39%) GCIH
14 23 (2.39%) SANS
15 22 (2.29%) GCIA
16 21 (2.19%) AWS Certification
16 21 (2.19%) CCSP
17 19 (1.98%) Azure Certification
17 19 (1.98%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 206 (21.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 165 (17.17%) NIST
3 73 (7.60%) GDPR
4 65 (6.76%) GRC
5 56 (5.83%) Cyber Essentials
6 38 (3.95%) PCI DSS
7 23 (2.39%) SOC 2
8 21 (2.19%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 17 (1.77%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 15 (1.56%) NCSC
10 15 (1.56%) SLA
11 11 (1.14%) Data Quality
12 7 (0.73%) NIST 800
13 5 (0.52%) Accessibility
14 3 (0.31%) COBIT
14 3 (0.31%) ISO 22301
14 3 (0.31%) ISO 9001
14 3 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 2 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 2 (0.21%) QA
System Software
1 33 (3.43%) Active Directory
2 8 (0.83%) Docker
2 8 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
3 7 (0.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.21%) Firmware
5 1 (0.10%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 37 (3.85%) Microsoft Intune
2 33 (3.43%) Single Sign-On
3 30 (3.12%) QRadar
4 25 (2.60%) Kubernetes
5 17 (1.77%) SCCM
6 8 (0.83%) Ansible
7 7 (0.73%) FortiGate
7 7 (0.73%) Graylog
7 7 (0.73%) Nessus
8 5 (0.52%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 5 (0.52%) McAfee ePO
8 5 (0.52%) Nagios
8 5 (0.52%) Red Hat Satellite
9 3 (0.31%) CASB
9 3 (0.31%) Computer Incident Response Team
9 3 (0.31%) Kibana
9 3 (0.31%) Progress Chef
9 3 (0.31%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
10 2 (0.21%) Grafana
10 2 (0.21%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 264 (27.47%) Microsoft
2 84 (8.74%) Splunk
3 67 (6.97%) Palo Alto
4 63 (6.56%) Cisco
5 57 (5.93%) Qualys
6 53 (5.52%) CrowdStrike
7 47 (4.89%) ServiceNow
8 26 (2.71%) Aruba
9 25 (2.60%) Fortinet
10 23 (2.39%) Google
10 23 (2.39%) Tenable
11 16 (1.66%) OpenAI
11 16 (1.66%) Rapid7
12 12 (1.25%) Meraki
12 12 (1.25%) Zscaler
13 10 (1.04%) SolarWinds
14 9 (0.94%) CyberArk
14 9 (0.94%) LogRhythm
14 9 (0.94%) Red Hat
15 8 (0.83%) iManage