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

6 months to
28 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 259 361 341
Rank change year-on-year +102 -20 -5
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 687 322 820
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.74% 0.75% 0.82%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.00% 0.81% 0.98%
Number of salaries quoted 516 226 602
10th Percentile £41,250 £42,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £51,250 £51,250 £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 £80,000
90th Percentile £94,263 £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 68,898 39,816 83,478
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.92% 93.23% 83.93%
Number of salaries quoted 44,884 20,923 60,289
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,750 £29,250
25th Percentile £40,750 £41,000 £39,885
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £58,033 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.39% +5.51% -9.84%
75th Percentile £78,750 £78,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £101,250 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £51,324 £50,000
% change year-on-year +2.29% +2.65% -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 28 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 28 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 +99 624 £70,000 +12.00% 214
UK excluding London +93 401 £65,000 +18.18% 167
London +54 235 £72,500 -6.45% 98
Work from Home +108 228 £60,000 +1.27% 94
North of England +43 118 £70,000 +16.67% 34
South East +50 113 £52,500 -16.00% 58
Midlands 0 72 £55,000 - 25
North West +44 67 £75,000 +25.00% 17
Yorkshire -21 43 £62,500 +4.17% 16
South West -38 41 £65,000 +25.65% 28
East Midlands +11 39 £53,750 -25.86% 10
West Midlands -37 33 £65,000 +18.18% 15
Wales -14 27 £25,000 -52.56% 8
East of England -32 19 £50,000 -8.68% 9
Scotland -3 10 £63,419 +5.70% 12
North East -38 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 (1.16%) SharePoint
2 5 (0.73%) 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
1 152 (22.13%) Azure
2 79 (11.50%) AWS
3 71 (10.33%) Microsoft 365
4 61 (8.88%) Azure Sentinel
5 44 (6.40%) GCP
6 40 (5.82%) Entra ID
7 23 (3.35%) SaaS
8 16 (2.33%) Mimecast
9 10 (1.46%) Microsoft Purview
10 9 (1.31%) Anthropic Claude
10 9 (1.31%) GitHub
10 9 (1.31%) GitHub Actions
11 8 (1.16%) AWS CloudFormation
11 8 (1.16%) Zapier
12 7 (1.02%) IaaS
12 7 (1.02%) PaaS
13 6 (0.87%) Datadog
14 5 (0.73%) Azure Logic Apps
14 5 (0.73%) Sumo Logic
15 4 (0.58%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 96 (13.97%) Firewall
2 74 (10.77%) Network Security
3 32 (4.66%) TCP/IP
4 31 (4.51%) DNS
5 30 (4.37%) VPN
6 18 (2.62%) Intrusion Detection
6 18 (2.62%) WAN
7 15 (2.18%) LAN
8 14 (2.04%) HTTP
9 9 (1.31%) Cisco ISE
9 9 (1.31%) FTP
9 9 (1.31%) SMTP
9 9 (1.31%) SSL
10 8 (1.16%) Internet
11 6 (0.87%) Cisco Nexus
12 5 (0.73%) SD-WAN
13 4 (0.58%) DHCP
13 4 (0.58%) HTTPS
13 4 (0.58%) SAN
14 3 (0.44%) SCCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.44%) Power BI
2 2 (0.29%) Elasticsearch
2 2 (0.29%) Relational Database
2 2 (0.29%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.15%) Big Data
3 1 (0.15%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.15%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 7 (1.02%) Jenkins
2 6 (0.87%) CircleCI
3 4 (0.58%) Bitbucket
3 4 (0.58%) Metasploit
4 2 (0.29%) JIRA
General
1 158 (23.00%) Social Skills
2 99 (14.41%) Analytical Skills
3 84 (12.23%) Finance
4 47 (6.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 34 (4.95%) Law
6 31 (4.51%) Public Sector
7 29 (4.22%) Legal
8 28 (4.08%) Retail
9 16 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
10 15 (2.18%) Banking
11 8 (1.16%) Aerospace
11 8 (1.16%) Financial Institution
11 8 (1.16%) Organisational Skills
12 7 (1.02%) Police
13 6 (0.87%) Advertising
13 6 (0.87%) Aviation
13 6 (0.87%) Back Office
13 6 (0.87%) Presentation Skills
14 4 (0.58%) Documentation Skills
15 3 (0.44%) Games
Job Titles
1 161 (23.44%) Analyst
2 111 (16.16%) Security Analyst
3 90 (13.10%) Security Manager
4 87 (12.66%) Senior
5 81 (11.79%) Security Engineer
6 65 (9.46%) Lead
7 59 (8.59%) Cybersecurity Analyst
8 53 (7.71%) Operational Security Manager
8 53 (7.71%) Security Operations Manager
9 50 (7.28%) Cybersecurity Manager
9 50 (7.28%) Operations Manager
10 45 (6.55%) SOC Engineer
11 43 (6.26%) SOC Analyst
12 41 (5.97%) Architect
13 35 (5.09%) Senior Analyst
14 32 (4.66%) Operations Analyst
15 30 (4.37%) Cybersecurity Engineer
16 28 (4.08%) Security Architect
16 28 (4.08%) Security Specialist
17 24 (3.49%) Security Operations Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (1.46%) LDAP
2 6 (0.87%) Regular Expression
3 5 (0.73%) REST
4 4 (0.58%) ARM Templates
5 2 (0.29%) JSON
6 1 (0.15%) EDI
6 1 (0.15%) FFmpeg
6 1 (0.15%) GStreamer
6 1 (0.15%) HTML
6 1 (0.15%) RESTful
6 1 (0.15%) SailPoint
6 1 (0.15%) SOAP
6 1 (0.15%) TAPI
6 1 (0.15%) Unreal Engine
6 1 (0.15%) WebRTC
6 1 (0.15%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 161 (23.44%) Security Operations Centre
2 93 (13.54%) Security Posture
3 68 (9.90%) Cyber Defence
4 46 (6.70%) Cyber Threat
4 46 (6.70%) Management Information System
5 33 (4.80%) CSOC
6 26 (3.78%) Cloud Native
7 22 (3.20%) Onboarding
8 13 (1.89%) Data Centre
9 12 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
9 12 (1.75%) Cyberattack
10 10 (1.46%) Cloud Security Posture
10 10 (1.46%) Self-Motivation
11 8 (1.16%) AI Agents
11 8 (1.16%) Client/Server
12 7 (1.02%) Driving Licence
13 6 (0.87%) Cyber Kill Chain
13 6 (0.87%) Life Science
13 6 (0.87%) Low-Code
13 6 (0.87%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 96 (13.97%) Windows
2 57 (8.30%) Linux
3 22 (3.20%) Windows 10
4 12 (1.75%) Unix
5 8 (1.16%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.58%) Kali Linux
6 4 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
6 4 (0.58%) 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
1 357 (51.97%) Cybersecurity
2 248 (36.10%) SIEM
3 246 (35.81%) Incident Response
4 151 (21.98%) Continuous Improvement
5 125 (18.20%) Cloud Security
6 117 (17.03%) Information Security
7 111 (16.16%) Vulnerability Management
8 99 (14.41%) Threat Intelligence
9 86 (12.52%) Problem-Solving
10 83 (12.08%) Threat Detection
11 82 (11.94%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
12 80 (11.64%) SOAR
13 71 (10.33%) Risk Management
14 67 (9.75%) MITRE ATT&CK
15 60 (8.73%) Roadmaps
16 58 (8.44%) Security Monitoring
17 56 (8.15%) Mentoring
18 55 (8.01%) Use Case
19 53 (7.71%) AI
20 51 (7.42%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 106 (15.43%) PowerShell
2 93 (13.54%) Python
3 25 (3.64%) Bash
4 22 (3.20%) Kusto Query Language
5 11 (1.60%) SQL
6 10 (1.46%) Perl
7 9 (1.31%) C++
8 6 (0.87%) Bicep
9 5 (0.73%) JavaScript
10 4 (0.58%) C
11 3 (0.44%) C#
12 2 (0.29%) Go
12 2 (0.29%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.15%) Java
13 1 (0.15%) MATLAB
13 1 (0.15%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 128 (18.63%) Security Cleared
2 105 (15.28%) SC Cleared
3 94 (13.68%) CISSP
4 59 (8.59%) CompTIA Security+
5 57 (8.30%) Degree
6 44 (6.40%) GIAC
7 42 (6.11%) CISM
8 34 (4.95%) Cisco Certification
9 32 (4.66%) CEH
10 24 (3.49%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 23 (3.35%) SANS
12 22 (3.20%) Computer Science Degree
12 22 (3.20%) CREST Certified
13 18 (2.62%) GCIH
14 16 (2.33%) CCSP
14 16 (2.33%) CompTIA CySA+
15 15 (2.18%) DV Cleared
16 13 (1.89%) Azure Certification
16 13 (1.89%) Microsoft Certification
17 12 (1.75%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 129 (18.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 129 (18.78%) NIST
2 54 (7.86%) GDPR
3 47 (6.84%) GRC
4 45 (6.55%) Cyber Essentials
5 34 (4.95%) PCI DSS
6 21 (3.06%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 17 (2.47%) NCSC
7 17 (2.47%) SOC 2
8 11 (1.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 10 (1.46%) SLA
10 5 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 5 (0.73%) SOC 3
11 4 (0.58%) Accessibility
11 4 (0.58%) COBIT
12 3 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
13 2 (0.29%) ISO 22301
13 2 (0.29%) ISO 9001
13 2 (0.29%) NIST 800
13 2 (0.29%) PMO
System Software
1 25 (3.64%) Active Directory
2 13 (1.89%) Docker
3 4 (0.58%) VMware ESXi
4 3 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.29%) Firmware
5 2 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.15%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 30 (4.37%) SCCM
2 29 (4.22%) Microsoft Intune
3 23 (3.35%) Kubernetes
3 23 (3.35%) QRadar
4 22 (3.20%) Terraform
5 14 (2.04%) Ansible
6 11 (1.60%) Single Sign-On
7 6 (0.87%) CASB
7 6 (0.87%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 6 (0.87%) Grafana
8 5 (0.73%) FortiGate
8 5 (0.73%) Graylog
8 5 (0.73%) vCenter Server
9 4 (0.58%) Computer Incident Response Team
10 3 (0.44%) CSIRT
11 2 (0.29%) Kibana
12 1 (0.15%) Host Intrusion Detection System
12 1 (0.15%) Nessus
12 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 204 (29.69%) Microsoft
2 54 (7.86%) ServiceNow
3 45 (6.55%) Splunk
4 33 (4.80%) CrowdStrike
5 26 (3.78%) SolarWinds
6 21 (3.06%) Cisco
7 20 (2.91%) Qualys
8 15 (2.18%) Tenable
9 12 (1.75%) Google
10 11 (1.60%) Fortinet
11 10 (1.46%) OpenAI
12 9 (1.31%) Rapid7
12 9 (1.31%) Sophos
13 8 (1.16%) Palo Alto
13 8 (1.16%) VMware
14 7 (1.02%) Okta
14 7 (1.02%) Zscaler
15 5 (0.73%) Carbon Black
15 5 (0.73%) CheckPoint
15 5 (0.73%) Veeam