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 16 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

	6 months to 16 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	218	344	259
Rank change year-on-year	+126	-85	+16
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations	1,037	376	731
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK	0.87%	0.77%	1.04%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category	1.19%	0.87%	1.26%
Number of salaries quoted	678	272	429
10^th Percentile	£41,600	£39,775	£40,023
25^th Percentile	£54,063	£48,781	£48,750
Median annual salary (50^th Percentile)	£70,000	£65,000	£60,000
Median % change year-on-year	+7.69%	+8.33%	-4.00%
75^th Percentile	£86,250	£80,000	£78,750
90^th Percentile	£100,000	£99,750	£98,000
UK excluding London median annual salary	£65,000	£57,500	£55,000
% change year-on-year	+13.04%	+4.55%	-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.

	6 months to 16 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills	87,497	43,445	57,940
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK	73.45%	88.84%	82.20%
Number of salaries quoted	59,802	24,607	31,056
10^th Percentile	£31,250	£28,250	£33,099
25^th Percentile	£41,250	£36,250	£44,541
Median annual salary (50^th Percentile)	£60,000	£55,000	£60,000
Median % change year-on-year	+9.09%	-8.33%	-
75^th Percentile	£78,000	£75,000	£78,750
90^th Percentile	£100,000	£95,000	£97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary	£55,000	£47,000	£53,000
% change year-on-year	+17.02%	-11.32%	-1.85%

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 Salary Trend

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 16 October 2026.

Salary histogram for Security Operations in the UK

Security Operations Top 16 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 16 October 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	+113	939	£70,000	+7.69%	704
UK excluding London	+93	612	£65,000	+13.04%	404
London	+91	382	£76,000	+1.33%	352
Work from Home	+58	261	£70,000	+3.70%	345
South East	+61	228	£61,250	-5.77%	112
North of England	+18	122	£72,500	+31.82%	110
North West	+34	85	£75,000	+66.67%	65
Midlands	-7	85	£65,000	+22.64%	37
South West	-24	59	£62,500	+22.41%	39
East Midlands	+13	54	£65,000	+6.34%	15
East of England	-24	52	£67,500	-10.00%	24
Yorkshire	-9	37	£62,500	-3.85%	33
Wales	-46	33	£47,500	-13.64%	10
Scotland	+26	31	£75,000	+7.14%	49
West Midlands	-54	31	£67,500	+27.36%	22
Northern Ireland	-78	4	£42,500	-	26

Security Operations Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 16 October 2026, job vacancies citing Security Operations also mentioned the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads with a requirement for Security Operations.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Cybersecurity	59.9%	621
2	Incident Response	37.4%	388
3	SIEM	33.3%	345
4	Microsoft	28.1%	291
5	Vulnerability Management	27.5%	285
6	Information Security	24.3%	252
7	Continuous Improvement	23.2%	241
8	Azure	22.9%	237
9	ISO/IEC 27001	22.4%	232
10	Cloud Security	19.4%	201
11	Security Cleared	18.9%	196
12	NIST	17.3%	179
13	Risk Management	16.7%	173
13	Threat Detection	16.7%	173
15	CISSP	15.9%	165
16	Firewall	15.5%	161
17	Threat Intelligence	14.2%	147
18	AWS	13.9%	144
19	AI	12.8%	133
20	Stakeholder Management	12.7%	132
21	Security Monitoring	12.5%	130
22	Problem-Solving	12.4%	129
23	SC Cleared	11.9%	123
24	Cyber Threat Intelligence	11.4%	118
25	Microsoft 365	11.1%	115
26	Entra ID	10.7%	111
27	Network Security	10.4%	108
28	PowerShell	10.3%	107
29	Python	9.8%	102
30	Disaster Recovery	9.3%	96

Security Operations Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Processes & Methodologies

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Cybersecurity	59.9%	621
2	Incident Response	37.4%	388
3	SIEM	33.3%	345
4	Vulnerability Management	27.5%	285
5	Information Security	24.3%	252
6	Continuous Improvement	23.2%	241
7	Cloud Security	19.4%	201
8	Risk Management	16.7%	173
8	Threat Detection	16.7%	173
10	Threat Intelligence	14.2%	147
11	AI	12.8%	133
12	Stakeholder Management	12.7%	132
13	Security Monitoring	12.5%	130
14	Problem-Solving	12.4%	129
15	Cyber Threat Intelligence	11.4%	118
16	Disaster Recovery	9.3%	96
17	Incident Management	9.1%	94
18	Mentoring	8.5%	88
18	Penetration Testing	8.5%	88
20	SOAR	8.3%	86