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 22 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 231 393 321
Rank change year-on-year +162 -72 -8
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 845 329 791
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.84% 0.67% 0.85%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.15% 0.74% 1.03%
Number of salaries quoted 623 243 562
10th Percentile £41,800 £41,250 £37,500
25th Percentile £52,500 £48,165 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £62,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +12.00% +4.17% -4.00%
75th Percentile £84,125 £77,500 £82,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £103,230
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +18.18% - -8.33%

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 73,727 44,243 76,601
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.60% 89.97% 81.83%
Number of salaries quoted 51,045 24,911 52,533
10th Percentile £30,500 £28,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +1.82% -8.73%
75th Percentile £78,750 £76,250 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £98,474 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +10.00% - -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 22 July 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 22 July 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 +140 755 £70,000 +12.00% 266
UK excluding London +99 505 £65,000 +18.18% 174
London +107 283 £75,000 -3.23% 124
Work from Home +95 249 £70,000 +12.00% 107
South East +78 163 £60,000 -7.69% 61
North of England +47 121 £70,000 +16.67% 35
Midlands +9 82 £65,000 +18.18% 27
North West +45 74 £75,000 +36.36% 26
East Midlands +21 50 £55,000 -10.02% 15
East of England +9 43 £62,500 +0.81% 14
Yorkshire -12 41 £50,000 -20.00% 7
South West -48 40 £65,000 +27.31% 23
Wales -26 34 £42,250 -23.18% 4
West Midlands -29 32 £67,500 +22.73% 12
Scotland +30 21 £75,000 +30.43% 13
North East -50 6 £75,000 +17.65% 2
Northern Ireland - 3 £42,500 - 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 10 (1.18%) SharePoint
2 4 (0.47%) Confluence
3 3 (0.36%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.36%) Distributed Ledger
2 1 (0.12%) Exchequer
Cloud Services
1 179 (21.18%) Azure
2 99 (11.72%) AWS
3 81 (9.59%) Microsoft 365
4 73 (8.64%) Azure Sentinel
5 56 (6.63%) Entra ID
6 40 (4.73%) GCP
7 24 (2.84%) SaaS
8 17 (2.01%) Microsoft Purview
9 16 (1.89%) Azure Logic Apps
9 16 (1.89%) Mimecast
10 14 (1.66%) Anthropic Claude
11 12 (1.42%) Zapier
12 10 (1.18%) IaaS
12 10 (1.18%) PaaS
13 8 (0.95%) Amazon GuardDuty
13 8 (0.95%) AWS CloudFormation
14 7 (0.83%) GitHub
14 7 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
15 6 (0.71%) Google Workspace
15 6 (0.71%) Sumo Logic
Communications & Networking
1 127 (15.03%) Firewall
2 81 (9.59%) Network Security
3 43 (5.09%) WAN
4 42 (4.97%) TCP/IP
5 40 (4.73%) LAN
6 35 (4.14%) VPN
7 34 (4.02%) DNS
8 24 (2.84%) Wi-Fi
9 22 (2.60%) Cisco Nexus
10 21 (2.49%) Internet
11 18 (2.13%) Intrusion Detection
12 17 (2.01%) HTTP
13 11 (1.30%) FTP
13 11 (1.30%) SMTP
14 10 (1.18%) Cisco ISE
15 8 (0.95%) SSL
16 7 (0.83%) SD-WAN
17 5 (0.59%) NGFW
18 4 (0.47%) HTTPS
18 4 (0.47%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.59%) SQL Server
2 4 (0.47%) MongoDB
3 3 (0.36%) Hadoop
3 3 (0.36%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.24%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.12%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.12%) Big Data
5 1 (0.12%) Elasticsearch
5 1 (0.12%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 5 (0.59%) Jenkins
1 5 (0.59%) JIRA
2 4 (0.47%) Bitbucket
2 4 (0.47%) Metasploit
3 2 (0.24%) CircleCI
4 1 (0.12%) Yeoman
General
1 165 (19.53%) Social Skills
2 104 (12.31%) Analytical Skills
2 104 (12.31%) Finance
3 50 (5.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 42 (4.97%) Law
5 37 (4.38%) Public Sector
6 34 (4.02%) Legal
7 28 (3.31%) Retail
8 18 (2.13%) Influencing Skills
9 16 (1.89%) Banking
10 15 (1.78%) Aerospace
11 11 (1.30%) Financial Institution
12 6 (0.71%) Advertising
12 6 (0.71%) Back Office
12 6 (0.71%) Police
13 5 (0.59%) Organisational Skills
13 5 (0.59%) Presentation Skills
14 4 (0.47%) Digital Health
14 4 (0.47%) Documentation Skills
14 4 (0.47%) Games
Job Titles
1 204 (24.14%) Analyst
2 145 (17.16%) Security Analyst
3 134 (15.86%) Senior
4 116 (13.73%) Security Manager
5 102 (12.07%) Security Engineer
6 95 (11.24%) Lead
7 81 (9.59%) Cybersecurity Analyst
8 76 (8.99%) Senior Analyst
9 60 (7.10%) Cybersecurity Manager
9 60 (7.10%) SOC Engineer
10 59 (6.98%) Operational Security Manager
10 59 (6.98%) Security Operations Manager
11 54 (6.39%) Operations Manager
11 54 (6.39%) Senior Security Analyst
11 54 (6.39%) SOC Analyst
12 51 (6.04%) Architect
13 45 (5.33%) Cybersecurity Engineer
14 36 (4.26%) Security Specialist
15 35 (4.14%) Operations Analyst
15 35 (4.14%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (1.66%) LDAP
2 7 (0.83%) ARM Templates
3 6 (0.71%) Regular Expression
4 4 (0.47%) OpenID
4 4 (0.47%) REST
4 4 (0.47%) SAML
5 3 (0.36%) JSON
5 3 (0.36%) Kafka
5 3 (0.36%) Smart Contracts
6 2 (0.24%) RESTful
7 1 (0.12%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (0.12%) FFmpeg
7 1 (0.12%) GStreamer
7 1 (0.12%) HTML
7 1 (0.12%) SailPoint
7 1 (0.12%) TAPI
7 1 (0.12%) Unreal Engine
7 1 (0.12%) WebRTC
7 1 (0.12%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 212 (25.09%) Security Operations Centre
2 141 (16.69%) Security Posture
3 80 (9.47%) Cyber Defence
4 60 (7.10%) Cyber Threat
5 53 (6.27%) Management Information System
6 43 (5.09%) CSOC
7 32 (3.79%) Cloud Native
8 30 (3.55%) Onboarding
9 23 (2.72%) Data Centre
10 14 (1.66%) Cloud Security Posture
10 14 (1.66%) Cyberattack
10 14 (1.66%) Self-Motivation
11 13 (1.54%) Hybrid Cloud
12 9 (1.07%) AI Agents
12 9 (1.07%) Client/Server
13 7 (0.83%) Virtual Team
14 6 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
14 6 (0.71%) Insider Threat
14 6 (0.71%) Linux Command Line
14 6 (0.71%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 96 (11.36%) Windows
2 67 (7.93%) Linux
3 13 (1.54%) Windows 10
4 11 (1.30%) Unix
5 4 (0.47%) Kali Linux
5 4 (0.47%) Mac OS
5 4 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (0.47%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.12%) CentOS
6 1 (0.12%) Data ONTAP
6 1 (0.12%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 480 (56.80%) Cybersecurity
2 319 (37.75%) SIEM
3 292 (34.56%) Incident Response
4 187 (22.13%) Vulnerability Management
5 185 (21.89%) Continuous Improvement
6 168 (19.88%) Cloud Security
7 161 (19.05%) Information Security
8 124 (14.67%) Threat Intelligence
9 117 (13.85%) Threat Detection
10 115 (13.61%) Risk Management
11 106 (12.54%) Problem-Solving
12 102 (12.07%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
13 91 (10.77%) SOAR
14 82 (9.70%) AI
15 75 (8.88%) Security Monitoring
16 74 (8.76%) MITRE ATT&CK
16 74 (8.76%) Penetration Testing
17 72 (8.52%) Mentoring
18 71 (8.40%) Roadmaps
19 70 (8.28%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 109 (12.90%) PowerShell
2 90 (10.65%) Python
3 37 (4.38%) Kusto Query Language
4 24 (2.84%) Bash
5 11 (1.30%) SQL
6 9 (1.07%) Bicep
6 9 (1.07%) C++
7 8 (0.95%) Perl
8 7 (0.83%) Search Processing Language
9 5 (0.59%) C
9 5 (0.59%) JavaScript
10 4 (0.47%) Java
11 3 (0.36%) C#
12 2 (0.24%) Go
13 1 (0.12%) MATLAB
13 1 (0.12%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 167 (19.76%) Security Cleared
2 125 (14.79%) SC Cleared
3 115 (13.61%) CISSP
4 76 (8.99%) CompTIA Security+
5 64 (7.57%) Degree
6 58 (6.86%) CISM
7 51 (6.04%) GIAC
8 37 (4.38%) CEH
9 34 (4.02%) Cisco Certification
9 34 (4.02%) DV Cleared
10 26 (3.08%) CompTIA CySA+
10 26 (3.08%) SANS
11 24 (2.84%) Computer Science Degree
12 23 (2.72%) CISA
13 22 (2.60%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 22 (2.60%) GCIA
13 22 (2.60%) GCIH
14 20 (2.37%) CREST Certified
15 18 (2.13%) CCSP
16 17 (2.01%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 173 (20.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 153 (18.11%) NIST
3 74 (8.76%) GDPR
4 52 (6.15%) GRC
5 46 (5.44%) Cyber Essentials
6 35 (4.14%) PCI DSS
7 26 (3.08%) SOC 2
8 19 (2.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 17 (2.01%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 15 (1.78%) NCSC
11 9 (1.07%) SLA
12 6 (0.71%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 5 (0.59%) Accessibility
14 4 (0.47%) Data Quality
15 3 (0.36%) COBIT
15 3 (0.36%) NIST 800
16 2 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
16 2 (0.24%) ISO 22301
16 2 (0.24%) ISO 9001
16 2 (0.24%) SOC 3
System Software
1 22 (2.60%) Active Directory
2 9 (1.07%) Docker
3 7 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (0.59%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.24%) Firmware
6 1 (0.12%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 32 (3.79%) Microsoft Intune
2 28 (3.31%) Terraform
3 27 (3.20%) QRadar
4 22 (2.60%) Kubernetes
5 21 (2.49%) SCCM
6 20 (2.37%) Single Sign-On
7 10 (1.18%) Ansible
8 7 (0.83%) FortiGate
9 6 (0.71%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 6 (0.71%) Graylog
10 4 (0.47%) Computer Incident Response Team
10 4 (0.47%) Nessus
10 4 (0.47%) Red Hat Satellite
11 3 (0.36%) CASB
11 3 (0.36%) Kibana
12 2 (0.24%) Grafana
13 1 (0.12%) Host Intrusion Detection System
13 1 (0.12%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 239 (28.28%) Microsoft
2 72 (8.52%) Splunk
3 49 (5.80%) Qualys
4 47 (5.56%) ServiceNow
5 46 (5.44%) CrowdStrike
6 43 (5.09%) Cisco
7 36 (4.26%) Palo Alto
8 24 (2.84%) Tenable
9 19 (2.25%) Aruba
10 17 (2.01%) Fortinet
11 16 (1.89%) OpenAI
12 15 (1.78%) Google
13 14 (1.66%) Rapid7
14 13 (1.54%) SolarWinds
15 11 (1.30%) Sophos
16 9 (1.07%) iManage
17 8 (0.95%) Meraki
17 8 (0.95%) Zscaler
18 7 (0.83%) Carbon Black
18 7 (0.83%) Okta