Security Specialist Job Trends

Security Specialist
UK

The median Security Specialist salary in the UK is £58,300 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 31 December 2025.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 544 614 599
Rank change year-on-year +70 -15 +249
Permanent jobs requiring a Security Specialist 100 103 102
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.19% 0.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.19% 0.20% 0.21%
Number of salaries quoted 75 46 91
10th Percentile £40,000 £56,625 £45,000
25th Percentile £45,886 £61,406 £47,863
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,300 £72,246 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -19.30% +11.15% -7.14%
75th Percentile £82,500 £76,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £78,375 £77,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £49,991 £65,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -23.09% +8.33% +9.09%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 53,514 51,675 48,695
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.46% 93.18% 95.25%
Number of salaries quoted 32,893 27,368 37,623
10th Percentile £28,500 £33,173 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £44,750 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £77,715
90th Percentile £93,750 £97,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%

Security Specialist
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Security Specialist' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Security Specialist job vacancy trend in the UK

Security Specialist
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Security Specialist job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Security Specialist job vacancies in the UK

Security Specialist
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Security Specialist over the 6 months to 31 December 2025.

Salary histogram for Security Specialist in the UK

Security Specialist
Top 15 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Security Specialist within the UK over the 6 months to 31 December 2025. 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 +58 89 £58,300 -19.30% 34
UK excluding London +47 62 £49,991 -23.09% 16
Work from Home +85 47 £57,900 -19.57% 15
London +61 35 £90,000 +21.62% 20
South East +27 17 £48,924 -34.77% 6
Midlands +32 16 £51,058 -22.93% 3
North of England +9 16 £47,500 -20.83% 5
East Midlands - 12 £51,058 -
North West +25 11 £55,000 -15.38% 3
Scotland +14 7 £40,000 -36.00%
Yorkshire -4 5 £27,500 -53.19% 2
West Midlands +23 4 £82,500 +24.53% 3
East of England +19 2 £65,000 +7.88% 1
South West +10 2 - - 2
Northern Ireland - 2 - -

Security Specialist Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 31 December 2025, Security Specialist job roles required 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 featuring Security Specialist in the job title.

1 55 (55.00%) Cybersecurity
2 42 (42.00%) Information Security
3 33 (33.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 28 (28.00%) Azure
4 28 (28.00%) CISSP
5 25 (25.00%) NIST
5 25 (25.00%) Risk Management
6 21 (21.00%) CEH
7 19 (19.00%) Incident Response
8 18 (18.00%) Degree
8 18 (18.00%) Problem-Solving
8 18 (18.00%) Threat Intelligence
9 17 (17.00%) Vulnerability Management
10 16 (16.00%) Firewall
10 16 (16.00%) Microsoft
11 15 (15.00%) CISM
12 14 (14.00%) AWS
12 14 (14.00%) SIEM
13 13 (13.00%) Incident Management
14 12 (12.00%) Decision-Making
14 12 (12.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 12 (12.00%) Security Operations
15 11 (11.00%) Security Management
16 10 (10.00%) Cloud Security
16 10 (10.00%) CompTIA Security+
16 10 (10.00%) GRC
16 10 (10.00%) Python
16 10 (10.00%) Risk Register
16 10 (10.00%) Security Cleared
17 9 (9.00%) BCP

Security Specialist Skill Set
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 6 (6.00%) nginx
2 5 (5.00%) Drupal
2 5 (5.00%) WordPress
3 1 (1.00%) Apache
3 1 (1.00%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (2.00%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (2.00%) SAP GRC
1 2 (2.00%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 28 (28.00%) Azure
2 14 (14.00%) AWS
3 9 (9.00%) Nutanix
4 4 (4.00%) Microsoft 365
5 3 (3.00%) Azure Sentinel
5 3 (3.00%) GCP
5 3 (3.00%) SaaS
6 1 (1.00%) Cloudflare
Communications & Networking
1 16 (16.00%) Firewall
2 6 (6.00%) Network Security
3 3 (3.00%) Intrusion Detection
3 3 (3.00%) VPN
4 1 (1.00%) HTTP
4 1 (1.00%) HTTPS
4 1 (1.00%) Reverse Proxy
4 1 (1.00%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (5.00%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 7 (7.00%) Burp Suite
2 6 (6.00%) Metasploit
3 1 (1.00%) JIRA
General
1 30 (30.00%) Social Skills
2 24 (24.00%) Finance
3 9 (9.00%) Law
4 6 (6.00%) Public Sector
4 6 (6.00%) Retail
5 5 (5.00%) Banking
5 5 (5.00%) Local Government
5 5 (5.00%) Police
6 4 (4.00%) Legal
7 3 (3.00%) Documentation Skills
7 3 (3.00%) Financial Institution
8 2 (2.00%) Automotive
8 2 (2.00%) Marketing
8 2 (2.00%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (1.00%) Analytical Skills
9 1 (1.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (1.00%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (1.00%) Investment Banking
9 1 (1.00%) Manufacturing
9 1 (1.00%) Portuguese Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (1.00%) OAuth
1 1 (1.00%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (18.00%) Security Posture
2 9 (9.00%) Hybrid Cloud
2 9 (9.00%) Management Information System
3 6 (6.00%) Insider Threat
3 6 (6.00%) Taxonomies
4 3 (3.00%) CMDB
4 3 (3.00%) Onboarding
5 2 (2.00%) Cyber Threat
5 2 (2.00%) Operational Technology
6 1 (1.00%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 1 (1.00%) PKI
6 1 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (1.00%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 6 (6.00%) Linux
2 5 (5.00%) Windows
3 1 (1.00%) Mac OS
3 1 (1.00%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 55 (55.00%) Cybersecurity
2 42 (42.00%) Information Security
3 25 (25.00%) Risk Management
4 19 (19.00%) Incident Response
5 18 (18.00%) Problem-Solving
5 18 (18.00%) Threat Intelligence
6 17 (17.00%) Vulnerability Management
7 14 (14.00%) SIEM
8 13 (13.00%) Incident Management
9 12 (12.00%) Decision-Making
9 12 (12.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 12 (12.00%) Security Operations
10 11 (11.00%) Security Management
11 10 (10.00%) Cloud Security
11 10 (10.00%) Risk Register
12 9 (9.00%) BCP
12 9 (9.00%) Disaster Recovery
12 9 (9.00%) Penetration Testing
12 9 (9.00%) Resilience Testing
12 9 (9.00%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 10 (10.00%) Python
2 9 (9.00%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 28 (28.00%) CISSP
2 21 (21.00%) CEH
3 18 (18.00%) Degree
4 15 (15.00%) CISM
5 10 (10.00%) CompTIA Security+
5 10 (10.00%) Security Cleared
6 9 (9.00%) Cisco Certification
7 8 (8.00%) SC Cleared
8 7 (7.00%) CISMP
8 7 (7.00%) OSCP
9 6 (6.00%) CCNA
9 6 (6.00%) CREST Certified
9 6 (6.00%) CRISC
9 6 (6.00%) GIAC
9 6 (6.00%) GPEN
9 6 (6.00%) Master's Degree
9 6 (6.00%) MCP
9 6 (6.00%) MCSE
9 6 (6.00%) Microsoft Certification
10 5 (5.00%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (33.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 25 (25.00%) NIST
3 10 (10.00%) GRC
4 9 (9.00%) ISO 22301
4 9 (9.00%) NIST 800
5 8 (8.00%) SOC 2
6 6 (6.00%) Actionable Recommendations
6 6 (6.00%) Cyber Essentials
6 6 (6.00%) SOC 1
7 5 (5.00%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 5 (5.00%) ISO 9001
8 4 (4.00%) GDPR
9 2 (2.00%) Accessibility
9 2 (2.00%) NCSC
System Software
1 5 (5.00%) Docker
2 3 (3.00%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 6 (6.00%) Nmap
1 6 (6.00%) RSA Archer
2 5 (5.00%) CSIRT
3 3 (3.00%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
4 1 (1.00%) Ansible
4 1 (1.00%) Terraform
Vendors
1 16 (16.00%) Microsoft
2 9 (9.00%) Commvault
2 9 (9.00%) VMware
3 6 (6.00%) Cisco
4 4 (4.00%) SAP
5 2 (2.00%) CyberArk
5 2 (2.00%) Splunk
6 1 (1.00%) Darktrace
6 1 (1.00%) Google
6 1 (1.00%) Imperva
6 1 (1.00%) Red Hat