Senior Security Engineer Job Trends

Senior Security Engineer
UK

The median Senior Security Engineer salary in the UK is £80,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 1 February 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 594 624 656
Rank change year-on-year +30 +32 +107
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Security Engineer 63 80 143
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.099% 0.15% 0.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.11% 0.17% 0.21%
Number of salaries quoted 57 62 129
10th Percentile £48,000 £51,325 -
25th Percentile £62,500 £61,250 £56,219
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £80,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year - +14.29% +7.69%
75th Percentile £100,000 £92,500 £81,250
90th Percentile £132,500 £95,000 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +8.33% - +0.80%

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 58,000 47,786 67,491
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.88% 92.14% 95.07%
Number of salaries quoted 36,092 24,542 52,929
10th Percentile £29,000 £33,750 £28,750
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £79,500 £75,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £54,439 £50,000
% change year-on-year -8.15% +8.88% -4.76%

Senior Security Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Senior Security Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Senior Security Engineer
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Senior Security Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Senior Security Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Senior Security Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Senior Security Engineer over the 6 months to 1 February 2026.

Salary histogram for Senior Security Engineer in the UK

Senior Security Engineer
Top 12 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Senior Security Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 1 February 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 +42 62 £80,000 - 49
Work from Home +69 31 £82,500 +6.45% 30
UK excluding London +7 30 £65,000 +8.33% 31
London +37 29 £100,000 +17.65% 27
South East +29 13 £65,000 +1.96% 9
North West +28 7 £45,000 -18.18% 3
North of England -1 7 £45,000 -21.05% 3
South West +5 5 £80,000 +8.47% 4
Midlands +8 4 - - 10
West Midlands +25 3 - - 5
East of England - 2 £87,500 - 3
East Midlands -7 1 - - 5

Senior Security Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 February 2026, Senior Security Engineer 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 Senior Security Engineer in the job title.

1 24 (38.10%) Cybersecurity
2 21 (33.33%) AWS
3 19 (30.16%) Security Operations
3 19 (30.16%) SIEM
4 18 (28.57%) Azure
5 17 (26.98%) Network Security
6 16 (25.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 15 (23.81%) AI
7 15 (23.81%) Degree
8 14 (22.22%) Cloud Security
9 13 (20.63%) Zero Trust
10 12 (19.05%) Computer Science
11 11 (17.46%) Computer Science Degree
11 11 (17.46%) Firewall
11 11 (17.46%) Penetration Testing
11 11 (17.46%) Problem-Solving
12 10 (15.87%) Cyber Essentials
12 10 (15.87%) GCP
12 10 (15.87%) Incident Response
12 10 (15.87%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 10 (15.87%) Threat Modelling
12 10 (15.87%) Vulnerability Management
13 9 (14.29%) Analytics
13 9 (14.29%) Azure Sentinel
13 9 (14.29%) CISSP
13 9 (14.29%) Information Security
13 9 (14.29%) Microsoft
13 9 (14.29%) NIST
13 9 (14.29%) Security Architecture
13 9 (14.29%) Splunk

Senior Security Engineer 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 2 (3.17%) Apache Pulsar
2 1 (1.59%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 21 (33.33%) AWS
2 18 (28.57%) Azure
3 10 (15.87%) GCP
4 9 (14.29%) Azure Sentinel
5 6 (9.52%) Entra ID
5 6 (9.52%) SaaS
6 5 (7.94%) Azure Service Bus
6 5 (7.94%) Microsoft 365
7 2 (3.17%) Mimecast
7 2 (3.17%) Tessian
8 1 (1.59%) Amazon Cognito
8 1 (1.59%) AWS CloudFormation
8 1 (1.59%) AWS Lambda
8 1 (1.59%) Azure AKS
8 1 (1.59%) Azure Logic Apps
8 1 (1.59%) GitHub
8 1 (1.59%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (1.59%) IaaS
8 1 (1.59%) Microsoft Purview
8 1 (1.59%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 17 (26.98%) Network Security
2 11 (17.46%) Firewall
3 5 (7.94%) TCP/IP
4 2 (3.17%) Modbus
4 2 (3.17%) VPN
5 1 (1.59%) HTTP
5 1 (1.59%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (4.76%) PostgreSQL
1 3 (4.76%) Redis
Development Applications
1 2 (3.17%) GitLab
1 2 (3.17%) Jenkins
2 1 (1.59%) Git
2 1 (1.59%) JIRA
General
1 13 (20.63%) Telecoms
2 11 (17.46%) Social Skills
3 3 (4.76%) Finance
3 3 (4.76%) Legal
3 3 (4.76%) Manufacturing
4 2 (3.17%) Influencing Skills
5 1 (1.59%) Aerospace
5 1 (1.59%) Automotive
5 1 (1.59%) Financial Institution
5 1 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (1.59%) Law
5 1 (1.59%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (12.70%) RESTful
2 7 (11.11%) OAuth
3 6 (9.52%) OAuth2
4 5 (7.94%) Kafka
5 4 (6.35%) Android NDK
5 4 (6.35%) ARM Templates
5 4 (6.35%) WebSockets
6 3 (4.76%) JWT
6 3 (4.76%) OpenTelemetry
6 3 (4.76%) REST
7 2 (3.17%) gRPC
7 2 (3.17%) OpenID
8 1 (1.59%) AWS CDK
8 1 (1.59%) JSON
8 1 (1.59%) Microsoft Graph
8 1 (1.59%) SAML
8 1 (1.59%) Web Services
8 1 (1.59%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 9 (14.29%) Security Operations Centre
2 5 (7.94%) Distributed Systems
2 5 (7.94%) Security Posture
3 4 (6.35%) ARM Cortex
3 4 (6.35%) Hybrid Cloud
3 4 (6.35%) Mobile App
3 4 (6.35%) Onboarding
4 3 (4.76%) YubiKey
5 2 (3.17%) Cyber Threat
5 2 (3.17%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 2 (3.17%) Operational Technology
5 2 (3.17%) Renewable Energy
5 2 (3.17%) SCADA
6 1 (1.59%) CCTV
6 1 (1.59%) Cloud Native
6 1 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (1.59%) PKI
6 1 (1.59%) Product Ownership
6 1 (1.59%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 8 (12.70%) Android
2 6 (9.52%) Windows
3 3 (4.76%) Linux
3 3 (4.76%) Windows Server
4 1 (1.59%) Kali Linux
4 1 (1.59%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (38.10%) Cybersecurity
2 19 (30.16%) Security Operations
2 19 (30.16%) SIEM
3 15 (23.81%) AI
4 14 (22.22%) Cloud Security
5 13 (20.63%) Zero Trust
6 12 (19.05%) Computer Science
7 11 (17.46%) Penetration Testing
7 11 (17.46%) Problem-Solving
8 10 (15.87%) Incident Response
8 10 (15.87%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 10 (15.87%) Threat Modelling
8 10 (15.87%) Vulnerability Management
9 9 (14.29%) Analytics
9 9 (14.29%) Information Security
9 9 (14.29%) Security Architecture
10 8 (12.70%) Continuous Improvement
11 7 (11.11%) API Integration
11 7 (11.11%) Microservices
11 7 (11.11%) SOAR
Programming Languages
1 8 (12.70%) PowerShell
1 8 (12.70%) Python
2 6 (9.52%) C++
2 6 (9.52%) Go
3 4 (6.35%) Bicep
3 4 (6.35%) Kotlin
3 4 (6.35%) Kusto Query Language
4 2 (3.17%) JavaScript
4 2 (3.17%) SQL
5 1 (1.59%) C#
5 1 (1.59%) Java
5 1 (1.59%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 15 (23.81%) Degree
2 11 (17.46%) Computer Science Degree
3 9 (14.29%) CISSP
4 7 (11.11%) Cisco Certification
5 5 (7.94%) CCNA
5 5 (7.94%) CCNP
5 5 (7.94%) CompTIA Security+
5 5 (7.94%) GCIA
5 5 (7.94%) SANS
5 5 (7.94%) Security Cleared
6 4 (6.35%) Master's Degree
7 3 (4.76%) DV Cleared
8 2 (3.17%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 2 (3.17%) CISM
8 2 (3.17%) SC Cleared
9 1 (1.59%) AWS Certification
9 1 (1.59%) Azure Certification
9 1 (1.59%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (25.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 10 (15.87%) Cyber Essentials
3 9 (14.29%) NIST
4 4 (6.35%) GDPR
4 4 (6.35%) QA
5 2 (3.17%) NIST 800
5 2 (3.17%) PCI DSS
6 1 (1.59%) NCSC
6 1 (1.59%) SOC 2
System Software
1 7 (11.11%) Active Directory
2 3 (4.76%) Docker
2 3 (4.76%) Hyper-V
2 3 (4.76%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 7 (11.11%) Terraform
2 4 (6.35%) Kubernetes
2 4 (6.35%) Single Sign-On
3 3 (4.76%) Grafana
3 3 (4.76%) Prometheus
4 2 (3.17%) Ansible
4 2 (3.17%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (1.59%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 9 (14.29%) Microsoft
1 9 (14.29%) Splunk
2 6 (9.52%) CrowdStrike
3 5 (7.94%) Palo Alto
3 5 (7.94%) ServiceNow
4 4 (6.35%) Qualys
4 4 (6.35%) Tenable
4 4 (6.35%) VMware
5 2 (3.17%) Ericsson
5 2 (3.17%) Mavenir
5 2 (3.17%) Nokia
6 1 (1.59%) Cisco
6 1 (1.59%) ForgeRock
6 1 (1.59%) Imperva
6 1 (1.59%) Okta