Security Operations (SecOps)
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies with a requirement for Security Operations skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered in vacancies that have cited Security Operations over the 6 months to 18 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
18 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 352 341 390
Rank change year-on-year -11 +49 -13
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 807 993 1,544
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.81% 1.00% 0.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.95% 1.05% 1.00%
Number of salaries quoted 603 674 895
10th Percentile £37,500 £38,163 £42,500
25th Percentile £47,500 £48,750 £51,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £62,500 £67,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -7.41% +8.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £85,625
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,290 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £54,000 £57,699 £58,000
% change year-on-year -6.41% -0.52% +5.45%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Security Operations is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 85,135 94,784 153,905
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 85.22% 95.58% 95.76%
Number of salaries quoted 59,872 55,911 82,488
10th Percentile £29,089 £34,000 £33,635
25th Percentile £40,000 £45,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £61,180 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -10.10% +1.97% +9.09%
75th Percentile £72,500 £81,250 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £100,000 £96,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -9.09% +4.76% +9.38%

Security Operations
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Security Operations as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Security Operations in the UK

Security Operations
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing Security Operations.

Salary trend for Security Operations in the UK

Security Operations
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Security Operations over the 6 months to 18 May 2024.

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 18 May 2024. 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 +8 725 £60,970 -2.45% 191
UK excluding London -24 488 £54,000 -6.41% 140
Work from Home +43 324 £60,000 - 87
London +40 286 £72,500 +8.21% 78
South East -25 130 £53,750 -2.27% 41
North of England +21 96 £50,000 -16.67% 32
South West +1 95 £62,500 - 13
Midlands -10 72 £52,500 -4.55% 21
Scotland -42 54 £54,000 -1.82% 15
West Midlands +12 52 £44,488 -20.91% 14
North West -26 52 £45,000 -30.77% 13
East of England +20 36 £57,662 +4.84% 15
Yorkshire +73 34 £53,750 -7.02% 19
East Midlands -10 19 £57,500 +52.32% 7
North East +1 10 £45,000 -36.84%
Wales -19 5 £52,500 -4.55% 5
Northern Ireland +22 3 £32,500 - 2

Security Operations
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 22 (2.73%) SAS
2 10 (1.24%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (0.62%) Confluence
3 5 (0.62%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.25%) Apache
4 2 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.25%) IIS
4 2 (0.25%) MS Project Server
5 1 (0.12%) Site Server
Applications
1 15 (1.86%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.25%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.25%) SAP GRC
2 1 (0.12%) Endur
Cloud Services
1 225 (27.88%) Azure
2 136 (16.85%) Microsoft 365
3 71 (8.80%) AWS
4 50 (6.20%) Azure Sentinel
5 46 (5.70%) SaaS
6 40 (4.96%) Entra ID
7 25 (3.10%) Cloud Computing
8 21 (2.60%) GCP
9 18 (2.23%) PaaS
10 17 (2.11%) Azure DevOps
11 16 (1.98%) IaaS
12 15 (1.86%) Microsoft Purview
13 10 (1.24%) Azure AKS
14 6 (0.74%) OCI
15 4 (0.50%) Datadog
16 3 (0.37%) Mimecast
16 3 (0.37%) Power Platform
16 3 (0.37%) Stackdriver
17 2 (0.25%) Amazon GuardDuty
17 2 (0.25%) SonarCloud
Communications & Networking
1 166 (20.57%) Firewall
2 123 (15.24%) Network Security
3 59 (7.31%) Intrusion Detection
4 40 (4.96%) TCP/IP
5 32 (3.97%) VPN
6 26 (3.22%) Internet
7 24 (2.97%) LAN
8 23 (2.85%) WAN
8 23 (2.85%) Wireshark
9 20 (2.48%) DNS
10 11 (1.36%) DHCP
11 6 (0.74%) Broadband
11 6 (0.74%) Wireless
12 5 (0.62%) HTTP
12 5 (0.62%) SMTP
13 4 (0.50%) SSL
14 3 (0.37%) OSPF
14 3 (0.37%) tcpdump
14 3 (0.37%) Wi-Fi
14 3 (0.37%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (0.99%) Relational Database
2 5 (0.62%) BigQuery
2 5 (0.62%) Data Warehouse
2 5 (0.62%) Hadoop
3 4 (0.50%) Big Data
4 2 (0.25%) MongoDB
4 2 (0.25%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.25%) Power BI
5 1 (0.12%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.12%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 6 (0.74%) Git
2 5 (0.62%) Jenkins
2 5 (0.62%) JIRA
3 1 (0.12%) Burp Suite
3 1 (0.12%) GitLab
3 1 (0.12%) SonarQube
3 1 (0.12%) Visual Studio Team System
General
1 214 (26.52%) Social Skills
2 165 (20.45%) Finance
3 110 (13.63%) Analytical Skills
4 53 (6.57%) Law
4 53 (6.57%) Legal
5 48 (5.95%) Military
6 39 (4.83%) Banking
6 39 (4.83%) Retail
7 37 (4.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 16 (1.98%) Games
9 14 (1.73%) Aerospace
9 14 (1.73%) Presentation Skills
9 14 (1.73%) Public Sector
10 11 (1.36%) Marketing
10 11 (1.36%) Telecoms
11 9 (1.12%) Pharmaceutical
12 6 (0.74%) Police
13 5 (0.62%) Manufacturing
14 4 (0.50%) Aviation
14 4 (0.50%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 270 (33.46%) Analyst
2 153 (18.96%) Security Analyst
3 121 (14.99%) Senior
4 104 (12.89%) Security Engineer
5 80 (9.91%) Consultant
6 79 (9.79%) Lead
7 77 (9.54%) Security Manager
8 76 (9.42%) Senior Analyst
8 76 (9.42%) SOC Analyst
9 72 (8.92%) Cybersecurity Analyst
10 71 (8.80%) Security Consultant
11 47 (5.82%) IT Analyst
12 46 (5.70%) IT Security Analyst
13 40 (4.96%) Cybersecurity Consultant
14 39 (4.83%) Developer
15 38 (4.71%) Senior Security Analyst
15 38 (4.71%) ServiceNow Developer
16 30 (3.72%) Architect
16 30 (3.72%) Senior Security Engineer
17 28 (3.47%) Security Operations Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (3.59%) Web Services
2 24 (2.97%) AngularJS
2 24 (2.97%) CSS
3 22 (2.73%) HTML
3 22 (2.73%) Twitter Bootstrap
4 18 (2.23%) Elastic Stack
5 9 (1.12%) Fluent Bit
6 6 (0.74%) Kafka
6 6 (0.74%) LDAP
6 6 (0.74%) OAuth
6 6 (0.74%) REST
6 6 (0.74%) SAML
6 6 (0.74%) SOAP
7 4 (0.50%) EDI
8 3 (0.37%) ADO
8 3 (0.37%) ODBC
9 2 (0.25%) .NET
9 2 (0.25%) JDBC
9 2 (0.25%) Middleware
9 2 (0.25%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 237 (29.37%) Security Operations Centre
2 138 (17.10%) Management Information System
3 111 (13.75%) Cyber Threat
4 62 (7.68%) Security Posture
5 61 (7.56%) Cyberattack
6 55 (6.82%) Cyber Defence
7 38 (4.71%) Cyber Kill Chain
8 31 (3.84%) CMDB
9 24 (2.97%) Legacy Systems
10 20 (2.48%) Client/Server
10 20 (2.48%) Data Protection Act
11 19 (2.35%) Operational Technology
12 17 (2.11%) Onboarding
12 17 (2.11%) Product Ownership
12 17 (2.11%) SCADA
13 15 (1.86%) Data Centre
14 14 (1.73%) Analytical Mindset
14 14 (1.73%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
15 12 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
16 10 (1.24%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 137 (16.98%) Windows
2 64 (7.93%) Linux
3 33 (4.09%) Windows Server
4 21 (2.60%) Unix
5 16 (1.98%) Mac OS X
6 15 (1.86%) Android
6 15 (1.86%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.62%) Kali Linux
8 4 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
9 3 (0.37%) CentOS
10 2 (0.25%) AIX
10 2 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.12%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.12%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.12%) Windows Vista
Processes & Methodologies
1 522 (64.68%) Cybersecurity
2 321 (39.78%) SIEM
3 284 (35.19%) Incident Response
4 269 (33.33%) Information Security
5 183 (22.68%) Vulnerability Management
6 149 (18.46%) Incident Management
7 114 (14.13%) Threat Intelligence
8 113 (14.00%) Agile
8 113 (14.00%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
9 105 (13.01%) Risk Management
10 100 (12.39%) Problem-Solving
11 93 (11.52%) Cloud Security
11 93 (11.52%) Mentoring
12 91 (11.28%) Identity Access Management
13 81 (10.04%) ITIL
14 79 (9.79%) Roadmaps
15 78 (9.67%) Security Architecture
16 74 (9.17%) DevOps
17 73 (9.05%) Continuous Improvement
18 67 (8.30%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 74 (9.17%) PowerShell
2 49 (6.07%) Python
3 19 (2.35%) SQL
4 15 (1.86%) Bash
5 12 (1.49%) Kusto Query Language
6 9 (1.12%) JavaScript
7 8 (0.99%) Java
8 2 (0.25%) C
8 2 (0.25%) C#
8 2 (0.25%) Scala
9 1 (0.12%) Go
Qualifications
1 176 (21.81%) CISSP
2 145 (17.97%) Degree
3 141 (17.47%) Security Cleared
4 73 (9.05%) CISM
5 64 (7.93%) SC Cleared
6 54 (6.69%) CompTIA Security+
7 53 (6.57%) DV Cleared
8 49 (6.07%) Cisco Certification
9 42 (5.20%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 41 (5.08%) CCSP
11 38 (4.71%) GIAC
12 33 (4.09%) Computer Science Degree
13 32 (3.97%) CEH
14 25 (3.10%) CompTIA CySA+
15 24 (2.97%) Master's Degree
15 24 (2.97%) SSCP
16 22 (2.73%) CISA
17 19 (2.35%) GCIA
18 18 (2.23%) GCIH
19 17 (2.11%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 173 (21.44%) NIST
2 160 (19.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 74 (9.17%) GDPR
4 67 (8.30%) PCI DSS
5 55 (6.82%) Cyber Essentials
6 47 (5.82%) GRC
7 32 (3.97%) NCSC
8 26 (3.22%) NIST 800
9 25 (3.10%) JSP 440
10 21 (2.60%) SOC 2
11 17 (2.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 17 (2.11%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 9 (1.12%) COBIT
12 9 (1.12%) ISO 9001
13 8 (0.99%) QA
14 7 (0.87%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 6 (0.74%) HIPAA
16 5 (0.62%) Data Quality
17 4 (0.50%) ISO 22301
18 3 (0.37%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 82 (10.16%) Active Directory
2 17 (2.11%) Virtual Desktop
3 16 (1.98%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (1.86%) vSphere
5 12 (1.49%) Docker
6 10 (1.24%) RACF
7 5 (0.62%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.62%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.50%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 1 (0.12%) Snort
9 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.12%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 26 (3.22%) Microsoft Intune
2 25 (3.10%) QRadar
3 24 (2.97%) Kubernetes
4 17 (2.11%) CASB
5 15 (1.86%) Terraform
6 14 (1.73%) logstash
6 14 (1.73%) Nmap
7 12 (1.49%) Ansible
8 9 (1.12%) Fluentd
8 9 (1.12%) Nessus
9 8 (0.99%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
10 7 (0.87%) CSIRT
11 5 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 5 (0.62%) Suricata
12 3 (0.37%) Graphite
12 3 (0.37%) Nagios
12 3 (0.37%) SCCM
12 3 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
12 3 (0.37%) vCenter Server
12 3 (0.37%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 251 (31.10%) Microsoft
2 76 (9.42%) Splunk
3 51 (6.32%) ServiceNow
4 47 (5.82%) Qualys
5 22 (2.73%) VMware
6 20 (2.48%) Cisco
6 20 (2.48%) CrowdStrike
7 18 (2.23%) Tripwire
8 17 (2.11%) SolarWinds
8 17 (2.11%) Tanium
9 16 (1.98%) IBM
9 16 (1.98%) Rapid7
10 14 (1.73%) CyberArk
10 14 (1.73%) Dell
10 14 (1.73%) Thycotic
11 13 (1.61%) Darktrace
12 8 (0.99%) BT
12 8 (0.99%) Google
12 8 (0.99%) Juniper
13 7 (0.87%) Oracle