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 19 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
19 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 348 336 382
Rank change year-on-year -12 +46 -4
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 817 999 1,572
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.82% 1.00% 0.97%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.96% 1.05% 1.02%
Number of salaries quoted 603 679 897
10th Percentile £37,500 £37,945 £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 £85,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,290 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £54,000 £57,588 £58,000
% change year-on-year -6.23% -0.71% +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 85,150 95,114 154,445
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 85.20% 95.57% 95.77%
Number of salaries quoted 59,851 56,202 82,517
10th Percentile £29,079 £34,000 £33,645
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% +10.43%

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 19 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 19 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 +3 734 £60,970 -2.45% 207
UK excluding London -5 497 £54,000 -6.23% 155
Work from Home +45 334 £60,000 - 87
London +26 287 £72,500 +8.21% 82
South East -33 130 £53,750 -2.27% 43
North of England +15 101 £50,000 -16.67% 39
South West +18 96 £62,500 - 15
Midlands +1 74 £52,500 -4.55% 22
Scotland -49 55 £54,000 -1.82% 15
North West -28 54 £45,000 -30.77% 15
West Midlands +15 53 £44,488 -20.91% 14
Yorkshire +74 36 £53,750 -7.02% 24
East of England +16 36 £57,662 +4.84% 16
East Midlands -13 20 £57,500 +61.97% 8
North East +6 11 £45,000 -36.84%
Wales -21 5 £52,500 -4.55% 7
Northern Ireland +25 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 (2.69%) SAS
2 10 (1.22%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (0.61%) Confluence
3 5 (0.61%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.24%) Apache
4 2 (0.24%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.24%) IIS
4 2 (0.24%) MS Project Server
5 1 (0.12%) Site Server
Applications
1 15 (1.84%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.86%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.24%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.24%) SAP GRC
2 1 (0.12%) Endur
Cloud Services
1 225 (27.54%) Azure
2 136 (16.65%) Microsoft 365
3 71 (8.69%) AWS
4 50 (6.12%) Azure Sentinel
4 50 (6.12%) Entra ID
5 46 (5.63%) SaaS
6 25 (3.06%) Cloud Computing
7 21 (2.57%) GCP
8 18 (2.20%) PaaS
9 17 (2.08%) Azure DevOps
10 16 (1.96%) IaaS
11 15 (1.84%) Microsoft Purview
12 10 (1.22%) Azure AKS
13 6 (0.73%) OCI
14 4 (0.49%) Datadog
15 3 (0.37%) Mimecast
15 3 (0.37%) Power Platform
15 3 (0.37%) Stackdriver
16 2 (0.24%) Amazon GuardDuty
16 2 (0.24%) SonarCloud
Communications & Networking
1 166 (20.32%) Firewall
2 123 (15.06%) Network Security
3 59 (7.22%) Intrusion Detection
4 40 (4.90%) TCP/IP
5 32 (3.92%) VPN
6 26 (3.18%) Internet
7 24 (2.94%) LAN
8 23 (2.82%) WAN
8 23 (2.82%) Wireshark
9 20 (2.45%) DNS
10 11 (1.35%) DHCP
11 6 (0.73%) Broadband
11 6 (0.73%) Wireless
12 5 (0.61%) HTTP
12 5 (0.61%) SMTP
13 4 (0.49%) 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 (0.98%) Relational Database
2 5 (0.61%) BigQuery
2 5 (0.61%) Data Warehouse
2 5 (0.61%) Hadoop
3 4 (0.49%) Big Data
4 2 (0.24%) MongoDB
4 2 (0.24%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.24%) Power BI
5 1 (0.12%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.12%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 6 (0.73%) Git
2 5 (0.61%) Jenkins
2 5 (0.61%) 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 (26.19%) Social Skills
2 175 (21.42%) Finance
3 110 (13.46%) Analytical Skills
4 63 (7.71%) Legal
5 53 (6.49%) Law
6 49 (6.00%) Banking
7 48 (5.88%) Military
8 39 (4.77%) Retail
9 37 (4.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 16 (1.96%) Games
11 14 (1.71%) Aerospace
11 14 (1.71%) Presentation Skills
11 14 (1.71%) Public Sector
12 11 (1.35%) Marketing
12 11 (1.35%) Telecoms
13 9 (1.10%) Pharmaceutical
14 6 (0.73%) Police
15 5 (0.61%) Manufacturing
16 4 (0.49%) Aviation
16 4 (0.49%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 280 (34.27%) Analyst
2 153 (18.73%) Security Analyst
3 131 (16.03%) Senior
4 104 (12.73%) Security Engineer
5 86 (10.53%) Senior Analyst
6 80 (9.79%) Consultant
7 79 (9.67%) Lead
8 77 (9.42%) Security Manager
9 76 (9.30%) SOC Analyst
10 72 (8.81%) Cybersecurity Analyst
11 71 (8.69%) Security Consultant
12 47 (5.75%) IT Analyst
13 46 (5.63%) IT Security Analyst
14 40 (4.90%) Cybersecurity Consultant
15 39 (4.77%) Developer
16 38 (4.65%) Senior Security Analyst
16 38 (4.65%) ServiceNow Developer
17 30 (3.67%) Architect
17 30 (3.67%) Senior Security Engineer
18 28 (3.43%) Operational Security Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (3.55%) Web Services
2 24 (2.94%) AngularJS
2 24 (2.94%) CSS
3 22 (2.69%) HTML
3 22 (2.69%) Twitter Bootstrap
4 18 (2.20%) Elastic Stack
5 9 (1.10%) Fluent Bit
6 6 (0.73%) Kafka
6 6 (0.73%) LDAP
6 6 (0.73%) OAuth
6 6 (0.73%) REST
6 6 (0.73%) SAML
6 6 (0.73%) SOAP
7 4 (0.49%) EDI
8 3 (0.37%) ADO
8 3 (0.37%) ODBC
9 2 (0.24%) .NET
9 2 (0.24%) JDBC
9 2 (0.24%) Middleware
9 2 (0.24%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 237 (29.01%) Security Operations Centre
2 148 (18.12%) Management Information System
3 111 (13.59%) Cyber Threat
4 62 (7.59%) Security Posture
5 61 (7.47%) Cyberattack
6 55 (6.73%) Cyber Defence
7 38 (4.65%) Cyber Kill Chain
8 31 (3.79%) CMDB
9 24 (2.94%) Legacy Systems
10 20 (2.45%) Client/Server
10 20 (2.45%) Data Protection Act
11 19 (2.33%) Operational Technology
12 17 (2.08%) Onboarding
12 17 (2.08%) Product Ownership
12 17 (2.08%) SCADA
13 15 (1.84%) Data Centre
14 14 (1.71%) Analytical Mindset
14 14 (1.71%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
15 12 (1.47%) Self-Motivation
16 10 (1.22%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 137 (16.77%) Windows
2 64 (7.83%) Linux
3 33 (4.04%) Windows Server
4 21 (2.57%) Unix
5 16 (1.96%) Mac OS X
6 15 (1.84%) Android
6 15 (1.84%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.61%) Kali Linux
8 4 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
9 3 (0.37%) CentOS
10 2 (0.24%) AIX
10 2 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.24%) 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
1 532 (65.12%) Cybersecurity
2 321 (39.29%) SIEM
3 284 (34.76%) Incident Response
4 279 (34.15%) Information Security
5 183 (22.40%) Vulnerability Management
6 149 (18.24%) Incident Management
7 123 (15.06%) Agile
8 114 (13.95%) Threat Intelligence
9 113 (13.83%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
10 105 (12.85%) Risk Management
11 101 (12.36%) Identity Access Management
12 100 (12.24%) Problem-Solving
13 93 (11.38%) Cloud Security
13 93 (11.38%) Mentoring
14 89 (10.89%) Roadmaps
15 81 (9.91%) ITIL
16 78 (9.55%) Security Architecture
17 74 (9.06%) Coaching
17 74 (9.06%) DevOps
18 73 (8.94%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 84 (10.28%) PowerShell
2 49 (6.00%) Python
3 29 (3.55%) SQL
4 15 (1.84%) Bash
5 12 (1.47%) Kusto Query Language
6 9 (1.10%) JavaScript
7 8 (0.98%) Java
8 2 (0.24%) C
8 2 (0.24%) C#
8 2 (0.24%) Scala
9 1 (0.12%) Go
Qualifications
1 176 (21.54%) CISSP
2 145 (17.75%) Degree
3 141 (17.26%) Security Cleared
4 73 (8.94%) CISM
5 64 (7.83%) SC Cleared
6 54 (6.61%) CompTIA Security+
7 53 (6.49%) DV Cleared
8 49 (6.00%) Cisco Certification
9 42 (5.14%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 41 (5.02%) CCSP
11 38 (4.65%) GIAC
12 33 (4.04%) Computer Science Degree
13 32 (3.92%) CEH
14 25 (3.06%) CompTIA CySA+
15 24 (2.94%) Master's Degree
15 24 (2.94%) SSCP
16 22 (2.69%) CISA
17 19 (2.33%) GCIA
18 18 (2.20%) GCIH
19 17 (2.08%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 173 (21.18%) NIST
2 160 (19.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 74 (9.06%) GDPR
4 67 (8.20%) PCI DSS
5 55 (6.73%) Cyber Essentials
6 47 (5.75%) GRC
7 32 (3.92%) NCSC
8 26 (3.18%) NIST 800
9 25 (3.06%) JSP 440
10 21 (2.57%) SOC 2
11 17 (2.08%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 17 (2.08%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 9 (1.10%) COBIT
12 9 (1.10%) ISO 9001
13 8 (0.98%) QA
14 7 (0.86%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 6 (0.73%) HIPAA
16 5 (0.61%) Data Quality
17 4 (0.49%) ISO 22301
18 3 (0.37%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 92 (11.26%) Active Directory
2 20 (2.45%) RACF
3 17 (2.08%) Virtual Desktop
4 16 (1.96%) VMware Infrastructure
5 15 (1.84%) vSphere
6 12 (1.47%) Docker
7 5 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.61%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.49%) 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 (3.18%) Microsoft Intune
2 25 (3.06%) QRadar
3 24 (2.94%) Kubernetes
4 17 (2.08%) CASB
5 15 (1.84%) Terraform
6 14 (1.71%) logstash
6 14 (1.71%) Nmap
7 12 (1.47%) Ansible
8 9 (1.10%) Fluentd
8 9 (1.10%) Nessus
9 8 (0.98%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
10 7 (0.86%) CSIRT
11 5 (0.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 5 (0.61%) 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
1 261 (31.95%) Microsoft
2 76 (9.30%) Splunk
3 51 (6.24%) ServiceNow
4 47 (5.75%) Qualys
5 24 (2.94%) CyberArk
6 22 (2.69%) VMware
7 20 (2.45%) Cisco
7 20 (2.45%) CrowdStrike
8 18 (2.20%) Tripwire
9 17 (2.08%) SolarWinds
9 17 (2.08%) Tanium
10 16 (1.96%) IBM
10 16 (1.96%) Rapid7
11 14 (1.71%) Dell
11 14 (1.71%) Thycotic
12 13 (1.59%) Darktrace
13 8 (0.98%) BT
13 8 (0.98%) Google
13 8 (0.98%) Juniper
14 7 (0.86%) Oracle