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

6 months to
10 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 351 343 385
Rank change year-on-year -8 +42 -2
Permanent jobs citing Security Operations 802 1,023 1,494
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.81% 1.01% 0.95%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.94% 1.06% 0.99%
Number of salaries quoted 606 693 887
10th Percentile £37,500 £38,500 £41,250
25th Percentile £48,188 £49,750 £51,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,250 £65,000 £67,500
Median % change year-on-year -7.31% -3.70% +8.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £79,750 £85,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,290 £96,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £54,500 £57,699 £56,388
% change year-on-year -5.54% +2.33% +2.52%

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 84,917 96,578 150,488
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 85.59% 95.61% 95.67%
Number of salaries quoted 59,883 56,844 82,330
10th Percentile £29,008 £34,000 £33,515
25th Percentile £40,000 £45,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £61,190 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -10.12% +1.98% +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 10 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 10 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 +10 720 £61,439 -5.48% 173
UK excluding London -33 482 £54,500 -5.54% 121
Work from Home +35 317 £60,000 -4.00% 85
London +38 285 £71,250 +5.56% 72
South East -23 131 £53,750 -2.27% 32
South West +6 95 £62,500 +4.27% 15
North of England +11 90 £50,000 -18.37% 23
Midlands -19 70 £52,500 -4.55% 21
West Midlands -2 52 £45,475 -17.32% 14
Scotland -44 51 £53,886 -2.03% 15
North West -28 50 £45,000 -30.77% 10
East of England +35 39 £60,000 +9.09% 11
Yorkshire +73 31 £55,000 -5.43% 11
East Midlands -18 18 £57,500 +52.32% 7
North East 0 9 £45,000 -36.84% 2
Wales -18 6 £52,500 -4.55% 5
Northern Ireland +23 3 £32,500 - 1

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 (2.74%) SAS
2 11 (1.37%) 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 (1.87%) 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
1 227 (28.30%) Azure
2 138 (17.21%) Microsoft 365
3 75 (9.35%) AWS
4 51 (6.36%) Azure Sentinel
5 46 (5.74%) SaaS
6 31 (3.87%) Entra ID
7 25 (3.12%) Cloud Computing
8 21 (2.62%) GCP
9 18 (2.24%) PaaS
10 17 (2.12%) Azure DevOps
11 16 (2.00%) IaaS
12 15 (1.87%) Microsoft Purview
13 10 (1.25%) Azure AKS
14 6 (0.75%) 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
1 171 (21.32%) Firewall
2 126 (15.71%) Network Security
3 61 (7.61%) Intrusion Detection
4 43 (5.36%) TCP/IP
5 33 (4.11%) VPN
6 27 (3.37%) Internet
7 25 (3.12%) LAN
8 24 (2.99%) WAN
9 23 (2.87%) Wireshark
10 20 (2.49%) DNS
11 11 (1.37%) DHCP
12 6 (0.75%) Broadband
12 6 (0.75%) HTTP
12 6 (0.75%) SMTP
12 6 (0.75%) Wireless
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 (1.00%) 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 (0.75%) 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
1 213 (26.56%) Social Skills
2 157 (19.58%) Finance
3 110 (13.72%) Analytical Skills
4 54 (6.73%) Law
5 48 (5.99%) Military
6 45 (5.61%) Legal
7 38 (4.74%) Retail
8 36 (4.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 31 (3.87%) Banking
10 17 (2.12%) Games
11 16 (2.00%) Aerospace
12 14 (1.75%) Presentation Skills
13 13 (1.62%) Public Sector
14 11 (1.37%) Marketing
14 11 (1.37%) Telecoms
15 9 (1.12%) Pharmaceutical
16 6 (0.75%) Police
17 5 (0.62%) Manufacturing
18 4 (0.50%) Aviation
18 4 (0.50%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 263 (32.79%) Analyst
2 157 (19.58%) Security Analyst
3 110 (13.72%) Senior
4 105 (13.09%) Security Engineer
5 79 (9.85%) Consultant
6 78 (9.73%) Security Manager
7 77 (9.60%) Lead
8 76 (9.48%) SOC Analyst
9 74 (9.23%) Cybersecurity Analyst
10 70 (8.73%) Security Consultant
11 66 (8.23%) Senior Analyst
12 46 (5.74%) IT Analyst
13 45 (5.61%) IT Security Analyst
14 40 (4.99%) Cybersecurity Consultant
15 39 (4.86%) Developer
15 39 (4.86%) Senior Security Analyst
16 38 (4.74%) ServiceNow Developer
17 30 (3.74%) Senior Security Engineer
18 28 (3.49%) Architect
18 28 (3.49%) Operations Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (3.62%) Web Services
2 24 (2.99%) AngularJS
2 24 (2.99%) CSS
3 22 (2.74%) HTML
3 22 (2.74%) Twitter Bootstrap
4 18 (2.24%) Elastic Stack
5 10 (1.25%) Fluent Bit
6 7 (0.87%) LDAP
7 6 (0.75%) Kafka
7 6 (0.75%) OAuth
7 6 (0.75%) REST
7 6 (0.75%) SAML
7 6 (0.75%) SOAP
8 4 (0.50%) EDI
9 3 (0.37%) ADO
9 3 (0.37%) ODBC
10 2 (0.25%) .NET
10 2 (0.25%) JDBC
10 2 (0.25%) Middleware
10 2 (0.25%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 238 (29.68%) Security Operations Centre
2 129 (16.08%) Management Information System
3 116 (14.46%) Cyber Threat
4 63 (7.86%) Cyberattack
5 61 (7.61%) Security Posture
6 55 (6.86%) Cyber Defence
7 37 (4.61%) Cyber Kill Chain
8 31 (3.87%) CMDB
9 24 (2.99%) Legacy Systems
10 21 (2.62%) Data Protection Act
10 21 (2.62%) Operational Technology
11 20 (2.49%) Client/Server
12 17 (2.12%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 17 (2.12%) Onboarding
12 17 (2.12%) Product Ownership
12 17 (2.12%) SCADA
13 16 (2.00%) Data Centre
14 15 (1.87%) Analytical Mindset
15 12 (1.50%) Self-Motivation
16 11 (1.37%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 140 (17.46%) Windows
2 66 (8.23%) Linux
3 35 (4.36%) Windows Server
4 21 (2.62%) Unix
5 16 (2.00%) Mac OS X
6 15 (1.87%) Android
6 15 (1.87%) 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
1 521 (64.96%) Cybersecurity
2 327 (40.77%) SIEM
3 288 (35.91%) Incident Response
4 262 (32.67%) Information Security
5 188 (23.44%) Vulnerability Management
6 150 (18.70%) Incident Management
7 115 (14.34%) Threat Intelligence
8 114 (14.21%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
9 107 (13.34%) Risk Management
10 103 (12.84%) Agile
11 102 (12.72%) Problem-Solving
12 94 (11.72%) Mentoring
13 91 (11.35%) Cloud Security
14 81 (10.10%) Identity Access Management
15 80 (9.98%) ITIL
16 75 (9.35%) Security Architecture
17 74 (9.23%) Continuous Improvement
17 74 (9.23%) DevOps
18 70 (8.73%) Roadmaps
19 67 (8.35%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 66 (8.23%) PowerShell
2 52 (6.48%) Python
3 18 (2.24%) Bash
4 12 (1.50%) Kusto Query Language
5 9 (1.12%) JavaScript
5 9 (1.12%) SQL
6 8 (1.00%) Java
7 2 (0.25%) C
7 2 (0.25%) C#
7 2 (0.25%) Scala
8 1 (0.12%) Go
Qualifications
1 174 (21.70%) CISSP
2 144 (17.96%) Security Cleared
3 141 (17.58%) Degree
4 69 (8.60%) CISM
5 67 (8.35%) SC Cleared
6 56 (6.98%) CompTIA Security+
7 55 (6.86%) DV Cleared
8 51 (6.36%) Cisco Certification
9 44 (5.49%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 43 (5.36%) CCSP
11 38 (4.74%) GIAC
12 33 (4.11%) Computer Science Degree
13 32 (3.99%) CEH
14 28 (3.49%) CompTIA CySA+
15 24 (2.99%) Master's Degree
16 23 (2.87%) SSCP
17 22 (2.74%) CISA
18 20 (2.49%) GCIA
19 19 (2.37%) GCIH
20 17 (2.12%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 177 (22.07%) NIST
2 157 (19.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 76 (9.48%) GDPR
4 66 (8.23%) PCI DSS
5 56 (6.98%) Cyber Essentials
6 46 (5.74%) GRC
7 31 (3.87%) NCSC
8 26 (3.24%) NIST 800
9 25 (3.12%) JSP 440
10 24 (2.99%) SOC 2
11 18 (2.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 17 (2.12%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 9 (1.12%) COBIT
14 8 (1.00%) ISO 9001
14 8 (1.00%) QA
15 7 (0.87%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 6 (0.75%) HIPAA
17 5 (0.62%) Data Quality
18 3 (0.37%) RMADS
18 3 (0.37%) SLA
System Software
1 75 (9.35%) Active Directory
2 17 (2.12%) Virtual Desktop
2 17 (2.12%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (1.87%) vSphere
4 12 (1.50%) Docker
5 5 (0.62%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.62%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.50%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 1 (0.12%) Snort
7 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.12%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 26 (3.24%) Microsoft Intune
2 25 (3.12%) QRadar
3 24 (2.99%) Kubernetes
4 17 (2.12%) CASB
5 15 (1.87%) logstash
5 15 (1.87%) Terraform
6 14 (1.75%) Nmap
7 12 (1.50%) Ansible
8 10 (1.25%) Fluentd
8 10 (1.25%) Nessus
9 8 (1.00%) 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
1 242 (30.17%) Microsoft
2 80 (9.98%) Splunk
3 52 (6.48%) ServiceNow
4 48 (5.99%) Qualys
5 23 (2.87%) VMware
6 21 (2.62%) Cisco
7 19 (2.37%) CrowdStrike
8 18 (2.24%) Tripwire
9 17 (2.12%) IBM
9 17 (2.12%) SolarWinds
9 17 (2.12%) Tanium
10 16 (2.00%) Rapid7
11 14 (1.75%) Dell
11 14 (1.75%) Thycotic
12 13 (1.62%) Darktrace
13 9 (1.12%) Juniper
14 8 (1.00%) Google
15 7 (0.87%) BT
15 7 (0.87%) Oracle
16 5 (0.62%) CheckPoint