How many cybersecurity jobs are open in the United Kingdom?
In short
In August 2026 there were 4,154 open cybersecurity roles across 1,450 UK companies, an average of 2.9 roles per hiring employer. London dominates to a degree seen in no other European market, holding roughly a quarter of all advertised roles on its own. Every figure comes from job advertisements the companies published themselves.
On this page
The numbers
Collected from public job advertisements in August 2026.
| Measure | Count |
|---|---|
| Open cybersecurity roles | 4,154 |
| Companies hiring | 1,450 |
| Roles per hiring company | 2.9 |
| Snapshot | August 2026 |
The ratio is the number that matters. At 2.9 roles per employer, UK employers advertise slightly larger groups than their German counterparts, which points at team builds as often as individual replacements.
Where the roles are
Cybersecurity hiring concentrates far more tightly than most functions, because it follows financial and government clusters rather than population.
| City | Open roles |
|---|---|
| London | 998 |
| Manchester | 112 |
| Farringdon | 74 |
| The City | 73 |
| Bristol | 69 |
London dominates to a degree seen in no other European market, holding roughly a quarter of all advertised roles on its own.
What drives hiring here
UK demand follows financial services and government. The concentration in the City and Farringdon is banking and fintech; the regional clusters follow defence and public sector work.
Across Europe the same three forces apply. NIS2 and DORA turned security into a board obligation rather than a technical concern. Public incidents release budget faster than any vendor pitch. And cloud migration creates roles that did not previously exist.
Why these roles stay open
The qualified pool is small and is not growing at the rate demand is. Employers compete internationally for the same people, so a local salary competes with a foreign one.
Clearance and certification narrow the field further in defence and finance. And many job specifications ask for a combination of skills few individuals actually hold, which is a specification problem rather than a market one.
For a recruiter that last point is the opening. A role open three months usually has a describable reason, and naming it beats any pitch.
What this dataset is not
These are public postings on one date. Roles filled through agencies, internal transfer or referral never appear, and employers recruiting only through their own careers pages are under-represented.
The classification is broad, covering IT security, information security and cyber defence rather than one job title. Treat the totals as a floor.
Using it as a recruiter
Start with where you can actually supply candidates rather than with the biggest number. Then use the roles-per-company ratio to decide whether you are selling single placements or a team build, because those are different conversations with different buyers.
We build the company-level list behind these counts for clients entering a market, filtered to the regions and seniority they can serve.
Frequently asked
How many cybersecurity jobs are open in the United Kingdom?
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