SOC Analyst

About this course

This programme is a live, instructor-led training course designed to take learners from the fundamentals of security operations through to hands-on, intermediate-level analyst practice. Delivered in an interactive classroom environment, the curriculum combines structured teaching with practical lab exercises across industry-standard tools including Splunk, Elastic Stack, Wazuh, Microsoft Sentinel, and Wireshark. The programme culminates in a capstone project where learners investigate a simulated incident end-to-end alongside their trainer, reinforcing every skill built throughout the course.

What is SOC Analyst?

A Security Operations Centre, or SOC, is a dedicated function within an organisation responsible for continuously monitoring, detecting, analysing, and responding to cyber security threats. SOC analysts are the practitioners who sit at the heart of this function, working across SIEM platforms, network monitoring tools, and threat intelligence feeds to identify suspicious activity and contain harm before it escalates. In production environments, a SOC analyst must translate raw log data, Suricata and Snort alerts, and Sysmon telemetry into clear, actionable decisions. Effective analysts understand attacker behaviour through frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK, enrich alerts using platforms like VirusTotal and TheHive, and follow a structured incident response lifecycle to ensure threats are triaged, contained, and properly documented for continuous improvement.

Why learn SOC Analyst now

Organisations of every size now operate or contract into security operations functions, and the demand for skilled SOC analysts far outpaces the available talent. Employers are actively recruiting across Tier 1 and Tier 2 analyst roles, incident responder positions, and threat intelligence functions, yet struggle to find candidates who can operate SIEM platforms, build correlation rules, and manage the full incident response lifecycle from day one. Proficiency in tools such as Splunk, Elastic Stack, Microsoft Sentinel, and Wazuh has moved from desirable to essential. Analysts who can hunt threats using MITRE ATT&CK, reduce false positives through intelligent enrichment, and deliver clear post-incident reports are commanding significantly stronger career opportunities and faster progression than those with theoretical knowledge alone.

Who this course is for

• Career changers entering cyber security — Individuals pivoting from IT support or networking roles who want a structured, practical route into a professional SOC analyst position.
• Junior IT and helpdesk professionals — Those already working in technology who want to formalise their security skills and move into a dedicated security operations function.
• Recent computing or cyber security graduates — Graduates who have theoretical grounding but need hands-on experience with Splunk, Elastic Stack, Wazuh, and real-world incident workflows.
• Network and systems administrators — Practitioners familiar with infrastructure who want to extend their skills into threat detection, log management, and SIEM deployment.
• Aspiring threat intelligence analysts — Learners who want to understand how to integrate intelligence feeds, enrich alerts with VirusTotal, and build proactive threat hunting capabilities.
• Security-aware professionals seeking a role change — Business or technical professionals with a general awareness of cyber security who want a clear, guided path into operational security roles.

What you’ll be able to build

By the end you will have built — not just studied — the core systems of the field:

• Configured SIEM deployment with data onboarding — Learners deploy a working SIEM environment, onboard log sources, and configure data pipelines ready for real-time detection and alerting.
• Splunk and Elastic Stack correlation rule set — A library of custom correlation searches and detection rules built in both Splunk and Elastic Stack, designed to surface genuine threats from high-volume log data.
• Threat intelligence-enriched detection workflow — An integrated detection pipeline that pulls in threat intelligence feeds and enriches alerts with VirusTotal context to reduce false positives and accelerate triage.
• Wazuh and Sysmon host monitoring configuration — A host-based monitoring setup using Wazuh and Sysmon that captures endpoint telemetry and feeds structured events into the SIEM for correlation.
• Suricata and Snort network detection rules — Custom network intrusion detection rules deployed in Suricata and Snort, tuned to flag attacker tactics mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK framework.
• TheHive incident case and ticketing workflow — A structured case management workflow built in TheHive covering alert triage, escalation, containment actions, and shift handover documentation.
• Capstone incident investigation and report — A complete end-to-end investigation of a simulated incident, including SIEM triage, threat containment, root cause analysis, and a formal written incident report.

Career paths & salary

Completing this programme positions learners for roles including SOC Analyst at Tier 1 and Tier 2, Security Operations Analyst, Incident Responder, Cyber Security Analyst, and Threat Intelligence Analyst. Demand across these roles is strong and growing, driven by organisations building out or expanding internal security operations functions in response to an increasingly hostile threat environment. Employers actively seek candidates who can demonstrate hands-on capability with platforms such as Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel, Elastic Stack, and Wazuh rather than theoretical knowledge alone. Analysts who can work the full incident response lifecycle, manage cases in TheHive, write clear post-incident reports, and apply the MITRE ATT&CK framework to real detections are progressing faster and attracting greater interest from hiring teams. This programme is structured to ensure learners leave with exactly that kind of demonstrable, production-ready capability.