A cyber security company founded in Abingdon, England, in 1985. It sells security software and managed detection and response, and is now owned by a US private equity firm.
Sophos is a cyber security company whose products and people help organisations stay safe online. Its software protects laptops, servers and phones from viruses and ransomware (malware that locks files until a ransom is paid). It also makes firewalls, which guard the doors between a company's network and the internet. Sophos analysts offer managed detection and response, where they watch for attacks on a customer's behalf, and an incident response team helps organisations that have already been hacked. Sophos says it protects more than 600,000 customers, which is the company's own figure.
Sophos was founded in 1985 by Jan Hruska and Peter Lammer, who started by making antivirus and encryption products. Its headquarters is in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, near Oxford. It grew through the 1990s and 2000s, sold shares on the London Stock Exchange from 2015, and has been owned by US firm Thoma Bravo since 2020. Over the years it has bought other security companies, such as Astaro (2011) and Cyberoam (2014), to add firewall and network products. In February 2025 it completed the purchase of SecureWorks, another security company. Sophos opened an extra UK office in Manchester in 2021 to reach more engineering and technical talent. Joe Levy has been chief executive since 2024.
We did not find a formal mission statement. Sophos's company page says it defends organisations with "Sophos Fusion", an AI-based defence system, and says what it learns from every threat it meets makes its protection stronger over time. Its slogans include "Trust is earned".
Sophos's products include Intercept X endpoint protection, Sophos Firewall, XDR (extended detection and response, which joins up alerts from many tools), email security, and ZTNA (zero trust network access, which checks every user before letting them reach company apps). It also sells MDR and incident response services and does security testing. The company says more than 40,000 customers use its MDR service.
Sophos recruits across engineering, marketing, sales, support and back-office roles. In UK engineering it has run a 12-month Software Engineering placement year, after the second year of a university degree. The advert for the placement starting July 2026 paid £27,000 a year, could be remote or at the Abingdon office, and asked for coding experience in any language and a computing or similar numerate degree in progress. Interns write real code, pair up with experienced engineers and join team meetings, and the company says top interns may be offered permanent jobs. Recruitment included two online days in November. Sophos says it values learning, teamwork, fun, diversity and wellbeing; those are its own claims. A job title for a Territory Account Executive apprenticeship also appeared on the government's Find an Apprenticeship service, but we could not read its details. A 2015 company blog also described UK graduate hiring through campus events and skills days at Abingdon. Check sophos.com/careers for current schemes.
Website: www.sophos.com
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