GIAC Penetration Tester (GPEN)
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for GPEN qualifications. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months to 26 April 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
26 Apr 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 527 687 855
Rank change year-on-year +160 +168 -190
Contract jobs citing GPEN 52 13 5
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.12% 0.022% 0.006%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.39% 0.079% 0.026%
Number of daily rates quoted 9 8 3
10th Percentile £510 £485 £553
25th Percentile £600 £553 £556
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £650 £625 £575
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +8.70% +76.92%
75th Percentile - £675 £619
90th Percentile £663 £679 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £650 £570 £575
% change year-on-year +14.04% -0.87% +27.78%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

GPEN is in the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for academic qualifications or professional certifications.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 13,357 16,381 19,057
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 30.67% 27.32% 21.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,219 10,918 12,540
10th Percentile £300 £325 £325
25th Percentile £425 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.73% +4.76% +8.25%
75th Percentile £650 £650 £625
90th Percentile £738 £743 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £530 £525 £500
% change year-on-year +0.95% +5.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,073 866 779
10th Percentile £13.87 £15.25 £13.48
25th Percentile £17.88 £20.00 £19.30
Median hourly rate £40.00 £54.00 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year -25.93% +30.12% +7.21%
75th Percentile £61.60 £68.56 £56.50
90th Percentile £75.25 £79.88 £66.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.63 £49.94 £32.43
% change year-on-year -18.65% +53.97% -7.34%

GPEN
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing GPEN as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for GPEN in the UK

GPEN
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing GPEN.

Daily rate trend for GPEN in the UK

GPEN
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing GPEN over the 6 months to 26 April 2024.

Daily rate histogram for GPEN in the UK

GPEN
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing GPEN.

Hourly rate trend for GPEN in the UK

GPEN
Top 8 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing GPEN within the UK over the 6 months to 26 April 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +152 51 £638 +2.00%
UK excluding London +107 47 £650 +14.04%
Work from Home +159 44 £600 -4.00%
South East +64 41 - -
North of England +26 6 £650 +15.56%
London +113 4 £513 -24.07%
Yorkshire - 4 £650 -
North East - 2 £625 -

GPEN
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:

Cloud Services
1 41 (78.85%) IaaS
1 41 (78.85%) PaaS
1 41 (78.85%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 41 (78.85%) 5G
1 41 (78.85%) Broadband
2 9 (17.31%) Wireless
3 1 (1.92%) DHCP
3 1 (1.92%) DNS
3 1 (1.92%) FTP
3 1 (1.92%) HTTP
3 1 (1.92%) TCP/IP
3 1 (1.92%) tcpdump
3 1 (1.92%) Wireshark
General
1 41 (78.85%) Law
1 41 (78.85%) Organisational Skills
2 5 (9.62%) Legal
2 5 (9.62%) Social Skills
3 2 (3.85%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 50 (96.15%) Penetration Tester
1 50 (96.15%) Tester
2 41 (78.85%) Security Penetration Tester
2 41 (78.85%) Security Specialist
2 41 (78.85%) Security Tester
2 41 (78.85%) Testing Specialist
3 1 (1.92%) Cybersecurity Engineer
3 1 (1.92%) Incident Engineer
3 1 (1.92%) Security Engineer
3 1 (1.92%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (78.85%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 50 (96.15%) Mobile App
2 7 (13.46%) Operational Technology
3 1 (1.92%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 9 (17.31%) Linux
1 9 (17.31%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 52 (100.00%) Penetration Testing
2 51 (98.08%) Cybersecurity
3 49 (94.23%) Application Security
4 43 (82.69%) MITRE ATT&CK
4 43 (82.69%) OWASP
5 41 (78.85%) Security Testing
5 41 (78.85%) Stakeholder Management
6 11 (21.15%) Offensive Security
7 9 (17.31%) Red Team
8 8 (15.38%) Ethical Hacking
9 2 (3.85%) Computer Science
9 2 (3.85%) Social Engineering
9 2 (3.85%) Vulnerability Assessment
10 1 (1.92%) Cyber Intelligence
10 1 (1.92%) DevOps
10 1 (1.92%) Digital Forensics
10 1 (1.92%) Malware Analysis
10 1 (1.92%) Risk Analysis
10 1 (1.92%) Security Operations
10 1 (1.92%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 10 (19.23%) Python
2 7 (13.46%) C++
2 7 (13.46%) JavaScript
3 2 (3.85%) C#
3 2 (3.85%) Go
4 1 (1.92%) Perl
Qualifications
1 52 (100.00%) GIAC
1 52 (100.00%) OSCP
2 51 (98.08%) CREST Certified
3 49 (94.23%) Security Cleared
4 42 (80.77%) SANS
5 9 (17.31%) CEH
6 7 (13.46%) SC Cleared
7 2 (3.85%) CCNA
7 2 (3.85%) CHECK Team Leader
7 2 (3.85%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (3.85%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (3.85%) Degree
8 1 (1.92%) CCNP
8 1 (1.92%) CCSP
8 1 (1.92%) CHFI
8 1 (1.92%) CISSP
8 1 (1.92%) GCIA
8 1 (1.92%) GCIH
8 1 (1.92%) GSNA
8 1 (1.92%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (78.85%) GDPR
1 41 (78.85%) NCSC
1 41 (78.85%) PCI DSS
2 9 (17.31%) NIST
System Software
1 7 (13.46%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 1 (1.92%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
1 1 (1.92%) CSIRT
Vendors
1 41 (78.85%) Virgin Media
2 2 (3.85%) Cisco
3 1 (1.92%) Microsoft