Penetration Testing Contract Job Trends in Cheshire

Penetration Testing
North West > Cheshire

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Cheshire requiring Penetration Testing skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 21 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 69 60 49
Rank change year-on-year -9 -11 -8
Contract jobs citing Penetration Testing 10 11 6
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 1.20% 1.75% 1.20%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.42% 1.89% 1.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 10 9 4
10th Percentile £443 £433 £582
25th Percentile £502 £475 £698
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £579 £500 £775
Median % change year-on-year +15.70% -35.48% +29.17%
75th Percentile £600 £645 £788
90th Percentile £616 £671 -
North West median daily rate £581 £508 £666
% change year-on-year +14.33% -23.69% +21.09%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Cheshire

Penetration Testing falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in Cheshire.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 705 582 427
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire 84.94% 92.38% 85.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 415 441 283
10th Percentile £313 £308 £321
25th Percentile £405 £358 £392
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £438 £478
Median % change year-on-year +10.40% -8.47% -4.40%
75th Percentile £581 £520 £575
90th Percentile £651 £650 £650
North West median daily rate £500 £455 £500
% change year-on-year +10.01% -9.10% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 22 18
10th Percentile £14.90 - £11.18
25th Percentile £17.25 £12.82 £16.06
Median hourly rate £32.23 £22.01 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.41% -37.11% +14.60%
75th Percentile £85.00 £39.19 £43.75
90th Percentile - £65.53 £47.50
North West median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -28.14% +13.80%

Penetration Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in Cheshire

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Penetration Testing relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire.

Penetration Testing job vacancy trend in Cheshire

Penetration Testing
Daily Rate Trend in Cheshire

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Cheshire citing Penetration Testing.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Cheshire citing Penetration Testing

Penetration Testing
Daily Rate Histogram in Cheshire

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Penetration Testing in Cheshire over the 6 months to 21 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Penetration Testing in Cheshire

Penetration Testing
Hourly Rate Trend in Cheshire

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Cheshire citing Penetration Testing.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Cheshire citing Penetration Testing

Penetration Testing
Contract Job Locations in Cheshire

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Penetration Testing within the Cheshire region over the 6 months to 21 August 2026. 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
Knutsford +9 8 £570 -7.58%
Penetration Testing
North West

Penetration Testing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Cheshire by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 5 (50.00%) Confluence
Applications
1 5 (50.00%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 5 (50.00%) AWS
2 4 (40.00%) Azure
3 3 (30.00%) Azure AI
3 3 (30.00%) IBM Watson
3 3 (30.00%) Vertex AI
4 1 (10.00%) Azure Machine Learning
Communications & Networking
1 5 (50.00%) Firewall
Development Applications
1 8 (80.00%) JIRA
General
1 7 (70.00%) Finance
2 2 (20.00%) Analytical Skills
2 2 (20.00%) Social Skills
3 1 (10.00%) Banking
Job Titles
1 5 (50.00%) Consultant
1 5 (50.00%) Security Consultant
2 3 (30.00%) Architect
2 3 (30.00%) Security Architect
3 2 (20.00%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
3 2 (20.00%) Security Engineer
4 1 (10.00%) Chief Information Security Officer
4 1 (10.00%) Gen AI Engineer
4 1 (10.00%) Senior
4 1 (10.00%) Senior Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (50.00%) LangChain
1 5 (50.00%) PyTorch
1 5 (50.00%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 5 (50.00%) Cloud Native
2 3 (30.00%) Security Posture
3 2 (20.00%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 5 (50.00%) Linux
1 5 (50.00%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 6 (60.00%) Roadmaps
2 5 (50.00%) AI
2 5 (50.00%) Application Security
2 5 (50.00%) Cryptography
2 5 (50.00%) Cybersecurity
2 5 (50.00%) Generative AI
2 5 (50.00%) Machine Learning
2 5 (50.00%) OWASP
2 5 (50.00%) SDLC
2 5 (50.00%) SIEM
2 5 (50.00%) Threat Modelling
2 5 (50.00%) Vulnerability Management
3 4 (40.00%) CI/CD
3 4 (40.00%) Data Pipeline
3 4 (40.00%) Data Security
3 4 (40.00%) DevOps
3 4 (40.00%) DevSecOps
3 4 (40.00%) LLM
3 4 (40.00%) Security Architecture
3 4 (40.00%) Vulnerability Assessment
Programming Languages
1 5 (50.00%) Python
Qualifications
1 9 (90.00%) CISSP
2 7 (70.00%) Degree
3 4 (40.00%) AWS Certification
4 2 (20.00%) CEH
4 2 (20.00%) CISM
4 2 (20.00%) CompTIA Security+
4 2 (20.00%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (20.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 2 (20.00%) NIST
1 2 (20.00%) PCI DSS
Vendors
1 3 (30.00%) Google
1 3 (30.00%) IBM
2 1 (10.00%) Microsoft