GPEN Contract Job Trends in London

GIAC Penetration Tester (GPEN)
England > London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in London with a requirement for GPEN qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 30 October 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 358 382 -
Rank change year-on-year +24 - -
Contract jobs citing GPEN 12 1 0
As % of all contract jobs in London 0.088% 0.006% -
As % of the Qualifications category 0.33% 0.025% -
Number of daily rates quoted 5 0 0
10th Percentile £409 - -
25th Percentile £415 - -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £543 - -
75th Percentile £575 - -
90th Percentile £620 - -
England median daily rate £427 - £518
% change year-on-year - - +15.00%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
London

GPEN falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications in London.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 3,690 3,978 4,670
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 27.01% 25.30% 22.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,505 2,534 3,192
10th Percentile £350 £350 £355
25th Percentile £431 £450 £453
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.36% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £653 £650 £675
90th Percentile £738 £763 £775
England median daily rate £525 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 58 97
10th Percentile £19.05 £18.13 £19.00
25th Percentile - £27.75 £22.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.71 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year -38.21% -24.62% +21.20%
75th Percentile £39.53 £62.81 £72.00
90th Percentile £65.00 £76.90 £86.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £51.25 £52.50
% change year-on-year -50.93% -2.38% +16.67%

GPEN
Job Vacancy Trend in London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing GPEN relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in London.

GPEN job vacancy trend in London

GPEN
Daily Rate Trend in London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing GPEN.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing GPEN

GPEN
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing GPEN in London over the 6 months to 30 October 2025.

Daily rate histogram for GPEN in London

GPEN
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London 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:

Applications
1 1 (8.33%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 10 (83.33%) AWS
1 10 (83.33%) Azure
2 6 (50.00%) GCP
3 4 (33.33%) Entra ID
4 1 (8.33%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 2 (16.67%) VLAN
1 2 (16.67%) VPN
2 1 (8.33%) Firewall
2 1 (8.33%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (16.67%) MongoDB
2 1 (8.33%) DB2
Development Applications
1 5 (41.67%) Burp Suite
1 5 (41.67%) Metasploit
2 4 (33.33%) sqlmap
3 2 (16.67%) GitLab
3 2 (16.67%) Jenkins
3 2 (16.67%) JIRA
General
1 9 (75.00%) Analytical Skills
2 6 (50.00%) Social Skills
3 3 (25.00%) Public Sector
4 1 (8.33%) Finance
Job Titles
1 7 (58.33%) Penetration Tester
2 5 (41.67%) Tester
3 1 (8.33%) Senior
Miscellaneous
1 9 (75.00%) Security Posture
2 3 (25.00%) Management Information System
3 2 (16.67%) Cloud Native
3 2 (16.67%) Cyber Kill Chain
3 2 (16.67%) Security Operations Centre
4 1 (8.33%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 9 (75.00%) Linux
2 8 (66.67%) Windows
3 4 (33.33%) Unix
4 1 (8.33%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (75.00%) OWASP
1 9 (75.00%) Penetration Testing
2 8 (66.67%) Agile
3 7 (58.33%) Cloud Security
4 6 (50.00%) Application Security
4 6 (50.00%) Customer Engagement
4 6 (50.00%) Incident Response
4 6 (50.00%) Problem-Solving
4 6 (50.00%) Red Team
5 5 (41.67%) Offensive Security
5 5 (41.67%) Test Automation
6 4 (33.33%) DevOps
6 4 (33.33%) DevSecOps
6 4 (33.33%) Infrastructure as Code
6 4 (33.33%) Malware Analysis
6 4 (33.33%) MITRE ATT&CK
6 4 (33.33%) Security Operations
6 4 (33.33%) Service Catalogue
6 4 (33.33%) Validation
7 3 (25.00%) Threat Detection
Programming Languages
1 11 (91.67%) Python
2 7 (58.33%) Bash
3 2 (16.67%) C++
3 2 (16.67%) Go
3 2 (16.67%) SQL
4 1 (8.33%) C
4 1 (8.33%) Java
4 1 (8.33%) Kusto Query Language
4 1 (8.33%) PowerShell
4 1 (8.33%) Rust
Qualifications
1 12 (100.00%) OSCP
2 6 (50.00%) GWAPT
3 4 (33.33%) Security Cleared
4 3 (25.00%) GXPN
4 3 (25.00%) OSCE
5 2 (16.67%) Degree
5 2 (16.67%) SANS
6 1 (8.33%) AWS Certification
6 1 (8.33%) Azure Certification
6 1 (8.33%) CCSAS
6 1 (8.33%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (16.67%) NIST
System Software
1 4 (33.33%) Active Directory
2 2 (16.67%) Docker
Systems Management
1 5 (41.67%) Nmap
2 4 (33.33%) Nessus
3 2 (16.67%) Ansible
3 2 (16.67%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 6 (50.00%) ServiceNow
2 4 (33.33%) CrowdStrike
3 2 (16.67%) Oracle
3 2 (16.67%) Remedy
4 1 (8.33%) Microsoft
4 1 (8.33%) Trend Micro