Penetration Testing Contracts in London

Penetration Testing
England > London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in London requiring Penetration Testing skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Penetration Testing over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 291 290 351
Rank change year-on-year -1 +61 +123
Contract jobs citing Penetration Testing 62 101 145
As % of all contract jobs advertised in London 0.49% 0.57% 0.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.54% 0.64% 0.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 40 65 93
10th Percentile £438 £430 £450
25th Percentile £495 £525 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £590 £600
Median % change year-on-year +1.69% -1.67% +3.45%
75th Percentile £701 £725 £743
90th Percentile £791 £775 £837
England median daily rate £619 £589 £575
% change year-on-year +5.10% +2.39% -1.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 1
Median hourly rate - - £80.00
England median hourly rate £52.50 £83.50 £80.00
% change year-on-year -37.13% +4.38% -

All Process and Methodology Skills
London

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 London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 11,564 15,790 24,631
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 92.16% 88.55% 91.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,847 11,316 17,711
10th Percentile £350 £338 £375
25th Percentile £440 £450 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £590
Median % change year-on-year - -6.78% +2.61%
75th Percentile £688 £675 £700
90th Percentile £813 £800 £800
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% +2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 166 324 278
10th Percentile £16.17 £16.00 £18.59
25th Percentile £22.68 £20.00 £22.53
Median hourly rate £31.67 £29.50 £38.13
Median % change year-on-year +7.36% -22.62% +5.90%
75th Percentile £50.75 £47.56 £62.64
90th Percentile £63.75 £65.93 £76.78
England median hourly rate £29.07 £36.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -19.25% -4.00% +53.06%

Penetration Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in London

Job postings citing Penetration Testing as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in London.

Job vacancy trend for Penetration Testing in London

Penetration Testing
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Penetration Testing in London.

Daily rate trend for Penetration Testing in London

Penetration Testing
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Penetration Testing in London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Penetration Testing in London

Penetration Testing
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Penetration Testing in London.

Hourly rate trend for Penetration Testing in London

Penetration Testing
Contract Job Locations in London

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 London region over the 6 months to 1 May 2025. 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
Central London +5 11 £625 -10.71% 15
East London +11 6 £630 +7.69% 2
West London - 2 £475 - 20
Penetration Testing
England

Penetration Testing
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in London 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:

Business Applications
1 4 (6.45%) Unit4 Business World
2 2 (3.23%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 26 (41.94%) Azure
2 12 (19.35%) SaaS
3 10 (16.13%) AWS
4 8 (12.90%) IaaS
4 8 (12.90%) PaaS
5 5 (8.06%) GCP
6 4 (6.45%) Azure Sentinel
7 3 (4.84%) Azure DevOps
7 3 (4.84%) Serverless
8 2 (3.23%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 2 (3.23%) Amazon GuardDuty
8 2 (3.23%) Amazon Macie
8 2 (3.23%) AWS CloudTrail
8 2 (3.23%) AWS KMS
9 1 (1.61%) Azure AKS
9 1 (1.61%) Azure Functions
9 1 (1.61%) Entra ID
9 1 (1.61%) Microsoft Purview
9 1 (1.61%) OCI
9 1 (1.61%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 14 (22.58%) Network Security
2 8 (12.90%) Firewall
3 2 (3.23%) Intrusion Detection
3 2 (3.23%) VPN
4 1 (1.61%) Cisco ISE
4 1 (1.61%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.61%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 1 (1.61%) Burp Suite
1 1 (1.61%) GitLab
1 1 (1.61%) JIRA
1 1 (1.61%) Metasploit
1 1 (1.61%) MSI
General
1 21 (33.87%) Finance
2 17 (27.42%) Social Skills
3 10 (16.13%) Legal
4 9 (14.52%) Analytical Skills
5 4 (6.45%) Financial Institution
6 3 (4.84%) Retail
7 2 (3.23%) French Language
7 2 (3.23%) Law
7 2 (3.23%) Public Sector
8 1 (1.61%) Banking
8 1 (1.61%) Military
8 1 (1.61%) Police
Job Titles
1 12 (19.35%) Architect
1 12 (19.35%) Tester
2 11 (17.74%) Lead
3 10 (16.13%) Security Engineer
4 9 (14.52%) Security Architect
4 9 (14.52%) Security Manager
5 8 (12.90%) Senior
6 7 (11.29%) Penetration Tester
7 5 (8.06%) Operational Security Manager
7 5 (8.06%) Operations Manager
7 5 (8.06%) Security Operations Manager
7 5 (8.06%) Senior Tester
7 5 (8.06%) Technical Architect
8 4 (6.45%) IT Engineer
8 4 (6.45%) IT Security Engineer
9 3 (4.84%) Analyst
9 3 (4.84%) Cybersecurity Engineer
9 3 (4.84%) Project Manager
9 3 (4.84%) Solutions Architect
9 3 (4.84%) Technical Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (8.06%) CSS
1 5 (8.06%) HTML
2 1 (1.61%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 13 (20.97%) Security Posture
2 5 (8.06%) Cloud Native
2 5 (8.06%) Cyber Defence
2 5 (8.06%) Cyber Kill Chain
2 5 (8.06%) Management Information System
3 3 (4.84%) Cyber Threat
3 3 (4.84%) Mobile App
3 3 (4.84%) Operational Technology
3 3 (4.84%) Private Cloud
3 3 (4.84%) Public Cloud
4 2 (3.23%) Onboarding
4 2 (3.23%) PKI
4 2 (3.23%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (1.61%) Algorithms
5 1 (1.61%) Blog
5 1 (1.61%) IoT
5 1 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.61%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 26 (41.94%) Cybersecurity
2 24 (38.71%) Cloud Security
3 22 (35.48%) Vulnerability Management
4 16 (25.81%) Information Security
5 14 (22.58%) SIEM
6 13 (20.97%) Incident Response
6 13 (20.97%) Vulnerability Remediation
7 12 (19.35%) Problem-Solving
8 11 (17.74%) Security Architecture
8 11 (17.74%) Security Operations
9 10 (16.13%) Data Loss Prevention
9 10 (16.13%) DevOps
9 10 (16.13%) Privileged Access Management
9 10 (16.13%) Risk Management
9 10 (16.13%) Threat Modelling
10 9 (14.52%) Application Security
10 9 (14.52%) Computer Science
10 9 (14.52%) DevSecOps
10 9 (14.52%) Red Team
10 9 (14.52%) Vulnerability Scanning
Programming Languages
1 9 (14.52%) Python
2 6 (9.68%) JavaScript
3 5 (8.06%) PHP
3 5 (8.06%) Ruby
3 5 (8.06%) SQL
4 3 (4.84%) PowerShell
5 2 (3.23%) Bash
5 2 (3.23%) Java
6 1 (1.61%) C++
6 1 (1.61%) Perl
Qualifications
1 19 (30.65%) CISSP
2 13 (20.97%) Degree
3 10 (16.13%) CEH
3 10 (16.13%) OSCP
3 10 (16.13%) SC Cleared
3 10 (16.13%) Security Cleared
4 8 (12.90%) Cisco Certification
4 8 (12.90%) CREST Certified
5 7 (11.29%) (ISC)2 CCSP
5 7 (11.29%) CCSP
6 6 (9.68%) GCIH
7 5 (8.06%) CCSAS
7 5 (8.06%) CISM
7 5 (8.06%) GIAC
7 5 (8.06%) GPEN
7 5 (8.06%) GWAPT
8 3 (4.84%) CISA
8 3 (4.84%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (4.84%) TOGAF Certification
9 2 (3.23%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (37.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 19 (30.65%) NIST
3 8 (12.90%) SLA
4 5 (8.06%) GDPR
5 3 (4.84%) HIPAA
5 3 (4.84%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 3 (4.84%) PCI DSS
6 2 (3.23%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 2 (3.23%) GRC
6 2 (3.23%) NCSC
7 1 (1.61%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (1.61%) EU AI Act
7 1 (1.61%) NIST 800
7 1 (1.61%) QA
System Software
1 1 (1.61%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 3 (4.84%) Kubernetes
1 3 (4.84%) Nessus
2 1 (1.61%) Ansible
2 1 (1.61%) Microsoft Intune
2 1 (1.61%) Progress Chef
2 1 (1.61%) Terraform
Vendors
1 15 (24.19%) Microsoft
2 5 (8.06%) Oracle
3 4 (6.45%) SAP
4 3 (4.84%) Google
4 3 (4.84%) Qualys
5 2 (3.23%) Tenable
5 2 (3.23%) Tripwire
5 2 (3.23%) Workday
6 1 (1.61%) Apple
6 1 (1.61%) Cisco
6 1 (1.61%) CyberArk
6 1 (1.61%) ForgeRock
6 1 (1.61%) Samsung
6 1 (1.61%) Splunk