Penetration Testing Contracts in the UK excluding London

Penetration Testing
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding 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 29 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 264 300 346
Rank change year-on-year +36 +46 +84
Contract jobs citing Penetration Testing 71 97 87
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.55% 0.47% 0.38%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.61% 0.56% 0.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 38 76 50
10th Percentile £368 £425 £449
25th Percentile £457 £463 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.85% -3.64% -4.35%
75th Percentile £668 £667 £638
90th Percentile £752 £681 £738
UK median daily rate £550 £556 £600
% change year-on-year -1.12% -7.29% +4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £51.25 £81.75 -
Median hourly rate £52.50 £83.50 -
Median % change year-on-year -37.13% - -
75th Percentile £53.75 £85.25 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £83.50 £80.00
% change year-on-year -37.13% +4.38% -

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK excluding 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 the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 11,664 17,222 20,402
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 90.66% 83.58% 89.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,264 10,282 14,009
10th Percentile £235 £250 £260
25th Percentile £375 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +3.04%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £688 £690
UK median daily rate £513 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.38% -4.55% +2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 845 2,110 1,238
10th Percentile £13.83 £12.40 £10.63
25th Percentile £16.95 £15.39 £15.22
Median hourly rate £25.15 £38.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -33.82% +8.57% +75.00%
75th Percentile £60.63 £61.30 £64.63
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £36.50 £36.13
% change year-on-year -24.66% +1.04% +40.67%

Penetration Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Job vacancy trend for Penetration Testing in the UK excluding London

Penetration Testing
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Daily rate trend for Penetration Testing in the UK excluding London

Penetration Testing
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Penetration Testing in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 29 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Penetration Testing in the UK excluding London

Penetration Testing
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Hourly rate trend for Penetration Testing in the UK excluding London

Penetration Testing
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding 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 UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 29 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
South East +57 24 £675 +27.36% 464
Scotland +4 17 £526 +2.04% 83
Midlands +14 12 £350 -41.67% 366
North of England -6 12 £531 -18.27% 415
North West -6 9 £575 -13.66% 193
East Midlands +11 7 £350 -12.50% 144
West Midlands +13 5 £413 -36.54% 198
South West +24 4 - - 251
Yorkshire +8 3 £531 -18.27% 173
East of England +24 2 £738 +5.36% 284
Wales +5 2 £650 +79.31% 54
Penetration Testing
UK

Penetration Testing
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding 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:

Application Platforms
1 8 (11.27%) SharePoint
2 2 (2.82%) SAS
2 2 (2.82%) TPMS
Business Applications
1 1 (1.41%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 28 (39.44%) Azure
2 11 (15.49%) AWS
2 11 (15.49%) Microsoft 365
3 9 (12.68%) Power Platform
4 7 (9.86%) Cloud Computing
4 7 (9.86%) GCP
5 6 (8.45%) OpenShift
6 5 (7.04%) IaaS
6 5 (7.04%) SaaS
7 4 (5.63%) Amazon S3
8 3 (4.23%) Entra ID
8 3 (4.23%) PaaS
9 2 (2.82%) Cohesity
9 2 (2.82%) npm
10 1 (1.41%) Azure Sentinel
10 1 (1.41%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 15 (21.13%) Firewall
2 13 (18.31%) Network Security
3 9 (12.68%) VPN
4 7 (9.86%) Internet
5 4 (5.63%) NAS
5 4 (5.63%) SAN
6 2 (2.82%) Cisco Nexus
6 2 (2.82%) HTTP
6 2 (2.82%) Intrusion Detection
6 2 (2.82%) LAN
6 2 (2.82%) WAN
7 1 (1.41%) SSL
7 1 (1.41%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (9.86%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 6 (8.45%) Git
2 4 (5.63%) Jenkins
3 2 (2.82%) Burp Suite
3 2 (2.82%) Cypress.io
3 2 (2.82%) GitLab
3 2 (2.82%) Metasploit
3 2 (2.82%) SonarQube
3 2 (2.82%) Sonatype Nexus
3 2 (2.82%) webpack
General
1 32 (45.07%) Social Skills
2 18 (25.35%) Analytical Skills
3 8 (11.27%) Public Sector
4 7 (9.86%) Banking
4 7 (9.86%) Finance
5 5 (7.04%) Legal
5 5 (7.04%) Retail
6 4 (5.63%) Retail Banking
7 3 (4.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (4.23%) Military
8 2 (2.82%) Aerospace
8 2 (2.82%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (1.41%) Automotive
9 1 (1.41%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (1.41%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 12 (16.90%) Senior
2 9 (12.68%) Analyst
3 8 (11.27%) IT Manager
3 8 (11.27%) IT Services Manager
3 8 (11.27%) Service Manager
4 7 (9.86%) Security Analyst
5 6 (8.45%) Auditor
5 6 (8.45%) Security Auditor
5 6 (8.45%) Security Engineer
5 6 (8.45%) Security Specialist
5 6 (8.45%) Senior IT Manager
5 6 (8.45%) Senior Manager
5 6 (8.45%) Senior Service Manager
6 5 (7.04%) Architect
6 5 (7.04%) Governance Analyst
6 5 (7.04%) Information Analyst
6 5 (7.04%) Information Security Analyst
6 5 (7.04%) Solutions Architect
6 5 (7.04%) Tester
7 4 (5.63%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (2.82%) CSS
1 2 (2.82%) HTML
1 2 (2.82%) Jest
1 2 (2.82%) pytest
1 2 (2.82%) React
1 2 (2.82%) RESTful
1 2 (2.82%) Spring Boot
1 2 (2.82%) Web Services
2 1 (1.41%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 9 (12.68%) Cyber Threat
2 8 (11.27%) Security Posture
3 7 (9.86%) Video Conferencing
4 5 (7.04%) Management Information System
4 5 (7.04%) PKI
5 4 (5.63%) Operational Technology
5 4 (5.63%) Public Cloud
6 3 (4.23%) Data Centre
6 3 (4.23%) Embedded Systems
6 3 (4.23%) Security Operations Centre
7 2 (2.82%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (2.82%) Onboarding
8 1 (1.41%) Cloud Native
8 1 (1.41%) Cyber Kill Chain
8 1 (1.41%) Industrial Internet of Things
8 1 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (1.41%) Mobile App
8 1 (1.41%) SCADA
8 1 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
8 1 (1.41%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 11 (15.49%) Windows
2 8 (11.27%) Windows Server
3 7 (9.86%) Unix
4 3 (4.23%) Linux
5 2 (2.82%) Windows Server 2016
5 2 (2.82%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (1.41%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (54.93%) Cybersecurity
2 16 (22.54%) Information Security
3 15 (21.13%) Data Protection
4 14 (19.72%) Problem-Solving
5 13 (18.31%) Security Testing
6 12 (16.90%) Threat Modelling
7 11 (15.49%) Agile
7 11 (15.49%) Cloud Security
8 10 (14.08%) Risk Management
8 10 (14.08%) Security Architecture
8 10 (14.08%) Security Monitoring
8 10 (14.08%) Security Operations
9 9 (12.68%) Incident Response
9 9 (12.68%) Risk Assessment
10 8 (11.27%) CI/CD
10 8 (11.27%) Disaster Recovery
10 8 (11.27%) Vulnerability Scanning
11 7 (9.86%) Analytics
11 7 (9.86%) ITSM
11 7 (9.86%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 11 (15.49%) Python
2 5 (7.04%) Java
3 4 (5.63%) JavaScript
4 3 (4.23%) PowerShell
5 2 (2.82%) Kusto Query Language
5 2 (2.82%) TypeScript
6 1 (1.41%) C
6 1 (1.41%) C++
6 1 (1.41%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 19 (26.76%) Security Cleared
2 18 (25.35%) SC Cleared
3 10 (14.08%) CISSP
3 10 (14.08%) Degree
4 9 (12.68%) CISM
5 8 (11.27%) CEH
6 7 (9.86%) CompTIA Security+
7 4 (5.63%) CRISC
8 3 (4.23%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (4.23%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (4.23%) MCSE
8 3 (4.23%) Microsoft Certification
8 3 (4.23%) OSCE
8 3 (4.23%) OSCP
9 2 (2.82%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 2 (2.82%) APMG
9 2 (2.82%) CISA
9 2 (2.82%) CREST Certified
9 2 (2.82%) ITIL Certification
9 2 (2.82%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (11.27%) GDPR
2 7 (9.86%) GRC
2 7 (9.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (9.86%) NCSC
3 6 (8.45%) NIST
4 4 (5.63%) California Consumer Privacy Act
4 4 (5.63%) HIPAA
4 4 (5.63%) QA
5 3 (4.23%) Disclosure Scotland
5 3 (4.23%) PCI DSS
5 3 (4.23%) SLA
6 2 (2.82%) NIST 800
7 1 (1.41%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (1.41%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (1.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (1.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 2 (2.82%) Active Directory
2 1 (1.41%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 7 (9.86%) Microsoft Intune
2 4 (5.63%) Kubernetes
2 4 (5.63%) NetBackup
2 4 (5.63%) Oracle RMAN
3 2 (2.82%) Progress Chef
4 1 (1.41%) CASB
4 1 (1.41%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
4 1 (1.41%) CSIRT
4 1 (1.41%) SCCM
Vendors
1 16 (22.54%) Microsoft
2 4 (5.63%) Veritas
3 2 (2.82%) Cisco
3 2 (2.82%) ForgeRock
3 2 (2.82%) Salesforce
4 1 (1.41%) BT
4 1 (1.41%) Qualys
4 1 (1.41%) ServiceNow
4 1 (1.41%) Splunk