Ethical Hacking Contracts

Ethical Hacking
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Ethical Hacking skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Ethical Hacking over the 6 months leading up to 17 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 500 519 637
Rank change year-on-year +19 +118 +182
Contract jobs citing Ethical Hacking 22 57 47
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.075% 0.13% 0.083%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.082% 0.16% 0.092%
Number of daily rates quoted 14 44 30
10th Percentile £481 £538 £475
25th Percentile £503 £559 £514
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £585 £600 £573
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% +4.80% +4.57%
75th Percentile £634 £650 £743
90th Percentile £650 £777 £850
UK excluding London median daily rate £615 £648 £500
% change year-on-year -5.02% +29.50% -12.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 6
10th Percentile - - £62.75
25th Percentile - - £65.19
Median hourly rate - - £75.00
75th Percentile - - £77.50
90th Percentile - - £77.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £75.00
% change year-on-year - - +13.98%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Ethical Hacking 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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 26,772 36,679 51,168
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.96% 86.19% 89.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,185 23,608 35,479
10th Percentile £305 £300 £325
25th Percentile £410 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -4.55% +3.77%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +4.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,093 2,436 1,692
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.75 £10.64
25th Percentile £18.13 £15.94 £16.10
Median hourly rate £28.00 £36.27 £35.65
Median % change year-on-year -22.81% +1.75% +38.82%
75th Percentile £60.00 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £37.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -32.93% +7.14% +75.00%

Ethical Hacking
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Ethical Hacking in the UK

Ethical Hacking
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for Ethical Hacking in the UK

Ethical Hacking
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Ethical Hacking over the 6 months to 17 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Ethical Hacking in the UK

Ethical Hacking
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for Ethical Hacking in the UK

Ethical Hacking
Top 9 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Ethical Hacking within the UK over the 6 months to 17 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
England +29 18 £555 -9.39% 33
London +25 11 £525 -10.26% 23
Work from Home +40 10 £600 +4.35% 28
UK excluding London +33 8 £615 -5.02% 11
Wales - 4 £625 -
South East +46 3 £500 -16.67% 2
North West +14 2 £650 -13.33% 2
North of England +9 2 £650 - 4
South West +38 1 £700 +16.67% 2

Ethical Hacking
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:

Application Platforms
1 2 (9.09%) SAS
Applications
1 2 (9.09%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 7 (31.82%) Azure
1 7 (31.82%) IaaS
1 7 (31.82%) SaaS
2 5 (22.73%) PaaS
3 4 (18.18%) Entra ID
3 4 (18.18%) Microsoft 365
4 3 (13.64%) AWS
4 3 (13.64%) Azure Sentinel
5 2 (9.09%) Azure AI
5 2 (9.09%) Azure DevOps
5 2 (9.09%) Azure Functions
5 2 (9.09%) Azure Key Vault
5 2 (9.09%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 3 (13.64%) Network Security
2 2 (9.09%) Firewall
3 1 (4.55%) Intrusion Detection
3 1 (4.55%) Wireless
3 1 (4.55%) Wireshark
Development Applications
1 2 (9.09%) Burp Suite
1 2 (9.09%) Metasploit
General
1 4 (18.18%) Public Sector
1 4 (18.18%) Social Skills
2 3 (13.64%) Analytical Skills
2 3 (13.64%) Legal
3 2 (9.09%) Law
4 1 (4.55%) Automotive
4 1 (4.55%) Finance
4 1 (4.55%) Local Government
4 1 (4.55%) Manufacturing
4 1 (4.55%) Military
4 1 (4.55%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 8 (36.36%) Tester
2 5 (22.73%) Penetration Tester
3 4 (18.18%) Senior
4 3 (13.64%) Senior Tester
5 2 (9.09%) Head of Cybersecurity
5 2 (9.09%) Head of Operations
5 2 (9.09%) Head of Security
5 2 (9.09%) Lead
5 2 (9.09%) Security Specialist
6 1 (4.55%) Cybersecurity Analyst
6 1 (4.55%) Cybersecurity Manager
6 1 (4.55%) Information Assurance Specialist
6 1 (4.55%) Information Officer
6 1 (4.55%) Information Specialist
6 1 (4.55%) IT Security Manager
6 1 (4.55%) QA Leader
6 1 (4.55%) Senior Cybersecurity Analyst
6 1 (4.55%) Senior Security Analyst
6 1 (4.55%) Vulnerability Management Specialist
6 1 (4.55%) Vulnerability Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (13.64%) CSS
1 3 (13.64%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 5 (22.73%) Cyber Threat
2 3 (13.64%) Cyber Defence
2 3 (13.64%) Cyber Kill Chain
2 3 (13.64%) Operational Technology
2 3 (13.64%) PKI
3 2 (9.09%) Cyberattack
3 2 (9.09%) Embedded Systems
3 2 (9.09%) Management Information System
3 2 (9.09%) Security Posture
4 1 (4.55%) Industrial Internet of Things
4 1 (4.55%) IoT
4 1 (4.55%) Life Science
4 1 (4.55%) Mobile App
4 1 (4.55%) NHS
4 1 (4.55%) Renewable Energy
4 1 (4.55%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 2 (9.09%) Kali Linux
1 2 (9.09%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (63.64%) Cybersecurity
2 12 (54.55%) Penetration Testing
3 8 (36.36%) Information Security
3 8 (36.36%) Offensive Security
4 7 (31.82%) Red Team
4 7 (31.82%) Vulnerability Management
5 6 (27.27%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
5 6 (27.27%) Mentoring
5 6 (27.27%) Problem-Solving
5 6 (27.27%) Threat Intelligence
6 5 (22.73%) Cloud Security
6 5 (22.73%) Computer Science
6 5 (22.73%) Continuous Improvement
6 5 (22.73%) OWASP
6 5 (22.73%) Secure Coding
6 5 (22.73%) Security Testing
6 5 (22.73%) Vulnerability Remediation
7 4 (18.18%) Identity Access Management
7 4 (18.18%) Incident Response
7 4 (18.18%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 6 (27.27%) Python
2 3 (13.64%) JavaScript
2 3 (13.64%) PHP
2 3 (13.64%) Ruby
2 3 (13.64%) SQL
3 2 (9.09%) Kusto Query Language
4 1 (4.55%) C
4 1 (4.55%) C++
4 1 (4.55%) Embedded C
4 1 (4.55%) Embedded C++
4 1 (4.55%) Rust
Qualifications
1 9 (40.91%) CEH
2 7 (31.82%) CREST Certified
3 6 (27.27%) Degree
4 5 (22.73%) CISSP
4 5 (22.73%) GIAC
4 5 (22.73%) OSCP
5 4 (18.18%) CISM
5 4 (18.18%) GPEN
5 4 (18.18%) SC Cleared
5 4 (18.18%) Security Cleared
6 3 (13.64%) CCSAS
6 3 (13.64%) GWAPT
7 2 (9.09%) CompTIA Security+
7 2 (9.09%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (9.09%) Cyber Scheme
7 2 (9.09%) Master's Degree
7 2 (9.09%) OSCE
8 1 (4.55%) DV Cleared
8 1 (4.55%) GCIA
8 1 (4.55%) GXPN
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (22.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (18.18%) NIST
3 3 (13.64%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 2 (9.09%) NCSC
4 2 (9.09%) SOC 2
5 1 (4.55%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (4.55%) GDPR
5 1 (4.55%) HIPAA
5 1 (4.55%) NIST 800
5 1 (4.55%) QA
Systems Management
1 3 (13.64%) Nessus
2 1 (4.55%) Nmap
Vendors
1 3 (13.64%) Microsoft
2 2 (9.09%) Qualys
2 2 (9.09%) Tenable
2 2 (9.09%) Tripwire