Offensive Security Contracts

Offensive Security
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Offensive Security skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Offensive Security over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 504 574 700
Rank change year-on-year +70 +126 +121
Contract jobs citing Offensive Security 15 26 13
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.051% 0.060% 0.022%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.056% 0.069% 0.024%
Number of daily rates quoted 6 19 7
10th Percentile £556 £525 £463
25th Percentile £600 £600 £494
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £613 £650 £675
Median % change year-on-year -5.77% -3.70% +19.47%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £700
90th Percentile £644 £688 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £625 -
% change year-on-year -4.00% - -

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Offensive Security 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 26,551 37,621 53,662
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.82% 86.30% 89.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,137 24,254 37,244
10th Percentile £308 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £521 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.86% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £744 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.80% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,071 2,437 1,746
10th Percentile £14.70 £12.75 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £35.50 £37.30
Median % change year-on-year -18.31% -4.83% +49.20%
75th Percentile £62.00 £59.95 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.94 £36.50 £36.00
% change year-on-year -23.45% +1.39% +80.00%

Offensive Security
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Offensive Security as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Offensive Security in the UK

Offensive Security
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Offensive Security.

Daily rate trend for Offensive Security in the UK

Offensive Security
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Offensive Security over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Offensive Security in the UK

Offensive Security
Top 7 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Offensive Security within the UK over the 6 months to 30 April 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 +50 11 £625 -3.85% 34
Work from Home +49 8 £625 - 28
London +28 8 £525 -19.23% 20
UK excluding London +48 3 £600 -4.00% 20
Wales - 3 £600 -
North of England +23 1 £650 - 5
North West - 1 £650 - 3

Offensive Security
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 1 (6.67%) SAS
Cloud Services
1 6 (40.00%) IaaS
1 6 (40.00%) SaaS
2 5 (33.33%) PaaS
3 4 (26.67%) AWS
4 3 (20.00%) Azure
4 3 (20.00%) Entra ID
4 3 (20.00%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 1 (6.67%) Firewall
1 1 (6.67%) Network Security
1 1 (6.67%) tcpdump
1 1 (6.67%) Wireless
1 1 (6.67%) Wireshark
General
1 5 (33.33%) Analytical Skills
1 5 (33.33%) Legal
2 1 (6.67%) Finance
2 1 (6.67%) Social Skills
Job Titles
1 9 (60.00%) Tester
2 7 (46.67%) Senior
3 6 (40.00%) Penetration Tester
4 5 (33.33%) Senior Tester
5 2 (13.33%) Security Penetration Tester
5 2 (13.33%) Security Researcher
5 2 (13.33%) Senior Penetration Tester
6 1 (6.67%) Architect
6 1 (6.67%) Lead
6 1 (6.67%) Network Architect
6 1 (6.67%) Network Engineer
6 1 (6.67%) Network Security Architect
6 1 (6.67%) Network Security Engineer
6 1 (6.67%) QA Leader
6 1 (6.67%) Security Architect
6 1 (6.67%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (33.33%) CSS
1 5 (33.33%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 5 (33.33%) Cyber Defence
1 5 (33.33%) Cyber Kill Chain
2 2 (13.33%) Cyberattack
2 2 (13.33%) Embedded Systems
3 1 (6.67%) Algorithms
3 1 (6.67%) Cyber Threat
3 1 (6.67%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 2 (13.33%) Android
1 2 (13.33%) FreeRTOS
1 2 (13.33%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (80.00%) Cybersecurity
2 11 (73.33%) Ethical Hacking
3 10 (66.67%) Penetration Testing
4 9 (60.00%) Red Team
5 6 (40.00%) Information Security
5 6 (40.00%) Problem-Solving
6 5 (33.33%) Application Security
6 5 (33.33%) Computer Science
6 5 (33.33%) Continuous Improvement
6 5 (33.33%) Manual Testing
6 5 (33.33%) Mentoring
6 5 (33.33%) OWASP
6 5 (33.33%) Purple Team
6 5 (33.33%) Secure Coding
6 5 (33.33%) Test Automation
6 5 (33.33%) Vulnerability Remediation
6 5 (33.33%) Vulnerability Scanning
7 3 (20.00%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
7 3 (20.00%) Security Testing
7 3 (20.00%) Threat Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 5 (33.33%) JavaScript
1 5 (33.33%) PHP
1 5 (33.33%) Python
1 5 (33.33%) Ruby
1 5 (33.33%) SQL
2 4 (26.67%) C
2 4 (26.67%) C++
2 4 (26.67%) Rust
3 2 (13.33%) Assembly Language
3 2 (13.33%) Embedded C
3 2 (13.33%) Embedded C++
3 2 (13.33%) Java
Qualifications
1 8 (53.33%) CEH
1 8 (53.33%) CREST Certified
1 8 (53.33%) OSCP
2 6 (40.00%) GIAC
2 6 (40.00%) GPEN
3 5 (33.33%) CCSAS
3 5 (33.33%) Degree
3 5 (33.33%) GWAPT
4 2 (13.33%) Cyber Scheme
5 1 (6.67%) GXPN
5 1 (6.67%) OSCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (6.67%) QA
System Software
1 2 (13.33%) Embedded Firmware
1 2 (13.33%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 1 (6.67%) CASB