Penetration Tester Contract Job Trends

Penetration Tester
UK

The median Penetration Tester daily rate in the UK is £675, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 22 September 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

 6 months to
22 Sep 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 647 475 527
Rank change year-on-year -172 +52 +96
Contract jobs requiring a Penetration Tester 35 65 35
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.064% 0.20% 0.092%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.070% 0.22% 0.099%
Number of daily rates quoted 21 59 19
10th Percentile £529 £490 £441
25th Percentile £563 £544 £530
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £675 £550 £650
Median % change year-on-year +22.73% -15.38% +20.93%
75th Percentile £688 £600 £719
90th Percentile £785 - £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £466 £800 £563
% change year-on-year -41.72% +42.22% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £38.75 - -
Median hourly rate £42.50 - -
75th Percentile £46.25 - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 - -

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 50,343 29,565 35,332
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 91.03% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,778 18,648 21,690
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,866 1,577 1,631
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.29 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.80 £51.80 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £69.79 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.11 £43.90
% change year-on-year +69.26% -42.80% +0.34%

Penetration Tester
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Penetration Tester' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Penetration Tester job vacancy trend in the UK

Penetration Tester
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Penetration Tester job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Penetration Tester job vacancies in the UK

Penetration Tester
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Penetration Tester over the 6 months to 22 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Penetration Tester in the UK

Penetration Tester
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Penetration Tester job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Penetration Tester job vacancies in the UK

Penetration Tester
Top 10 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Penetration Tester within the UK over the 6 months to 22 September 2026. 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 -181 18 £554 -5.74% 108
Work from Home -78 15 £675 +12.50% 52
London -122 10 £575 - 23
UK excluding London -100 8 £466 -41.72% 108
Midlands - 7 £466 - 17
West Midlands - 6 £400 - 7
North of England -67 4 - - 21
Yorkshire - 4 - - 10
South East - 1 - - 29
East Midlands - 1 £533 - 10

Penetration Tester Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 22 September 2026, Penetration Tester contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Penetration Tester in the job title.

1 25 (71.43%) Penetration Testing
2 19 (54.29%) Azure
3 18 (51.43%) AWS
4 16 (45.71%) Security Cleared
5 15 (42.86%) CHECK Team Leader
6 14 (40.00%) CHECK Team Member
6 14 (40.00%) Kubernetes
6 14 (40.00%) SC Cleared
7 13 (37.14%) Coaching
7 13 (37.14%) NCSC
8 12 (34.29%) CREST Certified
8 12 (34.29%) DV Cleared
8 12 (34.29%) Security Testing
9 11 (31.43%) Offensive Security
10 10 (28.57%) OSCP
10 10 (28.57%) Red Team
11 8 (22.86%) Cybersecurity
12 6 (17.14%) Cloud Security
13 5 (14.29%) CI/CD
14 4 (11.43%) Claude Code
14 4 (11.43%) Containerisation
14 4 (11.43%) Ethical Hacking
14 4 (11.43%) GPEN
14 4 (11.43%) Microsoft
15 3 (8.57%) AI
15 3 (8.57%) Application Security
15 3 (8.57%) Continuous Improvement
15 3 (8.57%) End-to-End Testing
15 3 (8.57%) GCP
15 3 (8.57%) Internet

Penetration Tester Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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:

Application Platforms
1 1 (2.86%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 19 (54.29%) Azure
2 18 (51.43%) AWS
3 3 (8.57%) GCP
4 1 (2.86%) Azure DevOps
4 1 (2.86%) Entra ID
4 1 (2.86%) GitHub
4 1 (2.86%) GitHub Actions
4 1 (2.86%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 3 (8.57%) Internet
2 1 (2.86%) Firewall
2 1 (2.86%) HTTP
2 1 (2.86%) HTTPS
2 1 (2.86%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.86%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 4 (11.43%) Claude Code
2 2 (5.71%) Burp Suite
3 1 (2.86%) Jenkins
3 1 (2.86%) JIRA
3 1 (2.86%) Metasploit
3 1 (2.86%) Rational Performance Tester
3 1 (2.86%) SoapUI
General
1 17 (48.57%) Social Skills
2 14 (40.00%) Public Sector
3 3 (8.57%) Finance
4 2 (5.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (2.86%) Automotive
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (2.86%) Laravel
1 1 (2.86%) OAuth
1 1 (2.86%) OpenID
1 1 (2.86%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 5 (14.29%) Security Posture
2 4 (11.43%) Cloud Native
3 2 (5.71%) Embedded Systems
3 2 (5.71%) Mobile App
4 1 (2.86%) CSOC
4 1 (2.86%) Cyber Security Posture
4 1 (2.86%) IoT
4 1 (2.86%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 1 (2.86%) Linux
1 1 (2.86%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (71.43%) Penetration Testing
2 13 (37.14%) Coaching
3 12 (34.29%) Security Testing
4 11 (31.43%) Offensive Security
5 10 (28.57%) Red Team
6 8 (22.86%) Cybersecurity
7 6 (17.14%) Cloud Security
8 5 (14.29%) CI/CD
9 4 (11.43%) Containerisation
9 4 (11.43%) Ethical Hacking
10 3 (8.57%) AI
10 3 (8.57%) Application Security
10 3 (8.57%) Continuous Improvement
10 3 (8.57%) LLM
10 3 (8.57%) Manual Testing
10 3 (8.57%) OWASP
10 3 (8.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 3 (8.57%) Validation
10 3 (8.57%) Vulnerability Remediation
10 3 (8.57%) Vulnerability Research
Programming Languages
1 1 (2.86%) PHP
1 1 (2.86%) Python
Qualifications
1 16 (45.71%) Security Cleared
2 15 (42.86%) CHECK Team Leader
3 14 (40.00%) CHECK Team Member
3 14 (40.00%) SC Cleared
4 12 (34.29%) CREST Certified
4 12 (34.29%) DV Cleared
5 10 (28.57%) OSCP
6 4 (11.43%) GPEN
7 2 (5.71%) CCSAM
7 2 (5.71%) CISSP
7 2 (5.71%) Cyber Scheme
7 2 (5.71%) ECSA
7 2 (5.71%) GXPN
7 2 (5.71%) OSCE
8 1 (2.86%) CEH
8 1 (2.86%) CISM
8 1 (2.86%) CompTIA Security+
8 1 (2.86%) Degree
8 1 (2.86%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (37.14%) NCSC
2 1 (2.86%) Actionable Recommendations
2 1 (2.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (2.86%) NIST
2 1 (2.86%) NIST 800
System Software
1 2 (5.71%) Docker
2 1 (2.86%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 14 (40.00%) Kubernetes
2 1 (2.86%) Nmap
Vendors
1 4 (11.43%) Microsoft
2 1 (2.86%) CrowdStrike
2 1 (2.86%) Oracle
2 1 (2.86%) Splunk
143 Penetration Tester jobs Nationwide