Penetration Testing Contract Job Trends

Penetration Testing
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs citing Penetration Testing skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 2 November 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

	6 months to 2 Nov 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	452	333	405
Rank change year-on-year	-119	+72	-46
Contract jobs citing Penetration Testing	247	243	147
As % of all contract jobs in the UK	0.45%	0.71%	0.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category	0.53%	0.79%	0.47%
Number of daily rates quoted	168	169	100
10^th Percentile	£420	£400	£448
25^th Percentile	£500	£456	£509
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£581	£550	£575
Median % change year-on-year	+5.64%	-4.35%	+4.55%
75^th Percentile	£688	£600	£688
90^th Percentile	£775	£675	£765
UK excluding London median daily rate	£575	£488	£525
% change year-on-year	+17.95%	-7.14%	-4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted	6	0	0
10^th Percentile	£84.25	-	-
25^th Percentile	£87.00	-	-
Median hourly rate	£90.00	-	-
75^th Percentile	-	-	-
90^th Percentile	-	-	-
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£90.00	-	-

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

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 citing process or methodology skills.

	6 months to 2 Nov 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Contract vacancies citing process or methodology skills	46,811	30,866	31,473
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK	85.58%	90.19%	86.11%
Number of daily rates quoted	28,022	19,268	18,929
10^th Percentile	£325	£299	£310
25^th Percentile	£425	£404	£413
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£525	£500	£525
Median % change year-on-year	+5.00%	-4.76%	-2.10%
75^th Percentile	£638	£619	£638
90^th Percentile	£738	£725	£738
UK excluding London median daily rate	£500	£475	£500
% change year-on-year	+5.26%	-5.00%	-
Number of hourly rates quoted	3,702	1,997	1,117
10^th Percentile	£13.50	£14.38	£15.00
25^th Percentile	£16.46	£17.33	£20.00
Median hourly rate	£34.87	£25.15	£35.50
Median % change year-on-year	+38.65%	-29.15%	-19.23%
75^th Percentile	£65.00	£43.20	£65.00
90^th Percentile	£79.00	£67.00	£73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£33.98	£22.58	£35.00
% change year-on-year	+50.50%	-35.50%	-20.14%

Penetration Testing Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Penetration Testing relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Penetration Testing Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Penetration Testing.

Penetration Testing Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Penetration Testing over the 6 months to 2 November 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Penetration Testing in the UK

Penetration Testing Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Penetration Testing.

Penetration Testing Top 16 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 Testing within the UK over the 6 months to 2 November 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	Job Ads Past 6 Months	Median Daily Rate Past 6 Months	Median Daily Rate % Change on Same Period Last Year	Live Jobs
England	-147	193	£565	+2.73%	223
UK excluding London	-81	106	£575	+17.95%	155
London	-126	89	£525	-8.70%	102
Work from Home	-61	79	£625	+8.70%	85
North of England	-55	32	£581	+10.67%	29
South West	-14	25	£555	+13.85%	34
North West	-33	21	£581	+14.33%	17
South East	-79	20	£650	+44.93%	40
Midlands	-45	16	£575	+53.33%	22
West Midlands	-31	15	£575	+6.98%	15
Scotland	-7	14	£581	-	11
East of England	-26	6	£227	-58.79%	13
Yorkshire	-38	6	£600	+14.04%	10
North East	-34	5	£500	-28.57%	2
Wales	-	2	-	-	2
East Midlands	-27	1	£533	+42.00%	7

Penetration Testing Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 2 November 2026, contractor job vacancies citing Penetration Testing also mentioned 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 citing Penetration Testing.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Cybersecurity	57.9%	143
2	Azure	42.9%	106
3	Security Cleared	37.7%	93
4	Vulnerability Management	36.4%	90
5	Cloud Security	32.4%	80
6	AWS	32.0%	79
7	Stakeholder Management	27.1%	67
8	Threat Modelling	26.7%	66
9	SC Cleared	25.9%	64
10	NIST	25.5%	63
11	Microsoft	23.5%	58
11	Security Testing	23.5%	58
13	ISO/IEC 27001	22.3%	55
14	NCSC	21.5%	53
14	Security Architecture	21.5%	53
16	CI/CD	21.1%	52
17	Application Security	19.0%	47
17	CISSP	19.0%	47
17	DevSecOps	19.0%	47
20	Incident Response	18.6%	46
21	Information Security	17.8%	44
21	Vulnerability Remediation	17.8%	44
23	DV Cleared	16.2%	40
23	Risk Management	16.2%	40
25	Kubernetes	15.8%	39
25	Security Operations	15.8%	39
27	SIEM	15.0%	37
28	Validation	14.6%	36
29	GDPR	14.2%	35
29	OWASP	14.2%	35

Penetration Testing Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Processes & Methodologies

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Cybersecurity	57.9%	143
2	Vulnerability Management	36.4%	90
3	Cloud Security	32.4%	80
4	Stakeholder Management	27.1%	67
5	Threat Modelling	26.7%	66
6	Security Testing	23.5%	58
7	Security Architecture	21.5%	53
8	CI/CD	21.1%	52
9	Application Security	19.0%	47
9	DevSecOps	19.0%	47
11	Incident Response	18.6%	46
12	Information Security	17.8%	44
12	Vulnerability Remediation	17.8%	44
14	Risk Management	16.2%	40
15	Security Operations	15.8%	39
16	SIEM	15.0%	37
17	Validation	14.6%	36
18	OWASP	14.2%	35
19	Continuous Improvement	13.0%	32
20	Stakeholder Engagement	12.1%	30