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 25 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

	6 months to 25 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	447	337	410
Rank change year-on-year	-110	+73	-18
Contract jobs citing Penetration Testing	240	242	154
As % of all contract jobs in the UK	0.44%	0.72%	0.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category	0.51%	0.80%	0.48%
Number of daily rates quoted	164	166	108
10^th Percentile	£416	£400	£450
25^th Percentile	£500	£459	£510
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£582	£550	£575
Median % change year-on-year	+5.73%	-4.35%	+4.55%
75^th Percentile	£688	£600	£678
90^th Percentile	£775	£675	£765
UK excluding London median daily rate	£575	£500	£525
% change year-on-year	+15.00%	-4.76%	-4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted	4	0	0
10^th Percentile	£84.75	-	-
25^th Percentile	£88.13	-	-
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 25 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Contract vacancies citing process or methodology skills	46,766	30,415	31,858
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK	85.32%	90.43%	86.17%
Number of daily rates quoted	28,056	18,930	19,151
10^th Percentile	£325	£300	£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%	-2.33%
75^th Percentile	£638	£620	£638
90^th Percentile	£738	£725	£744
UK excluding London median daily rate	£500	£475	£500
% change year-on-year	+5.26%	-5.00%	-
Number of hourly rates quoted	3,564	1,948	1,167
10^th Percentile	£13.50	£14.38	£15.00
25^th Percentile	£16.62	£17.30	£20.12
Median hourly rate	£35.00	£25.15	£38.00
Median % change year-on-year	+39.19%	-33.83%	-11.63%
75^th Percentile	£65.00	£42.76	£65.00
90^th Percentile	£78.75	£66.65	£73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£35.00	£22.27	£37.50
% change year-on-year	+57.20%	-40.63%	-11.76%

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 25 October 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 25 October 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	-145	187	£565	+2.73%	418
UK excluding London	-93	101	£575	+15.00%	266
London	-116	89	£525	-8.70%	160
Work from Home	-73	78	£625	+6.38%	222
North of England	-67	32	£581	+10.19%	63
South West	-17	24	£555	+13.85%	39
North West	-41	21	£581	+11.71%	28
South East	-67	19	£700	+48.62%	56
Scotland	-13	14	£581	-	21
Midlands	-45	14	£575	+53.33%	41
West Midlands	-27	13	£575	+6.98%	24
Yorkshire	-39	6	£600	+14.04%	28
East of England	-16	5	£227	-58.79%	31
North East	-38	5	£500	-28.57%	8
Wales	-	2	-	-	8
East Midlands	-31	1	£533	+42.00%	17

Penetration Testing Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 25 October 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%	139
2	Azure	42.9%	103
3	Security Cleared	37.5%	90
4	Vulnerability Management	36.7%	88
5	Cloud Security	32.5%	78
6	AWS	31.3%	75
7	Stakeholder Management	27.9%	67
8	Threat Modelling	27.5%	66
9	SC Cleared	26.3%	63
10	NIST	24.2%	58
11	Microsoft	23.8%	57
12	Security Testing	22.9%	55
13	NCSC	22.5%	54
14	ISO/IEC 27001	22.1%	53
14	Security Architecture	22.1%	53
16	CI/CD	21.3%	51
17	Application Security	20.0%	48
18	CISSP	19.2%	46
18	DevSecOps	19.2%	46
18	Incident Response	19.2%	46
21	Information Security	17.9%	43
22	Vulnerability Remediation	17.5%	42
23	Risk Management	16.7%	40
24	DV Cleared	15.8%	38
24	Kubernetes	15.8%	38
26	Security Operations	15.4%	37
26	SIEM	15.4%	37
28	GDPR	14.2%	34
28	Validation	14.2%	34
30	CISM	13.8%	33

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%	139
2	Vulnerability Management	36.7%	88
3	Cloud Security	32.5%	78
4	Stakeholder Management	27.9%	67
5	Threat Modelling	27.5%	66
6	Security Testing	22.9%	55
7	Security Architecture	22.1%	53
8	CI/CD	21.3%	51
9	Application Security	20.0%	48
10	DevSecOps	19.2%	46
10	Incident Response	19.2%	46
12	Information Security	17.9%	43
13	Vulnerability Remediation	17.5%	42
14	Risk Management	16.7%	40
15	Security Operations	15.4%	37
15	SIEM	15.4%	37
17	Validation	14.2%	34
18	OWASP	13.8%	33
19	Continuous Improvement	12.9%	31
20	Stakeholder Engagement	12.5%	30