Penetration Tester Contracts

Penetration Tester
UK

The median Penetration Tester daily rate in the UK is £600 according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months to 3 May 2024.

The first table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics including a comparison to same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
3 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 558 667 839
Rank change year-on-year +109 +172 -166
Contract jobs requiring a Penetration Tester 32 36 21
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.074% 0.061% 0.024%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.080% 0.064% 0.025%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 27 15
10th Percentile - £480 £455
25th Percentile £500 £525 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £625 £563
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% +11.11% +25.00%
75th Percentile £650 £700 £644
90th Percentile £728 £798 £795
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £565 £534
% change year-on-year +6.19% +5.85% +10.34%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

The following table is for comparison with the above and includes 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 40,241 56,070 84,738
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.76% 94.64% 95.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,194 39,189 59,507
10th Percentile £277 £313 £313
25th Percentile £409 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £540 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% +2.86% +10.53%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -2.00% +5.26% +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,676 1,567 2,091
10th Percentile £12.86 £14.28 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.30 £19.16 £15.52
Median hourly rate £36.50 £45.00 £23.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.89% +91.49% +4.44%
75th Percentile £61.26 £65.75 £48.76
90th Percentile £72.50 £76.00 £63.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.55 £42.37 £19.52
% change year-on-year -6.64% +117.03% +2.74%

Penetration Tester
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Penetration Tester in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Penetration Tester in the UK

Penetration Tester
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Penetration Tester.

Daily rate trend for Penetration Tester in the UK

Penetration Tester
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Penetration Tester over the 6 months to 3 May 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Penetration Tester in the UK

Penetration Tester
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Penetration Tester.

Hourly rate trend for Penetration Tester in the UK

Penetration Tester
Top 11 Contract 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 3 May 2024. 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 +120 27 £638 +2.00% 18
Work from Home +130 19 £600 -14.29% 12
UK excluding London +68 19 £600 +6.19% 11
South East +24 10 - - 1
London +75 6 £675 +8.00% 5
North of England - 5 £650 - 3
South West - 3 £600 - 4
Yorkshire - 3 £650 - 1
North East - 2 £625 -
Midlands - 1 £500 - 1
West Midlands - 1 £500 - 1

Penetration Tester Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 3 May 2024, Penetration Tester contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Penetration Tester in the job title.

1 27 (84.38%) Penetration Testing
2 25 (78.13%) OSCP
2 25 (78.13%) CREST Certified
3 21 (65.63%) Security Cleared
4 19 (59.38%) Mobile App
4 19 (59.38%) Cybersecurity
4 19 (59.38%) Application Security
5 18 (56.25%) GPEN
5 18 (56.25%) GIAC
6 13 (40.63%) OWASP
6 13 (40.63%) Security Testing
6 13 (40.63%) Red Team
7 12 (37.50%) MITRE ATT&CK
7 12 (37.50%) PCI DSS
8 11 (34.38%) Stakeholder Management
8 11 (34.38%) 5G
9 10 (31.25%) Virgin Media
9 10 (31.25%) IaaS
9 10 (31.25%) SANS
9 10 (31.25%) Organisational Skills
9 10 (31.25%) NCSC
9 10 (31.25%) GDPR
9 10 (31.25%) SC Cleared
9 10 (31.25%) SaaS
9 10 (31.25%) PaaS
9 10 (31.25%) Law
9 10 (31.25%) C++
9 10 (31.25%) Web Services
9 10 (31.25%) Python
9 10 (31.25%) Broadband

Penetration Tester Skill Set
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:

Cloud Services
1 10 (31.25%) IaaS
1 10 (31.25%) PaaS
1 10 (31.25%) SaaS
2 1 (3.13%) AWS
Communications & Networking
1 11 (34.38%) 5G
2 10 (31.25%) Broadband
3 7 (21.88%) Wireless
4 1 (3.13%) 4G
4 1 (3.13%) LTE
4 1 (3.13%) Network Security
General
1 10 (31.25%) Law
1 10 (31.25%) Organisational Skills
2 4 (12.50%) Legal
2 4 (12.50%) Social Skills
3 2 (6.25%) Analytical Skills
3 2 (6.25%) Banking
3 2 (6.25%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (31.25%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 19 (59.38%) Mobile App
2 7 (21.88%) Operational Technology
3 3 (9.38%) Security Posture
4 2 (6.25%) Cyber Threat
5 1 (3.13%) Cyberattack
5 1 (3.13%) Embedded Systems
Operating Systems
1 8 (25.00%) Windows
2 7 (21.88%) Linux
3 1 (3.13%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (84.38%) Penetration Testing
2 19 (59.38%) Application Security
2 19 (59.38%) Cybersecurity
3 13 (40.63%) OWASP
3 13 (40.63%) Red Team
3 13 (40.63%) Security Testing
4 12 (37.50%) MITRE ATT&CK
5 11 (34.38%) Stakeholder Management
6 9 (28.13%) Offensive Security
7 8 (25.00%) Ethical Hacking
8 4 (12.50%) Vulnerability Assessment
9 3 (9.38%) DevOps
9 3 (9.38%) Threat Intelligence
9 3 (9.38%) Vulnerability Research
10 2 (6.25%) Cyber Intelligence
10 2 (6.25%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
10 2 (6.25%) Mentoring
10 2 (6.25%) Regulatory Compliance
10 2 (6.25%) Security Operations
10 2 (6.25%) Social Engineering
Programming Languages
1 10 (31.25%) C++
1 10 (31.25%) Python
2 6 (18.75%) JavaScript
3 4 (12.50%) Java
4 3 (9.38%) C
5 2 (6.25%) C#
5 2 (6.25%) Perl
5 2 (6.25%) Ruby
5 2 (6.25%) Shell Script
6 1 (3.13%) Go
Qualifications
1 25 (78.13%) CREST Certified
1 25 (78.13%) OSCP
2 21 (65.63%) Security Cleared
3 18 (56.25%) GIAC
3 18 (56.25%) GPEN
4 10 (31.25%) SANS
4 10 (31.25%) SC Cleared
5 8 (25.00%) CEH
6 3 (9.38%) CHECK Team Leader
7 2 (6.25%) CHECK Team Member
7 2 (6.25%) CISM
7 2 (6.25%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (6.25%) Degree
8 1 (3.13%) CCNA
8 1 (3.13%) CISSP
8 1 (3.13%) CompTIA Security+
8 1 (3.13%) ECSA
8 1 (3.13%) MCP
8 1 (3.13%) OSCE
8 1 (3.13%) OSWP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (37.50%) PCI DSS
2 10 (31.25%) GDPR
2 10 (31.25%) NCSC
3 7 (21.88%) NIST
4 1 (3.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 6 (18.75%) Active Directory
Vendors
1 10 (31.25%) Virgin Media
2 1 (3.13%) Cisco
2 1 (3.13%) Microsoft
2 1 (3.13%) Salesforce
2 1 (3.13%) SAP