Penetration Testing Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Penetration Testing
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the West Midlands requiring Penetration Testing skills. It covers vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 115 105 109
Rank change year-on-year -10 +4 +63
Contract jobs citing Penetration Testing 6 6 13
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the West Midlands 0.33% 0.31% 0.63%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.37% 0.38% 0.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 5 6 6
10th Percentile - £413 £650
25th Percentile £300 £625 £666
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £650 £725
Median % change year-on-year -19.23% -10.34% +26.09%
75th Percentile £619 £675 £738
90th Percentile £720 - £769
England median daily rate £550 £585 £550
% change year-on-year -5.98% +6.36% -8.33%

All Process and Methodology Skills
West Midlands

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 requiring process or methodology skills in the West Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,630 1,561 1,762
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 88.73% 81.77% 85.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,046 1,005 1,180
10th Percentile £250 £250 £263
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +4.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £625 £600
90th Percentile £663 £725 £725
England median daily rate £510 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 104 40 48
10th Percentile £12.62 £14.48 £14.42
25th Percentile £16.13 £15.22 £19.56
Median hourly rate £24.34 £24.31 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.11% -11.59% +52.78%
75th Percentile £35.15 £37.63 £44.69
90th Percentile £50.00 £55.45 £67.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £43.90
% change year-on-year -41.51% -2.05% +51.38%

Penetration Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

Job postings citing Penetration Testing as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands.

Job vacancy trend for Penetration Testing in the West Midlands

Penetration Testing
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Penetration Testing

Penetration Testing
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Penetration Testing in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 18 September 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Penetration Testing in the West Midlands

Penetration Testing
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Penetration Testing

Penetration Testing
Contract Job Locations in the West Midlands

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 West Midlands region over the 6 months to 18 September 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
Birmingham -1 3 £413 +106.25% 6
Coventry -10 1 £613 -5.77% 2
Warwickshire - 1 £300 - 2
Penetration Testing
England

Penetration Testing
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the West Midlands 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:

Applications
1 1 (16.67%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (16.67%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 3 (50.00%) AWS
1 3 (50.00%) Azure
2 1 (16.67%) Azure Sentinel
2 1 (16.67%) GCP
2 1 (16.67%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 2 (33.33%) Firewall
2 1 (16.67%) LAN
2 1 (16.67%) Network Security
2 1 (16.67%) TCP/IP
2 1 (16.67%) VPN
2 1 (16.67%) WAN
General
1 3 (50.00%) Social Skills
2 1 (16.67%) Analytical Skills
2 1 (16.67%) Documentation Skills
2 1 (16.67%) Finance
2 1 (16.67%) Legal
Job Titles
1 1 (16.67%) Administrator
1 1 (16.67%) Analyst
1 1 (16.67%) Architect
1 1 (16.67%) Cybersecurity Engineer
1 1 (16.67%) Information Security Advisor
1 1 (16.67%) Information Security Architect
1 1 (16.67%) Operations Director
1 1 (16.67%) Security Advisor
1 1 (16.67%) Security Architect
1 1 (16.67%) Security Engineer
1 1 (16.67%) Security Solutions Architect
1 1 (16.67%) Senior
1 1 (16.67%) Senior Architect
1 1 (16.67%) Senior Security Architect
1 1 (16.67%) Senior Solutions Architect
1 1 (16.67%) SOC Analyst
1 1 (16.67%) Solutions Architect
Miscellaneous
1 2 (33.33%) Security Posture
2 1 (16.67%) Public Cloud
2 1 (16.67%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 3 (50.00%) Windows
2 1 (16.67%) Linux
2 1 (16.67%) Mac OS X
2 1 (16.67%) Windows Server
2 1 (16.67%) Windows Server 2016
2 1 (16.67%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (50.00%) Cybersecurity
1 3 (50.00%) Incident Response
1 3 (50.00%) SIEM
1 3 (50.00%) Vulnerability Management
2 2 (33.33%) Cloud Security
2 2 (33.33%) Computer Science
2 2 (33.33%) Information Security
2 2 (33.33%) ITIL
2 2 (33.33%) Roadmaps
2 2 (33.33%) SOAR
2 2 (33.33%) Vulnerability Scanning
3 1 (16.67%) Business Continuity
3 1 (16.67%) Change Management
3 1 (16.67%) Identity Management
3 1 (16.67%) Migration
3 1 (16.67%) Risk Management
3 1 (16.67%) Security Management
3 1 (16.67%) Service Delivery
3 1 (16.67%) Stakeholder Management
3 1 (16.67%) Vulnerability Assessment
Programming Languages
1 1 (16.67%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 3 (50.00%) SC Cleared
1 3 (50.00%) Security Cleared
2 2 (33.33%) CISM
2 2 (33.33%) CISSP
2 2 (33.33%) Degree
3 1 (16.67%) BC Cleared
3 1 (16.67%) CEH
3 1 (16.67%) CISA
3 1 (16.67%) CompTIA Security+
3 1 (16.67%) CRISC
3 1 (16.67%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (50.00%) NIST
2 2 (33.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (16.67%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (16.67%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 1 (16.67%) GDPR
3 1 (16.67%) HIPAA
3 1 (16.67%) NCSC
3 1 (16.67%) PCI DSS
3 1 (16.67%) QA
3 1 (16.67%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 1 (16.67%) Snort
Systems Management
1 1 (16.67%) CASB
Vendors
1 2 (33.33%) Microsoft