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 contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 13 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 156 117 105
Rank change year-on-year -39 -12 +3
Contract jobs citing Penetration Testing 14 7 6
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 0.40% 0.38% 0.31%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.47% 0.43% 0.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 13 6 6
10th Percentile £450 - £413
25th Percentile £525 £300 £625
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £413 £650
Median % change year-on-year +39.39% -36.54% -10.34%
75th Percentile £725 £598 £675
90th Percentile £750 £703 -
England median daily rate £550 £550 £585
% change year-on-year - -5.98% +6.36%

All Process & 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 2,971 1,610 1,561
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 84.91% 88.36% 81.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,824 1,039 1,015
10th Percentile £313 £235 £252
25th Percentile £413 £396 £396
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £519
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -3.66% +3.80%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £625
90th Percentile £672 £663 £725
England median daily rate £525 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 208 103 41
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.62 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.57 £16.07 £15.13
Median hourly rate £29.60 £24.34 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +21.61% +8.18% -18.18%
75th Percentile £53.75 £35.30 £35.00
90th Percentile £68.49 £50.00 £55.25
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -

Penetration Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

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

Penetration Testing job vacancy trend 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 13 September 2026.

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 13 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
Birmingham -4 6 £450 +9.09% 8
Worcestershire - 5 £575 - 2
Coventry -19 2 £700 +14.29% 1
Warwickshire -14 1 £550 +83.33% 1
Penetration Testing
England

Penetration Testing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands 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:

Cloud Services
1 4 (28.57%) Azure
2 3 (21.43%) Microsoft 365
3 1 (7.14%) AWS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (7.14%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (35.71%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (7.14%) JIRA
1 1 (7.14%) JMeter
1 1 (7.14%) LoadRunner
1 1 (7.14%) Postman
1 1 (7.14%) Rational Performance Tester
1 1 (7.14%) SoapUI
General
1 3 (21.43%) Public Sector
2 2 (14.29%) Analytical Skills
2 2 (14.29%) Legal
3 1 (7.14%) Military
3 1 (7.14%) Police
Job Titles
1 5 (35.71%) Principal Engineer
2 3 (21.43%) Architect
3 2 (14.29%) Cybersecurity Specialist
3 2 (14.29%) Security Specialist
3 2 (14.29%) Solutions Architect
4 1 (7.14%) Cybersecurity Manager
4 1 (7.14%) Penetration Tester
4 1 (7.14%) Salesforce Architect
4 1 (7.14%) Security Advisor
4 1 (7.14%) Security Architect
4 1 (7.14%) Security Manager
4 1 (7.14%) Test Manager
4 1 (7.14%) Tester
Miscellaneous
1 6 (42.86%) Onboarding
2 2 (14.29%) Self-Motivation
3 1 (7.14%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 5 (35.71%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 6 (42.86%) Cybersecurity
2 5 (35.71%) End-to-End Testing
2 5 (35.71%) Remediation Plan
2 5 (35.71%) Vulnerability Management
2 5 (35.71%) Vulnerability Scanning
3 4 (28.57%) Identity Access Management
4 3 (21.43%) Cloud Security
4 3 (21.43%) DevOps
4 3 (21.43%) Incident Response
4 3 (21.43%) Offensive Security
4 3 (21.43%) Project Delivery
4 3 (21.43%) SDLC
4 3 (21.43%) Security Operations
4 3 (21.43%) SIEM
4 3 (21.43%) Stakeholder Management
5 2 (14.29%) CI/CD
5 2 (14.29%) Privileged Access Management
5 2 (14.29%) Regulatory Compliance
5 2 (14.29%) Security Monitoring
5 2 (14.29%) Threat Detection
Qualifications
1 7 (50.00%) Security Cleared
2 5 (35.71%) DV Cleared
3 2 (14.29%) CISSP
3 2 (14.29%) SC Cleared
4 1 (7.14%) (ISC)2 CCSP
4 1 (7.14%) Cisco Certification
4 1 (7.14%) CISM
4 1 (7.14%) CREST Certified
4 1 (7.14%) Cyber Scheme
4 1 (7.14%) ECSA
4 1 (7.14%) ISTQB
4 1 (7.14%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
4 1 (7.14%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 1 (7.14%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (28.57%) NIST
2 3 (21.43%) PCI DSS
3 2 (14.29%) GDPR
3 2 (14.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (14.29%) NCSC
4 1 (7.14%) GRC
4 1 (7.14%) QA
Vendors
1 5 (35.71%) SolarWinds
1 5 (35.71%) Splunk
2 3 (21.43%) Microsoft
3 2 (14.29%) OutSystems
4 1 (7.14%) Salesforce