Penetration Testing Job Trends in England

Penetration Testing
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in England requiring Penetration Testing skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 15 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 420 460 471
Rank change year-on-year +40 +11 -42
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 327 192 413
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.37% 0.44% 0.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.51% 0.49% 0.57%
Number of salaries quoted 211 163 324
10th Percentile £42,000 £46,000 £38,750
25th Percentile £50,000 £53,719 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.70% +3.85% +8.33%
75th Percentile £88,250 £79,125 £80,313
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £100,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £67,500 £64,000
% change year-on-year +3.70% +5.47% +2.40%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

Penetration Testing falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in England.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 64,714 39,117 72,860
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.88% 90.26% 82.33%
Number of salaries quoted 45,706 22,312 52,075
10th Percentile £31,000 £28,822 £29,750
25th Percentile £41,250 £39,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -12.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £93,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -8.84%

Penetration Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

Penetration Testing job vacancy trend in England

Penetration Testing
Salary Trend in England

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing Penetration Testing.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing Penetration Testing

Penetration Testing
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing Penetration Testing in England over the 6 months to 15 July 2026.

Salary histogram for Penetration Testing in England

Penetration Testing
Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Penetration Testing within the England region over the 6 months to 15 July 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London +9 143 £82,500 +13.79% 40
South East +23 71 £72,500 +20.83% 27
South West -22 48 £50,000 -27.27% 20
Midlands -27 27 £65,000 -3.70% 8
North of England -47 23 £61,750 +7.39% 15
West Midlands -32 19 £70,000 +3.70% 4
Yorkshire -36 12 £55,000 - 8
East Midlands -17 8 £46,743 +16.86% 4
North East -55 6 £75,000 +3.18%
East of England - 6 £32,500 - 6
North West -20 5 £67,500 +17.39% 7
Penetration Testing
UK

Penetration Testing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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:

Application Platforms
1 9 (2.75%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (2.14%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.53%) Confluence
4 3 (0.92%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.92%) IIS
5 1 (0.31%) Apache
5 1 (0.31%) Drupal
5 1 (0.31%) nginx
5 1 (0.31%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.31%) Magento
1 1 (0.31%) SAP EHS
1 1 (0.31%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 82 (25.08%) AWS
2 78 (23.85%) Azure
3 33 (10.09%) Microsoft 365
4 26 (7.95%) GCP
5 15 (4.59%) Entra ID
6 9 (2.75%) GitHub
7 8 (2.45%) Azure Sentinel
7 8 (2.45%) SaaS
8 6 (1.83%) Microsoft Purview
9 5 (1.53%) Amazon Bedrock
9 5 (1.53%) Cloud Computing
9 5 (1.53%) GitHub Actions
10 4 (1.22%) Amazon EKS
10 4 (1.22%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 4 (1.22%) AWS CloudFormation
10 4 (1.22%) Azure Key Vault
10 4 (1.22%) Mimecast
10 4 (1.22%) Nutanix
10 4 (1.22%) Rubrik
11 3 (0.92%) Amazon Kinesis
Communications & Networking
1 84 (25.69%) Firewall
2 32 (9.79%) Cisco Nexus
3 30 (9.17%) Wi-Fi
4 28 (8.56%) Internet
5 27 (8.26%) Network Security
6 20 (6.12%) LAN
6 20 (6.12%) VPN
6 20 (6.12%) WAN
7 13 (3.98%) Wireless
8 12 (3.67%) DNS
9 10 (3.06%) TCP/IP
10 9 (2.75%) Cisco ISE
11 7 (2.14%) VLAN
12 6 (1.83%) Intrusion Detection
13 4 (1.22%) DHCP
13 4 (1.22%) HTTPS
13 4 (1.22%) Kerberos
14 3 (0.92%) VoIP
15 2 (0.61%) DMZ
15 2 (0.61%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (2.45%) SQL Server
2 4 (1.22%) MongoDB
3 3 (0.92%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.92%) Hadoop
3 3 (0.92%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.61%) KNIME
5 1 (0.31%) InterSystems Cache
5 1 (0.31%) Power BI
5 1 (0.31%) Redis
Development Applications
1 17 (5.20%) Burp Suite
2 16 (4.89%) Metasploit
3 13 (3.98%) JIRA
4 6 (1.83%) Bitbucket
5 4 (1.22%) Jenkins
6 3 (0.92%) Git
6 3 (0.92%) Yeoman
7 2 (0.61%) Gatling
7 2 (0.61%) NUnit
7 2 (0.61%) Snyk
8 1 (0.31%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.31%) GitLab
8 1 (0.31%) IDA Disassembler
8 1 (0.31%) JMeter
8 1 (0.31%) JUnit
8 1 (0.31%) Postman
8 1 (0.31%) Selenium
8 1 (0.31%) Vagrant
General
1 106 (32.42%) Social Skills
2 67 (20.49%) Finance
3 39 (11.93%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (10.40%) Public Sector
5 33 (10.09%) Law
6 19 (5.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 17 (5.20%) Retail
8 15 (4.59%) Banking
9 8 (2.45%) Legal
10 7 (2.14%) Marketing
11 6 (1.83%) Influencing Skills
11 6 (1.83%) Pharmaceutical
12 4 (1.22%) Financial Institution
13 3 (0.92%) Back Office
13 3 (0.92%) Digital Health
13 3 (0.92%) Digital Healthcare
13 3 (0.92%) Military
13 3 (0.92%) Telecoms
14 2 (0.61%) Organisational Skills
14 2 (0.61%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 86 (26.30%) Senior
2 62 (18.96%) Analyst
3 51 (15.60%) Penetration Tester
3 51 (15.60%) Security Analyst
3 51 (15.60%) Tester
4 41 (12.54%) Senior Analyst
5 38 (11.62%) Consultant
6 37 (11.31%) Security Consultant
6 37 (11.31%) Senior Security Analyst
7 28 (8.56%) Cybersecurity Analyst
7 28 (8.56%) Lead
8 26 (7.95%) Security Engineer
9 25 (7.65%) Senior Cybersecurity Analyst
10 21 (6.42%) Security Specialist
11 19 (5.81%) Network Analyst
11 19 (5.81%) Security Manager
11 19 (5.81%) Senior Network Analyst
12 16 (4.89%) Cybersecurity Consultant
12 16 (4.89%) Team Leader
13 15 (4.59%) Network Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.22%) .NET
1 4 (1.22%) LDAP
1 4 (1.22%) RESTful
2 3 (0.92%) .NET Framework
2 3 (0.92%) Kafka
2 3 (0.92%) OAuth
3 2 (0.61%) AngularJS
3 2 (0.61%) ASP.NET
3 2 (0.61%) ASP.NET Core
3 2 (0.61%) Entity Framework
3 2 (0.61%) OAuth2
3 2 (0.61%) OpenAPI
3 2 (0.61%) OpenID
3 2 (0.61%) RxJS
3 2 (0.61%) Swagger
3 2 (0.61%) Vitest
4 1 (0.31%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.31%) Memcached
4 1 (0.31%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 70 (21.41%) Security Posture
2 30 (9.17%) Cyber Threat
3 25 (7.65%) Cyber Defence
4 23 (7.03%) Management Information System
5 21 (6.42%) Mobile App
6 13 (3.98%) Security Operations Centre
6 13 (3.98%) Self-Motivation
7 12 (3.67%) Onboarding
8 9 (2.75%) Data Centre
9 8 (2.45%) Blog
10 7 (2.14%) Cloud Native
10 7 (2.14%) Cyberattack
10 7 (2.14%) Operational Technology
11 6 (1.83%) Cyber Security Posture
11 6 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
12 4 (1.22%) Insider Threat
13 3 (0.92%) Cloud Security Posture
13 3 (0.92%) Cyber Kill Chain
13 3 (0.92%) Hybrid Cloud
13 3 (0.92%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 50 (15.29%) Windows
2 41 (12.54%) Linux
3 17 (5.20%) Windows Server
4 16 (4.89%) Android
4 16 (4.89%) Apple iOS
5 4 (1.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (1.22%) Unix
6 2 (0.61%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.61%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.31%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 235 (71.87%) Cybersecurity
2 99 (30.28%) Vulnerability Management
3 98 (29.97%) Incident Response
4 79 (24.16%) Red Team
4 79 (24.16%) SIEM
5 69 (21.10%) Security Testing
6 67 (20.49%) Security Operations
7 64 (19.57%) Cloud Security
8 59 (18.04%) Offensive Security
9 56 (17.13%) Information Security
10 54 (16.51%) Application Security
11 53 (16.21%) Problem-Solving
12 52 (15.90%) Mentoring
13 49 (14.98%) Disaster Recovery
14 43 (13.15%) Continuous Improvement
15 41 (12.54%) Threat Modelling
16 39 (11.93%) Threat Intelligence
17 37 (11.31%) Threat Detection
18 36 (11.01%) Vulnerability Remediation
19 34 (10.40%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 45 (13.76%) PowerShell
2 43 (13.15%) Python
3 20 (6.12%) Bash
4 16 (4.89%) Java
5 12 (3.67%) Go
6 7 (2.14%) SQL
7 6 (1.83%) Bicep
8 4 (1.22%) C
8 4 (1.22%) C#
8 4 (1.22%) C++
9 3 (0.92%) Objective-C
9 3 (0.92%) Perl
9 3 (0.92%) PHP
9 3 (0.92%) Ruby
9 3 (0.92%) Rust
10 2 (0.61%) JavaScript
10 2 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
10 2 (0.61%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 68 (20.80%) CREST Certified
2 60 (18.35%) CISSP
3 52 (15.90%) OSCP
3 52 (15.90%) Security Cleared
4 43 (13.15%) CISM
5 41 (12.54%) SC Cleared
6 28 (8.56%) Degree
7 24 (7.34%) CHECK Team Member
8 22 (6.73%) Cisco Certification
9 20 (6.12%) CEH
9 20 (6.12%) CHECK Team Leader
10 16 (4.89%) CompTIA Security+
11 15 (4.59%) CCNP
12 14 (4.28%) DV Cleared
13 13 (3.98%) CCNA
13 13 (3.98%) CCSAM
13 13 (3.98%) GIAC
14 8 (2.45%) OSCE
14 8 (2.45%) SANS
15 7 (2.14%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (26.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 50 (15.29%) NIST
3 42 (12.84%) GDPR
4 40 (12.23%) Cyber Essentials
5 19 (5.81%) PCI DSS
6 18 (5.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 14 (4.28%) NCSC
8 13 (3.98%) GRC
9 12 (3.67%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (2.45%) Accessibility
10 8 (2.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 6 (1.83%) SOC 2
12 5 (1.53%) QA
13 4 (1.22%) Def Stans
13 4 (1.22%) NIST 800
14 3 (0.92%) COBIT
14 3 (0.92%) Data Quality
14 3 (0.92%) SLA
15 1 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 1 (0.31%) WCAG
System Software
1 38 (11.62%) Active Directory
2 10 (3.06%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (1.22%) Docker
3 4 (1.22%) EMC RecoverPoint
3 4 (1.22%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.61%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 20 (6.12%) Kubernetes
2 13 (3.98%) Nessus
3 10 (3.06%) Microsoft Intune
3 10 (3.06%) Nmap
3 10 (3.06%) Terraform
4 5 (1.53%) Ansible
5 4 (1.22%) Red Hat Satellite
5 4 (1.22%) VxRail
6 3 (0.92%) SCCM
7 2 (0.61%) CSIRT
7 2 (0.61%) FortiGate
7 2 (0.61%) Jamf Pro
7 2 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.31%) CASB
8 1 (0.31%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 1 (0.31%) Consul
8 1 (0.31%) OpenVAS
8 1 (0.31%) Packer
8 1 (0.31%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.31%) Puppet
Vendors
1 64 (19.57%) Microsoft
2 38 (11.62%) Cisco
3 37 (11.31%) Qualys
4 34 (10.40%) Palo Alto
5 28 (8.56%) Aruba
6 23 (7.03%) Splunk
7 14 (4.28%) Sophos
8 12 (3.67%) VMware
9 11 (3.36%) CrowdStrike
9 11 (3.36%) Zscaler
10 9 (2.75%) CheckPoint
11 8 (2.45%) Fortinet
11 8 (2.45%) Tenable
12 6 (1.83%) Rapid7
12 6 (1.83%) ServiceNow
13 5 (1.53%) TOWER Software
14 4 (1.22%) CyberArk
14 4 (1.22%) Ivanti
14 4 (1.22%) Oracle
14 4 (1.22%) Red Hat