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 28 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 433 413 428
Rank change year-on-year -20 +15 +52
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 278 218 461
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.33% 0.57% 0.53%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.45% 0.61% 0.63%
Number of salaries quoted 184 165 363
10th Percentile £41,475 £42,050 £38,797
25th Percentile £48,165 £56,500 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £67,500 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.70% +3.85% -
75th Percentile £89,000 £82,000 £82,500
90th Percentile £99,250 £95,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £65,000 £67,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year -3.70% +3.85% -

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 61,552 35,586 72,734
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 74.01% 93.32% 83.95%
Number of salaries quoted 40,904 19,071 54,305
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,750 £29,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £41,250 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,500 £93,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £58,033 £55,000
% change year-on-year +3.39% +5.51% -9.84%

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 28 May 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 28 May 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 -12 119 £85,000 +17.24% 50
South West -18 46 £50,000 -25.93% 10
South East -15 43 £72,500 +3.57% 30
Midlands -38 28 £51,779 -23.29% 6
North of England -50 27 £56,000 -8.20% 8
West Midlands -43 19 £62,500 -7.41% 5
Yorkshire -47 15 £55,000 - 4
East Midlands -21 9 £51,058 +27.65% 1
North West -20 7 £56,000 -8.20% 3
North East -43 5 £75,000 +3.18% 1
East of England -26 4 £30,000 - 3
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 7 (2.52%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (2.16%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.08%) IIS
4 2 (0.72%) Confluence
5 1 (0.36%) Apache
5 1 (0.36%) Drupal
5 1 (0.36%) nginx
5 1 (0.36%) WordPress
Business Applications
1 1 (0.36%) Magento
1 1 (0.36%) SAP EHS
1 1 (0.36%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 66 (23.74%) AWS
2 61 (21.94%) Azure
3 28 (10.07%) Microsoft 365
4 24 (8.63%) GCP
5 14 (5.04%) Entra ID
6 11 (3.96%) Azure Sentinel
7 9 (3.24%) GitHub
8 6 (2.16%) SaaS
9 5 (1.80%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (1.80%) Microsoft Purview
10 4 (1.44%) Amazon EKS
10 4 (1.44%) AWS CloudFormation
10 4 (1.44%) Azure Key Vault
10 4 (1.44%) Mimecast
11 3 (1.08%) Azure DevOps
11 3 (1.08%) OneDrive
11 3 (1.08%) Rubrik
12 2 (0.72%) Cloudflare
12 2 (0.72%) Figma
12 2 (0.72%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 48 (17.27%) Firewall
2 26 (9.35%) Network Security
3 20 (7.19%) Wireless
4 19 (6.83%) VPN
5 11 (3.96%) DNS
5 11 (3.96%) Internet
6 10 (3.60%) TCP/IP
7 8 (2.88%) Cisco ISE
8 7 (2.52%) Cisco Nexus
8 7 (2.52%) VLAN
9 6 (2.16%) Intrusion Detection
9 6 (2.16%) Wi-Fi
10 5 (1.80%) LAN
10 5 (1.80%) WAN
11 4 (1.44%) DHCP
11 4 (1.44%) HTTPS
12 3 (1.08%) DMARC
12 3 (1.08%) DMZ
12 3 (1.08%) SSL
12 3 (1.08%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.80%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.36%) InterSystems Cache
3 1 (0.36%) KNIME
3 1 (0.36%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.36%) Power BI
3 1 (0.36%) Redis
Development Applications
1 20 (7.19%) Burp Suite
2 19 (6.83%) Metasploit
3 7 (2.52%) JIRA
4 6 (2.16%) Bitbucket
5 4 (1.44%) Jenkins
6 3 (1.08%) Git
7 2 (0.72%) Gatling
7 2 (0.72%) NUnit
7 2 (0.72%) Yeoman
8 1 (0.36%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.36%) GitLab
8 1 (0.36%) IDA Disassembler
8 1 (0.36%) JMeter
8 1 (0.36%) JUnit
8 1 (0.36%) Postman
8 1 (0.36%) Selenium
8 1 (0.36%) Vagrant
General
1 92 (33.09%) Social Skills
2 71 (25.54%) Finance
3 29 (10.43%) Law
3 29 (10.43%) Public Sector
4 23 (8.27%) Analytical Skills
5 21 (7.55%) Banking
5 21 (7.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 19 (6.83%) Retail
7 9 (3.24%) Legal
8 7 (2.52%) Marketing
8 7 (2.52%) Pharmaceutical
9 5 (1.80%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.44%) Financial Institution
11 3 (1.08%) Back Office
11 3 (1.08%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.72%) Aerospace
12 2 (0.72%) Public Speaking
12 2 (0.72%) Social Housing
13 1 (0.36%) French Language
13 1 (0.36%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 54 (19.42%) Senior
2 48 (17.27%) Penetration Tester
2 48 (17.27%) Tester
3 46 (16.55%) Consultant
4 45 (16.19%) Security Consultant
5 33 (11.87%) Analyst
6 27 (9.71%) Security Manager
7 26 (9.35%) Security Analyst
8 22 (7.91%) Lead
9 21 (7.55%) Cybersecurity Consultant
10 18 (6.47%) Senior Analyst
10 18 (6.47%) Senior Security Analyst
11 16 (5.76%) Security Engineer
11 16 (5.76%) Security Specialist
12 14 (5.04%) Team Leader
13 12 (4.32%) Senior Penetration Tester
13 12 (4.32%) Senior Tester
14 10 (3.60%) IT Support
15 9 (3.24%) Head of Security
15 9 (3.24%) Security Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.44%) .NET
2 3 (1.08%) .NET Framework
2 3 (1.08%) OAuth
3 2 (0.72%) AngularJS
3 2 (0.72%) ASP.NET
3 2 (0.72%) ASP.NET Core
3 2 (0.72%) Entity Framework
3 2 (0.72%) OAuth2
3 2 (0.72%) OpenAPI
3 2 (0.72%) OpenID
3 2 (0.72%) RESTful
3 2 (0.72%) RxJS
3 2 (0.72%) Swagger
3 2 (0.72%) Vitest
4 1 (0.36%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.36%) LDAP
4 1 (0.36%) Memcached
4 1 (0.36%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 63 (22.66%) Security Posture
2 34 (12.23%) Mobile App
3 31 (11.15%) Cyber Defence
4 27 (9.71%) Cyber Threat
5 16 (5.76%) Management Information System
6 13 (4.68%) Self-Motivation
7 11 (3.96%) Security Operations Centre
8 9 (3.24%) Data Centre
9 7 (2.52%) Blog
9 7 (2.52%) Cyber Security Posture
10 6 (2.16%) Operational Technology
11 5 (1.80%) Onboarding
12 4 (1.44%) Cyberattack
12 4 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
12 4 (1.44%) Insider Threat
12 4 (1.44%) Public Cloud
13 3 (1.08%) CCTV
13 3 (1.08%) Cloud Native
13 3 (1.08%) Hybrid Cloud
14 2 (0.72%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 41 (14.75%) Windows
2 35 (12.59%) Linux
3 19 (6.83%) Android
3 19 (6.83%) Apple iOS
4 10 (3.60%) Windows Server
5 4 (1.44%) Unix
6 2 (0.72%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 184 (66.19%) Cybersecurity
2 96 (34.53%) Red Team
3 85 (30.58%) Incident Response
4 60 (21.58%) Offensive Security
4 60 (21.58%) Security Testing
4 60 (21.58%) Vulnerability Management
5 57 (20.50%) Mentoring
6 55 (19.78%) Application Security
7 54 (19.42%) SIEM
8 51 (18.35%) Information Security
9 48 (17.27%) Problem-Solving
10 44 (15.83%) Cloud Security
11 40 (14.39%) Security Operations
12 38 (13.67%) Agile
13 30 (10.79%) Business Strategy
13 30 (10.79%) Business Transformation
13 30 (10.79%) Disaster Recovery
13 30 (10.79%) Threat Modelling
14 29 (10.43%) Coaching
14 29 (10.43%) Internal Audit
Programming Languages
1 46 (16.55%) Python
2 43 (15.47%) PowerShell
3 29 (10.43%) Bash
4 15 (5.40%) Java
5 14 (5.04%) Go
6 7 (2.52%) Perl
7 6 (2.16%) C#
8 5 (1.80%) Bicep
8 5 (1.80%) C
8 5 (1.80%) C++
8 5 (1.80%) Ruby
9 4 (1.44%) SQL
10 3 (1.08%) Objective-C
10 3 (1.08%) Rust
11 2 (0.72%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.72%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.36%) PHP
Qualifications
1 83 (29.86%) CREST Certified
2 71 (25.54%) OSCP
3 57 (20.50%) CISSP
4 47 (16.91%) Security Cleared
5 39 (14.03%) SC Cleared
6 35 (12.59%) Degree
7 33 (11.87%) CISM
8 28 (10.07%) CEH
9 27 (9.71%) CHECK Team Leader
10 26 (9.35%) CHECK Team Member
11 23 (8.27%) Cisco Certification
12 21 (7.55%) CCSAM
13 17 (6.12%) CCNA
13 17 (6.12%) CompTIA Security+
14 15 (5.40%) CCNP
15 13 (4.68%) DV Cleared
16 12 (4.32%) GIAC
17 10 (3.60%) GPEN
18 8 (2.88%) OSCE
18 8 (2.88%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (27.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 38 (13.67%) NIST
3 37 (13.31%) Cyber Essentials
4 36 (12.95%) GDPR
5 17 (6.12%) PCI DSS
6 16 (5.76%) Actionable Recommendations
6 16 (5.76%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 13 (4.68%) GRC
8 12 (4.32%) NCSC
9 6 (2.16%) Accessibility
9 6 (2.16%) SOC 2
10 5 (1.80%) QA
11 3 (1.08%) COBIT
11 3 (1.08%) Data Quality
12 2 (0.72%) Def Stans
12 2 (0.72%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 1 (0.36%) GxP
13 1 (0.36%) ITGC
13 1 (0.36%) SLA
System Software
1 34 (12.23%) Active Directory
2 6 (2.16%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.08%) Docker
3 3 (1.08%) EMC RecoverPoint
3 3 (1.08%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 16 (5.76%) Kubernetes
2 14 (5.04%) Nessus
3 11 (3.96%) Microsoft Intune
4 10 (3.60%) Nmap
5 7 (2.52%) Terraform
6 5 (1.80%) Ansible
7 4 (1.44%) CSIRT
8 3 (1.08%) FortiGate
8 3 (1.08%) SCCM
8 3 (1.08%) VxRail
9 2 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
9 2 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.36%) CASB
10 1 (0.36%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
10 1 (0.36%) Consul
10 1 (0.36%) Packer
10 1 (0.36%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.36%) Puppet
10 1 (0.36%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 63 (22.66%) Microsoft
2 17 (6.12%) Splunk
3 16 (5.76%) Cisco
4 13 (4.68%) Sophos
5 10 (3.60%) Zscaler
6 9 (3.24%) CrowdStrike
6 9 (3.24%) VMware
7 8 (2.88%) CheckPoint
7 8 (2.88%) Fortinet
7 8 (2.88%) Qualys
8 7 (2.52%) Palo Alto
9 5 (1.80%) TOWER Software
10 4 (1.44%) Okta
11 3 (1.08%) Aruba
11 3 (1.08%) Dell
11 3 (1.08%) Veeam
12 2 (0.72%) Darktrace
12 2 (0.72%) DevExpress
12 2 (0.72%) Rapid7
12 2 (0.72%) Tenable