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

6 months to
15 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 425 478 456
Rank change year-on-year +53 -22 -12
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 342 181 338
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.36% 0.41% 0.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.49% 0.46% 0.58%
Number of salaries quoted 235 153 245
10th Percentile £40,500 £46,000 £41,250
25th Percentile £49,750 £53,688 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.70% +3.85% +8.33%
75th Percentile £90,000 £78,750 £82,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £92,250 £99,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year +3.70% +3.85% +4.00%

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 69,561 39,049 58,759
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.70% 89.35% 81.24%
Number of salaries quoted 49,075 22,526 38,528
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -12.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £76,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.71%

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 August 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 August 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 +15 154 £86,000 +20.70% 175
South East +23 73 £70,000 +19.15% 39
South West -33 48 £50,000 -25.93% 33
Midlands -24 29 £65,000 -1.89% 19
North of England -52 25 £56,000 -2.61% 37
West Midlands -29 19 £70,000 +3.70% 16
Yorkshire -31 16 £55,000 - 13
East Midlands -14 10 £46,743 +16.86% 3
East of England - 7 £45,000 - 15
North West -17 5 £67,500 +10.66% 23
North East -59 4 £75,000 +3.18% 2
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 (2.63%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (2.05%) SharePoint
3 6 (1.75%) Confluence
4 3 (0.88%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.88%) IIS
5 1 (0.29%) Apache
5 1 (0.29%) Drupal
5 1 (0.29%) nginx
5 1 (0.29%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
2 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.29%) Magento
1 1 (0.29%) SAP EHS
1 1 (0.29%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 88 (25.73%) AWS
2 85 (24.85%) Azure
3 30 (8.77%) Microsoft 365
4 21 (6.14%) GCP
5 16 (4.68%) Entra ID
6 10 (2.92%) SaaS
7 6 (1.75%) Amazon Bedrock
7 6 (1.75%) Azure Sentinel
7 6 (1.75%) Cloud Computing
7 6 (1.75%) GitHub
7 6 (1.75%) Microsoft Purview
7 6 (1.75%) Mimecast
8 5 (1.46%) Nutanix
9 4 (1.17%) Amazon GuardDuty
9 4 (1.17%) Azure DevOps
9 4 (1.17%) Azure Key Vault
9 4 (1.17%) OneDrive
10 3 (0.88%) Amazon EKS
10 3 (0.88%) Amazon Kinesis
10 3 (0.88%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 93 (27.19%) Firewall
2 37 (10.82%) Cisco Nexus
3 36 (10.53%) Wi-Fi
4 33 (9.65%) Network Security
5 31 (9.06%) Internet
6 26 (7.60%) LAN
6 26 (7.60%) WAN
7 21 (6.14%) VPN
8 15 (4.39%) DNS
9 12 (3.51%) TCP/IP
10 9 (2.63%) Cisco ISE
11 8 (2.34%) VLAN
12 7 (2.05%) Cisco ASA
13 6 (1.75%) HTTPS
13 6 (1.75%) Intrusion Detection
13 6 (1.75%) Wireless
14 5 (1.46%) Kerberos
15 4 (1.17%) DHCP
16 3 (0.88%) OSPF
16 3 (0.88%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (2.92%) SQL Server
2 5 (1.46%) MongoDB
3 3 (0.88%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.88%) Hadoop
3 3 (0.88%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.58%) KNIME
5 1 (0.29%) Electronic Patient Records
5 1 (0.29%) InterSystems Cache
5 1 (0.29%) Power BI
5 1 (0.29%) Redis
Development Applications
1 22 (6.43%) Burp Suite
2 21 (6.14%) Metasploit
3 12 (3.51%) JIRA
4 6 (1.75%) Bitbucket
5 3 (0.88%) Git
5 3 (0.88%) Yeoman
6 2 (0.58%) Gatling
6 2 (0.58%) NUnit
6 2 (0.58%) Snyk
7 1 (0.29%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.29%) GitLab
7 1 (0.29%) IDA Disassembler
7 1 (0.29%) JMeter
7 1 (0.29%) JUnit
7 1 (0.29%) Postman
7 1 (0.29%) Selenium
7 1 (0.29%) Vagrant
General
1 106 (30.99%) Social Skills
2 56 (16.37%) Finance
3 51 (14.91%) Analytical Skills
4 36 (10.53%) Public Sector
5 26 (7.60%) Law
6 18 (5.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 13 (3.80%) Retail
8 12 (3.51%) Banking
9 8 (2.34%) Influencing Skills
9 8 (2.34%) Telecoms
10 6 (1.75%) Aerospace
10 6 (1.75%) Legal
10 6 (1.75%) Pharmaceutical
11 5 (1.46%) Marketing
12 4 (1.17%) Organisational Skills
12 4 (1.17%) Presentation Skills
13 3 (0.88%) Digital Health
13 3 (0.88%) Digital Healthcare
13 3 (0.88%) Financial Institution
13 3 (0.88%) Military
Job Titles
1 89 (26.02%) Senior
2 58 (16.96%) Analyst
3 55 (16.08%) Penetration Tester
3 55 (16.08%) Tester
4 45 (13.16%) Security Analyst
5 42 (12.28%) Lead
6 37 (10.82%) Senior Analyst
7 32 (9.36%) Security Engineer
8 31 (9.06%) Senior Security Analyst
9 30 (8.77%) Consultant
10 28 (8.19%) Security Consultant
11 27 (7.89%) Cybersecurity Analyst
12 25 (7.31%) Senior Cybersecurity Analyst
13 22 (6.43%) Senior Security Engineer
14 21 (6.14%) Network Analyst
14 21 (6.14%) Senior Network Analyst
15 20 (5.85%) Security Specialist
16 19 (5.56%) Cybersecurity Engineer
17 17 (4.97%) Architect
18 16 (4.68%) Team Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (1.46%) LDAP
2 4 (1.17%) RESTful
3 3 (0.88%) .NET
3 3 (0.88%) .NET Framework
3 3 (0.88%) Kafka
3 3 (0.88%) OAuth
4 2 (0.58%) AngularJS
4 2 (0.58%) ASP.NET
4 2 (0.58%) ASP.NET Core
4 2 (0.58%) Entity Framework
4 2 (0.58%) OAuth2
4 2 (0.58%) OpenAPI
4 2 (0.58%) OpenID
4 2 (0.58%) RxJS
4 2 (0.58%) Swagger
4 2 (0.58%) Vitest
5 1 (0.29%) ARM Templates
5 1 (0.29%) Memcached
5 1 (0.29%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 64 (18.71%) Security Posture
2 30 (8.77%) Cyber Threat
3 25 (7.31%) Management Information System
4 17 (4.97%) Onboarding
5 13 (3.80%) Security Operations Centre
6 12 (3.51%) Cyber Defence
6 12 (3.51%) Self-Motivation
7 10 (2.92%) Mobile App
8 9 (2.63%) Cyber Security Posture
8 9 (2.63%) Operational Technology
9 8 (2.34%) Blog
10 7 (2.05%) Cloud Native
11 6 (1.75%) Cyberattack
11 6 (1.75%) Data Centre
11 6 (1.75%) Enterprise Software
11 6 (1.75%) NHS
12 5 (1.46%) PKI
13 4 (1.17%) Cyber Kill Chain
13 4 (1.17%) Insider Threat
14 3 (0.88%) Cloud Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 51 (14.91%) Windows
2 44 (12.87%) Linux
3 18 (5.26%) Windows Server
4 12 (3.51%) Android
4 12 (3.51%) Apple iOS
5 5 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.17%) Kali Linux
6 4 (1.17%) Unix
7 3 (0.88%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.58%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 262 (76.61%) Cybersecurity
2 112 (32.75%) Vulnerability Management
3 95 (27.78%) Incident Response
4 94 (27.49%) SIEM
5 74 (21.64%) Security Operations
6 73 (21.35%) Security Testing
7 70 (20.47%) Cloud Security
8 69 (20.18%) Red Team
9 68 (19.88%) Information Security
10 58 (16.96%) Problem-Solving
11 53 (15.50%) Offensive Security
12 50 (14.62%) Disaster Recovery
13 47 (13.74%) Continuous Improvement
14 46 (13.45%) Mentoring
14 46 (13.45%) Threat Detection
15 44 (12.87%) Vulnerability Remediation
16 43 (12.57%) Threat Intelligence
17 42 (12.28%) Application Security
18 41 (11.99%) Incident Management
19 40 (11.70%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 36 (10.53%) PowerShell
2 34 (9.94%) Python
3 13 (3.80%) Java
4 10 (2.92%) Bash
5 8 (2.34%) Go
6 7 (2.05%) SQL
7 6 (1.75%) Bicep
8 3 (0.88%) C
8 3 (0.88%) C#
8 3 (0.88%) C++
8 3 (0.88%) Objective-C
8 3 (0.88%) Perl
8 3 (0.88%) PHP
8 3 (0.88%) Ruby
8 3 (0.88%) Rust
9 2 (0.58%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.58%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (0.58%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 58 (16.96%) CISSP
2 51 (14.91%) Security Cleared
3 49 (14.33%) CREST Certified
4 46 (13.45%) CISM
5 39 (11.40%) SC Cleared
6 33 (9.65%) OSCP
7 32 (9.36%) Degree
8 24 (7.02%) Cisco Certification
9 20 (5.85%) CHECK Team Member
10 18 (5.26%) CompTIA Security+
11 15 (4.39%) CCNP
12 13 (3.80%) CEH
12 13 (3.80%) GIAC
13 11 (3.22%) DV Cleared
14 10 (2.92%) CCNA
14 10 (2.92%) CHECK Team Leader
15 9 (2.63%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 9 (2.63%) AWS Certification
16 8 (2.34%) CCSP
17 7 (2.05%) OSCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 91 (26.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 60 (17.54%) NIST
3 43 (12.57%) GDPR
4 38 (11.11%) Cyber Essentials
5 19 (5.56%) GRC
5 19 (5.56%) PCI DSS
6 13 (3.80%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 13 (3.80%) NCSC
7 9 (2.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 9 (2.63%) SOC 2
8 7 (2.05%) Actionable Recommendations
9 5 (1.46%) QA
10 4 (1.17%) Accessibility
10 4 (1.17%) Def Stans
10 4 (1.17%) NIST 800
11 3 (0.88%) SLA
12 2 (0.58%) COBIT
12 2 (0.58%) Data Quality
13 1 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 1 (0.29%) ITGC
System Software
1 38 (11.11%) Active Directory
2 10 (2.92%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (1.46%) Virtual Machines
4 4 (1.17%) Docker
5 3 (0.88%) EMC RecoverPoint
6 2 (0.58%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.58%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 2 (0.58%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 21 (6.14%) Nmap
2 19 (5.56%) Kubernetes
3 14 (4.09%) Nessus
4 8 (2.34%) Terraform
5 7 (2.05%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (1.46%) Ansible
6 5 (1.46%) Red Hat Satellite
6 5 (1.46%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.88%) SCCM
7 3 (0.88%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
7 3 (0.88%) VxRail
8 2 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.29%) CASB
9 1 (0.29%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 1 (0.29%) Consul
9 1 (0.29%) CSIRT
9 1 (0.29%) Network Intrusion Detection System
9 1 (0.29%) OpenVAS
9 1 (0.29%) Packer
9 1 (0.29%) Puppet
Vendors
1 67 (19.59%) Microsoft
2 49 (14.33%) Cisco
3 47 (13.74%) Palo Alto
4 45 (13.16%) Qualys
5 34 (9.94%) Aruba
6 22 (6.43%) Splunk
7 13 (3.80%) CrowdStrike
7 13 (3.80%) Rapid7
8 12 (3.51%) Tenable
9 11 (3.22%) Sophos
10 10 (2.92%) Fortinet
10 10 (2.92%) VMware
11 8 (2.34%) Zscaler
12 7 (2.05%) ServiceNow
13 6 (1.75%) CheckPoint
13 6 (1.75%) Okta
14 5 (1.46%) Ivanti
14 5 (1.46%) Oracle
14 5 (1.46%) Red Hat
14 5 (1.46%) TOWER Software