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

6 months to
15 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 424 425 448
Rank change year-on-year +1 +23 +13
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 298 217 455
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.36% 0.55% 0.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.49% 0.59% 0.59%
Number of salaries quoted 198 166 362
10th Percentile £42,500 £43,125 £38,774
25th Percentile £48,561 £55,000 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.70% +3.85% +2.36%
75th Percentile £88,625 £79,500 £82,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £97,500
UK median annual salary £70,000 £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 60,527 36,659 77,560
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 72.97% 92.71% 82.14%
Number of salaries quoted 42,554 19,995 56,288
10th Percentile £30,625 £29,000 £29,290
25th Percentile £41,250 £40,000 £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 £78,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.54%

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 June 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 June 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 +15 132 £82,500 +17.86% 40
South East +3 53 £71,250 +1.79% 26
South West -23 45 £50,000 -27.27% 15
Midlands -26 29 £51,058 -24.36% 8
North of England -49 24 £56,000 -2.61% 12
West Midlands -29 18 £65,000 -3.70% 6
Yorkshire -32 13 £55,000 - 7
East Midlands -10 11 £48,901 +22.25% 2
East of England -15 6 £32,500 - 1
North East -45 6 £75,000 +3.18% 1
North West -20 5 £56,000 -8.20% 4
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 (2.35%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (2.01%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.01%) Confluence
3 3 (1.01%) IIS
4 1 (0.34%) Apache
4 1 (0.34%) Drupal
4 1 (0.34%) nginx
4 1 (0.34%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (0.67%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.34%) Magento
1 1 (0.34%) SAP EHS
1 1 (0.34%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 76 (25.50%) AWS
2 73 (24.50%) Azure
3 31 (10.40%) Microsoft 365
4 29 (9.73%) GCP
5 14 (4.70%) Entra ID
6 11 (3.69%) Azure Sentinel
7 9 (3.02%) GitHub
8 8 (2.68%) SaaS
9 5 (1.68%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (1.68%) Microsoft Purview
10 4 (1.34%) Amazon EKS
10 4 (1.34%) AWS CloudFormation
10 4 (1.34%) Azure Key Vault
10 4 (1.34%) Mimecast
11 3 (1.01%) Azure DevOps
11 3 (1.01%) OneDrive
11 3 (1.01%) Rubrik
12 2 (0.67%) Cloudflare
12 2 (0.67%) Figma
12 2 (0.67%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 62 (20.81%) Firewall
2 26 (8.72%) Network Security
3 20 (6.71%) Wireless
4 19 (6.38%) VPN
5 16 (5.37%) Cisco Nexus
6 15 (5.03%) Internet
6 15 (5.03%) Wi-Fi
7 11 (3.69%) DNS
8 10 (3.36%) TCP/IP
9 9 (3.02%) LAN
9 9 (3.02%) WAN
10 8 (2.68%) Cisco ISE
11 7 (2.35%) VLAN
12 6 (2.01%) Intrusion Detection
13 4 (1.34%) DHCP
13 4 (1.34%) HTTPS
14 3 (1.01%) DMARC
14 3 (1.01%) DMZ
14 3 (1.01%) SSL
14 3 (1.01%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.01%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
3 2 (0.67%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.34%) InterSystems Cache
4 1 (0.34%) KNIME
4 1 (0.34%) Power BI
4 1 (0.34%) Redis
Development Applications
1 21 (7.05%) Burp Suite
2 20 (6.71%) Metasploit
3 8 (2.68%) JIRA
4 6 (2.01%) Bitbucket
5 4 (1.34%) Jenkins
6 3 (1.01%) Git
7 2 (0.67%) Gatling
7 2 (0.67%) NUnit
7 2 (0.67%) Yeoman
8 1 (0.34%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.34%) GitLab
8 1 (0.34%) IDA Disassembler
8 1 (0.34%) JMeter
8 1 (0.34%) JUnit
8 1 (0.34%) Postman
8 1 (0.34%) Selenium
8 1 (0.34%) Snyk
8 1 (0.34%) Vagrant
General
1 104 (34.90%) Social Skills
2 71 (23.83%) Finance
3 33 (11.07%) Analytical Skills
4 31 (10.40%) Law
5 28 (9.40%) Public Sector
6 22 (7.38%) Retail
7 21 (7.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 17 (5.70%) Banking
9 10 (3.36%) Legal
10 7 (2.35%) Pharmaceutical
11 5 (1.68%) Marketing
12 4 (1.34%) Financial Institution
12 4 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (1.34%) Telecoms
13 3 (1.01%) Back Office
14 2 (0.67%) Social Housing
15 1 (0.34%) Aerospace
15 1 (0.34%) Digital Health
15 1 (0.34%) Digital Healthcare
15 1 (0.34%) French Language
Job Titles
1 68 (22.82%) Senior
2 48 (16.11%) Analyst
3 44 (14.77%) Consultant
3 44 (14.77%) Penetration Tester
3 44 (14.77%) Tester
4 43 (14.43%) Security Consultant
5 40 (13.42%) Security Analyst
6 31 (10.40%) Senior Analyst
7 30 (10.07%) Senior Security Analyst
8 25 (8.39%) Lead
9 24 (8.05%) Security Manager
10 19 (6.38%) Cybersecurity Consultant
10 19 (6.38%) Security Specialist
11 18 (6.04%) Cybersecurity Analyst
11 18 (6.04%) Security Engineer
12 15 (5.03%) Senior Cybersecurity Analyst
12 15 (5.03%) Team Leader
13 12 (4.03%) Senior Penetration Tester
13 12 (4.03%) Senior Tester
14 10 (3.36%) Senior Network Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.34%) .NET
2 3 (1.01%) .NET Framework
2 3 (1.01%) OAuth
2 3 (1.01%) RESTful
3 2 (0.67%) AngularJS
3 2 (0.67%) ASP.NET
3 2 (0.67%) ASP.NET Core
3 2 (0.67%) Entity Framework
3 2 (0.67%) LDAP
3 2 (0.67%) OAuth2
3 2 (0.67%) OpenAPI
3 2 (0.67%) OpenID
3 2 (0.67%) RxJS
3 2 (0.67%) Swagger
3 2 (0.67%) Vitest
4 1 (0.34%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.34%) Memcached
4 1 (0.34%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 76 (25.50%) Security Posture
2 31 (10.40%) Cyber Defence
3 30 (10.07%) Mobile App
4 29 (9.73%) Cyber Threat
5 19 (6.38%) Management Information System
6 13 (4.36%) Security Operations Centre
7 12 (4.03%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (2.68%) Blog
8 8 (2.68%) Data Centre
9 7 (2.35%) Cyber Security Posture
9 7 (2.35%) Insider Threat
10 6 (2.01%) Cloud Native
10 6 (2.01%) Onboarding
11 5 (1.68%) Cyberattack
11 5 (1.68%) Operational Technology
12 4 (1.34%) Enterprise Software
13 3 (1.01%) CCTV
13 3 (1.01%) Hybrid Cloud
13 3 (1.01%) Public Cloud
14 2 (0.67%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 40 (13.42%) Windows
2 33 (11.07%) Linux
3 18 (6.04%) Android
3 18 (6.04%) Apple iOS
4 11 (3.69%) Windows Server
5 4 (1.34%) Unix
6 2 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.67%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 202 (67.79%) Cybersecurity
2 95 (31.88%) Red Team
3 93 (31.21%) Incident Response
4 78 (26.17%) Vulnerability Management
5 66 (22.15%) Offensive Security
6 63 (21.14%) SIEM
7 60 (20.13%) Security Testing
8 58 (19.46%) Information Security
9 57 (19.13%) Application Security
9 57 (19.13%) Mentoring
9 57 (19.13%) Problem-Solving
10 51 (17.11%) Cloud Security
11 49 (16.44%) Security Operations
12 38 (12.75%) Agile
13 36 (12.08%) Threat Modelling
14 35 (11.74%) Disaster Recovery
15 33 (11.07%) Continuous Improvement
15 33 (11.07%) Threat Intelligence
16 31 (10.40%) Business Strategy
16 31 (10.40%) Coaching
Programming Languages
1 43 (14.43%) PowerShell
1 43 (14.43%) Python
2 26 (8.72%) Bash
3 16 (5.37%) Java
4 14 (4.70%) Go
5 5 (1.68%) Bicep
5 5 (1.68%) C#
5 5 (1.68%) Perl
6 4 (1.34%) C
6 4 (1.34%) C++
6 4 (1.34%) SQL
7 3 (1.01%) Objective-C
7 3 (1.01%) Ruby
7 3 (1.01%) Rust
8 2 (0.67%) Kusto Query Language
8 2 (0.67%) PHP
8 2 (0.67%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.34%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 80 (26.85%) CREST Certified
2 67 (22.48%) OSCP
3 58 (19.46%) CISSP
4 51 (17.11%) Security Cleared
5 43 (14.43%) SC Cleared
6 37 (12.42%) CISM
7 34 (11.41%) Degree
8 27 (9.06%) CHECK Team Leader
9 25 (8.39%) CEH
10 24 (8.05%) CHECK Team Member
11 23 (7.72%) Cisco Certification
12 21 (7.05%) CCSAM
12 21 (7.05%) CompTIA Security+
13 17 (5.70%) CCNA
14 15 (5.03%) CCNP
14 15 (5.03%) GIAC
15 13 (4.36%) DV Cleared
16 9 (3.02%) GPEN
17 8 (2.68%) OSCE
17 8 (2.68%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 80 (26.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 43 (14.43%) NIST
3 38 (12.75%) GDPR
4 36 (12.08%) Cyber Essentials
5 18 (6.04%) PCI DSS
6 16 (5.37%) Actionable Recommendations
7 15 (5.03%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 12 (4.03%) NCSC
9 11 (3.69%) GRC
10 7 (2.35%) Accessibility
11 6 (2.01%) SOC 2
12 5 (1.68%) QA
13 4 (1.34%) Def Stans
13 4 (1.34%) NIST 800
13 4 (1.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 3 (1.01%) COBIT
14 3 (1.01%) Data Quality
15 2 (0.67%) SLA
16 1 (0.34%) GxP
16 1 (0.34%) WCAG
System Software
1 35 (11.74%) Active Directory
2 7 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.01%) Docker
3 3 (1.01%) EMC RecoverPoint
3 3 (1.01%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (0.67%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 17 (5.70%) Kubernetes
2 13 (4.36%) Nessus
3 11 (3.69%) Microsoft Intune
3 11 (3.69%) Nmap
4 8 (2.68%) Terraform
5 5 (1.68%) Ansible
6 4 (1.34%) CSIRT
7 3 (1.01%) FortiGate
7 3 (1.01%) SCCM
7 3 (1.01%) VxRail
8 2 (0.67%) Jamf Pro
8 2 (0.67%) Red Hat Satellite
8 2 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.34%) CASB
9 1 (0.34%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 1 (0.34%) Consul
9 1 (0.34%) Packer
9 1 (0.34%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.34%) Puppet
Vendors
1 66 (22.15%) Microsoft
2 25 (8.39%) Cisco
3 18 (6.04%) Splunk
4 17 (5.70%) Qualys
5 16 (5.37%) Palo Alto
6 13 (4.36%) Sophos
7 12 (4.03%) Aruba
8 10 (3.36%) VMware
8 10 (3.36%) Zscaler
9 9 (3.02%) CrowdStrike
10 8 (2.68%) CheckPoint
10 8 (2.68%) Fortinet
11 5 (1.68%) Tenable
11 5 (1.68%) TOWER Software
12 4 (1.34%) Okta
13 3 (1.01%) Dell
13 3 (1.01%) Google
13 3 (1.01%) Rapid7
13 3 (1.01%) ServiceNow
13 3 (1.01%) Veeam