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

6 months to
18 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 441 382 405
Rank change year-on-year -59 +23 +84
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 250 246 486
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.32% 0.66% 0.59%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.43% 0.71% 0.69%
Number of salaries quoted 167 193 381
10th Percentile £42,500 £45,000 £38,750
25th Percentile £50,000 £58,750 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £67,500 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.70% +3.85% -3.70%
75th Percentile £87,500 £85,000 £82,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £97,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £65,000 £67,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year -3.70% +8.00% -9.68%

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 58,111 34,588 70,802
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 75.51% 93.07% 85.92%
Number of salaries quoted 36,574 20,539 53,747
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £78,750 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £103,750 £93,750
UK median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -10.51%

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 18 April 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 18 April 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 -10 106 £78,750 +8.62% 41
South West -5 53 £55,000 -18.52% 20
South East -56 29 £72,500 +16.00% 20
North of England -59 26 £58,000 -2.11% 6
Midlands -40 25 £52,500 -22.22% 5
West Midlands -33 16 £65,000 -3.70% 5
Yorkshire -55 14 £55,000 +7.32% 2
East Midlands -43 9 £51,058 +27.65%
North West -37 7 £56,000 -8.20% 3
North East -28 5 £75,000 +12.36% 1
East of England -32 3 £35,000 - 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 4 (1.60%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.20%) Confluence
2 3 (1.20%) IIS
2 3 (1.20%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.40%) Apache
3 1 (0.40%) Drupal
3 1 (0.40%) nginx
3 1 (0.40%) WordPress
Business Applications
1 1 (0.40%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 61 (24.40%) Azure
2 59 (23.60%) AWS
3 21 (8.40%) GCP
4 17 (6.80%) Microsoft 365
5 12 (4.80%) GitHub
6 11 (4.40%) Azure Sentinel
6 11 (4.40%) Entra ID
7 9 (3.60%) Microsoft Purview
8 8 (3.20%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (2.00%) SaaS
10 4 (1.60%) Amazon EKS
10 4 (1.60%) AWS CloudFormation
10 4 (1.60%) Azure Key Vault
10 4 (1.60%) Mimecast
11 3 (1.20%) Azure DevOps
12 2 (0.80%) Cloudflare
12 2 (0.80%) Dynamics 365
12 2 (0.80%) Figma
12 2 (0.80%) Power Platform
12 2 (0.80%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 47 (18.80%) Firewall
2 26 (10.40%) Network Security
3 20 (8.00%) Wireless
4 18 (7.20%) VPN
5 14 (5.60%) TCP/IP
6 13 (5.20%) DNS
7 9 (3.60%) Intrusion Detection
8 8 (3.20%) VLAN
9 7 (2.80%) Cisco ISE
10 6 (2.40%) Internet
11 4 (1.60%) Cisco Nexus
11 4 (1.60%) HTTPS
12 3 (1.20%) DMARC
12 3 (1.20%) DMZ
12 3 (1.20%) LAN
12 3 (1.20%) Modbus
12 3 (1.20%) SSL
12 3 (1.20%) VoIP
12 3 (1.20%) WAN
12 3 (1.20%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.20%) Amazon RDS
1 3 (1.20%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.80%) Power BI
3 1 (0.40%) InterSystems Cache
3 1 (0.40%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.40%) Redis
Development Applications
1 20 (8.00%) Burp Suite
1 20 (8.00%) Metasploit
2 7 (2.80%) Jenkins
2 7 (2.80%) JIRA
3 6 (2.40%) Bitbucket
4 2 (0.80%) Git
4 2 (0.80%) NUnit
5 1 (0.40%) Gatling
5 1 (0.40%) IDA Disassembler
5 1 (0.40%) JMeter
5 1 (0.40%) Vagrant
General
1 80 (32.00%) Social Skills
2 74 (29.60%) Finance
3 25 (10.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 23 (9.20%) Public Sector
5 22 (8.80%) Banking
5 22 (8.80%) Law
6 20 (8.00%) Retail
7 16 (6.40%) Analytical Skills
8 9 (3.60%) Legal
9 7 (2.80%) Marketing
9 7 (2.80%) Pharmaceutical
10 5 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
11 4 (1.60%) Financial Institution
11 4 (1.60%) Telecoms
12 3 (1.20%) Aerospace
12 3 (1.20%) Back Office
12 3 (1.20%) Manufacturing
12 3 (1.20%) Military
13 2 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.80%) Public Speaking
Job Titles
1 46 (18.40%) Consultant
2 45 (18.00%) Security Consultant
3 37 (14.80%) Analyst
4 35 (14.00%) Senior
5 31 (12.40%) Tester
6 30 (12.00%) Penetration Tester
6 30 (12.00%) Security Analyst
7 26 (10.40%) Cybersecurity Consultant
8 24 (9.60%) Security Manager
9 20 (8.00%) Lead
9 20 (8.00%) Security Engineer
10 17 (6.80%) Security Specialist
11 15 (6.00%) Senior Analyst
11 15 (6.00%) Senior Security Analyst
12 11 (4.40%) Information Analyst
12 11 (4.40%) Information Security Analyst
13 10 (4.00%) Team Leader
14 9 (3.60%) Applications Engineer
14 9 (3.60%) Head of Security
14 9 (3.60%) Test Team Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.60%) .NET
2 3 (1.20%) .NET Framework
3 2 (0.80%) AngularJS
3 2 (0.80%) ASP.NET
3 2 (0.80%) ASP.NET Core
3 2 (0.80%) Entity Framework
3 2 (0.80%) OAuth
3 2 (0.80%) OAuth2
3 2 (0.80%) OpenAPI
3 2 (0.80%) OpenID
3 2 (0.80%) RESTful
3 2 (0.80%) RxJS
3 2 (0.80%) Swagger
3 2 (0.80%) Vitest
4 1 (0.40%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.40%) LDAP
4 1 (0.40%) Memcached
Miscellaneous
1 64 (25.60%) Security Posture
2 29 (11.60%) Mobile App
3 25 (10.00%) Cyber Defence
4 23 (9.20%) Cyber Threat
5 18 (7.20%) Management Information System
6 9 (3.60%) Self-Motivation
7 7 (2.80%) Blog
7 7 (2.80%) Data Centre
7 7 (2.80%) Operational Technology
8 6 (2.40%) Insider Threat
9 5 (2.00%) Cloud Native
9 5 (2.00%) Cyber Security Posture
9 5 (2.00%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (2.00%) PKI
10 4 (1.60%) Cyberattack
10 4 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.60%) Public Cloud
10 4 (1.60%) Security Operations Centre
11 3 (1.20%) Renewable Energy
11 3 (1.20%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 30 (12.00%) Windows
2 29 (11.60%) Linux
3 12 (4.80%) Android
3 12 (4.80%) Apple iOS
4 4 (1.60%) Unix
4 4 (1.60%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.80%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 158 (63.20%) Cybersecurity
2 85 (34.00%) Red Team
3 78 (31.20%) Incident Response
4 61 (24.40%) Information Security
5 57 (22.80%) Application Security
6 53 (21.20%) Mentoring
7 52 (20.80%) Offensive Security
8 50 (20.00%) SIEM
9 45 (18.00%) Problem-Solving
9 45 (18.00%) Security Testing
10 44 (17.60%) Vulnerability Management
11 42 (16.80%) Agile
12 36 (14.40%) Cloud Security
13 33 (13.20%) Security Operations
14 31 (12.40%) Business Strategy
14 31 (12.40%) Threat Modelling
15 29 (11.60%) Business Transformation
15 29 (11.60%) Internal Audit
16 28 (11.20%) Coaching
16 28 (11.20%) Ethical Hacking
Programming Languages
1 46 (18.40%) Python
2 40 (16.00%) PowerShell
3 34 (13.60%) Bash
4 14 (5.60%) Go
4 14 (5.60%) Java
5 7 (2.80%) C#
5 7 (2.80%) Perl
6 6 (2.40%) C
6 6 (2.40%) C++
6 6 (2.40%) SQL
7 5 (2.00%) Ruby
8 4 (1.60%) Bicep
9 3 (1.20%) Objective-C
9 3 (1.20%) Rust
10 2 (0.80%) Kusto Query Language
10 2 (0.80%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.40%) PHP
Qualifications
1 82 (32.80%) CREST Certified
2 71 (28.40%) OSCP
3 61 (24.40%) CISSP
4 47 (18.80%) Security Cleared
5 44 (17.60%) Degree
6 39 (15.60%) SC Cleared
7 29 (11.60%) CEH
7 29 (11.60%) Cisco Certification
7 29 (11.60%) CISM
8 28 (11.20%) CHECK Team Member
9 24 (9.60%) CHECK Team Leader
10 21 (8.40%) CCSAM
11 20 (8.00%) CCNA
12 18 (7.20%) CompTIA Security+
13 16 (6.40%) GIAC
14 15 (6.00%) DV Cleared
15 13 (5.20%) CCNP
16 12 (4.80%) GPEN
17 11 (4.40%) SANS
18 9 (3.60%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 81 (32.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 45 (18.00%) NIST
3 37 (14.80%) GDPR
4 31 (12.40%) Cyber Essentials
5 18 (7.20%) Actionable Recommendations
6 14 (5.60%) PCI DSS
7 12 (4.80%) NCSC
8 11 (4.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 9 (3.60%) Accessibility
10 8 (3.20%) GRC
11 6 (2.40%) SOC 2
12 4 (1.60%) ITGC
13 3 (1.20%) COBIT
13 3 (1.20%) NIST 800
13 3 (1.20%) QA
13 3 (1.20%) RMADS
13 3 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 2 (0.80%) Data Quality
14 2 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 1 (0.40%) HIPAA
System Software
1 25 (10.00%) Active Directory
2 7 (2.80%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.20%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (0.80%) EMC RecoverPoint
4 2 (0.80%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.40%) Docker
5 1 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 13 (5.20%) Nessus
2 12 (4.80%) Kubernetes
3 11 (4.40%) Nmap
4 8 (3.20%) Microsoft Intune
5 7 (2.80%) Terraform
6 5 (2.00%) Ansible
7 4 (1.60%) CSIRT
7 4 (1.60%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (1.20%) ArcSight ESM
8 3 (1.20%) FortiGate
8 3 (1.20%) QRadar
9 2 (0.80%) Jamf Pro
9 2 (0.80%) VxRail
10 1 (0.40%) Consul
10 1 (0.40%) Packer
10 1 (0.40%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.40%) Puppet
10 1 (0.40%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 55 (22.00%) Microsoft
2 14 (5.60%) Splunk
3 13 (5.20%) Cisco
4 10 (4.00%) Sophos
4 10 (4.00%) VMware
5 9 (3.60%) Zscaler
6 7 (2.80%) CheckPoint
6 7 (2.80%) Fortinet
7 5 (2.00%) CrowdStrike
7 5 (2.00%) Qualys
7 5 (2.00%) TOWER Software
8 4 (1.60%) Okta
9 3 (1.20%) ArcSight
9 3 (1.20%) CyberArk
9 3 (1.20%) Dell
9 3 (1.20%) LogLogic
9 3 (1.20%) McAfee
9 3 (1.20%) Palo Alto
9 3 (1.20%) Veeam
10 2 (0.80%) DevExpress