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

6 months to
9 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 412 457 469
Rank change year-on-year +45 +12 -32
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 334 203 422
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.39% 0.47% 0.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.52% 0.52% 0.57%
Number of salaries quoted 215 169 332
10th Percentile £41,250 £45,350 £37,850
25th Percentile £49,875 £53,688 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.70% +3.85% +4.00%
75th Percentile £87,500 £78,750 £81,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £102,250
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 64,229 39,036 74,223
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 74.05% 90.64% 82.57%
Number of salaries quoted 45,346 22,191 53,359
10th Percentile £31,000 £29,000 £29,500
25th Percentile £41,250 £39,679 £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% -8.71%

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 9 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 9 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 +30 146 £82,500 +13.79% 37
South East +8 70 £71,250 +18.75% 22
South West -16 50 £50,000 -25.93% 14
Midlands -29 29 £58,750 -12.96% 3
North of England -51 24 £56,000 -2.61% 1
West Midlands -30 20 £67,500 - 3
Yorkshire -37 13 £55,000 - 1
East Midlands -21 9 £46,743 +16.86%
North East -42 6 £75,000 +3.18%
East of England - 6 £32,500 - 6
North West -17 5 £67,500 +13.92%
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 (2.69%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (2.10%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.20%) Confluence
4 3 (0.90%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.90%) IIS
5 1 (0.30%) Apache
5 1 (0.30%) Drupal
5 1 (0.30%) nginx
5 1 (0.30%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.30%) Magento
1 1 (0.30%) SAP EHS
1 1 (0.30%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 82 (24.55%) AWS
2 78 (23.35%) Azure
3 35 (10.48%) Microsoft 365
4 26 (7.78%) GCP
5 16 (4.79%) Entra ID
6 9 (2.69%) GitHub
7 8 (2.40%) Azure Sentinel
7 8 (2.40%) SaaS
8 6 (1.80%) Microsoft Purview
9 5 (1.50%) Amazon Bedrock
9 5 (1.50%) Cloud Computing
9 5 (1.50%) GitHub Actions
10 4 (1.20%) Amazon EKS
10 4 (1.20%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 4 (1.20%) AWS CloudFormation
10 4 (1.20%) Azure Key Vault
10 4 (1.20%) Mimecast
10 4 (1.20%) Rubrik
11 3 (0.90%) Nutanix
11 3 (0.90%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 83 (24.85%) Firewall
2 30 (8.98%) Cisco Nexus
2 30 (8.98%) Network Security
3 29 (8.68%) Wi-Fi
4 26 (7.78%) Internet
5 21 (6.29%) VPN
6 19 (5.69%) LAN
6 19 (5.69%) WAN
7 17 (5.09%) Wireless
8 13 (3.89%) DNS
9 11 (3.29%) TCP/IP
10 9 (2.69%) Cisco ISE
11 8 (2.40%) VLAN
12 6 (1.80%) Intrusion Detection
13 5 (1.50%) DHCP
14 4 (1.20%) HTTPS
15 3 (0.90%) DMZ
15 3 (0.90%) Kerberos
15 3 (0.90%) SSL
15 3 (0.90%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (2.10%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.90%) Amazon RDS
2 3 (0.90%) Hadoop
2 3 (0.90%) MongoDB
2 3 (0.90%) NoSQL
3 2 (0.60%) KNIME
4 1 (0.30%) InterSystems Cache
4 1 (0.30%) Power BI
4 1 (0.30%) Redis
Development Applications
1 19 (5.69%) Burp Suite
2 18 (5.39%) Metasploit
3 12 (3.59%) JIRA
4 6 (1.80%) Bitbucket
5 4 (1.20%) Jenkins
6 3 (0.90%) Git
6 3 (0.90%) Yeoman
7 2 (0.60%) Gatling
7 2 (0.60%) NUnit
7 2 (0.60%) Snyk
8 1 (0.30%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.30%) GitLab
8 1 (0.30%) IDA Disassembler
8 1 (0.30%) JMeter
8 1 (0.30%) JUnit
8 1 (0.30%) Postman
8 1 (0.30%) Selenium
8 1 (0.30%) Vagrant
General
1 109 (32.63%) Social Skills
2 73 (21.86%) Finance
3 38 (11.38%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (10.18%) Public Sector
5 33 (9.88%) Law
6 21 (6.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 17 (5.09%) Retail
8 15 (4.49%) Banking
9 10 (2.99%) Legal
10 7 (2.10%) Marketing
10 7 (2.10%) Pharmaceutical
11 5 (1.50%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (1.20%) Financial Institution
12 4 (1.20%) Telecoms
13 3 (0.90%) Back Office
13 3 (0.90%) Digital Health
13 3 (0.90%) Digital Healthcare
13 3 (0.90%) Military
14 2 (0.60%) Organisational Skills
14 2 (0.60%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 85 (25.45%) Senior
2 64 (19.16%) Analyst
3 53 (15.87%) Security Analyst
4 52 (15.57%) Penetration Tester
4 52 (15.57%) Tester
5 42 (12.57%) Senior Analyst
6 40 (11.98%) Consultant
7 39 (11.68%) Security Consultant
8 38 (11.38%) Senior Security Analyst
9 28 (8.38%) Cybersecurity Analyst
10 27 (8.08%) Lead
11 25 (7.49%) Senior Cybersecurity Analyst
12 24 (7.19%) Security Engineer
13 22 (6.59%) Security Manager
13 22 (6.59%) Security Specialist
14 19 (5.69%) Network Analyst
14 19 (5.69%) Senior Network Analyst
15 17 (5.09%) Cybersecurity Consultant
16 16 (4.79%) Team Leader
17 15 (4.49%) Network Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.20%) .NET
1 4 (1.20%) RESTful
2 3 (0.90%) .NET Framework
2 3 (0.90%) Kafka
2 3 (0.90%) LDAP
2 3 (0.90%) OAuth
3 2 (0.60%) AngularJS
3 2 (0.60%) ASP.NET
3 2 (0.60%) ASP.NET Core
3 2 (0.60%) Entity Framework
3 2 (0.60%) OAuth2
3 2 (0.60%) OpenAPI
3 2 (0.60%) OpenID
3 2 (0.60%) RxJS
3 2 (0.60%) Swagger
3 2 (0.60%) Vitest
4 1 (0.30%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.30%) Memcached
4 1 (0.30%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 73 (21.86%) Security Posture
2 31 (9.28%) Cyber Threat
3 27 (8.08%) Cyber Defence
4 26 (7.78%) Mobile App
5 23 (6.89%) Management Information System
6 14 (4.19%) Self-Motivation
7 13 (3.89%) Security Operations Centre
8 12 (3.59%) Onboarding
9 9 (2.69%) Data Centre
10 8 (2.40%) Blog
11 7 (2.10%) Cloud Native
11 7 (2.10%) Cyber Security Posture
11 7 (2.10%) Cyberattack
11 7 (2.10%) Operational Technology
12 6 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
13 4 (1.20%) Insider Threat
14 3 (0.90%) Cloud Security Posture
14 3 (0.90%) Cyber Kill Chain
14 3 (0.90%) Hybrid Cloud
14 3 (0.90%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 50 (14.97%) Windows
2 41 (12.28%) Linux
3 16 (4.79%) Android
3 16 (4.79%) Apple iOS
3 16 (4.79%) Windows Server
4 4 (1.20%) Unix
5 3 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.60%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.60%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.30%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 238 (71.26%) Cybersecurity
2 101 (30.24%) Incident Response
3 97 (29.04%) Vulnerability Management
4 85 (25.45%) Red Team
5 79 (23.65%) SIEM
6 69 (20.66%) Security Testing
7 63 (18.86%) Cloud Security
7 63 (18.86%) Offensive Security
7 63 (18.86%) Security Operations
8 60 (17.96%) Application Security
9 57 (17.07%) Information Security
9 57 (17.07%) Mentoring
9 57 (17.07%) Problem-Solving
10 48 (14.37%) Disaster Recovery
11 43 (12.87%) Continuous Improvement
12 40 (11.98%) Threat Modelling
13 38 (11.38%) Threat Intelligence
14 35 (10.48%) Vulnerability Remediation
15 33 (9.88%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
15 33 (9.88%) Threat Detection
Programming Languages
1 45 (13.47%) PowerShell
2 44 (13.17%) Python
3 22 (6.59%) Bash
4 15 (4.49%) Java
5 12 (3.59%) Go
6 7 (2.10%) SQL
7 6 (1.80%) Bicep
8 5 (1.50%) C#
9 4 (1.20%) C
9 4 (1.20%) C++
10 3 (0.90%) Objective-C
10 3 (0.90%) Perl
10 3 (0.90%) PHP
10 3 (0.90%) Ruby
10 3 (0.90%) Rust
11 2 (0.60%) JavaScript
11 2 (0.60%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.60%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 74 (22.16%) CREST Certified
2 60 (17.96%) CISSP
3 57 (17.07%) OSCP
4 52 (15.57%) Security Cleared
5 43 (12.87%) CISM
6 41 (12.28%) SC Cleared
7 33 (9.88%) Degree
8 28 (8.38%) CHECK Team Member
9 24 (7.19%) CHECK Team Leader
10 22 (6.59%) Cisco Certification
11 21 (6.29%) CEH
12 18 (5.39%) CompTIA Security+
13 17 (5.09%) CCSAM
14 16 (4.79%) CCNP
15 14 (4.19%) CCNA
15 14 (4.19%) DV Cleared
16 13 (3.89%) GIAC
17 8 (2.40%) OSCE
17 8 (2.40%) SANS
18 7 (2.10%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (26.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 50 (14.97%) NIST
3 42 (12.57%) Cyber Essentials
3 42 (12.57%) GDPR
4 18 (5.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 18 (5.39%) PCI DSS
5 14 (4.19%) NCSC
6 12 (3.59%) Actionable Recommendations
6 12 (3.59%) GRC
7 8 (2.40%) Accessibility
8 7 (2.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 6 (1.80%) SOC 2
10 5 (1.50%) QA
11 4 (1.20%) Def Stans
11 4 (1.20%) NIST 800
12 3 (0.90%) COBIT
12 3 (0.90%) Data Quality
12 3 (0.90%) SLA
13 1 (0.30%) GxP
13 1 (0.30%) WCAG
System Software
1 39 (11.68%) Active Directory
2 9 (2.69%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (1.20%) Docker
3 4 (1.20%) EMC RecoverPoint
4 3 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (0.90%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 20 (5.99%) Kubernetes
2 14 (4.19%) Nessus
3 11 (3.29%) Microsoft Intune
3 11 (3.29%) Nmap
4 10 (2.99%) Terraform
5 5 (1.50%) Ansible
6 4 (1.20%) VxRail
7 3 (0.90%) FortiGate
7 3 (0.90%) Red Hat Satellite
7 3 (0.90%) SCCM
8 2 (0.60%) CSIRT
8 2 (0.60%) Jamf Pro
8 2 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.30%) CASB
9 1 (0.30%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 1 (0.30%) Consul
9 1 (0.30%) OpenVAS
9 1 (0.30%) Packer
9 1 (0.30%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.30%) Puppet
Vendors
1 66 (19.76%) Microsoft
2 36 (10.78%) Cisco
3 34 (10.18%) Qualys
4 32 (9.58%) Palo Alto
5 26 (7.78%) Aruba
6 22 (6.59%) Splunk
7 14 (4.19%) Sophos
8 12 (3.59%) CrowdStrike
8 12 (3.59%) VMware
9 11 (3.29%) Zscaler
10 9 (2.69%) CheckPoint
11 8 (2.40%) Fortinet
12 7 (2.10%) Tenable
13 5 (1.50%) Rapid7
13 5 (1.50%) ServiceNow
13 5 (1.50%) TOWER Software
14 4 (1.20%) Okta
15 3 (0.90%) CyberArk
15 3 (0.90%) New Relic
15 3 (0.90%) SolarWinds