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

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 434 372 395
Rank change year-on-year -62 +23 +80
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 227 251 479
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.32% 0.69% 0.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.42% 0.74% 0.71%
Number of salaries quoted 157 195 381
10th Percentile £42,300 £46,600 £38,750
25th Percentile £50,000 £58,750 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £67,500 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year - +3.85% -6.07%
75th Percentile £90,000 £87,500 £82,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £95,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £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 54,028 34,071 67,502
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 76.72% 93.22% 86.35%
Number of salaries quoted 33,923 20,346 52,125
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £43,844 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £56,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £77,500 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £98,750 £103,750 £95,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -10.57%

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 1 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 1 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 -30 99 £77,250 +6.55% 31
South West +5 51 £62,500 -9.09% 23
Midlands -34 26 £52,500 -22.22% 9
South East -62 22 £75,000 +7.14% 22
North of England -63 19 £67,500 +10.66% 14
West Midlands -24 16 £60,000 -11.11% 7
East Midlands -36 10 £51,058 +27.65% 2
North West -38 7 £56,000 -10.40% 7
Yorkshire -47 7 £60,000 +17.07% 7
North East -23 5 £75,000 +12.36%
East of England -24 2 £57,500 - 6
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 3 (1.32%) Confluence
1 3 (1.32%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (0.88%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.44%) Apache
3 1 (0.44%) Drupal
3 1 (0.44%) IIS
3 1 (0.44%) nginx
3 1 (0.44%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (1.32%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.44%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 62 (27.31%) Azure
2 49 (21.59%) AWS
3 18 (7.93%) GCP
4 14 (6.17%) GitHub
4 14 (6.17%) Microsoft 365
5 11 (4.85%) Azure Sentinel
6 10 (4.41%) Entra ID
6 10 (4.41%) GitHub Actions
7 9 (3.96%) Microsoft Purview
8 5 (2.20%) Power Platform
9 4 (1.76%) Mimecast
9 4 (1.76%) Slack
10 3 (1.32%) Azure DevOps
10 3 (1.32%) Azure Key Vault
10 3 (1.32%) SaaS
11 2 (0.88%) Amazon EKS
11 2 (0.88%) AWS CloudFormation
11 2 (0.88%) Dynamics 365
11 2 (0.88%) Figma
11 2 (0.88%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 42 (18.50%) Firewall
2 25 (11.01%) Network Security
3 20 (8.81%) Wireless
4 16 (7.05%) VPN
5 14 (6.17%) DNS
6 13 (5.73%) TCP/IP
7 8 (3.52%) Intrusion Detection
7 8 (3.52%) VLAN
8 7 (3.08%) Cisco ISE
9 6 (2.64%) Wi-Fi
10 5 (2.20%) HTTP
11 4 (1.76%) Cisco Nexus
11 4 (1.76%) HTTPS
11 4 (1.76%) Wireshark
12 3 (1.32%) DHCP
12 3 (1.32%) DMARC
12 3 (1.32%) Ethernet
12 3 (1.32%) Internet
12 3 (1.32%) Modbus
12 3 (1.32%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (2.20%) Power BI
2 3 (1.32%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.32%) Tableau
3 1 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.44%) InterSystems Cache
3 1 (0.44%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.44%) Redis
Development Applications
1 21 (9.25%) Burp Suite
1 21 (9.25%) Metasploit
2 11 (4.85%) JIRA
3 9 (3.96%) Jenkins
4 6 (2.64%) Bitbucket
5 3 (1.32%) Git
6 2 (0.88%) IDA Disassembler
6 2 (0.88%) NUnit
7 1 (0.44%) Gatling
7 1 (0.44%) GitLab
7 1 (0.44%) JMeter
7 1 (0.44%) Vagrant
General
1 75 (33.04%) Social Skills
2 67 (29.52%) Finance
3 19 (8.37%) Analytical Skills
3 19 (8.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 17 (7.49%) Law
5 16 (7.05%) Banking
5 16 (7.05%) Retail
6 14 (6.17%) Public Sector
7 9 (3.96%) Legal
8 7 (3.08%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (2.64%) Marketing
10 5 (2.20%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (1.76%) Telecoms
12 3 (1.32%) Aerospace
12 3 (1.32%) Electronics
12 3 (1.32%) Manufacturing
12 3 (1.32%) Military
13 2 (0.88%) Financial Institution
13 2 (0.88%) Pharmaceutical
13 2 (0.88%) Public Speaking
Job Titles
1 42 (18.50%) Consultant
2 41 (18.06%) Security Consultant
3 37 (16.30%) Analyst
4 28 (12.33%) Security Analyst
5 27 (11.89%) Senior
6 24 (10.57%) Security Engineer
6 24 (10.57%) Tester
7 23 (10.13%) Penetration Tester
7 23 (10.13%) Security Manager
8 22 (9.69%) Cybersecurity Consultant
9 18 (7.93%) Security Specialist
10 15 (6.61%) Lead
11 12 (5.29%) Applications Engineer
11 12 (5.29%) Senior Analyst
11 12 (5.29%) Senior Security Analyst
12 11 (4.85%) IT Manager
13 9 (3.96%) Digital Analyst
13 9 (3.96%) Senior Digital Analyst
14 7 (3.08%) Head of Security
14 7 (3.08%) Threat Intelligence Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.76%) .NET
2 3 (1.32%) .NET Framework
3 2 (0.88%) AngularJS
3 2 (0.88%) ASP.NET
3 2 (0.88%) ASP.NET Core
3 2 (0.88%) Entity Framework
3 2 (0.88%) OpenAPI
3 2 (0.88%) RESTful
3 2 (0.88%) RxJS
3 2 (0.88%) Swagger
3 2 (0.88%) Vitest
4 1 (0.44%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.44%) JSON
4 1 (0.44%) LDAP
4 1 (0.44%) Memcached
4 1 (0.44%) OAuth
4 1 (0.44%) OAuth2
4 1 (0.44%) OpenID
4 1 (0.44%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 64 (28.19%) Security Posture
2 27 (11.89%) Cyber Defence
3 26 (11.45%) Mobile App
4 22 (9.69%) Cyber Threat
5 17 (7.49%) Management Information System
6 7 (3.08%) Data Centre
6 7 (3.08%) Insider Threat
7 6 (2.64%) Blog
7 6 (2.64%) Operational Technology
7 6 (2.64%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (2.20%) Analytical Mindset
8 5 (2.20%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (2.20%) PKI
9 4 (1.76%) Cyber Security Posture
9 4 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (1.76%) Public Cloud
10 3 (1.32%) Cloud Native
10 3 (1.32%) Renewable Energy
10 3 (1.32%) SCADA
10 3 (1.32%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 31 (13.66%) Linux
2 29 (12.78%) Windows
3 10 (4.41%) Android
3 10 (4.41%) Apple iOS
4 7 (3.08%) Unix
5 4 (1.76%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 130 (57.27%) Cybersecurity
2 78 (34.36%) Red Team
3 77 (33.92%) Incident Response
4 55 (24.23%) Application Security
5 48 (21.15%) Information Security
5 48 (21.15%) Offensive Security
6 47 (20.70%) Mentoring
6 47 (20.70%) Problem-Solving
7 44 (19.38%) SIEM
8 43 (18.94%) Agile
8 43 (18.94%) Vulnerability Management
9 34 (14.98%) Security Testing
10 31 (13.66%) Business Strategy
10 31 (13.66%) Internal Audit
10 31 (13.66%) Security Operations
10 31 (13.66%) Threat Modelling
11 29 (12.78%) Business Transformation
11 29 (12.78%) Cloud Security
12 28 (12.33%) Coaching
12 28 (12.33%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 55 (24.23%) Python
2 42 (18.50%) PowerShell
3 39 (17.18%) Bash
4 14 (6.17%) Go
5 12 (5.29%) Java
6 10 (4.41%) C
6 10 (4.41%) C++
7 7 (3.08%) C#
7 7 (3.08%) Perl
7 7 (3.08%) SQL
8 5 (2.20%) Ruby
9 3 (1.32%) Bicep
9 3 (1.32%) Objective-C
9 3 (1.32%) R
9 3 (1.32%) Rust
10 2 (0.88%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.44%) JavaScript
11 1 (0.44%) Kusto Query Language
11 1 (0.44%) PHP
11 1 (0.44%) Scala
Qualifications
1 74 (32.60%) CREST Certified
2 64 (28.19%) OSCP
3 53 (23.35%) CISSP
4 48 (21.15%) Degree
5 44 (19.38%) Security Cleared
6 37 (16.30%) SC Cleared
7 28 (12.33%) CEH
7 28 (12.33%) Cisco Certification
8 25 (11.01%) CHECK Team Member
9 21 (9.25%) CCSAM
10 20 (8.81%) CHECK Team Leader
11 19 (8.37%) CCNA
11 19 (8.37%) CISM
12 18 (7.93%) DV Cleared
13 17 (7.49%) CompTIA Security+
13 17 (7.49%) GIAC
14 13 (5.73%) GPEN
15 11 (4.85%) CCNP
15 11 (4.85%) CISA
15 11 (4.85%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (32.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 46 (20.26%) NIST
3 31 (13.66%) GDPR
4 25 (11.01%) Cyber Essentials
5 19 (8.37%) Actionable Recommendations
6 14 (6.17%) Accessibility
7 13 (5.73%) PCI DSS
8 11 (4.85%) NCSC
9 10 (4.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 6 (2.64%) GRC
11 3 (1.32%) ITGC
11 3 (1.32%) NIST 800
11 3 (1.32%) RMADS
11 3 (1.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.88%) COBIT
12 2 (0.88%) Data Quality
12 2 (0.88%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 2 (0.88%) SOC 2
13 1 (0.44%) GxP
13 1 (0.44%) HIPAA
System Software
1 22 (9.69%) Active Directory
2 5 (2.20%) Virtual Machines
2 5 (2.20%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.32%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (0.88%) EMC RecoverPoint
4 2 (0.88%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.44%) Docker
5 1 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 13 (5.73%) Nessus
2 12 (5.29%) Nmap
3 11 (4.85%) Kubernetes
4 7 (3.08%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (2.20%) Ansible
5 5 (2.20%) Terraform
6 4 (1.76%) CSIRT
7 3 (1.32%) ArcSight ESM
7 3 (1.32%) FortiGate
7 3 (1.32%) QRadar
7 3 (1.32%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.88%) Progress Chef
8 2 (0.88%) VxRail
9 1 (0.44%) Consul
9 1 (0.44%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.44%) Packer
9 1 (0.44%) Puppet
9 1 (0.44%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 57 (25.11%) Microsoft
2 14 (6.17%) Cisco
3 13 (5.73%) Splunk
4 10 (4.41%) Sophos
5 8 (3.52%) VMware
5 8 (3.52%) Zscaler
6 7 (3.08%) CheckPoint
6 7 (3.08%) Fortinet
7 5 (2.20%) Qualys
7 5 (2.20%) ServiceNow
7 5 (2.20%) Tenable
7 5 (2.20%) TOWER Software
8 4 (1.76%) CrowdStrike
8 4 (1.76%) Okta
8 4 (1.76%) Oracle
9 3 (1.32%) CyberArk
9 3 (1.32%) Dell
9 3 (1.32%) McAfee
9 3 (1.32%) Palo Alto
9 3 (1.32%) Veeam