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

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 423 476 451
Rank change year-on-year +53 -25 +3
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 347 181 342
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.36% 0.41% 0.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.50% 0.46% 0.58%
Number of salaries quoted 239 153 242
10th Percentile £39,750 £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 £91,000 £99,750
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 70,019 38,976 58,865
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.51% 89.20% 81.10%
Number of salaries quoted 49,558 22,475 37,906
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £42,000 £37,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -0.90% -11.20%
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 21 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 21 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 +14 157 £86,000 +22.86% 37
South East +16 73 £70,000 +21.74% 32
South West -25 51 £50,000 -27.27% 27
Midlands -32 28 £65,000 +4.00% 17
North of England -55 25 £56,000 -5.49% 30
West Midlands -35 18 £70,000 +7.69% 10
Yorkshire -41 16 £55,000 - 13
East Midlands -12 10 £46,743 -6.51% 7
East of England - 8 £43,750 - 14
North West -30 5 £67,500 +7.14% 13
North East -54 4 £75,000 +3.18% 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 9 (2.59%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (2.02%) SharePoint
3 6 (1.73%) Confluence
4 3 (0.86%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.86%) 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 (25.36%) AWS
2 83 (23.92%) Azure
3 29 (8.36%) Microsoft 365
4 22 (6.34%) GCP
5 16 (4.61%) Entra ID
6 12 (3.46%) SaaS
7 6 (1.73%) Amazon Bedrock
7 6 (1.73%) Azure Sentinel
7 6 (1.73%) Cloud Computing
7 6 (1.73%) Microsoft Purview
8 5 (1.44%) GitHub
8 5 (1.44%) Mimecast
8 5 (1.44%) Nutanix
9 4 (1.15%) Amazon GuardDuty
9 4 (1.15%) Azure DevOps
9 4 (1.15%) Azure Key Vault
9 4 (1.15%) OneDrive
10 3 (0.86%) Amazon EKS
10 3 (0.86%) AWS CloudFormation
10 3 (0.86%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 94 (27.09%) Firewall
2 37 (10.66%) Cisco Nexus
2 37 (10.66%) Wi-Fi
3 32 (9.22%) Internet
3 32 (9.22%) Network Security
4 27 (7.78%) LAN
4 27 (7.78%) WAN
5 20 (5.76%) VPN
6 14 (4.03%) DNS
7 11 (3.17%) TCP/IP
8 8 (2.31%) Cisco ISE
8 8 (2.31%) VLAN
8 8 (2.31%) Wireless
9 7 (2.02%) Cisco ASA
10 5 (1.44%) HTTPS
10 5 (1.44%) Intrusion Detection
10 5 (1.44%) Kerberos
11 4 (1.15%) DHCP
11 4 (1.15%) Wireshark
12 3 (0.86%) Cisco Firepower
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (2.88%) SQL Server
2 5 (1.44%) MongoDB
3 3 (0.86%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.86%) Hadoop
3 3 (0.86%) 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 23 (6.63%) Burp Suite
2 22 (6.34%) Metasploit
3 13 (3.75%) JIRA
4 5 (1.44%) Bitbucket
5 3 (0.86%) Git
5 3 (0.86%) Yeoman
6 2 (0.58%) Gatling
6 2 (0.58%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.58%) Maven
6 2 (0.58%) NUnit
6 2 (0.58%) Snyk
6 2 (0.58%) Team Foundation Server
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
1 110 (31.70%) Social Skills
2 58 (16.71%) Finance
3 51 (14.70%) Analytical Skills
4 36 (10.37%) Public Sector
5 27 (7.78%) Law
6 19 (5.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 14 (4.03%) Retail
8 13 (3.75%) Banking
9 10 (2.88%) Influencing Skills
10 9 (2.59%) Telecoms
11 7 (2.02%) Aerospace
12 6 (1.73%) Legal
12 6 (1.73%) Marketing
12 6 (1.73%) Pharmaceutical
13 5 (1.44%) Organisational Skills
13 5 (1.44%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (0.86%) Digital Health
14 3 (0.86%) Digital Healthcare
14 3 (0.86%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.86%) Military
Job Titles
1 94 (27.09%) Senior
2 58 (16.71%) Penetration Tester
2 58 (16.71%) Tester
3 54 (15.56%) Analyst
4 43 (12.39%) Lead
4 43 (12.39%) Security Analyst
5 37 (10.66%) Senior Analyst
6 35 (10.09%) Security Engineer
7 31 (8.93%) Consultant
7 31 (8.93%) Senior Security Analyst
8 28 (8.07%) Security Consultant
9 25 (7.20%) Cybersecurity Analyst
9 25 (7.20%) Senior Cybersecurity Analyst
9 25 (7.20%) Senior Security Engineer
10 21 (6.05%) Network Analyst
10 21 (6.05%) Senior Network Analyst
11 20 (5.76%) Cybersecurity Engineer
12 19 (5.48%) Security Specialist
13 17 (4.90%) Architect
14 16 (4.61%) Team Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (2.31%) Terraform
2 5 (1.44%) LDAP
3 4 (1.15%) RESTful
4 3 (0.86%) .NET
4 3 (0.86%) .NET Framework
4 3 (0.86%) Kafka
4 3 (0.86%) OAuth
5 2 (0.58%) AngularJS
5 2 (0.58%) ASP.NET
5 2 (0.58%) ASP.NET Core
5 2 (0.58%) Entity Framework
5 2 (0.58%) OAuth2
5 2 (0.58%) OpenAPI
5 2 (0.58%) OpenID
5 2 (0.58%) RxJS
5 2 (0.58%) Swagger
5 2 (0.58%) Vitest
6 1 (0.29%) Lightning Web Components
6 1 (0.29%) Memcached
6 1 (0.29%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 67 (19.31%) Security Posture
2 27 (7.78%) Cyber Threat
3 25 (7.20%) Management Information System
4 17 (4.90%) Onboarding
5 15 (4.32%) Security Operations Centre
6 14 (4.03%) Self-Motivation
7 11 (3.17%) Cyber Defence
7 11 (3.17%) Mobile App
8 10 (2.88%) Cyber Security Posture
8 10 (2.88%) Operational Technology
9 8 (2.31%) Blog
10 7 (2.02%) Cloud Native
10 7 (2.02%) NHS
11 6 (1.73%) Cyberattack
11 6 (1.73%) Data Centre
11 6 (1.73%) Enterprise Software
12 5 (1.44%) PKI
13 4 (1.15%) Cyber Kill Chain
13 4 (1.15%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
13 4 (1.15%) Insider Threat
Operating Systems
1 50 (14.41%) Windows
2 43 (12.39%) Linux
3 18 (5.19%) Windows Server
4 13 (3.75%) Android
4 13 (3.75%) Apple iOS
5 5 (1.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.15%) Kali Linux
6 4 (1.15%) Mac OS
7 3 (0.86%) Unix
8 2 (0.58%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 266 (76.66%) Cybersecurity
2 115 (33.14%) Vulnerability Management
3 94 (27.09%) Incident Response
4 93 (26.80%) SIEM
5 78 (22.48%) Security Testing
6 75 (21.61%) Security Operations
7 72 (20.75%) Cloud Security
8 70 (20.17%) Red Team
9 69 (19.88%) Information Security
10 59 (17.00%) Problem-Solving
11 52 (14.99%) Offensive Security
12 51 (14.70%) Continuous Improvement
13 50 (14.41%) Disaster Recovery
14 48 (13.83%) Mentoring
15 46 (13.26%) Application Security
15 46 (13.26%) Threat Detection
16 44 (12.68%) Vulnerability Remediation
17 42 (12.10%) Incident Management
18 41 (11.82%) Threat Intelligence
19 40 (11.53%) Vulnerability Assessment
Programming Languages
1 34 (9.80%) PowerShell
1 34 (9.80%) Python
2 15 (4.32%) Java
3 9 (2.59%) Go
4 8 (2.31%) Bash
5 7 (2.02%) SQL
6 6 (1.73%) Bicep
7 4 (1.15%) C
7 4 (1.15%) C#
7 4 (1.15%) C++
7 4 (1.15%) Perl
7 4 (1.15%) Ruby
8 3 (0.86%) JavaScript
8 3 (0.86%) Objective-C
8 3 (0.86%) PHP
8 3 (0.86%) Rust
9 2 (0.58%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (0.58%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.29%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 58 (16.71%) CISSP
2 53 (15.27%) Security Cleared
3 51 (14.70%) CREST Certified
4 46 (13.26%) CISM
5 39 (11.24%) SC Cleared
6 34 (9.80%) OSCP
7 31 (8.93%) Degree
8 23 (6.63%) Cisco Certification
9 22 (6.34%) CHECK Team Member
10 17 (4.90%) CompTIA Security+
11 14 (4.03%) CCNP
12 13 (3.75%) CEH
12 13 (3.75%) GIAC
13 11 (3.17%) CHECK Team Leader
13 11 (3.17%) DV Cleared
14 9 (2.59%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 9 (2.59%) AWS Certification
14 9 (2.59%) CCNA
15 8 (2.31%) CCSP
16 7 (2.02%) OSCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (26.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 61 (17.58%) NIST
3 43 (12.39%) GDPR
4 37 (10.66%) Cyber Essentials
5 20 (5.76%) GRC
6 18 (5.19%) PCI DSS
7 13 (3.75%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 12 (3.46%) NCSC
9 9 (2.59%) SOC 2
10 8 (2.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 7 (2.02%) Actionable Recommendations
12 5 (1.44%) QA
13 4 (1.15%) Def Stans
13 4 (1.15%) NIST 800
14 3 (0.86%) Accessibility
14 3 (0.86%) SLA
15 2 (0.58%) COBIT
16 1 (0.29%) Data Quality
16 1 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
16 1 (0.29%) WCAG
System Software
1 37 (10.66%) Active Directory
2 10 (2.88%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (1.44%) Virtual Machines
4 4 (1.15%) Docker
5 3 (0.86%) EMC RecoverPoint
6 2 (0.58%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.58%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 2 (0.58%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 22 (6.34%) Nmap
2 18 (5.19%) Kubernetes
3 16 (4.61%) Nessus
4 7 (2.02%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (1.44%) Red Hat Satellite
5 5 (1.44%) Single Sign-On
6 4 (1.15%) Ansible
7 3 (0.86%) Progress Chef
7 3 (0.86%) SCCM
7 3 (0.86%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
7 3 (0.86%) 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%) Network Intrusion Detection System
9 1 (0.29%) OpenVAS
9 1 (0.29%) Packer
9 1 (0.29%) Puppet
Vendors
1 66 (19.02%) Microsoft
2 49 (14.12%) Cisco
3 48 (13.83%) Palo Alto
4 47 (13.54%) Qualys
5 35 (10.09%) Aruba
6 21 (6.05%) Splunk
7 14 (4.03%) CrowdStrike
8 13 (3.75%) Rapid7
9 12 (3.46%) Tenable
10 10 (2.88%) Fortinet
10 10 (2.88%) Sophos
10 10 (2.88%) VMware
11 7 (2.02%) ServiceNow
11 7 (2.02%) Zscaler
12 5 (1.44%) CheckPoint
12 5 (1.44%) CyberArk
12 5 (1.44%) Ivanti
12 5 (1.44%) Okta
12 5 (1.44%) Red Hat
12 5 (1.44%) Veracode