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

	6 months to 18 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	448	458	451
Rank change year-on-year	+10	-7	-23
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing	351	167	297
As % of all permanent jobs in England	0.33%	0.39%	0.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category	0.45%	0.44%	0.58%
Number of salaries quoted	228	145	165
10^th Percentile	£38,675	£47,600	£45,647
25^th Percentile	£46,743	£52,500	£56,250
Median annual salary (50^th Percentile)	£67,500	£65,000	£65,000
Median % change year-on-year	+3.85%	-	+8.33%
75^th Percentile	£89,000	£87,500	£87,500
90^th Percentile	£100,000	£90,000	£100,000
UK median annual salary	£70,000	£69,384	£65,000
% change year-on-year	+0.89%	+6.74%	+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.

	6 months to 18 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills	77,879	37,805	51,573
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England	74.03%	88.69%	82.64%
Number of salaries quoted	54,289	21,962	27,591
10^th Percentile	£31,250	£28,325	£33,750
25^th Percentile	£41,250	£36,250	£45,000
Median annual salary (50^th Percentile)	£60,000	£55,000	£60,000
Median % change year-on-year	+9.09%	-8.33%	-1.32%
75^th Percentile	£80,000	£75,000	£80,000
90^th Percentile	£100,000	£97,500	£98,750
UK median annual salary	£60,000	£55,000	£60,000
% change year-on-year	+9.09%	-8.33%	-

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 Salary Trend in England

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 October 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 October 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	+2	168	£82,500	+10.00%	165
South East	-1	74	£68,750	+14.58%	48
South West	-33	46	£50,000	-28.57%	34
Midlands	-27	29	£46,743	-15.01%	40
North of England	-77	20	£60,000	+4.35%	66
West Midlands	-41	16	£51,250	-6.82%	26
East Midlands	-21	13	£46,743	-22.10%	14
East of England	-	12	£57,500	-	26
Yorkshire	-40	11	£50,000	-9.09%	23
North West	-41	6	£62,500	-6.98%	35
North East	-69	3	£75,000	-0.76%	9
Penetration Testing UK

Penetration Testing Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 18 October 2026, job vacancies citing Penetration Testing also mentioned the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads across the England region with a requirement for Penetration Testing.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Cybersecurity	75.2%	264
2	Vulnerability Management	38.5%	135
3	ISO/IEC 27001	27.6%	97
4	Incident Response	25.9%	91
5	Firewall	24.2%	85
6	Security Testing	23.9%	84
7	Azure	23.6%	83
7	Security Operations	23.6%	83
7	SIEM	23.6%	83
10	AWS	22.5%	79
11	Information Security	21.7%	76
12	Cloud Security	21.4%	75
13	Problem-Solving	20.5%	72
14	Microsoft	20.2%	71
15	NIST	19.7%	69
16	Red Team	19.4%	68
17	CISSP	17.7%	62
18	Continuous Improvement	15.7%	55
18	Security Cleared	15.7%	55
20	Disaster Recovery	15.4%	54
21	Stakeholder Management	14.8%	52
21	Vulnerability Remediation	14.8%	52
23	Offensive Security	14.5%	51
24	Application Security	14.2%	50
24	Cisco	14.2%	50
24	Qualys	14.2%	50
27	Business Continuity	13.7%	48
27	Palo Alto	13.7%	48
27	Threat Detection	13.7%	48
30	Threat Intelligence	13.4%	47

Penetration Testing Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Processes & Methodologies

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Cybersecurity	75.2%	264
2	Vulnerability Management	38.5%	135
3	Incident Response	25.9%	91
4	Security Testing	23.9%	84
5	Security Operations	23.6%	83
5	SIEM	23.6%	83
7	Information Security	21.7%	76
8	Cloud Security	21.4%	75
9	Problem-Solving	20.5%	72
10	Red Team	19.4%	68
11	Continuous Improvement	15.7%	55
12	Disaster Recovery	15.4%	54
13	Stakeholder Management	14.8%	52
13	Vulnerability Remediation	14.8%	52
15	Offensive Security	14.5%	51
16	Application Security	14.2%	50
17	Business Continuity	13.7%	48
17	Threat Detection	13.7%	48
19	Threat Intelligence	13.4%	47
20	Risk Management	13.1%	46