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

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 434 470 452
Rank change year-on-year +36 -18 -7
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 326 185 361
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.36% 0.43% 0.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.48% 0.47% 0.58%
Number of salaries quoted 215 155 270
10th Percentile £41,250 £45,850 £41,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £52,500 £48,750
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 £78,500 £82,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £92,900 £97,750
UK median annual salary £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year +3.70% +3.85% +8.33%

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 67,388 39,043 61,896
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.82% 89.74% 81.57%
Number of salaries quoted 47,625 22,552 42,071
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £38,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,920 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.30% +1.67% -11.29%
75th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% 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 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 31 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 31 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 +15 140 £85,000 +21.43% 55
South East +13 72 £70,000 +16.67% 28
South West -25 45 £50,000 -25.93% 21
Midlands -37 28 £65,000 -3.70% 7
North of England -43 24 £57,500 - 18
West Midlands -25 19 £70,000 +3.70% 4
Yorkshire -38 13 £55,000 - 10
East Midlands -15 9 £46,743 +16.86% 3
East of England - 8 £40,000 - 3
North East -47 6 £75,000 +3.18%
North West -9 5 £67,500 +13.92% 8
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 10 (3.07%) Microsoft Exchange
2 8 (2.45%) SharePoint
3 6 (1.84%) Confluence
4 3 (0.92%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.92%) IIS
5 1 (0.31%) Apache
5 1 (0.31%) Drupal
5 1 (0.31%) nginx
5 1 (0.31%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
2 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.31%) Magento
1 1 (0.31%) SAP EHS
1 1 (0.31%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 83 (25.46%) AWS
2 77 (23.62%) Azure
3 30 (9.20%) Microsoft 365
4 23 (7.06%) GCP
5 12 (3.68%) Entra ID
6 9 (2.76%) SaaS
7 7 (2.15%) GitHub
8 6 (1.84%) Amazon Bedrock
8 6 (1.84%) Azure Sentinel
8 6 (1.84%) Cloud Computing
9 5 (1.53%) Nutanix
9 5 (1.53%) OneDrive
10 4 (1.23%) Amazon EKS
10 4 (1.23%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 4 (1.23%) AWS CloudFormation
10 4 (1.23%) Azure Key Vault
10 4 (1.23%) Mimecast
10 4 (1.23%) Rubrik
11 3 (0.92%) GitHub Actions
11 3 (0.92%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 87 (26.69%) Firewall
2 36 (11.04%) Cisco Nexus
3 34 (10.43%) Wi-Fi
4 30 (9.20%) Internet
5 28 (8.59%) Network Security
6 21 (6.44%) LAN
6 21 (6.44%) WAN
7 17 (5.21%) VPN
8 12 (3.68%) DNS
9 10 (3.07%) Wireless
10 9 (2.76%) Cisco ISE
10 9 (2.76%) TCP/IP
11 7 (2.15%) VLAN
12 6 (1.84%) HTTPS
12 6 (1.84%) Intrusion Detection
13 5 (1.53%) Kerberos
14 4 (1.23%) DHCP
15 3 (0.92%) VoIP
15 3 (0.92%) Wireshark
16 2 (0.61%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (3.37%) SQL Server
2 5 (1.53%) MongoDB
3 3 (0.92%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.92%) Hadoop
3 3 (0.92%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.61%) KNIME
5 1 (0.31%) InterSystems Cache
5 1 (0.31%) Power BI
5 1 (0.31%) Redis
Development Applications
1 17 (5.21%) Burp Suite
2 16 (4.91%) Metasploit
3 13 (3.99%) JIRA
4 6 (1.84%) Bitbucket
5 3 (0.92%) Git
5 3 (0.92%) Yeoman
6 2 (0.61%) Gatling
6 2 (0.61%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.61%) NUnit
6 2 (0.61%) Snyk
7 1 (0.31%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.31%) GitLab
7 1 (0.31%) IDA Disassembler
7 1 (0.31%) JMeter
7 1 (0.31%) JUnit
7 1 (0.31%) Postman
7 1 (0.31%) Selenium
7 1 (0.31%) Vagrant
General
1 103 (31.60%) Social Skills
2 60 (18.40%) Finance
3 44 (13.50%) Analytical Skills
4 36 (11.04%) Public Sector
5 30 (9.20%) Law
6 18 (5.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 15 (4.60%) Retail
8 14 (4.29%) Banking
9 8 (2.45%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (1.84%) Legal
10 6 (1.84%) Pharmaceutical
11 5 (1.53%) Marketing
11 5 (1.53%) Telecoms
12 4 (1.23%) Financial Institution
12 4 (1.23%) Organisational Skills
13 3 (0.92%) Back Office
13 3 (0.92%) Digital Health
13 3 (0.92%) Digital Healthcare
13 3 (0.92%) Military
14 2 (0.61%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 82 (25.15%) Senior
2 61 (18.71%) Analyst
3 52 (15.95%) Penetration Tester
3 52 (15.95%) Tester
4 48 (14.72%) Security Analyst
5 39 (11.96%) Senior Analyst
6 35 (10.74%) Lead
7 33 (10.12%) Senior Security Analyst
8 30 (9.20%) Consultant
9 29 (8.90%) Security Consultant
10 28 (8.59%) Cybersecurity Analyst
11 25 (7.67%) Senior Cybersecurity Analyst
12 24 (7.36%) Security Engineer
13 21 (6.44%) Network Analyst
13 21 (6.44%) Security Specialist
13 21 (6.44%) Senior Network Analyst
14 16 (4.91%) Security Manager
14 16 (4.91%) Team Leader
15 15 (4.60%) Cybersecurity Engineer
15 15 (4.60%) Network Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (1.53%) LDAP
2 4 (1.23%) RESTful
3 3 (0.92%) .NET
3 3 (0.92%) .NET Framework
3 3 (0.92%) Kafka
3 3 (0.92%) OAuth
4 2 (0.61%) AngularJS
4 2 (0.61%) ASP.NET
4 2 (0.61%) ASP.NET Core
4 2 (0.61%) Entity Framework
4 2 (0.61%) OAuth2
4 2 (0.61%) OpenAPI
4 2 (0.61%) OpenID
4 2 (0.61%) RxJS
4 2 (0.61%) Swagger
4 2 (0.61%) Vitest
5 1 (0.31%) ARM Templates
5 1 (0.31%) Memcached
5 1 (0.31%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 62 (19.02%) Security Posture
2 27 (8.28%) Cyber Threat
3 24 (7.36%) Management Information System
4 16 (4.91%) Cyber Defence
4 16 (4.91%) Mobile App
5 14 (4.29%) Onboarding
6 13 (3.99%) Security Operations Centre
7 12 (3.68%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (2.45%) Blog
8 8 (2.45%) Operational Technology
9 7 (2.15%) Cloud Native
9 7 (2.15%) Cyber Security Posture
9 7 (2.15%) Data Centre
10 6 (1.84%) Cyberattack
10 6 (1.84%) Enterprise Software
11 4 (1.23%) Insider Threat
11 4 (1.23%) NHS
12 3 (0.92%) CCTV
12 3 (0.92%) Cloud Security Posture
12 3 (0.92%) Cyber Kill Chain
Operating Systems
1 51 (15.64%) Windows
2 41 (12.58%) Linux
3 18 (5.52%) Windows Server
4 14 (4.29%) Android
4 14 (4.29%) Apple iOS
5 5 (1.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.23%) Unix
7 3 (0.92%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.61%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.31%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 247 (75.77%) Cybersecurity
2 103 (31.60%) Vulnerability Management
3 97 (29.75%) Incident Response
4 88 (26.99%) SIEM
5 71 (21.78%) Red Team
5 71 (21.78%) Security Operations
6 70 (21.47%) Security Testing
7 65 (19.94%) Cloud Security
8 63 (19.33%) Information Security
9 56 (17.18%) Problem-Solving
10 52 (15.95%) Offensive Security
11 49 (15.03%) Disaster Recovery
12 48 (14.72%) Application Security
13 46 (14.11%) Continuous Improvement
13 46 (14.11%) Mentoring
14 43 (13.19%) Threat Detection
15 42 (12.88%) Threat Intelligence
16 39 (11.96%) Risk Management
16 39 (11.96%) Threat Modelling
16 39 (11.96%) Vulnerability Remediation
Programming Languages
1 41 (12.58%) PowerShell
2 37 (11.35%) Python
3 15 (4.60%) Java
4 14 (4.29%) Bash
5 10 (3.07%) Go
6 7 (2.15%) SQL
7 6 (1.84%) Bicep
8 3 (0.92%) C
8 3 (0.92%) C#
8 3 (0.92%) C++
8 3 (0.92%) Objective-C
8 3 (0.92%) Perl
8 3 (0.92%) PHP
8 3 (0.92%) Ruby
8 3 (0.92%) Rust
9 2 (0.61%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (0.61%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 62 (19.02%) CISSP
2 56 (17.18%) CREST Certified
3 51 (15.64%) Security Cleared
4 47 (14.42%) CISM
5 40 (12.27%) OSCP
6 39 (11.96%) SC Cleared
7 30 (9.20%) Degree
8 23 (7.06%) Cisco Certification
9 22 (6.75%) CHECK Team Member
10 17 (5.21%) CompTIA Security+
11 15 (4.60%) CEH
11 15 (4.60%) CHECK Team Leader
12 14 (4.29%) CCNP
13 12 (3.68%) DV Cleared
13 12 (3.68%) GIAC
14 11 (3.37%) CCNA
15 9 (2.76%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 8 (2.45%) AWS Certification
16 8 (2.45%) CCSAM
16 8 (2.45%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (26.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 54 (16.56%) NIST
3 42 (12.88%) GDPR
4 37 (11.35%) Cyber Essentials
5 21 (6.44%) PCI DSS
6 15 (4.60%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 15 (4.60%) GRC
7 13 (3.99%) NCSC
8 9 (2.76%) Actionable Recommendations
8 9 (2.76%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 8 (2.45%) SOC 2
10 6 (1.84%) Accessibility
11 5 (1.53%) QA
12 4 (1.23%) Def Stans
12 4 (1.23%) NIST 800
13 3 (0.92%) Data Quality
13 3 (0.92%) SLA
14 2 (0.61%) COBIT
15 1 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 1 (0.31%) WCAG
System Software
1 35 (10.74%) Active Directory
2 11 (3.37%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (1.53%) Virtual Machines
4 4 (1.23%) Docker
4 4 (1.23%) EMC RecoverPoint
5 2 (0.61%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.61%) Microsoft Virtual Server
5 2 (0.61%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 18 (5.52%) Kubernetes
2 14 (4.29%) Nmap
3 11 (3.37%) Nessus
4 9 (2.76%) Terraform
5 7 (2.15%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (1.53%) Ansible
6 5 (1.53%) Red Hat Satellite
7 4 (1.23%) VxRail
8 3 (0.92%) SCCM
9 2 (0.61%) CSIRT
9 2 (0.61%) Jamf Pro
9 2 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.31%) CASB
10 1 (0.31%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
10 1 (0.31%) Consul
10 1 (0.31%) OpenVAS
10 1 (0.31%) Packer
10 1 (0.31%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.31%) Puppet
10 1 (0.31%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 64 (19.63%) Microsoft
2 44 (13.50%) Cisco
3 42 (12.88%) Qualys
4 40 (12.27%) Palo Alto
5 32 (9.82%) Aruba
6 23 (7.06%) Splunk
7 14 (4.29%) Sophos
8 11 (3.37%) VMware
9 10 (3.07%) CrowdStrike
9 10 (3.07%) Zscaler
10 9 (2.76%) Fortinet
10 9 (2.76%) Tenable
11 8 (2.45%) CheckPoint
11 8 (2.45%) Rapid7
12 7 (2.15%) ServiceNow
13 5 (1.53%) CyberArk
13 5 (1.53%) Oracle
13 5 (1.53%) Red Hat
13 5 (1.53%) TOWER Software
13 5 (1.53%) Veracode