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

6 months to
21 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 417 428 467
Rank change year-on-year +11 +39 -9
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 313 212 447
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.37% 0.53% 0.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.51% 0.58% 0.57%
Number of salaries quoted 206 164 362
10th Percentile £42,250 £42,875 £38,774
25th Percentile £48,165 £53,750 £47,813
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 £79,500 £82,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £100,000
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 61,488 36,863 78,246
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.28% 92.45% 81.75%
Number of salaries quoted 43,312 20,255 56,794
10th Percentile £30,750 £28,939 £29,500
25th Percentile £41,250 £40,000 £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 £78,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.54%

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 June 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 June 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 +26 136 £82,500 +17.86% 33
South East +3 60 £72,500 +11.54% 19
South West -18 48 £50,000 -25.93% 10
Midlands -21 30 £51,058 -24.36% 7
North of England -45 24 £56,000 -2.61% 8
West Midlands -33 18 £65,000 -3.70% 5
Yorkshire -37 14 £55,000 - 5
East Midlands -16 12 £46,743 +16.86% 2
North East -45 6 £75,000 +3.18%
East of England - 6 £32,500 - 1
North West -13 4 £61,750 +4.22% 3
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 8 (2.56%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (2.24%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.96%) Confluence
3 3 (0.96%) IIS
4 1 (0.32%) Apache
4 1 (0.32%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.32%) Drupal
4 1 (0.32%) nginx
4 1 (0.32%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.32%) Magento
1 1 (0.32%) SAP EHS
1 1 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 77 (24.60%) AWS
1 77 (24.60%) Azure
2 33 (10.54%) Microsoft 365
3 26 (8.31%) GCP
4 15 (4.79%) Entra ID
5 9 (2.88%) Azure Sentinel
5 9 (2.88%) GitHub
6 8 (2.56%) SaaS
7 6 (1.92%) Microsoft Purview
8 5 (1.60%) GitHub Actions
9 4 (1.28%) Amazon EKS
9 4 (1.28%) AWS CloudFormation
9 4 (1.28%) Azure Key Vault
9 4 (1.28%) Mimecast
9 4 (1.28%) Rubrik
10 3 (0.96%) Azure DevOps
10 3 (0.96%) OneDrive
11 2 (0.64%) Cloudflare
11 2 (0.64%) IaaS
11 2 (0.64%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 70 (22.36%) Firewall
2 27 (8.63%) Network Security
3 21 (6.71%) Cisco Nexus
3 21 (6.71%) Wireless
4 20 (6.39%) Internet
4 20 (6.39%) VPN
4 20 (6.39%) Wi-Fi
5 12 (3.83%) DNS
5 12 (3.83%) LAN
5 12 (3.83%) WAN
6 11 (3.51%) TCP/IP
7 9 (2.88%) Cisco ISE
8 7 (2.24%) VLAN
9 6 (1.92%) Intrusion Detection
10 4 (1.28%) DHCP
10 4 (1.28%) HTTPS
11 3 (0.96%) DMARC
11 3 (0.96%) DMZ
11 3 (0.96%) SSL
11 3 (0.96%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (1.92%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
3 2 (0.64%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.32%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.32%) InterSystems Cache
4 1 (0.32%) KNIME
4 1 (0.32%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.32%) Power BI
4 1 (0.32%) Redis
Development Applications
1 22 (7.03%) Burp Suite
2 21 (6.71%) Metasploit
3 10 (3.19%) JIRA
4 6 (1.92%) Bitbucket
5 4 (1.28%) Jenkins
6 3 (0.96%) Git
7 2 (0.64%) Gatling
7 2 (0.64%) NUnit
7 2 (0.64%) Yeoman
8 1 (0.32%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.32%) GitLab
8 1 (0.32%) IDA Disassembler
8 1 (0.32%) JMeter
8 1 (0.32%) JUnit
8 1 (0.32%) Postman
8 1 (0.32%) Selenium
8 1 (0.32%) Snyk
8 1 (0.32%) Vagrant
General
1 108 (34.50%) Social Skills
2 73 (23.32%) Finance
3 35 (11.18%) Analytical Skills
4 32 (10.22%) Law
5 29 (9.27%) Public Sector
6 20 (6.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 20 (6.39%) Retail
7 15 (4.79%) Banking
8 10 (3.19%) Legal
9 7 (2.24%) Marketing
9 7 (2.24%) Pharmaceutical
10 4 (1.28%) Financial Institution
10 4 (1.28%) Influencing Skills
10 4 (1.28%) Telecoms
11 3 (0.96%) Back Office
12 2 (0.64%) Digital Health
12 2 (0.64%) Digital Healthcare
12 2 (0.64%) Social Housing
13 1 (0.32%) French Language
13 1 (0.32%) German Language
Job Titles
1 74 (23.64%) Senior
2 56 (17.89%) Analyst
3 47 (15.02%) Security Analyst
4 44 (14.06%) Consultant
5 43 (13.74%) Penetration Tester
5 43 (13.74%) Security Consultant
5 43 (13.74%) Tester
6 37 (11.82%) Senior Analyst
7 35 (11.18%) Senior Security Analyst
8 24 (7.67%) Lead
8 24 (7.67%) Security Manager
9 23 (7.35%) Cybersecurity Analyst
10 21 (6.71%) Security Specialist
11 20 (6.39%) Senior Cybersecurity Analyst
12 19 (6.07%) Security Engineer
13 18 (5.75%) Cybersecurity Consultant
14 15 (4.79%) Team Leader
15 14 (4.47%) Network Analyst
15 14 (4.47%) Senior Network Analyst
16 12 (3.83%) Network Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.28%) .NET
2 3 (0.96%) .NET Framework
2 3 (0.96%) OAuth
2 3 (0.96%) RESTful
3 2 (0.64%) AngularJS
3 2 (0.64%) ASP.NET
3 2 (0.64%) ASP.NET Core
3 2 (0.64%) Entity Framework
3 2 (0.64%) LDAP
3 2 (0.64%) OAuth2
3 2 (0.64%) OpenAPI
3 2 (0.64%) OpenID
3 2 (0.64%) RxJS
3 2 (0.64%) Swagger
3 2 (0.64%) Vitest
4 1 (0.32%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.32%) Kafka
4 1 (0.32%) Memcached
4 1 (0.32%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 79 (25.24%) Security Posture
2 30 (9.58%) Cyber Defence
2 30 (9.58%) Cyber Threat
2 30 (9.58%) Mobile App
3 21 (6.71%) Management Information System
4 14 (4.47%) Self-Motivation
5 13 (4.15%) Security Operations Centre
6 9 (2.88%) Data Centre
7 8 (2.56%) Blog
7 8 (2.56%) Onboarding
8 7 (2.24%) Cyber Security Posture
8 7 (2.24%) Insider Threat
9 6 (1.92%) Cloud Native
9 6 (1.92%) Cyberattack
10 5 (1.60%) Operational Technology
11 4 (1.28%) Enterprise Software
12 3 (0.96%) CCTV
12 3 (0.96%) Hybrid Cloud
12 3 (0.96%) Public Cloud
13 2 (0.64%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
Operating Systems
1 44 (14.06%) Windows
2 36 (11.50%) Linux
3 16 (5.11%) Android
3 16 (5.11%) Apple iOS
4 13 (4.15%) Windows Server
5 4 (1.28%) Unix
6 2 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.64%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.32%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 215 (68.69%) Cybersecurity
2 96 (30.67%) Incident Response
3 95 (30.35%) Red Team
4 86 (27.48%) Vulnerability Management
5 68 (21.73%) SIEM
6 67 (21.41%) Offensive Security
7 62 (19.81%) Security Testing
8 60 (19.17%) Mentoring
8 60 (19.17%) Problem-Solving
9 58 (18.53%) Information Security
10 56 (17.89%) Application Security
11 55 (17.57%) Cloud Security
12 53 (16.93%) Security Operations
13 39 (12.46%) Disaster Recovery
14 37 (11.82%) Continuous Improvement
15 36 (11.50%) Agile
15 36 (11.50%) Threat Modelling
16 35 (11.18%) Threat Intelligence
17 32 (10.22%) Coaching
18 31 (9.90%) Business Strategy
Programming Languages
1 45 (14.38%) PowerShell
2 44 (14.06%) Python
3 25 (7.99%) Bash
4 14 (4.47%) Java
5 12 (3.83%) Go
6 5 (1.60%) Bicep
6 5 (1.60%) C#
6 5 (1.60%) SQL
7 4 (1.28%) C
7 4 (1.28%) C++
7 4 (1.28%) Perl
8 3 (0.96%) Objective-C
8 3 (0.96%) Ruby
8 3 (0.96%) Rust
9 2 (0.64%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (0.64%) PHP
9 2 (0.64%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.32%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 80 (25.56%) CREST Certified
2 64 (20.45%) OSCP
3 59 (18.85%) CISSP
4 54 (17.25%) Security Cleared
5 46 (14.70%) SC Cleared
6 40 (12.78%) CISM
7 34 (10.86%) Degree
8 27 (8.63%) CHECK Team Leader
9 25 (7.99%) CEH
9 25 (7.99%) CHECK Team Member
10 22 (7.03%) Cisco Certification
11 21 (6.71%) CCSAM
11 21 (6.71%) CompTIA Security+
12 17 (5.43%) CCNA
13 16 (5.11%) CCNP
14 15 (4.79%) GIAC
15 14 (4.47%) DV Cleared
16 8 (2.56%) OSCE
16 8 (2.56%) SANS
17 7 (2.24%) GPEN
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 86 (27.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 46 (14.70%) NIST
3 40 (12.78%) Cyber Essentials
3 40 (12.78%) GDPR
4 18 (5.75%) PCI DSS
5 17 (5.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 15 (4.79%) Actionable Recommendations
7 14 (4.47%) NCSC
8 12 (3.83%) GRC
9 7 (2.24%) Accessibility
10 6 (1.92%) SOC 2
11 5 (1.60%) QA
11 5 (1.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 4 (1.28%) Def Stans
12 4 (1.28%) NIST 800
13 3 (0.96%) COBIT
13 3 (0.96%) Data Quality
14 2 (0.64%) SLA
15 1 (0.32%) GxP
15 1 (0.32%) WCAG
System Software
1 37 (11.82%) Active Directory
2 8 (2.56%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (1.28%) EMC RecoverPoint
4 3 (0.96%) Docker
4 3 (0.96%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 17 (5.43%) Kubernetes
2 14 (4.47%) Nessus
3 12 (3.83%) Nmap
4 11 (3.51%) Microsoft Intune
5 9 (2.88%) Terraform
6 5 (1.60%) Ansible
7 4 (1.28%) VxRail
8 3 (0.96%) CSIRT
8 3 (0.96%) FortiGate
8 3 (0.96%) SCCM
9 2 (0.64%) Jamf Pro
9 2 (0.64%) Red Hat Satellite
9 2 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.32%) CASB
10 1 (0.32%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
10 1 (0.32%) Consul
10 1 (0.32%) OpenVAS
10 1 (0.32%) Packer
10 1 (0.32%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.32%) Puppet
Vendors
1 67 (21.41%) Microsoft
2 30 (9.58%) Cisco
3 24 (7.67%) Qualys
4 21 (6.71%) Palo Alto
5 20 (6.39%) Splunk
6 17 (5.43%) Aruba
7 14 (4.47%) Sophos
8 11 (3.51%) VMware
8 11 (3.51%) Zscaler
9 9 (2.88%) CheckPoint
9 9 (2.88%) CrowdStrike
10 8 (2.56%) Fortinet
11 5 (1.60%) Tenable
11 5 (1.60%) TOWER Software
12 4 (1.28%) Okta
13 3 (0.96%) Dell
13 3 (0.96%) Google
13 3 (0.96%) Rapid7
13 3 (0.96%) ServiceNow
13 3 (0.96%) Veeam