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

6 months to
7 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 436 369 401
Rank change year-on-year -67 +32 +98
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 235 253 485
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 161 197 386
10th Percentile £42,500 £46,900 £38,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £58,750 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £67,500 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.70% +3.85% -6.07%
75th Percentile £89,000 £87,500 £82,500
90th Percentile £96,250 £95,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £65,000 £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 55,804 34,167 68,231
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 76.31% 93.17% 86.13%
Number of salaries quoted 35,190 20,509 52,490
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £43,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £78,000 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £103,750 £93,750
UK median annual salary £56,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -6.67% +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 7 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 7 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 -19 98 £75,000 +3.45% 31
South West -5 53 £62,500 -7.41% 23
Midlands -44 26 £52,500 -22.22% 9
North of England -63 24 £63,750 +4.51% 14
South East -66 23 £75,000 +13.21% 22
West Midlands -23 16 £65,000 -3.70% 7
Yorkshire -48 12 £57,500 +12.20% 7
East Midlands -42 10 £51,058 +27.65% 2
North West -46 7 £56,000 -10.40% 7
North East -23 5 £75,000 +12.36%
East of England -24 3 £35,000 - 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 (1.28%) Confluence
1 3 (1.28%) Microsoft Exchange
1 3 (1.28%) SharePoint
2 2 (0.85%) IIS
3 1 (0.43%) Apache
3 1 (0.43%) Drupal
3 1 (0.43%) nginx
3 1 (0.43%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (1.28%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (1.28%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.43%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 62 (26.38%) Azure
2 53 (22.55%) AWS
3 19 (8.09%) GCP
4 14 (5.96%) Microsoft 365
5 13 (5.53%) GitHub
6 11 (4.68%) Azure Sentinel
7 10 (4.26%) Entra ID
8 9 (3.83%) GitHub Actions
8 9 (3.83%) Microsoft Purview
9 5 (2.13%) Power Platform
10 4 (1.70%) Mimecast
10 4 (1.70%) SaaS
11 3 (1.28%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (1.28%) AWS CloudFormation
11 3 (1.28%) Azure DevOps
11 3 (1.28%) Azure Key Vault
11 3 (1.28%) Slack
12 2 (0.85%) Dynamics 365
12 2 (0.85%) Figma
12 2 (0.85%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 43 (18.30%) Firewall
2 25 (10.64%) Network Security
3 20 (8.51%) Wireless
4 17 (7.23%) VPN
5 14 (5.96%) DNS
6 13 (5.53%) TCP/IP
7 8 (3.40%) Intrusion Detection
7 8 (3.40%) VLAN
8 7 (2.98%) Cisco ISE
9 5 (2.13%) Wi-Fi
10 4 (1.70%) Cisco Nexus
10 4 (1.70%) HTTP
10 4 (1.70%) HTTPS
10 4 (1.70%) Internet
11 3 (1.28%) DHCP
11 3 (1.28%) DMZ
11 3 (1.28%) LAN
11 3 (1.28%) SSL
11 3 (1.28%) VoIP
11 3 (1.28%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (2.13%) Power BI
2 3 (1.28%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.28%) Tableau
3 2 (0.85%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (0.43%) InterSystems Cache
4 1 (0.43%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.43%) Redis
Development Applications
1 21 (8.94%) Burp Suite
1 21 (8.94%) Metasploit
2 9 (3.83%) JIRA
3 8 (3.40%) Jenkins
4 6 (2.55%) Bitbucket
5 2 (0.85%) Git
5 2 (0.85%) IDA Disassembler
5 2 (0.85%) NUnit
6 1 (0.43%) Gatling
6 1 (0.43%) JMeter
6 1 (0.43%) Vagrant
General
1 76 (32.34%) Social Skills
2 68 (28.94%) Finance
3 21 (8.94%) Analytical Skills
3 21 (8.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 18 (7.66%) Banking
4 18 (7.66%) Law
4 18 (7.66%) Public Sector
5 16 (6.81%) Retail
6 9 (3.83%) Legal
7 6 (2.55%) Marketing
8 5 (2.13%) Influencing Skills
8 5 (2.13%) Pharmaceutical
9 4 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
9 4 (1.70%) Telecoms
10 3 (1.28%) Aerospace
10 3 (1.28%) Manufacturing
10 3 (1.28%) Military
11 2 (0.85%) Back Office
11 2 (0.85%) Electronics
11 2 (0.85%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 44 (18.72%) Consultant
2 43 (18.30%) Security Consultant
3 38 (16.17%) Analyst
4 30 (12.77%) Security Analyst
5 28 (11.91%) Senior
6 27 (11.49%) Tester
7 26 (11.06%) Penetration Tester
8 24 (10.21%) Cybersecurity Consultant
9 23 (9.79%) Security Manager
10 19 (8.09%) Security Engineer
11 18 (7.66%) Lead
11 18 (7.66%) Security Specialist
12 14 (5.96%) Senior Analyst
12 14 (5.96%) Senior Security Analyst
13 11 (4.68%) IT Manager
14 10 (4.26%) Applications Engineer
14 10 (4.26%) Team Leader
15 9 (3.83%) Digital Analyst
15 9 (3.83%) Information Analyst
15 9 (3.83%) Information Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.70%) .NET
2 3 (1.28%) .NET Framework
3 2 (0.85%) AngularJS
3 2 (0.85%) ASP.NET
3 2 (0.85%) ASP.NET Core
3 2 (0.85%) Entity Framework
3 2 (0.85%) OpenAPI
3 2 (0.85%) RESTful
3 2 (0.85%) RxJS
3 2 (0.85%) Swagger
3 2 (0.85%) Vitest
4 1 (0.43%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.43%) LDAP
4 1 (0.43%) Memcached
4 1 (0.43%) OAuth
4 1 (0.43%) OAuth2
4 1 (0.43%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 63 (26.81%) Security Posture
2 27 (11.49%) Cyber Defence
2 27 (11.49%) Mobile App
3 23 (9.79%) Cyber Threat
4 17 (7.23%) Management Information System
5 7 (2.98%) Blog
5 7 (2.98%) Data Centre
5 7 (2.98%) Insider Threat
5 7 (2.98%) Self-Motivation
6 6 (2.55%) Operational Technology
7 5 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
8 4 (1.70%) Analytical Mindset
8 4 (1.70%) Cloud Native
8 4 (1.70%) Cyber Security Posture
8 4 (1.70%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.70%) PKI
8 4 (1.70%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.70%) Security Operations Centre
9 3 (1.28%) Cyberattack
9 3 (1.28%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 33 (14.04%) Linux
2 32 (13.62%) Windows
3 10 (4.26%) Android
3 10 (4.26%) Apple iOS
4 7 (2.98%) Unix
5 4 (1.70%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.43%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 142 (60.43%) Cybersecurity
2 80 (34.04%) Red Team
3 77 (32.77%) Incident Response
4 55 (23.40%) Application Security
5 53 (22.55%) Information Security
6 49 (20.85%) Mentoring
6 49 (20.85%) Offensive Security
6 49 (20.85%) Problem-Solving
7 46 (19.57%) SIEM
8 42 (17.87%) Agile
9 41 (17.45%) Vulnerability Management
10 35 (14.89%) Security Testing
11 31 (13.19%) Business Strategy
11 31 (13.19%) Internal Audit
11 31 (13.19%) Security Operations
12 30 (12.77%) Cloud Security
13 29 (12.34%) Business Transformation
13 29 (12.34%) Ethical Hacking
13 29 (12.34%) Threat Modelling
14 28 (11.91%) Coaching
Programming Languages
1 52 (22.13%) Python
2 41 (17.45%) PowerShell
3 37 (15.74%) Bash
4 14 (5.96%) Go
5 12 (5.11%) Java
6 9 (3.83%) C
6 9 (3.83%) C++
7 8 (3.40%) SQL
8 7 (2.98%) C#
8 7 (2.98%) Perl
9 5 (2.13%) Ruby
10 3 (1.28%) Bicep
10 3 (1.28%) Objective-C
10 3 (1.28%) R
10 3 (1.28%) Rust
11 2 (0.85%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.43%) Kusto Query Language
12 1 (0.43%) PHP
Qualifications
1 79 (33.62%) CREST Certified
2 66 (28.09%) OSCP
3 55 (23.40%) CISSP
4 47 (20.00%) Security Cleared
5 46 (19.57%) Degree
6 39 (16.60%) SC Cleared
7 29 (12.34%) CEH
8 28 (11.91%) Cisco Certification
9 26 (11.06%) CHECK Team Member
10 23 (9.79%) CISM
11 21 (8.94%) CCSAM
11 21 (8.94%) CHECK Team Leader
12 19 (8.09%) CCNA
13 18 (7.66%) DV Cleared
14 17 (7.23%) CompTIA Security+
14 17 (7.23%) GIAC
15 13 (5.53%) GPEN
16 11 (4.68%) CCNP
16 11 (4.68%) CISA
17 10 (4.26%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (32.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 44 (18.72%) NIST
3 34 (14.47%) GDPR
4 25 (10.64%) Cyber Essentials
5 19 (8.09%) Actionable Recommendations
6 14 (5.96%) PCI DSS
7 12 (5.11%) Accessibility
8 11 (4.68%) NCSC
9 10 (4.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 6 (2.55%) GRC
11 3 (1.28%) ITGC
11 3 (1.28%) NIST 800
11 3 (1.28%) RMADS
11 3 (1.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (1.28%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.85%) COBIT
12 2 (0.85%) Data Quality
12 2 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 1 (0.43%) GxP
13 1 (0.43%) QA
System Software
1 24 (10.21%) Active Directory
2 6 (2.55%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (1.70%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (1.28%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.85%) EMC RecoverPoint
5 2 (0.85%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.43%) Docker
6 1 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 13 (5.53%) Nessus
2 12 (5.11%) Nmap
3 11 (4.68%) Kubernetes
4 7 (2.98%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (2.13%) Ansible
5 5 (2.13%) Terraform
6 4 (1.70%) CSIRT
7 3 (1.28%) ArcSight ESM
7 3 (1.28%) FortiGate
7 3 (1.28%) QRadar
7 3 (1.28%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.85%) VxRail
9 1 (0.43%) Consul
9 1 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.43%) Packer
9 1 (0.43%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.43%) Puppet
9 1 (0.43%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 57 (24.26%) Microsoft
2 14 (5.96%) Cisco
2 14 (5.96%) Splunk
3 10 (4.26%) Sophos
4 9 (3.83%) VMware
5 8 (3.40%) Zscaler
6 7 (2.98%) CheckPoint
6 7 (2.98%) Fortinet
7 5 (2.13%) Qualys
7 5 (2.13%) TOWER Software
8 4 (1.70%) CrowdStrike
8 4 (1.70%) Okta
8 4 (1.70%) Oracle
8 4 (1.70%) ServiceNow
8 4 (1.70%) Tenable
9 3 (1.28%) ArcSight
9 3 (1.28%) CyberArk
9 3 (1.28%) Dell
9 3 (1.28%) LogLogic
9 3 (1.28%) Palo Alto