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

6 months to
13 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 436 425 422
Rank change year-on-year -11 -3 +51
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 248 222 468
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.31% 0.57% 0.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.42% 0.61% 0.65%
Number of salaries quoted 165 177 369
10th Percentile £42,500 £43,250 £38,939
25th Percentile £48,750 £57,500 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £67,500 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.41% +3.85% -3.70%
75th Percentile £89,000 £85,000 £82,500
90th Percentile £99,000 £97,500 £96,500
UK median annual salary £65,000 £67,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year -3.70% +3.85% -3.70%

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 59,242 36,291 71,575
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.97% 93.41% 85.20%
Number of salaries quoted 38,835 20,234 53,682
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £29,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £42,000 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,500 £93,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +9.09% -9.84%

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 13 May 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 13 May 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 -11 110 £82,500 +13.79% 48
South West -10 45 £50,000 -25.93% 9
South East -22 33 £72,500 +3.57% 12
North of England -25 26 £56,000 -8.20% 9
Midlands -43 21 £56,250 -16.67% 7
Yorkshire -48 14 £55,000 - 4
West Midlands -37 13 £65,000 -3.70% 6
East Midlands -17 8 £51,058 +27.65% 1
North West -15 7 £56,000 -8.20% 4
North East -36 5 £75,000 -1.32% 1
East of England -11 4 £30,000 - 2
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 6 (2.42%) SharePoint
2 5 (2.02%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (1.21%) IIS
4 2 (0.81%) Confluence
5 1 (0.40%) Apache
5 1 (0.40%) Drupal
5 1 (0.40%) nginx
5 1 (0.40%) WordPress
Business Applications
1 1 (0.40%) Magento
1 1 (0.40%) SAP EHS
1 1 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 59 (23.79%) AWS
2 54 (21.77%) Azure
3 22 (8.87%) GCP
3 22 (8.87%) Microsoft 365
4 12 (4.84%) Entra ID
5 10 (4.03%) Azure Sentinel
5 10 (4.03%) GitHub
6 6 (2.42%) GitHub Actions
7 5 (2.02%) Microsoft Purview
8 4 (1.61%) Amazon EKS
8 4 (1.61%) AWS CloudFormation
8 4 (1.61%) Azure Key Vault
8 4 (1.61%) Mimecast
8 4 (1.61%) SaaS
9 3 (1.21%) Azure DevOps
9 3 (1.21%) OneDrive
10 2 (0.81%) Cloudflare
10 2 (0.81%) Figma
10 2 (0.81%) IaaS
10 2 (0.81%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 42 (16.94%) Firewall
2 26 (10.48%) Network Security
3 20 (8.06%) Wireless
4 17 (6.85%) VPN
5 10 (4.03%) DNS
6 9 (3.63%) TCP/IP
7 8 (3.23%) Internet
8 7 (2.82%) Cisco ISE
9 6 (2.42%) Intrusion Detection
9 6 (2.42%) VLAN
10 4 (1.61%) Cisco Nexus
10 4 (1.61%) HTTPS
11 3 (1.21%) DHCP
11 3 (1.21%) DMARC
11 3 (1.21%) DMZ
11 3 (1.21%) LAN
11 3 (1.21%) SSL
11 3 (1.21%) VoIP
11 3 (1.21%) WAN
11 3 (1.21%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (2.02%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.21%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.40%) InterSystems Cache
3 1 (0.40%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.40%) Power BI
3 1 (0.40%) Redis
Development Applications
1 17 (6.85%) Burp Suite
1 17 (6.85%) Metasploit
2 6 (2.42%) Bitbucket
3 5 (2.02%) Jenkins
3 5 (2.02%) JIRA
4 2 (0.81%) Git
4 2 (0.81%) NUnit
5 1 (0.40%) Gatling
5 1 (0.40%) JMeter
5 1 (0.40%) Vagrant
General
1 77 (31.05%) Social Skills
2 70 (28.23%) Finance
3 26 (10.48%) Law
3 26 (10.48%) Public Sector
4 22 (8.87%) Banking
5 20 (8.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 18 (7.26%) Analytical Skills
6 18 (7.26%) Retail
7 8 (3.23%) Legal
8 7 (2.82%) Marketing
8 7 (2.82%) Pharmaceutical
9 5 (2.02%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.61%) Financial Institution
11 3 (1.21%) Back Office
11 3 (1.21%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.81%) Aerospace
12 2 (0.81%) Public Speaking
12 2 (0.81%) Social Housing
13 1 (0.40%) French Language
13 1 (0.40%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 45 (18.15%) Consultant
2 44 (17.74%) Security Consultant
2 44 (17.74%) Senior
3 36 (14.52%) Penetration Tester
3 36 (14.52%) Tester
4 31 (12.50%) Analyst
5 26 (10.48%) Security Manager
6 24 (9.68%) Security Analyst
7 23 (9.27%) Cybersecurity Consultant
8 18 (7.26%) Lead
9 15 (6.05%) Security Specialist
9 15 (6.05%) Senior Analyst
9 15 (6.05%) Senior Security Analyst
10 14 (5.65%) Security Engineer
11 10 (4.03%) Senior Penetration Tester
11 10 (4.03%) Senior Tester
11 10 (4.03%) Team Leader
12 9 (3.63%) Head of Security
12 9 (3.63%) IT Support
12 9 (3.63%) Test Team Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.61%) .NET
2 3 (1.21%) .NET Framework
3 2 (0.81%) AngularJS
3 2 (0.81%) ASP.NET
3 2 (0.81%) ASP.NET Core
3 2 (0.81%) Entity Framework
3 2 (0.81%) OAuth
3 2 (0.81%) OAuth2
3 2 (0.81%) OpenAPI
3 2 (0.81%) OpenID
3 2 (0.81%) RESTful
3 2 (0.81%) RxJS
3 2 (0.81%) Swagger
3 2 (0.81%) Vitest
4 1 (0.40%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.40%) LDAP
4 1 (0.40%) Memcached
Miscellaneous
1 61 (24.60%) Security Posture
2 31 (12.50%) Mobile App
3 29 (11.69%) Cyber Defence
4 24 (9.68%) Cyber Threat
5 14 (5.65%) Management Information System
6 12 (4.84%) Self-Motivation
7 8 (3.23%) Security Operations Centre
8 7 (2.82%) Blog
8 7 (2.82%) Data Centre
9 6 (2.42%) Cyber Security Posture
10 4 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
10 4 (1.61%) Insider Threat
10 4 (1.61%) Onboarding
10 4 (1.61%) Operational Technology
10 4 (1.61%) Public Cloud
11 3 (1.21%) CCTV
11 3 (1.21%) Cloud Native
11 3 (1.21%) Cyberattack
12 2 (0.81%) Analytical Mindset
12 2 (0.81%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 35 (14.11%) Windows
2 31 (12.50%) Linux
3 16 (6.45%) Android
3 16 (6.45%) Apple iOS
4 6 (2.42%) Windows Server
5 4 (1.61%) Unix
6 2 (0.81%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 162 (65.32%) Cybersecurity
2 86 (34.68%) Red Team
3 76 (30.65%) Incident Response
4 54 (21.77%) Application Security
4 54 (21.77%) Mentoring
5 53 (21.37%) Offensive Security
5 53 (21.37%) Security Testing
6 50 (20.16%) Information Security
7 48 (19.35%) Vulnerability Management
8 47 (18.95%) SIEM
9 42 (16.94%) Problem-Solving
10 36 (14.52%) Agile
11 35 (14.11%) Cloud Security
12 34 (13.71%) Security Operations
13 30 (12.10%) Business Strategy
13 30 (12.10%) Business Transformation
14 29 (11.69%) Internal Audit
15 28 (11.29%) Coaching
15 28 (11.29%) Creative Thinking
16 26 (10.48%) Ethical Hacking
Programming Languages
1 45 (18.15%) Python
2 40 (16.13%) PowerShell
3 30 (12.10%) Bash
4 15 (6.05%) Java
5 14 (5.65%) Go
6 7 (2.82%) Perl
7 6 (2.42%) C#
8 5 (2.02%) C
8 5 (2.02%) C++
8 5 (2.02%) Ruby
9 4 (1.61%) Bicep
9 4 (1.61%) SQL
10 3 (1.21%) Objective-C
10 3 (1.21%) Rust
11 2 (0.81%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.81%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.40%) PHP
Qualifications
1 78 (31.45%) CREST Certified
2 67 (27.02%) OSCP
3 55 (22.18%) CISSP
4 39 (15.73%) Security Cleared
5 35 (14.11%) SC Cleared
6 34 (13.71%) Degree
7 30 (12.10%) CISM
8 27 (10.89%) CHECK Team Member
9 26 (10.48%) CEH
10 23 (9.27%) CHECK Team Leader
11 22 (8.87%) Cisco Certification
12 21 (8.47%) CCSAM
13 15 (6.05%) CCNA
13 15 (6.05%) CompTIA Security+
14 13 (5.24%) CCNP
15 10 (4.03%) GIAC
15 10 (4.03%) GPEN
16 9 (3.63%) DV Cleared
17 8 (3.23%) CISA
17 8 (3.23%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (28.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 34 (13.71%) GDPR
2 34 (13.71%) NIST
3 31 (12.50%) Cyber Essentials
4 16 (6.45%) Actionable Recommendations
5 15 (6.05%) PCI DSS
6 14 (5.65%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 10 (4.03%) GRC
8 9 (3.63%) NCSC
9 6 (2.42%) Accessibility
9 6 (2.42%) SOC 2
10 4 (1.61%) QA
11 3 (1.21%) COBIT
11 3 (1.21%) Data Quality
12 2 (0.81%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 1 (0.40%) GxP
13 1 (0.40%) HIPAA
13 1 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 1 (0.40%) ITGC
13 1 (0.40%) SLA
System Software
1 28 (11.29%) Active Directory
2 5 (2.02%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.21%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (0.81%) EMC RecoverPoint
5 1 (0.40%) Docker
5 1 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 13 (5.24%) Kubernetes
2 12 (4.84%) Nessus
3 11 (4.44%) Microsoft Intune
4 8 (3.23%) Nmap
5 7 (2.82%) Terraform
6 5 (2.02%) Ansible
7 4 (1.61%) CSIRT
8 3 (1.21%) FortiGate
9 2 (0.81%) Jamf Pro
9 2 (0.81%) SCCM
9 2 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.81%) VxRail
10 1 (0.40%) CASB
10 1 (0.40%) Consul
10 1 (0.40%) Packer
10 1 (0.40%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.40%) Puppet
10 1 (0.40%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 56 (22.58%) Microsoft
2 14 (5.65%) Splunk
3 12 (4.84%) Cisco
3 12 (4.84%) Sophos
4 9 (3.63%) Zscaler
5 8 (3.23%) Fortinet
5 8 (3.23%) VMware
6 7 (2.82%) CheckPoint
6 7 (2.82%) CrowdStrike
7 5 (2.02%) TOWER Software
8 4 (1.61%) Okta
8 4 (1.61%) Palo Alto
8 4 (1.61%) Qualys
9 3 (1.21%) Dell
9 3 (1.21%) Veeam
10 2 (0.81%) DevExpress
10 2 (0.81%) Rapid7
10 2 (0.81%) Tenable
11 1 (0.40%) CyberArk
11 1 (0.40%) ServiceNow