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

6 months to
8 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 443 417 419
Rank change year-on-year -26 +2 +52
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 249 224 470
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.31% 0.58% 0.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.41% 0.62% 0.66%
Number of salaries quoted 166 179 371
10th Percentile £42,500 £43,500 £38,750
25th Percentile £49,813 £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 £88,625 £85,000 £82,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £98,500 £96,250
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 60,225 36,390 71,476
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 74.59% 93.48% 85.33%
Number of salaries quoted 38,460 20,470 53,767
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,500 £29,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £42,372 £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% -10.10%

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 8 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 8 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 -7 111 £78,750 +8.25% 39
South West -10 48 £50,000 -25.93% 8
South East -46 30 £72,500 +3.57% 10
North of England -53 25 £56,000 -5.49% 4
Midlands -33 22 £56,250 -16.67% 9
West Midlands -37 14 £65,000 -3.70% 8
Yorkshire -39 13 £55,000 - 2
East Midlands -24 8 £51,058 +27.65% 1
North West -35 7 £56,000 -8.20% 2
North East -31 5 £75,000 +12.36%
East of England -12 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 (2.41%) SharePoint
2 4 (1.61%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (1.20%) IIS
4 2 (0.80%) 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 58 (23.29%) AWS
2 57 (22.89%) Azure
3 21 (8.43%) GCP
3 21 (8.43%) Microsoft 365
4 12 (4.82%) Entra ID
5 11 (4.42%) Azure Sentinel
5 11 (4.42%) GitHub
6 7 (2.81%) GitHub Actions
6 7 (2.81%) Microsoft Purview
7 4 (1.61%) Amazon EKS
7 4 (1.61%) AWS CloudFormation
7 4 (1.61%) Azure Key Vault
7 4 (1.61%) Mimecast
7 4 (1.61%) SaaS
8 3 (1.20%) Azure DevOps
8 3 (1.20%) OneDrive
9 2 (0.80%) Cloudflare
9 2 (0.80%) Figma
9 2 (0.80%) Power Platform
9 2 (0.80%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 44 (17.67%) Firewall
2 27 (10.84%) Network Security
3 20 (8.03%) Wireless
4 18 (7.23%) VPN
5 11 (4.42%) DNS
5 11 (4.42%) TCP/IP
6 8 (3.21%) Internet
7 7 (2.81%) Cisco ISE
7 7 (2.81%) Intrusion Detection
7 7 (2.81%) VLAN
8 4 (1.61%) Cisco Nexus
8 4 (1.61%) HTTPS
8 4 (1.61%) VoIP
9 3 (1.20%) DHCP
9 3 (1.20%) DMARC
9 3 (1.20%) DMZ
9 3 (1.20%) LAN
9 3 (1.20%) SSL
9 3 (1.20%) WAN
9 3 (1.20%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (2.01%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.20%) Amazon RDS
3 2 (0.80%) Power BI
4 1 (0.40%) InterSystems Cache
4 1 (0.40%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.40%) Redis
Development Applications
1 18 (7.23%) Burp Suite
1 18 (7.23%) Metasploit
2 6 (2.41%) Bitbucket
2 6 (2.41%) Jenkins
3 5 (2.01%) JIRA
4 2 (0.80%) Git
4 2 (0.80%) NUnit
5 1 (0.40%) Gatling
5 1 (0.40%) JMeter
5 1 (0.40%) Vagrant
General
1 75 (30.12%) Social Skills
2 74 (29.72%) Finance
3 27 (10.84%) Public Sector
4 25 (10.04%) Law
5 23 (9.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 22 (8.84%) Banking
7 17 (6.83%) Analytical Skills
7 17 (6.83%) Retail
8 9 (3.61%) Legal
9 7 (2.81%) Marketing
9 7 (2.81%) Pharmaceutical
10 6 (2.41%) Telecoms
11 4 (1.61%) Financial Institution
12 3 (1.20%) Aerospace
12 3 (1.20%) Back Office
12 3 (1.20%) Influencing Skills
13 2 (0.80%) Public Speaking
13 2 (0.80%) Social Housing
14 1 (0.40%) French Language
14 1 (0.40%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 44 (17.67%) Consultant
2 43 (17.27%) Security Consultant
3 38 (15.26%) Senior
4 34 (13.65%) Penetration Tester
4 34 (13.65%) Tester
5 33 (13.25%) Analyst
6 26 (10.44%) Security Analyst
6 26 (10.44%) Security Manager
7 23 (9.24%) Cybersecurity Consultant
8 19 (7.63%) Lead
9 16 (6.43%) Security Engineer
10 15 (6.02%) Security Specialist
10 15 (6.02%) Senior Analyst
10 15 (6.02%) Senior Security Analyst
11 10 (4.02%) Team Leader
12 9 (3.61%) Digital Analyst
12 9 (3.61%) Head of Security
12 9 (3.61%) Information Analyst
12 9 (3.61%) Information Security Analyst
12 9 (3.61%) Test Team Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (1.61%) .NET
2 3 (1.20%) .NET Framework
3 2 (0.80%) AngularJS
3 2 (0.80%) ASP.NET
3 2 (0.80%) ASP.NET Core
3 2 (0.80%) Entity Framework
3 2 (0.80%) OAuth
3 2 (0.80%) OAuth2
3 2 (0.80%) OpenAPI
3 2 (0.80%) OpenID
3 2 (0.80%) RESTful
3 2 (0.80%) RxJS
3 2 (0.80%) Swagger
3 2 (0.80%) Vitest
4 1 (0.40%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.40%) LDAP
4 1 (0.40%) Memcached
Miscellaneous
1 62 (24.90%) Security Posture
2 31 (12.45%) Mobile App
3 27 (10.84%) Cyber Defence
4 25 (10.04%) Cyber Threat
5 15 (6.02%) Management Information System
6 12 (4.82%) Self-Motivation
7 8 (3.21%) Security Operations Centre
8 7 (2.81%) Blog
8 7 (2.81%) Data Centre
9 6 (2.41%) Cyber Security Posture
10 5 (2.01%) Enterprise Software
11 4 (1.61%) Cloud Native
11 4 (1.61%) Insider Threat
11 4 (1.61%) Onboarding
11 4 (1.61%) Operational Technology
11 4 (1.61%) Public Cloud
12 3 (1.20%) CCTV
12 3 (1.20%) Cyberattack
13 2 (0.80%) Data Protection Act
13 2 (0.80%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 33 (13.25%) Windows
2 30 (12.05%) Linux
3 14 (5.62%) Android
3 14 (5.62%) Apple iOS
4 5 (2.01%) Windows Server
5 4 (1.61%) Unix
6 2 (0.80%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 163 (65.46%) Cybersecurity
2 85 (34.14%) Red Team
3 76 (30.52%) Incident Response
4 54 (21.69%) Application Security
5 53 (21.29%) Information Security
5 53 (21.29%) Mentoring
6 51 (20.48%) Offensive Security
6 51 (20.48%) Security Testing
7 49 (19.68%) SIEM
7 49 (19.68%) Vulnerability Management
8 43 (17.27%) Problem-Solving
9 37 (14.86%) Agile
10 35 (14.06%) Security Operations
11 34 (13.65%) Cloud Security
12 30 (12.05%) Business Strategy
12 30 (12.05%) Business Transformation
13 29 (11.65%) Internal Audit
14 28 (11.24%) Coaching
14 28 (11.24%) Creative Thinking
15 26 (10.44%) Ethical Hacking
Programming Languages
1 45 (18.07%) Python
2 40 (16.06%) PowerShell
3 32 (12.85%) Bash
4 14 (5.62%) Java
5 13 (5.22%) Go
6 7 (2.81%) C#
6 7 (2.81%) Perl
7 5 (2.01%) C
7 5 (2.01%) C++
7 5 (2.01%) Ruby
7 5 (2.01%) SQL
8 4 (1.61%) Bicep
9 3 (1.20%) Objective-C
9 3 (1.20%) Rust
10 2 (0.80%) Kusto Query Language
10 2 (0.80%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.40%) PHP
Qualifications
1 77 (30.92%) CREST Certified
2 67 (26.91%) OSCP
3 59 (23.69%) CISSP
4 41 (16.47%) Security Cleared
5 37 (14.86%) Degree
6 35 (14.06%) SC Cleared
7 31 (12.45%) CISM
8 27 (10.84%) CEH
8 27 (10.84%) CHECK Team Member
9 24 (9.64%) CHECK Team Leader
9 24 (9.64%) Cisco Certification
10 21 (8.43%) CCSAM
11 16 (6.43%) CCNA
11 16 (6.43%) CompTIA Security+
12 13 (5.22%) CCNP
13 12 (4.82%) GIAC
14 10 (4.02%) DV Cleared
14 10 (4.02%) GPEN
15 9 (3.61%) SANS
16 8 (3.21%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 75 (30.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 38 (15.26%) NIST
3 35 (14.06%) GDPR
4 32 (12.85%) Cyber Essentials
5 16 (6.43%) Actionable Recommendations
6 14 (5.62%) PCI DSS
7 13 (5.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 10 (4.02%) GRC
8 10 (4.02%) NCSC
9 7 (2.81%) Accessibility
10 6 (2.41%) SOC 2
11 3 (1.20%) COBIT
11 3 (1.20%) Data Quality
11 3 (1.20%) QA
12 2 (0.80%) ITGC
12 2 (0.80%) 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%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 27 (10.84%) Active Directory
2 6 (2.41%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.20%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (0.80%) EMC RecoverPoint
5 1 (0.40%) Docker
5 1 (0.40%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 13 (5.22%) Nessus
2 12 (4.82%) Kubernetes
3 10 (4.02%) Microsoft Intune
4 9 (3.61%) Nmap
5 7 (2.81%) Terraform
6 5 (2.01%) Ansible
7 4 (1.61%) CSIRT
8 3 (1.20%) FortiGate
8 3 (1.20%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.80%) Jamf Pro
9 2 (0.80%) VxRail
10 1 (0.40%) ArcSight ESM
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%) QRadar
10 1 (0.40%) Red Hat Satellite
10 1 (0.40%) SCCM
Vendors
1 56 (22.49%) Microsoft
2 14 (5.62%) Splunk
3 12 (4.82%) Cisco
3 12 (4.82%) Sophos
4 9 (3.61%) VMware
4 9 (3.61%) Zscaler
5 8 (3.21%) Fortinet
6 7 (2.81%) CheckPoint
7 6 (2.41%) CrowdStrike
8 5 (2.01%) Qualys
8 5 (2.01%) TOWER Software
9 4 (1.61%) Okta
9 4 (1.61%) Palo Alto
10 3 (1.20%) Dell
10 3 (1.20%) Veeam
11 2 (0.80%) CyberArk
11 2 (0.80%) DevExpress
11 2 (0.80%) Rapid7
11 2 (0.80%) Tenable
12 1 (0.40%) LogRhythm