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

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 431 491 456
Rank change year-on-year +60 -35 -22
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 366 162 323
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.36% 0.38% 0.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.49% 0.42% 0.58%
Number of salaries quoted 244 136 195
10th Percentile £39,825 £47,750 £43,300
25th Percentile £46,936 £53,735 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% - +8.33%
75th Percentile £90,000 £79,063 £82,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £90,625 £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 74,372 38,333 56,057
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.37% 88.82% 81.58%
Number of salaries quoted 52,671 22,038 32,065
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £32,000
25th Percentile £42,500 £37,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -7.26%
75th Percentile £80,000 £76,250 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £96,250
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%

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 17 September 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 17 September 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 +27 171 £85,000 +15.25% 182
South East 0 76 £70,000 +16.67% 68
South West -28 51 £50,000 -25.93% 45
Midlands -28 29 £65,000 +10.17% 39
North of England -56 26 £55,000 -4.35% 73
West Midlands -29 18 £70,000 +18.64% 22
Yorkshire -42 16 £55,000 - 22
East Midlands -33 11 £46,743 -22.10% 17
East of England - 11 £45,000 - 22
North West -26 6 £67,500 +7.14% 39
North East -63 4 £75,000 +8.09% 13
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 (2.19%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (1.91%) Confluence
2 7 (1.91%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.82%) Apache Spark
3 3 (0.82%) IIS
4 1 (0.27%) Apache
4 1 (0.27%) Drupal
4 1 (0.27%) nginx
4 1 (0.27%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
2 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.27%) FLEXCUBE
1 1 (0.27%) Magento
1 1 (0.27%) SAP EHS
1 1 (0.27%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 87 (23.77%) AWS
2 76 (20.77%) Azure
3 29 (7.92%) Microsoft 365
4 26 (7.10%) GCP
5 16 (4.37%) Entra ID
6 13 (3.55%) SaaS
7 7 (1.91%) Mimecast
8 6 (1.64%) Amazon Bedrock
8 6 (1.64%) Cloud Computing
8 6 (1.64%) Microsoft Purview
9 5 (1.37%) Azure Sentinel
9 5 (1.37%) GitHub
9 5 (1.37%) Nutanix
10 4 (1.09%) Amazon ECS
10 4 (1.09%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 4 (1.09%) OneDrive
11 3 (0.82%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (0.82%) Azure DevOps
11 3 (0.82%) GitHub Actions
11 3 (0.82%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 92 (25.14%) Firewall
2 39 (10.66%) Wi-Fi
3 38 (10.38%) Cisco Nexus
4 33 (9.02%) Internet
5 30 (8.20%) Network Security
6 29 (7.92%) LAN
6 29 (7.92%) WAN
7 19 (5.19%) VPN
8 11 (3.01%) DNS
9 10 (2.73%) TCP/IP
9 10 (2.73%) Wireless
10 7 (1.91%) Cisco ASA
10 7 (1.91%) VLAN
10 7 (1.91%) Wireshark
11 6 (1.64%) Cisco ISE
11 6 (1.64%) Intrusion Detection
12 5 (1.37%) Kerberos
13 4 (1.09%) Cisco Firepower
13 4 (1.09%) DHCP
13 4 (1.09%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (3.01%) SQL Server
2 5 (1.37%) MongoDB
3 3 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.82%) Hadoop
3 3 (0.82%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.55%) KNIME
4 2 (0.55%) Power BI
5 1 (0.27%) Amazon Aurora
5 1 (0.27%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.27%) Electronic Patient Records
5 1 (0.27%) InterSystems Cache
5 1 (0.27%) Redis
Development Applications
1 30 (8.20%) Burp Suite
2 26 (7.10%) Metasploit
3 15 (4.10%) JIRA
4 4 (1.09%) Snyk
4 4 (1.09%) Yeoman
5 3 (0.82%) GitLab
6 2 (0.55%) Gatling
6 2 (0.55%) Git
6 2 (0.55%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.55%) Maven
6 2 (0.55%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.27%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.27%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.27%) IDA Disassembler
7 1 (0.27%) JMeter
7 1 (0.27%) JUnit
7 1 (0.27%) NUnit
7 1 (0.27%) Postman
7 1 (0.27%) Selenium
7 1 (0.27%) Vagrant
General
1 113 (30.87%) Social Skills
2 57 (15.57%) Finance
3 52 (14.21%) Analytical Skills
4 31 (8.47%) Public Sector
5 28 (7.65%) Law
6 21 (5.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 17 (4.64%) Retail
8 16 (4.37%) Banking
9 12 (3.28%) Aerospace
10 11 (3.01%) Influencing Skills
11 10 (2.73%) Telecoms
12 8 (2.19%) Organisational Skills
13 7 (1.91%) Presentation Skills
14 6 (1.64%) Marketing
14 6 (1.64%) Pharmaceutical
15 5 (1.37%) Legal
16 4 (1.09%) Financial Institution
17 3 (0.82%) Aviation
17 3 (0.82%) Digital Health
17 3 (0.82%) Military
Job Titles
1 100 (27.32%) Senior
2 70 (19.13%) Penetration Tester
2 70 (19.13%) Tester
3 51 (13.93%) Analyst
4 48 (13.11%) Lead
5 44 (12.02%) Security Analyst
6 39 (10.66%) Security Engineer
7 37 (10.11%) Senior Analyst
8 31 (8.47%) Senior Security Analyst
9 29 (7.92%) Consultant
10 27 (7.38%) Senior Security Engineer
11 26 (7.10%) Cybersecurity Analyst
12 25 (6.83%) Senior Cybersecurity Analyst
13 24 (6.56%) Security Consultant
14 23 (6.28%) Cybersecurity Engineer
15 21 (5.74%) Network Analyst
15 21 (5.74%) Senior Network Analyst
16 19 (5.19%) Architect
17 18 (4.92%) Security Specialist
18 17 (4.64%) Security Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (2.19%) Terraform
2 5 (1.37%) LDAP
3 4 (1.09%) .NET
3 4 (1.09%) OAuth
4 3 (0.82%) Kafka
4 3 (0.82%) OpenID
4 3 (0.82%) RESTful
5 2 (0.55%) .NET Framework
6 1 (0.27%) AngularJS
6 1 (0.27%) ASP.NET
6 1 (0.27%) CSS
6 1 (0.27%) Entity Framework
6 1 (0.27%) HTML
6 1 (0.27%) Memcached
6 1 (0.27%) OAuth2
6 1 (0.27%) Playwright
6 1 (0.27%) Ruby on Rails
6 1 (0.27%) RxJS
6 1 (0.27%) Swagger
6 1 (0.27%) Vitest
Miscellaneous
1 72 (19.67%) Security Posture
2 32 (8.74%) Management Information System
3 28 (7.65%) Cyber Threat
4 17 (4.64%) Onboarding
4 17 (4.64%) Self-Motivation
5 15 (4.10%) Mobile App
6 14 (3.83%) Operational Technology
6 14 (3.83%) Security Operations Centre
7 13 (3.55%) Cyber Defence
8 10 (2.73%) Cyber Security Posture
9 9 (2.46%) Cloud Native
10 7 (1.91%) NHS
11 6 (1.64%) Cyberattack
11 6 (1.64%) PKI
12 5 (1.37%) Data Centre
12 5 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
13 4 (1.09%) Cloud Security Posture
13 4 (1.09%) Cyber Kill Chain
13 4 (1.09%) Distributed Systems
13 4 (1.09%) Insider Threat
Operating Systems
1 50 (13.66%) Windows
2 42 (11.48%) Linux
3 18 (4.92%) Windows Server
4 15 (4.10%) Android
4 15 (4.10%) Apple iOS
5 8 (2.19%) Mac OS
6 5 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (1.09%) Kali Linux
8 3 (0.82%) Unix
9 2 (0.55%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 279 (76.23%) Cybersecurity
2 129 (35.25%) Vulnerability Management
3 93 (25.41%) Incident Response
3 93 (25.41%) Security Testing
4 92 (25.14%) SIEM
5 77 (21.04%) Security Operations
6 75 (20.49%) Red Team
7 72 (19.67%) Information Security
8 71 (19.40%) Cloud Security
9 65 (17.76%) Problem-Solving
10 56 (15.30%) Continuous Improvement
11 55 (15.03%) Offensive Security
12 52 (14.21%) Application Security
13 50 (13.66%) Disaster Recovery
14 49 (13.39%) Threat Detection
14 49 (13.39%) Vulnerability Assessment
15 47 (12.84%) Threat Intelligence
16 46 (12.57%) Mentoring
16 46 (12.57%) Vulnerability Remediation
17 44 (12.02%) AI
Programming Languages
1 32 (8.74%) Python
2 29 (7.92%) PowerShell
3 18 (4.92%) Java
4 10 (2.73%) Go
5 7 (1.91%) SQL
6 6 (1.64%) Ruby
7 5 (1.37%) C
7 5 (1.37%) C#
7 5 (1.37%) C++
7 5 (1.37%) JavaScript
7 5 (1.37%) Perl
8 4 (1.09%) Bash
8 4 (1.09%) Bicep
8 4 (1.09%) Rust
9 3 (0.82%) Objective-C
9 3 (0.82%) PHP
10 1 (0.27%) Apex Code
10 1 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
10 1 (0.27%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 67 (18.31%) CISSP
2 58 (15.85%) Security Cleared
3 54 (14.75%) CREST Certified
4 52 (14.21%) CISM
5 40 (10.93%) SC Cleared
6 38 (10.38%) OSCP
7 33 (9.02%) Degree
8 27 (7.38%) CHECK Team Member
9 21 (5.74%) Cisco Certification
10 17 (4.64%) CEH
11 15 (4.10%) CompTIA Security+
12 13 (3.55%) CHECK Team Leader
13 12 (3.28%) CCNP
13 12 (3.28%) Computer Science Degree
13 12 (3.28%) GIAC
14 11 (3.01%) AWS Certification
15 10 (2.73%) Cyber Scheme
15 10 (2.73%) DV Cleared
16 9 (2.46%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 8 (2.19%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 101 (27.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 67 (18.31%) NIST
3 47 (12.84%) GDPR
4 40 (10.93%) Cyber Essentials
5 25 (6.83%) GRC
6 18 (4.92%) PCI DSS
7 13 (3.55%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 12 (3.28%) NCSC
9 10 (2.73%) SOC 2
10 8 (2.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 7 (1.91%) Def Stans
11 7 (1.91%) NIST 800
12 6 (1.64%) QA
13 4 (1.09%) Actionable Recommendations
13 4 (1.09%) SLA
14 3 (0.82%) Accessibility
14 3 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 2 (0.55%) COBIT
16 1 (0.27%) ISO 9001
16 1 (0.27%) WCAG
System Software
1 32 (8.74%) Active Directory
2 9 (2.46%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (1.64%) Docker
4 5 (1.37%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.55%) EMC RecoverPoint
5 2 (0.55%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.55%) Microsoft Virtual Server
5 2 (0.55%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 26 (7.10%) Nmap
2 20 (5.46%) Kubernetes
3 19 (5.19%) Nessus
4 5 (1.37%) Microsoft Intune
4 5 (1.37%) Red Hat Satellite
5 4 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.82%) Progress Chef
6 3 (0.82%) SCCM
6 3 (0.82%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
7 2 (0.55%) VxRail
8 1 (0.27%) Ansible
8 1 (0.27%) CASB
8 1 (0.27%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 1 (0.27%) Consul
8 1 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.27%) Network Intrusion Detection System
8 1 (0.27%) OpenVAS
8 1 (0.27%) Packer
8 1 (0.27%) Puppet
8 1 (0.27%) QRadar
Vendors
1 67 (18.31%) Microsoft
2 50 (13.66%) Cisco
2 50 (13.66%) Qualys
3 49 (13.39%) Palo Alto
4 37 (10.11%) Aruba
5 19 (5.19%) Splunk
6 15 (4.10%) Tenable
7 14 (3.83%) CrowdStrike
7 14 (3.83%) Rapid7
8 9 (2.46%) VMware
9 8 (2.19%) Fortinet
10 7 (1.91%) ServiceNow
10 7 (1.91%) Sophos
10 7 (1.91%) Veracode
11 6 (1.64%) Oracle
12 5 (1.37%) CyberArk
12 5 (1.37%) Ivanti
12 5 (1.37%) Red Hat
12 5 (1.37%) Zscaler
13 4 (1.09%) Okta