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

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 439 391 409
Rank change year-on-year -48 +18 +64
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 248 239 484
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.31% 0.63% 0.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.41% 0.68% 0.68%
Number of salaries quoted 166 192 377
10th Percentile £42,250 £45,000 £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 £87,500 £85,313 £82,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £97,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £65,000 £67,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year -3.70% +8.00% -7.41%

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 59,858 35,198 71,429
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 74.86% 93.05% 85.59%
Number of salaries quoted 37,901 20,543 53,811
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,750 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £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 £57,946 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -3.42% +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 1 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 1 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 -32 109 £78,750 +8.62% 46
South West -12 49 £50,000 -25.93% 7
South East -42 30 £72,500 +3.57% 15
North of England -64 25 £56,000 -2.61% 6
Midlands -47 22 £60,000 -11.11% 8
West Midlands -43 14 £65,000 -3.70% 8
Yorkshire -50 13 £55,000 +4.76% 1
East Midlands -40 8 £51,058 +27.65%
North West -41 7 £56,000 -8.20% 5
North East -33 5 £75,000 +12.36%
East of England -21 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 4 (1.61%) 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 58 (23.39%) AWS
1 58 (23.39%) Azure
2 21 (8.47%) GCP
2 21 (8.47%) Microsoft 365
3 11 (4.44%) Azure Sentinel
3 11 (4.44%) Entra ID
3 11 (4.44%) GitHub
4 9 (3.63%) Microsoft Purview
5 7 (2.82%) GitHub Actions
6 5 (2.02%) SaaS
7 4 (1.61%) Amazon EKS
7 4 (1.61%) AWS CloudFormation
7 4 (1.61%) Azure Key Vault
7 4 (1.61%) Mimecast
8 3 (1.21%) Azure DevOps
8 3 (1.21%) OneDrive
9 2 (0.81%) Cloudflare
9 2 (0.81%) Dynamics 365
9 2 (0.81%) IaaS
9 2 (0.81%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 46 (18.55%) Firewall
2 26 (10.48%) Network Security
3 20 (8.06%) Wireless
4 18 (7.26%) VPN
5 11 (4.44%) DNS
5 11 (4.44%) TCP/IP
6 9 (3.63%) Intrusion Detection
7 7 (2.82%) Cisco ISE
7 7 (2.82%) Internet
7 7 (2.82%) VLAN
8 4 (1.61%) Cisco Nexus
8 4 (1.61%) HTTPS
8 4 (1.61%) VoIP
9 3 (1.21%) DHCP
9 3 (1.21%) DMARC
9 3 (1.21%) DMZ
9 3 (1.21%) LAN
9 3 (1.21%) SSL
9 3 (1.21%) WAN
9 3 (1.21%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (2.02%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.21%) Amazon RDS
3 2 (0.81%) Power BI
4 1 (0.40%) InterSystems Cache
4 1 (0.40%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.40%) Redis
Development Applications
1 18 (7.26%) Burp Suite
1 18 (7.26%) Metasploit
2 6 (2.42%) Bitbucket
2 6 (2.42%) 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 76 (30.65%) Finance
2 74 (29.84%) Social Skills
3 27 (10.89%) Public Sector
4 24 (9.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 23 (9.27%) Law
6 22 (8.87%) Banking
7 17 (6.85%) Analytical Skills
7 17 (6.85%) Retail
8 9 (3.63%) Legal
9 7 (2.82%) Marketing
9 7 (2.82%) Pharmaceutical
10 6 (2.42%) Telecoms
11 4 (1.61%) Financial Institution
12 3 (1.21%) Aerospace
12 3 (1.21%) Back Office
12 3 (1.21%) Influencing Skills
13 2 (0.81%) Public Speaking
13 2 (0.81%) Social Housing
14 1 (0.40%) Documentation Skills
14 1 (0.40%) Military
Job Titles
1 45 (18.15%) Consultant
2 44 (17.74%) Security Consultant
3 37 (14.92%) Senior
4 36 (14.52%) Analyst
5 33 (13.31%) Penetration Tester
5 33 (13.31%) Tester
6 29 (11.69%) Security Analyst
7 25 (10.08%) Security Manager
8 24 (9.68%) Cybersecurity Consultant
9 19 (7.66%) Lead
10 15 (6.05%) Security Engineer
10 15 (6.05%) Security Specialist
10 15 (6.05%) Senior Analyst
10 15 (6.05%) Senior Security Analyst
11 11 (4.44%) Information Analyst
11 11 (4.44%) Information Security Analyst
12 10 (4.03%) Team Leader
13 9 (3.63%) Digital Analyst
13 9 (3.63%) Head of Security
13 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 30 (12.10%) Mobile App
3 26 (10.48%) Cyber Defence
4 25 (10.08%) Cyber Threat
5 16 (6.45%) Management Information System
6 11 (4.44%) Self-Motivation
7 7 (2.82%) Blog
7 7 (2.82%) Data Centre
7 7 (2.82%) Security Operations Centre
8 6 (2.42%) Cyber Security Posture
9 5 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
10 4 (1.61%) Cloud Native
10 4 (1.61%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.61%) Insider Threat
10 4 (1.61%) Operational Technology
10 4 (1.61%) Public Cloud
11 3 (1.21%) CCTV
11 3 (1.21%) Cyberattack
11 3 (1.21%) Onboarding
11 3 (1.21%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 31 (12.50%) Windows
2 29 (11.69%) Linux
3 13 (5.24%) Android
3 13 (5.24%) Apple iOS
4 4 (1.61%) Unix
4 4 (1.61%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.81%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 161 (64.92%) Cybersecurity
2 83 (33.47%) Red Team
3 78 (31.45%) Incident Response
4 56 (22.58%) Information Security
5 53 (21.37%) Application Security
6 52 (20.97%) Mentoring
7 51 (20.56%) SIEM
8 50 (20.16%) Offensive Security
9 49 (19.76%) Security Testing
10 47 (18.95%) Vulnerability Management
11 44 (17.74%) Problem-Solving
12 37 (14.92%) Agile
12 37 (14.92%) Security Operations
13 34 (13.71%) Cloud Security
14 30 (12.10%) Business Strategy
15 29 (11.69%) Business Transformation
15 29 (11.69%) Internal Audit
16 28 (11.29%) Coaching
16 28 (11.29%) Creative Thinking
17 26 (10.48%) Ethical Hacking
Programming Languages
1 44 (17.74%) Python
2 39 (15.73%) PowerShell
3 32 (12.90%) Bash
4 14 (5.65%) Java
5 13 (5.24%) Go
6 7 (2.82%) C#
6 7 (2.82%) Perl
7 5 (2.02%) C
7 5 (2.02%) C++
7 5 (2.02%) Ruby
7 5 (2.02%) SQL
8 4 (1.61%) Bicep
9 3 (1.21%) Objective-C
9 3 (1.21%) Rust
10 2 (0.81%) Kusto Query Language
10 2 (0.81%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.40%) PHP
Qualifications
1 78 (31.45%) CREST Certified
2 67 (27.02%) OSCP
3 57 (22.98%) CISSP
4 42 (16.94%) Security Cleared
5 39 (15.73%) Degree
6 36 (14.52%) SC Cleared
7 29 (11.69%) CISM
8 27 (10.89%) CEH
8 27 (10.89%) CHECK Team Member
9 26 (10.48%) Cisco Certification
10 24 (9.68%) CHECK Team Leader
11 21 (8.47%) CCSAM
12 18 (7.26%) CCNA
13 16 (6.45%) CompTIA Security+
14 14 (5.65%) GIAC
15 13 (5.24%) CCNP
16 11 (4.44%) DV Cleared
17 10 (4.03%) GPEN
18 9 (3.63%) SANS
19 8 (3.23%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 77 (31.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 40 (16.13%) NIST
3 38 (15.32%) GDPR
4 32 (12.90%) Cyber Essentials
5 16 (6.45%) Actionable Recommendations
6 14 (5.65%) PCI DSS
7 13 (5.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 10 (4.03%) GRC
8 10 (4.03%) NCSC
9 7 (2.82%) Accessibility
10 6 (2.42%) SOC 2
11 4 (1.61%) ITGC
12 3 (1.21%) COBIT
12 3 (1.21%) Data Quality
12 3 (1.21%) QA
12 3 (1.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 1 (0.40%) GxP
13 1 (0.40%) HIPAA
13 1 (0.40%) RMADS
13 1 (0.40%) SLA
System Software
1 27 (10.89%) Active Directory
2 6 (2.42%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.21%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (0.81%) 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 (5.24%) Nessus
2 12 (4.84%) Kubernetes
3 10 (4.03%) Microsoft Intune
4 9 (3.63%) Nmap
5 7 (2.82%) Terraform
6 5 (2.02%) Ansible
7 4 (1.61%) CSIRT
8 3 (1.21%) ArcSight ESM
8 3 (1.21%) FortiGate
8 3 (1.21%) QRadar
8 3 (1.21%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.81%) Jamf Pro
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 58 (23.39%) Microsoft
2 15 (6.05%) Splunk
3 12 (4.84%) Cisco
3 12 (4.84%) Sophos
4 9 (3.63%) VMware
4 9 (3.63%) Zscaler
5 8 (3.23%) Fortinet
6 7 (2.82%) CheckPoint
7 6 (2.42%) CrowdStrike
8 5 (2.02%) Qualys
8 5 (2.02%) TOWER Software
9 4 (1.61%) Okta
9 4 (1.61%) Palo Alto
10 3 (1.21%) ArcSight
10 3 (1.21%) Dell
10 3 (1.21%) LogLogic
10 3 (1.21%) McAfee
10 3 (1.21%) Veeam
11 2 (0.81%) DevExpress
11 2 (0.81%) Rapid7