Security Testing Job Trends in the South East

Security Testing
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the South East requiring Security Testing skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 12 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 257 255 281
Rank change year-on-year -2 +26 +42
Permanent jobs citing Security Testing 18 47 9
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 0.17% 0.52% 0.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.22% 0.59% 0.11%
Number of salaries quoted 8 20 8
10th Percentile £15,500 £62,175 £38,000
25th Percentile £38,290 £67,875 £41,563
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £48,924 £75,000 £52,000
Median % change year-on-year -34.77% +44.23% -9.57%
75th Percentile £92,500 £93,250 £65,313
90th Percentile £94,000 - £73,750
England median annual salary £75,000 £85,000 £72,500
% change year-on-year -11.76% +17.24% -3.33%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South East

Security 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 the South East.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 8,270 7,935 7,841
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 80.17% 88.05% 88.33%
Number of salaries quoted 4,919 3,791 5,460
10th Percentile £27,750 £33,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £34,250 £45,000 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £58,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -13.79% +10.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £65,000 £75,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £85,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

Security Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Security Testing relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Security Testing job vacancy trend in the South East

Security Testing
Salary Trend in the South East

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Security Testing.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Security Testing

Security Testing
Salary Histogram in the South East

Salary distribution for jobs citing Security Testing in the South East over the 6 months to 12 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Security Testing in the South East

Security Testing
Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Security Testing within the South East region over the 6 months to 12 January 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
Hampshire +40 8 £48,924 -24.73% 2
Middlesex +7 5 - -
Thames Valley -11 5 £70,500 -7.24% 8
Berkshire -14 4 £46,000 -38.67% 7
Oxfordshire - 1 £95,000 -
Security Testing
England

Security Testing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 4 (22.22%) Apache
1 4 (22.22%) Apache Airflow
1 4 (22.22%) Appian
2 3 (16.67%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 12 (66.67%) Azure
2 11 (61.11%) Azure DevOps
3 5 (27.78%) AWS
3 5 (27.78%) PaaS
4 4 (22.22%) Amazon S3
4 4 (22.22%) MinIO
4 4 (22.22%) Power Platform
5 2 (11.11%) AWS CloudFormation
5 2 (11.11%) SaaS
6 1 (5.56%) GCP
6 1 (5.56%) GitHub
6 1 (5.56%) GitHub Actions
6 1 (5.56%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 3 (16.67%) Firewall
2 1 (5.56%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (22.22%) Airbyte
Development Applications
1 6 (33.33%) Robot Framework
1 6 (33.33%) Selenium
2 4 (22.22%) Snyk
3 2 (11.11%) Burp Suite
3 2 (11.11%) GitLab
3 2 (11.11%) Jenkins
3 2 (11.11%) JIRA
3 2 (11.11%) TestRail
4 1 (5.56%) Git
4 1 (5.56%) Metasploit
General
1 8 (44.44%) Finance
2 3 (16.67%) Social Skills
3 2 (11.11%) Aerospace
3 2 (11.11%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (5.56%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 8 (44.44%) Lead
2 7 (38.89%) Architect
3 5 (27.78%) Security Engineer
4 4 (22.22%) Applications Architect
5 3 (16.67%) Lead Architect
5 3 (16.67%) Tester
6 2 (11.11%) Manual Tester
6 2 (11.11%) Security Specialist
7 1 (5.56%) DevSecOps Engineer
7 1 (5.56%) Ethical Hacker
7 1 (5.56%) Infrastructure Tester
7 1 (5.56%) Penetration Tester
7 1 (5.56%) Senior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (27.78%) YAML
2 4 (22.22%) Apache NiFi
2 4 (22.22%) Kafka
3 2 (11.11%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 7 (38.89%) Security Posture
2 4 (22.22%) Cloud Native
2 4 (22.22%) Low-Code
3 2 (11.11%) Cyber Threat
3 2 (11.11%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 3 (16.67%) Windows
1 3 (16.67%) Windows Server
2 1 (5.56%) Kali Linux
2 1 (5.56%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (66.67%) CI/CD
2 11 (61.11%) Agile
2 11 (61.11%) DevOps
2 11 (61.11%) Test Automation
3 10 (55.56%) DevSecOps
4 9 (50.00%) Application Security
4 9 (50.00%) OWASP
5 7 (38.89%) Cybersecurity
5 7 (38.89%) Infrastructure as Code
5 7 (38.89%) Technical Leadership
6 6 (33.33%) Scaled Agile Framework
6 6 (33.33%) Test Management
6 6 (33.33%) User Stories
7 5 (27.78%) Coaching
7 5 (27.78%) Computer Science
7 5 (27.78%) Mentoring
7 5 (27.78%) Product Management
7 5 (27.78%) SDLC
7 5 (27.78%) Threat Modelling
7 5 (27.78%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 7 (38.89%) Python
2 6 (33.33%) PowerShell
3 3 (16.67%) Bash
Qualifications
1 9 (50.00%) Security Cleared
2 7 (38.89%) DV Cleared
3 5 (27.78%) Computer Science Degree
3 5 (27.78%) Degree
3 5 (27.78%) Master's Degree
4 4 (22.22%) SC Cleared
5 2 (11.11%) ISTQB
5 2 (11.11%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 1 (5.56%) CREST Certified
6 1 (5.56%) GPEN
6 1 (5.56%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (33.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 6 (33.33%) NIST
2 5 (27.78%) NCSC
3 1 (5.56%) GDPR
3 1 (5.56%) SOC 2
System Software
1 3 (16.67%) Docker
1 3 (16.67%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 7 (38.89%) Terraform
2 4 (22.22%) Ansible
3 3 (16.67%) Kubernetes
3 3 (16.67%) vRealize
4 2 (11.11%) Grafana
4 2 (11.11%) Nessus
4 2 (11.11%) Prometheus
5 1 (5.56%) Nmap
Vendors
1 7 (38.89%) VMware
2 5 (27.78%) Microsoft
3 4 (22.22%) BiZZdesign
3 4 (22.22%) Black Duck
3 4 (22.22%) Blue Prism
3 4 (22.22%) Coverity
3 4 (22.22%) UiPath
4 1 (5.56%) Oracle