Penetration Testing Jobs in the UK excluding London

Penetration Testing
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Penetration Testing skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the annual salaries offered in vacancies that cited Penetration Testing over the 6 months leading up to 30 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 447 536 479
Rank change year-on-year +89 -57 -7
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 130 237 292
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.33% 0.32% 0.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.36% 0.39% 0.53%
Number of salaries quoted 92 159 171
10th Percentile £37,500 £36,000 £41,250
25th Percentile £53,391 £41,250 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +17.39% +4.55% -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £70,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £88,333 £90,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £67,500 £65,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year +3.85% - +1.96%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

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 the UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 36,483 61,419 55,450
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 92.65% 82.37% 95.58%
Number of salaries quoted 17,392 42,187 28,711
10th Percentile £26,250 £27,250 £30,500
25th Percentile £36,750 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,574 £50,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.15% -9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £77,500 £77,500 £82,500
UK median annual salary £57,443 £55,000 £60,899
% change year-on-year +4.44% -9.69% +1.50%

Penetration Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing Penetration Testing as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Penetration Testing in the UK excluding London

Penetration Testing
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing Penetration Testing in the UK excluding London.

Salary trend for Penetration Testing in the UK excluding London

Penetration Testing
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Penetration Testing in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 30 May 2025.

Salary histogram for Penetration Testing in the UK excluding London

Penetration Testing
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Penetration Testing within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 30 May 2025. 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
South East +60 38 £70,000 +55.56% 393
North of England +39 35 £61,000 +1.67% 343
Midlands +66 33 £67,500 +22.73% 302
West Midlands +58 30 £67,500 +22.73% 160
North West -7 20 £61,000 +1.67% 163
Yorkshire +59 11 £55,000 +24.29% 139
South West +65 8 £68,750 +7.84% 200
Scotland +113 6 £69,692 +16.15% 66
Northern Ireland - 6 £76,092 - 31
North East - 4 £72,692 - 41
East Midlands +26 3 £40,000 -38.46% 122
Wales +46 2 £75,574 -16.03% 45
East of England +42 2 - - 234
Penetration Testing
UK

Penetration Testing
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 2 (1.54%) TPMS
2 1 (0.77%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 26 (20.00%) Azure
2 17 (13.08%) Microsoft 365
3 16 (12.31%) AWS
4 4 (3.08%) Entra ID
5 3 (2.31%) Azure Sentinel
6 2 (1.54%) AWS KMS
6 2 (1.54%) GCP
7 1 (0.77%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (0.77%) Cloud Computing
7 1 (0.77%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 20 (15.38%) Firewall
2 16 (12.31%) Network Security
3 14 (10.77%) Wi-Fi
4 13 (10.00%) Bluetooth
5 11 (8.46%) 5G
5 11 (8.46%) LTE
6 9 (6.92%) Wireshark
7 8 (6.15%) TCP/IP
8 6 (4.62%) HTTP
9 4 (3.08%) DNS
9 4 (3.08%) HTTPS
10 3 (2.31%) Intrusion Detection
10 3 (2.31%) VPN
11 2 (1.54%) DHCP
11 2 (1.54%) Internet
11 2 (1.54%) LAN
11 2 (1.54%) SMTP
11 2 (1.54%) VLAN
11 2 (1.54%) WAN
12 1 (0.77%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 19 (14.62%) JIRA
2 18 (13.85%) Selenium
3 9 (6.92%) Burp Suite
4 8 (6.15%) Metasploit
5 3 (2.31%) AppScan
6 1 (0.77%) GitLab
6 1 (0.77%) Jenkins
General
1 47 (36.15%) Social Skills
2 26 (20.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 22 (16.92%) Finance
4 17 (13.08%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (10.00%) Legal
6 12 (9.23%) Electronics
7 7 (5.38%) Influencing Skills
8 4 (3.08%) Aerospace
8 4 (3.08%) Manufacturing
8 4 (3.08%) Organisational Skills
8 4 (3.08%) Telecoms
9 3 (2.31%) Pharmaceutical
10 2 (1.54%) Automotive
10 2 (1.54%) Banking
11 1 (0.77%) Aviation
11 1 (0.77%) Documentation Skills
11 1 (0.77%) Law
11 1 (0.77%) Public Sector
11 1 (0.77%) Retail
Job Titles
1 47 (36.15%) Lead
2 18 (13.85%) Automation Engineer
2 18 (13.85%) Validation Engineer
3 16 (12.31%) Security Engineer
4 14 (10.77%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 13 (10.00%) Architect
5 13 (10.00%) Security Architect
5 13 (10.00%) Senior
6 11 (8.46%) Lead Infrastructure Engineer
7 10 (7.69%) Analyst
7 10 (7.69%) Security Specialist
8 9 (6.92%) Cybersecurity Specialist
8 9 (6.92%) Security Analyst
8 9 (6.92%) Security Manager
9 7 (5.38%) Principal Architect
9 7 (5.38%) Principal Security Architect
10 6 (4.62%) Lead Architect
10 6 (4.62%) Lead Security Architect
10 6 (4.62%) NOC Engineer
11 5 (3.85%) Cybersecurity Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (1.54%) PyTorch
1 2 (1.54%) scikit-learn
1 2 (1.54%) TensorFlow
2 1 (0.77%) EDI
2 1 (0.77%) Elastic Stack
2 1 (0.77%) pytest
2 1 (0.77%) SAML
2 1 (0.77%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 20 (15.38%) Operational Technology
2 19 (14.62%) SCADA
3 16 (12.31%) Security Posture
4 14 (10.77%) IoT
5 12 (9.23%) Management Information System
6 11 (8.46%) NB-IoT
7 9 (6.92%) Cyber Threat
8 6 (4.62%) Data Centre
9 5 (3.85%) Mobile App
10 4 (3.08%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (2.31%) Analytical Mindset
11 3 (2.31%) Cyberattack
11 3 (2.31%) Embedded Systems
11 3 (2.31%) Security Operations Centre
12 2 (1.54%) Algorithms
12 2 (1.54%) Biopharmaceutical
12 2 (1.54%) Hybrid Cloud
12 2 (1.54%) Public Cloud
13 1 (0.77%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
13 1 (0.77%) e-Learning
Operating Systems
1 26 (20.00%) Windows
2 22 (16.92%) Linux
3 17 (13.08%) Windows Server
4 6 (4.62%) CentOS
4 6 (4.62%) Ubuntu
5 5 (3.85%) Android
5 5 (3.85%) Apple iOS
6 4 (3.08%) Kali Linux
7 2 (1.54%) Windows 10
7 2 (1.54%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (67.69%) Cybersecurity
2 43 (33.08%) Information Security
3 34 (26.15%) Computer Science
3 34 (26.15%) Incident Response
4 30 (23.08%) Mentoring
5 29 (22.31%) Vulnerability Management
6 25 (19.23%) Risk Management
7 23 (17.69%) Security Architecture
8 22 (16.92%) Security Management
8 22 (16.92%) Security Testing
8 22 (16.92%) Validation
9 21 (16.15%) SIEM
9 21 (16.15%) Test Automation
10 20 (15.38%) Information Security Management
11 18 (13.85%) Model Validation
12 17 (13.08%) Proactive Monitoring
12 17 (13.08%) Risk Assessment
12 17 (13.08%) Vulnerability Assessment
13 16 (12.31%) Strategic Thinking
13 16 (12.31%) Vulnerability Scanning
Programming Languages
1 17 (13.08%) Python
2 15 (11.54%) Bash
2 15 (11.54%) PowerShell
3 4 (3.08%) C
3 4 (3.08%) C++
3 4 (3.08%) Java
3 4 (3.08%) Kotlin
3 4 (3.08%) Objective-C
4 3 (2.31%) C#
5 2 (1.54%) Kusto Query Language
6 1 (0.77%) Perl
Qualifications
1 49 (37.69%) Degree
2 28 (21.54%) CISSP
3 18 (13.85%) ISTQB
3 18 (13.85%) Security Cleared
4 17 (13.08%) Network+ Certification
4 17 (13.08%) SC Cleared
5 15 (11.54%) CISM
5 15 (11.54%) CompTIA Security+
6 14 (10.77%) CEH
7 9 (6.92%) OSCP
8 8 (6.15%) Computer Science Degree
9 7 (5.38%) Cisco Certification
9 7 (5.38%) GIAC
9 7 (5.38%) Master's Degree
9 7 (5.38%) MCSA
9 7 (5.38%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (5.38%) SANS
10 6 (4.62%) CCNA
10 6 (4.62%) CCNP
10 6 (4.62%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (32.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 33 (25.38%) NIST
3 14 (10.77%) NCSC
4 12 (9.23%) GDPR
5 9 (6.92%) PCI DSS
6 8 (6.15%) Cyber Essentials
6 8 (6.15%) QA
7 5 (3.85%) GRC
8 4 (3.08%) Accessibility
8 4 (3.08%) SLA
9 3 (2.31%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (2.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (1.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (1.54%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.77%) JTAG
11 1 (0.77%) NIST 800
System Software
1 17 (13.08%) VMware Infrastructure
2 11 (8.46%) vSphere
3 10 (7.69%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.77%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 12 (9.23%) Terraform
2 11 (8.46%) Ansible
2 11 (8.46%) Puppet
3 7 (5.38%) Nessus
4 5 (3.85%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (3.08%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (2.31%) Nmap
7 1 (0.77%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 1 (0.77%) Kibana
7 1 (0.77%) Kubernetes
7 1 (0.77%) OpenVAS
Vendors
1 44 (33.85%) Microsoft
2 17 (13.08%) VMware
3 6 (4.62%) Cisco
3 6 (4.62%) Palo Alto
3 6 (4.62%) Red Hat
4 3 (2.31%) Google
4 3 (2.31%) Trustwave
5 1 (0.77%) LogRhythm
5 1 (0.77%) Monzo
5 1 (0.77%) Qualys
5 1 (0.77%) Samsung
5 1 (0.77%) Splunk