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 22 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 452 542 465
Rank change year-on-year +90 -77 0
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 131 235 297
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.34% 0.33% 0.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.36% 0.39% 0.53%
Number of salaries quoted 92 157 169
10th Percentile £37,500 £36,000 £41,250
25th Percentile £53,735 £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 £77,563 £70,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £89,833 £90,000 £79,000
UK median annual salary £69,384 £65,000 £67,250
% change year-on-year +6.74% -3.35% +7.60%

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 36,156 59,884 56,282
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 92.91% 83.47% 95.61%
Number of salaries quoted 17,178 41,267 29,022
10th Percentile £26,750 £27,250 £30,500
25th Percentile £37,500 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,645 £50,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.29% -9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £65,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £77,500 £77,500 £82,500
UK median annual salary £57,500 £55,000 £61,000
% change year-on-year +4.55% -9.84% +1.67%

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 22 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 22 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 +65 38 £70,000 +60.00% 58
North of England +39 36 £61,000 +6.09% 39
Midlands +37 33 £67,500 +18.42% 21
West Midlands +68 30 £67,500 +22.73% 17
North West -16 21 £61,000 +1.67% 25
Yorkshire +66 11 £55,000 +24.29% 13
Scotland +124 7 £70,000 +16.67% 8
South West +61 7 £67,500 +5.88% 36
Northern Ireland - 6 £76,092 - 24
North East - 4 £72,692 - 1
East Midlands +9 3 £40,000 -38.46% 4
Wales +43 2 £75,574 -16.03% 3
East of England +35 2 - - 6
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 (1.53%) TPMS
2 1 (0.76%) Apache
2 1 (0.76%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 1 (0.76%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 27 (20.61%) Azure
2 18 (13.74%) Microsoft 365
3 16 (12.21%) AWS
4 4 (3.05%) Entra ID
5 3 (2.29%) Azure Sentinel
6 2 (1.53%) AWS KMS
6 2 (1.53%) GCP
7 1 (0.76%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (0.76%) Cloud Computing
7 1 (0.76%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 19 (14.50%) Firewall
2 16 (12.21%) Network Security
3 14 (10.69%) Wi-Fi
4 13 (9.92%) Bluetooth
5 11 (8.40%) 5G
5 11 (8.40%) LTE
6 9 (6.87%) Wireshark
7 8 (6.11%) TCP/IP
8 7 (5.34%) HTTP
9 5 (3.82%) DNS
9 5 (3.82%) HTTPS
10 3 (2.29%) Intrusion Detection
10 3 (2.29%) VPN
11 2 (1.53%) DHCP
11 2 (1.53%) Internet
11 2 (1.53%) LAN
11 2 (1.53%) SMTP
11 2 (1.53%) VLAN
11 2 (1.53%) WAN
12 1 (0.76%) VRRP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
1 1 (0.76%) MySQL
1 1 (0.76%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 19 (14.50%) JIRA
2 18 (13.74%) Selenium
3 9 (6.87%) Burp Suite
4 8 (6.11%) Metasploit
5 3 (2.29%) AppScan
6 1 (0.76%) GitLab
6 1 (0.76%) Jenkins
General
1 47 (35.88%) Social Skills
2 26 (19.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 22 (16.79%) Finance
4 17 (12.98%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (9.92%) Legal
6 12 (9.16%) Electronics
7 7 (5.34%) Influencing Skills
8 5 (3.82%) Manufacturing
9 4 (3.05%) Aerospace
9 4 (3.05%) Organisational Skills
9 4 (3.05%) Telecoms
10 3 (2.29%) Pharmaceutical
11 2 (1.53%) Automotive
11 2 (1.53%) Banking
12 1 (0.76%) Aviation
12 1 (0.76%) Documentation Skills
12 1 (0.76%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 48 (36.64%) Lead
2 18 (13.74%) Automation Engineer
2 18 (13.74%) Validation Engineer
3 16 (12.21%) Security Engineer
4 14 (10.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 13 (9.92%) Architect
5 13 (9.92%) Security Architect
5 13 (9.92%) Senior
6 11 (8.40%) Lead Infrastructure Engineer
7 10 (7.63%) Security Specialist
8 9 (6.87%) Analyst
8 9 (6.87%) Cybersecurity Specialist
8 9 (6.87%) Security Manager
9 8 (6.11%) Security Analyst
10 7 (5.34%) Principal Architect
10 7 (5.34%) Principal Security Architect
11 6 (4.58%) Cybersecurity Engineer
11 6 (4.58%) Lead Architect
11 6 (4.58%) Lead Security Architect
11 6 (4.58%) NOC Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (1.53%) EDI
1 2 (1.53%) PyTorch
1 2 (1.53%) scikit-learn
1 2 (1.53%) TensorFlow
2 1 (0.76%) Elastic Stack
2 1 (0.76%) LAMP
2 1 (0.76%) Loki
2 1 (0.76%) pytest
2 1 (0.76%) SAML
2 1 (0.76%) XML
2 1 (0.76%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 20 (15.27%) Operational Technology
2 19 (14.50%) SCADA
3 16 (12.21%) Security Posture
4 14 (10.69%) IoT
5 12 (9.16%) Management Information System
6 11 (8.40%) NB-IoT
7 9 (6.87%) Cyber Threat
8 6 (4.58%) Data Centre
9 4 (3.05%) Mobile App
9 4 (3.05%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (2.29%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (2.29%) Embedded Systems
10 3 (2.29%) Security Operations Centre
11 2 (1.53%) Algorithms
11 2 (1.53%) Biopharmaceutical
11 2 (1.53%) Cyberattack
11 2 (1.53%) Hybrid Cloud
11 2 (1.53%) Public Cloud
11 2 (1.53%) Renewable Energy
12 1 (0.76%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 26 (19.85%) Windows
2 23 (17.56%) Linux
3 17 (12.98%) Windows Server
4 7 (5.34%) CentOS
5 6 (4.58%) Ubuntu
6 4 (3.05%) Android
6 4 (3.05%) Apple iOS
6 4 (3.05%) Kali Linux
7 2 (1.53%) Windows 10
7 2 (1.53%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.76%) AIX
8 1 (0.76%) Oracle Linux
8 1 (0.76%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (67.18%) Cybersecurity
2 42 (32.06%) Information Security
3 34 (25.95%) Incident Response
4 33 (25.19%) Computer Science
5 32 (24.43%) Vulnerability Management
6 31 (23.66%) Mentoring
7 26 (19.85%) Risk Management
8 23 (17.56%) Security Architecture
9 22 (16.79%) Security Testing
9 22 (16.79%) Validation
10 21 (16.03%) Security Management
10 21 (16.03%) Test Automation
11 20 (15.27%) SIEM
12 19 (14.50%) Information Security Management
13 18 (13.74%) Model Validation
14 17 (12.98%) Proactive Monitoring
14 17 (12.98%) Risk Assessment
14 17 (12.98%) Vulnerability Assessment
15 16 (12.21%) Strategic Thinking
15 16 (12.21%) Vulnerability Scanning
Programming Languages
1 18 (13.74%) Python
2 15 (11.45%) Bash
2 15 (11.45%) PowerShell
3 5 (3.82%) C
3 5 (3.82%) C++
4 4 (3.05%) Java
4 4 (3.05%) Kotlin
4 4 (3.05%) Objective-C
5 3 (2.29%) C#
6 2 (1.53%) Kusto Query Language
6 2 (1.53%) Perl
7 1 (0.76%) AWK
7 1 (0.76%) Korn
7 1 (0.76%) PHP
Qualifications
1 48 (36.64%) Degree
2 28 (21.37%) CISSP
3 18 (13.74%) ISTQB
3 18 (13.74%) Security Cleared
4 17 (12.98%) Network+ Certification
4 17 (12.98%) SC Cleared
5 16 (12.21%) CISM
6 14 (10.69%) CompTIA Security+
7 13 (9.92%) CEH
8 9 (6.87%) OSCP
9 7 (5.34%) Cisco Certification
9 7 (5.34%) Computer Science Degree
9 7 (5.34%) GIAC
9 7 (5.34%) Master's Degree
9 7 (5.34%) MCSA
9 7 (5.34%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (5.34%) SANS
10 6 (4.58%) CCNP
10 6 (4.58%) CREST Certified
10 6 (4.58%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (32.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 33 (25.19%) NIST
3 14 (10.69%) NCSC
4 12 (9.16%) GDPR
5 9 (6.87%) PCI DSS
6 8 (6.11%) Cyber Essentials
6 8 (6.11%) QA
7 5 (3.82%) GRC
7 5 (3.82%) SLA
8 4 (3.05%) Accessibility
9 3 (2.29%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (2.29%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 3 (2.29%) SOC 2
10 2 (1.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.76%) JTAG
11 1 (0.76%) NIST 800
System Software
1 17 (12.98%) VMware Infrastructure
2 11 (8.40%) vSphere
3 10 (7.63%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.76%) Firmware
4 1 (0.76%) KVM
4 1 (0.76%) Postfix
4 1 (0.76%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 12 (9.16%) Terraform
2 11 (8.40%) Ansible
2 11 (8.40%) Puppet
3 8 (6.11%) Nessus
4 5 (3.82%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (3.05%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (2.29%) Nmap
7 1 (0.76%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 1 (0.76%) Grafana
7 1 (0.76%) Kibana
7 1 (0.76%) Kubernetes
7 1 (0.76%) Nagios
7 1 (0.76%) OpenVAS
Vendors
1 45 (34.35%) Microsoft
2 17 (12.98%) VMware
3 7 (5.34%) Red Hat
4 6 (4.58%) Cisco
4 6 (4.58%) Palo Alto
5 3 (2.29%) Google
5 3 (2.29%) Trustwave
6 1 (0.76%) IBM
6 1 (0.76%) LogRhythm
6 1 (0.76%) Monzo
6 1 (0.76%) Oracle
6 1 (0.76%) Qualys
6 1 (0.76%) Samsung
6 1 (0.76%) SAP
6 1 (0.76%) Splunk
6 1 (0.76%) Tenable