Ethical Hacking Job Trends

Ethical Hacking
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Ethical Hacking skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 478 659 682
Rank change year-on-year +181 +23 +251
Permanent jobs citing Ethical Hacking 177 40 39
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.30% 0.075% 0.070%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.36% 0.082% 0.078%
Number of salaries quoted 165 30 34
10th Percentile - £37,350 £52,000
25th Percentile £28,250 £40,000 £55,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £30,500 £72,500 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year -57.93% +16.00% -9.68%
75th Percentile £33,750 £77,500 £73,750
90th Percentile £53,951 - £77,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £30,500 £56,593 £57,500
% change year-on-year -46.11% -1.58% -16.91%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Ethical Hacking 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.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 48,596 48,532 50,084
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 81.00% 90.69% 89.94%
Number of salaries quoted 28,664 23,590 38,164
10th Percentile £28,500 £35,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £77,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £52,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +5.77% -5.45%

Ethical Hacking
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Ethical Hacking relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Ethical Hacking job vacancy trend in the UK

Ethical Hacking
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Ethical Hacking.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Ethical Hacking

Ethical Hacking
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Ethical Hacking over the 6 months to 14 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Ethical Hacking in the UK

Ethical Hacking
Top 16 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Ethical Hacking within the UK over the 6 months to 14 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
England +187 156 £30,500 -52.90% 74
UK excluding London +172 141 £30,500 -46.11% 79
North of England +52 62 £30,500 -46.96% 20
London +84 35 £30,500 -59.33% 8
Midlands +47 27 £30,500 -43.19% 14
Yorkshire - 27 £30,500 - 10
North West +25 24 £30,500 -46.96% 7
Scotland - 20 £30,500 - 5
Work from Home +77 16 £51,058 -14.90% 1
West Midlands +35 16 £30,500 -43.19% 3
South West - 14 £30,500 - 7
East Midlands - 11 £51,058 - 11
North East - 11 £30,500 - 4
East of England - 11 £30,500 - 8
South East +36 6 £30,500 -48.74% 20
Wales - 1 £33,000 - 5

Ethical Hacking
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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:

Cloud Services
1 14 (7.91%) Azure
2 13 (7.34%) AWS
3 6 (3.39%) GCP
4 2 (1.13%) Nutanix
5 1 (0.56%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (0.56%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 5 (2.82%) Wireless
2 3 (1.69%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.56%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 12 (6.78%) Burp Suite
1 12 (6.78%) Metasploit
General
1 143 (80.79%) Multimedia
2 17 (9.60%) Finance
3 12 (6.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 11 (6.21%) Analytical Skills
4 11 (6.21%) Retail
4 11 (6.21%) Social Skills
5 6 (3.39%) Law
6 5 (2.82%) Banking
7 4 (2.26%) Financial Institution
8 2 (1.13%) Legal
Job Titles
1 143 (80.79%) Trainee
2 11 (6.21%) Security Engineer
3 7 (3.95%) Analyst
3 7 (3.95%) Digital Analyst
3 7 (3.95%) Security Specialist
3 7 (3.95%) Threat Intelligence Specialist
4 5 (2.82%) Security Analyst
4 5 (2.82%) Senior
5 3 (1.69%) Senior Analyst
5 3 (1.69%) Senior Digital Analyst
5 3 (1.69%) Senior Security Analyst
5 3 (1.69%) Threat Hunter
6 2 (1.13%) Cybersecurity Engineer
7 1 (0.56%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 1 (0.56%) Cloud Engineer
7 1 (0.56%) Cloud Security Engineer
7 1 (0.56%) Lead
7 1 (0.56%) Team Leader
7 1 (0.56%) Test Team Leader
Miscellaneous
1 17 (9.60%) Security Posture
2 11 (6.21%) Insider Threat
3 5 (2.82%) Cyber Defence
3 5 (2.82%) Cyberattack
3 5 (2.82%) Enterprise Software
3 5 (2.82%) Mobile App
4 4 (2.26%) Cyber Threat
4 4 (2.26%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 3 (1.69%) Cyber Kill Chain
6 2 (1.13%) Cyber Security Posture
6 2 (1.13%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (1.13%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 15 (8.47%) Windows
2 7 (3.95%) Linux
2 7 (3.95%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 153 (86.44%) Cybersecurity
2 152 (85.88%) Mentoring
3 143 (80.79%) Line Management
4 19 (10.73%) Information Security
5 17 (9.60%) Red Team
6 16 (9.04%) Incident Response
6 16 (9.04%) Offensive Security
6 16 (9.04%) Threat Intelligence
7 15 (8.47%) Penetration Testing
7 15 (8.47%) Problem-Solving
8 14 (7.91%) SIEM
9 13 (7.34%) Security Operations
10 11 (6.21%) Actionable Insight
11 10 (5.65%) Purple Team
12 9 (5.08%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
13 8 (4.52%) Analytical Thinking
13 8 (4.52%) Root Cause Analysis
14 7 (3.95%) Agile
14 7 (3.95%) Open Source
14 7 (3.95%) Reverse Engineering
Programming Languages
1 12 (6.78%) Python
2 10 (5.65%) PowerShell
3 5 (2.82%) Bash
4 4 (2.26%) Java
4 4 (2.26%) Kotlin
5 2 (1.13%) Kusto Query Language
5 2 (1.13%) SQL
Qualifications
1 160 (90.40%) CompTIA Security+
2 157 (88.70%) CEH
3 143 (80.79%) A+ Certification
3 143 (80.79%) Network+ Certification
4 19 (10.73%) OSCP
5 17 (9.60%) Degree
6 16 (9.04%) CREST Certified
7 15 (8.47%) CISSP
8 10 (5.65%) GIAC
9 8 (4.52%) SC Cleared
9 8 (4.52%) Security Cleared
10 7 (3.95%) CCNA
10 7 (3.95%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (3.95%) CISMP
10 7 (3.95%) GPEN
10 7 (3.95%) MCP
10 7 (3.95%) MCSE
10 7 (3.95%) Microsoft Certification
11 5 (2.82%) CHECK Team Leader
11 5 (2.82%) CHECK Team Member
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.21%) Actionable Recommendations
2 7 (3.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.26%) EU AI Act
3 4 (2.26%) GDPR
4 3 (1.69%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (1.13%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 2 (1.13%) ISO 22301
5 2 (1.13%) NIST
Systems Management
1 7 (3.95%) Nmap
2 5 (2.82%) Nessus
3 3 (1.69%) Computer Incident Response Team
3 3 (1.69%) QRadar
4 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 20 (11.30%) Microsoft
2 7 (3.95%) Cisco
3 3 (1.69%) CrowdStrike
3 3 (1.69%) Splunk
4 2 (1.13%) Commvault
4 2 (1.13%) VMware