Penetration Testing Job Trends

Penetration Testing
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Penetration Testing skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 27 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 440 475 457
Rank change year-on-year +35 -18 -1
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 373 209 416
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.37% 0.42% 0.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.50% 0.47% 0.58%
Number of salaries quoted 254 172 312
10th Percentile £41,475 £45,775 £39,213
25th Percentile £50,000 £53,391 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £67,500 £64,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.70% +5.47% +6.67%
75th Percentile £89,000 £79,500 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £94,900 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £65,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -15.38% +8.33% +9.09%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

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.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 74,612 44,363 71,938
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.65% 89.74% 81.45%
Number of salaries quoted 51,478 25,172 48,522
10th Percentile £30,500 £28,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £78,750 £76,250 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.09%

Penetration Testing
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Penetration Testing job vacancy trend in the UK

Penetration Testing
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Penetration Testing.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Penetration Testing

Penetration Testing
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Penetration Testing over the 6 months to 27 July 2026.

Salary histogram for Penetration Testing in the UK

Penetration Testing
Top 16 Job Locations

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 over the 6 months to 27 July 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 +37 327 £70,000 +3.70% 95
UK excluding London +15 192 £55,000 -15.38% 72
London +29 138 £83,750 +17.54% 45
Work from Home +30 125 £75,000 +7.14% 40
South East +26 72 £70,000 +16.67% 23
South West -17 49 £50,000 -27.27% 16
Midlands -26 28 £65,000 -3.70% 4
North of England -44 24 £57,500 - 16
West Midlands -29 19 £70,000 +3.70% 3
Yorkshire -38 13 £55,000 - 8
Scotland +17 9 £95,000 +35.71% 6
East Midlands -19 9 £46,743 +16.86% 1
East of England - 7 £35,000 - 3
North East -48 6 £75,000 +3.18%
North West -17 5 £67,500 +13.92% 8
Wales -52 5 £55,000 -27.22% 4

Penetration Testing
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:

Application Platforms
1 9 (2.41%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (1.88%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.34%) Confluence
4 3 (0.80%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.80%) IIS
5 1 (0.27%) Apache
5 1 (0.27%) CMS
5 1 (0.27%) Drupal
5 1 (0.27%) nginx
5 1 (0.27%) NServiceBus
5 1 (0.27%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.27%) Exchequer
1 1 (0.27%) Magento
1 1 (0.27%) SAP EHS
1 1 (0.27%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 84 (22.52%) AWS
2 82 (21.98%) Azure
3 31 (8.31%) Microsoft 365
4 26 (6.97%) GCP
5 14 (3.75%) Entra ID
6 10 (2.68%) GitHub
6 10 (2.68%) SaaS
7 8 (2.14%) Azure Sentinel
8 7 (1.88%) Cloud Computing
9 6 (1.61%) Amazon Bedrock
10 5 (1.34%) Azure DevOps
10 5 (1.34%) GitHub Actions
10 5 (1.34%) Mimecast
11 4 (1.07%) Amazon EKS
11 4 (1.07%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 4 (1.07%) Azure Key Vault
11 4 (1.07%) Microsoft Purview
11 4 (1.07%) Nutanix
11 4 (1.07%) OneDrive
11 4 (1.07%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 90 (24.13%) Firewall
2 35 (9.38%) Cisco Nexus
3 33 (8.85%) Wi-Fi
4 30 (8.04%) Network Security
5 29 (7.77%) Internet
6 20 (5.36%) LAN
6 20 (5.36%) WAN
7 17 (4.56%) VPN
8 12 (3.22%) DNS
8 12 (3.22%) Wireless
9 10 (2.68%) TCP/IP
10 8 (2.14%) Cisco ISE
11 7 (1.88%) VLAN
12 6 (1.61%) Intrusion Detection
13 5 (1.34%) HTTPS
14 4 (1.07%) DHCP
14 4 (1.07%) Kerberos
15 3 (0.80%) VoIP
15 3 (0.80%) Wireshark
16 2 (0.54%) BGP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (2.68%) SQL Server
2 4 (1.07%) MongoDB
3 3 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.80%) Hadoop
3 3 (0.80%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.54%) KNIME
4 2 (0.54%) Redis
5 1 (0.27%) InterSystems Cache
5 1 (0.27%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 21 (5.63%) Burp Suite
2 20 (5.36%) Metasploit
3 12 (3.22%) JIRA
4 6 (1.61%) Bitbucket
5 4 (1.07%) Git
5 4 (1.07%) Jenkins
6 3 (0.80%) Yeoman
7 2 (0.54%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.54%) Gatling
7 2 (0.54%) JMeter
7 2 (0.54%) NUnit
7 2 (0.54%) Selenium
7 2 (0.54%) Snyk
8 1 (0.27%) Cypress.io
8 1 (0.27%) GitLab
8 1 (0.27%) IDA Disassembler
8 1 (0.27%) JUnit
8 1 (0.27%) Postman
8 1 (0.27%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.27%) Vagrant
General
1 113 (30.29%) Social Skills
2 67 (17.96%) Finance
3 48 (12.87%) Public Sector
4 44 (11.80%) Analytical Skills
5 31 (8.31%) Law
6 19 (5.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 16 (4.29%) Banking
8 15 (4.02%) Retail
9 7 (1.88%) Influencing Skills
9 7 (1.88%) Legal
10 6 (1.61%) Pharmaceutical
11 5 (1.34%) Marketing
11 5 (1.34%) Telecoms
12 4 (1.07%) Financial Institution
12 4 (1.07%) Organisational Skills
13 3 (0.80%) Back Office
13 3 (0.80%) Digital Health
13 3 (0.80%) Digital Healthcare
13 3 (0.80%) Military
14 2 (0.54%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 82 (21.98%) Senior
2 67 (17.96%) Penetration Tester
2 67 (17.96%) Tester
3 63 (16.89%) Analyst
4 50 (13.40%) Security Analyst
5 43 (11.53%) Consultant
6 40 (10.72%) Lead
7 39 (10.46%) Senior Analyst
8 34 (9.12%) Security Consultant
9 33 (8.85%) Senior Security Analyst
10 30 (8.04%) Cybersecurity Analyst
11 28 (7.51%) Security Engineer
12 25 (6.70%) Senior Cybersecurity Analyst
13 22 (5.90%) Team Leader
14 21 (5.63%) Network Analyst
14 21 (5.63%) Security Specialist
14 21 (5.63%) Senior Network Analyst
15 17 (4.56%) Security Manager
16 15 (4.02%) Cybersecurity Consultant
16 15 (4.02%) Network Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (1.34%) .NET
1 5 (1.34%) RESTful
2 4 (1.07%) LDAP
2 4 (1.07%) OAuth
3 3 (0.80%) .NET Framework
3 3 (0.80%) ASP.NET
3 3 (0.80%) Kafka
4 2 (0.54%) AngularJS
4 2 (0.54%) ASP.NET Core
4 2 (0.54%) Entity Framework
4 2 (0.54%) OAuth2
4 2 (0.54%) OpenAPI
4 2 (0.54%) OpenID
4 2 (0.54%) Playwright
4 2 (0.54%) RxJS
4 2 (0.54%) Swagger
4 2 (0.54%) Vitest
5 1 (0.27%) ARM Templates
5 1 (0.27%) Gherkin
5 1 (0.27%) Memcached
Miscellaneous
1 73 (19.57%) Security Posture
2 33 (8.85%) Cyber Threat
3 26 (6.97%) Management Information System
4 19 (5.09%) Mobile App
5 18 (4.83%) Cyber Defence
6 14 (3.75%) Onboarding
6 14 (3.75%) Security Operations Centre
7 11 (2.95%) Self-Motivation
8 9 (2.41%) Blog
8 9 (2.41%) Cloud Native
8 9 (2.41%) Operational Technology
9 7 (1.88%) Cyberattack
9 7 (1.88%) Data Centre
9 7 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
9 7 (1.88%) Hybrid Cloud
10 6 (1.61%) Cyber Security Posture
11 4 (1.07%) Insider Threat
11 4 (1.07%) NHS
11 4 (1.07%) PKI
11 4 (1.07%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 55 (14.75%) Windows
2 46 (12.33%) Linux
3 17 (4.56%) Windows Server
4 15 (4.02%) Android
4 15 (4.02%) Apple iOS
5 5 (1.34%) Kali Linux
6 4 (1.07%) Mac OS
6 4 (1.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.07%) Unix
7 2 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 277 (74.26%) Cybersecurity
2 110 (29.49%) Vulnerability Management
3 109 (29.22%) Incident Response
4 88 (23.59%) SIEM
5 77 (20.64%) Security Testing
6 76 (20.38%) Security Operations
7 73 (19.57%) Red Team
8 68 (18.23%) Cloud Security
9 63 (16.89%) Information Security
10 57 (15.28%) Problem-Solving
11 56 (15.01%) Application Security
11 56 (15.01%) Offensive Security
12 48 (12.87%) Continuous Improvement
12 48 (12.87%) Disaster Recovery
12 48 (12.87%) Mentoring
13 46 (12.33%) Threat Intelligence
14 43 (11.53%) Risk Management
15 42 (11.26%) Threat Modelling
15 42 (11.26%) Vulnerability Assessment
16 41 (10.99%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 44 (11.80%) PowerShell
2 43 (11.53%) Python
3 16 (4.29%) Bash
4 15 (4.02%) Java
5 10 (2.68%) Go
6 7 (1.88%) SQL
7 6 (1.61%) Bicep
7 6 (1.61%) C#
8 5 (1.34%) C
8 5 (1.34%) C++
9 4 (1.07%) Perl
9 4 (1.07%) Ruby
10 3 (0.80%) JavaScript
10 3 (0.80%) Objective-C
10 3 (0.80%) PHP
10 3 (0.80%) Rust
11 2 (0.54%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.54%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 71 (19.03%) Security Cleared
2 69 (18.50%) CREST Certified
3 67 (17.96%) CISSP
4 55 (14.75%) SC Cleared
5 49 (13.14%) OSCP
6 47 (12.60%) CISM
7 33 (8.85%) Degree
8 29 (7.77%) CHECK Team Member
9 23 (6.17%) CHECK Team Leader
10 22 (5.90%) Cisco Certification
11 17 (4.56%) CEH
11 17 (4.56%) CompTIA Security+
12 14 (3.75%) CCNP
13 13 (3.49%) DV Cleared
13 13 (3.49%) GIAC
14 12 (3.22%) CCNA
15 8 (2.14%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 8 (2.14%) AWS Certification
15 8 (2.14%) OSCE
15 8 (2.14%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 102 (27.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 59 (15.82%) NIST
3 52 (13.94%) GDPR
4 40 (10.72%) Cyber Essentials
5 29 (7.77%) PCI DSS
6 19 (5.09%) GRC
7 16 (4.29%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 16 (4.29%) NCSC
8 10 (2.68%) Accessibility
8 10 (2.68%) Actionable Recommendations
9 9 (2.41%) SOC 2
10 8 (2.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 6 (1.61%) QA
12 4 (1.07%) Data Quality
12 4 (1.07%) Def Stans
12 4 (1.07%) NIST 800
13 3 (0.80%) COBIT
13 3 (0.80%) SLA
14 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 1 (0.27%) WCAG
System Software
1 37 (9.92%) Active Directory
2 10 (2.68%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (1.07%) Docker
3 4 (1.07%) EMC RecoverPoint
3 4 (1.07%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.27%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Virtual Server
4 1 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
4 1 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 18 (4.83%) Kubernetes
2 17 (4.56%) Nmap
3 11 (2.95%) Nessus
4 10 (2.68%) Terraform
5 8 (2.14%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (1.34%) Ansible
7 4 (1.07%) Red Hat Satellite
7 4 (1.07%) VxRail
8 3 (0.80%) CSIRT
8 3 (0.80%) SCCM
8 3 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.54%) CASB
9 2 (0.54%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.27%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
10 1 (0.27%) Consul
10 1 (0.27%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.27%) OpenVAS
10 1 (0.27%) Packer
10 1 (0.27%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.27%) Puppet
Vendors
1 70 (18.77%) Microsoft
2 41 (10.99%) Cisco
3 40 (10.72%) Qualys
4 38 (10.19%) Palo Alto
5 31 (8.31%) Aruba
6 22 (5.90%) Splunk
7 14 (3.75%) Sophos
8 12 (3.22%) CrowdStrike
9 11 (2.95%) VMware
9 11 (2.95%) Zscaler
10 8 (2.14%) CheckPoint
10 8 (2.14%) Fortinet
10 8 (2.14%) Tenable
11 7 (1.88%) Rapid7
12 6 (1.61%) ServiceNow
13 5 (1.34%) TOWER Software
14 4 (1.07%) Google
14 4 (1.07%) Ivanti
14 4 (1.07%) Oracle
14 4 (1.07%) Red Hat