Penetration Testing Jobs

Penetration Testing
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies 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 12 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 528 490 436
Rank change year-on-year -38 -54 +144
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 213 472 563
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.35% 0.46% 0.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.39% 0.55% 0.69%
Number of salaries quoted 175 371 400
10th Percentile £45,850 £38,750 £42,500
25th Percentile £53,750 £47,500 £50,015
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £65,000 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year +3.85% +4.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £79,500 £79,375 £85,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £102,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £67,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +12.50% +9.09% -9.52%

All Process and 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 54,035 85,534 82,014
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 89.93% 82.61% 95.51%
Number of salaries quoted 28,425 58,385 52,665
10th Percentile £27,500 £29,862 £33,750
25th Percentile £38,000 £40,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £60,249
Median % change year-on-year - -8.71% +0.42%
75th Percentile £75,000 £72,500 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,700 £92,500 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £50,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - -9.09% +4.76%

Penetration Testing
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Penetration Testing as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Penetration Testing in the UK

Penetration Testing
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing Penetration Testing.

Salary trend for Penetration Testing in the UK

Penetration Testing
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Penetration Testing over the 6 months to 12 July 2025.

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 12 July 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
England -41 194 £67,500 +3.85% 199
UK excluding London +42 110 £67,500 +12.50% 113
London +5 94 £72,500 +3.57% 107
Work from Home -29 66 £73,000 +21.67% 166
North of England +32 37 £57,500 -4.17% 25
Midlands +42 26 £67,500 +3.85% 12
South East +34 25 £60,000 +20.00% 34
West Midlands +57 24 £67,500 +22.73% 12
North West -11 17 £57,500 -4.17% 13
Yorkshire +49 16 £55,000 +10.00% 8
Northern Ireland - 8 £70,000 - 6
South West +75 7 £67,500 +4.65% 18
Scotland +91 5 £70,000 +16.67% 11
North East - 4 £72,692 - 4
Wales +28 2 £75,574 -16.03% 1
East Midlands +21 2 £40,000 -38.46%

Penetration Testing
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 (0.94%) TPMS
Applications
1 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 54 (25.35%) Azure
2 30 (14.08%) AWS
3 24 (11.27%) Microsoft 365
4 14 (6.57%) Entra ID
5 11 (5.16%) GCP
6 10 (4.69%) PaaS
7 6 (2.82%) Google Workspace
8 5 (2.35%) Azure DevOps
8 5 (2.35%) Azure Sentinel
8 5 (2.35%) SaaS
9 4 (1.88%) IaaS
10 3 (1.41%) Azure Key Vault
10 3 (1.41%) Azure Logic Apps
11 2 (0.94%) Azure Data Factory
11 2 (0.94%) Azure Monitor
11 2 (0.94%) Azure Stack
11 2 (0.94%) Microsoft Purview
11 2 (0.94%) Power Platform
11 2 (0.94%) Serverless
11 2 (0.94%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 55 (25.82%) Firewall
2 46 (21.60%) Network Security
3 11 (5.16%) BGP
3 11 (5.16%) OSPF
4 10 (4.69%) Spanning Tree
5 9 (4.23%) TCP/IP
5 9 (4.23%) Wireless
6 6 (2.82%) HTTP
6 6 (2.82%) SSL
6 6 (2.82%) VLAN
7 5 (2.35%) Intrusion Detection
7 5 (2.35%) VPN
8 4 (1.88%) DNS
8 4 (1.88%) HTTPS
8 4 (1.88%) Wireshark
9 3 (1.41%) WAN
10 2 (0.94%) DHCP
10 2 (0.94%) Internet
10 2 (0.94%) SAN
10 2 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.94%) Elasticsearch
1 2 (0.94%) Power BI
2 1 (0.47%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (0.47%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 18 (8.45%) JIRA
2 17 (7.98%) Burp Suite
2 17 (7.98%) Metasploit
3 14 (6.57%) Selenium
4 3 (1.41%) AppScan
5 2 (0.94%) Git
5 2 (0.94%) Postman
5 2 (0.94%) REST Assured
6 1 (0.47%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.47%) GitLab
6 1 (0.47%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.47%) JMeter
6 1 (0.47%) JUnit
6 1 (0.47%) LoadRunner
6 1 (0.47%) SoapUI
6 1 (0.47%) TestRail
General
1 79 (37.09%) Social Skills
2 36 (16.90%) Finance
3 25 (11.74%) Analytical Skills
4 19 (8.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 13 (6.10%) Legal
6 11 (5.16%) Law
6 11 (5.16%) Mandarin Language
7 10 (4.69%) Influencing Skills
8 6 (2.82%) Manufacturing
9 5 (2.35%) Organisational Skills
9 5 (2.35%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.88%) Aerospace
10 4 (1.88%) Banking
11 3 (1.41%) Public Sector
12 2 (0.94%) Documentation Skills
12 2 (0.94%) Games
12 2 (0.94%) Marketing
12 2 (0.94%) Military
12 2 (0.94%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.47%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 39 (18.31%) Lead
2 37 (17.37%) Security Engineer
3 26 (12.21%) Analyst
4 23 (10.80%) Senior
5 22 (10.33%) Security Analyst
5 22 (10.33%) Tester
6 20 (9.39%) Architect
6 20 (9.39%) Penetration Tester
6 20 (9.39%) Security Architect
7 15 (7.04%) Network Engineer
8 13 (6.10%) Automation Engineer
8 13 (6.10%) Security Manager
8 13 (6.10%) Security Specialist
8 13 (6.10%) Validation Engineer
9 12 (5.63%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 11 (5.16%) IT Analyst
10 11 (5.16%) IT Security Analyst
11 9 (4.23%) Cybersecurity Engineer
11 9 (4.23%) Cybersecurity Specialist
12 8 (3.76%) Lead Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (0.94%) Elastic Stack
1 2 (0.94%) REST
2 1 (0.47%) AngularJS
2 1 (0.47%) EDI
2 1 (0.47%) JWT
2 1 (0.47%) ModSecurity
2 1 (0.47%) Node.js
2 1 (0.47%) OAuth
2 1 (0.47%) OAuth2
2 1 (0.47%) SAML
2 1 (0.47%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 29 (13.62%) Management Information System
1 29 (13.62%) Security Posture
2 18 (8.45%) Operational Technology
3 15 (7.04%) Security Operations Centre
4 14 (6.57%) Cyber Threat
4 14 (6.57%) SCADA
5 12 (5.63%) Mobile App
6 11 (5.16%) Data Centre
7 8 (3.76%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (2.35%) Cyber Security Posture
9 4 (1.88%) Cloud Native
9 4 (1.88%) Distributed Systems
9 4 (1.88%) Onboarding
9 4 (1.88%) Virtual Team
10 3 (1.41%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (1.41%) Cyber Defence
10 3 (1.41%) Greenfield Project
10 3 (1.41%) Hybrid Cloud
10 3 (1.41%) PKI
10 3 (1.41%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 29 (13.62%) Windows
2 15 (7.04%) Linux
3 7 (3.29%) Kali Linux
4 6 (2.82%) Android
4 6 (2.82%) Apple iOS
4 6 (2.82%) Windows Server
5 3 (1.41%) VMS
6 2 (0.94%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.47%) CentOS
7 1 (0.47%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 138 (64.79%) Cybersecurity
2 71 (33.33%) Incident Response
3 67 (31.46%) Information Security
4 59 (27.70%) Vulnerability Management
5 50 (23.47%) SIEM
6 46 (21.60%) Vulnerability Assessment
7 39 (18.31%) Security Testing
8 38 (17.84%) Computer Science
8 38 (17.84%) Risk Management
9 35 (16.43%) Mentoring
10 33 (15.49%) Cloud Security
11 31 (14.55%) Test Automation
12 29 (13.62%) Security Architecture
13 26 (12.21%) Problem-Solving
13 26 (12.21%) Red Team
13 26 (12.21%) Risk Assessment
14 25 (11.74%) Security Operations
15 23 (10.80%) Vulnerability Scanning
16 21 (9.86%) Offensive Security
17 20 (9.39%) Application Security
Programming Languages
1 24 (11.27%) PowerShell
2 23 (10.80%) Python
3 17 (7.98%) Bash
4 7 (3.29%) Java
5 5 (2.35%) Go
5 5 (2.35%) SQL
6 4 (1.88%) C
6 4 (1.88%) C++
6 4 (1.88%) Kotlin
6 4 (1.88%) Objective-C
7 3 (1.41%) C#
8 2 (0.94%) JavaScript
8 2 (0.94%) Kusto Query Language
8 2 (0.94%) Perl
Qualifications
1 57 (26.76%) Degree
2 36 (16.90%) Security Cleared
3 35 (16.43%) CISSP
3 35 (16.43%) SC Cleared
4 24 (11.27%) OSCP
5 23 (10.80%) CREST Certified
6 18 (8.45%) CISM
7 15 (7.04%) CEH
7 15 (7.04%) ISTQB
8 8 (3.76%) CCSAS
8 8 (3.76%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (3.76%) Master's Degree
8 8 (3.76%) SANS
9 7 (3.29%) CRISC
9 7 (3.29%) GIAC
10 6 (2.82%) Azure Certification
10 6 (2.82%) CISA
10 6 (2.82%) CompTIA Security+
11 5 (2.35%) CHECK Team Leader
12 4 (1.88%) CHECK Team Member
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (32.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 54 (25.35%) NIST
3 20 (9.39%) Cyber Essentials
3 20 (9.39%) GDPR
3 20 (9.39%) NCSC
4 13 (6.10%) PCI DSS
5 10 (4.69%) QA
6 8 (3.76%) Accessibility
6 8 (3.76%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 5 (2.35%) GRC
8 4 (1.88%) NIST 800
9 3 (1.41%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (1.41%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 3 (1.41%) SOC 2
10 2 (0.94%) ISO/IEC 17025
11 1 (0.47%) COBIT
11 1 (0.47%) ISO 9001
11 1 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 30 (14.08%) Active Directory
2 3 (1.41%) Firmware
2 3 (1.41%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.94%) Docker
3 2 (0.94%) Hyper-V
3 2 (0.94%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 12 (5.63%) Nessus
2 11 (5.16%) Microsoft Intune
3 9 (4.23%) Single Sign-On
4 8 (3.76%) Kubernetes
5 7 (3.29%) Nmap
6 6 (2.82%) Jamf Pro
7 5 (2.35%) Terraform
8 2 (0.94%) Kibana
9 1 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 1 (0.47%) Argo
9 1 (0.47%) Grafana
9 1 (0.47%) HP Quality Center
9 1 (0.47%) OpenVAS
9 1 (0.47%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.47%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.47%) QRadar
9 1 (0.47%) ZENworks
Vendors
1 53 (24.88%) Microsoft
2 19 (8.92%) Cisco
3 10 (4.69%) Google
4 7 (3.29%) Juniper
4 7 (3.29%) Meraki
5 3 (1.41%) Palo Alto
5 3 (1.41%) Splunk
5 3 (1.41%) Tenable
5 3 (1.41%) Trustwave
5 3 (1.41%) VMware
6 2 (0.94%) Checkmarx
6 2 (0.94%) Dell
6 2 (0.94%) EMC
6 2 (0.94%) Fortinet
6 2 (0.94%) LogRhythm
6 2 (0.94%) ServiceNow
6 2 (0.94%) SonicWALL
6 2 (0.94%) Sophos
7 1 (0.47%) Qualys
7 1 (0.47%) Samsung