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 16 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

	6 months to 16 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	458	486	425
Rank change year-on-year	+28	-61	+4
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing	405	186	361
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK	0.34%	0.38%	0.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category	0.46%	0.43%	0.62%
Number of salaries quoted	274	155	194
10^th Percentile	£40,000	£47,750	£46,883
25^th Percentile	£50,000	£53,094	£56,250
Median annual salary (50^th Percentile)	£70,000	£69,384	£65,000
Median % change year-on-year	+0.89%	+6.74%	+4.00%
75^th Percentile	£85,000	£87,500	£87,500
90^th Percentile	£97,500	£90,000	£100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary	£55,000	£62,500	£61,250
% change year-on-year	-12.00%	+2.04%	+6.52%

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.

	6 months to 16 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills	87,497	43,445	57,940
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK	73.45%	88.84%	82.20%
Number of salaries quoted	59,802	24,607	31,056
10^th Percentile	£31,250	£28,250	£33,099
25^th Percentile	£41,250	£36,250	£44,541
Median annual salary (50^th Percentile)	£60,000	£55,000	£60,000
Median % change year-on-year	+9.09%	-8.33%	-
75^th Percentile	£78,000	£75,000	£78,750
90^th Percentile	£100,000	£95,000	£97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary	£55,000	£47,000	£53,000
% change year-on-year	+17.02%	-11.32%	-1.85%

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 Salary Trend

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 16 October 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 16 October 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	+22	351	£67,500	+3.85%	401
UK excluding London	-13	203	£55,000	-12.00%	248
London	-3	167	£81,250	+8.33%	165
Work from Home	-6	105	£76,000	+9.54%	218
South East	0	76	£68,750	+14.58%	48
South West	-31	46	£50,000	-28.57%	32
Midlands	-32	29	£46,743	-15.01%	41
Wales	-58	20	£76,500	+1.23%	7
North of England	-72	20	£56,250	-2.17%	65
West Midlands	-38	16	£51,250	-6.82%	26
East Midlands	-29	13	£46,743	-22.10%	15
Yorkshire	-42	11	£50,000	-9.09%	25
East of England	-	11	£57,500	-	25
North West	-30	6	£62,500	-6.98%	31
Scotland	+2	3	£100,000	+11.11%	24
North East	-70	3	£75,000	-0.76%	10

Penetration Testing Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 16 October 2026, job vacancies citing Penetration Testing also mentioned the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads with a requirement for Penetration Testing.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Cybersecurity	75.1%	304
2	Vulnerability Management	35.8%	145
3	ISO/IEC 27001	25.9%	105
4	Incident Response	24.2%	98
5	Security Testing	22.7%	92
6	Firewall	22.0%	89
7	Security Operations	21.7%	88
8	Azure	21.5%	87
9	SIEM	20.7%	84
10	AWS	20.5%	83
11	Problem-Solving	18.5%	75
12	Information Security	18.3%	74
12	Microsoft	18.3%	74
14	Cloud Security	18.0%	73
14	Security Cleared	18.0%	73
16	NIST	16.8%	68
16	Red Team	16.8%	68
18	CISSP	15.6%	63
19	Application Security	14.8%	60
19	Continuous Improvement	14.8%	60
19	Offensive Security	14.8%	60
22	Vulnerability Assessment	13.6%	55
23	Disaster Recovery	13.1%	53
23	Vulnerability Remediation	13.1%	53
25	Stakeholder Management	12.8%	52
26	CREST Certified	12.6%	51
26	Threat Intelligence	12.6%	51
26	Windows	12.6%	51
29	Cisco	12.3%	50
29	Qualys	12.3%	50

Penetration Testing Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Processes & Methodologies

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Cybersecurity	75.1%	304
2	Vulnerability Management	35.8%	145
3	Incident Response	24.2%	98
4	Security Testing	22.7%	92
5	Security Operations	21.7%	88
6	SIEM	20.7%	84
7	Problem-Solving	18.5%	75
8	Information Security	18.3%	74
9	Cloud Security	18.0%	73
10	Red Team	16.8%	68
11	Application Security	14.8%	60
11	Continuous Improvement	14.8%	60
11	Offensive Security	14.8%	60
14	Vulnerability Assessment	13.6%	55
15	Disaster Recovery	13.1%	53
15	Vulnerability Remediation	13.1%	53
17	Stakeholder Management	12.8%	52
18	Threat Intelligence	12.6%	51
19	Risk Management	12.3%	50
20	AI	11.9%	48