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

6 months to
31 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 467 464 480
Rank change year-on-year -3 +16 +94
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 243 512 586
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.44% 0.49% 0.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.47% 0.59% 0.64%
Number of salaries quoted 184 403 402
10th Percentile £41,975 £38,797 £43,504
25th Percentile £55,938 £48,750 £50,015
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £65,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.85% - +2.41%
75th Percentile £83,125 £82,500 £88,438
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £103,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £67,500 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +17.39% +4.55% -8.33%

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 52,256 87,133 91,481
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 93.58% 84.04% 95.51%
Number of salaries quoted 25,854 60,896 54,581
10th Percentile £28,822 £29,250 £34,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £40,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,000 £55,000 £60,899
Median % change year-on-year +3.64% -9.69% +1.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £72,500 £81,250
90th Percentile £97,500 £92,500 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £51,564 £50,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +3.13% -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 31 May 2025.

Salary histogram for Penetration Testing in the UK

Penetration Testing
Top 17 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 31 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
England -17 226 £67,500 +3.85% 160
UK excluding London +84 131 £67,500 +17.39% 106
London +1 99 £72,500 -3.33% 70
Work from Home +2 76 £75,500 +25.83% 136
South East +50 38 £70,000 +55.56% 22
North of England +26 36 £61,000 +1.67% 26
Midlands +45 33 £67,500 +22.73% 13
West Midlands +56 30 £67,500 +22.73% 6
North West -14 20 £61,000 +1.67% 20
Yorkshire +56 12 £55,000 +24.29% 4
South West +73 8 £68,750 +7.84% 19
Scotland +117 6 £69,692 +16.15% 4
Northern Ireland - 6 £76,092 - 13
North East - 4 £72,692 - 2
East Midlands +23 3 £40,000 -38.46% 7
East of England +45 2 - - 7
Wales +40 2 £75,574 -16.03% 3

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 (0.82%) TPMS
2 1 (0.41%) Confluence
2 1 (0.41%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (0.41%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.41%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 50 (20.58%) Azure
2 32 (13.17%) AWS
3 26 (10.70%) Microsoft 365
4 14 (5.76%) Entra ID
5 10 (4.12%) GCP
6 9 (3.70%) PaaS
7 7 (2.88%) Azure Sentinel
7 7 (2.88%) SaaS
8 6 (2.47%) Google Workspace
9 5 (2.06%) IaaS
10 3 (1.23%) AWS KMS
10 3 (1.23%) Azure DevOps
10 3 (1.23%) Cloud Computing
10 3 (1.23%) Power Platform
10 3 (1.23%) Serverless
11 2 (0.82%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 2 (0.82%) Azure AKS
11 2 (0.82%) Azure Data Factory
11 2 (0.82%) Azure Monitor
11 2 (0.82%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 46 (18.93%) Firewall
2 42 (17.28%) Network Security
3 20 (8.23%) Wi-Fi
4 14 (5.76%) Bluetooth
5 12 (4.94%) 5G
6 11 (4.53%) LTE
7 10 (4.12%) TCP/IP
8 9 (3.70%) VLAN
8 9 (3.70%) VPN
8 9 (3.70%) Wireless
8 9 (3.70%) Wireshark
9 8 (3.29%) BGP
9 8 (3.29%) HTTP
9 8 (3.29%) OSPF
10 7 (2.88%) Spanning Tree
11 6 (2.47%) DNS
11 6 (2.47%) Intrusion Detection
11 6 (2.47%) SSL
12 5 (2.06%) WAN
13 4 (1.65%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.23%) Power BI
2 1 (0.41%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (0.41%) Elasticsearch
2 1 (0.41%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 22 (9.05%) JIRA
2 19 (7.82%) Selenium
3 13 (5.35%) Burp Suite
3 13 (5.35%) Metasploit
4 3 (1.23%) AppScan
5 2 (0.82%) Git
5 2 (0.82%) GitLab
5 2 (0.82%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.82%) Postman
5 2 (0.82%) REST Assured
5 2 (0.82%) SoapUI
6 1 (0.41%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.41%) JMeter
6 1 (0.41%) JUnit
6 1 (0.41%) LoadRunner
6 1 (0.41%) TestRail
General
1 87 (35.80%) Social Skills
2 38 (15.64%) Finance
3 31 (12.76%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (12.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 18 (7.41%) Legal
6 13 (5.35%) Electronics
6 13 (5.35%) Law
7 8 (3.29%) Influencing Skills
7 8 (3.29%) Mandarin Language
8 6 (2.47%) Telecoms
9 5 (2.06%) Banking
10 4 (1.65%) Aerospace
10 4 (1.65%) Manufacturing
10 4 (1.65%) Organisational Skills
11 3 (1.23%) Automotive
11 3 (1.23%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.82%) Games
12 2 (0.82%) Military
12 2 (0.82%) Public Sector
13 1 (0.41%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 65 (26.75%) Lead
2 32 (13.17%) Security Engineer
3 31 (12.76%) Analyst
4 28 (11.52%) Senior
5 24 (9.88%) Security Analyst
6 23 (9.47%) Tester
7 22 (9.05%) Architect
7 22 (9.05%) Security Architect
8 21 (8.64%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 21 (8.64%) Penetration Tester
9 18 (7.41%) Automation Engineer
9 18 (7.41%) Validation Engineer
10 15 (6.17%) Security Specialist
11 13 (5.35%) Security Manager
12 11 (4.53%) Cybersecurity Specialist
12 11 (4.53%) Lead Infrastructure Engineer
13 10 (4.12%) Network Engineer
14 9 (3.70%) IT Security Analyst
14 9 (3.70%) Senior Penetration Tester
14 9 (3.70%) Senior Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (0.82%) Azure Blueprints
1 2 (0.82%) PyTorch
1 2 (0.82%) REST
1 2 (0.82%) scikit-learn
1 2 (0.82%) TensorFlow
2 1 (0.41%) AngularJS
2 1 (0.41%) EDI
2 1 (0.41%) Elastic Stack
2 1 (0.41%) JWT
2 1 (0.41%) Node.js
2 1 (0.41%) OAuth
2 1 (0.41%) OAuth2
2 1 (0.41%) pytest
2 1 (0.41%) SAML
2 1 (0.41%) Web Services
2 1 (0.41%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 33 (13.58%) Security Posture
2 32 (13.17%) Management Information System
3 21 (8.64%) Operational Technology
4 19 (7.82%) SCADA
5 15 (6.17%) IoT
5 15 (6.17%) Mobile App
6 13 (5.35%) Cyber Threat
7 11 (4.53%) Data Centre
7 11 (4.53%) NB-IoT
7 11 (4.53%) Security Operations Centre
8 6 (2.47%) Cloud Native
8 6 (2.47%) Onboarding
8 6 (2.47%) Public Cloud
8 6 (2.47%) Self-Motivation
9 5 (2.06%) Cyber Security Posture
10 4 (1.65%) Cyber Defence
10 4 (1.65%) Embedded Systems
10 4 (1.65%) Virtual Team
11 3 (1.23%) Algorithms
11 3 (1.23%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 35 (14.40%) Windows
2 26 (10.70%) Linux
3 19 (7.82%) Windows Server
4 6 (2.47%) Android
4 6 (2.47%) Apple iOS
4 6 (2.47%) CentOS
4 6 (2.47%) Ubuntu
5 4 (1.65%) Kali Linux
6 2 (0.82%) VMS
6 2 (0.82%) Windows 10
6 2 (0.82%) Windows Server 2016
6 2 (0.82%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 152 (62.55%) Cybersecurity
2 73 (30.04%) Information Security
3 70 (28.81%) Incident Response
4 63 (25.93%) Vulnerability Management
5 49 (20.16%) Security Testing
5 49 (20.16%) SIEM
6 46 (18.93%) Mentoring
7 43 (17.70%) Computer Science
7 43 (17.70%) Vulnerability Assessment
8 41 (16.87%) Risk Management
9 37 (15.23%) Test Automation
10 33 (13.58%) Cloud Security
11 32 (13.17%) Security Architecture
12 29 (11.93%) Red Team
13 28 (11.52%) Application Security
13 28 (11.52%) Problem-Solving
14 26 (10.70%) Security Management
14 26 (10.70%) Vulnerability Scanning
15 25 (10.29%) Risk Assessment
16 24 (9.88%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 32 (13.17%) Python
2 29 (11.93%) PowerShell
3 23 (9.47%) Bash
4 7 (2.88%) Java
5 4 (1.65%) C
5 4 (1.65%) C++
5 4 (1.65%) JavaScript
5 4 (1.65%) Kotlin
5 4 (1.65%) Objective-C
5 4 (1.65%) SQL
6 3 (1.23%) C#
6 3 (1.23%) Go
7 2 (0.82%) Kusto Query Language
7 2 (0.82%) Ruby
8 1 (0.41%) Perl
Qualifications
1 69 (28.40%) Degree
2 39 (16.05%) CISSP
3 38 (15.64%) Security Cleared
4 37 (15.23%) SC Cleared
5 27 (11.11%) CREST Certified
6 21 (8.64%) CISM
6 21 (8.64%) OSCP
7 20 (8.23%) ISTQB
8 18 (7.41%) CEH
9 17 (7.00%) CompTIA Security+
9 17 (7.00%) Network+ Certification
10 12 (4.94%) Cisco Certification
11 9 (3.70%) CCNA
11 9 (3.70%) CCNP
12 8 (3.29%) CCSAS
12 8 (3.29%) CHECK Team Leader
12 8 (3.29%) Computer Science Degree
12 8 (3.29%) Master's Degree
12 8 (3.29%) Microsoft Certification
13 7 (2.88%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (25.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 54 (22.22%) NIST
3 19 (7.82%) GDPR
3 19 (7.82%) NCSC
4 15 (6.17%) Cyber Essentials
5 14 (5.76%) PCI DSS
6 11 (4.53%) QA
7 7 (2.88%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 6 (2.47%) Accessibility
8 6 (2.47%) GRC
9 5 (2.06%) NIST 800
10 4 (1.65%) Actionable Recommendations
10 4 (1.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 4 (1.65%) SLA
11 3 (1.23%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 17025
12 2 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 2 (0.82%) JTAG
13 1 (0.41%) COBIT
13 1 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 29 (11.93%) Active Directory
2 19 (7.82%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (4.53%) vSphere
4 3 (1.23%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.82%) Docker
5 2 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.41%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 18 (7.41%) Terraform
2 14 (5.76%) Microsoft Intune
3 11 (4.53%) Ansible
3 11 (4.53%) Kubernetes
3 11 (4.53%) Puppet
3 11 (4.53%) Single Sign-On
4 10 (4.12%) Nessus
5 6 (2.47%) Jamf Pro
6 4 (1.65%) Nmap
7 3 (1.23%) QRadar
8 2 (0.82%) CASB
8 2 (0.82%) Istio
8 2 (0.82%) linkerd
9 1 (0.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 1 (0.41%) Argo
9 1 (0.41%) Grafana
9 1 (0.41%) Kibana
9 1 (0.41%) OpenVAS
9 1 (0.41%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.41%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 69 (28.40%) Microsoft
2 24 (9.88%) Cisco
3 19 (7.82%) VMware
4 12 (4.94%) Google
5 10 (4.12%) Palo Alto
6 7 (2.88%) Juniper
7 6 (2.47%) Meraki
7 6 (2.47%) Red Hat
8 3 (1.23%) Sophos
8 3 (1.23%) Trustwave
9 2 (0.82%) Checkmarx
9 2 (0.82%) Dell
9 2 (0.82%) EMC
9 2 (0.82%) F5
9 2 (0.82%) Fortinet
9 2 (0.82%) SonicWALL
9 2 (0.82%) Splunk
10 1 (0.41%) LogRhythm
10 1 (0.41%) Monzo
10 1 (0.41%) Samsung