Hybrid/Remote Penetration Testing Job Trends

Penetration Testing
UK > Work from Home

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

6 months to
6 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 337 360 352
Rank change year-on-year +23 -8 +9
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 125 59 145
As % of all permanent jobs with remote/hybrid work options 0.53% 0.36% 0.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.65% 0.39% 0.70%
Number of salaries quoted 90 52 106
10th Percentile £45,000 £51,250 £42,249
25th Percentile £49,813 £57,188 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £69,384 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year +8.09% +11.01% -
75th Percentile £86,250 £86,776 £72,375
90th Percentile £100,750 £98,833 £87,500
UK median annual salary £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year +3.70% +3.85% +7.44%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Work from Home

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 with remote or hybrid options requiring process or methodology skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 19,307 15,056 20,685
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 81.85% 92.97% 87.45%
Number of salaries quoted 13,921 8,679 13,447
10th Percentile £35,000 £29,750 £35,000
25th Percentile £44,972 £40,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £78,750 £80,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £100,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%

Penetration Testing
Job Vacancy Trend for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Penetration Testing and offering remote or hybrid work options relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Penetration Testing job vacancy trend for remote/hybrid jobs

Penetration Testing
Salary Trend for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Salary distribution trend for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing Penetration Testing.

Salary distribution trend for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing Penetration Testing

Penetration Testing
Salary Histogram for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Salary distribution for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing Penetration Testing over the 6 months to 6 September 2026.

Penetration Testing salary histogram for jobs with remote/hybrid work options

Penetration Testing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Remote/Hybrid Jobs 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 1 (0.80%) Apache
1 1 (0.80%) Confluence
1 1 (0.80%) Drupal
1 1 (0.80%) IIS
1 1 (0.80%) nginx
1 1 (0.80%) SharePoint
1 1 (0.80%) WordPress
Business Applications
1 1 (0.80%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 36 (28.80%) AWS
2 35 (28.00%) Azure
3 15 (12.00%) GCP
4 5 (4.00%) Microsoft 365
5 4 (3.20%) Entra ID
6 3 (2.40%) Amazon EKS
6 3 (2.40%) AWS CloudFormation
6 3 (2.40%) Azure DevOps
6 3 (2.40%) SaaS
7 2 (1.60%) Azure Key Vault
7 2 (1.60%) Figma
7 2 (1.60%) Mimecast
8 1 (0.80%) AWS Control Tower
8 1 (0.80%) Azure AI
8 1 (0.80%) Copilot Studio
8 1 (0.80%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (0.80%) Microsoft Copilot
8 1 (0.80%) Microsoft Purview
8 1 (0.80%) Power Platform
8 1 (0.80%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 33 (26.40%) Firewall
2 13 (10.40%) Cisco Nexus
3 12 (9.60%) Wi-Fi
4 11 (8.80%) Network Security
5 8 (6.40%) Wireless
6 5 (4.00%) VPN
7 4 (3.20%) DNS
7 4 (3.20%) VLAN
8 2 (1.60%) Broadband
8 2 (1.60%) Intrusion Detection
8 2 (1.60%) TCP/IP
8 2 (1.60%) Wireless Security
9 1 (0.80%) Cisco ISE
9 1 (0.80%) DKIM
9 1 (0.80%) DMARC
9 1 (0.80%) HTTP
9 1 (0.80%) Internet
9 1 (0.80%) LAN
9 1 (0.80%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (0.80%) Electronic Patient Records
1 1 (0.80%) InterSystems Cache
1 1 (0.80%) Redis
1 1 (0.80%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 11 (8.80%) Burp Suite
2 10 (8.00%) Metasploit
3 5 (4.00%) JIRA
4 3 (2.40%) Git
5 2 (1.60%) Bitbucket
5 2 (1.60%) Gatling
5 2 (1.60%) Jenkins
5 2 (1.60%) Maven
5 2 (1.60%) NUnit
5 2 (1.60%) Team Foundation Server
6 1 (0.80%) Cucumber
6 1 (0.80%) GitLab
6 1 (0.80%) IDA Disassembler
6 1 (0.80%) JMeter
6 1 (0.80%) JUnit
6 1 (0.80%) Postman
6 1 (0.80%) Selenium
6 1 (0.80%) Vagrant
General
1 51 (40.80%) Social Skills
2 16 (12.80%) Analytical Skills
3 13 (10.40%) Law
3 13 (10.40%) Public Sector
4 12 (9.60%) Finance
5 11 (8.80%) Banking
6 10 (8.00%) Retail
7 6 (4.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 4 (3.20%) Influencing Skills
9 3 (2.40%) Legal
10 2 (1.60%) Back Office
10 2 (1.60%) Financial Institution
10 2 (1.60%) Marketing
10 2 (1.60%) Social Housing
11 1 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 36 (28.80%) Penetration Tester
1 36 (28.80%) Tester
2 27 (21.60%) Senior
3 20 (16.00%) Analyst
4 16 (12.80%) Senior Analyst
5 14 (11.20%) Security Analyst
6 13 (10.40%) Consultant
6 13 (10.40%) Security Consultant
7 12 (9.60%) Network Analyst
7 12 (9.60%) Senior Network Analyst
8 11 (8.80%) Cybersecurity Analyst
9 10 (8.00%) Senior Cybersecurity Analyst
9 10 (8.00%) Senior Security Analyst
10 8 (6.40%) Architect
11 7 (5.60%) Client Director
11 7 (5.60%) Services Director
12 6 (4.80%) Head of Security
12 6 (4.80%) Network Security Analyst
12 6 (4.80%) Security Manager
12 6 (4.80%) Security Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (3.20%) RESTful
2 3 (2.40%) .NET
2 3 (2.40%) .NET Framework
2 3 (2.40%) Terraform
3 2 (1.60%) AngularJS
3 2 (1.60%) ASP.NET
3 2 (1.60%) ASP.NET Core
3 2 (1.60%) Entity Framework
3 2 (1.60%) OpenAPI
3 2 (1.60%) RxJS
3 2 (1.60%) Swagger
3 2 (1.60%) Vitest
4 1 (0.80%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.80%) CSS
4 1 (0.80%) HTML
4 1 (0.80%) Lightning Web Components
4 1 (0.80%) Memcached
4 1 (0.80%) OAuth
4 1 (0.80%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 36 (28.80%) Security Posture
2 16 (12.80%) Cyber Threat
3 12 (9.60%) Mobile App
4 9 (7.20%) Management Information System
5 8 (6.40%) Operational Technology
6 6 (4.80%) Blog
7 4 (3.20%) Cloud Native
7 4 (3.20%) Cyber Kill Chain
7 4 (3.20%) Insider Threat
7 4 (3.20%) Security Operations Centre
7 4 (3.20%) Self-Motivation
8 3 (2.40%) Public Cloud
9 2 (1.60%) Cyber Defence
9 2 (1.60%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 2 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
9 2 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
9 2 (1.60%) Housing Association
9 2 (1.60%) PMI
9 2 (1.60%) Social Media
10 1 (0.80%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 20 (16.00%) Linux
1 20 (16.00%) Windows
2 14 (11.20%) Android
2 14 (11.20%) Apple iOS
3 5 (4.00%) Kali Linux
3 5 (4.00%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.80%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 76 (60.80%) Cybersecurity
2 52 (41.60%) Vulnerability Management
3 37 (29.60%) Incident Response
4 34 (27.20%) Information Security
5 33 (26.40%) Cloud Security
6 31 (24.80%) Red Team
7 28 (22.40%) Security Testing
8 24 (19.20%) Risk Management
8 24 (19.20%) SIEM
9 20 (16.00%) AI
9 20 (16.00%) Offensive Security
10 19 (15.20%) Application Security
10 19 (15.20%) Problem-Solving
11 18 (14.40%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
11 18 (14.40%) Mentoring
11 18 (14.40%) OWASP
11 18 (14.40%) Threat Intelligence
11 18 (14.40%) Threat Modelling
12 17 (13.60%) Data Security
13 16 (12.80%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 20 (16.00%) Python
2 13 (10.40%) PowerShell
3 9 (7.20%) Go
3 9 (7.20%) Java
4 3 (2.40%) Bash
4 3 (2.40%) C
4 3 (2.40%) C#
4 3 (2.40%) C++
4 3 (2.40%) JavaScript
4 3 (2.40%) Objective-C
4 3 (2.40%) Perl
4 3 (2.40%) PHP
4 3 (2.40%) Ruby
4 3 (2.40%) Rust
5 2 (1.60%) Bicep
5 2 (1.60%) SQL
5 2 (1.60%) TypeScript
6 1 (0.80%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 36 (28.80%) Security Cleared
2 32 (25.60%) SC Cleared
3 29 (23.20%) CREST Certified
4 20 (16.00%) CISM
4 20 (16.00%) CISSP
5 17 (13.60%) OSCP
6 12 (9.60%) CHECK Team Member
7 10 (8.00%) Degree
8 8 (6.40%) GIAC
9 7 (5.60%) CHECK Team Leader
9 7 (5.60%) DV Cleared
10 6 (4.80%) CEH
11 5 (4.00%) CompTIA Security+
12 4 (3.20%) CCNP
12 4 (3.20%) Cisco Certification
13 3 (2.40%) GPEN
13 3 (2.40%) GXPN
13 3 (2.40%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
13 3 (2.40%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
13 3 (2.40%) OSCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 49 (39.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 30 (24.00%) NIST
3 18 (14.40%) Cyber Essentials
3 18 (14.40%) GDPR
3 18 (14.40%) PCI DSS
4 15 (12.00%) GRC
5 5 (4.00%) Actionable Recommendations
6 4 (3.20%) Def Stans
6 4 (3.20%) NCSC
6 4 (3.20%) NIST 800
6 4 (3.20%) SOC 2
7 3 (2.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (1.60%) QA
9 1 (0.80%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 1 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 1 (0.80%) WCAG
System Software
1 9 (7.20%) Active Directory
2 2 (1.60%) Docker
Systems Management
1 10 (8.00%) Nmap
2 9 (7.20%) Kubernetes
3 3 (2.40%) Progress Chef
4 2 (1.60%) Nessus
5 1 (0.80%) Ansible
5 1 (0.80%) Consul
5 1 (0.80%) Network Intrusion Detection System
5 1 (0.80%) OpenVAS
5 1 (0.80%) Packer
5 1 (0.80%) Puppet
Vendors
1 23 (18.40%) Microsoft
2 18 (14.40%) Qualys
3 15 (12.00%) Palo Alto
4 13 (10.40%) Cisco
5 12 (9.60%) Aruba
6 5 (4.00%) CrowdStrike
6 5 (4.00%) Splunk
7 4 (3.20%) Fortinet
7 4 (3.20%) Sophos
8 3 (2.40%) New Relic
8 3 (2.40%) SolarWinds
8 3 (2.40%) Zerto
9 2 (1.60%) DevExpress
9 2 (1.60%) Zscaler
10 1 (0.80%) CheckPoint
10 1 (0.80%) Foundry
10 1 (0.80%) Google
10 1 (0.80%) Okta
10 1 (0.80%) Salesforce
10 1 (0.80%) TOWER Software