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 7 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 302 284 343
Rank change year-on-year -18 +59 +58
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 100 106 233
As % of all permanent jobs with remote/hybrid work options 0.58% 0.82% 0.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.70% 0.87% 0.81%
Number of salaries quoted 78 87 200
10th Percentile £44,250 £53,250 £37,500
25th Percentile £48,165 £61,875 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £72,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -17.24% +20.83% -11.11%
75th Percentile £77,500 £88,750 £80,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £105,000
UK median annual salary £65,000 £67,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year -3.70% +8.00% -9.68%

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 14,331 12,231 28,767
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 83.46% 94.80% 91.61%
Number of salaries quoted 10,023 8,889 23,341
10th Percentile £31,250 £32,500 £34,000
25th Percentile £43,750 £46,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £62,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% +8.70% -8.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £105,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £56,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -6.67% +9.09% -10.57%

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 7 April 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 2 (2.00%) Confluence
2 1 (1.00%) Apache
2 1 (1.00%) Drupal
2 1 (1.00%) IIS
2 1 (1.00%) nginx
2 1 (1.00%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (3.00%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (3.00%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.00%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 33 (33.00%) AWS
2 30 (30.00%) Azure
3 15 (15.00%) GCP
4 4 (4.00%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (4.00%) Mimecast
5 3 (3.00%) Amazon EKS
5 3 (3.00%) AWS CloudFormation
5 3 (3.00%) Entra ID
5 3 (3.00%) Power Platform
5 3 (3.00%) SaaS
6 2 (2.00%) Azure Key Vault
6 2 (2.00%) Figma
7 1 (1.00%) Amazon ECS
7 1 (1.00%) Amazon GuardDuty
7 1 (1.00%) AWS CodePipeline
7 1 (1.00%) AWS Control Tower
7 1 (1.00%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (1.00%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (1.00%) CloudFront
7 1 (1.00%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 21 (21.00%) Firewall
2 12 (12.00%) Network Security
3 9 (9.00%) TCP/IP
4 8 (8.00%) VPN
5 5 (5.00%) DNS
6 4 (4.00%) Cisco ISE
6 4 (4.00%) Cisco Nexus
6 4 (4.00%) Intrusion Detection
7 3 (3.00%) DMARC
7 3 (3.00%) VLAN
7 3 (3.00%) Wireshark
8 2 (2.00%) Ethernet
8 2 (2.00%) HTTP
8 2 (2.00%) Wi-Fi
9 1 (1.00%) ICMP
9 1 (1.00%) Modbus
9 1 (1.00%) SSH
9 1 (1.00%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.00%) Power BI
1 3 (3.00%) Tableau
2 1 (1.00%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (1.00%) InterSystems Cache
2 1 (1.00%) Redis
2 1 (1.00%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 16 (16.00%) Burp Suite
1 16 (16.00%) Metasploit
2 2 (2.00%) Bitbucket
2 2 (2.00%) Git
2 2 (2.00%) JIRA
2 2 (2.00%) NUnit
3 1 (1.00%) Gatling
3 1 (1.00%) IDA Disassembler
3 1 (1.00%) JMeter
3 1 (1.00%) Vagrant
General
1 45 (45.00%) Social Skills
2 20 (20.00%) Public Sector
3 16 (16.00%) Banking
4 15 (15.00%) Retail
5 12 (12.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 10 (10.00%) Finance
7 9 (9.00%) Law
8 7 (7.00%) Analytical Skills
9 3 (3.00%) Marketing
10 2 (2.00%) Back Office
10 2 (2.00%) Electronics
10 2 (2.00%) Financial Institution
10 2 (2.00%) Social Housing
11 1 (1.00%) Documentation Skills
11 1 (1.00%) Investment Banking
11 1 (1.00%) Legal
11 1 (1.00%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 24 (24.00%) Tester
2 23 (23.00%) Penetration Tester
3 15 (15.00%) Security Specialist
4 11 (11.00%) Consultant
4 11 (11.00%) Security Consultant
5 9 (9.00%) Cybersecurity Consultant
5 9 (9.00%) Security Manager
5 9 (9.00%) Senior
6 8 (8.00%) Senior Penetration Tester
6 8 (8.00%) Senior Tester
7 7 (7.00%) IT Manager
7 7 (7.00%) Threat Intelligence Specialist
8 6 (6.00%) Analyst
8 6 (6.00%) Client Director
8 6 (6.00%) Head of Professional Services
8 6 (6.00%) Services Director
9 5 (5.00%) Cybersecurity Manager
9 5 (5.00%) Lead
10 4 (4.00%) Auditor
10 4 (4.00%) Network Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (4.00%) .NET
2 3 (3.00%) .NET Framework
3 2 (2.00%) AngularJS
3 2 (2.00%) ASP.NET
3 2 (2.00%) ASP.NET Core
3 2 (2.00%) Entity Framework
3 2 (2.00%) OpenAPI
3 2 (2.00%) RESTful
3 2 (2.00%) RxJS
3 2 (2.00%) Swagger
3 2 (2.00%) Vitest
4 1 (1.00%) ARM Templates
4 1 (1.00%) Memcached
Miscellaneous
1 29 (29.00%) Security Posture
2 14 (14.00%) Cyber Threat
3 8 (8.00%) Mobile App
4 7 (7.00%) Blog
4 7 (7.00%) Insider Threat
5 6 (6.00%) Cyber Defence
6 5 (5.00%) Public Cloud
7 4 (4.00%) Cloud Native
7 4 (4.00%) Data Centre
7 4 (4.00%) Management Information System
7 4 (4.00%) Operational Technology
7 4 (4.00%) Self-Motivation
8 3 (3.00%) Enterprise Software
9 2 (2.00%) Analytical Mindset
9 2 (2.00%) Cyberattack
9 2 (2.00%) Housing Association
9 2 (2.00%) Security Operations Centre
10 1 (1.00%) Linux Command Line
10 1 (1.00%) Renewable Energy
10 1 (1.00%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 19 (19.00%) Linux
2 17 (17.00%) Windows
3 11 (11.00%) Android
3 11 (11.00%) Apple iOS
4 3 (3.00%) Unix
5 1 (1.00%) Kali Linux
5 1 (1.00%) Mac OS
5 1 (1.00%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 61 (61.00%) Cybersecurity
2 33 (33.00%) Incident Response
3 27 (27.00%) Information Security
4 24 (24.00%) Red Team
5 19 (19.00%) Actionable Insight
6 17 (17.00%) Application Security
6 17 (17.00%) Cloud Security
7 16 (16.00%) Offensive Security
7 16 (16.00%) Vulnerability Management
8 15 (15.00%) Ethical Hacking
8 15 (15.00%) Problem-Solving
8 15 (15.00%) SDLC
9 14 (14.00%) Security Testing
10 13 (13.00%) Disaster Recovery
11 12 (12.00%) Decision-Making
11 12 (12.00%) OWASP
11 12 (12.00%) Threat Modelling
12 11 (11.00%) Mentoring
12 11 (11.00%) Security Monitoring
12 11 (11.00%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 15 (15.00%) Python
2 12 (12.00%) Java
3 11 (11.00%) Go
4 9 (9.00%) C
4 9 (9.00%) C++
5 8 (8.00%) PowerShell
6 5 (5.00%) Bash
6 5 (5.00%) C#
6 5 (5.00%) SQL
7 4 (4.00%) Perl
7 4 (4.00%) Ruby
8 3 (3.00%) Objective-C
8 3 (3.00%) R
8 3 (3.00%) Rust
9 2 (2.00%) Bicep
9 2 (2.00%) TypeScript
10 1 (1.00%) PHP
Qualifications
1 38 (38.00%) CREST Certified
2 29 (29.00%) OSCP
3 25 (25.00%) Security Cleared
4 22 (22.00%) Degree
5 20 (20.00%) CISSP
6 19 (19.00%) SC Cleared
7 14 (14.00%) CHECK Team Member
8 13 (13.00%) CEH
8 13 (13.00%) Cisco Certification
8 13 (13.00%) GPEN
9 11 (11.00%) CCNA
10 9 (9.00%) Cyber Scheme
10 9 (9.00%) DV Cleared
10 9 (9.00%) GIAC
11 8 (8.00%) CompTIA Security+
11 8 (8.00%) Microsoft Certification
12 7 (7.00%) CISMP
12 7 (7.00%) MCSE
12 7 (7.00%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 6 (6.00%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (40.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 21 (21.00%) GDPR
3 19 (19.00%) Actionable Recommendations
4 17 (17.00%) Cyber Essentials
5 16 (16.00%) PCI DSS
6 15 (15.00%) NIST
7 10 (10.00%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 6 (6.00%) GRC
9 4 (4.00%) NCSC
10 3 (3.00%) Data Quality
11 1 (1.00%) Accessibility
11 1 (1.00%) NIST 800
11 1 (1.00%) SOC 2
System Software
1 11 (11.00%) Active Directory
2 1 (1.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 15 (15.00%) Nmap
2 10 (10.00%) Nessus
3 8 (8.00%) Kubernetes
4 4 (4.00%) Terraform
5 3 (3.00%) CSIRT
6 1 (1.00%) Ansible
6 1 (1.00%) Consul
6 1 (1.00%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (1.00%) Packer
6 1 (1.00%) Progress Chef
6 1 (1.00%) Puppet
6 1 (1.00%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 25 (25.00%) Microsoft
2 11 (11.00%) Cisco
3 7 (7.00%) Fortinet
3 7 (7.00%) Sophos
4 4 (4.00%) CheckPoint
4 4 (4.00%) Okta
4 4 (4.00%) Splunk
4 4 (4.00%) Zscaler
5 3 (3.00%) Oracle
5 3 (3.00%) Palo Alto
5 3 (3.00%) Veeam
6 2 (2.00%) DevExpress
6 2 (2.00%) Google
6 2 (2.00%) Qualys
7 1 (1.00%) TOWER Software