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

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 305 350 375
Rank change year-on-year +45 +25 +5
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 99 76 210
As % of all permanent jobs with remote/hybrid work options 0.53% 0.51% 0.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.64% 0.54% 0.71%
Number of salaries quoted 71 65 185
10th Percentile £45,000 £52,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £48,958 £62,500 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £76,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -21.05% +26.67% -11.11%
75th Percentile £96,250 £93,250 £76,250
90th Percentile £110,000 £95,000 £105,000
UK median annual salary £65,000 £67,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year -3.70% +3.85% -3.70%

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 15,402 14,083 29,565
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 82.75% 95.07% 91.04%
Number of salaries quoted 10,940 8,654 23,358
10th Percentile £34,000 £31,250 £33,750
25th Percentile £45,000 £43,750 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,208 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +0.35% +4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £105,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +9.09% -9.97%

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 16 May 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 (1.01%) Apache
1 1 (1.01%) Confluence
1 1 (1.01%) Drupal
1 1 (1.01%) IIS
1 1 (1.01%) nginx
1 1 (1.01%) WordPress
Business Applications
1 1 (1.01%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 34 (34.34%) AWS
2 27 (27.27%) Azure
3 19 (19.19%) GCP
4 4 (4.04%) Amazon EKS
4 4 (4.04%) AWS CloudFormation
4 4 (4.04%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (4.04%) Mimecast
4 4 (4.04%) SaaS
5 2 (2.02%) Azure Key Vault
5 2 (2.02%) Entra ID
5 2 (2.02%) Figma
6 1 (1.01%) Amazon EC2
6 1 (1.01%) Amazon ECS
6 1 (1.01%) Amazon ElastiCache
6 1 (1.01%) Amazon GuardDuty
6 1 (1.01%) Amazon S3
6 1 (1.01%) Azure Sentinel
6 1 (1.01%) CloudFront
6 1 (1.01%) GitHub
6 1 (1.01%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 20 (20.20%) Firewall
2 12 (12.12%) Network Security
3 7 (7.07%) VPN
4 4 (4.04%) Cisco ISE
4 4 (4.04%) Cisco Nexus
4 4 (4.04%) Intrusion Detection
4 4 (4.04%) TCP/IP
5 3 (3.03%) DMARC
5 3 (3.03%) DNS
5 3 (3.03%) VLAN
6 1 (1.01%) Wireless
6 1 (1.01%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (1.01%) InterSystems Cache
1 1 (1.01%) Redis
1 1 (1.01%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 10 (10.10%) Burp Suite
1 10 (10.10%) Metasploit
2 2 (2.02%) Bitbucket
2 2 (2.02%) Git
2 2 (2.02%) NUnit
3 1 (1.01%) Gatling
3 1 (1.01%) JIRA
3 1 (1.01%) JMeter
3 1 (1.01%) Vagrant
General
1 42 (42.42%) Social Skills
2 19 (19.19%) Banking
3 18 (18.18%) Public Sector
4 16 (16.16%) Law
5 15 (15.15%) Retail
6 13 (13.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 11 (11.11%) Finance
8 3 (3.03%) Back Office
8 3 (3.03%) Financial Institution
8 3 (3.03%) Marketing
9 2 (2.02%) Analytical Skills
9 2 (2.02%) Social Housing
10 1 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (1.01%) Investment Banking
10 1 (1.01%) Legal
Job Titles
1 28 (28.28%) Penetration Tester
1 28 (28.28%) Tester
2 15 (15.15%) Consultant
2 15 (15.15%) Security Consultant
3 13 (13.13%) Senior
4 12 (12.12%) Security Specialist
5 10 (10.10%) Senior Penetration Tester
5 10 (10.10%) Senior Tester
6 9 (9.09%) Cybersecurity Consultant
6 9 (9.09%) Security Manager
7 7 (7.07%) Client Director
7 7 (7.07%) Services Director
8 6 (6.06%) Head of Professional Services
9 5 (5.05%) Cybersecurity Manager
9 5 (5.05%) Lead
9 5 (5.05%) Security Penetration Tester
9 5 (5.05%) Security Tester
10 4 (4.04%) Network Security Specialist
10 4 (4.04%) Network Specialist
10 4 (4.04%) Threat Intelligence Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (4.04%) .NET
2 3 (3.03%) .NET Framework
3 2 (2.02%) AngularJS
3 2 (2.02%) ASP.NET
3 2 (2.02%) ASP.NET Core
3 2 (2.02%) Entity Framework
3 2 (2.02%) OpenAPI
3 2 (2.02%) RESTful
3 2 (2.02%) RxJS
3 2 (2.02%) Swagger
3 2 (2.02%) Vitest
4 1 (1.01%) ARM Templates
4 1 (1.01%) Memcached
Miscellaneous
1 25 (25.25%) Security Posture
2 14 (14.14%) Mobile App
3 13 (13.13%) Cyber Threat
4 7 (7.07%) Blog
5 5 (5.05%) Public Cloud
5 5 (5.05%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (4.04%) Cloud Native
6 4 (4.04%) Cyber Defence
6 4 (4.04%) Data Centre
6 4 (4.04%) Insider Threat
7 3 (3.03%) Management Information System
7 3 (3.03%) Operational Technology
8 2 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (2.02%) Housing Association
9 1 (1.01%) Cyberattack
9 1 (1.01%) Driving Licence
9 1 (1.01%) Security Operations Centre
9 1 (1.01%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 18 (18.18%) Android
1 18 (18.18%) Apple iOS
2 15 (15.15%) Linux
3 14 (14.14%) Windows
4 1 (1.01%) Kali Linux
4 1 (1.01%) Mac OS
4 1 (1.01%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 60 (60.61%) Cybersecurity
2 29 (29.29%) Incident Response
3 27 (27.27%) Red Team
4 26 (26.26%) Information Security
5 22 (22.22%) Cloud Security
6 21 (21.21%) Security Testing
7 17 (17.17%) Application Security
7 17 (17.17%) Vulnerability Management
8 16 (16.16%) Actionable Insight
9 14 (14.14%) Offensive Security
9 14 (14.14%) OWASP
10 13 (13.13%) Disaster Recovery
10 13 (13.13%) Mentoring
10 13 (13.13%) SDLC
10 13 (13.13%) SIEM
10 13 (13.13%) Threat Modelling
11 12 (12.12%) CI/CD
11 12 (12.12%) Ethical Hacking
11 12 (12.12%) Risk Management
11 12 (12.12%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 15 (15.15%) Java
2 14 (14.14%) Go
3 12 (12.12%) Python
4 8 (8.08%) PowerShell
5 6 (6.06%) C
5 6 (6.06%) C++
6 5 (5.05%) Bash
6 5 (5.05%) C#
7 4 (4.04%) Perl
7 4 (4.04%) Ruby
8 3 (3.03%) Objective-C
8 3 (3.03%) Rust
9 2 (2.02%) Bicep
9 2 (2.02%) SQL
9 2 (2.02%) TypeScript
10 1 (1.01%) PHP
Qualifications
1 36 (36.36%) CREST Certified
2 27 (27.27%) OSCP
3 18 (18.18%) Security Cleared
4 15 (15.15%) Degree
5 13 (13.13%) CISSP
5 13 (13.13%) SC Cleared
6 11 (11.11%) CHECK Team Member
7 10 (10.10%) Cisco Certification
7 10 (10.10%) GPEN
8 9 (9.09%) CEH
9 8 (8.08%) CCNA
10 7 (7.07%) Cyber Scheme
11 6 (6.06%) CCNP
11 6 (6.06%) DV Cleared
11 6 (6.06%) GIAC
12 5 (5.05%) CHECK Team Leader
12 5 (5.05%) GXPN
12 5 (5.05%) Microsoft Certification
13 4 (4.04%) CompTIA Security+
13 4 (4.04%) OSCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (37.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 21 (21.21%) GDPR
3 17 (17.17%) Cyber Essentials
4 16 (16.16%) Actionable Recommendations
4 16 (16.16%) PCI DSS
5 15 (15.15%) NIST
6 10 (10.10%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 8 (8.08%) GRC
8 4 (4.04%) NCSC
9 3 (3.03%) Data Quality
10 1 (1.01%) Accessibility
10 1 (1.01%) Def Stans
10 1 (1.01%) NIST 800
10 1 (1.01%) QA
10 1 (1.01%) SOC 2
System Software
1 11 (11.11%) Active Directory
2 1 (1.01%) Docker
Systems Management
1 10 (10.10%) Kubernetes
2 9 (9.09%) Nmap
3 6 (6.06%) Nessus
4 5 (5.05%) Terraform
5 3 (3.03%) CSIRT
6 1 (1.01%) Ansible
6 1 (1.01%) Consul
6 1 (1.01%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (1.01%) Packer
6 1 (1.01%) Progress Chef
6 1 (1.01%) Puppet
Vendors
1 20 (20.20%) Microsoft
2 8 (8.08%) Cisco
3 7 (7.07%) Fortinet
3 7 (7.07%) Sophos
4 4 (4.04%) CheckPoint
4 4 (4.04%) Okta
4 4 (4.04%) Splunk
4 4 (4.04%) Zscaler
5 3 (3.03%) Palo Alto
5 3 (3.03%) Veeam
6 2 (2.02%) CrowdStrike
6 2 (2.02%) DevExpress
6 2 (2.02%) Google
7 1 (1.01%) Qualys
7 1 (1.01%) TOWER Software