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 26 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 298 281 335
Rank change year-on-year -17 +54 +68
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 95 110 227
As % of all permanent jobs with remote/hybrid work options 0.56% 0.85% 0.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.67% 0.90% 0.80%
Number of salaries quoted 76 91 195
10th Percentile £42,500 £52,500 £38,000
25th Percentile £48,165 £61,875 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £70,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +16.67% -11.11%
75th Percentile £77,500 £88,750 £80,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £105,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £69,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year +0.72% +11.20% -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 14,237 12,283 28,237
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 84.42% 95.05% 91.85%
Number of salaries quoted 9,595 8,796 23,110
10th Percentile £31,250 £32,500 £33,806
25th Percentile £42,500 £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 £75,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £103,750 £95,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.29%

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 26 March 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 (2.11%) Confluence
2 1 (1.05%) Apache
2 1 (1.05%) Drupal
2 1 (1.05%) IIS
2 1 (1.05%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.05%) nginx
2 1 (1.05%) SharePoint
2 1 (1.05%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (3.16%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (3.16%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.05%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 29 (30.53%) AWS
2 27 (28.42%) Azure
3 12 (12.63%) GCP
4 4 (4.21%) Mimecast
5 3 (3.16%) Azure DevOps
5 3 (3.16%) Entra ID
5 3 (3.16%) Power Platform
6 2 (2.11%) Amazon EKS
6 2 (2.11%) AWS CloudFormation
6 2 (2.11%) GitHub
6 2 (2.11%) SaaS
7 1 (1.05%) Amazon EC2
7 1 (1.05%) Amazon ECS
7 1 (1.05%) Amazon ElastiCache
7 1 (1.05%) Amazon S3
7 1 (1.05%) Azure Key Vault
7 1 (1.05%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (1.05%) CloudFront
7 1 (1.05%) Microsoft 365
7 1 (1.05%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 21 (22.11%) Firewall
2 10 (10.53%) Network Security
3 9 (9.47%) TCP/IP
4 8 (8.42%) VPN
5 4 (4.21%) Cisco ISE
5 4 (4.21%) Cisco Nexus
5 4 (4.21%) DNS
5 4 (4.21%) Intrusion Detection
5 4 (4.21%) Wireshark
6 3 (3.16%) DMARC
6 3 (3.16%) Ethernet
6 3 (3.16%) VLAN
6 3 (3.16%) Wi-Fi
7 2 (2.11%) HTTP
8 1 (1.05%) ICMP
8 1 (1.05%) Modbus
8 1 (1.05%) SSH
8 1 (1.05%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.16%) Power BI
1 3 (3.16%) Tableau
2 1 (1.05%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (1.05%) InterSystems Cache
2 1 (1.05%) Redis
2 1 (1.05%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 16 (16.84%) Burp Suite
1 16 (16.84%) Metasploit
2 2 (2.11%) JIRA
3 1 (1.05%) Bitbucket
3 1 (1.05%) Gatling
3 1 (1.05%) Git
3 1 (1.05%) IDA Disassembler
3 1 (1.05%) JMeter
3 1 (1.05%) NUnit
3 1 (1.05%) Vagrant
General
1 44 (46.32%) Social Skills
2 19 (20.00%) Public Sector
3 14 (14.74%) Retail
4 13 (13.68%) Banking
5 11 (11.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 8 (8.42%) Analytical Skills
6 8 (8.42%) Finance
6 8 (8.42%) Law
7 3 (3.16%) Electronics
7 3 (3.16%) Marketing
8 2 (2.11%) Social Housing
9 1 (1.05%) Back Office
9 1 (1.05%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (1.05%) Financial Institution
9 1 (1.05%) Investment Banking
9 1 (1.05%) Legal
9 1 (1.05%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 23 (24.21%) Tester
2 22 (23.16%) Penetration Tester
3 15 (15.79%) Security Specialist
4 10 (10.53%) Consultant
4 10 (10.53%) Security Consultant
4 10 (10.53%) Security Manager
5 9 (9.47%) Senior
6 8 (8.42%) Cybersecurity Consultant
6 8 (8.42%) IT Manager
6 8 (8.42%) Senior Penetration Tester
6 8 (8.42%) Senior Tester
7 7 (7.37%) Analyst
7 7 (7.37%) Threat Intelligence Specialist
8 6 (6.32%) Head of Professional Services
9 5 (5.26%) Cybersecurity Manager
10 4 (4.21%) Client Director
10 4 (4.21%) IT Auditor
10 4 (4.21%) Lead
10 4 (4.21%) Security Analyst
10 4 (4.21%) Services Director
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (3.16%) .NET
2 2 (2.11%) .NET Framework
3 1 (1.05%) AngularJS
3 1 (1.05%) ARM Templates
3 1 (1.05%) ASP.NET
3 1 (1.05%) ASP.NET Core
3 1 (1.05%) Entity Framework
3 1 (1.05%) JSON
3 1 (1.05%) Memcached
3 1 (1.05%) OpenAPI
3 1 (1.05%) RESTful
3 1 (1.05%) RxJS
3 1 (1.05%) Swagger
3 1 (1.05%) Vitest
Miscellaneous
1 26 (27.37%) Security Posture
2 12 (12.63%) Cyber Threat
3 7 (7.37%) Cyber Defence
3 7 (7.37%) Insider Threat
3 7 (7.37%) Mobile App
4 6 (6.32%) Blog
5 4 (4.21%) Data Centre
5 4 (4.21%) Operational Technology
5 4 (4.21%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (3.16%) Analytical Mindset
6 3 (3.16%) Cloud Native
6 3 (3.16%) Enterprise Software
6 3 (3.16%) Public Cloud
7 2 (2.11%) Cyberattack
7 2 (2.11%) Housing Association
7 2 (2.11%) Management Information System
7 2 (2.11%) Security Operations Centre
8 1 (1.05%) Driving Licence
8 1 (1.05%) Linux Command Line
8 1 (1.05%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 16 (16.84%) Linux
2 15 (15.79%) Windows
3 10 (10.53%) Android
3 10 (10.53%) Apple iOS
4 3 (3.16%) Unix
5 2 (2.11%) Windows Server
6 1 (1.05%) Kali Linux
6 1 (1.05%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 60 (63.16%) Cybersecurity
2 33 (34.74%) Incident Response
3 24 (25.26%) Information Security
4 20 (21.05%) Red Team
5 17 (17.89%) Actionable Insight
6 15 (15.79%) Cloud Security
6 15 (15.79%) Problem-Solving
6 15 (15.79%) Vulnerability Management
7 14 (14.74%) Application Security
7 14 (14.74%) Disaster Recovery
7 14 (14.74%) Offensive Security
8 13 (13.68%) Ethical Hacking
8 13 (13.68%) SDLC
9 12 (12.63%) Security Testing
9 12 (12.63%) SIEM
10 11 (11.58%) Decision-Making
10 11 (11.58%) Threat Modelling
11 10 (10.53%) OWASP
11 10 (10.53%) Security Architecture
11 10 (10.53%) Security Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 13 (13.68%) Python
2 9 (9.47%) Java
3 8 (8.42%) C
3 8 (8.42%) C++
3 8 (8.42%) Go
4 6 (6.32%) PowerShell
5 4 (4.21%) C#
5 4 (4.21%) SQL
6 3 (3.16%) Bash
6 3 (3.16%) R
7 2 (2.11%) Perl
7 2 (2.11%) Ruby
8 1 (1.05%) Bicep
8 1 (1.05%) JavaScript
8 1 (1.05%) Objective-C
8 1 (1.05%) PHP
8 1 (1.05%) Rust
8 1 (1.05%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 34 (35.79%) CREST Certified
2 26 (27.37%) OSCP
3 25 (26.32%) Security Cleared
4 21 (22.11%) Degree
5 20 (21.05%) CISSP
6 19 (20.00%) SC Cleared
7 14 (14.74%) CHECK Team Member
8 13 (13.68%) CEH
8 13 (13.68%) Cisco Certification
9 11 (11.58%) CCNA
9 11 (11.58%) GPEN
10 9 (9.47%) Cyber Scheme
10 9 (9.47%) DV Cleared
10 9 (9.47%) GIAC
10 9 (9.47%) Microsoft Certification
11 8 (8.42%) CompTIA Security+
11 8 (8.42%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 7 (7.37%) CISMP
12 7 (7.37%) MCSE
13 6 (6.32%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (41.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 21 (22.11%) GDPR
3 17 (17.89%) Actionable Recommendations
4 16 (16.84%) Cyber Essentials
5 15 (15.79%) PCI DSS
6 14 (14.74%) NIST
7 10 (10.53%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 6 (6.32%) GRC
9 4 (4.21%) NCSC
10 3 (3.16%) Data Quality
11 1 (1.05%) Accessibility
11 1 (1.05%) NIST 800
11 1 (1.05%) QA
11 1 (1.05%) SOC 2
System Software
1 11 (11.58%) Active Directory
2 1 (1.05%) Docker
2 1 (1.05%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (1.05%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 15 (15.79%) Nmap
2 11 (11.58%) Nessus
3 8 (8.42%) Kubernetes
4 3 (3.16%) CSIRT
4 3 (3.16%) Terraform
5 1 (1.05%) Ansible
5 1 (1.05%) Consul
5 1 (1.05%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (1.05%) Packer
5 1 (1.05%) Progress Chef
5 1 (1.05%) Proxmox
5 1 (1.05%) Puppet
5 1 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 25 (26.32%) Microsoft
2 11 (11.58%) Cisco
3 6 (6.32%) Fortinet
3 6 (6.32%) Sophos
4 4 (4.21%) CheckPoint
4 4 (4.21%) Okta
4 4 (4.21%) Splunk
4 4 (4.21%) Zscaler
5 3 (3.16%) Oracle
5 3 (3.16%) Veeam
6 2 (2.11%) Google
6 2 (2.11%) Palo Alto
6 2 (2.11%) Qualys
7 1 (1.05%) DevExpress
7 1 (1.05%) IBM
7 1 (1.05%) TOWER Software
7 1 (1.05%) VMware