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

6 months to
21 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 301 295 340
Rank change year-on-year -6 +45 +56
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 91 113 224
As % of all permanent jobs with remote/hybrid work options 0.53% 0.84% 0.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.63% 0.89% 0.81%
Number of salaries quoted 72 90 192
10th Percentile £42,500 £52,500 £39,900
25th Percentile £48,165 £62,500 £48,438
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £71,250 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -15.79% +18.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £77,500 £88,750 £84,688
90th Percentile £99,750 £95,000 £105,000
UK median annual salary £71,184 £70,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year +1.69% +7.69% -6.07%

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 14,463 12,740 27,774
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 84.85% 95.23% 91.98%
Number of salaries quoted 9,528 8,782 22,888
10th Percentile £31,250 £32,750 £34,000
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 £75,772
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 21 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 (2.20%) Confluence
2 1 (1.10%) Apache
2 1 (1.10%) Drupal
2 1 (1.10%) IIS
2 1 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.10%) nginx
2 1 (1.10%) SharePoint
2 1 (1.10%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (3.30%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (3.30%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.10%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 27 (29.67%) AWS
2 25 (27.47%) Azure
3 12 (13.19%) GCP
4 4 (4.40%) Mimecast
5 3 (3.30%) Azure DevOps
5 3 (3.30%) Entra ID
5 3 (3.30%) Power Platform
6 2 (2.20%) Amazon EKS
6 2 (2.20%) AWS CloudFormation
6 2 (2.20%) GitHub
6 2 (2.20%) SaaS
7 1 (1.10%) Amazon EC2
7 1 (1.10%) Amazon ECS
7 1 (1.10%) Amazon ElastiCache
7 1 (1.10%) Amazon S3
7 1 (1.10%) AWS CodePipeline
7 1 (1.10%) CloudFront
7 1 (1.10%) Figma
7 1 (1.10%) Microsoft 365
7 1 (1.10%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 19 (20.88%) Firewall
2 9 (9.89%) Network Security
2 9 (9.89%) TCP/IP
3 7 (7.69%) VPN
4 5 (5.49%) Wireshark
5 4 (4.40%) Cisco ISE
5 4 (4.40%) Cisco Nexus
5 4 (4.40%) Ethernet
5 4 (4.40%) Intrusion Detection
5 4 (4.40%) Wi-Fi
6 3 (3.30%) DMARC
6 3 (3.30%) DNS
7 2 (2.20%) HTTP
7 2 (2.20%) VLAN
8 1 (1.10%) ICMP
8 1 (1.10%) Modbus
8 1 (1.10%) SSH
8 1 (1.10%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.30%) Power BI
1 3 (3.30%) Tableau
2 1 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (1.10%) InterSystems Cache
2 1 (1.10%) Redis
2 1 (1.10%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 16 (17.58%) Burp Suite
1 16 (17.58%) Metasploit
2 2 (2.20%) JIRA
3 1 (1.10%) Bitbucket
3 1 (1.10%) Gatling
3 1 (1.10%) Git
3 1 (1.10%) IDA Disassembler
3 1 (1.10%) JMeter
3 1 (1.10%) NUnit
3 1 (1.10%) Vagrant
General
1 44 (48.35%) Social Skills
2 17 (18.68%) Public Sector
3 14 (15.38%) Retail
4 13 (14.29%) Banking
5 11 (12.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 9 (9.89%) Analytical Skills
7 8 (8.79%) Finance
8 7 (7.69%) Law
9 4 (4.40%) Electronics
10 3 (3.30%) Marketing
11 1 (1.10%) Back Office
11 1 (1.10%) Documentation Skills
11 1 (1.10%) Financial Institution
11 1 (1.10%) Investment Banking
11 1 (1.10%) Legal
11 1 (1.10%) Manufacturing
11 1 (1.10%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 22 (24.18%) Tester
2 21 (23.08%) Penetration Tester
3 15 (16.48%) Security Specialist
4 9 (9.89%) Security Manager
4 9 (9.89%) Senior
5 8 (8.79%) Analyst
5 8 (8.79%) Consultant
5 8 (8.79%) IT Manager
5 8 (8.79%) Security Consultant
5 8 (8.79%) Senior Penetration Tester
5 8 (8.79%) Senior Tester
6 7 (7.69%) Cybersecurity Consultant
6 7 (7.69%) Threat Intelligence Specialist
7 6 (6.59%) Head of Professional Services
8 4 (4.40%) Auditor
8 4 (4.40%) Cybersecurity Manager
8 4 (4.40%) Data Analyst
8 4 (4.40%) IT Auditor
8 4 (4.40%) Network Specialist
8 4 (4.40%) Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (3.30%) .NET
2 2 (2.20%) .NET Framework
3 1 (1.10%) AngularJS
3 1 (1.10%) ARM Templates
3 1 (1.10%) ASP.NET
3 1 (1.10%) ASP.NET Core
3 1 (1.10%) Entity Framework
3 1 (1.10%) JSON
3 1 (1.10%) Memcached
3 1 (1.10%) OpenAPI
3 1 (1.10%) RESTful
3 1 (1.10%) RxJS
3 1 (1.10%) Swagger
3 1 (1.10%) Vitest
Miscellaneous
1 25 (27.47%) Security Posture
2 12 (13.19%) Cyber Threat
3 8 (8.79%) Cyber Defence
4 7 (7.69%) Insider Threat
5 6 (6.59%) Mobile App
6 5 (5.49%) Blog
7 4 (4.40%) Analytical Mindset
7 4 (4.40%) Data Centre
7 4 (4.40%) Operational Technology
7 4 (4.40%) Self-Motivation
8 3 (3.30%) Cloud Native
8 3 (3.30%) Enterprise Software
8 3 (3.30%) Public Cloud
9 2 (2.20%) Cyberattack
9 2 (2.20%) Management Information System
9 2 (2.20%) Security Operations Centre
10 1 (1.10%) Driving Licence
10 1 (1.10%) Housing Association
10 1 (1.10%) Linux Command Line
10 1 (1.10%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 15 (16.48%) Linux
2 14 (15.38%) Windows
3 9 (9.89%) Android
3 9 (9.89%) Apple iOS
4 3 (3.30%) Unix
5 2 (2.20%) Windows Server
6 1 (1.10%) Kali Linux
6 1 (1.10%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 57 (62.64%) Cybersecurity
2 31 (34.07%) Incident Response
3 24 (26.37%) Information Security
4 18 (19.78%) Red Team
5 16 (17.58%) Actionable Insight
6 15 (16.48%) Problem-Solving
7 14 (15.38%) Application Security
7 14 (15.38%) Cloud Security
7 14 (15.38%) Offensive Security
8 13 (14.29%) Disaster Recovery
8 13 (14.29%) Ethical Hacking
8 13 (14.29%) SDLC
8 13 (14.29%) Vulnerability Management
9 12 (13.19%) SIEM
10 11 (12.09%) Decision-Making
10 11 (12.09%) Security Testing
10 11 (12.09%) Threat Modelling
11 10 (10.99%) Security Architecture
12 9 (9.89%) OWASP
12 9 (9.89%) Reverse Engineering
Programming Languages
1 14 (15.38%) Python
2 9 (9.89%) C
2 9 (9.89%) C++
2 9 (9.89%) Java
3 8 (8.79%) Go
4 6 (6.59%) PowerShell
5 4 (4.40%) C#
5 4 (4.40%) SQL
6 3 (3.30%) Bash
6 3 (3.30%) R
7 2 (2.20%) Perl
7 2 (2.20%) Ruby
8 1 (1.10%) Bicep
8 1 (1.10%) JavaScript
8 1 (1.10%) Objective-C
8 1 (1.10%) PHP
8 1 (1.10%) Rust
8 1 (1.10%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 33 (36.26%) CREST Certified
2 26 (28.57%) OSCP
3 25 (27.47%) Security Cleared
4 21 (23.08%) Degree
5 19 (20.88%) CISSP
5 19 (20.88%) SC Cleared
6 14 (15.38%) CHECK Team Member
7 12 (13.19%) CEH
7 12 (13.19%) Cisco Certification
8 11 (12.09%) CCNA
8 11 (12.09%) GPEN
9 9 (9.89%) Cyber Scheme
9 9 (9.89%) DV Cleared
9 9 (9.89%) GIAC
9 9 (9.89%) Microsoft Certification
10 8 (8.79%) CompTIA Security+
10 8 (8.79%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 7 (7.69%) CISMP
11 7 (7.69%) MCSE
12 5 (5.49%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (39.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 20 (21.98%) GDPR
3 16 (17.58%) Actionable Recommendations
4 14 (15.38%) Cyber Essentials
4 14 (15.38%) PCI DSS
5 12 (13.19%) NIST
6 9 (9.89%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 6 (6.59%) GRC
8 4 (4.40%) NCSC
9 3 (3.30%) Data Quality
10 1 (1.10%) Accessibility
10 1 (1.10%) NIST 800
10 1 (1.10%) QA
10 1 (1.10%) SOC 2
System Software
1 10 (10.99%) Active Directory
2 1 (1.10%) Docker
2 1 (1.10%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (1.10%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 15 (16.48%) Nmap
2 11 (12.09%) Nessus
3 8 (8.79%) Kubernetes
4 3 (3.30%) CSIRT
4 3 (3.30%) Terraform
5 1 (1.10%) Ansible
5 1 (1.10%) Consul
5 1 (1.10%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (1.10%) Packer
5 1 (1.10%) Progress Chef
5 1 (1.10%) Proxmox
5 1 (1.10%) Puppet
5 1 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 24 (26.37%) Microsoft
2 11 (12.09%) Cisco
3 5 (5.49%) Fortinet
3 5 (5.49%) Sophos
4 4 (4.40%) CheckPoint
4 4 (4.40%) Okta
4 4 (4.40%) Splunk
4 4 (4.40%) Zscaler
5 3 (3.30%) Oracle
5 3 (3.30%) Veeam
6 2 (2.20%) Google
6 2 (2.20%) Qualys
7 1 (1.10%) DevExpress
7 1 (1.10%) IBM
7 1 (1.10%) Palo Alto
7 1 (1.10%) TOWER Software
7 1 (1.10%) VMware