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

6 months to
16 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 310 304 317
Rank change year-on-year -6 +13 +103
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 80 135 223
As % of all permanent jobs with remote/hybrid work options 0.49% 0.86% 0.80%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.57% 0.91% 0.87%
Number of salaries quoted 63 86 194
10th Percentile £42,500 £51,250 £42,150
25th Percentile £48,165 £61,250 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £70,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +16.67% -11.11%
75th Percentile £73,750 £88,750 £87,500
90th Percentile £77,500 £94,500 £105,000
UK median annual salary £70,000 £70,000 £64,902
% change year-on-year - +7.85% -3.85%

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 13,968 14,831 25,724
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 86.17% 94.86% 92.71%
Number of salaries quoted 9,052 8,817 21,328
10th Percentile £30,500 £36,250 £35,000
25th Percentile £42,500 £47,500 £43,329
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £62,500 £57,800
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% +8.13% -7.52%
75th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £103,750 £95,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,350 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.86% +9.73% -12.00%

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 February 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 3 (3.75%) Microsoft Exchange
1 3 (3.75%) SharePoint
2 1 (1.25%) Confluence
Applications
1 4 (5.00%) Microsoft Excel
1 4 (5.00%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.25%) GNU Octave
Cloud Services
1 21 (26.25%) AWS
2 17 (21.25%) Azure
3 9 (11.25%) GCP
4 5 (6.25%) Entra ID
5 4 (5.00%) Microsoft 365
5 4 (5.00%) Power Platform
6 3 (3.75%) IBM Cloud
7 1 (1.25%) Amazon EKS
7 1 (1.25%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (1.25%) GitHub
7 1 (1.25%) Mimecast
7 1 (1.25%) Power Automate
7 1 (1.25%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 18 (22.50%) Firewall
2 14 (17.50%) TCP/IP
3 8 (10.00%) Network Security
4 7 (8.75%) VPN
4 7 (8.75%) Wireshark
5 4 (5.00%) Ethernet
5 4 (5.00%) Wi-Fi
6 3 (3.75%) DMARC
6 3 (3.75%) VLAN
7 2 (2.50%) DNS
7 2 (2.50%) HTTP
8 1 (1.25%) Cisco ISE
8 1 (1.25%) Cisco Nexus
8 1 (1.25%) ICMP
8 1 (1.25%) Intrusion Detection
8 1 (1.25%) Modbus
8 1 (1.25%) SSH
8 1 (1.25%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (5.00%) Power BI
1 4 (5.00%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 16 (20.00%) Burp Suite
1 16 (20.00%) Metasploit
2 1 (1.25%) IDA Disassembler
2 1 (1.25%) JIRA
General
1 39 (48.75%) Social Skills
2 14 (17.50%) Retail
3 13 (16.25%) Banking
4 11 (13.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 11 (13.75%) Public Sector
5 10 (12.50%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (8.75%) Finance
6 7 (8.75%) Law
7 4 (5.00%) Electronics
8 3 (3.75%) Marketing
9 1 (1.25%) Back Office
9 1 (1.25%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (1.25%) Financial Institution
9 1 (1.25%) Investment Banking
9 1 (1.25%) Legal
9 1 (1.25%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 22 (27.50%) Tester
2 21 (26.25%) Penetration Tester
3 14 (17.50%) Senior
4 12 (15.00%) Security Specialist
5 10 (12.50%) Analyst
6 9 (11.25%) IT Manager
7 8 (10.00%) Security Manager
7 8 (10.00%) Senior Penetration Tester
7 8 (10.00%) Senior Tester
8 7 (8.75%) Cybersecurity Engineer
8 7 (8.75%) Security Engineer
8 7 (8.75%) Threat Intelligence Specialist
9 6 (7.50%) Security Analyst
10 5 (6.25%) Auditor
10 5 (6.25%) Consultant
10 5 (6.25%) IT Auditor
10 5 (6.25%) Security Consultant
10 5 (6.25%) Senior Security Engineer
11 4 (5.00%) Audit Manager
11 4 (5.00%) IT Audit Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (1.25%) .NET
1 1 (1.25%) JSON
1 1 (1.25%) PyTorch
1 1 (1.25%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 23 (28.75%) Security Posture
2 9 (11.25%) Cyber Threat
3 7 (8.75%) Insider Threat
3 7 (8.75%) Security Operations Centre
4 6 (7.50%) Mobile App
5 5 (6.25%) Cyber Defence
5 5 (6.25%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (5.00%) Analytical Mindset
6 4 (5.00%) Data Centre
6 4 (5.00%) Enterprise Software
7 3 (3.75%) Cloud Native
7 3 (3.75%) Cyberattack
7 3 (3.75%) Operational Technology
7 3 (3.75%) PKI
8 2 (2.50%) Cyber Kill Chain
9 1 (1.25%) Cyber Security Posture
9 1 (1.25%) Linux Command Line
9 1 (1.25%) Renewable Energy
9 1 (1.25%) SCADA
9 1 (1.25%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 12 (15.00%) Windows
2 10 (12.50%) Linux
3 9 (11.25%) Android
3 9 (11.25%) Apple iOS
4 4 (5.00%) Unix
5 3 (3.75%) Windows Server
6 1 (1.25%) Kali Linux
6 1 (1.25%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 53 (66.25%) Cybersecurity
2 29 (36.25%) Incident Response
3 23 (28.75%) Information Security
4 17 (21.25%) SIEM
5 16 (20.00%) Red Team
6 15 (18.75%) Problem-Solving
7 14 (17.50%) Application Security
7 14 (17.50%) Offensive Security
8 13 (16.25%) SDLC
9 12 (15.00%) Actionable Insight
9 12 (15.00%) Threat Intelligence
10 11 (13.75%) Cloud Security
10 11 (13.75%) Threat Modelling
11 10 (12.50%) Ethical Hacking
11 10 (12.50%) ITIL
11 10 (12.50%) Security Operations
11 10 (12.50%) Security Testing
11 10 (12.50%) Vulnerability Management
12 9 (11.25%) Disaster Recovery
12 9 (11.25%) Reverse Engineering
Programming Languages
1 14 (17.50%) Python
2 8 (10.00%) C
2 8 (10.00%) C++
2 8 (10.00%) Java
3 7 (8.75%) Go
4 4 (5.00%) R
4 4 (5.00%) SQL
5 3 (3.75%) C#
6 2 (2.50%) PowerShell
7 1 (1.25%) Bash
7 1 (1.25%) JavaScript
7 1 (1.25%) Perl
7 1 (1.25%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 26 (32.50%) CREST Certified
2 25 (31.25%) OSCP
3 24 (30.00%) CISSP
4 19 (23.75%) Degree
4 19 (23.75%) Security Cleared
5 14 (17.50%) SC Cleared
6 13 (16.25%) CCNA
6 13 (16.25%) CHECK Team Member
6 13 (16.25%) Cisco Certification
6 13 (16.25%) CompTIA Security+
7 11 (13.75%) GIAC
8 10 (12.50%) CEH
8 10 (12.50%) GPEN
8 10 (12.50%) Microsoft Certification
8 10 (12.50%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 9 (11.25%) Cyber Scheme
9 9 (11.25%) GCIA
10 7 (8.75%) CISMP
10 7 (8.75%) MCSE
11 6 (7.50%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (40.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 15 (18.75%) Cyber Essentials
3 14 (17.50%) GDPR
4 12 (15.00%) Actionable Recommendations
5 9 (11.25%) NIST
6 7 (8.75%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 5 (6.25%) GRC
7 5 (6.25%) PCI DSS
8 2 (2.50%) Data Quality
8 2 (2.50%) NCSC
8 2 (2.50%) NIST 800
9 1 (1.25%) QA
System Software
1 6 (7.50%) Active Directory
2 3 (3.75%) VMware ESXi
2 3 (3.75%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 15 (18.75%) Nmap
2 13 (16.25%) Nessus
3 7 (8.75%) Kubernetes
4 3 (3.75%) Proxmox
5 2 (2.50%) CSIRT
5 2 (2.50%) Microsoft Intune
5 2 (2.50%) QRadar
6 1 (1.25%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (1.25%) Terraform
Vendors
1 20 (25.00%) Microsoft
2 8 (10.00%) Cisco
3 4 (5.00%) Oracle
4 3 (3.75%) IBM
4 3 (3.75%) Splunk
4 3 (3.75%) Veeam
4 3 (3.75%) VMware
5 2 (2.50%) Qualys
6 1 (1.25%) CheckPoint
6 1 (1.25%) Fortinet
6 1 (1.25%) Okta
6 1 (1.25%) Sophos
6 1 (1.25%) Zscaler