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

6 months to
2 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 296 318 363
Rank change year-on-year +22 +45 +16
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 97 78 226
As % of all permanent jobs with remote/hybrid work options 0.53% 0.58% 0.69%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.65% 0.61% 0.76%
Number of salaries quoted 72 66 194
10th Percentile £45,000 £52,500 £37,875
25th Percentile £49,750 £61,563 £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 £94,813 £93,250 £80,000
90th Percentile £109,500 £95,000 £105,000
UK median annual salary £65,000 £67,500 £63,750
% change year-on-year -3.70% +5.88% -5.56%

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 15,018 12,758 29,714
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 82.78% 94.74% 91.33%
Number of salaries quoted 10,546 8,888 23,579
10th Percentile £32,500 £31,250 £33,794
25th Percentile £45,000 £45,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year - +4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £105,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £58,396 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -2.67% +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 2 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 (1.03%) Apache
1 1 (1.03%) Confluence
1 1 (1.03%) Drupal
1 1 (1.03%) IIS
1 1 (1.03%) nginx
1 1 (1.03%) WordPress
Business Applications
1 1 (1.03%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 32 (32.99%) AWS
2 27 (27.84%) Azure
3 17 (17.53%) GCP
4 4 (4.12%) Amazon EKS
4 4 (4.12%) AWS CloudFormation
4 4 (4.12%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (4.12%) Mimecast
4 4 (4.12%) SaaS
5 3 (3.09%) Entra ID
6 2 (2.06%) Azure Key Vault
6 2 (2.06%) Figma
7 1 (1.03%) Amazon ECS
7 1 (1.03%) Amazon GuardDuty
7 1 (1.03%) AWS CodePipeline
7 1 (1.03%) AWS Control Tower
7 1 (1.03%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (1.03%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (1.03%) CloudFront
7 1 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (1.03%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 21 (21.65%) Firewall
2 12 (12.37%) Network Security
3 8 (8.25%) VPN
4 7 (7.22%) TCP/IP
5 4 (4.12%) Cisco ISE
5 4 (4.12%) Cisco Nexus
5 4 (4.12%) DNS
5 4 (4.12%) Intrusion Detection
6 3 (3.09%) DMARC
6 3 (3.09%) VLAN
7 1 (1.03%) HTTP
7 1 (1.03%) SSH
7 1 (1.03%) Wireless
7 1 (1.03%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.03%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (1.03%) InterSystems Cache
1 1 (1.03%) Redis
1 1 (1.03%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 12 (12.37%) Burp Suite
1 12 (12.37%) Metasploit
2 2 (2.06%) Bitbucket
2 2 (2.06%) Git
2 2 (2.06%) NUnit
3 1 (1.03%) Gatling
3 1 (1.03%) JIRA
3 1 (1.03%) JMeter
3 1 (1.03%) Vagrant
General
1 40 (41.24%) Social Skills
2 21 (21.65%) Public Sector
3 19 (19.59%) Banking
4 14 (14.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 14 (14.43%) Retail
5 12 (12.37%) Finance
5 12 (12.37%) Law
6 3 (3.09%) Back Office
6 3 (3.09%) Financial Institution
6 3 (3.09%) Marketing
7 2 (2.06%) Social Housing
8 1 (1.03%) Analytical Skills
8 1 (1.03%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (1.03%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (1.03%) Investment Banking
8 1 (1.03%) Legal
Job Titles
1 26 (26.80%) Penetration Tester
1 26 (26.80%) Tester
2 12 (12.37%) Consultant
2 12 (12.37%) Security Consultant
2 12 (12.37%) Security Specialist
3 11 (11.34%) Senior
4 9 (9.28%) Cybersecurity Consultant
4 9 (9.28%) Security Manager
4 9 (9.28%) Senior Penetration Tester
4 9 (9.28%) Senior Tester
5 7 (7.22%) Client Director
5 7 (7.22%) Services Director
6 6 (6.19%) Head of Professional Services
7 5 (5.15%) Cybersecurity Manager
7 5 (5.15%) Lead
8 4 (4.12%) IT Manager
8 4 (4.12%) Network Security Specialist
8 4 (4.12%) Network Specialist
8 4 (4.12%) Security Analyst
8 4 (4.12%) Threat Intelligence Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (4.12%) .NET
2 3 (3.09%) .NET Framework
3 2 (2.06%) AngularJS
3 2 (2.06%) ASP.NET
3 2 (2.06%) ASP.NET Core
3 2 (2.06%) Entity Framework
3 2 (2.06%) OpenAPI
3 2 (2.06%) RESTful
3 2 (2.06%) RxJS
3 2 (2.06%) Swagger
3 2 (2.06%) Vitest
4 1 (1.03%) ARM Templates
4 1 (1.03%) Memcached
Miscellaneous
1 28 (28.87%) Security Posture
2 14 (14.43%) Cyber Threat
3 11 (11.34%) Mobile App
4 7 (7.22%) Blog
5 5 (5.15%) Cloud Native
5 5 (5.15%) Public Cloud
5 5 (5.15%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (4.12%) Cyber Defence
6 4 (4.12%) Data Centre
6 4 (4.12%) Insider Threat
6 4 (4.12%) Management Information System
7 3 (3.09%) Enterprise Software
7 3 (3.09%) Operational Technology
8 2 (2.06%) Housing Association
8 2 (2.06%) Security Operations Centre
9 1 (1.03%) Cyber Security Posture
9 1 (1.03%) Cyberattack
9 1 (1.03%) Driving Licence
9 1 (1.03%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 15 (15.46%) Linux
2 14 (14.43%) Android
2 14 (14.43%) Apple iOS
2 14 (14.43%) Windows
3 1 (1.03%) Kali Linux
3 1 (1.03%) Mac OS
3 1 (1.03%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 61 (62.89%) Cybersecurity
2 30 (30.93%) Incident Response
3 27 (27.84%) Information Security
4 23 (23.71%) Red Team
5 20 (20.62%) Cloud Security
6 18 (18.56%) Vulnerability Management
7 17 (17.53%) Security Testing
8 16 (16.49%) Actionable Insight
8 16 (16.49%) Application Security
9 13 (13.40%) Disaster Recovery
9 13 (13.40%) Offensive Security
9 13 (13.40%) SDLC
9 13 (13.40%) SIEM
10 12 (12.37%) CI/CD
10 12 (12.37%) Ethical Hacking
10 12 (12.37%) Mentoring
10 12 (12.37%) OWASP
10 12 (12.37%) Risk Management
10 12 (12.37%) Security Architecture
10 12 (12.37%) Threat Modelling
Programming Languages
1 14 (14.43%) Java
2 13 (13.40%) Go
3 11 (11.34%) Python
4 8 (8.25%) PowerShell
5 6 (6.19%) C
5 6 (6.19%) C++
6 5 (5.15%) Bash
6 5 (5.15%) C#
7 4 (4.12%) Perl
7 4 (4.12%) Ruby
8 3 (3.09%) Objective-C
8 3 (3.09%) Rust
9 2 (2.06%) Bicep
9 2 (2.06%) SQL
9 2 (2.06%) TypeScript
10 1 (1.03%) PHP
Qualifications
1 36 (37.11%) CREST Certified
2 28 (28.87%) OSCP
3 18 (18.56%) Security Cleared
4 17 (17.53%) Degree
5 15 (15.46%) CISSP
6 13 (13.40%) CHECK Team Member
7 12 (12.37%) SC Cleared
8 10 (10.31%) CEH
8 10 (10.31%) Cisco Certification
8 10 (10.31%) GPEN
9 9 (9.28%) Cyber Scheme
10 8 (8.25%) CCNA
11 6 (6.19%) CCNP
11 6 (6.19%) CHECK Team Leader
11 6 (6.19%) DV Cleared
11 6 (6.19%) GIAC
12 5 (5.15%) CISM
12 5 (5.15%) CompTIA Security+
12 5 (5.15%) GXPN
12 5 (5.15%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (39.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 22 (22.68%) GDPR
3 18 (18.56%) Cyber Essentials
4 16 (16.49%) Actionable Recommendations
4 16 (16.49%) PCI DSS
5 15 (15.46%) NIST
6 10 (10.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 8 (8.25%) GRC
8 4 (4.12%) NCSC
9 3 (3.09%) Data Quality
10 1 (1.03%) Accessibility
10 1 (1.03%) SOC 2
System Software
1 11 (11.34%) Active Directory
2 1 (1.03%) Docker
Systems Management
1 11 (11.34%) Nmap
2 9 (9.28%) Kubernetes
2 9 (9.28%) Nessus
3 5 (5.15%) Terraform
4 3 (3.09%) CSIRT
5 1 (1.03%) Ansible
5 1 (1.03%) Consul
5 1 (1.03%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (1.03%) Packer
5 1 (1.03%) Progress Chef
5 1 (1.03%) Puppet
5 1 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 19 (19.59%) Microsoft
2 8 (8.25%) Cisco
3 7 (7.22%) Fortinet
3 7 (7.22%) Sophos
4 4 (4.12%) CheckPoint
4 4 (4.12%) Okta
4 4 (4.12%) Splunk
4 4 (4.12%) Zscaler
5 3 (3.09%) Palo Alto
5 3 (3.09%) Veeam
6 2 (2.06%) DevExpress
6 2 (2.06%) Google
6 2 (2.06%) Qualys
7 1 (1.03%) CrowdStrike
7 1 (1.03%) TOWER Software