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

6 months to
23 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 341 364 360
Rank change year-on-year +23 -4 +1
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 127 66 156
As % of all permanent jobs with remote/hybrid work options 0.55% 0.40% 0.63%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.67% 0.43% 0.72%
Number of salaries quoted 92 59 126
10th Percentile £45,000 £51,250 £41,250
25th Percentile £49,938 £59,375 £49,063
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £70,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +16.67% -7.69%
75th Percentile £88,750 £84,638 £73,750
90th Percentile £107,250 £96,000 £88,250
UK median annual salary £70,000 £67,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year +3.70% +3.85% +4.00%

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 19,013 15,421 21,556
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 82.35% 93.00% 87.45%
Number of salaries quoted 13,734 8,942 15,004
10th Percentile £35,000 £29,750 £35,000
25th Percentile £44,972 £40,558 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £58,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £78,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £97,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.33%

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 23 August 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 (0.79%) Apache
1 1 (0.79%) Confluence
1 1 (0.79%) Drupal
1 1 (0.79%) IIS
1 1 (0.79%) nginx
1 1 (0.79%) SharePoint
1 1 (0.79%) WordPress
Business Applications
1 1 (0.79%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 37 (29.13%) AWS
1 37 (29.13%) Azure
2 16 (12.60%) GCP
3 5 (3.94%) Microsoft 365
4 4 (3.15%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (3.15%) Entra ID
4 4 (3.15%) SaaS
5 3 (2.36%) Amazon EKS
5 3 (2.36%) AWS CloudFormation
5 3 (2.36%) Mimecast
6 2 (1.57%) Azure Key Vault
6 2 (1.57%) Figma
7 1 (0.79%) Amazon ECS
7 1 (0.79%) Amazon GuardDuty
7 1 (0.79%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (0.79%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (0.79%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (0.79%) Power Automate
7 1 (0.79%) Power Platform
7 1 (0.79%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 35 (27.56%) Firewall
2 14 (11.02%) Cisco Nexus
3 13 (10.24%) Network Security
4 12 (9.45%) Wi-Fi
5 6 (4.72%) VPN
5 6 (4.72%) Wireless
6 4 (3.15%) DNS
6 4 (3.15%) VLAN
7 3 (2.36%) Intrusion Detection
8 2 (1.57%) Broadband
8 2 (1.57%) Cisco ISE
8 2 (1.57%) TCP/IP
8 2 (1.57%) Wireless Security
9 1 (0.79%) DKIM
9 1 (0.79%) DMARC
9 1 (0.79%) HTTP
9 1 (0.79%) Internet
9 1 (0.79%) LAN
9 1 (0.79%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (0.79%) Electronic Patient Records
1 1 (0.79%) InterSystems Cache
1 1 (0.79%) Redis
1 1 (0.79%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 9 (7.09%) Burp Suite
2 8 (6.30%) Metasploit
3 5 (3.94%) JIRA
4 3 (2.36%) Git
5 2 (1.57%) Bitbucket
5 2 (1.57%) Gatling
5 2 (1.57%) Jenkins
5 2 (1.57%) Maven
5 2 (1.57%) NUnit
5 2 (1.57%) Team Foundation Server
6 1 (0.79%) Cucumber
6 1 (0.79%) GitLab
6 1 (0.79%) IDA Disassembler
6 1 (0.79%) JMeter
6 1 (0.79%) JUnit
6 1 (0.79%) Postman
6 1 (0.79%) Selenium
6 1 (0.79%) Vagrant
General
1 49 (38.58%) Social Skills
2 16 (12.60%) Analytical Skills
3 14 (11.02%) Public Sector
4 13 (10.24%) Finance
5 12 (9.45%) Law
6 11 (8.66%) Banking
7 10 (7.87%) Retail
8 6 (4.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (3.15%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (2.36%) Legal
11 2 (1.57%) Back Office
11 2 (1.57%) Financial Institution
11 2 (1.57%) Marketing
11 2 (1.57%) Social Housing
12 1 (0.79%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 31 (24.41%) Penetration Tester
1 31 (24.41%) Tester
2 27 (21.26%) Senior
3 20 (15.75%) Analyst
4 16 (12.60%) Senior Analyst
5 14 (11.02%) Security Analyst
6 13 (10.24%) Consultant
6 13 (10.24%) Security Consultant
7 12 (9.45%) Network Analyst
7 12 (9.45%) Senior Network Analyst
8 11 (8.66%) Cybersecurity Analyst
9 10 (7.87%) Senior Cybersecurity Analyst
9 10 (7.87%) Senior Security Analyst
10 9 (7.09%) Architect
11 7 (5.51%) Client Director
11 7 (5.51%) Security Manager
11 7 (5.51%) Security Specialist
11 7 (5.51%) Services Director
12 6 (4.72%) Security Engineer
12 6 (4.72%) Security Penetration Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (3.15%) RESTful
1 4 (3.15%) Terraform
2 3 (2.36%) .NET
2 3 (2.36%) .NET Framework
3 2 (1.57%) AngularJS
3 2 (1.57%) ASP.NET
3 2 (1.57%) ASP.NET Core
3 2 (1.57%) Entity Framework
3 2 (1.57%) OpenAPI
3 2 (1.57%) RxJS
3 2 (1.57%) Swagger
3 2 (1.57%) Vitest
4 1 (0.79%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.79%) CSS
4 1 (0.79%) HTML
4 1 (0.79%) Lightning Web Components
4 1 (0.79%) Memcached
4 1 (0.79%) OAuth
4 1 (0.79%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 34 (26.77%) Security Posture
2 17 (13.39%) Cyber Threat
3 11 (8.66%) Mobile App
4 8 (6.30%) Management Information System
5 6 (4.72%) Blog
5 6 (4.72%) Operational Technology
6 5 (3.94%) Cloud Native
7 4 (3.15%) Cyber Kill Chain
7 4 (3.15%) Insider Threat
7 4 (3.15%) Public Cloud
7 4 (3.15%) Security Operations Centre
7 4 (3.15%) Self-Motivation
8 3 (2.36%) Cyber Defence
9 2 (1.57%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 2 (1.57%) Distributed Systems
9 2 (1.57%) Enterprise Software
9 2 (1.57%) Housing Association
9 2 (1.57%) PMI
9 2 (1.57%) Social Media
10 1 (0.79%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 18 (14.17%) Linux
1 18 (14.17%) Windows
2 13 (10.24%) Android
2 13 (10.24%) Apple iOS
3 5 (3.94%) Windows Server
4 4 (3.15%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 78 (61.42%) Cybersecurity
2 51 (40.16%) Vulnerability Management
3 40 (31.50%) Incident Response
4 35 (27.56%) Information Security
5 33 (25.98%) Cloud Security
6 30 (23.62%) Red Team
7 26 (20.47%) SIEM
8 24 (18.90%) Risk Management
8 24 (18.90%) Security Testing
9 19 (14.96%) AI
9 19 (14.96%) Problem-Solving
10 18 (14.17%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
10 18 (14.17%) Mentoring
10 18 (14.17%) OWASP
10 18 (14.17%) Security Operations
10 18 (14.17%) Threat Intelligence
10 18 (14.17%) Threat Modelling
11 17 (13.39%) Application Security
11 17 (13.39%) Offensive Security
11 17 (13.39%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 19 (14.96%) Python
2 13 (10.24%) PowerShell
3 9 (7.09%) Go
3 9 (7.09%) Java
4 3 (2.36%) Bash
4 3 (2.36%) C
4 3 (2.36%) C#
4 3 (2.36%) C++
4 3 (2.36%) JavaScript
4 3 (2.36%) Objective-C
4 3 (2.36%) Perl
4 3 (2.36%) PHP
4 3 (2.36%) Ruby
4 3 (2.36%) Rust
5 2 (1.57%) Bicep
5 2 (1.57%) SQL
5 2 (1.57%) TypeScript
6 1 (0.79%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 35 (27.56%) Security Cleared
2 31 (24.41%) SC Cleared
3 27 (21.26%) CREST Certified
4 19 (14.96%) CISM
4 19 (14.96%) CISSP
5 16 (12.60%) OSCP
6 10 (7.87%) CHECK Team Member
6 10 (7.87%) Degree
7 8 (6.30%) GIAC
8 7 (5.51%) DV Cleared
9 6 (4.72%) CEH
10 5 (3.94%) CCNP
10 5 (3.94%) CHECK Team Leader
10 5 (3.94%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (3.94%) CompTIA Security+
11 3 (2.36%) CCNA
11 3 (2.36%) CCSAM
11 3 (2.36%) GXPN
11 3 (2.36%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
11 3 (2.36%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 52 (40.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 32 (25.20%) NIST
3 21 (16.54%) GDPR
4 19 (14.96%) Cyber Essentials
4 19 (14.96%) PCI DSS
5 16 (12.60%) GRC
6 7 (5.51%) Actionable Recommendations
7 5 (3.94%) SOC 2
8 4 (3.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 4 (3.15%) Def Stans
8 4 (3.15%) NCSC
8 4 (3.15%) NIST 800
9 2 (1.57%) QA
10 1 (0.79%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 1 (0.79%) WCAG
System Software
1 9 (7.09%) Active Directory
2 2 (1.57%) Docker
Systems Management
1 9 (7.09%) Kubernetes
2 8 (6.30%) Nmap
3 3 (2.36%) Progress Chef
4 2 (1.57%) Nessus
5 1 (0.79%) Ansible
5 1 (0.79%) Consul
5 1 (0.79%) Network Intrusion Detection System
5 1 (0.79%) OpenVAS
5 1 (0.79%) Packer
5 1 (0.79%) Puppet
Vendors
1 27 (21.26%) Microsoft
2 18 (14.17%) Qualys
3 15 (11.81%) Palo Alto
4 14 (11.02%) Cisco
5 12 (9.45%) Aruba
6 6 (4.72%) Splunk
7 5 (3.94%) CrowdStrike
7 5 (3.94%) Fortinet
7 5 (3.94%) Sophos
8 3 (2.36%) New Relic
8 3 (2.36%) SolarWinds
8 3 (2.36%) Zerto
8 3 (2.36%) Zscaler
9 2 (1.57%) CheckPoint
9 2 (1.57%) DevExpress
9 2 (1.57%) Google
9 2 (1.57%) Okta
10 1 (0.79%) OpenAI
10 1 (0.79%) Salesforce
10 1 (0.79%) Tenable