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

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 302 307 345
Rank change year-on-year +5 +38 +49
Permanent jobs citing Penetration Testing 97 92 228
As % of all permanent jobs with remote/hybrid work options 0.54% 0.69% 0.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.65% 0.73% 0.77%
Number of salaries quoted 73 75 195
10th Percentile £45,000 £52,500 £38,000
25th Percentile £48,165 £61,250 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £72,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -17.24% +20.83% -13.29%
75th Percentile £87,500 £91,000 £79,375
90th Percentile £104,000 £95,000 £105,000
UK median annual salary £65,000 £67,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year -3.70% +8.00% -7.41%

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 14,857 12,645 29,601
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 83.17% 94.76% 91.49%
Number of salaries quoted 10,372 8,952 23,522
10th Percentile £32,500 £32,000 £33,750
25th Percentile £45,000 £45,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £61,644 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -2.67% +7.21% -8.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £105,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -10.86%

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 April 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 (2.06%) Confluence
2 1 (1.03%) Apache
2 1 (1.03%) Drupal
2 1 (1.03%) IIS
2 1 (1.03%) nginx
2 1 (1.03%) WordPress
Business Applications
1 1 (1.03%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 34 (35.05%) AWS
2 29 (29.90%) 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
7 1 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 22 (22.68%) Firewall
2 12 (12.37%) Network Security
3 8 (8.25%) TCP/IP
3 8 (8.25%) VPN
4 4 (4.12%) Cisco ISE
4 4 (4.12%) Cisco Nexus
4 4 (4.12%) DNS
4 4 (4.12%) Intrusion Detection
5 3 (3.09%) DMARC
5 3 (3.09%) VLAN
6 1 (1.03%) HTTP
6 1 (1.03%) Modbus
6 1 (1.03%) SSH
6 1 (1.03%) Wireless
6 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 15 (15.46%) Burp Suite
1 15 (15.46%) Metasploit
2 2 (2.06%) Bitbucket
2 2 (2.06%) Git
2 2 (2.06%) JIRA
2 2 (2.06%) NUnit
3 1 (1.03%) Gatling
3 1 (1.03%) JMeter
3 1 (1.03%) Vagrant
General
1 41 (42.27%) Social Skills
2 21 (21.65%) Public Sector
3 18 (18.56%) Banking
4 16 (16.49%) Retail
5 14 (14.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 11 (11.34%) Finance
6 11 (11.34%) Law
7 3 (3.09%) Back Office
7 3 (3.09%) Financial Institution
7 3 (3.09%) Marketing
8 2 (2.06%) Social Housing
9 1 (1.03%) Analytical Skills
9 1 (1.03%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (1.03%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (1.03%) Investment Banking
9 1 (1.03%) Legal
9 1 (1.03%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 25 (25.77%) Penetration Tester
1 25 (25.77%) Tester
2 14 (14.43%) Security Specialist
3 11 (11.34%) Consultant
3 11 (11.34%) Security Consultant
4 10 (10.31%) Senior
5 9 (9.28%) Cybersecurity Consultant
5 9 (9.28%) Security Manager
5 9 (9.28%) Senior Penetration Tester
5 9 (9.28%) Senior Tester
6 7 (7.22%) Client Director
6 7 (7.22%) Services Director
7 6 (6.19%) Head of Professional Services
7 6 (6.19%) Threat Intelligence Specialist
8 5 (5.15%) Cybersecurity Manager
8 5 (5.15%) Lead
9 4 (4.12%) IT Manager
9 4 (4.12%) Network Security Specialist
9 4 (4.12%) Network Specialist
9 4 (4.12%) Security Analyst
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 29 (29.90%) Security Posture
2 14 (14.43%) Cyber Threat
3 9 (9.28%) Mobile App
4 7 (7.22%) Blog
5 6 (6.19%) Insider Threat
6 5 (5.15%) Cloud Native
6 5 (5.15%) Public Cloud
7 4 (4.12%) Cyber Defence
7 4 (4.12%) Data Centre
7 4 (4.12%) Management Information System
7 4 (4.12%) Operational Technology
7 4 (4.12%) Self-Motivation
8 3 (3.09%) Enterprise Software
9 2 (2.06%) Housing Association
9 2 (2.06%) Security Operations Centre
10 1 (1.03%) Cyber Security Posture
10 1 (1.03%) Cyberattack
10 1 (1.03%) Driving Licence
10 1 (1.03%) Renewable Energy
10 1 (1.03%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 15 (15.46%) Linux
2 14 (14.43%) Windows
3 13 (13.40%) Android
3 13 (13.40%) Apple iOS
4 1 (1.03%) Kali Linux
4 1 (1.03%) Mac OS
4 1 (1.03%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 59 (60.82%) Cybersecurity
2 30 (30.93%) Incident Response
3 29 (29.90%) Information Security
4 23 (23.71%) Red Team
5 20 (20.62%) Cloud Security
6 18 (18.56%) Actionable Insight
7 17 (17.53%) Vulnerability Management
8 16 (16.49%) Application Security
8 16 (16.49%) Security Testing
9 15 (15.46%) Offensive Security
10 14 (14.43%) Ethical Hacking
11 13 (13.40%) Disaster Recovery
11 13 (13.40%) SDLC
11 13 (13.40%) Threat Modelling
12 12 (12.37%) CI/CD
12 12 (12.37%) Decision-Making
12 12 (12.37%) Mentoring
12 12 (12.37%) OWASP
12 12 (12.37%) Risk Management
12 12 (12.37%) SIEM
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 38 (39.18%) CREST Certified
2 29 (29.90%) OSCP
3 20 (20.62%) Security Cleared
4 18 (18.56%) Degree
5 17 (17.53%) CISSP
6 15 (15.46%) SC Cleared
7 13 (13.40%) CHECK Team Member
8 12 (12.37%) CEH
8 12 (12.37%) Cisco Certification
8 12 (12.37%) GPEN
9 10 (10.31%) CCNA
10 9 (9.28%) Cyber Scheme
11 8 (8.25%) GIAC
12 7 (7.22%) CompTIA Security+
12 7 (7.22%) Microsoft Certification
13 6 (6.19%) CCNP
13 6 (6.19%) CISMP
13 6 (6.19%) DV Cleared
13 6 (6.19%) MCSE
13 6 (6.19%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (39.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 21 (21.65%) GDPR
3 18 (18.56%) Actionable Recommendations
3 18 (18.56%) Cyber Essentials
4 16 (16.49%) NIST
4 16 (16.49%) PCI DSS
5 10 (10.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 6 (6.19%) GRC
7 4 (4.12%) NCSC
8 3 (3.09%) Data Quality
9 1 (1.03%) Accessibility
9 1 (1.03%) NIST 800
9 1 (1.03%) SOC 2
System Software
1 11 (11.34%) Active Directory
2 1 (1.03%) Docker
Systems Management
1 14 (14.43%) Nmap
2 10 (10.31%) Nessus
3 9 (9.28%) Kubernetes
4 5 (5.15%) Terraform
5 3 (3.09%) CSIRT
6 1 (1.03%) Ansible
6 1 (1.03%) Consul
6 1 (1.03%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (1.03%) Packer
6 1 (1.03%) Progress Chef
6 1 (1.03%) Puppet
6 1 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 21 (21.65%) Microsoft
2 10 (10.31%) 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%) TOWER Software