Penetration Testing Contracts with Work from Home Options

Penetration Testing
UK > Work from Home

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with an option to work from home (WFH) and a requirement for Penetration Testing skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Penetration Testing over the 6 months to 16 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
16 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 261 380 454
Rank change year-on-year +119 +74 -57
Contract jobs citing Penetration Testing 86 88 172
As % of all contract jobs with a WFH option 0.58% 0.36% 0.39%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.66% 0.40% 0.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 67 67 122
10th Percentile £408 £420 £433
25th Percentile £478 £475 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £569
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +5.49% +5.76%
75th Percentile £675 £688 £625
90th Percentile £743 £798 £698
UK median daily rate £575 £600 £578
% change year-on-year -4.17% +3.90% +10.00%

All Process and Methodology Skills
Work from Home

Penetration Testing is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a WFH option and a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 13,021 22,109 40,018
As % of all contract jobs with a WFH option 87.98% 89.70% 91.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,736 15,644 29,065
10th Percentile £325 £363 £361
25th Percentile £425 £450 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £540 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.82% +2.90% +7.69%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £631
90th Percentile £750 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £525 £550 £530
% change year-on-year -4.55% +3.77% +8.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 565 507 537
10th Percentile £14.93 £18.63 £14.15
25th Percentile £25.00 £27.86 £20.75
Median hourly rate £43.00 £53.35 £39.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.40% +35.06% +61.22%
75th Percentile £60.00 £68.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.15 £80.00 £71.00
UK median hourly rate £36.27 £35.65 £25.68
% change year-on-year +1.75% +38.82% +5.35%

Penetration Testing
Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

Job vacancies with a work from home option citing Penetration Testing as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Penetration Testing trend for jobs with a WFH option

Penetration Testing
Daily Rate Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in job vacancies with a work from home option citing Penetration Testing.

Penetration Testing daily rate for jobs with a WFH option

Penetration Testing
Daily Rate Histogram for Jobs with a WFH Option

Daily rate distribution for jobs with a work from home option citing Penetration Testing over the 6 months to 16 May 2024.

Penetration Testing daily rate histogram for jobs with a WFH option

Penetration Testing
Hourly Rate Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

3-month moving average hourly rate quoted in job vacancies with a work from home option citing Penetration Testing.

Penetration Testing hourly rate for jobs with a WFH option

Penetration Testing
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities with WFH Options by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 4 (4.65%) Confluence
2 2 (2.33%) IIS
2 2 (2.33%) JBoss
2 2 (2.33%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (4.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (3.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 3 (3.49%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (1.16%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.16%) Dynamics GP
1 1 (1.16%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 18 (20.93%) Azure
2 15 (17.44%) AWS
3 5 (5.81%) CloudFront
3 5 (5.81%) Entra ID
3 5 (5.81%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 4 (4.65%) Power Platform
4 4 (4.65%) SaaS
5 3 (3.49%) Azure Sentinel
5 3 (3.49%) GitHub
5 3 (3.49%) GitHub Actions
6 2 (2.33%) AWS CloudFormation
6 2 (2.33%) Azure DevOps
6 2 (2.33%) GCP
6 2 (2.33%) Microsoft 365
7 1 (1.16%) Cloud Computing
7 1 (1.16%) Cloud Functions
7 1 (1.16%) Cloudflare
7 1 (1.16%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 1 (1.16%) Oracle CX
7 1 (1.16%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 20 (23.26%) Network Security
2 13 (15.12%) Firewall
3 7 (8.14%) Intrusion Detection
3 7 (8.14%) VPN
4 6 (6.98%) TCP/IP
5 5 (5.81%) DNS
6 4 (4.65%) tcpdump
6 4 (4.65%) Wireshark
7 3 (3.49%) SSL
7 3 (3.49%) Wireless
8 1 (1.16%) 4G
8 1 (1.16%) 5G
8 1 (1.16%) Cisco Firepower
8 1 (1.16%) HTTPS
8 1 (1.16%) IPsec
8 1 (1.16%) LAN
8 1 (1.16%) SD-WAN
8 1 (1.16%) VoIP
8 1 (1.16%) WAN
8 1 (1.16%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (4.65%) Apache Hive
1 4 (4.65%) Hadoop
1 4 (4.65%) Tableau
2 2 (2.33%) DB2
Development Applications
1 6 (6.98%) Jenkins
1 6 (6.98%) JIRA
2 4 (4.65%) IDA Disassembler
3 3 (3.49%) Burp Suite
4 2 (2.33%) GitLab
4 2 (2.33%) Vagrant
5 1 (1.16%) CircleCI
General
1 23 (26.74%) Finance
2 17 (19.77%) Public Sector
3 11 (12.79%) Social Skills
4 9 (10.47%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (10.47%) Retail
5 6 (6.98%) Banking
5 6 (6.98%) Manufacturing
6 3 (3.49%) Automotive
7 2 (2.33%) Electronics
7 2 (2.33%) Multimedia
8 1 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (1.16%) Legal
8 1 (1.16%) Marketing
8 1 (1.16%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (1.16%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 17 (19.77%) Security Engineer
2 16 (18.60%) Architect
3 14 (16.28%) Analyst
3 14 (16.28%) Security Architect
4 12 (13.95%) Security Analyst
4 12 (13.95%) Senior
5 8 (9.30%) Cybersecurity Analyst
6 7 (8.14%) Cloud Engineer
6 7 (8.14%) Penetration Tester
6 7 (8.14%) Senior Analyst
6 7 (8.14%) Senior Cybersecurity Analyst
6 7 (8.14%) Senior Security Analyst
6 7 (8.14%) Tester
7 6 (6.98%) Consultant
7 6 (6.98%) Security Consultant
8 5 (5.81%) Applications Engineer
8 5 (5.81%) Security Manager
9 4 (4.65%) Cybersecurity Manager
10 3 (3.49%) Cybersecurity Engineer
10 3 (3.49%) Information Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (5.81%) OAuth
1 5 (5.81%) OAuth2
1 5 (5.81%) SAML
2 4 (4.65%) OLE
3 2 (2.33%) RESTful
3 2 (2.33%) Web Services
4 1 (1.16%) .NET
4 1 (1.16%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 11 (12.79%) Security Posture
2 10 (11.63%) Cyber Threat
2 10 (11.63%) Management Information System
3 8 (9.30%) Mobile App
4 7 (8.14%) Cloud Native
5 5 (5.81%) Cyber Kill Chain
5 5 (5.81%) Operational Technology
5 5 (5.81%) Security Operations Centre
6 4 (4.65%) YARA
7 3 (3.49%) PKI
8 2 (2.33%) Cloud Security Posture
8 2 (2.33%) Cyberattack
8 2 (2.33%) Insider Threat
9 1 (1.16%) CSOC
9 1 (1.16%) Cyber Defence
9 1 (1.16%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 1 (1.16%) Enterprise Software
9 1 (1.16%) Product Ownership
9 1 (1.16%) Public Cloud
9 1 (1.16%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 21 (24.42%) Windows
2 16 (18.60%) Linux
3 4 (4.65%) Unix
4 2 (2.33%) AIX
4 2 (2.33%) Kali Linux
4 2 (2.33%) Solaris
4 2 (2.33%) Windows Server
5 1 (1.16%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 46 (53.49%) Cybersecurity
2 34 (39.53%) Information Security
3 19 (22.09%) Cloud Security
3 19 (22.09%) Incident Response
3 19 (22.09%) Security Operations
3 19 (22.09%) SIEM
3 19 (22.09%) Vulnerability Management
4 17 (19.77%) Application Security
5 16 (18.60%) Risk Management
6 14 (16.28%) Security Architecture
6 14 (16.28%) Threat Modelling
7 12 (13.95%) Agile
7 12 (13.95%) CI/CD
8 11 (12.79%) Cryptography
8 11 (12.79%) Red Team
8 11 (12.79%) Risk Assessment
8 11 (12.79%) Vulnerability Assessment
9 10 (11.63%) DevSecOps
9 10 (11.63%) Identity Access Management
9 10 (11.63%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 6 (6.98%) Python
2 3 (3.49%) C++
2 3 (3.49%) JavaScript
3 2 (2.33%) Kusto Query Language
3 2 (2.33%) SQL
4 1 (1.16%) Go
4 1 (1.16%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 20 (23.26%) SC Cleared
1 20 (23.26%) Security Cleared
2 10 (11.63%) Degree
3 9 (10.47%) CISSP
4 8 (9.30%) CREST Certified
5 7 (8.14%) CISM
6 6 (6.98%) CEH
7 5 (5.81%) AWS Certification
7 5 (5.81%) ITIL Certification
7 5 (5.81%) OSCP
8 4 (4.65%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (4.65%) MCSE
8 4 (4.65%) Microsoft Certification
9 3 (3.49%) DV Cleared
9 3 (3.49%) GIAC
9 3 (3.49%) GPEN
9 3 (3.49%) Master's Degree
10 2 (2.33%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (2.33%) CompTIA Security+
10 2 (2.33%) CSSLP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (23.26%) NIST
2 19 (22.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (5.81%) COBIT
3 5 (5.81%) GDPR
3 5 (5.81%) HMG Security Policy Framework
4 4 (4.65%) NCSC
5 3 (3.49%) Disclosure Scotland
5 3 (3.49%) PCI DSS
5 3 (3.49%) PMO
6 2 (2.33%) Automotive SPICE
6 2 (2.33%) AUTOSAR
6 2 (2.33%) ISO 22301
6 2 (2.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (1.16%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (1.16%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
7 1 (1.16%) QA
System Software
1 9 (10.47%) Active Directory
2 5 (5.81%) Docker
2 5 (5.81%) Snort
3 1 (1.16%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 5 (5.81%) Terraform
2 4 (4.65%) Kibana
3 2 (2.33%) CASB
3 2 (2.33%) HP Fortify
3 2 (2.33%) Nessus
3 2 (2.33%) Tivoli
4 1 (1.16%) Kubernetes
4 1 (1.16%) Nmap
4 1 (1.16%) SCCM
4 1 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 10 (11.63%) Microsoft
2 6 (6.98%) Google
3 5 (5.81%) Splunk
4 3 (3.49%) Oracle
4 3 (3.49%) Qualys
5 2 (2.33%) AppDynamics
5 2 (2.33%) Cisco
5 2 (2.33%) F5
5 2 (2.33%) IBM
5 2 (2.33%) Palo Alto
6 1 (1.16%) Barracuda Networks
6 1 (1.16%) BigPanda
6 1 (1.16%) Remedy
6 1 (1.16%) Salesforce
6 1 (1.16%) SAP