How much do pen testers get paid?

According to PayScale data from August 2020, the average penetration tester salary in the U.S. sits at $84,690 per year.

How much does a CEH make?

While ZipRecruiter is seeing annual salaries as high as $220,000 and as low as $71,500, the majority of CEH salaries currently range between $79,500 (25th percentile) to $109,500 (75th percentile) with top earners (90th percentile) making $161,500 annually across the United States.

Are pen testers in demand?

As technology becomes a bigger part of more individual industries, the demand for penetration testers grows. However, because it’s such a specialized job, you’ll often have a steady amount of competition for job openings specific to penetration testing, especially at the entry level before you have work experience.

Is pen testing a good career?

Penetration testing is an unusual job. You break into companies through their technology and then show them where their weaknesses lie so they can fix them. It’s a job for good people with the ability to do bad things. I started penetration testing in the late 1990s and eventually founded a consulting company.

Do pen testers work from home?

Freelance pentesters have the liberty of working from wherever they want, unless they get subcontracted to work on on-site jobs that require them to travel. Otherwise, they can work from the comfort of their homes if they have reliable Internet connections, or from cafes or malls.

How much do freelance Pentesters make?

Freelance pentesters offer their services starting as low as $15 per hour, while others pay obscene amounts for “corporate rates.” Some offer a $5,000 flat-rate, and some don’t even publish their prices online (NopSec falls in this camp, and you’ll soon know why).

Who is the highest paid ethical hacker?

What are Top 5 Best Paying Related Ethical Hacker Jobs in the U.S.

Job Title Annual Salary Weekly Pay
Ethical $118,599 $2,281
Ethical Hacker Penetration Tester $115,720 $2,225
Penetration Tester Ethical Hacker $114,913 $2,210
Remote Ethical Hacker $114,573 $2,203

What does pen tester do?

Pen testers are security professionals who make their living trying to break things. They are hired to probe computer networks and discover vulnerabilities that a truly malicious hacker could exploit. An organization will hire a pen tester to emulate an advanced threat actor.

Is Pentesting dying?

Real penetration testing is not exactly “dying”, it is simply outnumbered by the automated compliance tools out there and the niche market for real pen testers. Pen testing is decidedly not obsolete, especially not when conducted by skilled engineers.

How much does a hacker for the FBI make?

The job posting for special agent/cyber lists a pay range of $59,340 to $76,568.

Do ethical hackers work from home?

To become a remote ethical hacker, you need to have professional or personal experience with cybersecurity and the principles of hacking. Having a bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity, information technology, computer science, or network architecture is very useful for getting remote ethical hacker work.

What’s the average salary for a pen tester?

There’s an even greater range of salaries in the largest metro areas. The lowest-paid San Francisco pen testers make $69,000 less than the highest-paid pen testers. Now that we’ve looked at the location as a salary variable, let’s look at the other reasons for the disparity between the highest and lowest penetration testing salaries.

What kind of jobs pay entry level penetration tester?

We found at least five jobs related to the Entry Level Penetration Tester job category that pay more per year than a typical Entry Level Penetration Tester salary. Top examples of these roles include: Senior Penetration Tester, Vice President Penetration Tester, and Vice President Penetration Tester.

What does it mean to be a penetration tester?

A penetration tester is a security professional who assesses company security defenses — and attempts to find vulnerabilities in their networks, applications, and even people. A thorough penetration tester may even test physical security. Penetration testers are essentially just company-sponsored hackers.