vulnerability research jobs in 2026 — demand, top roles hiring, and related skills
As of 2026-09-28, vulnerability research appears in 302 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the past 90 days — Security Software Engineer has the most postings mentioning vulnerability research, with demand up 33% vs the prior 4 weeks.
Last updated · 90d ending 2026-09-28
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Frequently asked questions about vulnerability research
+Is vulnerability research in demand in 2026?
Yes. vulnerability research appears in 302 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the 90 days ending 2026-09-28, with demand up 33% vs the prior 4 weeks. Security Software Engineer accounts for the most postings mentioning vulnerability research (14.9% of all postings mentioning vulnerability research).
+What jobs require vulnerability research?
According to the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-09-28, among roles with at least 20 postings, the highest shares mentioning vulnerability research are Embedded Security Engineer (51.5% of that role’s postings mention vulnerability research), Security Software Engineer (37.5% of that role’s postings mention vulnerability research), Security Research Engineer (32.1% of that role’s postings mention vulnerability research).
+What skills are commonly paired with vulnerability research?
Across job postings indexed by Skillenai (90 days ending 2026-09-28), vulnerability research most often appears alongside Python, incident response, C++, network security, Operating system security.
+Where is vulnerability research most in demand?
As of 2026-09-28, the metro areas posting the most jobs requiring vulnerability research are Redmond, Hawthorne, Bastrop, Palo Alto, New York City, according to the Skillenai jobs index.
+How can I keep up with new vulnerability research content and jobs?
Skillenai indexes news, blog posts, and research papers mentioning vulnerability research alongside the jobs index. You can subscribe to a daily email digest of new vulnerability research content from your Skillenai account.
Weekly job postings requiring vulnerability research — last 90 days
Salary distribution
Box = 25th–75th percentile · tick = median · whisker = 10th–90th · USD, annualized
Roles most likely to require vulnerability research
Among roles with at least 20 postings in the same period.
| Role | Postings mentioning skill | % of role postings mentioning skill |
|---|---|---|
| Embedded Security Engineer | 17 | 51.5% |
| Security Software Engineer | 45 | 37.5% |
| Security Research Engineer | 18 | 32.1% |
| Vulnerability Research Engineer | 7 | 29.2% |
| Security Researcher | 13 | 22.8% |
| Offensive Security Engineer | 13 | 20.0% |
| AI Security Researcher | 2 | 10.0% |
| Product Security Engineer | 27 | 8.5% |
| Safeguards Enforcement Analyst | 2 | 7.4% |
| Cyber Software Engineer | 2 | 7.1% |
Roles with the most vulnerability research postings
| Role | Postings mentioning skill | Share of skill postings |
|---|---|---|
| Security Software Engineer | 45 | 14.9% |
| Security Engineer | 29 | 9.6% |
| Product Security Engineer | 27 | 8.9% |
| Security Research Engineer | 18 | 6.0% |
| Embedded Security Engineer | 17 | 5.6% |
| Offensive Security Engineer | 13 | 4.3% |
| Security Researcher | 13 | 4.3% |
| Application Security Engineer | 7 | 2.3% |
| Vulnerability Research Engineer | 7 | 2.3% |
| Vulnerability Researcher | 7 | 2.3% |
Top metros hiring for vulnerability research
| Name | Postings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Redmond | 23 | 7.6% |
| Hawthorne | 22 | 7.3% |
| Bastrop | 15 | 5.0% |
| Palo Alto | 13 | 4.3% |
| New York City | 10 | 3.3% |
| Herndon | 9 | 3.0% |
| San Francisco | 9 | 3.0% |
| Tel Aviv | 9 | 3.0% |
| Bengaluru | 5 | 1.7% |
Skills commonly paired with vulnerability research
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Explore related pages
- Embedded Security Engineer
- Security Software Engineer
- Security Research Engineer
- Vulnerability Research Engineer
- Security Researcher
- Offensive Security Engineer
- AI Security Researcher
- Product Security Engineer
- Python
- incident response
- C++
- network security
- Operating system security
- Applied cryptography
- Secure/Authenticated boot
- Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs)
How this was computed
Counts derive from the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-09-28. Skills are resolved against the Skillenai canonical taxonomy, so the same entity is counted whether a posting writes 'Python', 'Python 3', or 'python'. Role prevalence divides postings mentioning vulnerability research by all postings for each role in the same window, ranking roles with at least 20 postings. Role distribution divides each role’s vulnerability research postings by all vulnerability research postings, including postings without a role. Shares need not sum to 100% for the displayed roles. Pages refresh weekly (or daily for the top-50 most-requested skills).
- source
- Skillenai jobs index, deduplicated daily
- entity_id
- 77961e492392b654
- data_as_of
- 2026-09-28
- window_days
- 90
The demand, skills, and geo numbers on this page come from the same Skillenai labor market index that powers our API. Use it for compensation benchmarking, hiring-competition analysis, and skill-adoption tracking.
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