'We're protecting UK from paralysing attack - and our salaries can be limitless'

Each week, we speak to someone from a different profession to discover what it's really like.

This week we chat to ethical hacker and chief product officer at The Hacking Games, John Madelin. A typical salary for a starter is...

£35k to £55k. You're learning how systems break, and how to fix them.

It rises quickly once you can write reports humans can read, or if you bring demonstrable aptitudes into the job. For mid-level roles it's £65k to £100k+.

With real-world scars from red-team ops (test scenarios) or live incidents, you're trusted to protect things that matter. Add strong communication and people skills, and you're valuable.

If you're advanced, you can earn £125k+. These are deep technical and strategic thinkers - the ones who understand how attackers really operate can make leadership-level money; and at this level there are usually bonuses and incentives on top.

You get paid mostly salary plus bonus or day-rates (£600 - £2,500). The best go on to build businesses or advise governments; that's where "sky's the limit" stops being a figure of speech.

Hackers never sleep... and companies tend to ask for help checking systems when they've been tickled from the dark side.

Traditional red teaming tends to be in traditional work hours, but firefighting stuff means the hours can swing with the threat landscape: quiet weeks when systems behave, then 2am firefights when they don't. Formally, it's about 37-40 hours a week on paper, with 20-25 days' holiday, plus bank holidays.

In practice, you'll sometimes be tempted to swap downtime for adrenaline, but smart teams make sure it evens out. Head to the Money blog for latest consumer finance tips Many of us come from deeply technical backgrounds, so translating complex risks into PowerPoint-friendly soundbites can feel painful...

You spend days unpicking a subtle chain of vulnerabilities, only to be asked "but are we safe now?.