The first table below looks at the demand for ISTQB in IT contracts advertised for the Birmingham region. Included is a guide to the average contractor rates offered in IT contracts that have cited ISTQB over the 3 months to 24 May 2013 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years. The second table is for comparison and provides aggregates for all Qualifications for the Birmingham region.

Note that daily contractor rates and hourly contractor rates are treated separately. When calculating average contractor rates, daily rates are not derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Location
3 months to
24 May 2013
Same period 2012 Same period 2011
International Software Testing Qualification Board (ISTQB)
Rank 40 51 -
Rank change year-on-year
+11 -
Contract jobs citing ISTQB 3 5 0
As % of all contract IT jobs located in Birmingham 0.683% 0.805% -
As % of the Qualifications category 4.839% 5.319% -
Number of daily rates quoted 2 5 0
Average daily rate £368 £325 -
Average daily rate % change year-on-year
+13.07% -
UK excluding London average daily rate £325 £300 £325
% change year-on-year
+8.33% -7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 0
Average hourly rate - - -
UK excluding London average hourly rate £27.50 £31.50 £16.50
% change year-on-year
-12.69% +90.90%
All Qualifications
Birmingham
Contract IT job ads with a match in the
Qualifications category
62 94 74
As % of all contract IT jobs located in Birmingham 14.12% 15.14% 14.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 27 59 41
Average daily rate £363 £325 £300
Average daily rate % change year-on-year
+11.53% +8.33%
90% offered a daily rate of more than £238 £230 £195
10% offered a daily rate of more than £525 £450 £425
UK excluding London average daily rate £350 £350 £350
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 4 5
Average hourly rate £32.50 £17.50 £13.15
Average hourly rate % change year-on-year
+85.71% +33.07%
90% offered a hourly rate of more than £26.50 £12.00 £12.26
10% offered a hourly rate of more than £175.00 £17.50 £20.00
UK excluding London average hourly rate £22.00 £22.50 £25.00
% change year-on-year
-2.22% -10.00%
ISTQB
West Midlands

ISTQB
Jobs Demand Trend

This chart provides a 3-month moving total of IT contractor jobs citing ISTQB across the Birmingham region as a proportion of the total demand within the Qualifications category.

Birmingham ISTQB Jobs Demand Trend

ISTQB
Daily Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for daily rates quoted in IT contract jobs citing ISTQB across the Birmingham region.

Birmingham ISTQB Daily Rate Trend

ISTQB
Top 30 Related IT Skills

For the 6 months to 24 May 2013, IT contractor jobs across the Birmingham region citing ISTQB also mentioned the following IT skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the number of jobs and their proportion against the total number of contract IT job ads sampled that cited ISTQB.

1 7 (100.00%) ISEB
2 4 (57.14%) Finance
2 4 (57.14%) Retail Banking
2 4 (57.14%) Banking
2 4 (57.14%) Retail
2 4 (57.14%) Cash Management
2 4 (57.14%) HP Quality Center
3 3 (42.86%) Financial Institution
3 3 (42.86%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 2 (28.57%) C#
4 2 (28.57%) .NET
4 2 (28.57%) Test Scripting
4 2 (28.57%) Test Strategy
5 1 (14.29%) Windows 8
5 1 (14.29%) Windows Server 2012
5 1 (14.29%) Manual Testing
5 1 (14.29%) Windows Server 2008
5 1 (14.29%) soapUI
5 1 (14.29%) Billing
5 1 (14.29%) Software Testing
5 1 (14.29%) SQL Server
5 1 (14.29%) Visual Studio
5 1 (14.29%) Web Services
5 1 (14.29%) XML
5 1 (14.29%) UNIX
5 1 (14.29%) Windows
5 1 (14.29%) Linux
5 1 (14.29%) HTML
5 1 (14.29%) Java
5 1 (14.29%) JavaScript

ISTQB
Top Related IT Skills by Category

For the 6 months to 24 May 2013, IT contractor jobs across the Birmingham region citing ISTQB also mentioned the following IT skills grouped by category. The figures indicate the number of jobs and their proportion against the total number of contract IT job ads sampled that cited ISTQB. Up to 20 skills are shown per category.

Application Development
1 2 (28.57%) .NET
2 1 (14.29%) soapUI
2 1 (14.29%) Web Services
2 1 (14.29%) XML
2 1 (14.29%) HTML
2 1 (14.29%) .NET Framework
2 1 (14.29%) WCF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (14.29%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (14.29%) Visual Studio
General
1 4 (57.14%) Finance
1 4 (57.14%) Retail Banking
1 4 (57.14%) Banking
1 4 (57.14%) Retail
2 3 (42.86%) Financial Institution
3 1 (14.29%) Billing
3 1 (14.29%) Telecoms
3 1 (14.29%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 5 (71.43%) Analyst
1 5 (71.43%) Test Analyst
2 1 (14.29%) Automation Tester
2 1 (14.29%) Lead Tester
2 1 (14.29%) Tester
2 1 (14.29%) Programme Manager
2 1 (14.29%) Test Manager
2 1 (14.29%) Programme Test Manager
Miscellaneous
1 3 (42.86%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 1 (14.29%) Windows 8
1 1 (14.29%) Windows Server 2012
1 1 (14.29%) Windows Server 2008
1 1 (14.29%) UNIX
1 1 (14.29%) Windows
1 1 (14.29%) Linux
1 1 (14.29%) Windows Vista
Processes & Methodologies
1 4 (57.14%) Cash Management
2 2 (28.57%) Test Scripting
2 2 (28.57%) Test Strategy
3 1 (14.29%) Manual Testing
3 1 (14.29%) Software Testing
3 1 (14.29%) Stakeholder Management
3 1 (14.29%) Agile Software Development
3 1 (14.29%) Project Planning
3 1 (14.29%) Matrix Management
3 1 (14.29%) User Acceptance Testing
3 1 (14.29%) Test Management
Programming Languages
1 2 (28.57%) C#
2 1 (14.29%) Java
2 1 (14.29%) JavaScript
2 1 (14.29%) Perl
2 1 (14.29%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 7 (100.00%) ISEB
Systems Management
1 4 (57.14%) HP Quality Center