The first table below looks at the demand for ISTQB in IT contracts advertised for the Manchester region. Included is a guide to the average contractor rates offered in IT contracts that have cited ISTQB over the 3 months to 17 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 Manchester 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
17 May 2013
Same period 2012 Same period 2011
International Software Testing Qualification Board (ISTQB)
Rank 68 82 69
Rank change year-on-year
+14 -13
Contract jobs citing ISTQB 5 2 2
As % of all contract IT jobs located in Manchester 0.547% 0.154% 0.193%
As % of the Qualifications category 4.167% 0.980% 1.550%
Number of daily rates quoted 1 1 0
Average daily rate £350 £350 -
UK excluding London average daily rate £337 £305 £325
% change year-on-year
+10.49% -6.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
Average hourly rate £25.00 - -
UK excluding London average hourly rate £30.00 £31.50 £16.50
% change year-on-year
-4.76% +90.90%
All Qualifications
Manchester
Contract IT job ads with a match in the
Qualifications category
120 204 129
As % of all contract IT jobs located in Manchester 13.13% 15.68% 12.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 60 75 51
Average daily rate £298 £325 £300
Average daily rate % change year-on-year
-8.46% +8.33%
90% offered a daily rate of more than £144 £186 £128
10% offered a daily rate of more than £425 £450 £400
UK excluding London average daily rate £350 £350 £350
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 15 8
Average hourly rate £22.00 £19.50 £18.40
Average hourly rate % change year-on-year
+12.82% +5.97%
90% offered a hourly rate of more than £12.77 £18.00 £12.70
10% offered a hourly rate of more than £25.40 £37.00 £30.00
UK excluding London average hourly rate £22.50 £23.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year
-2.17% -8.00%
ISTQB
North West

ISTQB
Jobs Demand Trend

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

Manchester 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 Manchester region.

Manchester ISTQB Daily Rate Trend

ISTQB
Hourly Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for hourly rates quoted in IT contractor jobs citing ISTQB across the Manchester region.

Manchester ISTQB Hourly Rate Trend

ISTQB
Top 30 Related IT Skills

For the 6 months to 17 May 2013, IT contractor jobs across the Manchester 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 12 (100.00%) ISEB
2 4 (33.33%) Windows
2 4 (33.33%) Linux
2 4 (33.33%) Mac OS X
2 4 (33.33%) Symbian
2 4 (33.33%) Blackberry
2 4 (33.33%) Windows Mobile
2 4 (33.33%) Android
2 4 (33.33%) iPhone
2 4 (33.33%) Test Scripting
2 4 (33.33%) iPhone SDK
2 4 (33.33%) bada
2 4 (33.33%) Maemo
2 4 (33.33%) Apple iOS
2 4 (33.33%) iOS SDK
3 3 (25.00%) Cucumber
3 3 (25.00%) JIRA
3 3 (25.00%) Automated Testing
3 3 (25.00%) Software Testing
3 3 (25.00%) Agile Software Development
4 2 (16.67%) TDD
4 2 (16.67%) Series 60
4 2 (16.67%) Regression Testing
4 2 (16.67%) Stakeholder Management
4 2 (16.67%) Scrum
4 2 (16.67%) C#
4 2 (16.67%) .NET
4 2 (16.67%) SQL Server
4 2 (16.67%) Selenium
4 2 (16.67%) Atlassian

ISTQB
Top Related IT Skills by Category

For the 6 months to 17 May 2013, IT contractor jobs across the Manchester 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 4 (33.33%) iPhone SDK
1 4 (33.33%) iOS SDK
2 2 (16.67%) .NET
2 2 (16.67%) Series 60
3 1 (8.333%) JSON
3 1 (8.333%) ASP.NET
3 1 (8.333%) XML
Application Platforms
1 2 (16.67%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (8.333%) MS Office
1 1 (8.333%) MS Excel
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (16.67%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 3 (25.00%) JIRA
1 3 (25.00%) Cucumber
2 2 (16.67%) Selenium
3 1 (8.333%) Firebug
3 1 (8.333%) WebDriver
3 1 (8.333%) Robotium
3 1 (8.333%) TestDirector
3 1 (8.333%) Xcode
General
1 1 (8.333%) Finance
Job Titles
1 5 (41.67%) Test Engineer
1 5 (41.67%) Tester
1 5 (41.67%) Analyst
1 5 (41.67%) Test Analyst
2 1 (8.333%) Senior Analyst
2 1 (8.333%) Performance Tester
2 1 (8.333%) Software Tester
2 1 (8.333%) Senior Test Analyst
2 1 (8.333%) QA Test Analyst
2 1 (8.333%) QA Analyst
2 1 (8.333%) Web Tester
2 1 (8.333%) Web Engineer
2 1 (8.333%) Automated Test Analyst
2 1 (8.333%) Automated Test Engineer
2 1 (8.333%) Defect Manager
Miscellaneous
1 4 (33.33%) Blackberry
1 4 (33.33%) iPhone
2 1 (8.333%) Semantic Web
2 1 (8.333%) Interactive TV
Operating Systems
1 4 (33.33%) Windows
1 4 (33.33%) Linux
1 4 (33.33%) Mac OS X
1 4 (33.33%) Windows Mobile
1 4 (33.33%) Android
1 4 (33.33%) bada
1 4 (33.33%) Maemo
1 4 (33.33%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 4 (33.33%) Test Scripting
2 3 (25.00%) Agile Software Development
2 3 (25.00%) Automated Testing
2 3 (25.00%) Software Testing
3 2 (16.67%) Load Testing
3 2 (16.67%) TDD
3 2 (16.67%) Regression Testing
3 2 (16.67%) Stakeholder Management
3 2 (16.67%) Scrum
4 1 (8.333%) Migration
4 1 (8.333%) Time Management
4 1 (8.333%) Test Automation
4 1 (8.333%) Test Strategy
4 1 (8.333%) Automation Testing
4 1 (8.333%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 2 (16.67%) C#
2 1 (8.333%) SQL
Qualifications
1 12 (100.00%) ISEB
2 1 (8.333%) Degree
2 1 (8.333%) SC Cleared
2 1 (8.333%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (8.333%) QA
System Software
1 1 (8.333%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 1 (8.333%) HP Quality Center
Vendors
1 4 (33.33%) Symbian
2 2 (16.67%) Atlassian
3 1 (8.333%) Sage
3 1 (8.333%) AppSense
3 1 (8.333%) Oracle
3 1 (8.333%) SAP
Manchester, Lancashire
A valid ISEB/ISTQB Foundation Certification is required. A broad range of testing different operating systems is desirable. The successful Software Tester will have over 3 years' experience...
Square One Resources
Rate: Up to £25 per hour
Posted: 14 May 2013