Test Strategy Contracts

Test Strategy
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Test Strategy skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Test Strategy over the 6 months to 27 April 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
27 Apr 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 215 225 234
Rank change year-on-year +10 +9 -29
Contract jobs citing Test Strategy 486 724 1,140
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.12% 1.21% 1.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.30% 1.35% 1.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 297 515 749
10th Percentile £358 £400 £385
25th Percentile £420 £449 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £518
Median % change year-on-year - +1.35% +11.85%
75th Percentile £600 £593 £588
90th Percentile £742 £723 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £495
% change year-on-year -5.00% +1.01% +11.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 12 13
10th Percentile £58.75 - -
25th Percentile £64.38 £39.68 £17.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £58.94 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.77% +126.68% -42.22%
75th Percentile £72.50 £62.55 £35.00
90th Percentile - £80.51 £57.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £55.33 £19.00
% change year-on-year +12.97% +191.18% -57.78%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Test Strategy is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 37,374 53,774 80,482
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.31% 89.91% 90.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,095 37,304 56,474
10th Percentile £300 £325 £340
25th Percentile £413 £438 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +4.76% +8.25%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £475
% change year-on-year - +5.26% +9.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,422 1,763 1,928
10th Percentile £12.75 £11.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.00 £16.25 £15.25
Median hourly rate £35.00 £37.34 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.27% +49.36% -
75th Percentile £59.44 £65.00 £49.25
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £63.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.00 £36.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year - +80.00% -8.17%

Test Strategy
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Test Strategy as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Test Strategy in the UK

Test Strategy
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Test Strategy.

Daily rate trend for Test Strategy in the UK

Test Strategy
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Strategy over the 6 months to 27 April 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Test Strategy in the UK

Test Strategy
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Test Strategy.

Hourly rate trend for Test Strategy in the UK

Test Strategy
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Strategy over the 6 months to 27 April 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Strategy in the UK

Test Strategy
Top 17 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Test Strategy within the UK over the 6 months to 27 April 2024. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +27 419 £525 -1.50% 150
London +71 241 £550 - 52
UK excluding London -19 206 £475 -5.00% 112
Work from Home +23 194 £525 +6.06% 58
South East -4 41 £463 -2.63% 29
East of England +26 40 £531 -3.41% 14
Midlands -39 37 £400 -25.93% 20
North of England -16 31 £450 -14.29% 22
West Midlands -35 28 £379 -29.81% 16
South West +20 23 £562 +9.75% 13
Scotland +23 21 £519 +15.39% 10
North West -3 15 £450 +5.88% 13
Yorkshire -7 14 £463 -13.95% 6
Wales +22 11 £535 -14.40% 2
East Midlands +16 9 £422 -29.75% 4
North East +17 2 £408 +1.88% 3
Isle of Man - 2 - -

Test Strategy
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 10 (2.06%) Confluence
1 10 (2.06%) SharePoint
2 8 (1.65%) MTS
3 6 (1.23%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (0.82%) Apache
5 2 (0.41%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.41%) CMS
5 2 (0.41%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.21%) IIS
Applications
1 8 (1.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (1.23%) Spreadsheet
4 3 (0.62%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.41%) Maya
6 1 (0.21%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 15 (3.09%) Oracle Applications
2 9 (1.85%) Loan IQ
3 8 (1.65%) Aligne
3 8 (1.65%) Endur
3 8 (1.65%) EuroRunner
3 8 (1.65%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (1.44%) Oracle Cash Management
4 7 (1.44%) Oracle General Ledger
4 7 (1.44%) Oracle Payables
4 7 (1.44%) Oracle Receivables
5 6 (1.23%) Oracle Assets
5 6 (1.23%) Oracle Financials
6 5 (1.03%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 3 (0.62%) Oracle AGIS
7 3 (0.62%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
8 2 (0.41%) NetSuite
8 2 (0.41%) Oracle Payroll
8 2 (0.41%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 1 (0.21%) Bloomberg AIM
Cloud Services
1 101 (20.78%) Azure
2 53 (10.91%) Azure DevOps
3 33 (6.79%) AWS
4 32 (6.58%) Power Platform
5 29 (5.97%) Dynamics 365
6 24 (4.94%) OCI
7 16 (3.29%) Azure API Management
7 16 (3.29%) Azure Logic Apps
8 11 (2.26%) SaaS
8 11 (2.26%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
9 9 (1.85%) Oracle CX
10 7 (1.44%) PowerApps
11 6 (1.23%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 6 (1.23%) Amazon EC2
11 6 (1.23%) Azure Monitor
11 6 (1.23%) Entra ID
11 6 (1.23%) GCP
11 6 (1.23%) IaaS
11 6 (1.23%) PaaS
11 6 (1.23%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.23%) HTTP
2 3 (0.62%) Internet
2 3 (0.62%) Reverse Proxy
3 2 (0.41%) SAN
4 1 (0.21%) Firewall
4 1 (0.21%) Network Security
4 1 (0.21%) SD-WAN
4 1 (0.21%) WAN
4 1 (0.21%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (5.76%) Power BI
2 20 (4.12%) MySQL
2 20 (4.12%) Oracle Reports
3 11 (2.26%) SQL Server
4 10 (2.06%) Amazon Redshift
5 9 (1.85%) Data Warehouse
6 7 (1.44%) Data Lake
7 6 (1.23%) Big Data
7 6 (1.23%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 5 (1.03%) DynamoDB
8 5 (1.03%) MongoDB
8 5 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 4 (0.82%) NoSQL
9 4 (0.82%) Relational Database
9 4 (0.82%) SAP HANA
9 4 (0.82%) SQL Server Analysis Services
10 3 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
10 3 (0.62%) Azure SQL Database
10 3 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
11 2 (0.41%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 57 (11.73%) JIRA
2 52 (10.70%) Selenium
3 46 (9.47%) Git
4 32 (6.58%) Cucumber
4 32 (6.58%) Postman
5 29 (5.97%) JMeter
6 22 (4.53%) LoadRunner
6 22 (4.53%) SpecFlow
6 22 (4.53%) WebDriver
7 19 (3.91%) JUnit
8 16 (3.29%) Appium
9 15 (3.09%) Jenkins
9 15 (3.09%) REST Assured
10 13 (2.67%) Gatling
10 13 (2.67%) TestNG
10 13 (2.67%) TestRail
10 13 (2.67%) Visual Studio
11 12 (2.47%) Cypress.io
12 11 (2.26%) SoapUI
13 10 (2.06%) eggPlant
General
1 158 (32.51%) Social Skills
2 136 (27.98%) Finance
3 41 (8.44%) Public Sector
4 36 (7.41%) Manufacturing
5 35 (7.20%) Banking
6 34 (7.00%) Electronics
7 31 (6.38%) Aerospace
8 27 (5.56%) Analytical Skills
9 22 (4.53%) Presentation Skills
10 15 (3.09%) Investment Banking
11 13 (2.67%) Marketing
12 12 (2.47%) Back Office
12 12 (2.47%) Retail
13 11 (2.26%) Front Office
13 11 (2.26%) Legal
14 8 (1.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 7 (1.44%) Documentation Skills
15 7 (1.44%) Telecoms
16 5 (1.03%) General Ledger
16 5 (1.03%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 105 (21.60%) Lead
2 89 (18.31%) Test Manager
3 55 (11.32%) Architect
4 54 (11.11%) Test Leader
5 52 (10.70%) Analyst
5 52 (10.70%) Senior
6 37 (7.61%) Test Architect
7 32 (6.58%) Tester
8 26 (5.35%) Developer
9 25 (5.14%) Test Analyst
10 24 (4.94%) Test Engineer
11 15 (3.09%) Automation Tester
11 15 (3.09%) Business Analyst
12 14 (2.88%) Project Manager
13 13 (2.67%) Consultant
14 12 (2.47%) Senior Test Engineer
15 10 (2.06%) ABAP Developer
15 10 (2.06%) SAP Developer
15 10 (2.06%) Senior Analyst
16 9 (1.85%) QA Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (5.97%) .NET
2 27 (5.56%) XML
3 18 (3.70%) REST
4 16 (3.29%) Oracle Fusion
5 14 (2.88%) Playwright
6 13 (2.67%) .NET Framework
7 10 (2.06%) AngularJS
7 10 (2.06%) Web Dynpro
7 10 (2.06%) Web Services
8 8 (1.65%) React
9 7 (1.44%) Gherkin
9 7 (1.44%) GraphQL
10 6 (1.23%) JSON
11 4 (0.82%) ActiveMQ
11 4 (0.82%) CSS
11 4 (0.82%) HTML
11 4 (0.82%) Kafka
11 4 (0.82%) SOAP
12 3 (0.62%) Middleware
12 3 (0.62%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 31 (6.38%) Analogue Electronics
2 17 (3.50%) Product Ownership
3 14 (2.88%) Management Information System
4 13 (2.67%) Equities
5 12 (2.47%) Mobile App
6 11 (2.26%) Hedge funds
7 9 (1.85%) Greenfield Project
7 9 (1.85%) Market Risk
8 8 (1.65%) LIMS
8 8 (1.65%) Renewable Energy
8 8 (1.65%) Solar Panel
9 6 (1.23%) Public Cloud
10 5 (1.03%) Algorithms
11 4 (0.82%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (0.82%) Derivative
11 4 (0.82%) Onboarding
11 4 (0.82%) Wiki
12 3 (0.62%) Fixed Income
12 3 (0.62%) FMCG
12 3 (0.62%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 25 (5.14%) Windows
2 16 (3.29%) Unix
3 14 (2.88%) Linux
4 5 (1.03%) Android
5 4 (0.82%) Mac OS X
6 3 (0.62%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.41%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 161 (33.13%) Test Automation
2 154 (31.69%) Agile
3 100 (20.58%) User Acceptance Testing
4 84 (17.28%) Stakeholder Management
5 78 (16.05%) Project Management
6 74 (15.23%) DevOps
7 63 (12.96%) Migration
7 63 (12.96%) Software Testing
8 62 (12.76%) CI/CD
8 62 (12.76%) Test Scripting
9 61 (12.55%) Test Management
10 57 (11.73%) Performance Testing
11 55 (11.32%) Scenario Testing
11 55 (11.32%) System Integration Testing
12 53 (10.91%) Problem-Solving
13 48 (9.88%) Functional Testing
13 48 (9.88%) Scrum
14 45 (9.26%) Non-Functional Testing
15 44 (9.05%) Continuous Integration
15 44 (9.05%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 58 (11.93%) C#
2 57 (11.73%) SQL
3 48 (9.88%) Java
4 26 (5.35%) Python
5 18 (3.70%) JavaScript
6 17 (3.50%) TypeScript
7 10 (2.06%) ABAP
8 7 (1.44%) Shell Script
9 6 (1.23%) PHP
9 6 (1.23%) VB
10 5 (1.03%) C++
10 5 (1.03%) Scala
10 5 (1.03%) T-SQL
11 4 (0.82%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 4 (0.82%) Groovy
11 4 (0.82%) Kusto Query Language
11 4 (0.82%) PL/SQL
11 4 (0.82%) PowerShell
12 3 (0.62%) C
12 3 (0.62%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 94 (19.34%) Security Cleared
2 91 (18.72%) SC Cleared
3 54 (11.11%) Degree
4 44 (9.05%) ISTQB
5 29 (5.97%) Master's Degree
6 11 (2.26%) Computer Science Degree
6 11 (2.26%) ISEB
7 10 (2.06%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 8 (1.65%) ITIL Certification
9 7 (1.44%) BPSS Clearance
9 7 (1.44%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 4 (0.82%) CISM
10 4 (0.82%) CISSP
10 4 (0.82%) CompTIA Security+
10 4 (0.82%) PMI Certification
11 3 (0.62%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 3 (0.62%) PMP
12 2 (0.41%) ISEB Practitioner
13 1 (0.21%) CCA
13 1 (0.21%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 128 (26.34%) QA
2 12 (2.47%) Accessibility
3 10 (2.06%) Data Quality
3 10 (2.06%) PMO
4 8 (1.65%) PCI DSS
5 5 (1.03%) Disclosure Scotland
5 5 (1.03%) SLA
6 4 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.62%) HL7
8 2 (0.41%) WCAG
9 1 (0.21%) EMIR
9 1 (0.21%) GDPR
9 1 (0.21%) IFRS
9 1 (0.21%) MiFID
9 1 (0.21%) NIST
System Software
1 8 (1.65%) Docker
2 5 (1.03%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.62%) vSphere
4 2 (0.41%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.21%) Terminal Services
5 1 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 9 (1.85%) Grafana
2 6 (1.23%) HP ALM
3 5 (1.03%) HP Quality Center
4 4 (0.82%) Kubernetes
5 3 (0.62%) Kibana
6 1 (0.21%) Ansible
6 1 (0.21%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.21%) vRealize
Vendors
1 52 (10.70%) Oracle
2 51 (10.49%) Microsoft
3 34 (7.00%) SAP
4 15 (3.09%) Adobe
5 14 (2.88%) ServiceNow
6 10 (2.06%) Splunk
7 9 (1.85%) Denodo
7 9 (1.85%) HP
7 9 (1.85%) Salesforce
7 9 (1.85%) Talend
8 6 (1.23%) Google
8 6 (1.23%) InterSystems
9 4 (0.82%) CA Agile Central
9 4 (0.82%) iManage
9 4 (0.82%) Intapp
9 4 (0.82%) OpenAI
9 4 (0.82%) Qualtrics
9 4 (0.82%) VMware
10 3 (0.62%) AppDynamics
10 3 (0.62%) Ping Identity