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 2 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
2 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 201 223 230
Rank change year-on-year +22 +7 -28
Contract jobs citing Test Strategy 503 714 1,133
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.16% 1.20% 1.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.34% 1.34% 1.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 309 506 749
10th Percentile £358 £400 £387
25th Percentile £418 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £518
Median % change year-on-year - +1.35% +11.40%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £588
90th Percentile £728 £725 £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 3 11 13
10th Percentile - £39.68 -
25th Percentile £67.50 £45.53 £17.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £62.55 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.91% +140.58% -42.22%
75th Percentile £72.50 - £35.00
90th Percentile - £82.50 £57.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £58.94 £19.00
% change year-on-year +18.77% +210.20% -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 37,484 53,362 80,393
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.34% 89.87% 90.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,149 37,016 56,462
10th Percentile £300 £325 £340
25th Percentile £413 £438 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £528
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +4.17% +8.31%
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% +8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,454 1,744 1,921
10th Percentile £12.75 £11.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.00 £16.25 £15.25
Median hourly rate £35.58 £36.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.18% +44.00% -
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.00 £49.25
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £64.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.34 £35.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year +6.69% +75.00% -8.00%

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 2 May 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
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 2 May 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 +27 436 £525 -0.10% 144
London +77 246 £550 - 57
UK excluding London -12 218 £475 -5.00% 97
Work from Home +26 197 £525 +6.06% 52
South East 0 47 £488 +2.63% 25
East of England +27 40 £531 +1.19% 13
Midlands -30 39 £390 -27.64% 16
North of England -10 33 £450 -14.29% 18
West Midlands -37 30 £359 -33.52% 12
South West +26 24 £562 +9.75% 13
Scotland +30 22 £519 +15.39% 8
Yorkshire -5 16 £484 -12.09% 7
North West +2 15 £450 +5.88% 7
Wales +26 11 £535 -14.40% 1
East Midlands +15 9 £422 -29.75% 4
North East +16 2 £408 +1.88% 4
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 (1.99%) SharePoint
2 8 (1.59%) Confluence
2 8 (1.59%) MTS
3 7 (1.39%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (0.80%) Apache
5 2 (0.40%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.40%) CMS
5 2 (0.40%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.20%) IIS
6 1 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 7 (1.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 6 (1.19%) Spreadsheet
3 3 (0.60%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.40%) Maya
5 1 (0.20%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 15 (2.98%) Oracle Applications
2 9 (1.79%) Loan IQ
3 8 (1.59%) Aligne
3 8 (1.59%) Endur
3 8 (1.59%) EuroRunner
3 8 (1.59%) Oracle Cash Management
3 8 (1.59%) Oracle General Ledger
3 8 (1.59%) Oracle Payables
3 8 (1.59%) Oracle Receivables
3 8 (1.59%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (1.39%) Oracle Assets
4 7 (1.39%) Oracle Financials
5 6 (1.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.60%) Oracle AGIS
6 3 (0.60%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
7 2 (0.40%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.40%) Oracle Payroll
7 2 (0.40%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 1 (0.20%) Bloomberg AIM
Cloud Services
1 100 (19.88%) Azure
2 52 (10.34%) Azure DevOps
3 34 (6.76%) AWS
4 32 (6.36%) Power Platform
5 29 (5.77%) Dynamics 365
6 24 (4.77%) OCI
7 16 (3.18%) Azure API Management
7 16 (3.18%) Azure Logic Apps
8 12 (2.39%) SaaS
9 11 (2.19%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
10 9 (1.79%) Oracle CX
11 7 (1.39%) PowerApps
12 6 (1.19%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 6 (1.19%) Amazon EC2
12 6 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
12 6 (1.19%) Entra ID
12 6 (1.19%) GCP
12 6 (1.19%) PaaS
12 6 (1.19%) Serverless
12 6 (1.19%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.19%) HTTP
2 3 (0.60%) Internet
2 3 (0.60%) Reverse Proxy
3 2 (0.40%) SAN
3 2 (0.40%) WAN
4 1 (0.20%) Firewall
4 1 (0.20%) Network Security
4 1 (0.20%) SD-WAN
4 1 (0.20%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (5.57%) Power BI
2 24 (4.77%) MySQL
3 21 (4.17%) Oracle Reports
4 14 (2.78%) Amazon Redshift
5 11 (2.19%) SQL Server
6 10 (1.99%) Data Warehouse
7 7 (1.39%) Data Lake
8 6 (1.19%) Big Data
8 6 (1.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 5 (0.99%) DynamoDB
9 5 (0.99%) MongoDB
9 5 (0.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.80%) NoSQL
10 4 (0.80%) Relational Database
10 4 (0.80%) SAP HANA
10 4 (0.80%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 3 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
11 3 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
11 3 (0.60%) Elasticsearch
12 2 (0.40%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 54 (10.74%) JIRA
2 53 (10.54%) Selenium
3 51 (10.14%) Git
4 35 (6.96%) Postman
5 32 (6.36%) Cucumber
6 30 (5.96%) JMeter
7 22 (4.37%) JUnit
7 22 (4.37%) LoadRunner
7 22 (4.37%) SpecFlow
7 22 (4.37%) WebDriver
8 16 (3.18%) Appium
8 16 (3.18%) REST Assured
9 15 (2.98%) Jenkins
10 14 (2.78%) TestNG
10 14 (2.78%) TestRail
10 14 (2.78%) Visual Studio
11 13 (2.58%) Gatling
12 12 (2.39%) Cypress.io
13 11 (2.19%) SoapUI
14 10 (1.99%) eggPlant
General
1 162 (32.21%) Social Skills
2 139 (27.63%) Finance
3 43 (8.55%) Public Sector
4 36 (7.16%) Banking
4 36 (7.16%) Manufacturing
5 34 (6.76%) Electronics
6 31 (6.16%) Aerospace
7 29 (5.77%) Analytical Skills
8 22 (4.37%) Presentation Skills
9 14 (2.78%) Back Office
9 14 (2.78%) Investment Banking
10 13 (2.58%) Marketing
11 12 (2.39%) Legal
12 11 (2.19%) Front Office
12 11 (2.19%) Retail
13 8 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 7 (1.39%) Documentation Skills
14 7 (1.39%) Telecoms
15 5 (0.99%) General Ledger
15 5 (0.99%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 106 (21.07%) Lead
2 94 (18.69%) Test Manager
3 56 (11.13%) Analyst
3 56 (11.13%) Architect
4 54 (10.74%) Senior
4 54 (10.74%) Test Leader
5 38 (7.55%) Test Architect
6 32 (6.36%) Tester
7 28 (5.57%) Test Analyst
7 28 (5.57%) Test Engineer
8 26 (5.17%) Developer
9 17 (3.38%) Business Analyst
10 15 (2.98%) Automation Tester
11 14 (2.78%) Consultant
12 13 (2.58%) Project Manager
12 13 (2.58%) Senior Test Engineer
13 12 (2.39%) Senior Analyst
14 10 (1.99%) ABAP Developer
14 10 (1.99%) SAP Developer
14 10 (1.99%) Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (5.96%) .NET
2 27 (5.37%) XML
3 18 (3.58%) Oracle Fusion
3 18 (3.58%) REST
4 15 (2.98%) Playwright
5 14 (2.78%) Web Services
6 13 (2.58%) .NET Framework
7 11 (2.19%) AngularJS
8 10 (1.99%) Web Dynpro
9 9 (1.79%) Gherkin
10 8 (1.59%) GraphQL
10 8 (1.59%) React
11 6 (1.19%) JSON
12 4 (0.80%) ActiveMQ
12 4 (0.80%) CSS
12 4 (0.80%) HTML
12 4 (0.80%) Kafka
12 4 (0.80%) SOAP
13 3 (0.60%) Middleware
13 3 (0.60%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 31 (6.16%) Analogue Electronics
2 19 (3.78%) Product Ownership
3 14 (2.78%) Management Information System
3 14 (2.78%) Mobile App
4 13 (2.58%) Equities
5 11 (2.19%) Hedge funds
6 9 (1.79%) Greenfield Project
6 9 (1.79%) Market Risk
7 8 (1.59%) LIMS
7 8 (1.59%) Renewable Energy
7 8 (1.59%) Solar Panel
8 6 (1.19%) Public Cloud
9 5 (0.99%) Algorithms
9 5 (0.99%) Onboarding
10 4 (0.80%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (0.80%) Derivative
10 4 (0.80%) Life Science
10 4 (0.80%) Wiki
11 3 (0.60%) FMCG
11 3 (0.60%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 25 (4.97%) Windows
2 16 (3.18%) Unix
3 14 (2.78%) Linux
4 7 (1.39%) Android
5 4 (0.80%) Mac OS X
6 3 (0.60%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.40%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 169 (33.60%) Test Automation
2 168 (33.40%) Agile
3 98 (19.48%) User Acceptance Testing
4 81 (16.10%) Stakeholder Management
5 74 (14.71%) Project Management
6 73 (14.51%) DevOps
7 72 (14.31%) Software Testing
8 67 (13.32%) Test Management
9 65 (12.92%) CI/CD
10 62 (12.33%) Migration
10 62 (12.33%) Test Scripting
11 59 (11.73%) Performance Testing
12 55 (10.93%) Scrum
13 54 (10.74%) Problem-Solving
13 54 (10.74%) Scenario Testing
13 54 (10.74%) System Integration Testing
14 51 (10.14%) Continuous Integration
15 50 (9.94%) Functional Testing
16 48 (9.54%) Process Improvement
17 45 (8.95%) Non-Functional Testing
Programming Languages
1 59 (11.73%) SQL
2 58 (11.53%) C#
3 51 (10.14%) Java
4 27 (5.37%) Python
5 18 (3.58%) JavaScript
5 18 (3.58%) TypeScript
6 10 (1.99%) ABAP
7 7 (1.39%) Shell Script
8 6 (1.19%) PHP
8 6 (1.19%) VB
9 5 (0.99%) C++
9 5 (0.99%) Kotlin
9 5 (0.99%) Scala
9 5 (0.99%) T-SQL
10 4 (0.80%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 4 (0.80%) Groovy
10 4 (0.80%) Kusto Query Language
10 4 (0.80%) PL/SQL
10 4 (0.80%) PowerShell
11 3 (0.60%) C
Qualifications
1 100 (19.88%) Security Cleared
2 98 (19.48%) SC Cleared
3 54 (10.74%) Degree
4 45 (8.95%) ISTQB
5 29 (5.77%) Master's Degree
6 12 (2.39%) Computer Science Degree
6 12 (2.39%) ISEB
7 10 (1.99%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 8 (1.59%) ITIL Certification
9 7 (1.39%) BPSS Clearance
10 4 (0.80%) CISM
10 4 (0.80%) CISSP
10 4 (0.80%) CompTIA Security+
10 4 (0.80%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 4 (0.80%) PMI Certification
11 3 (0.60%) PMP
12 2 (0.40%) ISEB Practitioner
13 1 (0.20%) CCA
13 1 (0.20%) PhD
13 1 (0.20%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 129 (25.65%) QA
2 13 (2.58%) Accessibility
3 10 (1.99%) Data Quality
4 9 (1.79%) PMO
5 8 (1.59%) PCI DSS
6 5 (0.99%) Disclosure Scotland
6 5 (0.99%) HL7
6 5 (0.99%) SLA
7 4 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.40%) WCAG
9 1 (0.20%) EMIR
9 1 (0.20%) GDPR
9 1 (0.20%) IFRS
9 1 (0.20%) MiFID
9 1 (0.20%) NIST
System Software
1 9 (1.79%) Docker
2 5 (0.99%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.60%) vSphere
4 2 (0.40%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.20%) Terminal Services
5 1 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 13 (2.58%) Grafana
2 5 (0.99%) HP Quality Center
3 4 (0.80%) HP ALM
3 4 (0.80%) Kubernetes
4 3 (0.60%) Kibana
5 1 (0.20%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.20%) vRealize
Vendors
1 54 (10.74%) Oracle
2 52 (10.34%) Microsoft
3 34 (6.76%) SAP
4 15 (2.98%) Adobe
5 13 (2.58%) Denodo
5 13 (2.58%) Talend
6 12 (2.39%) ServiceNow
7 10 (1.99%) Splunk
8 9 (1.79%) Salesforce
9 7 (1.39%) HP
10 6 (1.19%) Google
10 6 (1.19%) InterSystems
11 4 (0.80%) CA Agile Central
11 4 (0.80%) iManage
11 4 (0.80%) Intapp
11 4 (0.80%) OpenAI
11 4 (0.80%) Qualtrics
11 4 (0.80%) VMware
12 3 (0.60%) Okta
12 3 (0.60%) Ping Identity