Software Testing Contract Job Trends in the City of London

Software Testing
Central London > City of London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the City of London requiring Software Testing skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 2 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 109 101 103
Rank change year-on-year -8 +2 +47
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 16 17 27
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 0.81% 0.94% 1.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.91% 1.02% 1.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 13 19
10th Percentile £265 £403 £373
25th Percentile £386 £413 £404
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £595 £550
Median % change year-on-year -22.77% +8.18% -15.38%
75th Percentile £604 £638 £684
90th Percentile £661 £688 £775
Central London median daily rate £460 £535 £550
% change year-on-year -14.11% -2.73% -15.38%

All Process & Methodology Skills
City of London

Software Testing falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the City of London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,749 1,661 2,109
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 88.96% 91.67% 89.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,202 1,027 1,505
10th Percentile £356 £363 £350
25th Percentile £433 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £541 £575 £569
Median % change year-on-year -5.87% +1.05% -5.17%
75th Percentile £670 £686 £688
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
Central London median daily rate £550 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -6.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 10 13
10th Percentile £18.75 £22.00 £17.00
25th Percentile £20.18 £26.25 £18.93
Median hourly rate £34.25 £35.50 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.52% +42.00% -28.57%
75th Percentile £48.67 £47.50 £41.84
90th Percentile £59.72 £112.00 £49.55
Central London median hourly rate £26.11 £35.00 £27.81
% change year-on-year -25.40% +25.85% -20.54%

Software Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Software Testing relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London.

Software Testing job vacancy trend in the City of London

Software Testing
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Software Testing.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Software Testing

Software Testing
Daily Rate Histogram in the City of London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Testing in the City of London over the 6 months to 2 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Software Testing in the City of London

Software Testing
Hourly Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Software Testing.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Software Testing

Software Testing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 1 (6.25%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 1 (6.25%) Algo Collateral
Cloud Services
1 6 (37.50%) Azure
1 6 (37.50%) Azure DevOps
2 3 (18.75%) AWS
2 3 (18.75%) GitHub
3 1 (6.25%) GitHub Actions
3 1 (6.25%) Nutanix
3 1 (6.25%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 1 (6.25%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (25.00%) PostgreSQL
1 4 (25.00%) Relational Database
2 2 (12.50%) MySQL
2 2 (12.50%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 5 (31.25%) Selenium
2 3 (18.75%) Cucumber
2 3 (18.75%) Git
2 3 (18.75%) JIRA
2 3 (18.75%) Postman
3 2 (12.50%) Bitbucket
4 1 (6.25%) Cypress.io
4 1 (6.25%) Jenkins
4 1 (6.25%) JMeter
4 1 (6.25%) REST Assured
4 1 (6.25%) WebDriver
General
1 5 (31.25%) Finance
2 3 (18.75%) Front Office
3 2 (12.50%) Back Office
3 2 (12.50%) Banking
3 2 (12.50%) Investment Banking
4 1 (6.25%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (6.25%) Documentation Skills
4 1 (6.25%) Military
4 1 (6.25%) Organisational Skills
4 1 (6.25%) Police
4 1 (6.25%) Public Sector
4 1 (6.25%) Social Skills
Job Titles
1 5 (31.25%) Developer
2 3 (18.75%) Analyst
2 3 (18.75%) Test Engineer
3 2 (12.50%) Python Developer
3 2 (12.50%) Senior
3 2 (12.50%) Test Analyst
3 2 (12.50%) Test Automation Engineer
4 1 (6.25%) Azure Consultant
4 1 (6.25%) Consultant
4 1 (6.25%) Developer in Test
4 1 (6.25%) DevOps Consultant
4 1 (6.25%) Full-Stack Developer
4 1 (6.25%) Java Engineer
4 1 (6.25%) Lead
4 1 (6.25%) Lead Business Analyst
4 1 (6.25%) Migration Manager
4 1 (6.25%) Procurement Analyst
4 1 (6.25%) Procurement Business Analyst
4 1 (6.25%) Senior Java Engineer
4 1 (6.25%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (31.25%) .NET
2 3 (18.75%) RESTful
3 2 (12.50%) Django
3 2 (12.50%) GraphQL
3 2 (12.50%) Playwright
3 2 (12.50%) React
4 1 (6.25%) CSS
4 1 (6.25%) Gherkin
4 1 (6.25%) HTML
4 1 (6.25%) JSON
4 1 (6.25%) Kafka
4 1 (6.25%) pytest
4 1 (6.25%) REST
4 1 (6.25%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 1 (6.25%) Cloud Native
1 1 (6.25%) Data Structures
1 1 (6.25%) Derivative
1 1 (6.25%) Distributed Systems
1 1 (6.25%) Legacy Systems
1 1 (6.25%) Onboarding
1 1 (6.25%) Product Ownership
1 1 (6.25%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 4 (25.00%) Linux
2 1 (6.25%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 8 (50.00%) CI/CD
1 8 (50.00%) Test Automation
2 6 (37.50%) DevOps
3 5 (31.25%) Agile
3 5 (31.25%) Test Scripting
4 4 (25.00%) Continuous Improvement
4 4 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
4 4 (25.00%) Scenario Testing
4 4 (25.00%) Validation
5 3 (18.75%) Containerisation
5 3 (18.75%) Defect Management
5 3 (18.75%) End-to-End Testing
5 3 (18.75%) Regression Testing
5 3 (18.75%) Stakeholder Management
5 3 (18.75%) TDD
5 3 (18.75%) Test Management
5 3 (18.75%) Use Case
6 2 (12.50%) Business Analysis
6 2 (12.50%) Migration
6 2 (12.50%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 6 (37.50%) Java
2 5 (31.25%) Python
2 5 (31.25%) SQL
3 4 (25.00%) C#
4 2 (12.50%) JavaScript
4 2 (12.50%) VB.NET
5 1 (6.25%) PL/SQL
5 1 (6.25%) PowerShell
5 1 (6.25%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 3 (18.75%) Degree
1 3 (18.75%) SC Cleared
1 3 (18.75%) Security Cleared
2 2 (12.50%) Computer Science Degree
3 1 (6.25%) CCNA
3 1 (6.25%) Cisco Certification
3 1 (6.25%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (43.75%) QA
System Software
1 4 (25.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (12.50%) Kubernetes
2 1 (6.25%) Ansible
2 1 (6.25%) Packer
2 1 (6.25%) Terraform
Vendors
1 2 (12.50%) Microsoft
1 2 (12.50%) Oracle
1 2 (12.50%) UiPath
2 1 (6.25%) IBM
2 1 (6.25%) SmartStream
2 1 (6.25%) VMware