Test Engineer Contract Job Trends in the City of London

Test Engineer
Central London > City of London

The median Test Engineer daily rate in the City of London is £485, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 July 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 125 114 120
Rank change year-on-year -11 +6 +29
Contract jobs requiring a Test Engineer 10 7 6
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 0.42% 0.37% 0.29%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.44% 0.40% 0.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 8 4 5
10th Percentile £395 £311 £420
25th Percentile £424 £343 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £399 £463
Median % change year-on-year +21.63% -13.78% -13.95%
75th Percentile £572 £438 £575
90th Percentile £638 - £613
Central London median daily rate £485 £375 £463
% change year-on-year +29.33% -18.92% -12.11%

All Contract IT Job Roles
City of London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the City of London. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the City of London with a recognized job title 2,252 1,760 1,976
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.83% 93.42% 94.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,502 1,135 1,332
10th Percentile £358 £343 £363
25th Percentile £456 £431 £461
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £675 £688 £688
90th Percentile £775 £775 £788
Central London median daily rate £550 £550 £563
% change year-on-year - -2.22% -5.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 23 15
10th Percentile £17.60 £18.06 £20.22
25th Percentile £18.75 £24.66 £21.25
Median hourly rate £19.50 £31.00 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year -37.10% +14.81% -46.00%
75th Percentile £37.34 £60.25 £85.63
90th Percentile £60.25 £84.11 £137.50
Central London median hourly rate £23.08 £29.07 £30.00
% change year-on-year -20.61% -3.10% -19.82%

Test Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Test Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London.

Test Engineer job vacancy trend in the City of London

Test Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in the City of London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in the City of London

Test Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the City of London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Engineer in the City of London over the 6 months to 26 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Test Engineer in the City of London

Test Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in the City of London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in the City of London

Test Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London

For the 6 months to 26 July 2026, Test Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the City of London region featuring Test Engineer in the job title.

1 7 (70.00%) Test Automation
2 6 (60.00%) Security Cleared
3 5 (50.00%) CI/CD
3 5 (50.00%) DevOps
3 5 (50.00%) Playwright
3 5 (50.00%) QA
4 4 (40.00%) Azure
4 4 (40.00%) BDD
4 4 (40.00%) End-to-End Testing
4 4 (40.00%) Java
4 4 (40.00%) Performance Testing
4 4 (40.00%) Test Scripting
5 3 (30.00%) Azure DevOps
5 3 (30.00%) Cucumber
5 3 (30.00%) JavaScript
5 3 (30.00%) SC Cleared
5 3 (30.00%) TDD
6 2 (20.00%) Accessibility
6 2 (20.00%) Agile
6 2 (20.00%) Cypress.io
6 2 (20.00%) Defect Management
6 2 (20.00%) Functional Testing
6 2 (20.00%) Gatling
6 2 (20.00%) Non-Functional Testing
6 2 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
6 2 (20.00%) Python
6 2 (20.00%) Refactoring
6 2 (20.00%) REST
6 2 (20.00%) REST Assured
6 2 (20.00%) SQL

Test Engineer Skill Set
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:

Cloud Services
1 4 (40.00%) Azure
2 3 (30.00%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (10.00%) GitHub
3 1 (10.00%) GitHub Actions
Development Applications
1 3 (30.00%) Cucumber
2 2 (20.00%) Cypress.io
2 2 (20.00%) Gatling
2 2 (20.00%) REST Assured
3 1 (10.00%) GitLab
3 1 (10.00%) Jenkins
3 1 (10.00%) JIRA
3 1 (10.00%) JMeter
3 1 (10.00%) JUnit
3 1 (10.00%) LoadRunner
3 1 (10.00%) Mockito
3 1 (10.00%) NeoLoad
3 1 (10.00%) Selenium
General
1 2 (20.00%) Social Skills
2 1 (10.00%) Analytical Skills
2 1 (10.00%) Banking
2 1 (10.00%) Finance
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (50.00%) Playwright
2 2 (20.00%) REST
3 1 (10.00%) AssertJ
3 1 (10.00%) Kafka
3 1 (10.00%) pytest
3 1 (10.00%) React
3 1 (10.00%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 1 (10.00%) Cloud Native
1 1 (10.00%) Self-Motivation
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (70.00%) Test Automation
2 5 (50.00%) CI/CD
2 5 (50.00%) DevOps
3 4 (40.00%) BDD
3 4 (40.00%) End-to-End Testing
3 4 (40.00%) Performance Testing
3 4 (40.00%) Test Scripting
4 3 (30.00%) TDD
5 2 (20.00%) Agile
5 2 (20.00%) Defect Management
5 2 (20.00%) Functional Testing
5 2 (20.00%) Non-Functional Testing
5 2 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
5 2 (20.00%) Refactoring
5 2 (20.00%) Test Strategy
5 2 (20.00%) Validation
6 1 (10.00%) Continuous Delivery
6 1 (10.00%) Defect Tracking
6 1 (10.00%) Systems Thinking
6 1 (10.00%) Trunk-Based Development
Programming Languages
1 4 (40.00%) Java
2 3 (30.00%) JavaScript
3 2 (20.00%) Python
3 2 (20.00%) SQL
3 2 (20.00%) TypeScript
4 1 (10.00%) C#
4 1 (10.00%) R
Qualifications
1 6 (60.00%) Security Cleared
2 3 (30.00%) SC Cleared
3 1 (10.00%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (50.00%) QA
2 2 (20.00%) Accessibility
Vendors
1 1 (10.00%) Microsoft