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 £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 14 February 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 116 110 123
Rank change year-on-year -6 +13 +44
Contract jobs requiring a Test Engineer 8 9 11
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 0.42% 0.49% 0.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.44% 0.53% 0.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 7 7 10
10th Percentile £419 - £359
25th Percentile £444 £413 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £425 £501
Median % change year-on-year +17.65% -15.08% +0.10%
75th Percentile £676 £438 £523
90th Percentile £696 - £750
Central London median daily rate £500 £425 £501
% change year-on-year +17.65% -15.08% +0.10%

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 1,809 1,695 2,279
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.97% 92.98% 94.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,241 1,024 1,637
10th Percentile £350 £351 £347
25th Percentile £433 £463 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £575 £563
Median % change year-on-year -6.52% +2.22% -4.66%
75th Percentile £675 £676 £688
90th Percentile £775 £779 £788
Central London median daily rate £550 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 7 21
10th Percentile £20.18 £22.00 £17.00
25th Percentile £26.52 £26.63 £18.93
Median hourly rate £40.64 £38.50 £24.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% +60.42% -28.89%
75th Percentile £51.00 £80.38 £40.00
90th Percentile £59.72 £112.00 £50.25
Central London median hourly rate £27.04 £35.00 £26.00
% change year-on-year -22.76% +34.62% -10.34%

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 14 February 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 14 February 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 8 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 6 (75.00%) Agile
2 6 (75.00%) Problem-Solving
3 5 (62.50%) Azure
3 5 (62.50%) Azure DevOps
3 5 (62.50%) DevOps
3 5 (62.50%) Selenium
4 4 (50.00%) CI/CD
4 4 (50.00%) QA
4 4 (50.00%) Security Cleared
4 4 (50.00%) Software Testing
5 3 (37.50%) C#
5 3 (37.50%) Computer Science
5 3 (37.50%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (37.50%) Degree
5 3 (37.50%) ISTQB
5 3 (37.50%) Java
5 3 (37.50%) JIRA
5 3 (37.50%) SC Cleared
5 3 (37.50%) Scenario Testing
5 3 (37.50%) Test Management
5 3 (37.50%) Test Scripting
5 3 (37.50%) User Acceptance Testing
5 3 (37.50%) Validation
6 2 (25.00%) .NET
6 2 (25.00%) Bitbucket
6 2 (25.00%) Business Analysis
6 2 (25.00%) Cucumber
6 2 (25.00%) Cypress.io
6 2 (25.00%) Defect Tracking

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:

Business Applications
1 1 (12.50%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 5 (62.50%) Azure
1 5 (62.50%) Azure DevOps
2 1 (12.50%) GitHub
2 1 (12.50%) GitHub Actions
2 1 (12.50%) SaaS
2 1 (12.50%) Tricentis Tosca
Development Applications
1 5 (62.50%) Selenium
2 3 (37.50%) JIRA
3 2 (25.00%) Bitbucket
3 2 (25.00%) Cucumber
3 2 (25.00%) Cypress.io
3 2 (25.00%) Git
3 2 (25.00%) Postman
4 1 (12.50%) Jenkins
4 1 (12.50%) JMeter
4 1 (12.50%) LoadRunner
4 1 (12.50%) REST Assured
4 1 (12.50%) TestRail
General
1 4 (50.00%) Finance
2 3 (37.50%) Analytical Skills
3 2 (25.00%) Back Office
3 2 (25.00%) Banking
3 2 (25.00%) Front Office
3 2 (25.00%) Investment Banking
3 2 (25.00%) Social Skills
4 1 (12.50%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (25.00%) .NET
2 1 (12.50%) Oracle Fusion
2 1 (12.50%) Playwright
2 1 (12.50%) pytest
2 1 (12.50%) REST
Processes & Methodologies
1 8 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 6 (75.00%) Agile
2 6 (75.00%) Problem-Solving
3 5 (62.50%) DevOps
4 4 (50.00%) CI/CD
4 4 (50.00%) Software Testing
5 3 (37.50%) Computer Science
5 3 (37.50%) Scenario Testing
5 3 (37.50%) Test Management
5 3 (37.50%) Test Scripting
5 3 (37.50%) User Acceptance Testing
5 3 (37.50%) Validation
6 2 (25.00%) Business Analysis
6 2 (25.00%) Defect Tracking
6 2 (25.00%) End-to-End Testing
6 2 (25.00%) Rapid Prototyping
6 2 (25.00%) Regression Testing
6 2 (25.00%) Release Management
6 2 (25.00%) Scrum
6 2 (25.00%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 3 (37.50%) C#
1 3 (37.50%) Java
2 2 (25.00%) VB.NET
3 1 (12.50%) JavaScript
3 1 (12.50%) Python
3 1 (12.50%) SQL
Qualifications
1 4 (50.00%) Security Cleared
2 3 (37.50%) Computer Science Degree
2 3 (37.50%) Degree
2 3 (37.50%) ISTQB
2 3 (37.50%) SC Cleared
3 1 (12.50%) DV Cleared
3 1 (12.50%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (50.00%) QA
Systems Management
1 1 (12.50%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 2 (25.00%) UiPath
2 1 (12.50%) HP
2 1 (12.50%) MuleSoft
2 1 (12.50%) Oracle
2 1 (12.50%) Salesforce
2 1 (12.50%) Workday