Exploratory Testing Contracts in England

Exploratory Testing
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England requiring Exploratory Testing skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Exploratory Testing over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 452 511 612
Rank change year-on-year +59 +101 +51
Contract jobs citing Exploratory Testing 33 31 41
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.14% 0.083% 0.081%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.15% 0.096% 0.090%
Number of daily rates quoted 21 25 32
10th Percentile £375 £352 £335
25th Percentile £380 £388 £382
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £445 £463
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% -3.72% +8.82%
75th Percentile £523 £488 £613
90th Percentile £538 £533 £675
UK median daily rate £488 £445 £463
% change year-on-year +9.48% -3.72% +8.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 0
Median hourly rate £50.00 £62.50 -
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% - -
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £62.50 -
% change year-on-year -20.00% - -

All Process and Methodology Skills
England

Exploratory 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 England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 22,202 32,193 45,529
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 91.16% 86.56% 90.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,534 21,105 31,969
10th Percentile £310 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +2.33%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £675
90th Percentile £750 £750 £765
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 921 2,246 1,592
10th Percentile £14.42 £12.92 £10.87
25th Percentile £18.20 £16.01 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.07 £36.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.25% -4.00% +53.06%
75th Percentile £63.75 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
% change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%

Exploratory Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings citing Exploratory Testing as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for Exploratory Testing in England

Exploratory Testing
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Exploratory Testing in England.

Daily rate trend for Exploratory Testing in England

Exploratory Testing
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Exploratory Testing in England over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Exploratory Testing in England

Exploratory Testing
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Exploratory Testing in England.

Hourly rate trend for Exploratory Testing in England

Exploratory Testing
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Exploratory Testing within the England region over the 6 months to 1 May 2025. 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
South East +56 13 £438 +25.00% 9
London +39 13 £438 -0.88% 15
North of England +15 4 £520 +9.42% 5
Yorkshire +10 4 £520 +3.95% 3
Midlands +19 2 £476 +19.06% 7
East Midlands +7 2 £476 +19.06% 3
South West - 1 £325 - 3
Exploratory Testing
UK

Exploratory Testing
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England 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 6 (18.18%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 1 (3.03%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 6 (18.18%) AWS
2 4 (12.12%) Azure
2 4 (12.12%) Azure DevOps
2 4 (12.12%) GitHub
3 2 (6.06%) SaaS
4 1 (3.03%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 1 (3.03%) GCP
4 1 (3.03%) Slack
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (3.03%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 16 (48.48%) Selenium
2 9 (27.27%) Cucumber
2 9 (27.27%) JIRA
3 8 (24.24%) Git
3 8 (24.24%) Postman
4 6 (18.18%) Cypress.io
4 6 (18.18%) Jenkins
4 6 (18.18%) JUnit
5 4 (12.12%) Gradle
5 4 (12.12%) HP UFT
5 4 (12.12%) IntelliJ
5 4 (12.12%) Maven
6 3 (9.09%) JMeter
6 3 (9.09%) REST Assured
6 3 (9.09%) WebDriver
7 1 (3.03%) Gatling
7 1 (3.03%) GitLab
7 1 (3.03%) NUnit
7 1 (3.03%) Serenity BDD
7 1 (3.03%) SonarQube
General
1 15 (45.45%) Social Skills
2 6 (18.18%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (9.09%) Documentation Skills
3 3 (9.09%) Finance
4 2 (6.06%) Public Sector
5 1 (3.03%) Banking
Job Titles
1 9 (27.27%) Tester
2 6 (18.18%) Test Engineer
3 5 (15.15%) QA Tester
3 5 (15.15%) Senior
3 5 (15.15%) Senior Test Engineer
4 4 (12.12%) QA Engineer
5 3 (9.09%) Java Engineer
5 3 (9.09%) Senior Java Engineer
5 3 (9.09%) Test Manager
6 2 (6.06%) Automation Tester
6 2 (6.06%) Developer
6 2 (6.06%) Developer in Test
6 2 (6.06%) Manual Tester
6 2 (6.06%) QA Manual Tester
6 2 (6.06%) QA Test Engineer
6 2 (6.06%) Senior QA Engineer
6 2 (6.06%) Software Developer
7 1 (3.03%) Lead
7 1 (3.03%) QA Automation Tester
7 1 (3.03%) Software Development Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (18.18%) .NET
2 5 (15.15%) Playwright
2 5 (15.15%) REST
3 3 (9.09%) Jest
3 3 (9.09%) JSON
3 3 (9.09%) Node.js
4 2 (6.06%) CSS
4 2 (6.06%) Gherkin
4 2 (6.06%) HTML
4 2 (6.06%) Web Services
5 1 (3.03%) Kafka
5 1 (3.03%) Nightwatchjs
5 1 (3.03%) SOAP
5 1 (3.03%) WebdriverIO
5 1 (3.03%) WebSockets
5 1 (3.03%) WireMock
5 1 (3.03%) XML
5 1 (3.03%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 9 (27.27%) Product Ownership
2 8 (24.24%) Algorithms
3 6 (18.18%) Cloud Native
4 3 (9.09%) Analytical Mindset
4 3 (9.09%) Data Structures
4 3 (9.09%) Mobile App
5 1 (3.03%) Linux Command Line
5 1 (3.03%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (3.03%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 2 (6.06%) Android
1 2 (6.06%) Apple iOS
2 1 (3.03%) Linux
2 1 (3.03%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 31 (93.94%) Test Automation
2 22 (66.67%) Agile
3 14 (42.42%) Problem-Solving
4 13 (39.39%) Software Testing
5 12 (36.36%) Scenario Testing
6 11 (33.33%) CI/CD
7 10 (30.30%) BDD
7 10 (30.30%) Mathematics
8 9 (27.27%) DevOps
8 9 (27.27%) Performance Testing
8 9 (27.27%) Test Strategy
9 8 (24.24%) Data Modelling
9 8 (24.24%) Microservices
9 8 (24.24%) Optimization Problems
10 7 (21.21%) Acceptance Criteria
10 7 (21.21%) Data Collection
10 7 (21.21%) SDLC
10 7 (21.21%) TDD
10 7 (21.21%) User Stories
11 6 (18.18%) Security Testing
Programming Languages
1 19 (57.58%) Java
2 8 (24.24%) JavaScript
2 8 (24.24%) Python
3 4 (12.12%) C#
4 2 (6.06%) SQL
5 1 (3.03%) PowerShell
5 1 (3.03%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 10 (30.30%) Degree
2 6 (18.18%) Security Cleared
3 5 (15.15%) Master's Degree
4 4 (12.12%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (9.09%) DV Cleared
5 3 (9.09%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (84.85%) QA
System Software
1 1 (3.03%) Docker
Vendors
1 2 (6.06%) Splunk
2 1 (3.03%) Microsoft