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 13 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 471 511 601
Rank change year-on-year +40 +90 +93
Contract jobs citing Exploratory Testing 32 29 40
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.12% 0.079% 0.084%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.13% 0.092% 0.093%
Number of daily rates quoted 20 25 26
10th Percentile £369 £350 £343
25th Percentile £380 £363 £366
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £443 £431
Median % change year-on-year +10.05% +2.72% +1.47%
75th Percentile £526 £488 £500
90th Percentile £577 £575 £505
UK median daily rate £500 £443 £438
% change year-on-year +12.87% +1.26% +2.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 2
10th Percentile £47.75 - £51.63
25th Percentile - - £52.19
Median hourly rate £50.00 £62.50 £53.75
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +16.28% -8.51%
75th Percentile - - £54.69
90th Percentile - - £54.88
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £62.50 £53.75
% change year-on-year -20.00% +16.28% -6.52%

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 24,763 31,420 42,827
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 90.70% 85.66% 89.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,919 20,386 29,994
10th Percentile £300 £308 £325
25th Percentile £406 £413 £444
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.10% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £645 £669
90th Percentile £750 £750 £763
UK median daily rate £501 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.67% -4.55% +0.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,287 2,225 1,532
10th Percentile £14.20 £13.00 £13.41
25th Percentile £17.93 £16.25 £17.74
Median hourly rate £25.15 £38.12 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year -34.02% -5.88% +55.77%
75th Percentile £54.38 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.90 £72.50 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £38.12 £40.00
% change year-on-year -34.02% -4.70% +53.85%

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 13 July 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 13 July 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 +55 14 £438 +25.00% 6
London +33 10 £425 -10.53% 16
North of England +9 5 £520 +12.38% 6
Yorkshire +6 5 £520 +9.42% 1
Midlands 0 2 £476 +19.06% 7
East Midlands -4 2 £476 +19.06% 1
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 5 (15.63%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 1 (3.13%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 4 (12.50%) AWS
1 4 (12.50%) GitHub
2 2 (6.25%) Azure
2 2 (6.25%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (3.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 1 (3.13%) 3GPP
1 1 (3.13%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (3.13%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 18 (56.25%) Selenium
2 12 (37.50%) JIRA
3 11 (34.38%) Cucumber
3 11 (34.38%) Postman
4 10 (31.25%) Git
5 6 (18.75%) JUnit
5 6 (18.75%) WebDriver
6 5 (15.63%) Jenkins
7 4 (12.50%) Cypress.io
7 4 (12.50%) Gradle
7 4 (12.50%) HP UFT
7 4 (12.50%) IntelliJ
7 4 (12.50%) Maven
8 3 (9.38%) REST Assured
9 1 (3.13%) Hamcrest
9 1 (3.13%) JMeter
9 1 (3.13%) MSTest
9 1 (3.13%) NUnit
9 1 (3.13%) Ranorex
9 1 (3.13%) Serenity BDD
General
1 12 (37.50%) Social Skills
2 5 (15.63%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (9.38%) Documentation Skills
3 3 (9.38%) Finance
4 2 (6.25%) Public Sector
5 1 (3.13%) Aerospace
5 1 (3.13%) Banking
5 1 (3.13%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 12 (37.50%) Test Engineer
2 8 (25.00%) Tester
3 5 (15.63%) Senior
3 5 (15.63%) Senior Test Engineer
3 5 (15.63%) Software Test Engineer
4 4 (12.50%) QA Engineer
4 4 (12.50%) QA Tester
5 3 (9.38%) Java Engineer
5 3 (9.38%) Senior Java Engineer
5 3 (9.38%) Test Manager
6 2 (6.25%) QA Test Engineer
6 2 (6.25%) Quality Engineer
6 2 (6.25%) Senior QA Engineer
7 1 (3.13%) Consultant
7 1 (3.13%) Developer
7 1 (3.13%) Functional Consultant
7 1 (3.13%) Manual Tester
7 1 (3.13%) QA Manual Tester
7 1 (3.13%) Software Developer
7 1 (3.13%) Test Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (28.13%) REST
2 5 (15.63%) Playwright
3 3 (9.38%) .NET
3 3 (9.38%) Jest
3 3 (9.38%) Node.js
4 2 (6.25%) JSON
5 1 (3.13%) CSS
5 1 (3.13%) Gherkin
5 1 (3.13%) HTML
5 1 (3.13%) RESTful
5 1 (3.13%) SOAP
5 1 (3.13%) Web Services
5 1 (3.13%) WebSockets
5 1 (3.13%) WireMock
5 1 (3.13%) XML
5 1 (3.13%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 8 (25.00%) Product Ownership
2 5 (15.63%) Algorithms
3 4 (12.50%) Cloud Native
3 4 (12.50%) Self-Motivation
4 3 (9.38%) Analytical Mindset
4 3 (9.38%) Mobile App
5 2 (6.25%) Data Structures
6 1 (3.13%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 2 (6.25%) Android
1 2 (6.25%) Apple iOS
1 2 (6.25%) Linux
2 1 (3.13%) Unix
2 1 (3.13%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (93.75%) Test Automation
2 23 (71.88%) Agile
3 15 (46.88%) Software Testing
4 10 (31.25%) Problem-Solving
5 9 (28.13%) Scrum
5 9 (28.13%) Test Strategy
6 8 (25.00%) Code Quality
6 8 (25.00%) DevOps
6 8 (25.00%) Manual Testing
6 8 (25.00%) Scenario Testing
7 7 (21.88%) CI/CD
7 7 (21.88%) Non-Functional Testing
7 7 (21.88%) Performance Testing
7 7 (21.88%) SDLC
7 7 (21.88%) Security Testing
8 6 (18.75%) BDD
8 6 (18.75%) Microservices
8 6 (18.75%) Sprint Planning
8 6 (18.75%) User Experience
9 5 (15.63%) Optimization Problems
Programming Languages
1 21 (65.63%) Java
2 5 (15.63%) JavaScript
2 5 (15.63%) Python
3 2 (6.25%) SQL
4 1 (3.13%) C#
4 1 (3.13%) PowerShell
4 1 (3.13%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 7 (21.88%) Security Cleared
2 5 (15.63%) Degree
3 4 (12.50%) SC Cleared
4 3 (9.38%) Computer Science Degree
4 3 (9.38%) DV Cleared
5 2 (6.25%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (75.00%) QA
System Software
1 1 (3.13%) Docker
Vendors
1 1 (3.13%) Ericsson
1 1 (3.13%) Microsoft
1 1 (3.13%) Splunk