ISTQB Foundation Certification Contract Job Trends in England

ISTQB-BCS Certified Tester Foundation Level (CTFL) formerly ISEB Foundation
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England with a requirement for ISTQB Foundation Certification qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 16 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jun 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 569 448 507
Rank change year-on-year -121 +59 +74
Contract jobs citing ISTQB Foundation Certification 36 42 35
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.084% 0.17% 0.093%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.27% 0.54% 0.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 27 33 28
10th Percentile £321 £309 £337
25th Percentile £363 £356 £352
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £450 £550
Median % change year-on-year +8.89% -18.18% +4.76%
75th Percentile £556 £508 £582
90th Percentile £598 £538 £610
UK median daily rate £495 £425 £525
% change year-on-year +16.47% -19.05% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 0
10th Percentile £36.25 - -
25th Percentile £53.13 - -
Median hourly rate £69.50 - -
75th Percentile £74.00 - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK median hourly rate £69.50 - -

All Academic and Professional Certifications
England

ISTQB Foundation Certification falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications in England.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 13,554 7,711 11,445
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.63% 31.22% 30.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,107 4,840 7,054
10th Percentile £350 £278 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £645
90th Percentile £719 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,029 489 1,011
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.68 £21.00 £20.00
Median hourly rate £52.00 £30.29 £41.27
Median % change year-on-year +71.67% -26.60% -24.97%
75th Percentile £73.46 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.27 £80.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +66.67% -25.00% -27.69%

ISTQB Foundation Certification
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing ISTQB Foundation Certification relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

ISTQB Foundation Certification job vacancy trend in England

ISTQB Foundation Certification
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing ISTQB Foundation Certification.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing ISTQB Foundation Certification

ISTQB Foundation Certification
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing ISTQB Foundation Certification in England over the 6 months to 16 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for ISTQB Foundation Certification in England

ISTQB Foundation Certification
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing ISTQB Foundation Certification.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing ISTQB Foundation Certification

ISTQB Foundation Certification
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing ISTQB Foundation Certification in England over the 6 months to 16 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for ISTQB Foundation Certification in England

ISTQB Foundation Certification
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 ISTQB Foundation Certification within the England region over the 6 months to 16 June 2026. 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 -76 11 £513 +13.89% 1
South West -24 8 £375 +15.38% 3
Midlands -52 7 £450 +17.78% 1
West Midlands -53 7 £450 +17.78% 1
East of England -26 5 £72 -76.96%
London -83 3 £650 +57.96%
Yorkshire - 1 £350 -
North of England - 1 £350 - 2
ISTQB Foundation Certification
UK

ISTQB Foundation Certification
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 2 (5.56%) SharePoint
2 1 (2.78%) Confluence
Applications
1 4 (11.11%) Microsoft Excel
1 4 (11.11%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (2.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 4 (11.11%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (5.56%) Maximo
3 1 (2.78%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 12 (33.33%) Azure
2 10 (27.78%) Azure DevOps
3 3 (8.33%) AWS
4 1 (2.78%) Dynamics 365
4 1 (2.78%) GCP
4 1 (2.78%) Power Automate
4 1 (2.78%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.78%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (5.56%) Relational Database
1 2 (5.56%) SQL Server
2 1 (2.78%) BigQuery
2 1 (2.78%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (2.78%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 11 (30.56%) JIRA
2 7 (19.44%) Postman
3 5 (13.89%) Cucumber
3 5 (13.89%) Selenium
4 4 (11.11%) REST Assured
4 4 (11.11%) TestRail
5 3 (8.33%) Git
5 3 (8.33%) Jenkins
5 3 (8.33%) JMeter
5 3 (8.33%) NUnit
5 3 (8.33%) Zephyr
6 2 (5.56%) GitLab
6 2 (5.56%) JUnit
6 2 (5.56%) SoapUI
7 1 (2.78%) Appium
7 1 (2.78%) Gatling
7 1 (2.78%) Protractor
7 1 (2.78%) Robot Framework
7 1 (2.78%) Visual Studio
7 1 (2.78%) WebDriver
General
1 14 (38.89%) Analytical Skills
2 12 (33.33%) Social Skills
3 5 (13.89%) Public Sector
4 4 (11.11%) Finance
5 2 (5.56%) Banking
6 1 (2.78%) Automotive
6 1 (2.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (2.78%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (2.78%) Law
6 1 (2.78%) Manufacturing
6 1 (2.78%) Police
Job Titles
1 13 (36.11%) Analyst
2 10 (27.78%) Test Analyst
3 7 (19.44%) Test Engineer
4 5 (13.89%) Software Engineer
5 4 (11.11%) Salesforce Engineer
5 4 (11.11%) Senior
5 4 (11.11%) Tester
6 3 (8.33%) Business Analyst
6 3 (8.33%) Infrastructure Analyst
6 3 (8.33%) Infrastructure Test Analyst
6 3 (8.33%) Lead
6 3 (8.33%) Principal Engineer
6 3 (8.33%) Principal Software Engineer
6 3 (8.33%) Test Leader
7 2 (5.56%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
7 2 (5.56%) SC Cleared Test Analyst
7 2 (5.56%) Senior Software Engineer
7 2 (5.56%) Software Test Engineer
7 2 (5.56%) Test Manager
7 2 (5.56%) Test Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (13.89%) Playwright
2 4 (11.11%) React
3 3 (8.33%) ADO
3 3 (8.33%) XML
4 2 (5.56%) Flask
4 2 (5.56%) Gherkin
4 2 (5.56%) pytest
5 1 (2.78%) .NET
5 1 (2.78%) .NET Framework
5 1 (2.78%) ebXML
5 1 (2.78%) JSON
5 1 (2.78%) SOAP
5 1 (2.78%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 5 (13.89%) Embedded Systems
2 4 (11.11%) Enterprise Software
3 2 (5.56%) PKI
3 2 (5.56%) Self-Motivation
4 1 (2.78%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (2.78%) Data Centre
4 1 (2.78%) PMI
4 1 (2.78%) Product Ownership
4 1 (2.78%) Taxonomies
4 1 (2.78%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 5 (13.89%) Linux
1 5 (13.89%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (83.33%) Agile
2 21 (58.33%) Software Testing
3 19 (52.78%) Test Automation
4 15 (41.67%) DevOps
5 14 (38.89%) User Acceptance Testing
6 13 (36.11%) Test Scripting
7 11 (30.56%) CI/CD
8 10 (27.78%) Continuous Improvement
8 10 (27.78%) Problem-Solving
8 10 (27.78%) SDLC
8 10 (27.78%) Test Management
9 9 (25.00%) Defect Management
10 8 (22.22%) Continuous Integration
10 8 (22.22%) End-to-End Testing
10 8 (22.22%) Integration Testing
10 8 (22.22%) Mentoring
10 8 (22.22%) Scaled Agile Framework
10 8 (22.22%) Scrum
11 7 (19.44%) Non-Functional Testing
11 7 (19.44%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 8 (22.22%) Java
1 8 (22.22%) Python
2 7 (19.44%) SQL
3 5 (13.89%) C++
4 4 (11.11%) Apex Code
4 4 (11.11%) JavaScript
4 4 (11.11%) VB
5 3 (8.33%) PL/SQL
6 1 (2.78%) C
6 1 (2.78%) C#
6 1 (2.78%) VB6
Qualifications
1 36 (100.00%) ISTQB
2 19 (52.78%) Security Cleared
3 12 (33.33%) SC Cleared
4 7 (19.44%) Degree
5 6 (16.67%) DV Cleared
6 5 (13.89%) ISEB
7 3 (8.33%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 2 (5.56%) IIBA
8 2 (5.56%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 1 (2.78%) Azure Certification
9 1 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (2.78%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (16.67%) QA
2 2 (5.56%) Accessibility
2 2 (5.56%) ISO 15022
2 2 (5.56%) ISO 20022
2 2 (5.56%) SLA
3 1 (2.78%) GDPR
3 1 (2.78%) WCAG
System Software
1 2 (5.56%) Docker
2 1 (2.78%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 4 (11.11%) HP ALM
2 3 (8.33%) Kubernetes
3 2 (5.56%) HP Quality Center
Vendors
1 5 (13.89%) Salesforce
2 4 (11.11%) Conga
2 4 (11.11%) GoCardless
2 4 (11.11%) HP
2 4 (11.11%) Microsoft
3 3 (8.33%) Oracle
4 2 (5.56%) IBM
4 2 (5.56%) SAP
5 1 (2.78%) Actian
5 1 (2.78%) Citrix
5 1 (2.78%) Remedy
5 1 (2.78%) Sage
ISTQB Foundation Certification jobs