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 13 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Aug 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 559 483 495
Rank change year-on-year -76 +12 +67
Contract jobs citing ISTQB Foundation Certification 54 33 30
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.12% 0.12% 0.090%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.37% 0.38% 0.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 41 29 25
10th Percentile £313 £305 -
25th Percentile £350 £325 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £450 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% -18.18% -
75th Percentile £558 £508 £575
90th Percentile £613 £545 £603
UK median daily rate £435 £450 £500
% change year-on-year -3.33% -10.00% -6.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 0
10th Percentile £64.80 - -
25th Percentile £68.25 - -
Median hourly rate £74.00 - -
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK median hourly rate £74.00 - -

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 14,441 8,686 10,197
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.69% 31.42% 30.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,744 5,449 6,489
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,119 667 761
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £55.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +118.69% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £55.37 £67.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £79.17
UK median hourly rate £51.75 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +105.77% -41.51% -21.82%

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 13 August 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
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 13 August 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 -66 18 £550 +18.92% 4
West Midlands -30 14 £387 +6.74% 3
Midlands -40 14 £387 +6.74% 3
South West -36 8 £375 +17.19% 3
London -75 7 £538 +30.62% 3
East of England -16 5 £72 -76.96%
North of England - 4 £350 -
Yorkshire - 4 £350 -
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 5 (9.26%) SharePoint
2 3 (5.56%) WebLogic
3 2 (3.70%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (1.85%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (3.70%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (3.70%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 4 (7.41%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (5.56%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (3.70%) Maximo
4 1 (1.85%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 13 (24.07%) Azure
2 11 (20.37%) Azure DevOps
3 7 (12.96%) AWS
4 3 (5.56%) Dynamics 365
4 3 (5.56%) Power Automate
4 3 (5.56%) Tricentis Tosca
5 1 (1.85%) GCP
5 1 (1.85%) OpenShift
5 1 (1.85%) SaaS
5 1 (1.85%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 1 (1.85%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (7.41%) Data Warehouse
1 4 (7.41%) SQL Server
2 2 (3.70%) Oracle Database
2 2 (3.70%) Tableau
3 1 (1.85%) BigQuery
3 1 (1.85%) Oracle Reports
3 1 (1.85%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 19 (35.19%) JIRA
2 16 (29.63%) Postman
3 8 (14.81%) Git
3 8 (14.81%) Selenium
4 5 (9.26%) Jenkins
4 5 (9.26%) Zephyr
5 4 (7.41%) Cucumber
5 4 (7.41%) REST Assured
5 4 (7.41%) SoapUI
6 3 (5.56%) Cypress.io
6 3 (5.56%) JMeter
6 3 (5.56%) LoadRunner
6 3 (5.56%) NUnit
6 3 (5.56%) Protractor
6 3 (5.56%) Toad
6 3 (5.56%) WebDriver
7 2 (3.70%) GitLab
7 2 (3.70%) JUnit
7 2 (3.70%) SonarQube
7 2 (3.70%) TestRail
General
1 19 (35.19%) Analytical Skills
2 18 (33.33%) Social Skills
3 14 (25.93%) Public Sector
4 10 (18.52%) Finance
5 3 (5.56%) Banking
5 3 (5.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.85%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (1.85%) Law
6 1 (1.85%) Police
Job Titles
1 20 (37.04%) Analyst
2 14 (25.93%) Test Analyst
3 11 (20.37%) Tester
4 9 (16.67%) Senior
5 8 (14.81%) Test Engineer
6 6 (11.11%) Business Analyst
6 6 (11.11%) Software Engineer
7 5 (9.26%) Lead
8 4 (7.41%) QA Tester
8 4 (7.41%) Salesforce Engineer
8 4 (7.41%) SAP Analyst
8 4 (7.41%) SAP Test Analyst
9 3 (5.56%) Infrastructure Tester
9 3 (5.56%) Principal Engineer
9 3 (5.56%) Principal Software Engineer
9 3 (5.56%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
9 3 (5.56%) Senior Analyst
9 3 (5.56%) Senior Software Engineer
9 3 (5.56%) Test Leader
9 3 (5.56%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (22.22%) XML
2 7 (12.96%) Playwright
3 4 (7.41%) JSON
3 4 (7.41%) Kafka
3 4 (7.41%) React
4 3 (5.56%) .NET
4 3 (5.56%) Gherkin
4 3 (5.56%) SOAP
4 3 (5.56%) XSLT
5 2 (3.70%) ADO
5 2 (3.70%) Flask
5 2 (3.70%) HTML
5 2 (3.70%) Middleware
5 2 (3.70%) pytest
5 2 (3.70%) Web Services
5 2 (3.70%) XBRL
6 1 (1.85%) .NET Framework
6 1 (1.85%) ebXML
6 1 (1.85%) REST
6 1 (1.85%) XSD
Miscellaneous
1 5 (9.26%) Embedded Systems
1 5 (9.26%) PKI
2 4 (7.41%) Enterprise Software
2 4 (7.41%) Virtual Team
3 3 (5.56%) Taxonomies
4 2 (3.70%) Self-Motivation
4 2 (3.70%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 1 (1.85%) Analytical Mindset
5 1 (1.85%) Data Centre
5 1 (1.85%) Legacy Applications
5 1 (1.85%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (1.85%) PMI
5 1 (1.85%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 12 (22.22%) Windows
2 10 (18.52%) Linux
3 3 (5.56%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (72.22%) Agile
2 28 (51.85%) Test Automation
3 22 (40.74%) Software Testing
4 19 (35.19%) End-to-End Testing
4 19 (35.19%) Test Scripting
5 18 (33.33%) Defect Management
5 18 (33.33%) Integration Testing
6 17 (31.48%) DevOps
6 17 (31.48%) User Acceptance Testing
7 16 (29.63%) Problem-Solving
8 15 (27.78%) CI/CD
8 15 (27.78%) SDLC
9 13 (24.07%) API Testing
10 12 (22.22%) Continuous Improvement
10 12 (22.22%) Manual Testing
11 11 (20.37%) Regression Testing
12 10 (18.52%) Scaled Agile Framework
12 10 (18.52%) Scrum
12 10 (18.52%) Stakeholder Management
12 10 (18.52%) Test Management
Programming Languages
1 16 (29.63%) SQL
2 11 (20.37%) Java
2 11 (20.37%) Python
3 7 (12.96%) JavaScript
4 5 (9.26%) C++
5 4 (7.41%) Apex Code
6 2 (3.70%) VB.NET
7 1 (1.85%) C#
Qualifications
1 54 (100.00%) ISTQB
2 36 (66.67%) Security Cleared
3 28 (51.85%) SC Cleared
4 16 (29.63%) ISEB
5 8 (14.81%) Degree
5 8 (14.81%) DV Cleared
6 3 (5.56%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 2 (3.70%) IIBA
8 1 (1.85%) Azure Certification
8 1 (1.85%) CBAP
8 1 (1.85%) ISEB Practitioner
8 1 (1.85%) PMI Certification
8 1 (1.85%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (18.52%) QA
2 5 (9.26%) Accessibility
2 5 (9.26%) WCAG
3 4 (7.41%) ISO 20022
4 3 (5.56%) GDPR
4 3 (5.56%) ISO 15022
System Software
1 2 (3.70%) Docker
2 1 (1.85%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 3 (5.56%) Kubernetes
2 2 (3.70%) Control-M
2 2 (3.70%) HP Fortify
Vendors
1 12 (22.22%) Oracle
2 8 (14.81%) SAP
3 5 (9.26%) Microsoft
3 5 (9.26%) Salesforce
4 4 (7.41%) Conga
4 4 (7.41%) GoCardless
4 4 (7.41%) IBM
5 3 (5.56%) webMethods
6 1 (1.85%) Citrix
6 1 (1.85%) Sage
ISTQB Foundation Certification jobs