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 27 October 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 498 467 548
Rank change year-on-year -31 +81 +127
Contract jobs citing ISTQB Foundation Certification 20 34 43
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.070% 0.11% 0.11%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.22% 0.37% 0.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 18 27 25
10th Percentile £319 £306 £313
25th Percentile £352 £350 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £369 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -28.05% -2.38% +16.67%
75th Percentile £525 £575 £613
90th Percentile £733 - £625
UK median daily rate £425 £494 £450
% change year-on-year -13.92% +9.72% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 4
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £23.43
Median hourly rate - - £34.43
75th Percentile - - £50.00
90th Percentile - - £59.00
UK median hourly rate - - £34.43
% change year-on-year - - +122.11%

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 9,283 9,291 11,772
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.50% 29.81% 29.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,940 5,682 7,603
10th Percentile £300 £313 £313
25th Percentile £413 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £730 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 786 428 699
10th Percentile £17.57 £20.00 £16.93
25th Percentile £18.87 £30.00 £25.19
Median hourly rate £25.15 £52.19 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -51.81% -0.59% +16.67%
75th Percentile £42.63 £68.75 £69.19
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £53.50
% change year-on-year -45.54% -13.68% +18.89%

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 27 October 2025.

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 27 October 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
London +7 10 £513 +7.89% 3
South East -18 4 £413 -25.00% 6
South West - 4 £350 - 6
East of England -15 1 £313 - 5
West Midlands - 1 £363 - 6
Midlands - 1 £363 - 6
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 4 (20.00%) Confluence
2 1 (5.00%) WebLogic
Applications
1 3 (15.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (10.00%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (5.00%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (5.00%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (5.00%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (10.00%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 7 (35.00%) Azure
2 6 (30.00%) Azure DevOps
3 5 (25.00%) AWS
3 5 (25.00%) Power Platform
4 4 (20.00%) GitHub
5 3 (15.00%) Dynamics 365
6 2 (10.00%) Azure Functions
6 2 (10.00%) Azure Logic Apps
6 2 (10.00%) Azure Service Bus
6 2 (10.00%) Serverless
7 1 (5.00%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (5.00%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (5.00%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 3 (15.00%) LAN
2 2 (10.00%) DNS
2 2 (10.00%) VoIP
2 2 (10.00%) Wi-Fi
3 1 (5.00%) ATM
3 1 (5.00%) Ethernet
3 1 (5.00%) Frame Relay
3 1 (5.00%) GPRS
3 1 (5.00%) GSM
3 1 (5.00%) LTE
3 1 (5.00%) MPLS
3 1 (5.00%) SAN
3 1 (5.00%) SDH
3 1 (5.00%) UMTS
3 1 (5.00%) VPN
3 1 (5.00%) WAN
3 1 (5.00%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (10.00%) Power BI
2 1 (5.00%) Relational Database
2 1 (5.00%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 10 (50.00%) Selenium
2 8 (40.00%) JIRA
3 5 (25.00%) Jenkins
3 5 (25.00%) JMeter
4 4 (20.00%) Cucumber
4 4 (20.00%) JUnit
5 3 (15.00%) MSTest
5 3 (15.00%) Visual Studio
6 2 (10.00%) Locust
6 2 (10.00%) Postman
7 1 (5.00%) ClearCase
7 1 (5.00%) Git
7 1 (5.00%) GitLab
7 1 (5.00%) HP UFT
7 1 (5.00%) Katalon Studio
7 1 (5.00%) SoapUI
7 1 (5.00%) TestRail
7 1 (5.00%) Toad
General
1 4 (20.00%) Social Skills
2 3 (15.00%) Documentation Skills
2 3 (15.00%) Public Sector
3 2 (10.00%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (5.00%) Games
4 1 (5.00%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 7 (35.00%) Tester
2 5 (25.00%) Analyst
2 5 (25.00%) Test Analyst
3 4 (20.00%) QA Engineer
3 4 (20.00%) Senior
4 3 (15.00%) Automation Tester
4 3 (15.00%) Lead
4 3 (15.00%) Senior Automation Tester
4 3 (15.00%) Senior Tester
4 3 (15.00%) Test Leader
5 2 (10.00%) Lead Test Analyst
6 1 (5.00%) Consultant
6 1 (5.00%) Integration Consultant
6 1 (5.00%) Integration Tester
6 1 (5.00%) IP Engineer
6 1 (5.00%) IP Network Engineer
6 1 (5.00%) Salesforce Consultant
6 1 (5.00%) SAP Tester
6 1 (5.00%) Senior Analyst
6 1 (5.00%) Test Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (35.00%) XML
2 6 (30.00%) REST
3 5 (25.00%) SOAP
4 4 (20.00%) JSON
5 3 (15.00%) Web Services
6 2 (10.00%) OpenAPI
6 2 (10.00%) Swagger
7 1 (5.00%) Playwright
7 1 (5.00%) RESTful
7 1 (5.00%) XML Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 2 (10.00%) Distributed Systems
2 1 (5.00%) Data Structures
2 1 (5.00%) Onboarding
2 1 (5.00%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 7 (35.00%) Unix
2 6 (30.00%) Linux
3 2 (10.00%) Android
3 2 (10.00%) Apple iOS
3 2 (10.00%) Mac OS
3 2 (10.00%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (65.00%) Agile
2 12 (60.00%) Test Automation
3 11 (55.00%) DevOps
4 7 (35.00%) CI/CD
4 7 (35.00%) Continuous Improvement
4 7 (35.00%) Regression Testing
5 6 (30.00%) Defect Management
5 6 (30.00%) Test Scripting
5 6 (30.00%) Test Strategy
6 5 (25.00%) BDD
6 5 (25.00%) Non-Functional Testing
6 5 (25.00%) Software Testing
6 5 (25.00%) TDD
6 5 (25.00%) User Acceptance Testing
7 4 (20.00%) Integration Testing
7 4 (20.00%) Microservices
7 4 (20.00%) System Integration Testing
7 4 (20.00%) Use Case
8 3 (15.00%) AI
8 3 (15.00%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 10 (50.00%) SQL
2 8 (40.00%) Java
3 3 (15.00%) Python
4 2 (10.00%) C#
5 1 (5.00%) C
5 1 (5.00%) JavaScript
5 1 (5.00%) PL/SQL
5 1 (5.00%) VB
Qualifications
1 18 (90.00%) ISTQB
2 7 (35.00%) SC Cleared
2 7 (35.00%) Security Cleared
3 4 (20.00%) Degree
3 4 (20.00%) ISEB
4 2 (10.00%) BPSS Clearance
5 1 (5.00%) Azure Certification
5 1 (5.00%) CCNP
5 1 (5.00%) Cisco Certification
5 1 (5.00%) DV Cleared
5 1 (5.00%) ISEB Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (45.00%) QA
2 2 (10.00%) Accessibility
2 2 (10.00%) GDPR
3 1 (5.00%) HMG Security Policy Framework
3 1 (5.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 3 (15.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (5.00%) HP ALM
1 1 (5.00%) HP Quality Center
Vendors
1 2 (10.00%) HP
1 2 (10.00%) IBM
1 2 (10.00%) Microsoft
1 2 (10.00%) Salesforce
1 2 (10.00%) webMethods
2 1 (5.00%) Cisco
2 1 (5.00%) Compaq
2 1 (5.00%) Juniper
2 1 (5.00%) Oracle
2 1 (5.00%) SAP
2 1 (5.00%) Terracotta