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 11 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 552 420 511
Rank change year-on-year -132 +91 +77
Contract jobs citing ISTQB Foundation Certification 31 48 38
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.076% 0.20% 0.10%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.24% 0.62% 0.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 27 37 30
10th Percentile £340 £307 £350
25th Percentile £381 £361 £453
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £450 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.11% -18.18% +4.76%
75th Percentile £513 £538 £575
90th Percentile £598 £575 £610
UK median daily rate £450 £450 £550
% change year-on-year - -18.18% +10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 1
10th Percentile £28.75 - -
25th Percentile £34.38 - £31.25
Median hourly rate £45.00 - £32.50
75th Percentile £56.88 - £33.75
90th Percentile £63.25 - -
UK median hourly rate £45.00 - £32.50
% change year-on-year - - -37.50%

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 13,066 7,689 11,429
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.12% 31.40% 31.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,766 4,885 7,039
10th Percentile £340 £289 £313
25th Percentile £425 £414 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £522 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.67% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £622 £626 £650
90th Percentile £725 £717 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 960 446 981
10th Percentile £17.10 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.27 £18.00
Median hourly rate £47.54 £40.55 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +17.25% +1.36% -23.81%
75th Percentile £72.50 £67.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.50 £81.35 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £37.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +26.77% -6.25% -25.93%

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 11 May 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 11 May 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 11 May 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 -80 11 £500 +5.26% 4
West Midlands -57 6 £450 -5.43%
Midlands -62 6 £450 -5.43% 1
London -49 5 £445 +8.14%
South West -33 4 £375 +19.05% 4
East of England -28 3 £72 -76.96% 1
Yorkshire -52 1 £350 -
North of England -69 1 £350 -3.45% 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 1 (3.23%) Confluence
1 1 (3.23%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (12.90%) Microsoft Excel
1 4 (12.90%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (3.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (6.45%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 11 (35.48%) Azure
2 9 (29.03%) Azure DevOps
3 3 (9.68%) AWS
4 1 (3.23%) GCP
4 1 (3.23%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 1 (3.23%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (6.45%) Relational Database
2 1 (3.23%) BigQuery
2 1 (3.23%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (3.23%) Oracle Reports
2 1 (3.23%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 10 (32.26%) JIRA
2 4 (12.90%) Selenium
3 3 (9.68%) Git
3 3 (9.68%) JMeter
3 3 (9.68%) NUnit
3 3 (9.68%) TestRail
3 3 (9.68%) Zephyr
4 2 (6.45%) Cypress.io
4 2 (6.45%) GitLab
4 2 (6.45%) Jenkins
4 2 (6.45%) JUnit
4 2 (6.45%) Postman
5 1 (3.23%) Appium
5 1 (3.23%) Cucumber
5 1 (3.23%) Gatling
5 1 (3.23%) LoadRunner
5 1 (3.23%) Robot Framework
5 1 (3.23%) SoapUI
5 1 (3.23%) Visual Studio
General
1 11 (35.48%) Analytical Skills
2 8 (25.81%) Social Skills
3 4 (12.90%) Banking
3 4 (12.90%) Finance
4 1 (3.23%) Automotive
4 1 (3.23%) Influencing Skills
4 1 (3.23%) Law
4 1 (3.23%) Manufacturing
4 1 (3.23%) Police
4 1 (3.23%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 14 (45.16%) Analyst
2 12 (38.71%) Test Analyst
3 5 (16.13%) Infrastructure Analyst
3 5 (16.13%) Infrastructure Test Analyst
3 5 (16.13%) Tester
4 4 (12.90%) DV Cleared Test Analyst
4 4 (12.90%) Senior
4 4 (12.90%) Software Engineer
5 3 (9.68%) Lead
5 3 (9.68%) Test Leader
6 2 (6.45%) Automation Tester
6 2 (6.45%) Principal Engineer
6 2 (6.45%) Principal Software Engineer
6 2 (6.45%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
6 2 (6.45%) SC Cleared Test Analyst
6 2 (6.45%) Senior Automation Tester
6 2 (6.45%) Senior Software Engineer
6 2 (6.45%) Senior Tester
6 2 (6.45%) Test Engineer
6 2 (6.45%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (9.68%) ADO
1 3 (9.68%) Playwright
2 2 (6.45%) Flask
2 2 (6.45%) pytest
3 1 (3.23%) .NET
3 1 (3.23%) .NET Framework
3 1 (3.23%) ebXML
3 1 (3.23%) Gherkin
3 1 (3.23%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 3 (9.68%) Embedded Systems
2 1 (3.23%) Analytical Mindset
2 1 (3.23%) Data Centre
2 1 (3.23%) PMI
2 1 (3.23%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 7 (22.58%) Windows
2 6 (19.35%) Linux
3 1 (3.23%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (74.19%) Agile
2 14 (45.16%) Software Testing
2 14 (45.16%) Test Automation
3 12 (38.71%) DevOps
4 10 (32.26%) Test Management
5 9 (29.03%) CI/CD
6 8 (25.81%) Defect Management
6 8 (25.81%) Problem-Solving
6 8 (25.81%) Scaled Agile Framework
6 8 (25.81%) User Acceptance Testing
7 7 (22.58%) Test Scripting
8 6 (19.35%) SDLC
8 6 (19.35%) Software Engineering
8 6 (19.35%) System Integration Testing
8 6 (19.35%) Test Strategy
9 5 (16.13%) Acceptance Criteria
9 5 (16.13%) Continuous Improvement
9 5 (16.13%) End-to-End Testing
9 5 (16.13%) Non-Functional Testing
9 5 (16.13%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 9 (29.03%) SQL
2 8 (25.81%) Python
3 4 (12.90%) Java
3 4 (12.90%) VB
4 3 (9.68%) C++
4 3 (9.68%) PL/SQL
5 2 (6.45%) JavaScript
6 1 (3.23%) C
6 1 (3.23%) C#
6 1 (3.23%) VB6
Qualifications
1 31 (100.00%) ISTQB
2 16 (51.61%) Security Cleared
3 9 (29.03%) SC Cleared
4 6 (19.35%) DV Cleared
5 4 (12.90%) ISEB
6 3 (9.68%) Degree
6 3 (9.68%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 2 (6.45%) IIBA
7 2 (6.45%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 1 (3.23%) Azure Certification
8 1 (3.23%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (3.23%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (25.81%) QA
2 2 (6.45%) ISO 15022
2 2 (6.45%) ISO 20022
2 2 (6.45%) SLA
3 1 (3.23%) Accessibility
System Software
1 2 (6.45%) Docker
2 1 (3.23%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 4 (12.90%) HP ALM
2 3 (9.68%) Kubernetes
3 2 (6.45%) HP Quality Center
Vendors
1 4 (12.90%) HP
1 4 (12.90%) Oracle
2 3 (9.68%) Microsoft
3 2 (6.45%) IBM
3 2 (6.45%) SAP
4 1 (3.23%) Actian
4 1 (3.23%) Citrix
4 1 (3.23%) Remedy
4 1 (3.23%) Sage
4 1 (3.23%) Salesforce