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 19 September 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 491 492 559
Rank change year-on-year +1 +67 +115
Contract jobs citing ISTQB Foundation Certification 28 34 44
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.10% 0.10% 0.10%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.32% 0.35% 0.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 24 26 29
10th Percentile £302 £350 £313
25th Percentile £325 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £406 £531 £535
Median % change year-on-year -23.62% -0.70% +22.43%
75th Percentile £450 £575 £613
90th Percentile £523 £589 £638
UK median daily rate £406 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -20.83% -2.38% +16.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 3
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £23.43
Median hourly rate - - £23.86
75th Percentile - - £44.64
90th Percentile - - £56.86
UK median hourly rate - - £23.86
% change year-on-year - - +44.58%

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 8,770 9,798 12,087
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.53% 29.74% 28.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,582 6,037 7,799
10th Percentile £301 £325 £325
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £715 £738 £743
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 691 572 672
10th Percentile £18.13 £17.51 £16.32
25th Percentile £18.87 £27.00 £24.04
Median hourly rate £25.15 £54.00 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year -53.43% - +20.00%
75th Percentile £47.31 £70.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £73.75 £80.00 £78.36
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £49.00 £54.00
% change year-on-year -48.67% -9.26% +20.00%

ISTQB Foundation Certification
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings citing ISTQB Foundation Certification as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for ISTQB Foundation Certification 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 19 September 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 19 September 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 +9 15 £450 -18.18% 2
London +4 6 £400 -15.79% 5
South West - 5 £350 - 3
East of England 0 1 £313 -
West Midlands - 1 £363 - 2
Midlands - 1 £363 - 2
ISTQB Foundation Certification
UK

ISTQB Foundation Certification
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 1 (3.57%) Confluence
1 1 (3.57%) WebLogic
Applications
1 2 (7.14%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (7.14%) Spreadsheet
2 1 (3.57%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (3.57%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (7.14%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 4 (14.29%) Azure
2 3 (10.71%) Azure DevOps
3 2 (7.14%) AWS
3 2 (7.14%) Azure Functions
3 2 (7.14%) Azure Logic Apps
3 2 (7.14%) Azure Service Bus
3 2 (7.14%) Power Platform
3 2 (7.14%) Serverless
4 1 (3.57%) Azure Monitor
4 1 (3.57%) GitHub
4 1 (3.57%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 13 (46.43%) LAN
2 11 (39.29%) WAN
3 10 (35.71%) ATM
3 10 (35.71%) Ethernet
3 10 (35.71%) Frame Relay
3 10 (35.71%) GPRS
3 10 (35.71%) GSM
3 10 (35.71%) LTE
3 10 (35.71%) MPLS
3 10 (35.71%) SAN
3 10 (35.71%) SDH
3 10 (35.71%) UMTS
3 10 (35.71%) VPN
3 10 (35.71%) Wireshark
4 2 (7.14%) DNS
4 2 (7.14%) VoIP
4 2 (7.14%) Wi-Fi
5 1 (3.57%) Firewall
5 1 (3.57%) Unified Communications
5 1 (3.57%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (7.14%) Power BI
2 1 (3.57%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 5 (17.86%) Selenium
2 4 (14.29%) JIRA
3 3 (10.71%) TestRail
4 2 (7.14%) Cucumber
4 2 (7.14%) Jenkins
4 2 (7.14%) JMeter
4 2 (7.14%) JUnit
4 2 (7.14%) Locust
4 2 (7.14%) Postman
4 2 (7.14%) Visual Studio
5 1 (3.57%) ClearCase
5 1 (3.57%) Git
5 1 (3.57%) GitLab
5 1 (3.57%) HP UFT
5 1 (3.57%) Katalon Studio
5 1 (3.57%) SoapUI
5 1 (3.57%) SpecFlow
General
1 15 (53.57%) Social Skills
2 11 (39.29%) Telecoms
3 4 (14.29%) Analytical Skills
3 4 (14.29%) Documentation Skills
3 4 (14.29%) Public Sector
4 3 (10.71%) Finance
5 1 (3.57%) Games
Job Titles
1 10 (35.71%) Test Engineer
2 9 (32.14%) IP Engineer
3 7 (25.00%) Analyst
3 7 (25.00%) Test Analyst
4 5 (17.86%) IP Network Engineer
4 5 (17.86%) Network Engineer
5 4 (14.29%) Tester
6 3 (10.71%) Consultant
7 2 (7.14%) IP Consultant
7 2 (7.14%) IP Network Consultant
7 2 (7.14%) Lead
7 2 (7.14%) Lead Test Analyst
7 2 (7.14%) Manual Tester
7 2 (7.14%) Network Consultant
7 2 (7.14%) Senior
7 2 (7.14%) Test Leader
7 2 (7.14%) Test Manager
8 1 (3.57%) Senior Architect
8 1 (3.57%) Senior Test Architect
8 1 (3.57%) Test Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (10.71%) REST
1 3 (10.71%) XML
2 2 (7.14%) OpenAPI
2 2 (7.14%) SOAP
2 2 (7.14%) Swagger
3 1 (3.57%) .NET
3 1 (3.57%) JSON
3 1 (3.57%) Playwright
3 1 (3.57%) RESTful
3 1 (3.57%) Web Services
3 1 (3.57%) XML Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 10 (35.71%) Self-Motivation
2 2 (7.14%) Distributed Systems
3 1 (3.57%) Analytical Mindset
3 1 (3.57%) Data Structures
3 1 (3.57%) Mainframe
3 1 (3.57%) Management Information System
3 1 (3.57%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 13 (46.43%) Unix
2 12 (42.86%) Linux
3 2 (7.14%) Android
3 2 (7.14%) Apple iOS
3 2 (7.14%) Mac OS
3 2 (7.14%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (60.71%) Test Strategy
2 13 (46.43%) Regression Testing
3 12 (42.86%) Problem-Solving
4 10 (35.71%) Agile
4 10 (35.71%) Fault Management
4 10 (35.71%) Project Management
5 8 (28.57%) Test Automation
6 7 (25.00%) User Acceptance Testing
7 6 (21.43%) Software Testing
7 6 (21.43%) System Integration Testing
7 6 (21.43%) Test Scripting
8 5 (17.86%) CI/CD
8 5 (17.86%) Defect Management
8 5 (17.86%) DevOps
8 5 (17.86%) Integration Testing
9 4 (14.29%) Non-Functional Testing
9 4 (14.29%) Use Case
10 3 (10.71%) BDD
10 3 (10.71%) Continuous Improvement
10 3 (10.71%) Manual Testing
Programming Languages
1 13 (46.43%) Java
2 3 (10.71%) SQL
3 1 (3.57%) C#
Qualifications
1 26 (92.86%) ISTQB
2 12 (42.86%) ISEB
3 10 (35.71%) CCNP
3 10 (35.71%) Cisco Certification
4 8 (28.57%) Security Cleared
5 5 (17.86%) SC Cleared
6 4 (14.29%) DV Cleared
7 2 (7.14%) Degree
8 1 (3.57%) Azure Certification
8 1 (3.57%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (3.57%) ISEB Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (21.43%) QA
2 2 (7.14%) Accessibility
2 2 (7.14%) GDPR
Vendors
1 11 (39.29%) Cisco
1 11 (39.29%) Microsoft
2 10 (35.71%) Juniper
3 2 (7.14%) IBM
3 2 (7.14%) Salesforce
4 1 (3.57%) Compaq
4 1 (3.57%) Genesys
4 1 (3.57%) HP
4 1 (3.57%) Mitel
4 1 (3.57%) Terracotta
4 1 (3.57%) webMethods