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 4 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 596 496 499
Rank change year-on-year -100 +3 +50
Contract jobs citing ISTQB Foundation Certification 50 26 33
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.11% 0.093% 0.10%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.34% 0.29% 0.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 35 24 25
10th Percentile £316 £308 £309
25th Percentile £388 £344 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £406 £513
Median % change year-on-year +26.68% -20.83% -5.53%
75th Percentile £575 £450 £575
90th Percentile £604 £538 -
UK median daily rate £514 £406 £494
% change year-on-year +26.68% -17.82% -5.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 0
10th Percentile £63.45 - -
25th Percentile £67.41 - -
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 14,874 8,948 9,646
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.11% 31.87% 29.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,921 5,677 5,862
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £447 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £734
UK median daily rate £530 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,272 739 533
10th Percentile £17.63 £17.87 £18.54
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.00
Median hourly rate £50.74 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +101.76% -52.10% -
75th Percentile £73.46 £43.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £72.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £45.20 £25.15 £48.18
% change year-on-year +79.72% -47.80% -10.08%

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 4 October 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 4 October 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 -52 18 £550 +22.22% 3
Midlands -31 13 £391 +7.85% 4
West Midlands -33 13 £391 +7.85% 3
London -83 10 £525 +31.25% 11
South West -31 5 £550 +57.14% 5
East of England -18 3 - - 1
North of England - 3 £358 - 3
Yorkshire - 3 £358 - 1
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 6 (12.00%) SharePoint
2 4 (8.00%) WebLogic
3 2 (4.00%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 3 (6.00%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (6.00%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (2.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (10.00%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (6.00%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (2.00%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (2.00%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 10 (20.00%) Azure
1 10 (20.00%) Azure DevOps
2 5 (10.00%) AWS
3 4 (8.00%) Tricentis Tosca
4 3 (6.00%) Dynamics 365
4 3 (6.00%) Power Automate
5 2 (4.00%) OpenShift
6 1 (2.00%) SaaS
6 1 (2.00%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.00%) Firewall
1 1 (2.00%) LAN
1 1 (2.00%) SD-WAN
1 1 (2.00%) WAN
1 1 (2.00%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (6.00%) Data Warehouse
1 3 (6.00%) SQL Server
2 2 (4.00%) Oracle Database
2 2 (4.00%) Tableau
3 1 (2.00%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 17 (34.00%) JIRA
2 14 (28.00%) Postman
3 7 (14.00%) Selenium
4 6 (12.00%) Git
5 5 (10.00%) REST Assured
6 4 (8.00%) Cucumber
6 4 (8.00%) Jenkins
6 4 (8.00%) Toad
6 4 (8.00%) WebDriver
6 4 (8.00%) Zephyr
7 3 (6.00%) Cypress.io
7 3 (6.00%) Protractor
7 3 (6.00%) SoapUI
8 2 (4.00%) eggPlant
8 2 (4.00%) HP UFT
8 2 (4.00%) JMeter
8 2 (4.00%) LoadRunner
8 2 (4.00%) SonarQube
9 1 (2.00%) GitLab
9 1 (2.00%) Maven
General
1 17 (34.00%) Analytical Skills
1 17 (34.00%) Social Skills
2 13 (26.00%) Public Sector
3 12 (24.00%) Finance
4 4 (8.00%) Banking
5 3 (6.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (2.00%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 21 (42.00%) Analyst
2 15 (30.00%) Test Analyst
3 10 (20.00%) Senior
4 8 (16.00%) Tester
5 7 (14.00%) Test Engineer
6 6 (12.00%) Business Analyst
7 5 (10.00%) Lead
7 5 (10.00%) SAP Analyst
7 5 (10.00%) SAP Test Analyst
8 4 (8.00%) DV Cleared Test Analyst
8 4 (8.00%) Infrastructure Analyst
8 4 (8.00%) Infrastructure Test Analyst
8 4 (8.00%) Salesforce Engineer
8 4 (8.00%) Senior Analyst
9 3 (6.00%) Infrastructure Tester
9 3 (6.00%) QA Tester
9 3 (6.00%) Senior Business Analyst
9 3 (6.00%) Test Leader
9 3 (6.00%) Test Manager
10 2 (4.00%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (24.00%) XML
2 6 (12.00%) Playwright
3 5 (10.00%) Kafka
4 4 (8.00%) JSON
4 4 (8.00%) React
5 3 (6.00%) Gherkin
5 3 (6.00%) SOAP
5 3 (6.00%) XSLT
6 2 (4.00%) .NET
6 2 (4.00%) HTML
6 2 (4.00%) Middleware
6 2 (4.00%) REST
6 2 (4.00%) Web Services
6 2 (4.00%) XBRL
7 1 (2.00%) ADO
7 1 (2.00%) RFC 2544
7 1 (2.00%) XSD
Miscellaneous
1 5 (10.00%) PKI
1 5 (10.00%) Virtual Team
2 4 (8.00%) Enterprise Software
3 3 (6.00%) SWIFT Messaging Network
3 3 (6.00%) Taxonomies
4 2 (4.00%) Data Centre
4 2 (4.00%) Embedded Systems
4 2 (4.00%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (2.00%) Fibre Optics
5 1 (2.00%) IoT
5 1 (2.00%) Legacy Applications
5 1 (2.00%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (2.00%) Management Information System
5 1 (2.00%) Onboarding
5 1 (2.00%) PMI
5 1 (2.00%) Tandem
5 1 (2.00%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 16 (32.00%) Windows
2 11 (22.00%) Linux
3 4 (8.00%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 32 (64.00%) Agile
2 25 (50.00%) Test Automation
3 21 (42.00%) Software Testing
4 20 (40.00%) Defect Management
5 19 (38.00%) End-to-End Testing
5 19 (38.00%) Integration Testing
6 18 (36.00%) Test Scripting
7 17 (34.00%) DevOps
8 15 (30.00%) CI/CD
9 14 (28.00%) API Testing
9 14 (28.00%) User Acceptance Testing
10 13 (26.00%) Problem-Solving
11 12 (24.00%) Continuous Improvement
11 12 (24.00%) Stakeholder Management
11 12 (24.00%) Test Management
12 10 (20.00%) Continuous Integration
12 10 (20.00%) Scaled Agile Framework
12 10 (20.00%) Scenario Testing
12 10 (20.00%) Scrum
13 9 (18.00%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 16 (32.00%) SQL
2 14 (28.00%) Java
3 7 (14.00%) JavaScript
3 7 (14.00%) Python
4 4 (8.00%) Apex Code
5 2 (4.00%) C++
5 2 (4.00%) VB.NET
6 1 (2.00%) C#
Qualifications
1 50 (100.00%) ISTQB
2 32 (64.00%) Security Cleared
3 24 (48.00%) SC Cleared
4 17 (34.00%) ISEB
5 10 (20.00%) DV Cleared
6 9 (18.00%) Degree
7 2 (4.00%) IIBA
7 2 (4.00%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 1 (2.00%) CBAP
8 1 (2.00%) CCNA
8 1 (2.00%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (2.00%) ISEB Practitioner
8 1 (2.00%) PMI Certification
8 1 (2.00%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (14.00%) QA
2 5 (10.00%) Accessibility
2 5 (10.00%) ISO 20022
2 5 (10.00%) WCAG
3 3 (6.00%) GDPR
3 3 (6.00%) ISO 15022
System Software
1 1 (2.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (4.00%) Control-M
1 2 (4.00%) HP Fortify
2 1 (2.00%) HP ALM
2 1 (2.00%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 13 (26.00%) Oracle
2 10 (20.00%) SAP
3 6 (12.00%) Microsoft
4 4 (8.00%) Conga
4 4 (8.00%) GoCardless
4 4 (8.00%) Salesforce
4 4 (8.00%) webMethods
5 3 (6.00%) IBM
6 1 (2.00%) Cisco
6 1 (2.00%) HP
6 1 (2.00%) Workday