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 25 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 520 450 525
Rank change year-on-year -70 +75 +106
Contract jobs citing ISTQB Foundation Certification 31 37 35
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.096% 0.14% 0.093%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.28% 0.46% 0.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 27 23 24
10th Percentile £357 £306 £324
25th Percentile £362 £353 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -11.00% -9.09% +22.22%
75th Percentile £525 £575 £580
90th Percentile £680 - £619
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 3
10th Percentile - - £34.00
25th Percentile - - £38.13
Median hourly rate - - £45.00
75th Percentile - - £55.00
90th Percentile - - £61.00
UK median hourly rate - - £45.00

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 11,114 8,112 11,669
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.29% 30.43% 31.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,386 4,903 7,289
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £419 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £519 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -1.14% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 864 391 819
10th Percentile £15.78 £19.30 £14.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £25.26 £21.48
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -45.54% -2.78% +5.56%
75th Percentile £63.18 £67.50 £65.38
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.59 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £39.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year -35.51% -17.89% +5.56%

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 25 January 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 25 January 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
London -7 16 £445 -11.88% 2
South East -35 12 £500 -9.09% 4
Midlands -42 3 £360 -34.55%
West Midlands -43 3 £360 -34.55%
South West - 1 £350 - 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 5 (16.13%) Confluence
2 3 (9.68%) WebLogic
Applications
1 3 (9.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (6.45%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (3.23%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (3.23%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 10 (32.26%) Azure
2 8 (25.81%) Azure DevOps
3 5 (16.13%) Tricentis Tosca
4 4 (12.90%) AWS
4 4 (12.90%) GitHub
4 4 (12.90%) Power Platform
5 3 (9.68%) Dynamics 365
6 2 (6.45%) Azure Functions
6 2 (6.45%) Azure Logic Apps
6 2 (6.45%) Azure Service Bus
6 2 (6.45%) Serverless
7 1 (3.23%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (3.23%) GCP
7 1 (3.23%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 1 (3.23%) DNS
1 1 (3.23%) FTP
1 1 (3.23%) LAN
1 1 (3.23%) VoIP
1 1 (3.23%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (6.45%) Relational Database
2 1 (3.23%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
2 1 (3.23%) Power BI
2 1 (3.23%) SAP BW
2 1 (3.23%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 14 (45.16%) JIRA
2 12 (38.71%) Selenium
3 6 (19.35%) JMeter
4 5 (16.13%) Cypress.io
5 4 (12.90%) Cucumber
5 4 (12.90%) Jenkins
5 4 (12.90%) JUnit
5 4 (12.90%) TestRail
5 4 (12.90%) Toad
6 3 (9.68%) MSTest
6 3 (9.68%) Postman
7 2 (6.45%) Locust
7 2 (6.45%) Zephyr
8 1 (3.23%) Appium
8 1 (3.23%) HP UFT
8 1 (3.23%) Katalon Studio
8 1 (3.23%) Visual Studio
General
1 6 (19.35%) Social Skills
2 4 (12.90%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (9.68%) Banking
3 3 (9.68%) Public Sector
4 2 (6.45%) Documentation Skills
4 2 (6.45%) Finance
Job Titles
1 12 (38.71%) Analyst
1 12 (38.71%) Test Analyst
2 8 (25.81%) Tester
3 6 (19.35%) Automation Tester
3 6 (19.35%) Senior
3 6 (19.35%) Senior Automation Tester
3 6 (19.35%) Senior Tester
4 5 (16.13%) Infrastructure Analyst
4 5 (16.13%) Infrastructure Test Analyst
4 5 (16.13%) Lead
4 5 (16.13%) QA Engineer
4 5 (16.13%) Test Leader
5 4 (12.90%) DV Cleared Test Analyst
6 3 (9.68%) SAP Analyst
6 3 (9.68%) SAP Test Analyst
7 1 (3.23%) Cloud Consultant
7 1 (3.23%) Integration Tester
7 1 (3.23%) Salesforce Consultant
7 1 (3.23%) SAP Tester
7 1 (3.23%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (29.03%) XML
2 6 (19.35%) REST
3 4 (12.90%) JSON
3 4 (12.90%) Playwright
3 4 (12.90%) SOAP
4 3 (9.68%) Web Services
5 2 (6.45%) OpenAPI
5 2 (6.45%) Swagger
6 1 (3.23%) ADO
6 1 (3.23%) SAP Fiori
6 1 (3.23%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 2 (6.45%) Distributed Systems
2 1 (3.23%) Data Structures
2 1 (3.23%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 10 (32.26%) Windows
2 9 (29.03%) Linux
3 5 (16.13%) Unix
4 1 (3.23%) Android
4 1 (3.23%) Apple iOS
4 1 (3.23%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (64.52%) Test Automation
2 18 (58.06%) Agile
3 15 (48.39%) DevOps
4 12 (38.71%) CI/CD
5 10 (32.26%) Defect Management
6 9 (29.03%) Continuous Improvement
7 7 (22.58%) Non-Functional Testing
7 7 (22.58%) Test Scripting
8 6 (19.35%) Software Testing
8 6 (19.35%) Test Management
8 6 (19.35%) Validation
9 5 (16.13%) BDD
9 5 (16.13%) Regression Testing
9 5 (16.13%) Scaled Agile Framework
9 5 (16.13%) System Integration Testing
9 5 (16.13%) TDD
9 5 (16.13%) Test Strategy
10 4 (12.90%) Code Quality
10 4 (12.90%) Customer Requirements
10 4 (12.90%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 17 (54.84%) SQL
2 11 (35.48%) Java
3 6 (19.35%) Python
4 5 (16.13%) JavaScript
5 2 (6.45%) C#
5 2 (6.45%) PL/SQL
5 2 (6.45%) VB
6 1 (3.23%) C
Qualifications
1 31 (100.00%) ISTQB
2 10 (32.26%) Security Cleared
3 5 (16.13%) Degree
3 5 (16.13%) DV Cleared
3 5 (16.13%) ISEB
4 4 (12.90%) SC Cleared
5 3 (9.68%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (3.23%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (3.23%) Master's Degree
6 1 (3.23%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
6 1 (3.23%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (32.26%) QA
2 2 (6.45%) GDPR
3 1 (3.23%) Accessibility
3 1 (3.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
3 1 (3.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (3.23%) SLA
System Software
1 3 (9.68%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (9.68%) HP ALM
2 2 (6.45%) HP Quality Center
3 1 (3.23%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 6 (19.35%) SAP
2 5 (16.13%) Oracle
3 4 (12.90%) webMethods
4 3 (9.68%) HP
5 2 (6.45%) Salesforce
6 1 (3.23%) Microsoft