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 10 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 501 478 540
Rank change year-on-year -23 +62 +142
Contract jobs citing ISTQB Foundation Certification 25 32 47
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.085% 0.10% 0.12%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.26% 0.35% 0.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 22 25 28
10th Percentile £328 £306 £313
25th Percentile £356 £350 £391
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £369 £513 £535
Median % change year-on-year -28.05% -4.21% +18.89%
75th Percentile £531 £575 £613
90th Percentile £718 - £625
UK median daily rate £425 £494 £438
% change year-on-year -13.92% +12.86% -2.78%
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 - - +137.43%

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 9,759 9,171 11,789
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.09% 29.73% 29.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,294 5,621 7,541
10th Percentile £300 £313 £306
25th Percentile £419 £425 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £529 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.76% -3.82% -
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £716 £733 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 847 415 712
10th Percentile £17.69 £20.17 £17.72
25th Percentile £18.87 £27.00 £26.24
Median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -49.70% -4.76% +16.67%
75th Percentile £45.46 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £79.98
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year -44.11% -14.29% +16.67%

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 10 November 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 10 November 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 +22 14 £445 -6.32% 3
South East -17 5 £375 -31.82% 2
South West - 4 £350 - 8
West Midlands - 3 £360 - 7
Midlands - 3 £360 - 7
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 (20.00%) Confluence
2 4 (16.00%) WebLogic
Applications
1 3 (12.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (8.00%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (4.00%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (4.00%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (4.00%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (8.00%) Maximo
2 1 (4.00%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 9 (36.00%) Azure
2 7 (28.00%) Azure DevOps
3 5 (20.00%) AWS
3 5 (20.00%) Power Platform
3 5 (20.00%) Tricentis Tosca
4 4 (16.00%) GitHub
5 3 (12.00%) Dynamics 365
6 2 (8.00%) Azure Functions
6 2 (8.00%) Azure Logic Apps
6 2 (8.00%) Azure Service Bus
6 2 (8.00%) Serverless
7 1 (4.00%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (4.00%) GCP
7 1 (4.00%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 2 (8.00%) DNS
1 2 (8.00%) LAN
1 2 (8.00%) VoIP
1 2 (8.00%) Wi-Fi
2 1 (4.00%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (8.00%) Power BI
2 1 (4.00%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
2 1 (4.00%) Relational Database
2 1 (4.00%) SAP BW
2 1 (4.00%) SQL Server
2 1 (4.00%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 13 (52.00%) JIRA
2 12 (48.00%) Selenium
3 5 (20.00%) Jenkins
3 5 (20.00%) JMeter
4 4 (16.00%) Cucumber
4 4 (16.00%) JUnit
4 4 (16.00%) Toad
5 3 (12.00%) Cypress.io
5 3 (12.00%) MSTest
5 3 (12.00%) Postman
5 3 (12.00%) Visual Studio
6 2 (8.00%) Locust
6 2 (8.00%) TestRail
7 1 (4.00%) Appium
7 1 (4.00%) ClearCase
7 1 (4.00%) Git
7 1 (4.00%) GitLab
7 1 (4.00%) HP UFT
7 1 (4.00%) Katalon Studio
7 1 (4.00%) SoapUI
General
1 5 (20.00%) Social Skills
2 4 (16.00%) Public Sector
3 3 (12.00%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (12.00%) Documentation Skills
4 2 (8.00%) Finance
5 1 (4.00%) Banking
Job Titles
1 8 (32.00%) Tester
2 7 (28.00%) Analyst
2 7 (28.00%) Test Analyst
3 5 (20.00%) Lead
3 5 (20.00%) QA Engineer
3 5 (20.00%) Senior
3 5 (20.00%) Test Leader
4 4 (16.00%) Automation Tester
4 4 (16.00%) Senior Automation Tester
4 4 (16.00%) Senior Tester
5 3 (12.00%) SAP Analyst
5 3 (12.00%) SAP Test Analyst
6 2 (8.00%) Lead Test Analyst
7 1 (4.00%) Integration Consultant
7 1 (4.00%) Integration Tester
7 1 (4.00%) Manual Tester
7 1 (4.00%) Salesforce Consultant
7 1 (4.00%) SAP Tester
7 1 (4.00%) Software Tester
7 1 (4.00%) Test Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (44.00%) XML
2 6 (24.00%) REST
3 5 (20.00%) SOAP
4 4 (16.00%) JSON
4 4 (16.00%) Web Services
5 2 (8.00%) OpenAPI
5 2 (8.00%) Playwright
5 2 (8.00%) Swagger
6 1 (4.00%) SAP Fiori
6 1 (4.00%) WebdriverIO
6 1 (4.00%) XML Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 2 (8.00%) Distributed Systems
2 1 (4.00%) Data Structures
2 1 (4.00%) Mobile App
2 1 (4.00%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 6 (24.00%) Unix
2 5 (20.00%) Linux
2 5 (20.00%) Windows
3 2 (8.00%) Android
3 2 (8.00%) Apple iOS
3 2 (8.00%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (76.00%) Test Automation
2 15 (60.00%) Agile
3 12 (48.00%) DevOps
4 9 (36.00%) Test Scripting
5 8 (32.00%) CI/CD
5 8 (32.00%) Continuous Improvement
5 8 (32.00%) Defect Management
6 7 (28.00%) Regression Testing
7 6 (24.00%) Integration Testing
7 6 (24.00%) Software Testing
7 6 (24.00%) Test Strategy
7 6 (24.00%) Validation
8 5 (20.00%) BDD
8 5 (20.00%) Non-Functional Testing
8 5 (20.00%) System Integration Testing
8 5 (20.00%) TDD
8 5 (20.00%) User Acceptance Testing
9 4 (16.00%) Acceptance Criteria
9 4 (16.00%) Customer Requirements
9 4 (16.00%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 15 (60.00%) SQL
2 11 (44.00%) Java
3 4 (16.00%) Python
4 3 (12.00%) JavaScript
5 2 (8.00%) C#
6 1 (4.00%) C
6 1 (4.00%) PL/SQL
6 1 (4.00%) VB
Qualifications
1 24 (96.00%) ISTQB
2 9 (36.00%) Security Cleared
3 8 (32.00%) SC Cleared
4 6 (24.00%) ISEB
5 5 (20.00%) Degree
6 4 (16.00%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (4.00%) Azure Certification
7 1 (4.00%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (4.00%) DV Cleared
7 1 (4.00%) ISEB Practitioner
7 1 (4.00%) Master's Degree
7 1 (4.00%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (44.00%) QA
2 2 (8.00%) Accessibility
2 2 (8.00%) GDPR
3 1 (4.00%) HMG Security Policy Framework
3 1 (4.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 3 (12.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (8.00%) HP ALM
2 1 (4.00%) HP Quality Center
2 1 (4.00%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 5 (20.00%) SAP
1 5 (20.00%) webMethods
2 3 (12.00%) HP
2 3 (12.00%) Oracle
3 2 (8.00%) IBM
3 2 (8.00%) Salesforce
4 1 (4.00%) Compaq
4 1 (4.00%) Microsoft
4 1 (4.00%) Terracotta