SDET Contracts in England

Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England requiring SDET skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited SDET over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 443 478 530
Rank change year-on-year +35 +52 +3
Contract jobs citing SDET 42 64 123
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.17% 0.17% 0.24%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.19% 0.20% 0.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 35 50 93
10th Percentile £330 £410 £458
25th Percentile £380 £425 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £500 £575
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% -13.04% +15.00%
75th Percentile £563 £575 £675
90th Percentile £655 £626 £699
UK median daily rate £431 £500 £550
% change year-on-year -13.75% -9.09% +10.00%

All Process and Methodology Skills
England

SDET falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 22,202 32,193 45,529
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 91.16% 86.56% 90.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,534 21,105 31,969
10th Percentile £310 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +2.33%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £675
90th Percentile £750 £750 £765
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 921 2,246 1,592
10th Percentile £14.42 £12.92 £10.87
25th Percentile £18.20 £16.01 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.07 £36.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.25% -4.00% +53.06%
75th Percentile £63.75 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
% change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%

SDET
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings citing SDET as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for SDET in England

SDET
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing SDET in England.

Daily rate trend for SDET in England

SDET
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SDET in England over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SDET in England

SDET
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing SDET in England.

Hourly rate trend for SDET in England

SDET
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 SDET within the England region over the 6 months to 1 May 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 +29 35 £438 -12.50% 28
South West - 2 £230 - 3
Midlands +21 1 £413 - 1
West Midlands +13 1 £413 -
SDET
UK

SDET
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 4 (9.52%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 10 (23.81%) AWS
1 10 (23.81%) Azure
2 7 (16.67%) Azure DevOps
3 2 (4.76%) GitHub
4 1 (2.38%) BlazeMeter
4 1 (2.38%) BrowserStack
4 1 (2.38%) Cloud Computing
4 1 (2.38%) GCP
4 1 (2.38%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.38%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.38%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 23 (54.76%) Selenium
2 19 (45.24%) Jenkins
3 9 (21.43%) Cucumber
4 7 (16.67%) Git
4 7 (16.67%) JMeter
4 7 (16.67%) REST Assured
5 6 (14.29%) Appium
5 6 (14.29%) GitLab
5 6 (14.29%) JIRA
5 6 (14.29%) Postman
5 6 (14.29%) SpecFlow
6 5 (11.90%) WebDriver
7 4 (9.52%) CircleCI
7 4 (9.52%) Cypress.io
7 4 (9.52%) Gatling
7 4 (9.52%) NeoLoad
8 2 (4.76%) SoapUI
8 2 (4.76%) TestRail
9 1 (2.38%) TestComplete
9 1 (2.38%) WebStorm
General
1 12 (28.57%) Social Skills
2 9 (21.43%) Public Sector
3 8 (19.05%) Finance
4 5 (11.90%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (7.14%) Manufacturing
6 2 (4.76%) Electronics
6 2 (4.76%) Marketing
6 2 (4.76%) Telecoms
7 1 (2.38%) Automotive
7 1 (2.38%) Banking
7 1 (2.38%) Games
7 1 (2.38%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (2.38%) Retail
Job Titles
1 16 (38.10%) Test Engineer
2 13 (30.95%) Developer
2 13 (30.95%) Software Developer
3 11 (26.19%) Developer in Test
4 7 (16.67%) Software Engineer
5 6 (14.29%) Development Engineer
5 6 (14.29%) Software Development Engineer
5 6 (14.29%) Test Development Engineer
6 5 (11.90%) Test Automation Engineer
7 4 (9.52%) Python Engineer
7 4 (9.52%) Senior
7 4 (9.52%) Senior Test Engineer
7 4 (9.52%) Software Test Engineer
8 1 (2.38%) Automation Engineer
8 1 (2.38%) Automation Tester
8 1 (2.38%) Implementation Engineer
8 1 (2.38%) Python Developer
8 1 (2.38%) QA Engineer
8 1 (2.38%) Senior Implementation Engineer
8 1 (2.38%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (28.57%) REST
2 11 (26.19%) Playwright
3 6 (14.29%) pytest
4 5 (11.90%) Gherkin
5 4 (9.52%) CSS
5 4 (9.52%) HTML
5 4 (9.52%) Play Framework
6 3 (7.14%) .NET
6 3 (7.14%) JSON
7 2 (4.76%) Kafka
7 2 (4.76%) Web Services
8 1 (2.38%) Pandas
8 1 (2.38%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 2 (4.76%) Data Structures
2 1 (2.38%) Life Science
2 1 (2.38%) Mobile App
2 1 (2.38%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 3 (7.14%) Linux
2 2 (4.76%) Windows
3 1 (2.38%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (92.86%) Test Automation
2 27 (64.29%) CI/CD
3 22 (52.38%) Software Testing
4 15 (35.71%) Agile
5 11 (26.19%) Test Scripting
6 10 (23.81%) Performance Testing
7 9 (21.43%) API Testing
7 9 (21.43%) BDD
7 9 (21.43%) Scrum
8 7 (16.67%) DevOps
8 7 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
9 6 (14.29%) Integration Testing
9 6 (14.29%) SDLC
9 6 (14.29%) Stakeholder Management
10 5 (11.90%) Microservices
10 5 (11.90%) TDD
11 4 (9.52%) Analytics
11 4 (9.52%) Continuous Improvement
11 4 (9.52%) Defect Management
11 4 (9.52%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 17 (40.48%) Python
2 15 (35.71%) Java
3 11 (26.19%) JavaScript
4 8 (19.05%) C#
5 7 (16.67%) TypeScript
6 6 (14.29%) C++
7 4 (9.52%) PHP
7 4 (9.52%) Ruby
7 4 (9.52%) Scala
8 3 (7.14%) SQL
9 2 (4.76%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 11 (26.19%) Security Cleared
2 10 (23.81%) SC Cleared
3 1 (2.38%) Computer Science Degree
3 1 (2.38%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (40.48%) QA
2 2 (4.76%) Accessibility
3 1 (2.38%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 2 (4.76%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (4.76%) Ansible
1 2 (4.76%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 2 (4.76%) Microsoft
1 2 (4.76%) SAP
2 1 (2.38%) Hitachi