Software Testing Contract Job Trends in England

Software Testing
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Software Testing skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 7 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 233 201 172
Rank change year-on-year -32 -29 +7
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 389 337 534
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.17% 1.29% 1.39%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.33% 1.43% 1.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 256 200 356
10th Percentile £325 £313 £250
25th Percentile £381 £394 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £478
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -0.52% -9.05%
75th Percentile £538 £618 £600
90th Percentile £600 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £446 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -6.11% - -8.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 16 87
10th Percentile £26.25 £57.44 £43.33
25th Percentile £50.00 £62.19 £55.63
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +30.00%
75th Percentile £67.25 £76.44 -
90th Percentile £68.75 £80.75 £67.81
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +34.94%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

Software Testing 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 29,172 23,495 33,456
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 87.59% 89.70% 87.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,676 14,439 22,381
10th Percentile £306 £310 £300
25th Percentile £410 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £617 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,836 743 1,976
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £13.41
25th Percentile £17.88 £21.00 £16.72
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% - -
75th Percentile £60.00 £64.50 £61.78
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +7.69%

Software Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Software Testing relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Software Testing job vacancy trend in England

Software Testing
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Software Testing.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Software Testing

Software Testing
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Testing in England over the 6 months to 7 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Software Testing in England

Software Testing
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Software Testing.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Software Testing

Software Testing
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Testing in England over the 6 months to 7 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Testing in England

Software Testing
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 Software Testing within the England region over the 6 months to 7 February 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 -20 155 £450 -5.66% 62
South East -21 64 £460 -23.33% 76
North of England -59 51 £407 +1.12% 52
South West +6 43 £447 +11.75% 26
Midlands -26 43 £500 +14.55% 50
West Midlands -23 36 £500 +14.55% 31
Yorkshire -42 28 £488 +19.56% 17
East of England -18 19 £598 +29.19% 25
North West -46 15 £405 +1.25% 35
North East - 8 £350 -
East Midlands -24 7 £313 - 19
Software Testing
UK

Software Testing
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 21 (5.40%) Confluence
2 13 (3.34%) SAS
3 6 (1.54%) SharePoint
4 5 (1.29%) Microsoft Exchange
5 4 (1.03%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.77%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.77%) SharePoint Server
7 2 (0.51%) Apache
7 2 (0.51%) JBoss
7 2 (0.51%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.26%) CMS
8 1 (0.26%) WebSphere
Applications
1 11 (2.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (2.31%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.51%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.26%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 2 (0.51%) Aladdin
1 2 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.51%) Dynamics NAV
1 2 (0.51%) LabWindows
1 2 (0.51%) Maximo
1 2 (0.51%) Oracle EBS R12
1 2 (0.51%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (0.26%) Algo Collateral
2 1 (0.26%) CODA-Financials
2 1 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
Cloud Services
1 121 (31.11%) Azure
2 79 (20.31%) Azure DevOps
3 70 (17.99%) AWS
4 33 (8.48%) GitHub
5 30 (7.71%) GCP
6 21 (5.40%) Amazon S3
7 19 (4.88%) GitHub Actions
8 18 (4.63%) AWS Lambda
8 18 (4.63%) Serverless
9 12 (3.08%) Amazon ECS
10 11 (2.83%) AWS CloudFormation
11 9 (2.31%) Snowflake
12 8 (2.06%) Power Platform
13 6 (1.54%) Entra ID
14 5 (1.29%) Dynamics 365
14 5 (1.29%) OpenShift
15 4 (1.03%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 4 (1.03%) Cloud Computing
15 4 (1.03%) SaaS
16 3 (0.77%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.54%) Ethernet
2 4 (1.03%) DNS
2 4 (1.03%) Firewall
3 3 (0.77%) Internet
3 3 (0.77%) Skype
3 3 (0.77%) SNMP
3 3 (0.77%) Wireshark
4 2 (0.51%) Cisco IOS
4 2 (0.51%) FTP
4 2 (0.51%) Intranet
4 2 (0.51%) IOS XR
4 2 (0.51%) SD-WAN
4 2 (0.51%) Spanning Tree
4 2 (0.51%) SSH
4 2 (0.51%) SSL
4 2 (0.51%) TACACS
4 2 (0.51%) TCP/IP
4 2 (0.51%) Wireless
5 1 (0.26%) Broadband
5 1 (0.26%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (8.23%) PostgreSQL
2 21 (5.40%) SQL Server
3 19 (4.88%) NoSQL
4 16 (4.11%) MongoDB
5 14 (3.60%) Relational Database
6 13 (3.34%) Oracle Database
6 13 (3.34%) SAS Enterprise Guide
7 12 (3.08%) MySQL
8 11 (2.83%) BigQuery
9 6 (1.54%) Apache Cassandra
10 5 (1.29%) Big Data
10 5 (1.29%) Couchbase
10 5 (1.29%) Power BI
11 4 (1.03%) Amazon Redshift
11 4 (1.03%) Data Warehouse
11 4 (1.03%) Redis
12 3 (0.77%) Metadata
13 2 (0.51%) DynamoDB
13 2 (0.51%) Pinecone
13 2 (0.51%) SAS Visual Analytics
Development Applications
1 60 (15.42%) Selenium
2 59 (15.17%) JIRA
3 45 (11.57%) Git
4 40 (10.28%) Postman
5 37 (9.51%) Jenkins
6 35 (9.00%) Cucumber
7 29 (7.46%) Cypress.io
8 24 (6.17%) REST Assured
9 20 (5.14%) GitLab
10 19 (4.88%) JUnit
11 11 (2.83%) JMeter
12 10 (2.57%) WebDriver
13 9 (2.31%) TestRail
14 7 (1.80%) Maven
15 6 (1.54%) HP UFT
15 6 (1.54%) Rational DOORS
15 6 (1.54%) Rational Rhapsody
16 5 (1.29%) Gradle
17 4 (1.03%) Bitbucket
17 4 (1.03%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 118 (30.33%) Social Skills
2 61 (15.68%) Analytical Skills
3 59 (15.17%) Finance
4 51 (13.11%) Public Sector
5 18 (4.63%) Banking
6 12 (3.08%) Aerospace
7 10 (2.57%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (2.57%) Military
8 9 (2.31%) Influencing Skills
8 9 (2.31%) Manufacturing
9 7 (1.80%) Investment Banking
9 7 (1.80%) Telecoms
10 6 (1.54%) Automotive
10 6 (1.54%) Front Office
10 6 (1.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (1.29%) Electronics
12 4 (1.03%) Multimedia
12 4 (1.03%) Organisational Skills
12 4 (1.03%) Pharmaceutical
13 3 (0.77%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 64 (16.45%) Senior
2 51 (13.11%) Developer
3 47 (12.08%) Software Engineer
4 44 (11.31%) Analyst
5 38 (9.77%) Test Analyst
6 36 (9.25%) Test Engineer
7 33 (8.48%) Lead
7 33 (8.48%) Tester
8 25 (6.43%) Consultant
9 20 (5.14%) Java Engineer
10 16 (4.11%) QA Engineer
10 16 (4.11%) Senior Analyst
10 16 (4.11%) Senior Test Analyst
10 16 (4.11%) Test Manager
11 14 (3.60%) Java Developer
11 14 (3.60%) Senior Developer
12 13 (3.34%) QA Leader
12 13 (3.34%) Release Manager
13 12 (3.08%) Test Leader
14 10 (2.57%) Systems Integration Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (9.77%) Playwright
2 36 (9.25%) React
2 36 (9.25%) Spring
3 35 (9.00%) .NET
4 32 (8.23%) RESTful
5 31 (7.97%) Spring Boot
6 27 (6.94%) Node.js
7 26 (6.68%) REST
8 19 (4.88%) HTML
9 18 (4.63%) Kafka
10 16 (4.11%) CSS
11 11 (2.83%) Middleware
12 8 (2.06%) Gherkin
12 8 (2.06%) pytest
12 8 (2.06%) RabbitMQ
13 7 (1.80%) .NET Framework
13 7 (1.80%) AngularJS
13 7 (1.80%) Apache NiFi
13 7 (1.80%) HTML5
13 7 (1.80%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 28 (7.20%) Product Ownership
2 22 (5.66%) Cloud Native
3 18 (4.63%) Self-Motivation
4 11 (2.83%) Distributed Systems
4 11 (2.83%) Enterprise Software
5 6 (1.54%) CUDA
5 6 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
5 6 (1.54%) Mobile App
5 6 (1.54%) Virtual Team
6 5 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (1.29%) Greenfield Project
7 4 (1.03%) NHS
7 4 (1.03%) PCIe
7 4 (1.03%) Virtual Reality
8 3 (0.77%) Data Structures
8 3 (0.77%) Derivative
8 3 (0.77%) Fixed Income
8 3 (0.77%) Management Information System
8 3 (0.77%) PKI
8 3 (0.77%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 36 (9.25%) Windows
2 27 (6.94%) Linux
3 8 (2.06%) Unix
4 5 (1.29%) Mac OS
5 4 (1.03%) FreeRTOS
6 3 (0.77%) Windows 10
6 3 (0.77%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.77%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (0.51%) Android
8 1 (0.26%) Kali Linux
8 1 (0.26%) Mac OS X
8 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.26%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 172 (44.22%) Test Automation
2 145 (37.28%) Agile
3 134 (34.45%) CI/CD
4 127 (32.65%) DevOps
5 102 (26.22%) Problem-Solving
6 85 (21.85%) Test Scripting
7 82 (21.08%) Continuous Improvement
8 73 (18.77%) Software Engineering
9 64 (16.45%) Validation
10 58 (14.91%) Microservices
11 57 (14.65%) Test Strategy
12 48 (12.34%) API Testing
12 48 (12.34%) Test Management
13 47 (12.08%) Containerisation
14 45 (11.57%) Scrum
14 45 (11.57%) TDD
15 40 (10.28%) Defect Tracking
16 39 (10.03%) AI
17 38 (9.77%) Manual Testing
18 37 (9.51%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 85 (21.85%) Java
2 77 (19.79%) Python
3 70 (17.99%) SQL
4 57 (14.65%) JavaScript
5 36 (9.25%) TypeScript
6 35 (9.00%) C#
7 16 (4.11%) C++
8 11 (2.83%) C
9 10 (2.57%) Bash
9 10 (2.57%) Go
10 9 (2.31%) PL/SQL
10 9 (2.31%) Shell Script
11 6 (1.54%) Ada
12 5 (1.29%) Scala
12 5 (1.29%) VBScript
13 4 (1.03%) PowerShell
13 4 (1.03%) VB
14 3 (0.77%) Embedded C
14 3 (0.77%) Groovy
14 3 (0.77%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 113 (29.05%) Security Cleared
2 95 (24.42%) SC Cleared
3 43 (11.05%) Degree
4 30 (7.71%) ISTQB
5 23 (5.91%) Computer Science Degree
6 13 (3.34%) BPSS Clearance
7 10 (2.57%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 8 (2.06%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 6 (1.54%) ISEB
10 4 (1.03%) DV Cleared
10 4 (1.03%) Master's Degree
11 3 (0.77%) PMI Certification
11 3 (0.77%) PMP
12 2 (0.51%) ACCA
12 2 (0.51%) CIMA
12 2 (0.51%) Cisco Certification
12 2 (0.51%) CISSP
12 2 (0.51%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
13 1 (0.26%) CFA
13 1 (0.26%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 102 (26.22%) QA
2 28 (7.20%) Accessibility
3 8 (2.06%) WCAG
4 7 (1.80%) NIST
5 6 (1.54%) EU AI Act
6 5 (1.29%) SLA
7 4 (1.03%) Software Quality Assurance
8 3 (0.77%) Data Quality
9 2 (0.51%) PMO
10 1 (0.26%) IEC 61131
10 1 (0.26%) ISO 20022
10 1 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.26%) SEPA
System Software
1 52 (13.37%) Docker
2 8 (2.06%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (1.29%) Active Directory
3 5 (1.29%) Firmware
4 3 (0.77%) Virtual Desktop
4 3 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (0.77%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.26%) Embedded Firmware
5 1 (0.26%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 52 (13.37%) Kubernetes
2 15 (3.86%) Terraform
3 11 (2.83%) Grafana
4 10 (2.57%) HP ALM
5 7 (1.80%) Ansible
5 7 (1.80%) Prometheus
6 6 (1.54%) Puppet
7 5 (1.29%) HP Quality Center
8 4 (1.03%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (1.03%) SCCM
9 3 (0.77%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 3 (0.77%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.77%) WSUS
10 2 (0.51%) Nessus
11 1 (0.26%) Kibana
11 1 (0.26%) Nmap
11 1 (0.26%) Packer
11 1 (0.26%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.26%) Salt
11 1 (0.26%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 46 (11.83%) Microsoft
2 40 (10.28%) Oracle
3 10 (2.57%) HP
3 10 (2.57%) ServiceNow
3 10 (2.57%) Splunk
4 9 (2.31%) VMware
5 8 (2.06%) Atlassian
6 7 (1.80%) Cisco
7 6 (1.54%) Salesforce
7 6 (1.54%) SAP
8 5 (1.29%) Workday
9 4 (1.03%) Citrix
9 4 (1.03%) Remedy
10 3 (0.77%) Databricks
10 3 (0.77%) Meraki
10 3 (0.77%) Micro Focus
10 3 (0.77%) MuleSoft
10 3 (0.77%) Siemens
10 3 (0.77%) SolarWinds
10 3 (0.77%) Veeam