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 14 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 241 210 173
Rank change year-on-year -31 -37 -6
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 357 376 591
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.18% 1.20% 1.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.31% 1.39% 1.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 249 236 385
10th Percentile £325 £313 £285
25th Percentile £375 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £450 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.11% -14.29% +2.44%
75th Percentile £538 £595 £630
90th Percentile £600 £656 £700
UK median daily rate £436 £450 £515
% change year-on-year -3.06% -12.62% +0.49%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 17 89
10th Percentile £26.25 £25.15 £45.70
25th Percentile £50.00 £37.55 £48.47
Median hourly rate £63.50 £61.43 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.37% -5.49% +27.19%
75th Percentile £67.00 £62.50 -
90th Percentile £69.00 £80.75 £69.00
UK median hourly rate £63.50 £55.65 £65.00
% change year-on-year +14.11% -14.38% +30.00%

All Process and 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 27,324 27,092 35,025
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 90.37% 86.76% 88.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,372 16,558 24,038
10th Percentile £300 £313 £313
25th Percentile £405 £418 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £525 £545
Median % change year-on-year -3.43% -3.67% -0.91%
75th Percentile £625 £640 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £533
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.41% -3.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,791 983 1,478
10th Percentile £14.75 £15.10 £14.36
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.22 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £36.17 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.46% -18.73% +27.14%
75th Percentile £46.38 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £74.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £43.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -19.54% +24.29%

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 14 November 2025.

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 14 November 2025.

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 14 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 -22 114 £441 -7.11% 174
South East -10 66 £460 -3.16% 137
North of England -52 61 £405 +1.25% 58
South West +15 42 £450 -21.74% 42
Yorkshire -23 38 £443 -1.94% 13
Midlands -26 30 £508 +26.88% 34
East of England +5 27 £573 +63.57% 48
West Midlands -24 27 £515 +28.75% 14
North West -48 17 £405 +6.02% 44
North East -6 6 £350 -4.76% 1
East Midlands -17 3 £340 - 20
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 15 (4.20%) Confluence
2 13 (3.64%) SAS
3 7 (1.96%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (1.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (1.68%) SharePoint
5 4 (1.12%) JBoss
6 3 (0.84%) CICS
6 3 (0.84%) SharePoint Server
6 3 (0.84%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.56%) Apache
8 1 (0.28%) CMS
8 1 (0.28%) EPiServer
8 1 (0.28%) Tomcat
Applications
1 11 (3.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (2.52%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (1.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.56%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.56%) Dynamics NAV
1 2 (0.56%) Maximo
1 2 (0.56%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.28%) Aladdin
2 1 (0.28%) Algo Collateral
2 1 (0.28%) Cerner Millennium
2 1 (0.28%) CODA-Financials
2 1 (0.28%) SimCorp Dimension
2 1 (0.28%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 100 (28.01%) Azure
2 60 (16.81%) AWS
3 45 (12.61%) Azure DevOps
4 34 (9.52%) GCP
5 23 (6.44%) GitHub
6 16 (4.48%) GitHub Actions
7 11 (3.08%) Power Platform
8 9 (2.52%) npm
9 7 (1.96%) Dynamics 365
10 6 (1.68%) Amazon S3
10 6 (1.68%) Entra ID
10 6 (1.68%) PaaS
11 5 (1.40%) Snowflake
12 4 (1.12%) Amazon Bedrock
12 4 (1.12%) Amazon ECS
12 4 (1.12%) Cloud Computing
12 4 (1.12%) Microsoft 365
12 4 (1.12%) OpenShift
12 4 (1.12%) PowerApps
12 4 (1.12%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 9 (2.52%) Ethernet
2 4 (1.12%) DNS
2 4 (1.12%) Firewall
2 4 (1.12%) Internet
2 4 (1.12%) Wireshark
3 3 (0.84%) SD-WAN
3 3 (0.84%) Skype
4 2 (0.56%) Intranet
4 2 (0.56%) Network Security
4 2 (0.56%) SSL
4 2 (0.56%) TCP/IP
4 2 (0.56%) Wireless
5 1 (0.28%) HTTP
5 1 (0.28%) HTTPS
5 1 (0.28%) LAN
5 1 (0.28%) Modbus
5 1 (0.28%) SAN
5 1 (0.28%) SNMP
5 1 (0.28%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (5.60%) SQL Server
2 17 (4.76%) PostgreSQL
3 15 (4.20%) Oracle Database
4 14 (3.92%) NoSQL
5 13 (3.64%) SAS Enterprise Guide
6 9 (2.52%) BigQuery
6 9 (2.52%) MongoDB
7 8 (2.24%) Power BI
8 6 (1.68%) Apache Cassandra
8 6 (1.68%) Redis
8 6 (1.68%) SAS Visual Analytics
9 5 (1.40%) Couchbase
10 4 (1.12%) MySQL
10 4 (1.12%) Pinecone
11 3 (0.84%) DB2
11 3 (0.84%) Metadata
12 2 (0.56%) DynamoDB
12 2 (0.56%) Relational Database
13 1 (0.28%) Amazon RDS
13 1 (0.28%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 79 (22.13%) JIRA
2 67 (18.77%) Selenium
3 52 (14.57%) Postman
4 44 (12.32%) Jenkins
5 41 (11.48%) Cucumber
5 41 (11.48%) Git
6 35 (9.80%) GitLab
7 26 (7.28%) Cypress.io
7 26 (7.28%) REST Assured
8 21 (5.88%) SoapUI
9 18 (5.04%) JUnit
10 13 (3.64%) JMeter
11 12 (3.36%) Visual Studio
12 9 (2.52%) Artifactory
12 9 (2.52%) Maven
13 8 (2.24%) WebDriver
14 7 (1.96%) SonarQube
15 6 (1.68%) Atlassian Bamboo
15 6 (1.68%) Subversion
15 6 (1.68%) Zephyr
General
1 129 (36.13%) Social Skills
2 62 (17.37%) Finance
3 39 (10.92%) Analytical Skills
4 36 (10.08%) Public Sector
5 20 (5.60%) Banking
6 13 (3.64%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (2.80%) Manufacturing
8 9 (2.52%) Aerospace
9 8 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
10 5 (1.40%) Automotive
10 5 (1.40%) Electronics
10 5 (1.40%) Front Office
10 5 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 5 (1.40%) Investment Banking
10 5 (1.40%) Law
10 5 (1.40%) Military
10 5 (1.40%) Telecoms
11 4 (1.12%) Multimedia
11 4 (1.12%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.84%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 56 (15.69%) Senior
2 45 (12.61%) Analyst
3 43 (12.04%) Software Engineer
4 40 (11.20%) Tester
5 38 (10.64%) Test Analyst
6 36 (10.08%) Developer
6 36 (10.08%) Test Engineer
7 32 (8.96%) Lead
8 26 (7.28%) Consultant
9 16 (4.48%) Test Leader
10 14 (3.92%) QA Leader
11 13 (3.64%) Release Manager
11 13 (3.64%) Software Developer
11 13 (3.64%) Software Tester
11 13 (3.64%) Test Manager
12 12 (3.36%) Automation Tester
12 12 (3.36%) Senior Analyst
13 11 (3.08%) Senior Test Analyst
13 11 (3.08%) Senior Test Engineer
14 10 (2.80%) Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (9.80%) .NET
2 29 (8.12%) REST
3 28 (7.84%) Playwright
4 27 (7.56%) HTML
4 27 (7.56%) React
5 24 (6.72%) CSS
6 22 (6.16%) Node.js
7 20 (5.60%) RESTful
8 19 (5.32%) SOAP
8 19 (5.32%) Spring
8 19 (5.32%) Spring Boot
9 18 (5.04%) AngularJS
10 15 (4.20%) Kafka
11 14 (3.92%) .NET Framework
12 11 (3.08%) Web Services
12 11 (3.08%) XML
13 10 (2.80%) Vue
14 9 (2.52%) Svelte
15 8 (2.24%) FastAPI
15 8 (2.24%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 26 (7.28%) Self-Motivation
2 19 (5.32%) Distributed Systems
2 19 (5.32%) Product Ownership
3 12 (3.36%) Data Structures
4 11 (3.08%) Algorithms
4 11 (3.08%) Cloud Native
5 7 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
6 6 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.40%) Management Information System
8 4 (1.12%) CUDA
8 4 (1.12%) Derivative
8 4 (1.12%) Legacy Systems
8 4 (1.12%) Mainframe
8 4 (1.12%) PCIe
9 3 (0.84%) AI Agents
9 3 (0.84%) Distributed Computing
9 3 (0.84%) Greenfield Project
9 3 (0.84%) Mobile App
9 3 (0.84%) PKI
9 3 (0.84%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 33 (9.24%) Windows
2 31 (8.68%) Linux
3 14 (3.92%) Unix
4 4 (1.12%) FreeRTOS
5 3 (0.84%) Windows 10
5 3 (0.84%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.84%) Windows Server 2016
6 2 (0.56%) Android
6 2 (0.56%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.28%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.28%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.28%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.28%) Robot Operating System
7 1 (0.28%) Solaris
7 1 (0.28%) VMS
7 1 (0.28%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 162 (45.38%) Test Automation
2 159 (44.54%) Agile
3 126 (35.29%) CI/CD
4 98 (27.45%) DevOps
4 98 (27.45%) Problem-Solving
5 70 (19.61%) Test Scripting
6 66 (18.49%) Software Engineering
6 66 (18.49%) Test Strategy
7 61 (17.09%) Scrum
8 58 (16.25%) Continuous Improvement
9 57 (15.97%) Validation
10 50 (14.01%) SDLC
11 46 (12.89%) Microservices
11 46 (12.89%) Test Management
12 42 (11.76%) API Testing
13 41 (11.48%) Containerisation
14 38 (10.64%) Computer Science
14 38 (10.64%) TDD
15 37 (10.36%) Integration Testing
16 36 (10.08%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 59 (16.53%) Java
2 56 (15.69%) Python
3 54 (15.13%) JavaScript
4 47 (13.17%) SQL
5 42 (11.76%) C#
6 25 (7.00%) TypeScript
7 21 (5.88%) C++
8 13 (3.64%) Shell Script
9 11 (3.08%) Bash
9 11 (3.08%) C
10 8 (2.24%) Ada
10 8 (2.24%) Go
11 7 (1.96%) VB
12 6 (1.68%) Groovy
13 5 (1.40%) Scala
14 4 (1.12%) VB.NET
15 3 (0.84%) COBOL
15 3 (0.84%) Embedded C
15 3 (0.84%) JCL
15 3 (0.84%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 96 (26.89%) Security Cleared
2 79 (22.13%) SC Cleared
3 42 (11.76%) Degree
4 33 (9.24%) ISTQB
5 23 (6.44%) Computer Science Degree
6 12 (3.36%) DV Cleared
7 10 (2.80%) CISSP
8 9 (2.52%) BPSS Clearance
8 9 (2.52%) CISM
9 7 (1.96%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 6 (1.68%) Azure Certification
10 6 (1.68%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 4 (1.12%) HNC
11 4 (1.12%) HND
12 3 (0.84%) EMC Certification
12 3 (0.84%) ISEB
12 3 (0.84%) PMI Certification
13 2 (0.56%) ACCA
13 2 (0.56%) CIMA
13 2 (0.56%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 95 (26.61%) QA
2 24 (6.72%) Accessibility
3 13 (3.64%) NIST
4 10 (2.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 9 (2.52%) WCAG
6 7 (1.96%) PCI DSS
7 6 (1.68%) EU AI Act
7 6 (1.68%) GDPR
8 4 (1.12%) Def Stans
8 4 (1.12%) IEC 61508
9 3 (0.84%) ISO/IEC 15288
9 3 (0.84%) SLA
10 2 (0.56%) GRC
10 2 (0.56%) Software Quality Assurance
11 1 (0.28%) IEC 61131
11 1 (0.28%) ISO 9001
11 1 (0.28%) MISRA
11 1 (0.28%) MISRA C
11 1 (0.28%) PMO
11 1 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 47 (13.17%) Docker
2 5 (1.40%) Active Directory
2 5 (1.40%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (0.84%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.28%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 40 (11.20%) Kubernetes
2 15 (4.20%) Ansible
3 10 (2.80%) Terraform
4 5 (1.40%) Grafana
5 4 (1.12%) Functional Safety
5 4 (1.12%) HP ALM
6 3 (0.84%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 3 (0.84%) HP Quality Center
6 3 (0.84%) Puppet
6 3 (0.84%) vCenter Server
6 3 (0.84%) WSUS
7 2 (0.56%) Nessus
8 1 (0.28%) Control-M
8 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.28%) Nmap
8 1 (0.28%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.28%) Rsyslog
8 1 (0.28%) SCOM
Vendors
1 59 (16.53%) Microsoft
2 28 (7.84%) Oracle
3 11 (3.08%) Google
4 10 (2.80%) CyberArk
5 9 (2.52%) BeyondTrust
5 9 (2.52%) Splunk
5 9 (2.52%) Thycotic
6 8 (2.24%) Cisco
7 7 (1.96%) Atlassian
7 7 (1.96%) Salesforce
7 7 (1.96%) ServiceNow
8 6 (1.68%) HP
8 6 (1.68%) VMware
9 5 (1.40%) CA Agile Central
9 5 (1.40%) Dynatrace
9 5 (1.40%) Juniper
9 5 (1.40%) Workday
10 4 (1.12%) Meraki
10 4 (1.12%) Nokia
10 4 (1.12%) UiPath