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 6 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
6 Aug 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 258 254 199
Rank change year-on-year -4 -55 -30
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 434 287 410
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.95% 1.04% 1.23%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.12% 1.14% 1.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 231 196 284
10th Percentile £256 £313 £315
25th Percentile £400 £350 £389
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £430 £463
Median % change year-on-year +16.35% -7.08% -7.50%
75th Percentile £575 £525 £597
90th Percentile £688 £631 £675
UK median daily rate £490 £438 £463
% change year-on-year +12.00% -5.41% -5.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 27 33
10th Percentile £17.50 £38.25 £26.88
25th Percentile £56.25 £50.00 £55.65
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.04% -8.00% +9.89%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £81.50 -
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +13.04% -8.00% +8.70%

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 38,782 25,081 28,761
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.18% 90.77% 85.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,156 16,055 18,761
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £760
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,506 1,391 1,691
10th Percentile £14.94 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £20.31 £17.87 £18.21
Median hourly rate £44.23 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +75.86% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £68.75 £50.88 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.50 £70.16 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.33
% change year-on-year +74.79% -37.63% -5.12%

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 6 August 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 6 August 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 6 August 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 -36 150 £500 +17.65% 126
South East -51 66 £425 +6.25% 77
Midlands -6 61 £513 +41.38% 42
North of England -47 56 £488 +12.20% 64
West Midlands -9 55 £513 +20.59% 27
East of England +9 51 £300 -36.95% 46
South West -28 43 £410 -10.25% 38
North East -15 27 £500 - 19
North West -45 16 £475 +33.80% 34
Yorkshire -54 15 £475 +9.20% 12
East Midlands -7 6 £575 +69.12% 15
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 12 (2.76%) Apache Airflow
1 12 (2.76%) Confluence
2 10 (2.30%) SAS
3 7 (1.61%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.46%) IIS
4 2 (0.46%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.23%) Apache
5 1 (0.23%) IBM HTTP Server
5 1 (0.23%) Jupyter
5 1 (0.23%) WebSphere
Applications
1 10 (2.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.61%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.15%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.92%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.92%) Trello
5 2 (0.46%) Simulink
6 1 (0.23%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (1.38%) Findur
1 6 (1.38%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (0.92%) Aladdin
3 3 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.69%) Primavera
4 2 (0.46%) Maximo
5 1 (0.23%) Bloomberg TOMS
5 1 (0.23%) Eikon
5 1 (0.23%) Misys Equation
5 1 (0.23%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.23%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.23%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.23%) Shopify
5 1 (0.23%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 99 (22.81%) Azure
2 93 (21.43%) AWS
3 48 (11.06%) Azure DevOps
4 43 (9.91%) GitHub
5 26 (5.99%) GCP
6 19 (4.38%) GitHub Actions
7 18 (4.15%) Serverless
8 17 (3.92%) GitHub Copilot
9 16 (3.69%) AWS Lambda
10 12 (2.76%) Amazon S3
11 11 (2.53%) PaaS
12 9 (2.07%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 8 (1.84%) Entra ID
13 8 (1.84%) Power Platform
14 6 (1.38%) Amazon EC2
14 6 (1.38%) OpenShift
14 6 (1.38%) Snowflake
15 5 (1.15%) Google Gemini
15 5 (1.15%) SaaS
15 5 (1.15%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 9 (2.07%) Ethernet
2 6 (1.38%) DNS
3 5 (1.15%) Firewall
3 5 (1.15%) Software-Defined Radio
3 5 (1.15%) Wireless
4 4 (0.92%) Network Security
4 4 (0.92%) RS-232
4 4 (0.92%) RS-422
5 3 (0.69%) DHCP
5 3 (0.69%) Internet
5 3 (0.69%) Modbus
5 3 (0.69%) Reverse Proxy
5 3 (0.69%) RS-485
6 2 (0.46%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.23%) 5G
7 1 (0.23%) BGP
7 1 (0.23%) GSM
7 1 (0.23%) MPLS
7 1 (0.23%) UMTS
7 1 (0.23%) VoWiFi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (3.46%) Relational Database
2 13 (3.00%) Oracle Database
2 13 (3.00%) SQL Server
3 12 (2.76%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (2.53%) MongoDB
5 10 (2.30%) MySQL
5 10 (2.30%) SAS Enterprise Guide
5 10 (2.30%) SAS Visual Analytics
6 9 (2.07%) DynamoDB
6 9 (2.07%) NoSQL
7 8 (1.84%) Big Data
8 7 (1.61%) Elasticsearch
9 6 (1.38%) Power BI
10 5 (1.15%) Data Warehouse
10 5 (1.15%) Redis
11 4 (0.92%) Amazon Athena
11 4 (0.92%) Amazon Redshift
12 3 (0.69%) Amazon QuickSight
12 3 (0.69%) Parquet
12 3 (0.69%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 71 (16.36%) JIRA
2 60 (13.82%) Git
3 48 (11.06%) Selenium
4 37 (8.53%) GitLab
5 31 (7.14%) Cucumber
5 31 (7.14%) Jenkins
6 29 (6.68%) Postman
7 27 (6.22%) JUnit
8 23 (5.30%) REST Assured
9 15 (3.46%) Gatling
10 13 (3.00%) Rational DOORS
11 11 (2.53%) Cypress.io
11 11 (2.53%) WebDriver
11 11 (2.53%) Zephyr
12 10 (2.30%) TestRail
13 8 (1.84%) JMeter
14 7 (1.61%) Maven
14 7 (1.61%) SonarQube
14 7 (1.61%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
14 7 (1.61%) Visual Studio
General
1 128 (29.49%) Social Skills
2 93 (21.43%) Finance
3 72 (16.59%) Analytical Skills
4 52 (11.98%) Public Sector
5 40 (9.22%) Banking
6 25 (5.76%) Aerospace
7 23 (5.30%) Automotive
8 13 (3.00%) Back Office
9 12 (2.76%) Front Office
10 10 (2.30%) Electronics
10 10 (2.30%) Law
10 10 (2.30%) Organisational Skills
11 9 (2.07%) Documentation Skills
12 8 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 8 (1.84%) Manufacturing
12 8 (1.84%) Retail
12 8 (1.84%) Telecoms
13 5 (1.15%) Avionics
13 5 (1.15%) Military
14 4 (0.92%) Legal
Job Titles
1 69 (15.90%) Test Engineer
2 68 (15.67%) Software Engineer
3 64 (14.75%) Senior
4 61 (14.06%) Developer
5 32 (7.37%) Analyst
6 29 (6.68%) Software Test Engineer
7 28 (6.45%) Lead
8 25 (5.76%) Tester
9 20 (4.61%) Java Developer
9 20 (4.61%) QA Engineer
10 19 (4.38%) Software Developer
10 19 (4.38%) Test Manager
11 17 (3.92%) Architect
11 17 (3.92%) Principal Engineer
12 16 (3.69%) Senior Developer
13 15 (3.46%) Principal Software Engineer
13 15 (3.46%) Test Automation Engineer
14 13 (3.00%) Automation Engineer
14 13 (3.00%) Salesforce Engineer
14 13 (3.00%) Software Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (10.60%) REST
2 44 (10.14%) React
3 42 (9.68%) Playwright
4 35 (8.06%) Spring
5 28 (6.45%) .NET
6 23 (5.30%) RESTful
7 22 (5.07%) Kafka
8 20 (4.61%) Spring Boot
9 18 (4.15%) Node.js
10 14 (3.23%) AngularJS
11 12 (2.76%) Redux
12 10 (2.30%) CSS
12 10 (2.30%) HTML
13 8 (1.84%) CSS3
13 8 (1.84%) HTML5
13 8 (1.84%) Jest
13 8 (1.84%) JSON
13 8 (1.84%) Vue
14 7 (1.61%) pytest
14 7 (1.61%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 42 (9.68%) Product Ownership
2 35 (8.06%) Enterprise Software
3 31 (7.14%) Cloud Native
4 26 (5.99%) Embedded Systems
5 21 (4.84%) Self-Motivation
6 18 (4.15%) Distributed Systems
7 13 (3.00%) Management Information System
8 10 (2.30%) Data Protection Act
8 10 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
9 9 (2.07%) Data Centre
10 6 (1.38%) Data Structures
10 6 (1.38%) Public Cloud
11 5 (1.15%) Derivative
11 5 (1.15%) FPGA
11 5 (1.15%) Greenfield Project
11 5 (1.15%) Onboarding
11 5 (1.15%) PCIe
12 4 (0.92%) Algorithms
12 4 (0.92%) Distributed Architecture
12 4 (0.92%) Equity Derivative
Operating Systems
1 25 (5.76%) Linux
2 24 (5.53%) Windows
3 7 (1.61%) Unix
4 6 (1.38%) FreeRTOS
4 6 (1.38%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.69%) Android
5 3 (0.69%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.69%) Embedded Linux
6 2 (0.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.46%) zOS
7 1 (0.23%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 207 (47.70%) Test Automation
2 196 (45.16%) Agile
3 169 (38.94%) CI/CD
4 135 (31.11%) Software Engineering
5 134 (30.88%) DevOps
6 100 (23.04%) Problem-Solving
7 99 (22.81%) Continuous Improvement
8 80 (18.43%) Scrum
8 80 (18.43%) SDLC
9 63 (14.52%) Test Strategy
10 61 (14.06%) Test Scripting
10 61 (14.06%) Validation
11 59 (13.59%) AI
12 55 (12.67%) Regression Testing
13 52 (11.98%) Defect Management
13 52 (11.98%) User Acceptance Testing
14 51 (11.75%) Microservices
15 49 (11.29%) Stakeholder Management
16 48 (11.06%) Mentoring
17 45 (10.37%) Code Quality
Programming Languages
1 84 (19.35%) Java
2 80 (18.43%) Python
3 55 (12.67%) SQL
4 48 (11.06%) JavaScript
5 37 (8.53%) C#
6 31 (7.14%) TypeScript
7 24 (5.53%) C++
8 18 (4.15%) C
9 14 (3.23%) PowerShell
10 8 (1.84%) Kotlin
11 5 (1.15%) Apex Code
11 5 (1.15%) Bash
12 3 (0.69%) Ada
12 3 (0.69%) Go
12 3 (0.69%) Korn
12 3 (0.69%) MATLAB
12 3 (0.69%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.69%) Rust
12 3 (0.69%) Scala
12 3 (0.69%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 137 (31.57%) Security Cleared
2 112 (25.81%) SC Cleared
3 48 (11.06%) Degree
4 37 (8.53%) ISTQB
5 20 (4.61%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 15 (3.46%) BPSS Clearance
7 10 (2.30%) ISEB
8 9 (2.07%) Computer Science Degree
8 9 (2.07%) DV Cleared
8 9 (2.07%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 4 (0.92%) CEH
9 4 (0.92%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (0.92%) CISSP
9 4 (0.92%) CompTIA Security+
10 3 (0.69%) CCNA
11 2 (0.46%) A+ Certification
11 2 (0.46%) ISEB Practitioner
11 2 (0.46%) Network+ Certification
11 2 (0.46%) PMI Certification
11 2 (0.46%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 96 (22.12%) QA
2 25 (5.76%) Accessibility
3 17 (3.92%) WCAG
4 9 (2.07%) Data Quality
5 6 (1.38%) PMO
6 5 (1.15%) ISO 20022
6 5 (1.15%) Software Quality Assurance
7 4 (0.92%) NIST
8 3 (0.69%) GRC
9 2 (0.46%) ISO 15022
9 2 (0.46%) MiFID
10 1 (0.23%) MIL-STD-1553
10 1 (0.23%) SEPA
10 1 (0.23%) SLA
System Software
1 46 (10.60%) Docker
2 12 (2.76%) Active Directory
3 6 (1.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (1.15%) Firmware
5 4 (0.92%) Embedded Firmware
5 4 (0.92%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.69%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.69%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.69%) VMware Workstation
7 2 (0.46%) NFS
7 2 (0.46%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.23%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 57 (13.13%) Kubernetes
2 29 (6.68%) Terraform
3 16 (3.69%) Ansible
4 13 (3.00%) Prometheus
5 10 (2.30%) Grafana
6 6 (1.38%) Packer
7 4 (0.92%) HP ALM
7 4 (0.92%) Puppet
8 3 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
8 3 (0.69%) Salt
9 2 (0.46%) HP Quality Center
9 2 (0.46%) Tivoli Storage Manager
10 1 (0.23%) Argo
10 1 (0.23%) Kibana
10 1 (0.23%) Oracle ZFS
10 1 (0.23%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.23%) PTC Integrity
10 1 (0.23%) SCCM
10 1 (0.23%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 30 (6.91%) Oracle
2 27 (6.22%) Microsoft
3 17 (3.92%) Salesforce
4 16 (3.69%) IBM
5 8 (1.84%) VMware
6 7 (1.61%) Dell
6 7 (1.61%) SAP
7 6 (1.38%) Conga
7 6 (1.38%) GoCardless
7 6 (1.38%) OpenLink
8 5 (1.15%) Google
8 5 (1.15%) Splunk
9 4 (0.92%) Citrix
9 4 (0.92%) HP
9 4 (0.92%) ServiceNow
10 3 (0.69%) Ab Initio
10 3 (0.69%) Checkmarx
10 3 (0.69%) Databricks
10 3 (0.69%) Palo Alto
10 3 (0.69%) Teradata
383 Software Testing jobs in England