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 19 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 247 204 174
Rank change year-on-year -43 -30 +23
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 387 316 511
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.05% 1.29% 1.35%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.21% 1.42% 1.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 248 204 341
10th Percentile £329 £313 £250
25th Percentile £381 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £461 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -2.95% +5.56% -12.20%
75th Percentile £538 £628 £600
90th Percentile £600 £700 £688
UK median daily rate £450 £450 £450
% change year-on-year - - -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 21 72
10th Percentile £52.80 £26.25 £37.78
25th Percentile £63.13 £59.50 £55.31
Median hourly rate £65.75 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.20% -3.85% +30.00%
75th Percentile £68.75 £75.00 -
90th Percentile £72.90 £80.75 -
UK median hourly rate £66.50 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +6.40% -3.85% +30.00%

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 31,979 22,196 32,870
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.42% 90.71% 86.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,491 14,461 21,766
10th Percentile £313 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £504 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.05% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £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 1,970 819 2,143
10th Percentile £15.34 £15.08 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £31.45 £33.40 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -5.84% +2.77% -10.41%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.63
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.12
% change year-on-year -7.69% +1.20% -8.24%

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 19 March 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 19 March 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 19 March 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 -30 169 £450 +2.86% 63
South East -41 61 £461 -23.17% 83
Midlands -40 44 £500 +11.36% 41
North of England -61 44 £405 -1.10% 50
South West -10 35 £425 +6.25% 42
West Midlands -38 35 £500 +11.36% 23
Yorkshire -40 27 £463 +14.20% 10
East of England -17 23 £600 +26.32% 34
North West -43 13 £405 -14.74% 31
East Midlands -28 9 £375 - 18
North East - 4 £350 - 9
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 (5.43%) Confluence
2 12 (3.10%) SAS
3 4 (1.03%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (1.03%) Apache Spark
3 4 (1.03%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.52%) IIS
4 2 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.52%) SharePoint Server
5 1 (0.26%) CMS
5 1 (0.26%) IBM HTTP Server
5 1 (0.26%) WebSphere
Applications
1 13 (3.36%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.81%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (1.03%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.26%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.26%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 5 (1.29%) Aladdin
2 4 (1.03%) Maximo
3 2 (0.52%) Dynamics NAV
3 2 (0.52%) LabWindows
3 2 (0.52%) Oracle EBS R12
3 2 (0.52%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.26%) Algo Collateral
4 1 (0.26%) CODA-Financials
4 1 (0.26%) Findur
4 1 (0.26%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
Cloud Services
1 130 (33.59%) Azure
2 92 (23.77%) Azure DevOps
3 68 (17.57%) AWS
4 35 (9.04%) GitHub
5 33 (8.53%) GCP
6 23 (5.94%) Amazon S3
7 22 (5.68%) AWS Lambda
7 22 (5.68%) Serverless
8 20 (5.17%) GitHub Actions
9 12 (3.10%) Amazon ECS
9 12 (3.10%) AWS CloudFormation
9 12 (3.10%) Snowflake
10 7 (1.81%) Entra ID
10 7 (1.81%) OpenShift
11 5 (1.29%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 5 (1.29%) Power Platform
12 4 (1.03%) Amazon EC2
12 4 (1.03%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 3 (0.78%) Amazon SQS
13 3 (0.78%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.07%) Ethernet
2 5 (1.29%) Firewall
3 4 (1.03%) DNS
4 3 (0.78%) FTP
4 3 (0.78%) Internet
4 3 (0.78%) Modbus
4 3 (0.78%) RS-232
4 3 (0.78%) RS-422
4 3 (0.78%) RS-485
4 3 (0.78%) SNMP
5 2 (0.52%) Cisco IOS
5 2 (0.52%) Intranet
5 2 (0.52%) IOS XR
5 2 (0.52%) Reverse Proxy
5 2 (0.52%) SD-WAN
5 2 (0.52%) Skype
5 2 (0.52%) Spanning Tree
5 2 (0.52%) SSL
5 2 (0.52%) TACACS
5 2 (0.52%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (8.27%) PostgreSQL
2 18 (4.65%) SQL Server
3 16 (4.13%) Relational Database
4 15 (3.88%) NoSQL
5 12 (3.10%) BigQuery
5 12 (3.10%) SAS Enterprise Guide
6 11 (2.84%) MySQL
6 11 (2.84%) Oracle Database
7 10 (2.58%) MongoDB
8 7 (1.81%) Big Data
8 7 (1.81%) Data Warehouse
9 5 (1.29%) Amazon Redshift
9 5 (1.29%) Apache Cassandra
9 5 (1.29%) Couchbase
10 4 (1.03%) DynamoDB
10 4 (1.03%) Redis
11 3 (0.78%) Power BI
12 2 (0.52%) Amazon Athena
12 2 (0.52%) Amazon QuickSight
12 2 (0.52%) Pinecone
Development Applications
1 68 (17.57%) JIRA
2 52 (13.44%) Selenium
3 46 (11.89%) Git
4 39 (10.08%) Jenkins
5 31 (8.01%) Cucumber
6 30 (7.75%) Postman
7 28 (7.24%) Cypress.io
8 20 (5.17%) GitLab
8 20 (5.17%) REST Assured
9 19 (4.91%) JUnit
10 13 (3.36%) TestRail
11 9 (2.33%) Rational DOORS
12 8 (2.07%) JMeter
12 8 (2.07%) WebDriver
12 8 (2.07%) Zephyr
13 6 (1.55%) HP UFT
13 6 (1.55%) Rational Rhapsody
14 5 (1.29%) Gradle
14 5 (1.29%) Maven
14 5 (1.29%) SpecFlow
General
1 104 (26.87%) Social Skills
2 66 (17.05%) Analytical Skills
2 66 (17.05%) Finance
3 45 (11.63%) Public Sector
4 18 (4.65%) Banking
5 10 (2.58%) Aerospace
6 9 (2.33%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (2.33%) Manufacturing
7 8 (2.07%) Electronics
7 8 (2.07%) Front Office
7 8 (2.07%) Military
8 6 (1.55%) Back Office
8 6 (1.55%) Investment Banking
8 6 (1.55%) Telecoms
9 5 (1.29%) Law
10 3 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.78%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (0.78%) Marketing
10 3 (0.78%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.52%) Police
Job Titles
1 62 (16.02%) Senior
2 53 (13.70%) Developer
3 43 (11.11%) Analyst
4 39 (10.08%) Test Engineer
5 37 (9.56%) Software Engineer
6 36 (9.30%) Lead
7 35 (9.04%) Test Analyst
8 29 (7.49%) Consultant
9 27 (6.98%) Tester
10 22 (5.68%) QA Engineer
11 18 (4.65%) Java Engineer
11 18 (4.65%) Test Manager
12 16 (4.13%) Senior Analyst
12 16 (4.13%) Senior Developer
12 16 (4.13%) Senior Test Analyst
13 15 (3.88%) Java Developer
14 14 (3.62%) Test Leader
15 13 (3.36%) Software Developer
16 12 (3.10%) Automation Engineer
16 12 (3.10%) Release Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (10.59%) Playwright
2 36 (9.30%) Spring
3 32 (8.27%) React
4 30 (7.75%) REST
5 29 (7.49%) .NET
5 29 (7.49%) RESTful
6 28 (7.24%) Spring Boot
7 25 (6.46%) Node.js
8 16 (4.13%) CSS
8 16 (4.13%) HTML
8 16 (4.13%) Kafka
9 11 (2.84%) Middleware
10 10 (2.58%) Gherkin
11 9 (2.33%) pytest
12 8 (2.07%) .NET Framework
12 8 (2.07%) AngularJS
13 7 (1.81%) .NET Core
13 7 (1.81%) Apache NiFi
13 7 (1.81%) RabbitMQ
14 6 (1.55%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 27 (6.98%) Product Ownership
2 23 (5.94%) Cloud Native
3 12 (3.10%) Self-Motivation
4 10 (2.58%) Distributed Systems
4 10 (2.58%) Enterprise Software
4 10 (2.58%) Legacy Systems
5 9 (2.33%) Management Information System
6 7 (1.81%) Data Centre
7 6 (1.55%) CUDA
7 6 (1.55%) Greenfield Project
8 5 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.29%) Embedded Systems
8 5 (1.29%) Mobile App
8 5 (1.29%) Virtual Team
9 4 (1.03%) Fixed Income
9 4 (1.03%) PCIe
10 3 (0.78%) Equities
10 3 (0.78%) Public Cloud
10 3 (0.78%) Taxonomies
10 3 (0.78%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 35 (9.04%) Windows
2 23 (5.94%) Linux
3 7 (1.81%) Unix
4 5 (1.29%) Mac OS
5 4 (1.03%) FreeRTOS
5 4 (1.03%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.52%) Android
6 2 (0.52%) Windows 10
6 2 (0.52%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.26%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.26%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 181 (46.77%) Test Automation
2 151 (39.02%) Agile
3 139 (35.92%) DevOps
4 138 (35.66%) CI/CD
5 101 (26.10%) Problem-Solving
6 85 (21.96%) Continuous Improvement
7 81 (20.93%) Test Scripting
8 75 (19.38%) Software Engineering
9 61 (15.76%) Validation
10 58 (14.99%) Microservices
11 56 (14.47%) Test Strategy
12 51 (13.18%) Regression Testing
12 51 (13.18%) Test Management
13 48 (12.40%) API Testing
14 46 (11.89%) TDD
15 45 (11.63%) Containerisation
15 45 (11.63%) Defect Tracking
16 42 (10.85%) Manual Testing
17 40 (10.34%) Scrum
18 38 (9.82%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 81 (20.93%) Python
2 78 (20.16%) Java
3 68 (17.57%) SQL
4 51 (13.18%) JavaScript
5 42 (10.85%) TypeScript
6 41 (10.59%) C#
7 17 (4.39%) C++
8 12 (3.10%) C
9 10 (2.58%) Go
10 9 (2.33%) PL/SQL
11 8 (2.07%) Bash
12 7 (1.81%) PowerShell
13 5 (1.29%) VBScript
14 4 (1.03%) VB
15 3 (0.78%) Embedded C
15 3 (0.78%) Groovy
15 3 (0.78%) Ruby
15 3 (0.78%) Shell Script
16 2 (0.52%) Ada
16 2 (0.52%) Scala
Qualifications
1 114 (29.46%) Security Cleared
2 92 (23.77%) SC Cleared
3 38 (9.82%) Degree
4 36 (9.30%) ISTQB
5 19 (4.91%) Computer Science Degree
6 14 (3.62%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 7 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (1.81%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 5 (1.29%) ISEB
9 4 (1.03%) DV Cleared
9 4 (1.03%) Master's Degree
10 3 (0.78%) PMI Certification
10 3 (0.78%) PMP
11 2 (0.52%) Azure Certification
11 2 (0.52%) Cisco Certification
11 2 (0.52%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
12 1 (0.26%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 1 (0.26%) DBS Check
12 1 (0.26%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 1 (0.26%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 105 (27.13%) QA
2 20 (5.17%) Accessibility
3 10 (2.58%) Data Quality
4 7 (1.81%) PMO
4 7 (1.81%) WCAG
5 5 (1.29%) EU AI Act
5 5 (1.29%) NIST
6 4 (1.03%) SLA
7 3 (0.78%) Software Quality Assurance
8 1 (0.26%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.26%) MiFID
8 1 (0.26%) SEPA
System Software
1 42 (10.85%) Docker
2 7 (1.81%) Active Directory
2 7 (1.81%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (1.55%) Virtual Desktop
4 4 (1.03%) Firmware
5 2 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.52%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.26%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
6 1 (0.26%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 50 (12.92%) Kubernetes
2 15 (3.88%) Terraform
3 11 (2.84%) HP ALM
4 10 (2.58%) Grafana
5 9 (2.33%) Ansible
6 7 (1.81%) Prometheus
7 5 (1.29%) HP Quality Center
7 5 (1.29%) Microsoft Intune
7 5 (1.29%) Puppet
8 4 (1.03%) SCCM
9 2 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.52%) Nessus
9 2 (0.52%) Salt
9 2 (0.52%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.52%) WSUS
10 1 (0.26%) Kibana
10 1 (0.26%) Nmap
10 1 (0.26%) Oracle ZFS
10 1 (0.26%) Packer
10 1 (0.26%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 42 (10.85%) Microsoft
2 37 (9.56%) Oracle
3 11 (2.84%) HP
4 9 (2.33%) SAP
4 9 (2.33%) VMware
5 8 (2.07%) Atlassian
5 8 (2.07%) Splunk
6 7 (1.81%) Citrix
6 7 (1.81%) Dell
6 7 (1.81%) IBM
6 7 (1.81%) ServiceNow
7 5 (1.29%) Cisco
7 5 (1.29%) Databricks
8 4 (1.03%) Remedy
8 4 (1.03%) Salesforce
9 3 (0.78%) Ab Initio
9 3 (0.78%) Charles River
9 3 (0.78%) OpenAI
9 3 (0.78%) Palo Alto
9 3 (0.78%) Teradata