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 2 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
2 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 227 194 171
Rank change year-on-year -33 -23 +13
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 373 363 545
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.18% 1.30% 1.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.33% 1.47% 1.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 247 211 357
10th Percentile £325 £313 £279
25th Percentile £380 £378 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -14.29% -
75th Percentile £538 £611 £625
90th Percentile £600 £675 £668
UK median daily rate £435 £450 £500
% change year-on-year -3.33% -10.00% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 19 85
10th Percentile £26.25 £48.95 £42.49
25th Percentile £50.89 £57.88 £50.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +30.00%
75th Percentile £67.19 £71.25 -
90th Percentile £68.75 £80.75 £67.44
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% -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 28,067 24,730 32,211
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 88.57% 88.83% 88.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,937 15,201 21,830
10th Percentile £304 £310 £306
25th Percentile £408 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £645 £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 1,762 813 1,440
10th Percentile £15.18 £15.62 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.96 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +25.35%
75th Percentile £57.44 £64.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £43.79
% change year-on-year -22.62% -25.79% +25.12%

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 2 January 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 2 January 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 2 January 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 -26 142 £450 -5.26% 55
North of England -31 60 £405 +1.25% 50
South East -43 51 £433 -27.92% 91
Midlands -24 38 £515 +28.75% 26
South West +3 37 £450 +12.50% 25
Yorkshire -31 37 £435 +6.75% 18
West Midlands -25 31 £515 +28.75% 16
East of England -1 26 £598 +51.75% 30
North West -49 16 £405 +1.25% 28
East Midlands -19 7 £313 - 10
North East - 7 £350 - 4
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 18 (4.83%) Confluence
2 16 (4.29%) SAS
3 7 (1.88%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (1.61%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (1.61%) SharePoint
5 3 (0.80%) SharePoint Server
6 2 (0.54%) Apache
6 2 (0.54%) CMS
6 2 (0.54%) JBoss
6 2 (0.54%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.27%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.27%) CICS
7 1 (0.27%) EPiServer
Applications
1 13 (3.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (2.41%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (2.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.54%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.27%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 2 (0.54%) Aladdin
1 2 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.54%) Dynamics NAV
1 2 (0.54%) LabWindows
2 1 (0.27%) Algo Collateral
2 1 (0.27%) CODA-Financials
2 1 (0.27%) Oracle EBS R12
2 1 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (0.27%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 116 (31.10%) Azure
2 71 (19.03%) AWS
3 60 (16.09%) Azure DevOps
4 34 (9.12%) GCP
5 31 (8.31%) GitHub
6 20 (5.36%) GitHub Actions
7 12 (3.22%) Amazon S3
8 11 (2.95%) Power Platform
9 10 (2.68%) AWS Lambda
9 10 (2.68%) Serverless
10 9 (2.41%) Amazon ECS
10 9 (2.41%) npm
11 7 (1.88%) Dynamics 365
12 6 (1.61%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (1.61%) Entra ID
12 6 (1.61%) PaaS
12 6 (1.61%) Snowflake
13 4 (1.07%) Amazon Bedrock
13 4 (1.07%) Cloud Computing
13 4 (1.07%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 9 (2.41%) Ethernet
2 6 (1.61%) Wireshark
3 5 (1.34%) SD-WAN
4 4 (1.07%) DNS
4 4 (1.07%) Internet
5 3 (0.80%) Firewall
5 3 (0.80%) Network Security
5 3 (0.80%) Skype
5 3 (0.80%) SNMP
6 2 (0.54%) Cisco IOS
6 2 (0.54%) FTP
6 2 (0.54%) Intranet
6 2 (0.54%) IOS XR
6 2 (0.54%) Spanning Tree
6 2 (0.54%) SSH
6 2 (0.54%) SSL
6 2 (0.54%) TACACS
6 2 (0.54%) TCP/IP
6 2 (0.54%) Wireless
7 1 (0.27%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (6.43%) PostgreSQL
2 20 (5.36%) SQL Server
3 17 (4.56%) NoSQL
4 16 (4.29%) SAS Enterprise Guide
5 15 (4.02%) Oracle Database
6 14 (3.75%) MongoDB
7 11 (2.95%) BigQuery
8 7 (1.88%) MySQL
8 7 (1.88%) Power BI
9 6 (1.61%) Apache Cassandra
9 6 (1.61%) SAS Visual Analytics
10 5 (1.34%) Couchbase
10 5 (1.34%) Redis
10 5 (1.34%) Relational Database
11 4 (1.07%) Pinecone
12 3 (0.80%) Metadata
13 2 (0.54%) Big Data
13 2 (0.54%) DynamoDB
14 1 (0.27%) Amazon RDS
14 1 (0.27%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 65 (17.43%) JIRA
2 58 (15.55%) Selenium
3 45 (12.06%) Postman
4 42 (11.26%) Jenkins
5 41 (10.99%) Git
6 36 (9.65%) Cucumber
7 32 (8.58%) GitLab
8 28 (7.51%) Cypress.io
9 25 (6.70%) REST Assured
10 16 (4.29%) JUnit
11 11 (2.95%) JMeter
11 11 (2.95%) SoapUI
12 10 (2.68%) Visual Studio
13 9 (2.41%) Artifactory
14 7 (1.88%) SonarQube
14 7 (1.88%) Subversion
15 6 (1.61%) Atlassian Bamboo
15 6 (1.61%) Maven
15 6 (1.61%) Rational DOORS
15 6 (1.61%) TestRail
General
1 130 (34.85%) Social Skills
2 56 (15.01%) Finance
3 47 (12.60%) Public Sector
4 45 (12.06%) Analytical Skills
5 23 (6.17%) Banking
6 11 (2.95%) Aerospace
7 10 (2.68%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (2.68%) Manufacturing
8 8 (2.14%) Influencing Skills
9 7 (1.88%) Investment Banking
9 7 (1.88%) Military
9 7 (1.88%) Telecoms
10 6 (1.61%) Automotive
10 6 (1.61%) Electronics
10 6 (1.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (1.34%) Front Office
12 4 (1.07%) Law
12 4 (1.07%) Multimedia
12 4 (1.07%) Pharmaceutical
13 3 (0.80%) Billing
Job Titles
1 59 (15.82%) Senior
2 46 (12.33%) Software Engineer
3 44 (11.80%) Developer
4 41 (10.99%) Analyst
5 37 (9.92%) Test Engineer
6 34 (9.12%) Test Analyst
7 32 (8.58%) Lead
8 28 (7.51%) Tester
9 25 (6.70%) Consultant
10 16 (4.29%) Release Manager
11 15 (4.02%) QA Engineer
12 14 (3.75%) QA Leader
12 14 (3.75%) Senior Analyst
13 13 (3.49%) Senior Test Analyst
13 13 (3.49%) Software Developer
13 13 (3.49%) Test Manager
14 12 (3.22%) Java Engineer
14 12 (3.22%) Senior Test Engineer
15 11 (2.95%) Test Automation Engineer
15 11 (2.95%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (11.26%) .NET
2 32 (8.58%) Playwright
2 32 (8.58%) React
3 31 (8.31%) Node.js
4 27 (7.24%) HTML
4 27 (7.24%) Spring Boot
5 26 (6.97%) Spring
6 25 (6.70%) RESTful
7 24 (6.43%) CSS
7 24 (6.43%) REST
8 18 (4.83%) AngularJS
9 15 (4.02%) Kafka
10 14 (3.75%) .NET Framework
11 10 (2.68%) Vue
12 9 (2.41%) SOAP
12 9 (2.41%) Svelte
12 9 (2.41%) Swagger
13 8 (2.14%) HTML5
13 8 (2.14%) Middleware
13 8 (2.14%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 20 (5.36%) Product Ownership
2 19 (5.09%) Cloud Native
2 19 (5.09%) Self-Motivation
3 17 (4.56%) Distributed Systems
4 11 (2.95%) Algorithms
4 11 (2.95%) Data Structures
5 10 (2.68%) Enterprise Software
6 5 (1.34%) CUDA
6 5 (1.34%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (1.34%) Legacy Systems
7 4 (1.07%) Management Information System
7 4 (1.07%) NHS
7 4 (1.07%) PCIe
8 3 (0.80%) Derivative
8 3 (0.80%) Fixed Income
8 3 (0.80%) FPGA
8 3 (0.80%) Greenfield Project
8 3 (0.80%) Mobile App
8 3 (0.80%) PKI
8 3 (0.80%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 32 (8.58%) Linux
2 31 (8.31%) Windows
3 9 (2.41%) Unix
4 4 (1.07%) FreeRTOS
5 3 (0.80%) Windows 10
5 3 (0.80%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.80%) Windows Server 2016
6 2 (0.54%) Android
7 1 (0.27%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.27%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.27%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.27%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.27%) Robot Operating System
7 1 (0.27%) Solaris
7 1 (0.27%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 158 (42.36%) Agile
2 151 (40.48%) Test Automation
3 137 (36.73%) CI/CD
4 114 (30.56%) DevOps
5 104 (27.88%) Problem-Solving
6 73 (19.57%) Continuous Improvement
7 72 (19.30%) Test Scripting
8 64 (17.16%) Software Engineering
9 59 (15.82%) Validation
10 58 (15.55%) Microservices
11 57 (15.28%) Test Strategy
12 54 (14.48%) Scrum
13 49 (13.14%) TDD
14 48 (12.87%) Containerisation
15 45 (12.06%) Test Management
16 44 (11.80%) API Testing
17 41 (10.99%) SDLC
18 37 (9.92%) Integration Testing
19 36 (9.65%) AI
20 33 (8.85%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 73 (19.57%) Python
2 68 (18.23%) Java
3 64 (17.16%) JavaScript
4 61 (16.35%) SQL
5 38 (10.19%) C#
6 33 (8.85%) TypeScript
7 23 (6.17%) C++
8 12 (3.22%) Bash
8 12 (3.22%) C
8 12 (3.22%) Shell Script
9 8 (2.14%) Go
10 6 (1.61%) Ada
10 6 (1.61%) Groovy
10 6 (1.61%) PL/SQL
11 5 (1.34%) Scala
12 4 (1.07%) PowerShell
13 3 (0.80%) Embedded C
13 3 (0.80%) Ruby
13 3 (0.80%) VB.NET
13 3 (0.80%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 107 (28.69%) Security Cleared
2 93 (24.93%) SC Cleared
3 41 (10.99%) Degree
4 28 (7.51%) ISTQB
5 21 (5.63%) Computer Science Degree
6 13 (3.49%) BPSS Clearance
7 9 (2.41%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 7 (1.88%) CISSP
9 6 (1.61%) CISM
10 5 (1.34%) Azure Certification
10 5 (1.34%) PMI Certification
11 4 (1.07%) DV Cleared
11 4 (1.07%) ISEB
11 4 (1.07%) PMP
12 3 (0.80%) HNC
12 3 (0.80%) HND
12 3 (0.80%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 3 (0.80%) Master's Degree
13 2 (0.54%) AWS Certification
13 2 (0.54%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 102 (27.35%) QA
2 27 (7.24%) Accessibility
3 11 (2.95%) NIST
3 11 (2.95%) WCAG
4 7 (1.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 6 (1.61%) EU AI Act
6 5 (1.34%) PCI DSS
7 4 (1.07%) GDPR
7 4 (1.07%) Software Quality Assurance
8 2 (0.54%) Def Stans
8 2 (0.54%) GRC
8 2 (0.54%) IEC 61508
8 2 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 2 (0.54%) SLA
9 1 (0.27%) Data Quality
9 1 (0.27%) IEC 61131
9 1 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 59 (15.82%) Docker
2 5 (1.34%) Active Directory
3 4 (1.07%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (0.80%) VMware NSX
5 2 (0.54%) Firmware
6 1 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 56 (15.01%) Kubernetes
2 15 (4.02%) Terraform
3 12 (3.22%) Ansible
4 9 (2.41%) Grafana
5 4 (1.07%) HP ALM
5 4 (1.07%) Prometheus
5 4 (1.07%) Puppet
6 3 (0.80%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 3 (0.80%) vCenter Server
6 3 (0.80%) WSUS
7 2 (0.54%) Functional Safety
7 2 (0.54%) Nessus
8 1 (0.27%) Control-M
8 1 (0.27%) HP Quality Center
8 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.27%) Nmap
8 1 (0.27%) Packer
8 1 (0.27%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.27%) Rsyslog
8 1 (0.27%) SCOM
Vendors
1 49 (13.14%) Microsoft
2 39 (10.46%) Oracle
3 10 (2.68%) Cisco
4 9 (2.41%) ServiceNow
4 9 (2.41%) Splunk
5 8 (2.14%) Atlassian
5 8 (2.14%) Google
6 6 (1.61%) BeyondTrust
6 6 (1.61%) CyberArk
6 6 (1.61%) Meraki
6 6 (1.61%) Thycotic
6 6 (1.61%) VMware
7 5 (1.34%) Juniper
7 5 (1.34%) Workday
8 4 (1.07%) CA Agile Central
8 4 (1.07%) Dynatrace
8 4 (1.07%) HP
8 4 (1.07%) Nokia
8 4 (1.07%) Salesforce
8 4 (1.07%) SAP
260 Software Testing jobs in England