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

6 months to
9 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 267 254 198
Rank change year-on-year -13 -56 -31
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 440 278 415
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.96% 1.00% 1.25%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.13% 1.10% 1.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 234 186 284
10th Percentile £258 £313 £320
25th Percentile £400 £350 £389
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £425 £459
Median % change year-on-year +17.65% -7.36% -8.25%
75th Percentile £575 £525 £597
90th Percentile £688 £631 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £436 £463
% change year-on-year +14.61% -5.68% -6.75%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 27 34
10th Percentile £18.25 £38.25 £26.88
25th Percentile £56.25 £50.00 £54.88
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.04% -8.00% +11.11%
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 39,011 25,247 28,576
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.26% 90.77% 85.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,277 16,138 18,662
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 £626 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.02%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,537 1,415 1,657
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £14.13
25th Percentile £19.85 £17.87 £18.32
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -40.82% +1.00%
75th Percentile £68.75 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.10 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.50 £25.15 £40.94
% change year-on-year +72.96% -38.57% -3.67%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -54 153 £500 +17.65% 127
South East -59 67 £425 +6.25% 81
Midlands -5 63 £513 +41.38% 41
West Midlands -3 57 £511 +20.29% 26
North of England -43 57 £488 +12.20% 60
East of England +10 51 £300 -36.95% 51
South West -26 42 £410 -6.29% 30
North East -18 27 £500 - 17
North West -39 17 £475 +33.80% 32
Yorkshire -45 15 £475 +9.20% 12
East Midlands -10 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 13 (2.95%) Confluence
2 12 (2.73%) Apache Airflow
3 10 (2.27%) SAS
4 7 (1.59%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.68%) SharePoint
6 2 (0.45%) IIS
7 1 (0.23%) Apache
7 1 (0.23%) IBM HTTP Server
7 1 (0.23%) Jupyter
Applications
1 10 (2.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.59%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.14%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.91%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.91%) Trello
5 2 (0.45%) Simulink
6 1 (0.23%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (1.36%) Findur
1 6 (1.36%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (0.91%) Aladdin
3 3 (0.68%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.68%) Primavera
4 2 (0.45%) 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 Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.23%) Shopify
5 1 (0.23%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 102 (23.18%) Azure
2 96 (21.82%) AWS
3 48 (10.91%) Azure DevOps
4 44 (10.00%) GitHub
5 26 (5.91%) GCP
6 20 (4.55%) GitHub Actions
7 18 (4.09%) Serverless
8 17 (3.86%) GitHub Copilot
9 16 (3.64%) AWS Lambda
10 12 (2.73%) Amazon S3
11 11 (2.50%) PaaS
12 9 (2.05%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 8 (1.82%) Entra ID
13 8 (1.82%) Power Platform
14 7 (1.59%) SaaS
15 6 (1.36%) Amazon EC2
15 6 (1.36%) OpenShift
15 6 (1.36%) Snowflake
16 5 (1.14%) Google Gemini
16 5 (1.14%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 9 (2.05%) Ethernet
2 6 (1.36%) DNS
3 5 (1.14%) Firewall
3 5 (1.14%) Software-Defined Radio
3 5 (1.14%) Wireless
4 4 (0.91%) Network Security
4 4 (0.91%) RS-232
4 4 (0.91%) RS-422
5 3 (0.68%) DHCP
5 3 (0.68%) Internet
5 3 (0.68%) Modbus
5 3 (0.68%) Reverse Proxy
5 3 (0.68%) RS-485
6 2 (0.45%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.23%) BGP
7 1 (0.23%) FTP
7 1 (0.23%) GSM
7 1 (0.23%) MPLS
7 1 (0.23%) SSL
7 1 (0.23%) UMTS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (3.41%) Relational Database
2 13 (2.95%) SQL Server
3 12 (2.73%) MongoDB
3 12 (2.73%) Oracle Database
3 12 (2.73%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (2.27%) SAS Enterprise Guide
4 10 (2.27%) SAS Visual Analytics
5 9 (2.05%) DynamoDB
5 9 (2.05%) MySQL
5 9 (2.05%) NoSQL
6 8 (1.82%) Big Data
7 7 (1.59%) Elasticsearch
8 6 (1.36%) Power BI
9 5 (1.14%) Data Warehouse
9 5 (1.14%) Redis
10 4 (0.91%) Amazon Athena
10 4 (0.91%) Amazon Redshift
11 3 (0.68%) Amazon QuickSight
11 3 (0.68%) Parquet
11 3 (0.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 71 (16.14%) JIRA
2 62 (14.09%) Git
3 53 (12.05%) Selenium
4 38 (8.64%) GitLab
5 33 (7.50%) Cucumber
6 32 (7.27%) Jenkins
7 31 (7.05%) Postman
8 28 (6.36%) JUnit
9 23 (5.23%) REST Assured
10 16 (3.64%) Gatling
11 13 (2.95%) Rational DOORS
12 11 (2.50%) Cypress.io
12 11 (2.50%) WebDriver
12 11 (2.50%) Zephyr
13 10 (2.27%) TestRail
14 9 (2.05%) JMeter
15 8 (1.82%) SonarQube
16 7 (1.59%) Appium
16 7 (1.59%) Maven
16 7 (1.59%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 131 (29.77%) Social Skills
2 94 (21.36%) Finance
3 74 (16.82%) Analytical Skills
4 53 (12.05%) Public Sector
5 44 (10.00%) Banking
6 26 (5.91%) Aerospace
7 24 (5.45%) Automotive
8 13 (2.95%) Back Office
9 12 (2.73%) Front Office
10 10 (2.27%) Electronics
10 10 (2.27%) Law
10 10 (2.27%) Organisational Skills
11 9 (2.05%) Documentation Skills
12 8 (1.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 8 (1.82%) Manufacturing
12 8 (1.82%) Retail
12 8 (1.82%) Telecoms
13 5 (1.14%) Avionics
13 5 (1.14%) Military
14 4 (0.91%) Legal
Job Titles
1 70 (15.91%) Test Engineer
2 69 (15.68%) Software Engineer
3 64 (14.55%) Senior
4 60 (13.64%) Developer
5 31 (7.05%) Analyst
6 29 (6.59%) Lead
6 29 (6.59%) Software Test Engineer
7 25 (5.68%) Tester
8 22 (5.00%) Test Manager
9 20 (4.55%) QA Engineer
10 19 (4.32%) Java Developer
10 19 (4.32%) Software Developer
11 17 (3.86%) Architect
11 17 (3.86%) Principal Engineer
12 15 (3.41%) Automation Engineer
12 15 (3.41%) Principal Software Engineer
12 15 (3.41%) Senior Developer
12 15 (3.41%) Test Automation Engineer
13 13 (2.95%) Quality Engineer
13 13 (2.95%) Salesforce Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (10.45%) REST
2 44 (10.00%) React
3 43 (9.77%) Playwright
4 35 (7.95%) Spring
5 30 (6.82%) .NET
6 25 (5.68%) Kafka
7 24 (5.45%) RESTful
8 19 (4.32%) Spring Boot
9 18 (4.09%) Node.js
10 14 (3.18%) AngularJS
11 11 (2.50%) Redux
12 10 (2.27%) HTML
13 9 (2.05%) CSS
13 9 (2.05%) JSON
13 9 (2.05%) XML
14 8 (1.82%) Vue
15 7 (1.59%) HTML5
15 7 (1.59%) Jest
15 7 (1.59%) pytest
15 7 (1.59%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 42 (9.55%) Product Ownership
2 36 (8.18%) Enterprise Software
3 32 (7.27%) Cloud Native
4 26 (5.91%) Embedded Systems
5 22 (5.00%) Self-Motivation
6 18 (4.09%) Distributed Systems
7 13 (2.95%) Management Information System
8 10 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
9 9 (2.05%) Data Centre
9 9 (2.05%) Data Protection Act
10 6 (1.36%) Data Structures
10 6 (1.36%) Public Cloud
11 5 (1.14%) Derivative
11 5 (1.14%) FPGA
11 5 (1.14%) Greenfield Project
11 5 (1.14%) Onboarding
11 5 (1.14%) PCIe
12 4 (0.91%) Equities
12 4 (0.91%) Equity Derivative
12 4 (0.91%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 26 (5.91%) Linux
2 24 (5.45%) Windows
3 8 (1.82%) Unix
4 6 (1.36%) FreeRTOS
4 6 (1.36%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.68%) Android
5 3 (0.68%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.68%) Embedded Linux
6 2 (0.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.45%) zOS
7 1 (0.23%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 212 (48.18%) Test Automation
2 201 (45.68%) Agile
3 174 (39.55%) CI/CD
4 136 (30.91%) Software Engineering
5 134 (30.45%) DevOps
6 103 (23.41%) Problem-Solving
7 102 (23.18%) Continuous Improvement
8 84 (19.09%) Scrum
9 80 (18.18%) SDLC
10 65 (14.77%) Test Strategy
11 63 (14.32%) Test Scripting
12 62 (14.09%) Validation
13 58 (13.18%) AI
14 56 (12.73%) Regression Testing
15 53 (12.05%) Defect Management
16 52 (11.82%) Microservices
16 52 (11.82%) User Acceptance Testing
17 50 (11.36%) Mentoring
17 50 (11.36%) Stakeholder Management
18 45 (10.23%) Code Quality
Programming Languages
1 89 (20.23%) Java
2 85 (19.32%) Python
3 58 (13.18%) SQL
4 50 (11.36%) JavaScript
5 39 (8.86%) C#
6 31 (7.05%) TypeScript
7 24 (5.45%) C++
8 18 (4.09%) C
9 14 (3.18%) PowerShell
10 8 (1.82%) Kotlin
11 5 (1.14%) Apex Code
11 5 (1.14%) Bash
11 5 (1.14%) PL/SQL
12 4 (0.91%) Scala
13 3 (0.68%) Ada
13 3 (0.68%) Go
13 3 (0.68%) Korn
13 3 (0.68%) MATLAB
13 3 (0.68%) Rust
13 3 (0.68%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 140 (31.82%) Security Cleared
2 115 (26.14%) SC Cleared
3 51 (11.59%) Degree
4 40 (9.09%) ISTQB
5 20 (4.55%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 15 (3.41%) BPSS Clearance
7 11 (2.50%) Computer Science Degree
8 10 (2.27%) ISEB
8 10 (2.27%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 9 (2.05%) DV Cleared
10 4 (0.91%) CEH
10 4 (0.91%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (0.91%) CISSP
10 4 (0.91%) CompTIA Security+
11 3 (0.68%) CCNA
12 2 (0.45%) A+ Certification
12 2 (0.45%) ISEB Practitioner
12 2 (0.45%) Network+ Certification
12 2 (0.45%) PMI Certification
12 2 (0.45%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 98 (22.27%) QA
2 26 (5.91%) Accessibility
3 18 (4.09%) WCAG
4 9 (2.05%) Data Quality
5 6 (1.36%) PMO
6 5 (1.14%) ISO 20022
6 5 (1.14%) Software Quality Assurance
7 4 (0.91%) NIST
8 3 (0.68%) GRC
9 2 (0.45%) ISO 15022
9 2 (0.45%) MiFID
10 1 (0.23%) MIL-STD-1553
10 1 (0.23%) SLA
System Software
1 48 (10.91%) Docker
2 12 (2.73%) Active Directory
3 6 (1.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (1.14%) Firmware
5 4 (0.91%) Embedded Firmware
5 4 (0.91%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.68%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.68%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.68%) VMware Workstation
7 2 (0.45%) NFS
7 2 (0.45%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 58 (13.18%) Kubernetes
2 29 (6.59%) Terraform
3 16 (3.64%) Ansible
4 13 (2.95%) Prometheus
5 10 (2.27%) Grafana
6 6 (1.36%) Packer
7 4 (0.91%) HP ALM
7 4 (0.91%) Puppet
8 3 (0.68%) Microsoft Intune
8 3 (0.68%) Salt
9 2 (0.45%) HP Quality Center
9 2 (0.45%) Tivoli Storage Manager
10 1 (0.23%) Argo
10 1 (0.23%) HP Fortify
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
Vendors
1 31 (7.05%) Oracle
2 27 (6.14%) Microsoft
3 17 (3.86%) IBM
3 17 (3.86%) Salesforce
4 8 (1.82%) SAP
4 8 (1.82%) VMware
5 7 (1.59%) Dell
6 6 (1.36%) Conga
6 6 (1.36%) GoCardless
6 6 (1.36%) OpenLink
7 5 (1.14%) Google
7 5 (1.14%) Splunk
8 4 (0.91%) Citrix
8 4 (0.91%) HP
8 4 (0.91%) ServiceNow
9 3 (0.68%) Ab Initio
9 3 (0.68%) Checkmarx
9 3 (0.68%) Databricks
9 3 (0.68%) Palo Alto
9 3 (0.68%) Teradata