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

6 months to
12 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 250 207 174
Rank change year-on-year -43 -33 +26
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 387 319 524
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.06% 1.29% 1.38%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.23% 1.43% 1.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 251 206 348
10th Percentile £330 £313 £250
25th Percentile £384 £363 £379
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -13.88%
75th Percentile £538 £625 £600
90th Percentile £600 £700 £688
UK median daily rate £433 £458 £450
% change year-on-year -5.46% +1.67% -11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 20 77
10th Percentile £52.80 £26.23 £39.19
25th Percentile £63.13 £58.47 £56.25
Median hourly rate £65.75 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.20% -3.85% +30.00%
75th Percentile £68.75 £69.38 -
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 31,521 22,327 33,048
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.53% 90.61% 86.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,160 14,432 21,853
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £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 1,961 797 2,159
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.25 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £30.00 £34.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.04% +6.15% -9.72%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.63 £70.53
UK median hourly rate £29.61 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -8.89% - -7.14%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 -35 160 £450 -1.64% 78
South East -34 63 £446 -25.63% 108
Midlands -32 46 £485 +8.02% 40
North of England -52 45 £405 -1.10% 39
South West -5 40 £438 +9.38% 35
West Midlands -38 38 £485 +8.02% 19
Yorkshire -46 27 £463 +14.20% 10
East of England -20 24 £600 +26.32% 54
North West -46 14 £405 -14.74% 26
East Midlands -27 8 - - 21
North East - 4 £350 - 3
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 22 (5.68%) 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%) Apache
4 2 (0.52%) JBoss
4 2 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.52%) SharePoint Server
4 2 (0.52%) WebLogic
5 1 (0.26%) CMS
5 1 (0.26%) WebSphere
Applications
1 12 (3.10%) 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 4 (1.03%) Maximo
2 3 (0.78%) Aladdin
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%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
Cloud Services
1 128 (33.07%) Azure
2 89 (23.00%) Azure DevOps
3 71 (18.35%) AWS
4 36 (9.30%) GitHub
5 33 (8.53%) GCP
6 23 (5.94%) Amazon S3
7 22 (5.68%) AWS Lambda
7 22 (5.68%) Serverless
8 21 (5.43%) GitHub Actions
9 12 (3.10%) Amazon ECS
9 12 (3.10%) AWS CloudFormation
10 11 (2.84%) Snowflake
11 8 (2.07%) Entra ID
12 7 (1.81%) OpenShift
13 5 (1.29%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 5 (1.29%) Power Platform
14 4 (1.03%) Amazon EC2
14 4 (1.03%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 3 (0.78%) Amazon SQS
15 3 (0.78%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.07%) Ethernet
2 5 (1.29%) Firewall
3 3 (0.78%) FTP
3 3 (0.78%) Internet
3 3 (0.78%) Modbus
3 3 (0.78%) RS-232
3 3 (0.78%) RS-422
3 3 (0.78%) RS-485
3 3 (0.78%) SNMP
4 2 (0.52%) DNS
4 2 (0.52%) Intranet
4 2 (0.52%) IOS XR
4 2 (0.52%) SD-WAN
4 2 (0.52%) Skype
4 2 (0.52%) Spanning Tree
4 2 (0.52%) SSH
4 2 (0.52%) SSL
4 2 (0.52%) TACACS
4 2 (0.52%) Wireless
4 2 (0.52%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (8.79%) PostgreSQL
2 21 (5.43%) SQL Server
3 17 (4.39%) NoSQL
4 15 (3.88%) MongoDB
4 15 (3.88%) Relational Database
5 12 (3.10%) BigQuery
5 12 (3.10%) MySQL
5 12 (3.10%) SAS Enterprise Guide
6 11 (2.84%) Oracle Database
7 6 (1.55%) Big Data
8 5 (1.29%) Amazon Redshift
8 5 (1.29%) Apache Cassandra
8 5 (1.29%) Couchbase
8 5 (1.29%) Data Warehouse
9 4 (1.03%) DynamoDB
9 4 (1.03%) Redis
10 3 (0.78%) Power BI
11 2 (0.52%) Amazon Athena
11 2 (0.52%) Amazon QuickSight
11 2 (0.52%) Pinecone
Development Applications
1 63 (16.28%) JIRA
2 59 (15.25%) Selenium
3 52 (13.44%) Git
4 38 (9.82%) Jenkins
5 37 (9.56%) Postman
6 32 (8.27%) Cypress.io
7 31 (8.01%) Cucumber
8 24 (6.20%) REST Assured
9 22 (5.68%) GitLab
10 21 (5.43%) JUnit
11 13 (3.36%) TestRail
12 9 (2.33%) JMeter
13 8 (2.07%) Rational DOORS
13 8 (2.07%) WebDriver
14 6 (1.55%) HP UFT
14 6 (1.55%) Maven
14 6 (1.55%) Rational Rhapsody
14 6 (1.55%) Zephyr
15 5 (1.29%) Gatling
15 5 (1.29%) SpecFlow
General
1 110 (28.42%) Social Skills
2 66 (17.05%) Analytical Skills
3 62 (16.02%) Finance
4 43 (11.11%) Public Sector
5 18 (4.65%) Banking
6 12 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
7 9 (2.33%) Aerospace
7 9 (2.33%) Manufacturing
8 8 (2.07%) Electronics
8 8 (2.07%) Influencing Skills
8 8 (2.07%) Military
9 6 (1.55%) Front Office
9 6 (1.55%) Investment Banking
9 6 (1.55%) Telecoms
10 5 (1.29%) Law
11 3 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (0.78%) Marketing
11 3 (0.78%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.52%) Police
12 2 (0.52%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 62 (16.02%) Senior
2 49 (12.66%) Developer
3 41 (10.59%) Analyst
4 40 (10.34%) Lead
4 40 (10.34%) Software Engineer
5 39 (10.08%) Test Engineer
6 34 (8.79%) Test Analyst
7 29 (7.49%) Tester
8 27 (6.98%) Consultant
9 21 (5.43%) QA Engineer
10 20 (5.17%) Test Manager
11 19 (4.91%) Java Engineer
12 16 (4.13%) Senior Analyst
12 16 (4.13%) Senior Test Analyst
13 15 (3.88%) Java Developer
14 14 (3.62%) QA Leader
14 14 (3.62%) Senior Developer
14 14 (3.62%) Test Leader
15 12 (3.10%) Automation Engineer
15 12 (3.10%) Release Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (10.34%) Playwright
2 38 (9.82%) Spring
3 34 (8.79%) React
4 33 (8.53%) .NET
5 30 (7.75%) REST
6 29 (7.49%) RESTful
7 28 (7.24%) Spring Boot
8 27 (6.98%) Node.js
9 18 (4.65%) HTML
10 16 (4.13%) CSS
10 16 (4.13%) Kafka
11 11 (2.84%) Middleware
12 10 (2.58%) Gherkin
12 10 (2.58%) pytest
13 8 (2.07%) .NET Framework
13 8 (2.07%) RabbitMQ
14 7 (1.81%) .NET Core
14 7 (1.81%) Apache NiFi
15 6 (1.55%) GraphQL
15 6 (1.55%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 28 (7.24%) Product Ownership
2 24 (6.20%) Cloud Native
3 14 (3.62%) Self-Motivation
4 12 (3.10%) Enterprise Software
5 9 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
5 9 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
6 7 (1.81%) Data Centre
7 6 (1.55%) CUDA
7 6 (1.55%) Greenfield Project
7 6 (1.55%) Management Information System
7 6 (1.55%) Mobile App
8 5 (1.29%) Embedded Systems
9 4 (1.03%) Fixed Income
9 4 (1.03%) PCIe
9 4 (1.03%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.78%) Algorithms
10 3 (0.78%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (0.78%) Data Structures
10 3 (0.78%) Equities
10 3 (0.78%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 35 (9.04%) Windows
2 23 (5.94%) Linux
3 9 (2.33%) Unix
4 5 (1.29%) Mac OS
5 4 (1.03%) FreeRTOS
6 3 (0.78%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.52%) Android
7 2 (0.52%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.52%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.26%) Kali Linux
8 1 (0.26%) Mac OS X
8 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.26%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 183 (47.29%) Test Automation
2 153 (39.53%) Agile
3 137 (35.40%) CI/CD
4 136 (35.14%) DevOps
5 101 (26.10%) Problem-Solving
6 88 (22.74%) Continuous Improvement
7 85 (21.96%) Test Scripting
8 74 (19.12%) Software Engineering
9 64 (16.54%) Validation
10 62 (16.02%) Test Strategy
11 57 (14.73%) Microservices
12 52 (13.44%) Test Management
13 49 (12.66%) API Testing
14 47 (12.14%) Containerisation
14 47 (12.14%) TDD
15 45 (11.63%) Regression Testing
16 44 (11.37%) Defect Tracking
17 41 (10.59%) Scrum
18 40 (10.34%) Manual Testing
19 37 (9.56%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 84 (21.71%) Python
2 80 (20.67%) Java
3 71 (18.35%) SQL
4 54 (13.95%) JavaScript
5 41 (10.59%) TypeScript
6 39 (10.08%) C#
7 17 (4.39%) C++
8 12 (3.10%) C
9 10 (2.58%) Go
10 9 (2.33%) Bash
10 9 (2.33%) PL/SQL
11 7 (1.81%) PowerShell
12 5 (1.29%) VBScript
13 4 (1.03%) Scala
13 4 (1.03%) VB
14 3 (0.78%) Embedded C
14 3 (0.78%) Ruby
14 3 (0.78%) Shell Script
15 2 (0.52%) Groovy
15 2 (0.52%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 113 (29.20%) Security Cleared
2 94 (24.29%) SC Cleared
3 38 (9.82%) Degree
3 38 (9.82%) ISTQB
4 20 (5.17%) Computer Science Degree
5 14 (3.62%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 10 (2.58%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 8 (2.07%) BPSS Clearance
8 6 (1.55%) 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%) CFA
12 1 (0.26%) CTC Cleared
12 1 (0.26%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.26%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 107 (27.65%) QA
2 20 (5.17%) Accessibility
3 8 (2.07%) Data Quality
4 7 (1.81%) PMO
4 7 (1.81%) WCAG
5 6 (1.55%) EU AI Act
5 6 (1.55%) NIST
6 4 (1.03%) SLA
7 2 (0.52%) Software Quality Assurance
8 1 (0.26%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.26%) MiFID
8 1 (0.26%) SEPA
System Software
1 47 (12.14%) Docker
2 7 (1.81%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (1.55%) Virtual Desktop
4 5 (1.29%) Active Directory
5 4 (1.03%) Firmware
6 2 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.52%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.26%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
7 1 (0.26%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 52 (13.44%) Kubernetes
2 14 (3.62%) Terraform
3 10 (2.58%) Grafana
3 10 (2.58%) HP ALM
4 8 (2.07%) Ansible
5 7 (1.81%) Prometheus
5 7 (1.81%) Puppet
6 5 (1.29%) HP Quality Center
6 5 (1.29%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (1.03%) SCCM
8 2 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.52%) Nessus
8 2 (0.52%) Salt
8 2 (0.52%) vCenter Server
8 2 (0.52%) WSUS
9 1 (0.26%) Kibana
9 1 (0.26%) Nmap
9 1 (0.26%) Oracle ZFS
9 1 (0.26%) Packer
9 1 (0.26%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 41 (10.59%) Microsoft
2 37 (9.56%) Oracle
3 10 (2.58%) HP
3 10 (2.58%) ServiceNow
4 9 (2.33%) VMware
5 8 (2.07%) Atlassian
5 8 (2.07%) SAP
5 8 (2.07%) Splunk
6 7 (1.81%) Citrix
6 7 (1.81%) Dell
7 6 (1.55%) IBM
8 5 (1.29%) Cisco
8 5 (1.29%) Workday
9 4 (1.03%) Databricks
9 4 (1.03%) Remedy
10 3 (0.78%) Ab Initio
10 3 (0.78%) Charles River
10 3 (0.78%) Palo Alto
10 3 (0.78%) Salesforce
10 3 (0.78%) Teradata