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 4 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
4 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 229 202 167
Rank change year-on-year -27 -35 +12
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 386 332 540
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.16% 1.27% 1.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.32% 1.42% 1.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 254 189 357
10th Percentile £330 £313 £250
25th Percentile £400 £385 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £455 £470 £495
Median % change year-on-year -3.24% -5.05% -5.71%
75th Percentile £538 £618 £601
90th Percentile £600 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £450 £469 £475
% change year-on-year -4.05% -1.26% -8.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 18 86
10th Percentile £26.25 £55.15 £42.91
25th Percentile £50.00 £61.56 £56.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +30.00%
75th Percentile £67.25 £73.13 -
90th Percentile £68.75 £80.75 £68.01
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 29,221 23,402 33,182
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 87.65% 89.60% 87.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,693 14,362 22,190
10th Percentile £306 £310 £300
25th Percentile £410 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £640 £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 1,820 750 1,958
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £13.41
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.01 £16.69
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £35.25
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -0.71% +0.71%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £61.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +9.38%

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 4 February 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 4 February 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 4 February 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 £450 -5.26% 65
South East -23 63 £446 -25.63% 87
North of England -55 51 £409 +2.25% 53
Midlands -27 46 £515 +17.98% 45
South West +5 42 £449 +12.13% 30
West Midlands -20 39 £515 +17.98% 30
Yorkshire -38 29 £475 +16.49% 20
East of England -20 19 £598 +30.96% 26
North West -43 15 £405 +1.25% 32
East Midlands -24 7 £313 - 15
North East - 7 £350 - 1
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 20 (5.18%) Confluence
2 17 (4.40%) SAS
3 7 (1.81%) Apache Airflow
3 7 (1.81%) SharePoint
4 5 (1.30%) Microsoft Exchange
5 3 (0.78%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.78%) SharePoint Server
6 2 (0.52%) Apache
6 2 (0.52%) JBoss
6 2 (0.52%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.26%) CMS
Applications
1 11 (2.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (2.33%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.52%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.26%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 2 (0.52%) Aladdin
1 2 (0.52%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.52%) Dynamics NAV
1 2 (0.52%) LabWindows
1 2 (0.52%) Maximo
1 2 (0.52%) Oracle EBS R12
1 2 (0.52%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (0.26%) Algo Collateral
2 1 (0.26%) CODA-Financials
2 1 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 123 (31.87%) Azure
2 77 (19.95%) Azure DevOps
3 71 (18.39%) AWS
4 33 (8.55%) GitHub
5 30 (7.77%) GCP
6 21 (5.44%) Amazon S3
7 19 (4.92%) GitHub Actions
8 18 (4.66%) AWS Lambda
8 18 (4.66%) Serverless
9 12 (3.11%) Amazon ECS
10 11 (2.85%) AWS CloudFormation
11 9 (2.33%) Power Platform
11 9 (2.33%) Snowflake
12 6 (1.55%) Dynamics 365
12 6 (1.55%) Entra ID
12 6 (1.55%) PaaS
13 5 (1.30%) OpenShift
14 4 (1.04%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 4 (1.04%) Cloud Computing
14 4 (1.04%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.81%) Ethernet
2 4 (1.04%) DNS
2 4 (1.04%) Firewall
2 4 (1.04%) Internet
2 4 (1.04%) Wireshark
3 3 (0.78%) SD-WAN
3 3 (0.78%) Skype
3 3 (0.78%) SNMP
4 2 (0.52%) Cisco IOS
4 2 (0.52%) FTP
4 2 (0.52%) Intranet
4 2 (0.52%) IOS XR
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%) TCP/IP
4 2 (0.52%) Wireless
5 1 (0.26%) Network Security
5 1 (0.26%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (8.29%) PostgreSQL
2 22 (5.70%) SQL Server
3 19 (4.92%) NoSQL
4 17 (4.40%) SAS Enterprise Guide
5 16 (4.15%) MongoDB
5 16 (4.15%) Oracle Database
6 13 (3.37%) Relational Database
7 11 (2.85%) BigQuery
7 11 (2.85%) MySQL
8 6 (1.55%) Apache Cassandra
8 6 (1.55%) Power BI
8 6 (1.55%) SAS Visual Analytics
9 5 (1.30%) Big Data
9 5 (1.30%) Couchbase
10 4 (1.04%) Amazon Redshift
10 4 (1.04%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (1.04%) Redis
11 3 (0.78%) Metadata
12 2 (0.52%) DynamoDB
12 2 (0.52%) Pinecone
Development Applications
1 57 (14.77%) JIRA
1 57 (14.77%) Selenium
2 45 (11.66%) Git
3 39 (10.10%) Postman
4 37 (9.59%) Jenkins
5 34 (8.81%) Cucumber
6 28 (7.25%) Cypress.io
7 23 (5.96%) REST Assured
8 20 (5.18%) GitLab
9 18 (4.66%) JUnit
10 10 (2.59%) JMeter
10 10 (2.59%) WebDriver
11 8 (2.07%) TestRail
12 7 (1.81%) Maven
13 6 (1.55%) HP UFT
13 6 (1.55%) Rational DOORS
13 6 (1.55%) Rational Rhapsody
14 5 (1.30%) Gradle
15 4 (1.04%) Bitbucket
15 4 (1.04%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 116 (30.05%) Social Skills
2 60 (15.54%) Analytical Skills
3 57 (14.77%) Finance
4 51 (13.21%) Public Sector
5 18 (4.66%) Banking
6 12 (3.11%) Aerospace
7 9 (2.33%) Documentation Skills
7 9 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
7 9 (2.33%) Manufacturing
7 9 (2.33%) Military
8 7 (1.81%) Investment Banking
8 7 (1.81%) Telecoms
9 6 (1.55%) Automotive
9 6 (1.55%) Front Office
9 6 (1.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 5 (1.30%) Electronics
11 4 (1.04%) Multimedia
11 4 (1.04%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.78%) Back Office
12 3 (0.78%) Billing
Job Titles
1 62 (16.06%) Senior
2 51 (13.21%) Developer
3 46 (11.92%) Software Engineer
4 41 (10.62%) Analyst
5 36 (9.33%) Test Analyst
5 36 (9.33%) Test Engineer
6 33 (8.55%) Lead
7 32 (8.29%) Tester
8 24 (6.22%) Consultant
9 19 (4.92%) Java Engineer
10 17 (4.40%) Release Manager
11 16 (4.15%) QA Engineer
11 16 (4.15%) Senior Analyst
11 16 (4.15%) Senior Test Analyst
11 16 (4.15%) Test Manager
12 13 (3.37%) Java Developer
12 13 (3.37%) QA Leader
12 13 (3.37%) Senior Developer
13 12 (3.11%) Test Leader
14 10 (2.59%) Systems Integration Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (9.84%) Playwright
2 35 (9.07%) .NET
2 35 (9.07%) React
2 35 (9.07%) Spring
3 31 (8.03%) RESTful
4 30 (7.77%) Spring Boot
5 27 (6.99%) Node.js
6 26 (6.74%) REST
7 19 (4.92%) HTML
8 17 (4.40%) Kafka
9 16 (4.15%) CSS
10 11 (2.85%) Middleware
11 8 (2.07%) .NET Framework
11 8 (2.07%) AngularJS
11 8 (2.07%) Gherkin
11 8 (2.07%) pytest
11 8 (2.07%) RabbitMQ
12 7 (1.81%) Apache NiFi
12 7 (1.81%) JSON
13 6 (1.55%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 26 (6.74%) Product Ownership
2 21 (5.44%) Cloud Native
3 18 (4.66%) Self-Motivation
4 11 (2.85%) Enterprise Software
5 10 (2.59%) Distributed Systems
6 7 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (1.55%) CUDA
7 6 (1.55%) Greenfield Project
7 6 (1.55%) Mobile App
7 6 (1.55%) Virtual Team
8 4 (1.04%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.04%) NHS
8 4 (1.04%) PCIe
8 4 (1.04%) Virtual Reality
9 3 (0.78%) Data Structures
9 3 (0.78%) Derivative
9 3 (0.78%) Fixed Income
9 3 (0.78%) Management Information System
9 3 (0.78%) PKI
9 3 (0.78%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 35 (9.07%) Windows
2 27 (6.99%) Linux
3 8 (2.07%) Unix
4 4 (1.04%) FreeRTOS
4 4 (1.04%) Mac OS
5 3 (0.78%) Windows 10
5 3 (0.78%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.78%) Windows Server 2016
6 2 (0.52%) Android
7 1 (0.26%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.26%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.26%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 170 (44.04%) Test Automation
2 144 (37.31%) Agile
3 137 (35.49%) CI/CD
4 126 (32.64%) DevOps
5 101 (26.17%) Problem-Solving
6 83 (21.50%) Test Scripting
7 79 (20.47%) Continuous Improvement
8 73 (18.91%) Software Engineering
9 66 (17.10%) Validation
10 61 (15.80%) Test Strategy
11 58 (15.03%) Microservices
12 48 (12.44%) API Testing
13 47 (12.18%) Containerisation
13 47 (12.18%) Test Management
14 45 (11.66%) Scrum
14 45 (11.66%) TDD
15 39 (10.10%) Defect Tracking
16 38 (9.84%) AI
17 36 (9.33%) Integration Testing
18 34 (8.81%) Manual Testing
Programming Languages
1 82 (21.24%) Java
2 78 (20.21%) Python
3 70 (18.13%) SQL
4 56 (14.51%) JavaScript
5 36 (9.33%) TypeScript
6 35 (9.07%) C#
7 16 (4.15%) C++
8 11 (2.85%) Bash
8 11 (2.85%) C
9 10 (2.59%) Go
10 9 (2.33%) PL/SQL
10 9 (2.33%) Shell Script
11 6 (1.55%) Ada
12 5 (1.30%) Scala
12 5 (1.30%) VBScript
13 4 (1.04%) PowerShell
13 4 (1.04%) VB
14 3 (0.78%) Embedded C
14 3 (0.78%) Groovy
14 3 (0.78%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 114 (29.53%) Security Cleared
2 97 (25.13%) SC Cleared
3 44 (11.40%) Degree
4 30 (7.77%) ISTQB
5 23 (5.96%) Computer Science Degree
6 13 (3.37%) BPSS Clearance
7 10 (2.59%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 8 (2.07%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 6 (1.55%) ISEB
10 4 (1.04%) DV Cleared
10 4 (1.04%) Master's Degree
11 3 (0.78%) PMI Certification
11 3 (0.78%) PMP
12 2 (0.52%) ACCA
12 2 (0.52%) Azure Certification
12 2 (0.52%) CIMA
12 2 (0.52%) Cisco Certification
12 2 (0.52%) CISSP
12 2 (0.52%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
13 1 (0.26%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 100 (25.91%) QA
2 27 (6.99%) Accessibility
3 9 (2.33%) WCAG
4 7 (1.81%) NIST
5 6 (1.55%) EU AI Act
6 5 (1.30%) SLA
7 4 (1.04%) Software Quality Assurance
8 3 (0.78%) Data Quality
9 2 (0.52%) PMO
10 1 (0.26%) IEC 61131
10 1 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 52 (13.47%) Docker
2 7 (1.81%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (1.30%) Active Directory
3 5 (1.30%) Firmware
4 3 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (0.78%) VMware NSX
5 2 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.26%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 51 (13.21%) Kubernetes
2 15 (3.89%) Terraform
3 11 (2.85%) Grafana
4 9 (2.33%) HP ALM
5 8 (2.07%) Ansible
6 7 (1.81%) Prometheus
7 6 (1.55%) Puppet
8 5 (1.30%) HP Quality Center
9 3 (0.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 3 (0.78%) Microsoft Intune
9 3 (0.78%) SCCM
9 3 (0.78%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.78%) WSUS
10 2 (0.52%) Nessus
11 1 (0.26%) Kibana
11 1 (0.26%) Nmap
11 1 (0.26%) Packer
11 1 (0.26%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.26%) Salt
Vendors
1 47 (12.18%) Microsoft
2 43 (11.14%) Oracle
3 10 (2.59%) Splunk
4 9 (2.33%) HP
4 9 (2.33%) ServiceNow
5 8 (2.07%) Atlassian
5 8 (2.07%) Cisco
5 8 (2.07%) VMware
6 6 (1.55%) Salesforce
6 6 (1.55%) SAP
7 5 (1.30%) Workday
8 4 (1.04%) Meraki
8 4 (1.04%) Remedy
9 3 (0.78%) Citrix
9 3 (0.78%) Juniper
9 3 (0.78%) Micro Focus
9 3 (0.78%) MuleSoft
9 3 (0.78%) Siemens
9 3 (0.78%) SolarWinds
9 3 (0.78%) Veeam
285 Software Testing jobs in England