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 1 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
1 Dec 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 228 197 179
Rank change year-on-year -31 -18 -7
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 360 385 564
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.18% 1.26% 1.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.32% 1.44% 1.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 249 238 367
10th Percentile £325 £313 £285
25th Percentile £375 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £450 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.11% -14.29% +2.44%
75th Percentile £538 £600 £625
90th Percentile £613 £665 £668
UK median daily rate £436 £445 £500
% change year-on-year -1.97% -11.00% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 18 83
10th Percentile £26.25 £25.43 £45.18
25th Percentile £49.38 £54.88 £49.18
Median hourly rate £63.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.80% -3.85% +30.00%
75th Percentile £67.00 £67.38 -
90th Percentile £67.48 £80.75 £68.22
UK median hourly rate £63.00 £57.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +9.57% -11.54% +30.00%

All Process and 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 27,266 26,819 34,391
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 89.52% 87.66% 88.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,363 16,442 23,467
10th Percentile £300 £313 £313
25th Percentile £405 £418 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £548
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.11% -0.45%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £534
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.59% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,775 968 1,450
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.22 £14.64
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.26 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +19.14%
75th Percentile £50.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.75 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £33.00 £43.42
% change year-on-year -23.79% -23.99% +24.04%

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 1 December 2025.

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 1 December 2025.

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 1 December 2025. 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 -20 124 £448 -5.79% 68
North of England -39 63 £405 +1.25% 50
South East -33 60 £431 -25.00% 113
Yorkshire -19 41 £450 +10.36% 14
South West +9 36 £450 -4.26% 28
Midlands -29 32 £515 +28.75% 23
East of England +7 27 £573 +63.57% 42
West Midlands -19 25 £515 +28.75% 18
North West -40 17 £405 +1.25% 30
East Midlands -11 7 £340 - 4
North East -4 5 £350 -4.76% 6
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 17 (4.72%) Confluence
2 13 (3.61%) SAS
3 7 (1.94%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (1.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (1.67%) SharePoint
5 4 (1.11%) JBoss
6 3 (0.83%) CICS
6 3 (0.83%) SharePoint Server
7 2 (0.56%) Apache
7 2 (0.56%) CMS
7 2 (0.56%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.28%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.28%) EPiServer
8 1 (0.28%) Tomcat
Applications
1 12 (3.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (2.50%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (2.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.83%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.56%) Aladdin
1 2 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.56%) Dynamics NAV
1 2 (0.56%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.28%) Algo Collateral
2 1 (0.28%) Cerner Millennium
2 1 (0.28%) CODA-Financials
2 1 (0.28%) Oracle EBS R12
2 1 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (0.28%) SimCorp Dimension
2 1 (0.28%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 104 (28.89%) Azure
2 68 (18.89%) AWS
3 49 (13.61%) Azure DevOps
4 35 (9.72%) GCP
5 25 (6.94%) GitHub
6 18 (5.00%) GitHub Actions
7 11 (3.06%) Amazon S3
7 11 (3.06%) Power Platform
8 9 (2.50%) Amazon ECS
8 9 (2.50%) AWS Lambda
8 9 (2.50%) npm
8 9 (2.50%) Serverless
9 7 (1.94%) Dynamics 365
10 6 (1.67%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (1.67%) Entra ID
10 6 (1.67%) PaaS
10 6 (1.67%) Snowflake
11 4 (1.11%) Cloud Computing
11 4 (1.11%) Microsoft 365
11 4 (1.11%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 10 (2.78%) Ethernet
2 6 (1.67%) Wireshark
3 5 (1.39%) SD-WAN
4 4 (1.11%) DNS
4 4 (1.11%) Internet
5 3 (0.83%) Firewall
5 3 (0.83%) Skype
5 3 (0.83%) SNMP
6 2 (0.56%) Cisco IOS
6 2 (0.56%) FTP
6 2 (0.56%) Intranet
6 2 (0.56%) IOS XR
6 2 (0.56%) Network Security
6 2 (0.56%) Spanning Tree
6 2 (0.56%) SSH
6 2 (0.56%) SSL
6 2 (0.56%) TACACS
6 2 (0.56%) TCP/IP
6 2 (0.56%) Wireless
7 1 (0.28%) Modbus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (5.28%) SQL Server
2 18 (5.00%) PostgreSQL
3 15 (4.17%) NoSQL
4 14 (3.89%) Oracle Database
5 13 (3.61%) SAS Enterprise Guide
6 10 (2.78%) MongoDB
7 9 (2.50%) BigQuery
8 8 (2.22%) Power BI
9 6 (1.67%) Apache Cassandra
9 6 (1.67%) SAS Visual Analytics
10 5 (1.39%) Couchbase
10 5 (1.39%) Redis
11 4 (1.11%) MySQL
11 4 (1.11%) Pinecone
12 3 (0.83%) DB2
12 3 (0.83%) Metadata
12 3 (0.83%) Relational Database
13 2 (0.56%) Big Data
13 2 (0.56%) DynamoDB
14 1 (0.28%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 78 (21.67%) JIRA
2 67 (18.61%) Selenium
3 51 (14.17%) Postman
4 43 (11.94%) Git
5 42 (11.67%) Cucumber
6 41 (11.39%) Jenkins
7 32 (8.89%) GitLab
8 28 (7.78%) Cypress.io
9 25 (6.94%) REST Assured
10 19 (5.28%) SoapUI
11 17 (4.72%) JUnit
12 13 (3.61%) JMeter
13 9 (2.50%) Artifactory
13 9 (2.50%) Visual Studio
13 9 (2.50%) WebDriver
14 8 (2.22%) Maven
15 7 (1.94%) SonarQube
15 7 (1.94%) Zephyr
16 6 (1.67%) TestRail
17 5 (1.39%) Gatling
General
1 129 (35.83%) Social Skills
2 63 (17.50%) Finance
3 40 (11.11%) Analytical Skills
4 38 (10.56%) Public Sector
5 19 (5.28%) Banking
6 13 (3.61%) Documentation Skills
7 11 (3.06%) Manufacturing
8 9 (2.50%) Aerospace
9 8 (2.22%) Influencing Skills
10 7 (1.94%) Telecoms
11 6 (1.67%) Military
12 5 (1.39%) Automotive
12 5 (1.39%) Electronics
12 5 (1.39%) Front Office
12 5 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (1.39%) Investment Banking
13 4 (1.11%) Multimedia
13 4 (1.11%) Pharmaceutical
14 3 (0.83%) Back Office
14 3 (0.83%) Billing
Job Titles
1 53 (14.72%) Senior
2 46 (12.78%) Analyst
3 43 (11.94%) Software Engineer
4 39 (10.83%) Test Analyst
4 39 (10.83%) Test Engineer
5 37 (10.28%) Developer
5 37 (10.28%) Tester
6 29 (8.06%) Lead
7 26 (7.22%) Consultant
8 14 (3.89%) Software Developer
9 13 (3.61%) QA Leader
9 13 (3.61%) Release Manager
9 13 (3.61%) Test Leader
9 13 (3.61%) Test Manager
10 12 (3.33%) Senior Analyst
10 12 (3.33%) Senior Test Engineer
11 11 (3.06%) Senior Test Analyst
12 10 (2.78%) Automation Tester
12 10 (2.78%) QA Engineer
12 10 (2.78%) Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (10.00%) .NET
2 32 (8.89%) Playwright
3 28 (7.78%) React
4 27 (7.50%) HTML
4 27 (7.50%) REST
5 25 (6.94%) Node.js
5 25 (6.94%) RESTful
6 24 (6.67%) CSS
7 22 (6.11%) Spring
7 22 (6.11%) Spring Boot
8 17 (4.72%) AngularJS
8 17 (4.72%) SOAP
9 16 (4.44%) Kafka
10 14 (3.89%) .NET Framework
11 10 (2.78%) Vue
12 9 (2.50%) Gherkin
12 9 (2.50%) Svelte
13 8 (2.22%) JSON
13 8 (2.22%) RabbitMQ
13 8 (2.22%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 25 (6.94%) Self-Motivation
2 20 (5.56%) Product Ownership
3 19 (5.28%) Distributed Systems
4 17 (4.72%) Cloud Native
5 12 (3.33%) Data Structures
6 11 (3.06%) Algorithms
7 7 (1.94%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (1.39%) CUDA
9 5 (1.39%) Management Information System
10 4 (1.11%) Derivative
10 4 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (1.11%) Mainframe
10 4 (1.11%) PCIe
11 3 (0.83%) AI Agents
11 3 (0.83%) Distributed Computing
11 3 (0.83%) Greenfield Project
11 3 (0.83%) Mobile App
11 3 (0.83%) PKI
11 3 (0.83%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 33 (9.17%) Windows
2 28 (7.78%) Linux
3 11 (3.06%) Unix
4 4 (1.11%) FreeRTOS
5 3 (0.83%) Windows 10
5 3 (0.83%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.83%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.28%) Android
6 1 (0.28%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.28%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.28%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.28%) Mac OS X
6 1 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.28%) Robot Operating System
6 1 (0.28%) Solaris
6 1 (0.28%) VMS
6 1 (0.28%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 159 (44.17%) Agile
2 153 (42.50%) Test Automation
3 131 (36.39%) CI/CD
4 105 (29.17%) DevOps
5 99 (27.50%) Problem-Solving
6 71 (19.72%) Test Scripting
7 67 (18.61%) Software Engineering
8 65 (18.06%) Test Strategy
9 64 (17.78%) Scrum
10 60 (16.67%) Continuous Improvement
11 58 (16.11%) Validation
12 52 (14.44%) Microservices
13 49 (13.61%) Test Management
14 45 (12.50%) SDLC
15 44 (12.22%) API Testing
16 43 (11.94%) Containerisation
17 42 (11.67%) TDD
18 37 (10.28%) Computer Science
19 36 (10.00%) Integration Testing
20 35 (9.72%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 61 (16.94%) Java
1 61 (16.94%) Python
2 58 (16.11%) JavaScript
3 49 (13.61%) SQL
4 44 (12.22%) C#
5 28 (7.78%) TypeScript
6 22 (6.11%) C++
7 12 (3.33%) Bash
7 12 (3.33%) Shell Script
8 11 (3.06%) C
9 8 (2.22%) Go
10 7 (1.94%) Ada
11 6 (1.67%) Scala
11 6 (1.67%) VB
12 5 (1.39%) Groovy
12 5 (1.39%) PowerShell
13 4 (1.11%) VB.NET
14 3 (0.83%) COBOL
14 3 (0.83%) Embedded C
14 3 (0.83%) JCL
Qualifications
1 92 (25.56%) Security Cleared
2 79 (21.94%) SC Cleared
3 43 (11.94%) Degree
4 34 (9.44%) ISTQB
5 23 (6.39%) Computer Science Degree
6 10 (2.78%) CISSP
7 9 (2.50%) BPSS Clearance
7 9 (2.50%) CISM
8 8 (2.22%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 7 (1.94%) DV Cleared
10 5 (1.39%) Azure Certification
10 5 (1.39%) ISEB
11 4 (1.11%) HNC
11 4 (1.11%) HND
11 4 (1.11%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 3 (0.83%) EMC Certification
12 3 (0.83%) Master's Degree
12 3 (0.83%) PMI Certification
13 2 (0.56%) AWS Certification
13 2 (0.56%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 98 (27.22%) QA
2 26 (7.22%) Accessibility
3 13 (3.61%) NIST
4 10 (2.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 10 (2.78%) WCAG
5 7 (1.94%) PCI DSS
6 6 (1.67%) EU AI Act
6 6 (1.67%) GDPR
7 3 (0.83%) Def Stans
7 3 (0.83%) IEC 61508
7 3 (0.83%) ISO/IEC 15288
7 3 (0.83%) SLA
8 2 (0.56%) GRC
8 2 (0.56%) Software Quality Assurance
9 1 (0.28%) HL7
9 1 (0.28%) IEC 61131
9 1 (0.28%) ISO 9001
9 1 (0.28%) PMO
9 1 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 49 (13.61%) Docker
2 5 (1.39%) Active Directory
3 4 (1.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (0.83%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
5 1 (0.28%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 42 (11.67%) Kubernetes
2 14 (3.89%) Ansible
3 13 (3.61%) Terraform
4 7 (1.94%) Grafana
5 4 (1.11%) Functional Safety
5 4 (1.11%) HP ALM
5 4 (1.11%) Puppet
6 3 (0.83%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 3 (0.83%) vCenter Server
6 3 (0.83%) WSUS
7 2 (0.56%) HP Quality Center
7 2 (0.56%) Nessus
7 2 (0.56%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.28%) Control-M
8 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.28%) Nmap
8 1 (0.28%) Packer
8 1 (0.28%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.28%) Rsyslog
8 1 (0.28%) SCOM
Vendors
1 58 (16.11%) Microsoft
2 30 (8.33%) Oracle
3 11 (3.06%) Google
4 10 (2.78%) Cisco
4 10 (2.78%) CyberArk
4 10 (2.78%) Splunk
5 9 (2.50%) BeyondTrust
5 9 (2.50%) Thycotic
6 8 (2.22%) ServiceNow
7 6 (1.67%) Atlassian
7 6 (1.67%) HP
7 6 (1.67%) Meraki
7 6 (1.67%) Salesforce
7 6 (1.67%) VMware
8 5 (1.39%) Juniper
8 5 (1.39%) Workday
9 4 (1.11%) CA Agile Central
9 4 (1.11%) Dynatrace
9 4 (1.11%) Nokia
9 4 (1.11%) UiPath
288 Software Testing jobs in England