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 24 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
24 Apr 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 259 214 180
Rank change year-on-year -45 -34 +7
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 375 302 495
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.94% 1.23% 1.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.11% 1.35% 1.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 224 194 336
10th Percentile £338 £313 £250
25th Percentile £400 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% - -11.98%
75th Percentile £575 £608 £595
90th Percentile £634 £709 £688
UK median daily rate £470 £440 £450
% change year-on-year +6.82% -2.22% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 22 64
10th Percentile £16.65 £50.11 £38.05
25th Percentile £57.75 £53.22 £56.25
Median hourly rate £67.75 £62.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +8.40% - +19.05%
75th Percentile £70.00 £73.13 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.40 £86.83 -
UK median hourly rate £68.00 £62.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +8.80% - +19.05%

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 33,845 22,404 32,231
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.18% 91.08% 86.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,654 14,697 21,192
10th Percentile £315 £310 £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 £523 £525
% change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,105 910 2,231
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.70 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £30.62 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.82% -12.53% -6.67%
75th Percentile £67.25 £63.75 £59.22
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £29.07 £35.00
% change year-on-year +37.60% -16.94% -6.67%

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 24 April 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 24 April 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 24 April 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 -42 170 £475 +8.57% 36
South East -47 61 £500 -9.09% 73
Midlands -29 44 £511 +17.12% 37
North of England -50 42 £463 -2.63% 46
West Midlands -37 33 £510 +13.84% 23
South West -29 31 £409 +2.25% 27
East of England -29 24 £600 +26.32% 43
Yorkshire -38 22 £463 +11.71% 12
North East -4 12 £469 - 9
East Midlands -26 11 £575 +400.00% 14
North West -42 10 £465 -8.37% 25
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 14 (3.73%) Confluence
2 9 (2.40%) SAS
3 7 (1.87%) Apache Spark
4 6 (1.60%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.53%) IIS
5 2 (0.53%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.27%) CMS
6 1 (0.27%) IBM HTTP Server
6 1 (0.27%) WebSphere
Applications
1 13 (3.47%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (2.13%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (1.07%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.53%) Simulink
6 1 (0.27%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 5 (1.33%) Aladdin
1 5 (1.33%) Findur
2 4 (1.07%) Maximo
3 3 (0.80%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.53%) LabWindows
4 2 (0.53%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.53%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.27%) Algo Collateral
5 1 (0.27%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.27%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 120 (32.00%) Azure
2 83 (22.13%) Azure DevOps
3 81 (21.60%) AWS
4 31 (8.27%) GitHub
5 28 (7.47%) Serverless
6 27 (7.20%) AWS Lambda
7 26 (6.93%) Amazon S3
8 25 (6.67%) GCP
9 13 (3.47%) GitHub Actions
10 12 (3.20%) Amazon ECS
10 12 (3.20%) AWS CloudFormation
11 10 (2.67%) Snowflake
12 9 (2.40%) Entra ID
13 8 (2.13%) OpenShift
14 7 (1.87%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 6 (1.60%) Amazon EC2
15 6 (1.60%) PaaS
16 5 (1.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 4 (1.07%) AWS Control Tower
17 4 (1.07%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.13%) Ethernet
2 5 (1.33%) Firewall
3 4 (1.07%) Reverse Proxy
3 4 (1.07%) Software-Defined Radio
3 4 (1.07%) Wireless
4 3 (0.80%) DNS
4 3 (0.80%) FTP
4 3 (0.80%) Modbus
4 3 (0.80%) RS-232
4 3 (0.80%) RS-422
4 3 (0.80%) RS-485
5 2 (0.53%) Cisco IOS
5 2 (0.53%) IOS XR
5 2 (0.53%) SD-WAN
5 2 (0.53%) SNMP
5 2 (0.53%) Spanning Tree
5 2 (0.53%) SSH
5 2 (0.53%) TACACS
5 2 (0.53%) Wireshark
6 1 (0.27%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (7.47%) PostgreSQL
2 20 (5.33%) Relational Database
3 18 (4.80%) MySQL
4 14 (3.73%) Oracle Database
4 14 (3.73%) SQL Server
5 12 (3.20%) Big Data
6 10 (2.67%) NoSQL
7 9 (2.40%) Data Warehouse
7 9 (2.40%) SAS Enterprise Guide
8 8 (2.13%) MongoDB
9 7 (1.87%) Amazon Redshift
9 7 (1.87%) DynamoDB
10 5 (1.33%) BigQuery
10 5 (1.33%) SAS Visual Analytics
11 4 (1.07%) Amazon Athena
11 4 (1.07%) Amazon QuickSight
12 3 (0.80%) Parquet
12 3 (0.80%) Redis
13 2 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
13 2 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 74 (19.73%) JIRA
2 45 (12.00%) Git
3 41 (10.93%) Selenium
4 34 (9.07%) Jenkins
5 27 (7.20%) Postman
6 23 (6.13%) JUnit
7 22 (5.87%) Cucumber
8 19 (5.07%) Cypress.io
9 17 (4.53%) GitLab
10 14 (3.73%) TestRail
11 13 (3.47%) REST Assured
12 10 (2.67%) Rational DOORS
13 9 (2.40%) Zephyr
14 8 (2.13%) SonarQube
14 8 (2.13%) WebDriver
15 6 (1.60%) HP UFT
15 6 (1.60%) JMeter
16 5 (1.33%) Gradle
16 5 (1.33%) Maven
17 4 (1.07%) Artifactory
General
1 112 (29.87%) Social Skills
2 72 (19.20%) Finance
3 68 (18.13%) Analytical Skills
4 43 (11.47%) Public Sector
5 20 (5.33%) Banking
6 18 (4.80%) Aerospace
7 12 (3.20%) Back Office
7 12 (3.20%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (2.13%) Front Office
8 8 (2.13%) Military
8 8 (2.13%) Telecoms
9 7 (1.87%) Automotive
9 7 (1.87%) Electronics
9 7 (1.87%) Manufacturing
10 5 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 5 (1.33%) Investment Banking
10 5 (1.33%) Law
11 4 (1.07%) Influencing Skills
11 4 (1.07%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (0.80%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 58 (15.47%) Developer
2 56 (14.93%) Senior
3 41 (10.93%) Test Engineer
4 36 (9.60%) Analyst
4 36 (9.60%) Lead
4 36 (9.60%) Software Engineer
5 33 (8.80%) Tester
6 26 (6.93%) Test Analyst
7 22 (5.87%) Java Developer
8 20 (5.33%) QA Engineer
9 19 (5.07%) Test Manager
10 18 (4.80%) Java Engineer
11 17 (4.53%) Senior Developer
12 14 (3.73%) Consultant
12 14 (3.73%) Software Developer
13 13 (3.47%) Software Test Engineer
14 12 (3.20%) Automation Engineer
15 11 (2.93%) Senior Analyst
15 11 (2.93%) Senior Test Analyst
15 11 (2.93%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (12.00%) Spring
2 36 (9.60%) Spring Boot
3 35 (9.33%) Playwright
3 35 (9.33%) React
4 32 (8.53%) REST
5 30 (8.00%) RESTful
6 25 (6.67%) .NET
7 21 (5.60%) Node.js
8 20 (5.33%) CSS
8 20 (5.33%) HTML
9 15 (4.00%) Kafka
10 12 (3.20%) Redux
11 10 (2.67%) Gherkin
11 10 (2.67%) HTML5
11 10 (2.67%) Spring MVC
12 9 (2.40%) AngularJS
12 9 (2.40%) CSS3
12 9 (2.40%) Jest
13 8 (2.13%) Middleware
14 7 (1.87%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 36 (9.60%) Product Ownership
2 27 (7.20%) Cloud Native
3 15 (4.00%) Enterprise Software
4 14 (3.73%) Self-Motivation
5 13 (3.47%) Embedded Systems
6 12 (3.20%) Distributed Systems
6 12 (3.20%) Legacy Systems
6 12 (3.20%) Management Information System
7 8 (2.13%) Data Centre
8 6 (1.60%) Virtual Team
9 5 (1.33%) FPGA
9 5 (1.33%) Greenfield Project
10 4 (1.07%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.07%) Mobile App
10 4 (1.07%) PCIe
11 3 (0.80%) Analytical Mindset
11 3 (0.80%) CUDA
11 3 (0.80%) Data Structures
11 3 (0.80%) Public Cloud
11 3 (0.80%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 25 (6.67%) Windows
2 19 (5.07%) Linux
3 9 (2.40%) Unix
4 5 (1.33%) FreeRTOS
5 4 (1.07%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.53%) Android
6 2 (0.53%) Windows Server
7 1 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.27%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 170 (45.33%) Test Automation
2 144 (38.40%) DevOps
3 141 (37.60%) Agile
4 130 (34.67%) CI/CD
5 91 (24.27%) Continuous Improvement
5 91 (24.27%) Problem-Solving
6 73 (19.47%) Software Engineering
7 67 (17.87%) Test Scripting
8 60 (16.00%) Validation
9 59 (15.73%) Test Management
10 54 (14.40%) Microservices
11 52 (13.87%) Test Strategy
12 50 (13.33%) SDLC
13 49 (13.07%) Regression Testing
14 48 (12.80%) Defect Tracking
15 42 (11.20%) Defect Management
16 41 (10.93%) API Testing
16 41 (10.93%) Scrum
17 40 (10.67%) Containerisation
17 40 (10.67%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 83 (22.13%) Java
2 75 (20.00%) Python
3 72 (19.20%) SQL
4 45 (12.00%) JavaScript
5 38 (10.13%) C#
5 38 (10.13%) TypeScript
6 14 (3.73%) C++
7 11 (2.93%) C
8 9 (2.40%) Bash
9 7 (1.87%) PL/SQL
10 6 (1.60%) PowerShell
11 5 (1.33%) VBScript
12 4 (1.07%) Go
13 3 (0.80%) Groovy
13 3 (0.80%) Ruby
13 3 (0.80%) Rust
13 3 (0.80%) VB
14 2 (0.53%) Ada
14 2 (0.53%) MATLAB
14 2 (0.53%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 109 (29.07%) Security Cleared
2 88 (23.47%) SC Cleared
3 36 (9.60%) ISTQB
4 33 (8.80%) Degree
5 13 (3.47%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 11 (2.93%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (2.13%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 5 (1.33%) DV Cleared
8 5 (1.33%) ISEB
9 4 (1.07%) CEH
9 4 (1.07%) CISSP
9 4 (1.07%) CompTIA Security+
10 3 (0.80%) Master's Degree
10 3 (0.80%) PMI Certification
10 3 (0.80%) PMP
11 2 (0.53%) Cisco Certification
11 2 (0.53%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
12 1 (0.27%) A+ Certification
12 1 (0.27%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 100 (26.67%) QA
2 14 (3.73%) Accessibility
3 11 (2.93%) Data Quality
4 7 (1.87%) PMO
4 7 (1.87%) WCAG
5 4 (1.07%) NIST
5 4 (1.07%) SLA
6 3 (0.80%) Software Quality Assurance
7 1 (0.27%) GRC
7 1 (0.27%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.27%) MiFID
7 1 (0.27%) SEPA
System Software
1 33 (8.80%) Docker
2 8 (2.13%) Firmware
3 7 (1.87%) Active Directory
4 6 (1.60%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (1.07%) Embedded Firmware
5 4 (1.07%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.27%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
6 1 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 47 (12.53%) Kubernetes
2 23 (6.13%) Terraform
3 11 (2.93%) Ansible
3 11 (2.93%) HP ALM
4 10 (2.67%) Grafana
4 10 (2.67%) Prometheus
5 7 (1.87%) Puppet
6 5 (1.33%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (1.07%) HP Quality Center
7 4 (1.07%) Salt
7 4 (1.07%) SCCM
8 1 (0.27%) Kibana
8 1 (0.27%) Oracle ZFS
8 1 (0.27%) Packer
8 1 (0.27%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.27%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 38 (10.13%) Oracle
2 37 (9.87%) Microsoft
3 11 (2.93%) HP
3 11 (2.93%) ServiceNow
4 9 (2.40%) SAP
5 7 (1.87%) Citrix
5 7 (1.87%) Dell
5 7 (1.87%) IBM
6 6 (1.60%) Splunk
6 6 (1.60%) VMware
7 5 (1.33%) Ab Initio
7 5 (1.33%) Google
7 5 (1.33%) OpenLink
7 5 (1.33%) Teradata
8 4 (1.07%) Databricks
8 4 (1.07%) Fortinet
8 4 (1.07%) Remedy
8 4 (1.07%) Salesforce
9 3 (0.80%) Checkmarx
9 3 (0.80%) Palo Alto
245 Software Testing jobs in England