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

 6 months to
29 Mar 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 250 202 176
Rank change year-on-year -48 -26 +16
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 394 313 512
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.04% 1.28% 1.36%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.20% 1.41% 1.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 248 204 341
10th Percentile £331 £313 £250
25th Percentile £400 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £464 £467 £450
Median % change year-on-year -0.70% +3.78% -12.41%
75th Percentile £538 £625 £595
90th Percentile £606 £700 £688
UK median daily rate £450 £449 £450
% change year-on-year +0.22% -0.22% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 23 69
10th Percentile £56.18 £31.21 £37.42
25th Percentile £65.00 £60.38 £56.25
Median hourly rate £67.50 £62.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +8.00% - +25.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £80.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.00 £86.15 -
UK median hourly rate £67.50 £62.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +8.00% - +25.00%

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 32,791 22,195 32,688
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.18% 90.78% 86.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,993 14,632 21,603
10th Percentile £313 £313 £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 £614 £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 2,006 863 2,155
10th Percentile £15.36 £15.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.00 £20.24 £15.97
Median hourly rate £36.00 £32.50 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.77% -1.52% -12.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.86 £58.24
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £71.25
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £32.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +9.38% -1.54% -10.34%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -29 168 £450 +2.86% 55
South East -33 62 £490 -18.33% 76
North of England -47 51 £407 -1.69% 48
Midlands -39 46 £505 +15.69% 43
South West -14 38 £409 +2.25% 36
West Midlands -35 36 £505 +12.72% 24
Yorkshire -41 28 £438 +8.02% 10
East of England -31 21 £613 +28.95% 30
North West -52 14 £405 -10.00% 31
East Midlands -23 10 £475 +313.04% 19
North East - 9 £350 - 8
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 19 (4.82%) Confluence
2 13 (3.30%) SAS
3 4 (1.02%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (0.76%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.51%) IIS
6 1 (0.25%) CMS
6 1 (0.25%) IBM HTTP Server
6 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.25%) SharePoint Server
6 1 (0.25%) WebSphere
Applications
1 12 (3.05%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (1.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (1.02%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.25%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.25%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 5 (1.27%) Aladdin
2 4 (1.02%) Maximo
3 3 (0.76%) Findur
4 2 (0.51%) LabWindows
4 2 (0.51%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.51%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.25%) Algo Collateral
5 1 (0.25%) CODA-Financials
5 1 (0.25%) Dynamics NAV
5 1 (0.25%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
Cloud Services
1 124 (31.47%) Azure
2 90 (22.84%) Azure DevOps
3 70 (17.77%) AWS
4 31 (7.87%) GitHub
5 30 (7.61%) GCP
6 22 (5.58%) AWS Lambda
6 22 (5.58%) Serverless
7 21 (5.33%) Amazon S3
8 16 (4.06%) GitHub Actions
9 12 (3.05%) Amazon ECS
9 12 (3.05%) AWS CloudFormation
10 8 (2.03%) Snowflake
11 7 (1.78%) Entra ID
12 5 (1.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 5 (1.27%) OpenShift
13 4 (1.02%) Amazon EC2
13 4 (1.02%) Power Platform
13 4 (1.02%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 3 (0.76%) Salesforce Service Cloud
14 3 (0.76%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.03%) Ethernet
2 5 (1.27%) Firewall
3 3 (0.76%) DNS
3 3 (0.76%) FTP
3 3 (0.76%) Internet
3 3 (0.76%) Modbus
3 3 (0.76%) RS-232
3 3 (0.76%) RS-422
3 3 (0.76%) RS-485
3 3 (0.76%) SNMP
4 2 (0.51%) Cisco IOS
4 2 (0.51%) Intranet
4 2 (0.51%) IOS XR
4 2 (0.51%) Reverse Proxy
4 2 (0.51%) SD-WAN
4 2 (0.51%) Spanning Tree
4 2 (0.51%) SSL
4 2 (0.51%) TACACS
4 2 (0.51%) Wireless
4 2 (0.51%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (7.11%) PostgreSQL
2 17 (4.31%) Relational Database
2 17 (4.31%) SQL Server
3 15 (3.81%) MySQL
4 13 (3.30%) SAS Enterprise Guide
5 12 (3.05%) NoSQL
5 12 (3.05%) Oracle Database
6 10 (2.54%) BigQuery
6 10 (2.54%) MongoDB
7 7 (1.78%) Big Data
7 7 (1.78%) Data Warehouse
8 5 (1.27%) Amazon Redshift
9 4 (1.02%) DynamoDB
10 3 (0.76%) Apache Cassandra
10 3 (0.76%) Couchbase
10 3 (0.76%) Redis
11 2 (0.51%) Amazon Athena
11 2 (0.51%) Elasticsearch
11 2 (0.51%) Parquet
11 2 (0.51%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 68 (17.26%) JIRA
2 50 (12.69%) Selenium
3 45 (11.42%) Git
4 38 (9.64%) Jenkins
5 34 (8.63%) Postman
6 28 (7.11%) Cucumber
7 27 (6.85%) Cypress.io
8 20 (5.08%) JUnit
8 20 (5.08%) REST Assured
9 18 (4.57%) GitLab
10 13 (3.30%) TestRail
11 9 (2.28%) Rational DOORS
12 8 (2.03%) WebDriver
12 8 (2.03%) Zephyr
13 6 (1.52%) HP UFT
13 6 (1.52%) JMeter
13 6 (1.52%) Rational Rhapsody
14 5 (1.27%) Gradle
14 5 (1.27%) Maven
14 5 (1.27%) SpecFlow
General
1 107 (27.16%) Social Skills
2 66 (16.75%) Analytical Skills
3 65 (16.50%) Finance
4 43 (10.91%) Public Sector
5 18 (4.57%) Banking
6 12 (3.05%) Aerospace
7 10 (2.54%) Documentation Skills
8 9 (2.28%) Back Office
9 8 (2.03%) Electronics
9 8 (2.03%) Front Office
9 8 (2.03%) Manufacturing
9 8 (2.03%) Military
10 6 (1.52%) Investment Banking
10 6 (1.52%) Telecoms
11 5 (1.27%) Law
12 4 (1.02%) Organisational Skills
13 3 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.76%) Influencing Skills
13 3 (0.76%) Marketing
14 2 (0.51%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 63 (15.99%) Senior
2 54 (13.71%) Developer
3 44 (11.17%) Analyst
4 42 (10.66%) Test Engineer
5 38 (9.64%) Software Engineer
6 36 (9.14%) Lead
6 36 (9.14%) Test Analyst
7 30 (7.61%) Consultant
8 29 (7.36%) Tester
9 22 (5.58%) QA Engineer
10 18 (4.57%) Test Manager
11 17 (4.31%) Java Engineer
11 17 (4.31%) Senior Developer
12 16 (4.06%) Java Developer
12 16 (4.06%) Senior Analyst
12 16 (4.06%) Senior Test Analyst
13 15 (3.81%) Software Test Engineer
14 14 (3.55%) Software Developer
15 13 (3.30%) Release Manager
15 13 (3.30%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (10.15%) Playwright
2 36 (9.14%) Spring
3 35 (8.88%) React
3 35 (8.88%) REST
3 35 (8.88%) RESTful
4 28 (7.11%) Spring Boot
5 27 (6.85%) .NET
6 25 (6.35%) Node.js
7 20 (5.08%) CSS
7 20 (5.08%) HTML
8 15 (3.81%) Kafka
9 10 (2.54%) Gherkin
9 10 (2.54%) Middleware
10 9 (2.28%) AngularJS
10 9 (2.28%) pytest
10 9 (2.28%) Redux
11 8 (2.03%) .NET Framework
11 8 (2.03%) HTML5
11 8 (2.03%) Jest
11 8 (2.03%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 33 (8.38%) Product Ownership
2 22 (5.58%) Cloud Native
3 18 (4.57%) Self-Motivation
4 12 (3.05%) Distributed Systems
4 12 (3.05%) Enterprise Software
5 10 (2.54%) Legacy Systems
6 9 (2.28%) Management Information System
7 7 (1.78%) Data Centre
8 6 (1.52%) CUDA
8 6 (1.52%) Embedded Systems
8 6 (1.52%) Greenfield Project
8 6 (1.52%) Virtual Team
9 5 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.02%) Fixed Income
10 4 (1.02%) Mobile App
10 4 (1.02%) PCIe
11 3 (0.76%) Algorithms
11 3 (0.76%) Data Structures
11 3 (0.76%) Equities
11 3 (0.76%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 34 (8.63%) Windows
2 21 (5.33%) Linux
3 7 (1.78%) Unix
4 5 (1.27%) Mac OS
5 4 (1.02%) FreeRTOS
5 4 (1.02%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.51%) Android
7 1 (0.25%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.25%) Solaris
7 1 (0.25%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 183 (46.45%) Test Automation
2 154 (39.09%) Agile
3 138 (35.03%) DevOps
4 132 (33.50%) CI/CD
5 102 (25.89%) Problem-Solving
6 90 (22.84%) Continuous Improvement
7 81 (20.56%) Test Scripting
8 71 (18.02%) Software Engineering
9 60 (15.23%) Validation
10 58 (14.72%) Microservices
11 56 (14.21%) Test Management
11 56 (14.21%) Test Strategy
12 49 (12.44%) Regression Testing
13 47 (11.93%) API Testing
14 46 (11.68%) Defect Tracking
14 46 (11.68%) SDLC
15 45 (11.42%) Scrum
15 45 (11.42%) TDD
16 43 (10.91%) Manual Testing
17 40 (10.15%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 79 (20.05%) Java
2 77 (19.54%) Python
3 69 (17.51%) SQL
4 53 (13.45%) JavaScript
5 42 (10.66%) C#
5 42 (10.66%) TypeScript
6 17 (4.31%) C++
7 12 (3.05%) C
8 8 (2.03%) Bash
8 8 (2.03%) Go
8 8 (2.03%) PL/SQL
9 7 (1.78%) PowerShell
10 5 (1.27%) VBScript
11 4 (1.02%) Groovy
12 3 (0.76%) Embedded C
12 3 (0.76%) Ruby
12 3 (0.76%) Rust
12 3 (0.76%) VB
13 2 (0.51%) Ada
13 2 (0.51%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 123 (31.22%) Security Cleared
2 101 (25.63%) SC Cleared
3 35 (8.88%) Degree
3 35 (8.88%) ISTQB
4 16 (4.06%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (3.30%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 7 (1.78%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (1.78%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 5 (1.27%) ISEB
8 4 (1.02%) DV Cleared
8 4 (1.02%) Master's Degree
9 3 (0.76%) PMI Certification
9 3 (0.76%) PMP
10 2 (0.51%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.51%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.51%) CISSP
10 2 (0.51%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
11 1 (0.25%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 1 (0.25%) CompTIA Security+
11 1 (0.25%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 104 (26.40%) QA
2 19 (4.82%) Accessibility
3 10 (2.54%) Data Quality
4 8 (2.03%) WCAG
5 7 (1.78%) PMO
6 4 (1.02%) NIST
6 4 (1.02%) SLA
7 3 (0.76%) EU AI Act
7 3 (0.76%) Software Quality Assurance
8 1 (0.25%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.25%) MiFID
8 1 (0.25%) SEPA
System Software
1 36 (9.14%) Docker
2 6 (1.52%) Active Directory
2 6 (1.52%) Virtual Desktop
2 6 (1.52%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (1.27%) Firmware
4 1 (0.25%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.25%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
4 1 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.25%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.25%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 45 (11.42%) Kubernetes
2 15 (3.81%) Terraform
3 10 (2.54%) Grafana
3 10 (2.54%) HP ALM
4 9 (2.28%) Ansible
5 7 (1.78%) Prometheus
6 5 (1.27%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (1.27%) Puppet
7 4 (1.02%) HP Quality Center
7 4 (1.02%) SCCM
8 2 (0.51%) Nessus
8 2 (0.51%) Salt
9 1 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 1 (0.25%) Kibana
9 1 (0.25%) Nmap
9 1 (0.25%) Oracle ZFS
9 1 (0.25%) Packer
9 1 (0.25%) Tivoli
9 1 (0.25%) vCenter Server
9 1 (0.25%) WSUS
Vendors
1 39 (9.90%) Microsoft
1 39 (9.90%) Oracle
2 10 (2.54%) HP
3 9 (2.28%) SAP
4 8 (2.03%) Splunk
4 8 (2.03%) VMware
5 7 (1.78%) Citrix
5 7 (1.78%) Dell
5 7 (1.78%) IBM
5 7 (1.78%) ServiceNow
6 6 (1.52%) Atlassian
7 5 (1.27%) Databricks
8 4 (1.02%) Cisco
8 4 (1.02%) Remedy
8 4 (1.02%) Salesforce
9 3 (0.76%) Ab Initio
9 3 (0.76%) Charles River
9 3 (0.76%) Google
9 3 (0.76%) OpenLink
9 3 (0.76%) Teradata
270 Software Testing jobs in England