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

6 months to
5 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 227 198 175
Rank change year-on-year -29 -23 +1
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 369 390 556
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.18% 1.27% 1.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.32% 1.45% 1.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 252 239 361
10th Percentile £325 £313 £285
25th Percentile £375 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £449 £450 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.33% -14.29% +2.44%
75th Percentile £538 £600 £625
90th Percentile £612 £664 £663
UK median daily rate £438 £440 £500
% change year-on-year -0.57% -12.00% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 19 81
10th Percentile £26.25 £25.70 £45.00
25th Percentile £49.38 £55.14 £48.47
Median hourly rate £63.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.80% -3.85% +30.00%
75th Percentile £67.00 £71.25 -
90th Percentile £67.48 £80.75 £69.00
UK median hourly rate £63.00 £59.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +6.78% -9.23% +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 27,877 26,975 33,843
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 89.47% 87.88% 88.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,778 16,586 23,069
10th Percentile £300 £313 £313
25th Percentile £405 £418 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £545
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -3.67% -0.91%
75th Percentile £625 £649 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £533
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,797 956 1,438
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.24 £14.72
25th Percentile £17.88 £20.23 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +18.67%
75th Percentile £50.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.04 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.75 £42.50
% change year-on-year -23.21% -22.94% +21.43%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -25 130 £450 -4.26% 55
North of England -38 65 £405 +1.25% 54
South East -37 59 £433 -24.78% 106
Yorkshire -10 42 £443 +8.52% 15
South West -2 36 £450 -4.26% 34
Midlands -23 34 £500 +25.00% 33
East of England +5 27 £573 +63.57% 46
West Midlands -21 27 £515 +28.75% 21
North West -40 18 £405 +1.25% 36
East Midlands -13 7 £340 - 11
North East -2 5 £350 -4.76% 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 17 (4.61%) Confluence
2 13 (3.52%) SAS
3 7 (1.90%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (1.63%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (1.63%) SharePoint
5 3 (0.81%) CICS
5 3 (0.81%) JBoss
5 3 (0.81%) SharePoint Server
6 2 (0.54%) Apache
6 2 (0.54%) CMS
6 2 (0.54%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.27%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.27%) EPiServer
7 1 (0.27%) Tomcat
Applications
1 12 (3.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (2.44%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (2.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.81%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.54%) Aladdin
1 2 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.54%) Dynamics NAV
1 2 (0.54%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.27%) Algo Collateral
2 1 (0.27%) Cerner Millennium
2 1 (0.27%) CODA-Financials
2 1 (0.27%) Oracle EBS R12
2 1 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (0.27%) SimCorp Dimension
2 1 (0.27%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 106 (28.73%) Azure
2 69 (18.70%) AWS
3 51 (13.82%) Azure DevOps
4 35 (9.49%) GCP
5 24 (6.50%) GitHub
6 18 (4.88%) GitHub Actions
7 12 (3.25%) Amazon S3
8 11 (2.98%) Power Platform
9 10 (2.71%) AWS Lambda
9 10 (2.71%) Serverless
10 9 (2.44%) Amazon ECS
10 9 (2.44%) npm
11 7 (1.90%) Dynamics 365
12 6 (1.63%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (1.63%) Entra ID
12 6 (1.63%) PaaS
12 6 (1.63%) Snowflake
13 4 (1.08%) Amazon Bedrock
13 4 (1.08%) Microsoft 365
13 4 (1.08%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 10 (2.71%) Ethernet
2 6 (1.63%) Wireshark
3 5 (1.36%) SD-WAN
4 4 (1.08%) DNS
4 4 (1.08%) Internet
5 3 (0.81%) Firewall
5 3 (0.81%) Skype
5 3 (0.81%) SNMP
6 2 (0.54%) Cisco IOS
6 2 (0.54%) FTP
6 2 (0.54%) Intranet
6 2 (0.54%) IOS XR
6 2 (0.54%) Network Security
6 2 (0.54%) Spanning Tree
6 2 (0.54%) SSH
6 2 (0.54%) SSL
6 2 (0.54%) TACACS
6 2 (0.54%) TCP/IP
6 2 (0.54%) Wireless
7 1 (0.27%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (5.15%) SQL Server
2 18 (4.88%) PostgreSQL
3 15 (4.07%) NoSQL
3 15 (4.07%) Oracle Database
4 13 (3.52%) SAS Enterprise Guide
5 12 (3.25%) MongoDB
6 9 (2.44%) BigQuery
7 8 (2.17%) Power BI
8 6 (1.63%) Apache Cassandra
8 6 (1.63%) SAS Visual Analytics
9 5 (1.36%) Couchbase
9 5 (1.36%) Redis
10 4 (1.08%) MySQL
10 4 (1.08%) Pinecone
11 3 (0.81%) DB2
11 3 (0.81%) Metadata
11 3 (0.81%) Relational Database
12 2 (0.54%) Big Data
12 2 (0.54%) DynamoDB
13 1 (0.27%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 80 (21.68%) JIRA
2 66 (17.89%) Selenium
3 52 (14.09%) Postman
4 46 (12.47%) Git
5 45 (12.20%) Jenkins
6 43 (11.65%) Cucumber
7 33 (8.94%) GitLab
8 28 (7.59%) Cypress.io
9 25 (6.78%) REST Assured
10 19 (5.15%) SoapUI
11 17 (4.61%) JUnit
12 12 (3.25%) JMeter
13 9 (2.44%) Artifactory
13 9 (2.44%) Maven
13 9 (2.44%) Visual Studio
14 8 (2.17%) WebDriver
15 7 (1.90%) SonarQube
15 7 (1.90%) Subversion
15 7 (1.90%) Zephyr
16 6 (1.63%) TestRail
General
1 134 (36.31%) Social Skills
2 64 (17.34%) Finance
3 41 (11.11%) Analytical Skills
4 38 (10.30%) Public Sector
5 21 (5.69%) Banking
6 13 (3.52%) Documentation Skills
7 11 (2.98%) Manufacturing
8 9 (2.44%) Aerospace
9 8 (2.17%) Influencing Skills
10 7 (1.90%) Telecoms
11 6 (1.63%) Investment Banking
11 6 (1.63%) Military
12 5 (1.36%) Automotive
12 5 (1.36%) Electronics
12 5 (1.36%) Front Office
12 5 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (1.08%) Multimedia
13 4 (1.08%) Organisational Skills
13 4 (1.08%) Pharmaceutical
14 3 (0.81%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 55 (14.91%) Senior
2 47 (12.74%) Analyst
3 43 (11.65%) Software Engineer
4 40 (10.84%) Test Analyst
5 39 (10.57%) Test Engineer
6 38 (10.30%) Developer
6 38 (10.30%) Tester
7 30 (8.13%) Lead
8 26 (7.05%) Consultant
9 14 (3.79%) Software Developer
10 13 (3.52%) QA Leader
10 13 (3.52%) Release Manager
10 13 (3.52%) Senior Analyst
10 13 (3.52%) Test Leader
10 13 (3.52%) Test Manager
11 12 (3.25%) QA Engineer
11 12 (3.25%) Senior Test Analyst
11 12 (3.25%) Senior Test Engineer
12 11 (2.98%) Automation Tester
12 11 (2.98%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (10.03%) .NET
2 33 (8.94%) Playwright
3 30 (8.13%) React
4 28 (7.59%) Node.js
5 27 (7.32%) HTML
5 27 (7.32%) REST
6 26 (7.05%) RESTful
7 24 (6.50%) CSS
7 24 (6.50%) Spring
7 24 (6.50%) Spring Boot
8 18 (4.88%) AngularJS
9 17 (4.61%) SOAP
10 16 (4.34%) Kafka
11 14 (3.79%) .NET Framework
12 10 (2.71%) Gherkin
12 10 (2.71%) Vue
13 9 (2.44%) Svelte
14 8 (2.17%) FastAPI
14 8 (2.17%) HTML5
14 8 (2.17%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 25 (6.78%) Self-Motivation
2 23 (6.23%) Product Ownership
3 18 (4.88%) Distributed Systems
4 17 (4.61%) Cloud Native
5 11 (2.98%) Algorithms
5 11 (2.98%) Data Structures
6 8 (2.17%) Enterprise Software
7 6 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.36%) CUDA
8 5 (1.36%) Management Information System
9 4 (1.08%) Derivative
9 4 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
9 4 (1.08%) Mainframe
9 4 (1.08%) PCIe
10 3 (0.81%) AI Agents
10 3 (0.81%) Distributed Computing
10 3 (0.81%) Fixed Income
10 3 (0.81%) Greenfield Project
10 3 (0.81%) Mobile App
10 3 (0.81%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 33 (8.94%) Windows
2 28 (7.59%) Linux
3 11 (2.98%) Unix
4 4 (1.08%) FreeRTOS
5 3 (0.81%) Windows 10
5 3 (0.81%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.81%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.27%) Android
6 1 (0.27%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.27%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.27%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.27%) Mac OS X
6 1 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.27%) Robot Operating System
6 1 (0.27%) Solaris
6 1 (0.27%) VMS
6 1 (0.27%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 162 (43.90%) Agile
2 156 (42.28%) Test Automation
3 132 (35.77%) CI/CD
4 108 (29.27%) DevOps
5 104 (28.18%) Problem-Solving
6 72 (19.51%) Test Scripting
7 67 (18.16%) Software Engineering
8 65 (17.62%) Test Strategy
9 64 (17.34%) Scrum
10 62 (16.80%) Continuous Improvement
11 59 (15.99%) Validation
12 54 (14.63%) Microservices
13 51 (13.82%) Test Management
14 48 (13.01%) API Testing
15 45 (12.20%) SDLC
16 44 (11.92%) Containerisation
17 43 (11.65%) TDD
18 37 (10.03%) Integration Testing
19 36 (9.76%) Computer Science
20 35 (9.49%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 65 (17.62%) Java
1 65 (17.62%) Python
2 59 (15.99%) JavaScript
3 53 (14.36%) SQL
4 44 (11.92%) C#
5 30 (8.13%) TypeScript
6 22 (5.96%) C++
7 13 (3.52%) Bash
8 12 (3.25%) Shell Script
9 11 (2.98%) C
10 8 (2.17%) Go
11 7 (1.90%) Ada
12 6 (1.63%) Groovy
12 6 (1.63%) Scala
12 6 (1.63%) VB
13 5 (1.36%) PowerShell
13 5 (1.36%) Ruby
14 4 (1.08%) VB.NET
15 3 (0.81%) Embedded C
15 3 (0.81%) JCL
Qualifications
1 96 (26.02%) Security Cleared
2 83 (22.49%) SC Cleared
3 42 (11.38%) Degree
4 35 (9.49%) ISTQB
5 22 (5.96%) Computer Science Degree
6 10 (2.71%) BPSS Clearance
6 10 (2.71%) CISSP
7 9 (2.44%) CISM
8 8 (2.17%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 7 (1.90%) DV Cleared
10 5 (1.36%) Azure Certification
10 5 (1.36%) ISEB
11 4 (1.08%) HNC
11 4 (1.08%) HND
11 4 (1.08%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 3 (0.81%) EMC Certification
12 3 (0.81%) Master's Degree
12 3 (0.81%) PMI Certification
13 2 (0.54%) ACCA
13 2 (0.54%) CIMA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 100 (27.10%) QA
2 26 (7.05%) Accessibility
3 13 (3.52%) NIST
4 10 (2.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 10 (2.71%) WCAG
5 7 (1.90%) PCI DSS
6 6 (1.63%) EU AI Act
6 6 (1.63%) GDPR
7 3 (0.81%) Def Stans
7 3 (0.81%) IEC 61508
7 3 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 15288
7 3 (0.81%) SLA
8 2 (0.54%) GRC
8 2 (0.54%) Software Quality Assurance
9 1 (0.27%) HL7
9 1 (0.27%) IEC 61131
9 1 (0.27%) ISO 9001
9 1 (0.27%) PMO
9 1 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 50 (13.55%) Docker
2 5 (1.36%) Active Directory
3 4 (1.08%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (0.81%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
5 1 (0.27%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 46 (12.47%) Kubernetes
2 15 (4.07%) Ansible
3 14 (3.79%) Terraform
4 9 (2.44%) Grafana
5 4 (1.08%) Functional Safety
5 4 (1.08%) HP ALM
5 4 (1.08%) Prometheus
5 4 (1.08%) Puppet
6 3 (0.81%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 3 (0.81%) vCenter Server
6 3 (0.81%) WSUS
7 2 (0.54%) HP Quality Center
7 2 (0.54%) Nessus
8 1 (0.27%) Control-M
8 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.27%) Nmap
8 1 (0.27%) Packer
8 1 (0.27%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.27%) Rsyslog
8 1 (0.27%) SCOM
Vendors
1 58 (15.72%) Microsoft
2 31 (8.40%) Oracle
3 11 (2.98%) Google
4 10 (2.71%) Cisco
4 10 (2.71%) CyberArk
5 9 (2.44%) BeyondTrust
5 9 (2.44%) Splunk
5 9 (2.44%) Thycotic
6 8 (2.17%) ServiceNow
7 6 (1.63%) Atlassian
7 6 (1.63%) HP
7 6 (1.63%) Meraki
7 6 (1.63%) Salesforce
7 6 (1.63%) VMware
8 5 (1.36%) Juniper
8 5 (1.36%) Workday
9 4 (1.08%) CA Agile Central
9 4 (1.08%) Dynatrace
9 4 (1.08%) Nokia
9 4 (1.08%) SAP