Software Testing Contracts in England

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England with a requirement for Software Testing skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Software Testing over the 3 months to 28 June 2017 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Software Testing UK / England
Location	3 months to 28 Jun 2017	Same period 2016	Same period 2015
Rank	341	297	240
Rank change year-on-year	-44	-57
Contract jobs citing Software Testing	259	369	483
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England	0.60%	0.75%	0.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category	0.71%	0.89%	1.19%
Number of daily rates quoted	136	253	201
Median daily rate	£370	£373	£350
Median daily rate % change year-on-year	-0.67%	+6.42%
90% offered a daily rate of more than	£231	£250	£205
10% offered a daily rate of more than	£484	£490	£525
UK excluding London median daily rate	£350	£330	£316
% change year-on-year	+6.06%	+4.34%
Number of hourly rates quoted	20	6	16
Median hourly rate	£48.75	£38.00	£37.62
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year	+28.28%	+1.01%
90% offered a hourly rate of more than	£39.50	£36.25	£21.25
10% offered a hourly rate of more than	£54.54	£42.00	£45.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£48.75	£37.50	£37.50
% change year-on-year	+30.00%	-

Software Testing is in the process and methodology skills category. The next table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies advertised in England with a requirement for process and methodology skills.

Contract Process & Methodology Skills England
Contract job vacancies with a requirement for process and methodology skills	36606	41272	40599
As % of all contract IT job vacancies advertised in England	84.68%	83.46%	80.86%
Number of daily rates quoted	92153	104845	92956
Median daily rate	£450	£450	£415
Median daily rate % change year-on-year	-	+8.43%
90% offered a daily rate of more than	£306	£288	£275
10% offered a daily rate of more than	£625	£625	£600
UK excluding London median daily rate	£415	£400	£380
% change year-on-year	+3.75%	+5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted	2818	2673	2706
Median hourly rate	£32.50	£27.50	£26.00
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year	+18.18%	+5.76%
90% offered a hourly rate of more than	£12.24	£12.50	£11.50
10% offered a hourly rate of more than	£53.75	£50.78	£51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£34.00	£28.50	£30.00
% change year-on-year	+19.29%	-5.00%

Software Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings citing Software Testing as a percentage of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for Software Testing in England

Software Testing
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for daily rates quoted in contract jobs citing Software Testing in England.

Contractor daily rate trend for Software Testing in England

Software Testing
Contractor Daily Rate Histogram in England

The daily rate distribution of IT jobs citing Software Testing in England over the 3 months to 28 June 2017.

Contractor daily rate histogram for Software Testing in England

Software Testing
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for contractor hourly rates quoted in IT jobs citing Software Testing in England.

Contractor hourly rate trend for Software Testing in England

Software Testing
Contractor Hourly Rate Histogram in England

The hourly rate distribution of IT jobs citing Software Testing in England over the 3 months to 28 June 2017.

Contractor 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 3 months to 28 June 2017. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 3 month period last year.

Location	Rank Change on Same Period Last Year	Matching Contract IT Job Ads	Median Daily Rate Last 3 Months	Median Daily Rate % Change on Same Period Last Year	Live Job Vacancies
London	-39	93	£415	+10.66%	40
South East	-3	42	£320	-20.00%	24
North of England	+21	34	£370	+6.47%	38
South West	0	34	£418	+28.53%	21
Midlands	+20	31	£361	+8.64%	20
East of England	+7	25	£295	-34.44%	15
North West	+12	22	£350	-	27
East Midlands	+6	20	£350	+16.66%	3
West Midlands	+14	11	£375	+10.29%	17
Yorkshire	+7	8	£463	+33.09%	6
North East	+58	4	£370	+13.84%	5
Software Testing UK

Software Testing
Top 30 Co-occurring IT Skills in England

For the 6 months to 28 June 2017, IT contractor jobs citing Software Testing also mentioned the following skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the number co-occurrences and its proportion to all contract ads across the England region with a requirement for Software Testing.

1	310 (54.67%)	Test Automation
2	301 (53.09%)	Agile Software Development
3	147 (25.93%)	QA
4	144 (25.40%)	Scrum
5	143 (25.22%)	ISEB
6	141 (24.87%)	SQL
7	136 (23.99%)	ISTQB
8	131 (23.10%)	Selenium
9	127 (22.40%)	Test Scripting
10	124 (21.87%)	Java
11	121 (21.34%)	JIRA
12	116 (20.46%)	Finance
13	100 (17.64%)	Test Strategy
14	98 (17.28%)	Functional Testing
15	96 (16.93%)	User Acceptance Testing

16	87 (15.34%)	SDLC
17	83 (14.64%)	Regression Testing
18	80 (14.11%)	C#
19	77 (13.58%)	Microsoft
19	77 (13.58%)	BDD
20	76 (13.40%)	Windows
21	74 (13.05%)	Security Cleared
22	73 (12.87%)	ISTQB Foundation Certification
23	72 (12.70%)	Manual Testing
24	68 (11.99%)	JavaScript
25	67 (11.82%)	Software Engineering
26	66 (11.64%)	Defect Management
27	61 (10.76%)	SQL Server
27	61 (10.76%)	Continuous Integration
28	58 (10.23%)	Linux

Software Testing
Co-occurring IT Skills in England by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same job type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
Applications
Business Applications
Cloud Services
Communications & Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
Development Applications
General
Job Titles
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
Miscellaneous
Operating Systems
Processes & Methodologies
Programming Languages
Qualifications
Quality Assurance & Compliance
System Software
Systems Management
Vendors

Application Platforms
1	25 (4.41%)	Confluence
2	24 (4.23%)	CMS
3	20 (3.53%)	Adobe Experience Manager
4	19 (3.35%)	SharePoint
5	11 (1.94%)	JBoss
6	10 (1.76%)	ArcGIS
6	10 (1.76%)	NServiceBus
7	8 (1.41%)	SharePoint 2010
7	8 (1.41%)	Tomcat
7	8 (1.41%)	WebLogic
8	7 (1.23%)	IIS
8	7 (1.23%)	SharePoint 2013
9	3 (0.53%)	Apache
9	3 (0.53%)	Apache Spark
9	3 (0.53%)	BizTalk Server
9	3 (0.53%)	ColdFusion
9	3 (0.53%)	WebSphere
10	2 (0.35%)	CICS
10	2 (0.35%)	Mule
10	2 (0.35%)	Sitecore CMS

Applications
1	26 (4.59%)	Microsoft Office
2	21 (3.70%)	Microsoft Excel
3	7 (1.23%)	MS Visio
4	4 (0.71%)	Spreadsheet
5	3 (0.53%)	Microsoft Project
5	3 (0.53%)	Stata
6	2 (0.35%)	Microsoft PowerPoint
6	2 (0.35%)	Mingle

Business Applications
1	8 (1.41%)	Dynamics CRM
2	5 (0.88%)	Unit4 Business World
3	2 (0.35%)	Dynamics NAV
3	2 (0.35%)	ION MarketView
3	2 (0.35%)	SAP ERP
3	2 (0.35%)	Teamcenter
4	1 (0.18%)	Bloomberg TOMS
4	1 (0.18%)	Dynamics AX
4	1 (0.18%)	JDE EnterpriseOne
4	1 (0.18%)	Markit EDM
4	1 (0.18%)	Maximo
4	1 (0.18%)	Oracle Applications
4	1 (0.18%)	Oracle BPM
4	1 (0.18%)	RMDS
4	1 (0.18%)	TRIRIGA

Cloud Services
1	19 (3.35%)	Amazon AWS
2	16 (2.82%)	GitHub
3	11 (1.94%)	Microsoft Azure
4	8 (1.41%)	BrowserStack
5	6 (1.06%)	Sauce Labs
6	4 (0.71%)	Adobe Analytics
7	3 (0.53%)	IaaS
8	2 (0.35%)	AWS CloudFormation
8	2 (0.35%)	Office 365
8	2 (0.35%)	SaaS
8	2 (0.35%)	Salesforce Service Cloud
9	1 (0.18%)	Amazon EC2
9	1 (0.18%)	Amazon S3
9	1 (0.18%)	Asana
9	1 (0.18%)	Google Analytics
9	1 (0.18%)	Google Cloud Platform
9	1 (0.18%)	Loggly
9	1 (0.18%)	Sumo Logic
9	1 (0.18%)	Yammer

Communications & Networking
1	23 (4.06%)	Internet
2	17 (3.00%)	HTTP
3	10 (1.76%)	Link 16
3	10 (1.76%)	TCP/IP
4	8 (1.41%)	DNS
5	7 (1.23%)	Firewall
5	7 (1.23%)	FTP
6	5 (0.88%)	Broadband
6	5 (0.88%)	Wireless
6	5 (0.88%)	Wireshark
7	4 (0.71%)	Bluetooth
7	4 (0.71%)	Ethernet
7	4 (0.71%)	NAS
7	4 (0.71%)	WAN
8	3 (0.53%)	802.11
8	3 (0.53%)	ADSL
8	3 (0.53%)	IPv4
8	3 (0.53%)	IPv6
8	3 (0.53%)	UPnP
8	3 (0.53%)	VDSL

Database & Business Intelligence
1	61 (10.76%)	SQL Server
2	41 (7.23%)	Relational Database
3	14 (2.47%)	Data Warehouse
4	13 (2.29%)	MySQL
5	8 (1.41%)	NoSQL
5	8 (1.41%)	SQL Server 2012
6	7 (1.23%)	Siebel EIM
7	6 (1.06%)	MongoDB
7	6 (1.06%)	Redis
7	6 (1.06%)	SQL Server Integration Services
8	4 (0.71%)	Oracle Reports
8	4 (0.71%)	PostgreSQL
8	4 (0.71%)	SQL Server Reporting Services
9	3 (0.53%)	Big Data
9	3 (0.53%)	EDRMS
9	3 (0.53%)	Hadoop
9	3 (0.53%)	Oracle Database
9	3 (0.53%)	Pentaho
9	3 (0.53%)	SQL Server Analysis Services
10	2 (0.35%)	Sqoop

Development Applications
1	131 (23.10%)	Selenium
2	121 (21.34%)	JIRA
3	57 (10.05%)	Cucumber
4	55 (9.70%)	Jenkins
5	45 (7.94%)	Team Foundation Server
6	44 (7.76%)	Git (software)
7	42 (7.41%)	WebDriver
8	41 (7.23%)	SoapUI
9	27 (4.76%)	HP UFT
9	27 (4.76%)	JUnit
10	26 (4.59%)	TeamCity
11	25 (4.41%)	JMeter
12	23 (4.06%)	LoadRunner
13	22 (3.88%)	SpecFlow
14	21 (3.70%)	Visual Studio
15	15 (2.65%)	Subversion
16	13 (2.29%)	Hudson
16	13 (2.29%)	MSTest
17	12 (2.12%)	Atlassian Bamboo
17	12 (2.12%)	Maven

General
1	116 (20.46%)	Finance
2	34 (6.00%)	Banking
3	15 (2.65%)	Legal
3	15 (2.65%)	Marketing
4	14 (2.47%)	Military
5	12 (2.12%)	Front Office
5	12 (2.12%)	Retail
6	11 (1.94%)	Games
7	10 (1.76%)	Avionics
7	10 (1.76%)	Electronics
8	9 (1.59%)	Law
9	8 (1.41%)	Financial Institution
10	7 (1.23%)	Investment Banking
11	5 (0.88%)	Back Office
11	5 (0.88%)	Pharmaceutical
12	4 (0.71%)	Advertising
12	4 (0.71%)	Billing
12	4 (0.71%)	Manufacturing
13	3 (0.53%)	General Ledger
14	2 (0.35%)	Publishing

Job Titles
1	181 (31.92%)	Analyst
2	143 (25.22%)	Test Analyst
3	122 (21.52%)	Tester
4	85 (14.99%)	Developer
5	62 (10.93%)	Test Manager
6	45 (7.94%)	Test Engineer
7	36 (6.35%)	Software Tester
7	36 (6.35%)	Test Leader
8	30 (5.29%)	Automation Tester
9	28 (4.94%)	Java Developer
10	27 (4.76%)	Automation Test Analyst
11	22 (3.88%)	QA Tester
12	16 (2.82%)	Software Engineer
13	15 (2.65%)	Senior Developer
13	15 (2.65%)	Software Analyst
13	15 (2.65%)	Test Automation Engineer
14	14 (2.47%)	Senior Analyst
14	14 (2.47%)	Team Leader
15	13 (2.29%)	Software Test Analyst
15	13 (2.29%)	Software Test Engineer

Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1	58 (10.23%)	XML
2	57 (10.05%)	.NET
3	51 (8.99%)	Web Services
4	41 (7.23%)	HTML
5	28 (4.94%)	REST
5	28 (4.94%)	SOAP
6	26 (4.59%)	CSS
7	25 (4.41%)	RESTful
8	22 (3.88%)	Hibernate
8	22 (3.88%)	JSON
9	18 (3.17%)	AngularJS
9	18 (3.17%)	Gherkin
9	18 (3.17%)	J2EE
9	18 (3.17%)	Spring
10	16 (2.82%)	React
11	13 (2.29%)	Java EE
12	12 (2.12%)	DCOM
12	12 (2.12%)	HTML5
12	12 (2.12%)	WPF
13	11 (1.94%)	COM

Miscellaneous
1	56 (9.88%)	Analytical Skills
2	31 (5.47%)	User Experience
3	25 (4.41%)	Computer Science
4	24 (4.23%)	Management Information System
5	19 (3.35%)	Mobile App
6	15 (2.65%)	Client/Server
7	12 (2.12%)	STB
8	11 (1.94%)	Fixed Income
9	7 (1.23%)	Hedge funds
10	6 (1.06%)	Embedded Systems
10	6 (1.06%)	PlayStation
11	5 (0.88%)	3D Graphics
12	4 (0.71%)	IPTV
12	4 (0.71%)	NHS
12	4 (0.71%)	Online Games
13	3 (0.53%)	Augmented Reality
13	3 (0.53%)	MHEG
13	3 (0.53%)	Over-the-Top Content
13	3 (0.53%)	SWIFT
13	3 (0.53%)	Video on Demand

Operating Systems
1	76 (13.40%)	Windows
2	58 (10.23%)	Linux
3	29 (5.11%)	Unix
4	21 (3.70%)	Android
5	16 (2.82%)	Apple iOS
6	11 (1.94%)	Windows Server
6	11 (1.94%)	Windows Server 2012
7	5 (0.88%)	Mac OS X
8	4 (0.71%)	Windows 7
9	3 (0.53%)	Tizen
9	3 (0.53%)	Windows Vista
10	2 (0.35%)	Windows 8
10	2 (0.35%)	Windows Server 2003
10	2 (0.35%)	Windows Server 2008
10	2 (0.35%)	Windows XP
11	1 (0.18%)	CoreOS
11	1 (0.18%)	Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11	1 (0.18%)	Windows 10
11	1 (0.18%)	Windows Mobile

Processes & Methodologies
1	310 (54.67%)	Test Automation
2	301 (53.09%)	Agile Software Development
3	144 (25.40%)	Scrum
4	127 (22.40%)	Test Scripting
5	100 (17.64%)	Test Strategy
6	98 (17.28%)	Functional Testing
7	96 (16.93%)	User Acceptance Testing
8	87 (15.34%)	SDLC
9	83 (14.64%)	Regression Testing
10	77 (13.58%)	BDD
11	72 (12.70%)	Manual Testing
12	67 (11.82%)	Software Engineering
13	66 (11.64%)	Defect Management
14	61 (10.76%)	Continuous Integration
15	57 (10.05%)	Test Management
16	56 (9.88%)	Waterfall
17	54 (9.52%)	Non-Functional Testing
18	53 (9.35%)	Integration Testing
19	49 (8.64%)	TDD
20	44 (7.76%)	System Testing

Programming Languages
1	141 (24.87%)	SQL
2	124 (21.87%)	Java
3	80 (14.11%)	C#
4	68 (11.99%)	JavaScript
5	51 (8.99%)	Python
6	46 (8.11%)	C
7	42 (7.41%)	Ruby
8	33 (5.82%)	C++
9	17 (3.00%)	Perl
10	16 (2.82%)	VB
11	14 (2.47%)	VB.NET
12	11 (1.94%)	PowerShell
13	8 (1.41%)	T-SQL
14	7 (1.23%)	Bash Shell
14	7 (1.23%)	PHP
14	7 (1.23%)	Shell Script
14	7 (1.23%)	STATISTICA Visual Basic
14	7 (1.23%)	VBScript
15	6 (1.06%)	R
16	5 (0.88%)	GLSL

Qualifications
1	143 (25.22%)	ISEB
2	136 (23.99%)	ISTQB
3	74 (13.05%)	Security Cleared
4	73 (12.87%)	ISTQB Foundation Certification
5	50 (8.82%)	Degree
6	35 (6.17%)	SC Cleared
7	16 (2.82%)	DV Cleared
8	13 (2.29%)	Computer Science Degree
9	10 (1.76%)	ISEB Practitioner
9	10 (1.76%)	Microsoft Certification
10	8 (1.41%)	BPSS Clearance
11	7 (1.23%)	ITIL Foundation Certificate
11	7 (1.23%)	Siebel Certification
12	4 (0.71%)	ISTQB Advanced Certification
13	3 (0.53%)	Numerate Degree
13	3 (0.53%)	PRINCE2 Practitioner
14	2 (0.35%)	Cisco Certification
14	2 (0.35%)	HNC
14	2 (0.35%)	PMI Certification
15	1 (0.18%)	CCNP

Quality Assurance & Compliance
1	147 (25.93%)	QA
2	10 (1.76%)	MIL-STD-1553
3	8 (1.41%)	Data Quality
4	6 (1.06%)	SLA
5	5 (0.88%)	21 CFR Part 11
5	5 (0.88%)	Disclosure Scotland
5	5 (0.88%)	GMP
6	3 (0.53%)	GDPR
6	3 (0.53%)	ISO/IEC 27001
6	3 (0.53%)	MiFID
7	2 (0.35%)	FATCA
7	2 (0.35%)	ISO 9001
7	2 (0.35%)	TickIT
7	2 (0.35%)	WCAG
8	1 (0.18%)	EMIR
8	1 (0.18%)	GxP
8	1 (0.18%)	IFRS
8	1 (0.18%)	PMO

System Software
1	8 (1.41%)	VirtualBox
2	7 (1.23%)	Active Directory
2	7 (1.23%)	Docker
3	5 (0.88%)	Firmware
3	5 (0.88%)	VMware Infrastructure
4	3 (0.53%)	Virtual Machines
5	2 (0.35%)	Microsoft App-V
5	2 (0.35%)	Microsoft Virtual Server
5	2 (0.35%)	Time Sharing Option
5	2 (0.35%)	Virtual Desktop
5	2 (0.35%)	Virtual Servers
5	2 (0.35%)	VMware ESXi
6	1 (0.18%)	HDFS

Systems Management
1	54 (9.52%)	HP Quality Center
2	12 (2.12%)	Puppet
3	9 (1.59%)	SCCM
4	6 (1.06%)	Ansible
5	5 (0.88%)	Opscode Chef
6	4 (0.71%)	Grafana
6	4 (0.71%)	StatsD
7	3 (0.53%)	Nagios
7	3 (0.53%)	ZABBIX
8	2 (0.35%)	BladeLogic
8	2 (0.35%)	Cacti
8	2 (0.35%)	Check_MK
8	2 (0.35%)	Graphite
8	2 (0.35%)	Hadoop YARN
8	2 (0.35%)	Kibana
8	2 (0.35%)	Kubernetes
8	2 (0.35%)	logstash
8	2 (0.35%)	Oozie
8	2 (0.35%)	Rundeck
9	1 (0.18%)	CA Service Virtualization

Vendors
1	77 (13.58%)	Microsoft
2	48 (8.47%)	Oracle
3	43 (7.58%)	HP
4	18 (3.17%)	Adobe
5	11 (1.94%)	Atlassian
6	8 (1.41%)	SAP
6	8 (1.41%)	Siebel
7	7 (1.23%)	VMware
8	6 (1.06%)	Splunk
9	5 (0.88%)	Cisco
9	5 (0.88%)	IBM
9	5 (0.88%)	Salesforce.com
10	4 (0.71%)	TIBCO
11	3 (0.53%)	Apple
11	3 (0.53%)	Google
11	3 (0.53%)	New Relic
11	3 (0.53%)	OpenTV
11	3 (0.53%)	Remedy
12	2 (0.35%)	ServiceNow
12	2 (0.35%)	Sitecore