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 25 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
25 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 235 208 170
Rank change year-on-year -27 -38 +20
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 398 322 525
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.13% 1.26% 1.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.29% 1.40% 1.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 264 201 359
10th Percentile £325 £313 £246
25th Percentile £377 £363 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -9.52%
75th Percentile £538 £625 £600
90th Percentile £600 £700 £675
UK median daily rate £430 £475 £466
% change year-on-year -9.47% +1.93% -11.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 16 77
10th Percentile £29.29 £57.44 £43.33
25th Percentile £57.63 £62.19 £56.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +30.00%
75th Percentile £68.38 £76.44 -
90th Percentile £72.60 £80.75 -
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +30.00%

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 30,789 23,051 32,723
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 87.31% 90.11% 87.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,727 14,450 21,724
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.67% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £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 1,908 755 2,031
10th Percentile £15.18 £15.62 £13.41
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £27.50 £35.00 £34.25
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% +2.19% -2.14%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.00 £59.95
90th Percentile £72.15 £75.40 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £25.94 £33.00 £33.07
% change year-on-year -21.39% -0.20% -5.53%

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 25 February 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 25 February 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 25 February 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 -39 166 £450 -1.64% 55
South East -25 64 £446 -25.63% 71
North of England -51 48 £405 - 53
South West -2 44 £449 +12.13% 32
Midlands -33 43 £485 +8.26% 40
West Midlands -34 35 £500 +11.61% 24
Yorkshire -46 26 £461 +13.89% 22
East of England -13 24 £600 +26.32% 39
North West -48 14 £405 -7.43% 29
East Midlands -23 8 £313 - 16
North East - 8 £350 - 2
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 22 (5.53%) Confluence
2 11 (2.76%) SAS
3 7 (1.76%) SharePoint
4 5 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
5 4 (1.01%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.75%) SharePoint Server
7 2 (0.50%) Apache
7 2 (0.50%) JBoss
7 2 (0.50%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.25%) CMS
8 1 (0.25%) WebSphere
Applications
1 12 (3.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (2.26%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (1.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.75%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.25%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 3 (0.75%) Aladdin
1 3 (0.75%) Maximo
2 2 (0.50%) Dynamics NAV
2 2 (0.50%) LabWindows
2 2 (0.50%) Oracle EBS R12
2 2 (0.50%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.25%) Algo Collateral
3 1 (0.25%) CODA-Financials
3 1 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
Cloud Services
1 128 (32.16%) Azure
2 88 (22.11%) Azure DevOps
3 71 (17.84%) AWS
4 40 (10.05%) GitHub
5 33 (8.29%) GCP
6 24 (6.03%) Amazon S3
7 21 (5.28%) AWS Lambda
7 21 (5.28%) GitHub Actions
7 21 (5.28%) Serverless
8 13 (3.27%) Amazon ECS
9 12 (3.02%) AWS CloudFormation
10 11 (2.76%) Snowflake
11 8 (2.01%) Entra ID
12 7 (1.76%) Power Platform
13 6 (1.51%) OpenShift
14 5 (1.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 4 (1.01%) Amazon EC2
15 4 (1.01%) Dynamics 365
15 4 (1.01%) SaaS
15 4 (1.01%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.01%) Ethernet
2 6 (1.51%) Firewall
3 4 (1.01%) DNS
4 3 (0.75%) FTP
4 3 (0.75%) Internet
4 3 (0.75%) Modbus
4 3 (0.75%) RS-232
4 3 (0.75%) RS-422
4 3 (0.75%) RS-485
4 3 (0.75%) Skype
4 3 (0.75%) SNMP
5 2 (0.50%) Cisco IOS
5 2 (0.50%) IOS XR
5 2 (0.50%) Reverse Proxy
5 2 (0.50%) Spanning Tree
5 2 (0.50%) SSH
5 2 (0.50%) TACACS
5 2 (0.50%) TCP/IP
5 2 (0.50%) Wireless
5 2 (0.50%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (8.54%) PostgreSQL
2 24 (6.03%) SQL Server
3 17 (4.27%) NoSQL
4 16 (4.02%) MongoDB
5 15 (3.77%) Relational Database
6 12 (3.02%) BigQuery
6 12 (3.02%) MySQL
7 11 (2.76%) Oracle Database
7 11 (2.76%) SAS Enterprise Guide
8 6 (1.51%) Apache Cassandra
8 6 (1.51%) Big Data
9 5 (1.26%) Amazon Redshift
9 5 (1.26%) Couchbase
9 5 (1.26%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (1.01%) Power BI
10 4 (1.01%) Redis
11 3 (0.75%) DynamoDB
12 2 (0.50%) Amazon Athena
12 2 (0.50%) Amazon QuickSight
12 2 (0.50%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 65 (16.33%) JIRA
2 60 (15.08%) Selenium
3 48 (12.06%) Git
4 39 (9.80%) Jenkins
5 38 (9.55%) Postman
6 35 (8.79%) Cucumber
7 31 (7.79%) Cypress.io
8 25 (6.28%) REST Assured
9 24 (6.03%) GitLab
10 19 (4.77%) JUnit
11 11 (2.76%) JMeter
11 11 (2.76%) TestRail
12 8 (2.01%) WebDriver
13 6 (1.51%) HP UFT
13 6 (1.51%) Maven
13 6 (1.51%) Rational DOORS
13 6 (1.51%) Rational Rhapsody
14 5 (1.26%) Gradle
14 5 (1.26%) SpecFlow
14 5 (1.26%) Zephyr
General
1 121 (30.40%) Social Skills
2 68 (17.09%) Analytical Skills
3 60 (15.08%) Finance
4 50 (12.56%) Public Sector
5 18 (4.52%) Banking
6 11 (2.76%) Aerospace
6 11 (2.76%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (2.51%) Military
8 9 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
9 8 (2.01%) Electronics
9 8 (2.01%) Manufacturing
10 7 (1.76%) Investment Banking
10 7 (1.76%) Telecoms
11 6 (1.51%) Automotive
11 6 (1.51%) Front Office
12 5 (1.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (1.01%) Law
13 4 (1.01%) Organisational Skills
14 3 (0.75%) Back Office
14 3 (0.75%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 65 (16.33%) Senior
2 53 (13.32%) Developer
3 47 (11.81%) Software Engineer
4 44 (11.06%) Analyst
5 40 (10.05%) Test Engineer
6 36 (9.05%) Test Analyst
7 35 (8.79%) Lead
8 34 (8.54%) Tester
9 25 (6.28%) Consultant
10 20 (5.03%) Java Engineer
11 18 (4.52%) Test Manager
12 17 (4.27%) QA Engineer
13 16 (4.02%) Senior Analyst
13 16 (4.02%) Senior Test Analyst
14 15 (3.77%) Java Developer
15 14 (3.52%) Senior Developer
16 13 (3.27%) QA Leader
16 13 (3.27%) Test Leader
17 11 (2.76%) Release Manager
17 11 (2.76%) Systems Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (11.06%) Playwright
2 38 (9.55%) .NET
2 38 (9.55%) Spring
3 37 (9.30%) React
4 30 (7.54%) RESTful
4 30 (7.54%) Spring Boot
5 28 (7.04%) REST
6 27 (6.78%) Node.js
7 19 (4.77%) HTML
8 18 (4.52%) Kafka
9 17 (4.27%) CSS
10 11 (2.76%) Middleware
11 10 (2.51%) .NET Framework
11 10 (2.51%) Gherkin
12 9 (2.26%) pytest
13 8 (2.01%) RabbitMQ
14 7 (1.76%) .NET Core
14 7 (1.76%) AngularJS
14 7 (1.76%) Apache NiFi
15 6 (1.51%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 25 (6.28%) Product Ownership
2 24 (6.03%) Cloud Native
3 18 (4.52%) Self-Motivation
4 12 (3.02%) Enterprise Software
5 10 (2.51%) Distributed Systems
6 8 (2.01%) Legacy Systems
7 7 (1.76%) Greenfield Project
8 6 (1.51%) CUDA
8 6 (1.51%) Mobile App
9 4 (1.01%) Embedded Systems
9 4 (1.01%) Fixed Income
9 4 (1.01%) NHS
9 4 (1.01%) PCIe
9 4 (1.01%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.75%) Algorithms
10 3 (0.75%) Data Centre
10 3 (0.75%) Data Structures
10 3 (0.75%) Equities
10 3 (0.75%) Management Information System
10 3 (0.75%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 38 (9.55%) Windows
2 25 (6.28%) Linux
3 9 (2.26%) Unix
4 5 (1.26%) Mac OS
5 4 (1.01%) FreeRTOS
6 3 (0.75%) Windows 10
6 3 (0.75%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.75%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (0.50%) Android
8 1 (0.25%) Kali Linux
8 1 (0.25%) Mac OS X
8 1 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 184 (46.23%) Test Automation
2 154 (38.69%) Agile
3 141 (35.43%) CI/CD
4 139 (34.92%) DevOps
5 106 (26.63%) Problem-Solving
6 91 (22.86%) Test Scripting
7 84 (21.11%) Continuous Improvement
8 81 (20.35%) Software Engineering
9 62 (15.58%) Validation
10 60 (15.08%) Microservices
11 59 (14.82%) Test Strategy
12 51 (12.81%) Containerisation
12 51 (12.81%) Test Management
13 50 (12.56%) API Testing
14 49 (12.31%) TDD
15 45 (11.31%) Defect Tracking
16 44 (11.06%) Scrum
17 41 (10.30%) Regression Testing
18 39 (9.80%) AI
18 39 (9.80%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 87 (21.86%) Java
2 86 (21.61%) Python
3 72 (18.09%) SQL
4 57 (14.32%) JavaScript
5 44 (11.06%) C#
6 41 (10.30%) TypeScript
7 20 (5.03%) C++
8 13 (3.27%) C
9 12 (3.02%) Go
10 10 (2.51%) Bash
11 9 (2.26%) PL/SQL
12 6 (1.51%) Ada
13 5 (1.26%) Shell Script
13 5 (1.26%) VBScript
14 4 (1.01%) PowerShell
14 4 (1.01%) Scala
14 4 (1.01%) VB
15 3 (0.75%) Embedded C
15 3 (0.75%) Ruby
15 3 (0.75%) Rust
Qualifications
1 117 (29.40%) Security Cleared
2 97 (24.37%) SC Cleared
3 43 (10.80%) Degree
4 37 (9.30%) ISTQB
5 23 (5.78%) Computer Science Degree
6 13 (3.27%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 10 (2.51%) BPSS Clearance
7 10 (2.51%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 7 (1.76%) ISEB
9 4 (1.01%) DV Cleared
9 4 (1.01%) Master's Degree
10 3 (0.75%) PMI Certification
10 3 (0.75%) PMP
11 2 (0.50%) Azure Certification
11 2 (0.50%) Cisco Certification
11 2 (0.50%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
12 1 (0.25%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 1 (0.25%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 1 (0.25%) OSCP
12 1 (0.25%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 101 (25.38%) QA
2 28 (7.04%) Accessibility
3 10 (2.51%) WCAG
4 6 (1.51%) EU AI Act
4 6 (1.51%) NIST
5 4 (1.01%) Data Quality
5 4 (1.01%) SLA
6 3 (0.75%) PMO
6 3 (0.75%) Software Quality Assurance
7 1 (0.25%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.25%) SEPA
System Software
1 54 (13.57%) Docker
2 8 (2.01%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (1.76%) Active Directory
4 4 (1.01%) Firmware
4 4 (1.01%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.75%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.25%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 55 (13.82%) Kubernetes
2 17 (4.27%) Terraform
3 12 (3.02%) Grafana
4 9 (2.26%) HP ALM
5 8 (2.01%) Prometheus
6 7 (1.76%) Ansible
6 7 (1.76%) Puppet
7 5 (1.26%) HP Quality Center
7 5 (1.26%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (1.01%) SCCM
9 3 (0.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 3 (0.75%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.75%) WSUS
10 2 (0.50%) Nessus
10 2 (0.50%) Salt
11 1 (0.25%) Kibana
11 1 (0.25%) Nmap
11 1 (0.25%) Packer
11 1 (0.25%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.25%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 45 (11.31%) Microsoft
2 38 (9.55%) Oracle
3 10 (2.51%) ServiceNow
4 9 (2.26%) HP
4 9 (2.26%) Splunk
4 9 (2.26%) VMware
5 8 (2.01%) Atlassian
6 6 (1.51%) Cisco
6 6 (1.51%) Salesforce
6 6 (1.51%) SAP
7 5 (1.26%) Citrix
7 5 (1.26%) Workday
8 4 (1.01%) Databricks
8 4 (1.01%) Remedy
9 3 (0.75%) Ab Initio
9 3 (0.75%) Charles River
9 3 (0.75%) Dell
9 3 (0.75%) IBM
9 3 (0.75%) Teradata
9 3 (0.75%) Veeam
273 Software Testing jobs in England