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 21 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 262 240 178
Rank change year-on-year -22 -62 +16
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 376 264 486
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.91% 1.09% 1.34%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.08% 1.19% 1.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 211 172 328
10th Percentile £338 £313 £304
25th Percentile £400 £363 £386
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £449 £455
Median % change year-on-year +5.79% -1.21% -9.10%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £588
90th Percentile £650 £699 £688
UK median daily rate £475 £440 £463
% change year-on-year +7.95% -4.86% -7.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 22 59
10th Percentile £16.65 £50.00 £40.17
25th Percentile £55.25 £52.13 £56.25
Median hourly rate £69.00 £61.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.20% -1.60% +19.05%
75th Percentile £70.00 £69.38 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £86.83 -
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £60.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +15.70% -3.20% +18.52%

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 34,902 22,108 31,434
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.66% 91.30% 86.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,235 14,434 20,613
10th Percentile £325 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £510 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,141 960 2,249
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.42 £12.92
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.22 £16.00
Median hourly rate £46.80 £28.75 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +62.78% -21.23% -0.11%
75th Percentile £67.84 £62.24 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £28.00 £36.50
% change year-on-year +51.79% -23.29% +1.39%

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 21 May 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 21 May 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 21 May 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 -24 158 £475 +8.57% 41
South East -46 56 £495 +23.75% 62
Midlands -25 45 £511 +21.73% 41
North of England -47 44 £500 +0.53% 37
South West -20 39 £409 -19.21% 25
West Midlands -28 38 £510 +20.00% 28
East of England -12 32 £600 +26.32% 45
Yorkshire -41 18 £500 -3.80% 7
North East -8 17 £450 - 9
North West -40 11 £525 +10.53% 21
East Midlands -24 7 £575 +152.75% 13
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 13 (3.46%) Confluence
2 9 (2.39%) SAS
3 7 (1.86%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (1.60%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.53%) IIS
5 2 (0.53%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.27%) Apache
6 1 (0.27%) IBM HTTP Server
6 1 (0.27%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.27%) WebSphere
Applications
1 12 (3.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.86%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (1.06%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.53%) Simulink
6 1 (0.27%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (1.60%) Findur
1 6 (1.60%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (1.06%) Aladdin
2 4 (1.06%) Maximo
3 3 (0.80%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.80%) Oracle EBS R12
3 3 (0.80%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.53%) LabWindows
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
1 102 (27.13%) Azure
2 75 (19.95%) AWS
3 72 (19.15%) Azure DevOps
4 28 (7.45%) GitHub
5 25 (6.65%) Serverless
6 24 (6.38%) AWS Lambda
7 23 (6.12%) Amazon S3
8 20 (5.32%) GCP
9 9 (2.39%) AWS CloudFormation
9 9 (2.39%) GitHub Actions
9 9 (2.39%) Snowflake
10 8 (2.13%) Amazon ECS
10 8 (2.13%) OpenShift
11 7 (1.86%) Amazon EC2
11 7 (1.86%) Entra ID
11 7 (1.86%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 6 (1.60%) PaaS
13 5 (1.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 5 (1.33%) SaaS
14 4 (1.06%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.13%) Ethernet
2 5 (1.33%) DNS
2 5 (1.33%) Firewall
2 5 (1.33%) Software-Defined Radio
2 5 (1.33%) Wireless
3 4 (1.06%) Reverse Proxy
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%) 4G
5 2 (0.53%) 5G
5 2 (0.53%) DHCP
5 2 (0.53%) FTP
5 2 (0.53%) Internet
5 2 (0.53%) Network Security
5 2 (0.53%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.27%) BGP
6 1 (0.27%) MPLS
6 1 (0.27%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (6.65%) PostgreSQL
2 20 (5.32%) Relational Database
3 16 (4.26%) MySQL
4 15 (3.99%) SQL Server
5 14 (3.72%) Oracle Database
6 11 (2.93%) Big Data
7 10 (2.66%) NoSQL
8 9 (2.39%) SAS Enterprise Guide
9 8 (2.13%) Data Warehouse
9 8 (2.13%) DynamoDB
9 8 (2.13%) MongoDB
10 7 (1.86%) Amazon Redshift
11 5 (1.33%) Amazon Athena
11 5 (1.33%) SAS Visual Analytics
12 4 (1.06%) Amazon QuickSight
13 3 (0.80%) BigQuery
13 3 (0.80%) Parquet
13 3 (0.80%) Redis
14 2 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
14 2 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 66 (17.55%) JIRA
2 40 (10.64%) Git
3 39 (10.37%) Selenium
4 29 (7.71%) Jenkins
5 25 (6.65%) Postman
6 21 (5.59%) Cucumber
6 21 (5.59%) REST Assured
7 20 (5.32%) GitLab
8 19 (5.05%) JUnit
9 16 (4.26%) Cypress.io
10 12 (3.19%) Rational DOORS
11 10 (2.66%) TestRail
12 9 (2.39%) Zephyr
13 7 (1.86%) WebDriver
14 6 (1.60%) HP UFT
15 5 (1.33%) JMeter
15 5 (1.33%) Maven
15 5 (1.33%) SonarQube
16 4 (1.06%) Appium
16 4 (1.06%) Gatling
General
1 108 (28.72%) Social Skills
2 71 (18.88%) Finance
3 64 (17.02%) Analytical Skills
4 41 (10.90%) Public Sector
5 25 (6.65%) Banking
6 19 (5.05%) Aerospace
7 12 (3.19%) Automotive
7 12 (3.19%) Back Office
8 11 (2.93%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (1.86%) Military
10 6 (1.60%) Front Office
10 6 (1.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 6 (1.60%) Manufacturing
10 6 (1.60%) Organisational Skills
11 5 (1.33%) Electronics
11 5 (1.33%) Investment Banking
11 5 (1.33%) Law
12 4 (1.06%) Telecoms
13 3 (0.80%) Influencing Skills
13 3 (0.80%) Legal
Job Titles
1 59 (15.69%) Senior
2 54 (14.36%) Test Engineer
3 53 (14.10%) Developer
4 47 (12.50%) Software Engineer
5 36 (9.57%) Analyst
6 31 (8.24%) Tester
7 30 (7.98%) Lead
8 24 (6.38%) Test Analyst
9 22 (5.85%) Java Developer
10 18 (4.79%) Senior Developer
11 16 (4.26%) Java Engineer
11 16 (4.26%) Software Test Engineer
11 16 (4.26%) Test Manager
12 15 (3.99%) QA Engineer
13 12 (3.19%) Architect
14 11 (2.93%) Embedded Engineer
14 11 (2.93%) Embedded Software Engineer
14 11 (2.93%) Software Developer
15 10 (2.66%) Business Analyst
15 10 (2.66%) Senior Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (10.90%) Spring
2 38 (10.11%) React
3 35 (9.31%) Playwright
4 33 (8.78%) Spring Boot
5 32 (8.51%) REST
6 25 (6.65%) RESTful
7 24 (6.38%) .NET
8 16 (4.26%) HTML
8 16 (4.26%) Kafka
8 16 (4.26%) Node.js
9 15 (3.99%) CSS
10 12 (3.19%) Redux
11 10 (2.66%) AngularJS
11 10 (2.66%) HTML5
11 10 (2.66%) Spring MVC
12 9 (2.39%) CSS3
12 9 (2.39%) Jest
13 7 (1.86%) Middleware
14 6 (1.60%) .NET Framework
14 6 (1.60%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 35 (9.31%) Product Ownership
2 25 (6.65%) Cloud Native
3 19 (5.05%) Enterprise Software
4 18 (4.79%) Embedded Systems
5 16 (4.26%) Self-Motivation
6 14 (3.72%) Distributed Systems
7 13 (3.46%) Management Information System
8 12 (3.19%) Legacy Systems
9 10 (2.66%) Data Centre
10 6 (1.60%) FPGA
10 6 (1.60%) Virtual Team
11 5 (1.33%) Greenfield Project
11 5 (1.33%) PCIe
12 4 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
12 4 (1.06%) Data Protection Act
12 4 (1.06%) Mobile App
13 3 (0.80%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 3 (0.80%) NHS
13 3 (0.80%) Public Cloud
13 3 (0.80%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 25 (6.65%) Windows
2 20 (5.32%) Linux
3 10 (2.66%) Unix
4 6 (1.60%) FreeRTOS
5 4 (1.06%) Mac OS
5 4 (1.06%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.53%) Android
7 1 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.27%) Solaris
7 1 (0.27%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 176 (46.81%) Test Automation
2 138 (36.70%) Agile
3 133 (35.37%) DevOps
4 124 (32.98%) CI/CD
5 89 (23.67%) Continuous Improvement
6 87 (23.14%) Problem-Solving
7 85 (22.61%) Software Engineering
8 67 (17.82%) Test Scripting
9 57 (15.16%) Validation
10 52 (13.83%) SDLC
10 52 (13.83%) Test Strategy
11 49 (13.03%) Microservices
12 48 (12.77%) Regression Testing
13 47 (12.50%) Defect Tracking
13 47 (12.50%) Test Management
14 46 (12.23%) Scrum
15 41 (10.90%) Containerisation
15 41 (10.90%) User Acceptance Testing
16 40 (10.64%) Integration Testing
16 40 (10.64%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 82 (21.81%) Java
2 74 (19.68%) Python
3 66 (17.55%) SQL
4 39 (10.37%) JavaScript
5 35 (9.31%) C#
6 29 (7.71%) TypeScript
7 15 (3.99%) C++
8 12 (3.19%) C
9 9 (2.39%) Bash
10 7 (1.86%) PL/SQL
11 6 (1.60%) PowerShell
12 5 (1.33%) Apex Code
12 5 (1.33%) VBScript
13 4 (1.06%) Go
14 3 (0.80%) Groovy
14 3 (0.80%) Rust
14 3 (0.80%) VB
15 2 (0.53%) Ada
15 2 (0.53%) MATLAB
15 2 (0.53%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 110 (29.26%) Security Cleared
2 87 (23.14%) SC Cleared
3 40 (10.64%) Degree
4 37 (9.84%) ISTQB
5 20 (5.32%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 10 (2.66%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (1.86%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (1.86%) DV Cleared
7 7 (1.86%) ISEB
8 4 (1.06%) CEH
8 4 (1.06%) CISSP
8 4 (1.06%) CompTIA Security+
8 4 (1.06%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 2 (0.53%) A+ Certification
9 2 (0.53%) Cisco Certification
9 2 (0.53%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.53%) Network+ Certification
9 2 (0.53%) PMI Certification
9 2 (0.53%) PMP
9 2 (0.53%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 91 (24.20%) QA
2 14 (3.72%) Accessibility
3 11 (2.93%) Data Quality
4 8 (2.13%) WCAG
5 7 (1.86%) PMO
6 4 (1.06%) NIST
6 4 (1.06%) SLA
6 4 (1.06%) Software Quality Assurance
7 3 (0.80%) ISO 20022
8 2 (0.53%) ISO 15022
8 2 (0.53%) MiFID
9 1 (0.27%) GRC
9 1 (0.27%) SEPA
System Software
1 39 (10.37%) Docker
2 9 (2.39%) Active Directory
3 8 (2.13%) Firmware
4 6 (1.60%) Virtual Desktop
4 6 (1.60%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (1.06%) Embedded Firmware
6 2 (0.53%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.53%) VMware Workstation
7 1 (0.27%) NFS
7 1 (0.27%) Time Sharing Option
7 1 (0.27%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 52 (13.83%) Kubernetes
2 23 (6.12%) Terraform
3 12 (3.19%) Ansible
4 11 (2.93%) HP ALM
4 11 (2.93%) Prometheus
5 10 (2.66%) Grafana
6 7 (1.86%) Puppet
7 5 (1.33%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (1.06%) HP Quality Center
8 4 (1.06%) Salt
8 4 (1.06%) SCCM
9 1 (0.27%) Kibana
9 1 (0.27%) Oracle ZFS
9 1 (0.27%) Packer
9 1 (0.27%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.27%) Tivoli
9 1 (0.27%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 40 (10.64%) Oracle
2 34 (9.04%) Microsoft
3 12 (3.19%) Salesforce
4 11 (2.93%) HP
5 8 (2.13%) Dell
5 8 (2.13%) VMware
6 7 (1.86%) Citrix
6 7 (1.86%) IBM
6 7 (1.86%) SAP
6 7 (1.86%) ServiceNow
7 6 (1.60%) Conga
7 6 (1.60%) GoCardless
7 6 (1.60%) OpenLink
7 6 (1.60%) Splunk
8 5 (1.33%) Ab Initio
8 5 (1.33%) Google
8 5 (1.33%) Teradata
9 4 (1.06%) Fortinet
10 3 (0.80%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.80%) Remedy