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

6 months to
5 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 243 239 210
Rank change year-on-year -4 -29 -40
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 519 310 395
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.13% 1.11% 1.22%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.33% 1.22% 1.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 273 208 253
10th Percentile £266 £313 £315
25th Percentile £400 £359 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £438 £463
Median % change year-on-year +5.71% -5.41% -11.90%
75th Percentile £568 £528 £588
90th Percentile £656 £600 £643
UK median daily rate £460 £440 £464
% change year-on-year +4.43% -5.12% -7.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 27 22
10th Percentile £26.00 £26.25 £37.55
25th Percentile £53.90 £48.75 £54.88
Median hourly rate £60.00 £54.70 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +9.69% -12.48% -3.85%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.88 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £67.00 £66.82
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £54.70 £59.47
% change year-on-year +9.69% -8.01% -8.52%

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 39,045 25,398 28,013
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.68% 90.94% 86.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,601 16,100 17,122
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £643
90th Percentile £738 £730 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,948 1,574 1,187
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.42 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.50 £17.87 £20.30
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.47 £45.75 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £38.25 £25.15 £41.50
% change year-on-year +52.09% -39.40% -2.35%

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 October 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 5 October 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 5 October 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 -21 182 £530 +20.11% 348
South East -40 87 £400 -3.90% 192
Midlands +22 85 £454 +5.67% 147
West Midlands +16 82 £454 -10.57% 88
North of England -55 63 £463 +5.11% 166
East of England +9 53 £76 -86.75% 116
South West -28 40 £410 -8.58% 99
North East -18 26 £500 +37.93% 27
Yorkshire -45 20 £450 -4.76% 53
North West -36 19 £463 +36.03% 86
East Midlands -11 3 - - 58
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 18 (3.47%) Confluence
2 10 (1.93%) SharePoint
3 8 (1.54%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (1.16%) SAS
5 4 (0.77%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.58%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 2 (0.39%) Apache
8 1 (0.19%) FactoryTalk
8 1 (0.19%) IIS
8 1 (0.19%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.19%) WinCC
Applications
1 12 (2.31%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (1.93%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (0.96%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.77%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.77%) Trello
5 2 (0.39%) Simulink
6 1 (0.19%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 6 (1.16%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.58%) Primavera
3 2 (0.39%) Bloomberg TOMS
3 2 (0.39%) Eikon
3 2 (0.39%) Findur
4 1 (0.19%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.19%) Misys Equation
4 1 (0.19%) Misys Midas
4 1 (0.19%) Oracle EBS R12
4 1 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.19%) Shopify
4 1 (0.19%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 131 (25.24%) AWS
2 116 (22.35%) Azure
3 62 (11.95%) GitHub
4 56 (10.79%) Azure DevOps
5 30 (5.78%) GCP
6 26 (5.01%) GitHub Copilot
7 25 (4.82%) GitHub Actions
8 13 (2.50%) Serverless
9 11 (2.12%) AWS Lambda
10 10 (1.93%) Power Platform
10 10 (1.93%) SaaS
11 9 (1.73%) Amazon S3
12 8 (1.54%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 8 (1.54%) Amazon EC2
13 6 (1.16%) Anthropic Claude
13 6 (1.16%) PaaS
14 5 (0.96%) Cloud Computing
15 4 (0.77%) Amazon OpenSearch
15 4 (0.77%) Google Gemini
15 4 (0.77%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 9 (1.73%) Ethernet
2 5 (0.96%) DNS
3 4 (0.77%) DHCP
3 4 (0.77%) Firewall
3 4 (0.77%) Internet
3 4 (0.77%) Network Security
4 3 (0.58%) Software-Defined Radio
4 3 (0.58%) Wireless
5 2 (0.39%) BGP
5 2 (0.39%) MPLS
5 2 (0.39%) Reverse Proxy
5 2 (0.39%) SSL
6 1 (0.19%) 4G
6 1 (0.19%) 5G
6 1 (0.19%) J1939
6 1 (0.19%) LTE
6 1 (0.19%) Radio Access Network
6 1 (0.19%) RS-232
6 1 (0.19%) RS-422
6 1 (0.19%) VoWiFi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (5.39%) Relational Database
2 23 (4.43%) MongoDB
3 19 (3.66%) SQL Server
4 12 (2.31%) NoSQL
5 9 (1.73%) Oracle Database
6 7 (1.35%) PostgreSQL
6 7 (1.35%) Power BI
7 6 (1.16%) SAS Enterprise Guide
7 6 (1.16%) SAS Visual Analytics
8 5 (0.96%) DynamoDB
8 5 (0.96%) Elasticsearch
9 4 (0.77%) Data Warehouse
9 4 (0.77%) Pinecone
9 4 (0.77%) Redis
9 4 (0.77%) ZAP BI
10 3 (0.58%) Amazon Athena
10 3 (0.58%) Amazon Redshift
10 3 (0.58%) Chroma
10 3 (0.58%) Snowflake Schema
10 3 (0.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 108 (20.81%) Selenium
2 104 (20.04%) Git
3 75 (14.45%) JIRA
4 68 (13.10%) Cucumber
5 66 (12.72%) GitLab
6 52 (10.02%) JUnit
7 43 (8.29%) Jenkins
8 39 (7.51%) Postman
9 38 (7.32%) Gatling
10 29 (5.59%) REST Assured
11 23 (4.43%) SonarQube
12 19 (3.66%) JMeter
13 16 (3.08%) Cypress.io
14 14 (2.70%) Rational DOORS
15 12 (2.31%) TestNG
15 12 (2.31%) TestRail
15 12 (2.31%) WebDriver
15 12 (2.31%) Zephyr
16 11 (2.12%) Appium
16 11 (2.12%) Visual Studio
General
1 181 (34.87%) Social Skills
2 94 (18.11%) Finance
3 81 (15.61%) Analytical Skills
4 68 (13.10%) Public Sector
5 59 (11.37%) Banking
6 33 (6.36%) Automotive
7 24 (4.62%) Aerospace
8 19 (3.66%) Manufacturing
9 13 (2.50%) Front Office
10 11 (2.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 10 (1.93%) Electronics
11 10 (1.93%) Organisational Skills
11 10 (1.93%) Retail
11 10 (1.93%) Telecoms
12 9 (1.73%) Law
13 8 (1.54%) Documentation Skills
13 8 (1.54%) Military
14 6 (1.16%) Back Office
15 5 (0.96%) Investment Banking
15 5 (0.96%) Legal
Job Titles
1 79 (15.22%) Senior
2 77 (14.84%) Test Engineer
3 69 (13.29%) Developer
4 67 (12.91%) Software Engineer
5 37 (7.13%) Analyst
6 33 (6.36%) Tester
7 31 (5.97%) Test Manager
8 30 (5.78%) Lead
8 30 (5.78%) Quality Engineer
9 27 (5.20%) Architect
10 26 (5.01%) Software Developer
11 23 (4.43%) Test Automation Engineer
12 22 (4.24%) Java Developer
13 21 (4.05%) Software Test Engineer
14 19 (3.66%) Principal Engineer
15 18 (3.47%) QA Engineer
15 18 (3.47%) Test Analyst
16 17 (3.28%) Automation Engineer
16 17 (3.28%) Java Engineer
17 16 (3.08%) Senior Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (13.10%) Playwright
2 55 (10.60%) Spring
3 43 (8.29%) .NET
4 41 (7.90%) REST
5 38 (7.32%) React
6 34 (6.55%) Kafka
7 33 (6.36%) Terraform
8 27 (5.20%) Spring Boot
9 25 (4.82%) RESTful
10 21 (4.05%) Node.js
11 20 (3.85%) WireMock
12 19 (3.66%) Gherkin
13 15 (2.89%) JSON
14 13 (2.50%) AngularJS
14 13 (2.50%) XML
15 11 (2.12%) SOAP
16 10 (1.93%) HTML
16 10 (1.93%) Web Services
17 9 (1.73%) OpenAPI
17 9 (1.73%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 47 (9.06%) Product Ownership
2 42 (8.09%) Cloud Native
3 35 (6.74%) Enterprise Software
4 22 (4.24%) Distributed Systems
5 20 (3.85%) Embedded Systems
6 15 (2.89%) Self-Motivation
7 11 (2.12%) Onboarding
8 9 (1.73%) Data Structures
8 9 (1.73%) Distributed Architecture
9 8 (1.54%) AI Agents
9 8 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
9 8 (1.54%) Management Information System
10 7 (1.35%) Algorithms
11 6 (1.16%) Greenfield Project
11 6 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
11 6 (1.16%) Public Cloud
12 5 (0.96%) Derivative
12 5 (0.96%) Equities
12 5 (0.96%) Equity Derivative
13 4 (0.77%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 37 (7.13%) Linux
2 28 (5.39%) Windows
3 8 (1.54%) Unix
3 8 (1.54%) Windows Server
4 5 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (0.77%) Android
5 4 (0.77%) Apple iOS
5 4 (0.77%) Embedded Linux
6 3 (0.58%) FreeRTOS
7 2 (0.39%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 271 (52.22%) Test Automation
2 267 (51.45%) Agile
3 248 (47.78%) CI/CD
4 158 (30.44%) Software Engineering
5 151 (29.09%) DevOps
6 127 (24.47%) Continuous Improvement
7 118 (22.74%) SDLC
8 117 (22.54%) Scrum
9 113 (21.77%) Problem-Solving
10 96 (18.50%) Validation
11 87 (16.76%) Test Strategy
12 84 (16.18%) Microservices
13 81 (15.61%) Stakeholder Management
14 80 (15.41%) Test Scripting
15 76 (14.64%) Defect Management
16 71 (13.68%) Mentoring
17 69 (13.29%) API Testing
18 68 (13.10%) AI
18 68 (13.10%) End-to-End Testing
19 66 (12.72%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 142 (27.36%) Java
2 105 (20.23%) Python
3 89 (17.15%) SQL
4 58 (11.18%) JavaScript
5 42 (8.09%) C#
6 36 (6.94%) TypeScript
7 26 (5.01%) C++
8 15 (2.89%) PowerShell
9 14 (2.70%) C
10 9 (1.73%) Bash
11 8 (1.54%) Kotlin
12 7 (1.35%) Go
13 5 (0.96%) Apex Code
13 5 (0.96%) Korn
13 5 (0.96%) PL/SQL
14 4 (0.77%) Ruby
14 4 (0.77%) Scala
15 3 (0.58%) COBOL
15 3 (0.58%) RPG
15 3 (0.58%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 175 (33.72%) Security Cleared
2 137 (26.40%) SC Cleared
3 73 (14.07%) Degree
4 55 (10.60%) ISTQB
5 33 (6.36%) BPSS Clearance
5 33 (6.36%) DV Cleared
6 21 (4.05%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 19 (3.66%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 17 (3.28%) Computer Science Degree
9 12 (2.31%) ISEB
10 4 (0.77%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (0.77%) PMI Certification
11 3 (0.58%) AWS Certification
11 3 (0.58%) CCNA
11 3 (0.58%) PMP
12 2 (0.39%) CBAP
12 2 (0.39%) CEH
12 2 (0.39%) CISSP
12 2 (0.39%) IIBA
12 2 (0.39%) ISEB Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 132 (25.43%) QA
2 54 (10.40%) Accessibility
3 33 (6.36%) WCAG
4 8 (1.54%) Data Quality
5 6 (1.16%) ISO 20022
6 5 (0.96%) Software Quality Assurance
7 4 (0.77%) AUTOSAR
7 4 (0.77%) ISO 26262
7 4 (0.77%) NIST
8 2 (0.39%) GRC
8 2 (0.39%) ISO 15022
8 2 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.39%) MISRA
8 2 (0.39%) SLA
9 1 (0.19%) HL7
9 1 (0.19%) IEC 61508
9 1 (0.19%) JTAG
9 1 (0.19%) MiFID
9 1 (0.19%) PMO
9 1 (0.19%) SEPA
System Software
1 83 (15.99%) Docker
2 11 (2.12%) Active Directory
3 6 (1.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.77%) Firmware
4 4 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.58%) Embedded Firmware
5 3 (0.58%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.39%) NFS
6 2 (0.39%) Time Sharing Option
6 2 (0.39%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 89 (17.15%) Kubernetes
2 17 (3.28%) Ansible
3 13 (2.50%) Prometheus
4 11 (2.12%) Grafana
5 7 (1.35%) HP ALM
6 6 (1.16%) Packer
7 5 (0.96%) Functional Safety
8 4 (0.77%) Puppet
9 3 (0.58%) Argo
9 3 (0.58%) HP Fortify
9 3 (0.58%) HP Quality Center
10 2 (0.39%) Kibana
10 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (0.39%) Salt
10 2 (0.39%) SCCM
10 2 (0.39%) Tivoli Storage Manager
11 1 (0.19%) Control-M
11 1 (0.19%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.19%) PTC Integrity
Vendors
1 36 (6.94%) Microsoft
2 31 (5.97%) Oracle
3 23 (4.43%) IBM
4 18 (3.47%) Salesforce
5 10 (1.93%) Databricks
5 10 (1.93%) Google
5 10 (1.93%) SAP
5 10 (1.93%) Splunk
6 7 (1.35%) HP
6 7 (1.35%) VMware
7 6 (1.16%) Conga
7 6 (1.16%) GoCardless
8 5 (0.96%) ServiceNow
9 4 (0.77%) Red Hat
10 3 (0.58%) Checkmarx
10 3 (0.58%) Dynatrace
10 3 (0.58%) Siemens
10 3 (0.58%) UiPath
11 2 (0.39%) OpenAI
11 2 (0.39%) OutSystems