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

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 257 250 189
Rank change year-on-year -7 -61 -5
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 400 247 475
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.93% 1.00% 1.27%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.09% 1.09% 1.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 209 164 326
10th Percentile £331 £313 £311
25th Percentile £388 £358 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £438 £455
Median % change year-on-year +8.57% -3.74% -9.10%
75th Percentile £575 £521 £586
90th Percentile £640 £663 £678
UK median daily rate £475 £438 £463
% change year-on-year +8.57% -5.41% -7.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 19 59
10th Percentile £17.50 £42.21 £37.55
25th Percentile £53.90 £50.00 £56.25
Median hourly rate £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +17.39% -8.00% +19.05%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £87.50 -
UK median hourly rate £68.00 £57.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +18.26% -8.00% +15.77%

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 36,560 22,594 31,972
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.16% 91.33% 85.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,106 14,607 20,685
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £415 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.48% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £726 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,294 1,062 2,382
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £21.00 £18.10 £16.06
Median hourly rate £47.00 £27.45 £37.75
Median % change year-on-year +71.22% -27.28% +7.09%
75th Percentile £68.00 £57.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £26.27 £37.34
% change year-on-year +67.37% -29.66% +6.69%

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 17 June 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 17 June 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 17 June 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 -25 148 £475 +10.14% 76
South East -41 62 £490 +22.50% 114
North of England -37 52 £475 - 76
Midlands -23 50 £513 +44.07% 61
South West -9 45 £409 -16.10% 49
West Midlands -20 44 £513 +21.30% 32
East of England -7 39 £554 +16.58% 92
North East -9 25 £450 - 20
Yorkshire -46 16 £500 -3.80% 21
North West -39 13 £500 +17.65% 36
East Midlands -20 6 £575 +69.12% 29
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 14 (3.50%) Confluence
2 12 (3.00%) Apache Airflow
2 12 (3.00%) SAS
3 8 (2.00%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.75%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.50%) IIS
6 1 (0.25%) Apache
6 1 (0.25%) IBM HTTP Server
6 1 (0.25%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.25%) WebSphere
Applications
1 12 (3.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.75%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (1.00%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.25%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.25%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 6 (1.50%) Findur
1 6 (1.50%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (1.00%) Aladdin
2 4 (1.00%) Maximo
3 3 (0.75%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.50%) LabWindows
4 2 (0.50%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.50%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.25%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.25%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 102 (25.50%) Azure
2 76 (19.00%) AWS
3 64 (16.00%) Azure DevOps
4 29 (7.25%) GitHub
5 23 (5.75%) Serverless
6 22 (5.50%) AWS Lambda
7 21 (5.25%) Amazon S3
8 18 (4.50%) GCP
9 11 (2.75%) PaaS
10 10 (2.50%) GitHub Actions
11 9 (2.25%) Entra ID
11 9 (2.25%) Snowflake
12 8 (2.00%) OpenShift
13 7 (1.75%) Amazon EC2
13 7 (1.75%) Power Platform
13 7 (1.75%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 6 (1.50%) Amazon ECS
14 6 (1.50%) AWS CloudFormation
14 6 (1.50%) SaaS
15 5 (1.25%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.00%) Ethernet
2 6 (1.50%) DNS
3 5 (1.25%) Firewall
3 5 (1.25%) Software-Defined Radio
3 5 (1.25%) Wireless
4 4 (1.00%) Reverse Proxy
5 3 (0.75%) DHCP
5 3 (0.75%) Modbus
5 3 (0.75%) Network Security
5 3 (0.75%) RS-232
5 3 (0.75%) RS-422
5 3 (0.75%) RS-485
6 2 (0.50%) 4G
6 2 (0.50%) 5G
6 2 (0.50%) Internet
6 2 (0.50%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.25%) BGP
7 1 (0.25%) FTP
7 1 (0.25%) LTE
7 1 (0.25%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (5.25%) PostgreSQL
2 20 (5.00%) Relational Database
3 18 (4.50%) Oracle Database
4 16 (4.00%) SQL Server
5 15 (3.75%) MySQL
6 12 (3.00%) SAS Enterprise Guide
7 11 (2.75%) Big Data
8 10 (2.50%) SAS Visual Analytics
9 9 (2.25%) DynamoDB
10 8 (2.00%) Data Warehouse
10 8 (2.00%) NoSQL
11 7 (1.75%) Amazon Redshift
12 5 (1.25%) Amazon Athena
13 4 (1.00%) Amazon QuickSight
13 4 (1.00%) MongoDB
13 4 (1.00%) Power BI
14 3 (0.75%) BigQuery
14 3 (0.75%) Parquet
14 3 (0.75%) Redis
15 2 (0.50%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 70 (17.50%) JIRA
2 44 (11.00%) Selenium
3 39 (9.75%) Git
4 32 (8.00%) Postman
5 31 (7.75%) Jenkins
6 26 (6.50%) Cucumber
6 26 (6.50%) REST Assured
7 25 (6.25%) GitLab
8 22 (5.50%) JUnit
9 17 (4.25%) Cypress.io
10 13 (3.25%) TestRail
11 11 (2.75%) Rational DOORS
11 11 (2.75%) WebDriver
12 9 (2.25%) Zephyr
13 8 (2.00%) JMeter
14 6 (1.50%) Gatling
15 5 (1.25%) HP UFT
15 5 (1.25%) SonarQube
15 5 (1.25%) Visual Studio
16 4 (1.00%) LabVIEW
General
1 114 (28.50%) Social Skills
2 73 (18.25%) Finance
3 66 (16.50%) Analytical Skills
4 50 (12.50%) Public Sector
5 26 (6.50%) Banking
6 18 (4.50%) Aerospace
7 15 (3.75%) Automotive
8 13 (3.25%) Back Office
9 12 (3.00%) Documentation Skills
10 8 (2.00%) Military
11 7 (1.75%) Law
11 7 (1.75%) Organisational Skills
12 6 (1.50%) Front Office
12 6 (1.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (1.25%) Legal
13 5 (1.25%) Manufacturing
14 4 (1.00%) Electronics
15 3 (0.75%) Avionics
15 3 (0.75%) Investment Banking
15 3 (0.75%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 64 (16.00%) Senior
2 63 (15.75%) Test Engineer
3 54 (13.50%) Software Engineer
4 53 (13.25%) Developer
5 35 (8.75%) Analyst
6 30 (7.50%) Tester
7 26 (6.50%) Lead
8 21 (5.25%) Java Developer
8 21 (5.25%) Software Test Engineer
8 21 (5.25%) Test Analyst
9 20 (5.00%) Architect
10 17 (4.25%) Senior Developer
11 15 (3.75%) QA Engineer
11 15 (3.75%) Test Manager
12 14 (3.50%) Software Developer
13 13 (3.25%) Salesforce Engineer
13 13 (3.25%) Software Architect
14 12 (3.00%) Release Manager
15 11 (2.75%) Business Analyst
15 11 (2.75%) Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (9.25%) Playwright
2 35 (8.75%) Spring
3 34 (8.50%) React
4 33 (8.25%) REST
5 27 (6.75%) Spring Boot
6 23 (5.75%) .NET
7 22 (5.50%) RESTful
8 17 (4.25%) Kafka
9 14 (3.50%) CSS
9 14 (3.50%) HTML
10 12 (3.00%) Redux
11 11 (2.75%) Node.js
12 10 (2.50%) Spring MVC
13 9 (2.25%) AngularJS
13 9 (2.25%) CSS3
13 9 (2.25%) HTML5
13 9 (2.25%) Jest
14 7 (1.75%) Software Packaging
15 6 (1.50%) .NET Framework
16 5 (1.25%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 42 (10.50%) Product Ownership
2 24 (6.00%) Enterprise Software
3 22 (5.50%) Embedded Systems
3 22 (5.50%) Self-Motivation
4 21 (5.25%) Cloud Native
5 17 (4.25%) Distributed Systems
6 14 (3.50%) Management Information System
7 11 (2.75%) Data Centre
7 11 (2.75%) Legacy Systems
8 6 (1.50%) Data Protection Act
8 6 (1.50%) Virtual Team
9 5 (1.25%) FPGA
9 5 (1.25%) Greenfield Project
9 5 (1.25%) Mobile App
9 5 (1.25%) PCIe
10 4 (1.00%) Analytical Mindset
10 4 (1.00%) Public Cloud
11 3 (0.75%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 3 (0.75%) Taxonomies
12 2 (0.50%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 31 (7.75%) Windows
2 22 (5.50%) Linux
3 8 (2.00%) Unix
4 6 (1.50%) FreeRTOS
4 6 (1.50%) Windows Server
5 4 (1.00%) Android
5 4 (1.00%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.50%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.50%) zOS
7 1 (0.25%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 184 (46.00%) Test Automation
2 156 (39.00%) Agile
3 135 (33.75%) CI/CD
4 130 (32.50%) DevOps
5 103 (25.75%) Software Engineering
6 87 (21.75%) Continuous Improvement
7 78 (19.50%) Problem-Solving
8 68 (17.00%) Test Scripting
9 66 (16.50%) Validation
10 60 (15.00%) Scrum
10 60 (15.00%) SDLC
10 60 (15.00%) Test Strategy
11 50 (12.50%) Regression Testing
11 50 (12.50%) User Acceptance Testing
12 47 (11.75%) Test Management
13 45 (11.25%) Mentoring
14 44 (11.00%) Defect Management
15 43 (10.75%) Code Quality
16 42 (10.50%) Defect Tracking
17 40 (10.00%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 73 (18.25%) Java
2 66 (16.50%) Python
3 59 (14.75%) SQL
4 37 (9.25%) JavaScript
5 36 (9.00%) C#
6 26 (6.50%) TypeScript
7 13 (3.25%) C++
8 11 (2.75%) C
9 10 (2.50%) PowerShell
10 7 (1.75%) Bash
11 6 (1.50%) PL/SQL
12 5 (1.25%) Apex Code
12 5 (1.25%) VBScript
13 4 (1.00%) Go
14 3 (0.75%) Rust
14 3 (0.75%) VB
15 2 (0.50%) Groovy
15 2 (0.50%) JCL
15 2 (0.50%) MATLAB
15 2 (0.50%) REXX
Qualifications
1 127 (31.75%) Security Cleared
2 101 (25.25%) SC Cleared
3 42 (10.50%) Degree
4 35 (8.75%) ISTQB
5 21 (5.25%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 11 (2.75%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (2.00%) BPSS Clearance
8 7 (1.75%) DV Cleared
8 7 (1.75%) ISEB
9 4 (1.00%) CEH
9 4 (1.00%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (1.00%) CISSP
9 4 (1.00%) CompTIA Security+
10 3 (0.75%) CCNA
10 3 (0.75%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 2 (0.50%) A+ Certification
11 2 (0.50%) Network+ Certification
11 2 (0.50%) PMI Certification
11 2 (0.50%) PMP
11 2 (0.50%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (22.50%) QA
2 16 (4.00%) Accessibility
3 11 (2.75%) Data Quality
4 8 (2.00%) WCAG
5 7 (1.75%) PMO
6 4 (1.00%) NIST
6 4 (1.00%) Software Quality Assurance
7 3 (0.75%) ISO 20022
7 3 (0.75%) SLA
8 2 (0.50%) GRC
8 2 (0.50%) ISO 15022
8 2 (0.50%) MiFID
9 1 (0.25%) SEPA
System Software
1 34 (8.50%) Docker
2 13 (3.25%) Active Directory
3 10 (2.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (2.00%) Firmware
5 6 (1.50%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (1.00%) Embedded Firmware
7 3 (0.75%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.75%) VMware Workstation
8 2 (0.50%) NFS
8 2 (0.50%) Time Sharing Option
9 1 (0.25%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 41 (10.25%) Kubernetes
2 23 (5.75%) Terraform
3 14 (3.50%) Ansible
4 10 (2.50%) HP ALM
4 10 (2.50%) Prometheus
5 9 (2.25%) Grafana
6 7 (1.75%) Microsoft Intune
7 5 (1.25%) Puppet
8 4 (1.00%) HP Quality Center
8 4 (1.00%) Salt
8 4 (1.00%) SCCM
9 3 (0.75%) Packer
10 2 (0.50%) Tivoli Storage Manager
11 1 (0.25%) Kibana
11 1 (0.25%) Oracle ZFS
11 1 (0.25%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 39 (9.75%) Oracle
2 33 (8.25%) Microsoft
3 17 (4.25%) Salesforce
4 12 (3.00%) IBM
5 11 (2.75%) VMware
6 10 (2.50%) HP
7 9 (2.25%) Dell
8 7 (1.75%) Citrix
8 7 (1.75%) SAP
9 6 (1.50%) Conga
9 6 (1.50%) GoCardless
9 6 (1.50%) OpenLink
9 6 (1.50%) ServiceNow
10 5 (1.25%) Ab Initio
10 5 (1.25%) Google
10 5 (1.25%) Splunk
10 5 (1.25%) Teradata
11 4 (1.00%) Fortinet
12 3 (0.75%) Atlassian
12 3 (0.75%) Remedy