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

 6 months to
1 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 226 203 169
Rank change year-on-year -23 -34 +9
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 378 341 546
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.15% 1.29% 1.43%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.31% 1.44% 1.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 250 195 365
10th Percentile £331 £313 £255
25th Percentile £400 £383 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £470 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.13% -6.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £538 £618 £601
90th Percentile £604 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £450 £469 £475
% change year-on-year -4.05% -1.26% -7.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 18 85
10th Percentile £25.15 £55.15 £42.49
25th Percentile £49.38 £61.56 £56.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +30.00%
75th Percentile £67.44 £73.13 -
90th Percentile £69.38 £80.75 £68.21
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 28,849 23,705 33,384
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 87.71% 89.48% 87.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,454 14,499 22,354
10th Percentile £305 £310 £300
25th Percentile £410 £413 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £528
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.47% -4.09%
75th Percentile £619 £643 £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 1,790 754 1,912
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £13.50
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.00 £17.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £34.75 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year -27.63% -3.47% +2.86%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £62.12
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +7.69%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -31 149 £475 -0.42% 69
South East -21 60 £430 -28.33% 91
North of England -58 50 £409 +2.25% 50
Midlands -32 44 £515 +24.85% 41
South West -3 41 £449 +12.13% 37
West Midlands -21 37 £515 +24.85% 28
Yorkshire -39 29 £475 +16.49% 19
East of England -12 19 £598 +30.96% 29
North West -45 14 £405 +1.25% 30
East Midlands -21 7 £313 - 13
North East - 7 £350 - 1
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 20 (5.29%) Confluence
2 17 (4.50%) SAS
3 7 (1.85%) Apache Airflow
3 7 (1.85%) SharePoint
4 5 (1.32%) Microsoft Exchange
5 3 (0.79%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.79%) SharePoint Server
6 2 (0.53%) Apache
6 2 (0.53%) JBoss
6 2 (0.53%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.26%) CMS
Applications
1 9 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.85%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.53%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.26%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 2 (0.53%) Aladdin
1 2 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.53%) Dynamics NAV
1 2 (0.53%) LabWindows
1 2 (0.53%) Maximo
1 2 (0.53%) Oracle EBS R12
1 2 (0.53%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (0.26%) Algo Collateral
2 1 (0.26%) CODA-Financials
Cloud Services
1 123 (32.54%) Azure
2 76 (20.11%) Azure DevOps
3 70 (18.52%) AWS
4 32 (8.47%) GitHub
5 30 (7.94%) GCP
6 21 (5.56%) Amazon S3
7 18 (4.76%) AWS Lambda
7 18 (4.76%) GitHub Actions
7 18 (4.76%) Serverless
8 13 (3.44%) Amazon ECS
9 11 (2.91%) AWS CloudFormation
10 9 (2.38%) Power Platform
10 9 (2.38%) Snowflake
11 6 (1.59%) Dynamics 365
11 6 (1.59%) Entra ID
11 6 (1.59%) PaaS
12 5 (1.32%) OpenShift
13 4 (1.06%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 4 (1.06%) Cloud Computing
13 4 (1.06%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.85%) Ethernet
2 4 (1.06%) DNS
2 4 (1.06%) Firewall
2 4 (1.06%) Internet
2 4 (1.06%) Wireshark
3 3 (0.79%) SD-WAN
3 3 (0.79%) Skype
3 3 (0.79%) SNMP
4 2 (0.53%) Cisco IOS
4 2 (0.53%) FTP
4 2 (0.53%) Intranet
4 2 (0.53%) IOS XR
4 2 (0.53%) Spanning Tree
4 2 (0.53%) SSH
4 2 (0.53%) SSL
4 2 (0.53%) TACACS
4 2 (0.53%) TCP/IP
4 2 (0.53%) Wireless
5 1 (0.26%) Network Security
5 1 (0.26%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (8.47%) PostgreSQL
2 22 (5.82%) SQL Server
3 19 (5.03%) NoSQL
4 17 (4.50%) SAS Enterprise Guide
5 16 (4.23%) MongoDB
5 16 (4.23%) Oracle Database
6 12 (3.17%) Relational Database
7 11 (2.91%) BigQuery
7 11 (2.91%) MySQL
8 6 (1.59%) Apache Cassandra
8 6 (1.59%) Power BI
8 6 (1.59%) SAS Visual Analytics
9 5 (1.32%) Big Data
9 5 (1.32%) Couchbase
10 4 (1.06%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (1.06%) Redis
11 3 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
11 3 (0.79%) DynamoDB
11 3 (0.79%) Metadata
11 3 (0.79%) Pinecone
Development Applications
1 59 (15.61%) Selenium
2 56 (14.81%) JIRA
3 43 (11.38%) Git
4 38 (10.05%) Postman
5 36 (9.52%) Jenkins
6 35 (9.26%) Cucumber
7 28 (7.41%) Cypress.io
8 24 (6.35%) REST Assured
9 20 (5.29%) GitLab
10 19 (5.03%) JUnit
11 10 (2.65%) JMeter
11 10 (2.65%) WebDriver
12 8 (2.12%) TestRail
13 7 (1.85%) Maven
14 6 (1.59%) HP UFT
14 6 (1.59%) Rational DOORS
14 6 (1.59%) Rational Rhapsody
15 5 (1.32%) Gradle
16 4 (1.06%) Bitbucket
16 4 (1.06%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 113 (29.89%) Social Skills
2 59 (15.61%) Analytical Skills
3 58 (15.34%) Finance
4 50 (13.23%) Public Sector
5 19 (5.03%) Banking
6 11 (2.91%) Aerospace
7 9 (2.38%) Documentation Skills
7 9 (2.38%) Influencing Skills
7 9 (2.38%) Manufacturing
8 8 (2.12%) Military
9 7 (1.85%) Investment Banking
9 7 (1.85%) Telecoms
10 6 (1.59%) Automotive
10 6 (1.59%) Front Office
10 6 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (1.32%) Electronics
12 4 (1.06%) Multimedia
12 4 (1.06%) Pharmaceutical
13 3 (0.79%) Back Office
13 3 (0.79%) Billing
Job Titles
1 59 (15.61%) Senior
2 51 (13.49%) Developer
3 45 (11.90%) Software Engineer
4 39 (10.32%) Analyst
5 36 (9.52%) Test Engineer
6 34 (8.99%) Test Analyst
7 32 (8.47%) Lead
7 32 (8.47%) Tester
8 24 (6.35%) Consultant
9 19 (5.03%) Java Engineer
10 17 (4.50%) Release Manager
10 17 (4.50%) Test Manager
11 16 (4.23%) QA Engineer
11 16 (4.23%) Senior Analyst
11 16 (4.23%) Senior Test Analyst
12 13 (3.44%) QA Leader
12 13 (3.44%) Senior Developer
13 12 (3.17%) Java Developer
14 11 (2.91%) Software Developer
14 11 (2.91%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (9.79%) Playwright
2 35 (9.26%) .NET
2 35 (9.26%) Spring
3 34 (8.99%) React
4 32 (8.47%) RESTful
5 31 (8.20%) Spring Boot
6 26 (6.88%) Node.js
6 26 (6.88%) REST
7 19 (5.03%) HTML
8 17 (4.50%) Kafka
9 16 (4.23%) CSS
10 11 (2.91%) Middleware
11 8 (2.12%) .NET Framework
11 8 (2.12%) Gherkin
11 8 (2.12%) RabbitMQ
12 7 (1.85%) AngularJS
12 7 (1.85%) Apache NiFi
12 7 (1.85%) FastAPI
12 7 (1.85%) JSON
12 7 (1.85%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 26 (6.88%) Product Ownership
2 22 (5.82%) Cloud Native
3 18 (4.76%) Self-Motivation
4 10 (2.65%) Distributed Systems
4 10 (2.65%) Enterprise Software
5 7 (1.85%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (1.59%) CUDA
6 6 (1.59%) Greenfield Project
6 6 (1.59%) Mobile App
6 6 (1.59%) Virtual Team
7 4 (1.06%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (1.06%) NHS
7 4 (1.06%) PCIe
7 4 (1.06%) Virtual Reality
8 3 (0.79%) Data Structures
8 3 (0.79%) Derivative
8 3 (0.79%) Fixed Income
8 3 (0.79%) Management Information System
8 3 (0.79%) PKI
8 3 (0.79%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 33 (8.73%) Windows
2 27 (7.14%) Linux
3 8 (2.12%) Unix
4 4 (1.06%) FreeRTOS
5 3 (0.79%) Windows 10
5 3 (0.79%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.79%) Windows Server 2016
6 2 (0.53%) Android
6 2 (0.53%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.26%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.26%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.26%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 170 (44.97%) Test Automation
2 144 (38.10%) Agile
3 137 (36.24%) CI/CD
4 126 (33.33%) DevOps
5 100 (26.46%) Problem-Solving
6 81 (21.43%) Test Scripting
7 77 (20.37%) Continuous Improvement
8 71 (18.78%) Software Engineering
9 63 (16.67%) Validation
10 61 (16.14%) Test Strategy
11 58 (15.34%) Microservices
12 47 (12.43%) API Testing
12 47 (12.43%) Containerisation
13 46 (12.17%) Test Management
14 45 (11.90%) Scrum
14 45 (11.90%) TDD
15 39 (10.32%) Defect Tracking
16 38 (10.05%) AI
17 37 (9.79%) Integration Testing
18 35 (9.26%) Manual Testing
Programming Languages
1 80 (21.16%) Java
2 76 (20.11%) Python
3 67 (17.72%) SQL
4 56 (14.81%) JavaScript
5 35 (9.26%) C#
5 35 (9.26%) TypeScript
6 16 (4.23%) C++
7 10 (2.65%) Bash
7 10 (2.65%) C
7 10 (2.65%) Go
8 9 (2.38%) Shell Script
9 7 (1.85%) PL/SQL
10 6 (1.59%) Ada
11 5 (1.32%) Scala
11 5 (1.32%) VBScript
12 4 (1.06%) PowerShell
13 3 (0.79%) Embedded C
13 3 (0.79%) Groovy
13 3 (0.79%) Ruby
13 3 (0.79%) Rust
Qualifications
1 112 (29.63%) Security Cleared
2 95 (25.13%) SC Cleared
3 42 (11.11%) Degree
4 28 (7.41%) ISTQB
5 23 (6.08%) Computer Science Degree
6 13 (3.44%) BPSS Clearance
7 9 (2.38%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 6 (1.59%) ISEB
8 6 (1.59%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 4 (1.06%) DV Cleared
9 4 (1.06%) Master's Degree
10 3 (0.79%) PMI Certification
10 3 (0.79%) PMP
11 2 (0.53%) ACCA
11 2 (0.53%) Azure Certification
11 2 (0.53%) CIMA
11 2 (0.53%) Cisco Certification
11 2 (0.53%) CISSP
12 1 (0.26%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 1 (0.26%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 102 (26.98%) QA
2 26 (6.88%) Accessibility
3 9 (2.38%) WCAG
4 7 (1.85%) NIST
5 6 (1.59%) EU AI Act
6 4 (1.06%) SLA
6 4 (1.06%) Software Quality Assurance
7 2 (0.53%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.53%) PMO
8 1 (0.26%) IEC 61131
8 1 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 52 (13.76%) Docker
2 5 (1.32%) Active Directory
2 5 (1.32%) Firmware
2 5 (1.32%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (0.79%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.26%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 50 (13.23%) Kubernetes
2 15 (3.97%) Terraform
3 10 (2.65%) Grafana
4 7 (1.85%) Ansible
4 7 (1.85%) HP ALM
5 6 (1.59%) Puppet
6 5 (1.32%) Prometheus
7 4 (1.06%) HP Quality Center
8 3 (0.79%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 3 (0.79%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.79%) WSUS
9 2 (0.53%) Nessus
10 1 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
10 1 (0.26%) Nmap
10 1 (0.26%) Packer
10 1 (0.26%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.26%) Salt
10 1 (0.26%) SCCM
Vendors
1 44 (11.64%) Microsoft
2 41 (10.85%) Oracle
3 10 (2.65%) Splunk
4 9 (2.38%) ServiceNow
5 8 (2.12%) Atlassian
5 8 (2.12%) Cisco
6 7 (1.85%) HP
7 6 (1.59%) Salesforce
7 6 (1.59%) VMware
8 5 (1.32%) SAP
8 5 (1.32%) Workday
9 4 (1.06%) Meraki
10 3 (0.79%) Databricks
10 3 (0.79%) Juniper
10 3 (0.79%) Micro Focus
10 3 (0.79%) MuleSoft
10 3 (0.79%) Remedy
10 3 (0.79%) Siemens
10 3 (0.79%) SolarWinds
10 3 (0.79%) Veeam
296 Software Testing jobs in England