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

6 months to
18 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 257 236 208
Rank change year-on-year -21 -28 -29
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 428 300 437
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.95% 1.10% 1.21%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.11% 1.22% 1.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 227 204 307
10th Percentile £272 £313 £312
25th Percentile £400 £356 £379
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £436 £450
Median % change year-on-year +8.88% -3.06% -10.00%
75th Percentile £575 £525 £588
90th Percentile £638 £638 £677
UK median daily rate £475 £438 £457
% change year-on-year +8.57% -4.27% -8.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 27 43
10th Percentile £17.50 £48.50 £37.55
25th Percentile £53.93 £50.53 £55.95
Median hourly rate £66.25 £57.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +15.22% -8.00% +10.68%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £81.50 -
UK median hourly rate £67.75 £58.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year +15.32% -6.00% +8.70%

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 38,446 24,678 30,937
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.44% 90.65% 85.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,172 15,843 20,140
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £420 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £645
90th Percentile £735 £746 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,378 1,309 2,090
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.28 £13.18
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.88 £16.83
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% -8.14%
75th Percentile £68.75 £53.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £83.00 £71.50 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -5.88%

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 18 July 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 18 July 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 18 July 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 -41 148 £475 +11.76% 50
South East -51 66 £495 +23.75% 58
Midlands -9 57 £484 +40.22% 24
North of England -62 56 £488 +12.07% 28
East of England +3 51 £300 -36.95% 29
West Midlands -14 51 £458 +16.93% 15
South West -21 45 £409 -13.89% 19
North East -10 25 £475 - 11
Yorkshire -48 17 £475 +7.34% 7
North West -49 16 £500 +17.65% 11
East Midlands -12 6 £575 +69.12% 9
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 15 (3.50%) Confluence
2 12 (2.80%) Apache Airflow
3 10 (2.34%) SAS
4 8 (1.87%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.47%) IIS
5 2 (0.47%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.23%) Apache
6 1 (0.23%) IBM HTTP Server
6 1 (0.23%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.23%) WebSphere
Applications
1 13 (3.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (2.34%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.17%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.93%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.47%) Simulink
5 2 (0.47%) Trello
6 1 (0.23%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (1.40%) Findur
1 6 (1.40%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (0.93%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.93%) Maximo
3 3 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.70%) Primavera
4 1 (0.23%) Bloomberg TOMS
4 1 (0.23%) Eikon
4 1 (0.23%) Misys Equation
4 1 (0.23%) Misys Midas
4 1 (0.23%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.23%) Oracle EBS R12
4 1 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.23%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 95 (22.20%) Azure
2 82 (19.16%) AWS
3 52 (12.15%) Azure DevOps
4 36 (8.41%) GitHub
5 21 (4.91%) Serverless
6 20 (4.67%) GCP
7 19 (4.44%) AWS Lambda
8 18 (4.21%) Amazon S3
9 16 (3.74%) GitHub Actions
10 11 (2.57%) PaaS
11 9 (2.10%) GitHub Copilot
12 8 (1.87%) Entra ID
12 8 (1.87%) OpenShift
12 8 (1.87%) Power Platform
12 8 (1.87%) Snowflake
13 7 (1.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 7 (1.64%) Amazon EC2
14 6 (1.40%) Amazon SQS
14 6 (1.40%) SaaS
14 6 (1.40%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 9 (2.10%) Ethernet
2 6 (1.40%) DNS
3 5 (1.17%) Firewall
3 5 (1.17%) Software-Defined Radio
3 5 (1.17%) Wireless
4 4 (0.93%) RS-232
4 4 (0.93%) RS-422
5 3 (0.70%) DHCP
5 3 (0.70%) Internet
5 3 (0.70%) Modbus
5 3 (0.70%) Network Security
5 3 (0.70%) Reverse Proxy
5 3 (0.70%) RS-485
6 2 (0.47%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.23%) BGP
7 1 (0.23%) Broadband
7 1 (0.23%) FTP
7 1 (0.23%) GSM
7 1 (0.23%) MPLS
7 1 (0.23%) UMTS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (4.44%) Relational Database
2 16 (3.74%) Oracle Database
3 15 (3.50%) SQL Server
4 14 (3.27%) PostgreSQL
5 10 (2.34%) Big Data
5 10 (2.34%) DynamoDB
5 10 (2.34%) MySQL
5 10 (2.34%) SAS Enterprise Guide
5 10 (2.34%) SAS Visual Analytics
6 9 (2.10%) MongoDB
7 7 (1.64%) Data Warehouse
7 7 (1.64%) NoSQL
8 6 (1.40%) Amazon Redshift
8 6 (1.40%) Power BI
9 5 (1.17%) Elasticsearch
9 5 (1.17%) Redis
10 4 (0.93%) Amazon Athena
11 3 (0.70%) Amazon QuickSight
11 3 (0.70%) Parquet
11 3 (0.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 75 (17.52%) JIRA
2 49 (11.45%) Git
3 47 (10.98%) Selenium
4 33 (7.71%) Postman
5 30 (7.01%) GitLab
6 29 (6.78%) Jenkins
7 27 (6.31%) Cucumber
8 25 (5.84%) REST Assured
9 24 (5.61%) JUnit
10 15 (3.50%) Cypress.io
11 13 (3.04%) Rational DOORS
11 13 (3.04%) WebDriver
12 11 (2.57%) TestRail
12 11 (2.57%) Zephyr
13 9 (2.10%) Gatling
13 9 (2.10%) JMeter
14 7 (1.64%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
15 6 (1.40%) Maven
15 6 (1.40%) Visual Studio
16 5 (1.17%) TestNG
General
1 120 (28.04%) Social Skills
2 84 (19.63%) Finance
3 67 (15.65%) Analytical Skills
4 48 (11.21%) Public Sector
5 33 (7.71%) Banking
6 21 (4.91%) Aerospace
6 21 (4.91%) Automotive
7 13 (3.04%) Back Office
8 10 (2.34%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (2.34%) Electronics
8 10 (2.34%) Law
9 9 (2.10%) Front Office
10 8 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
11 6 (1.40%) Military
12 5 (1.17%) Avionics
12 5 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (1.17%) Retail
13 4 (0.93%) Legal
13 4 (0.93%) Manufacturing
13 4 (0.93%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 67 (15.65%) Test Engineer
2 66 (15.42%) Software Engineer
3 62 (14.49%) Senior
4 58 (13.55%) Developer
5 36 (8.41%) Analyst
6 30 (7.01%) Lead
7 29 (6.78%) Tester
8 27 (6.31%) Software Test Engineer
9 23 (5.37%) Java Developer
10 19 (4.44%) Architect
11 17 (3.97%) Principal Engineer
11 17 (3.97%) QA Engineer
11 17 (3.97%) Test Manager
12 16 (3.74%) Software Developer
12 16 (3.74%) Test Analyst
13 15 (3.50%) Principal Software Engineer
14 14 (3.27%) Salesforce Engineer
14 14 (3.27%) Senior Developer
14 14 (3.27%) Test Automation Engineer
15 13 (3.04%) Software Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (9.58%) REST
2 39 (9.11%) React
3 38 (8.88%) Playwright
4 34 (7.94%) Spring
5 29 (6.78%) .NET
6 23 (5.37%) Spring Boot
7 21 (4.91%) RESTful
8 18 (4.21%) Kafka
9 15 (3.50%) Node.js
10 14 (3.27%) CSS
10 14 (3.27%) HTML
11 12 (2.80%) Redux
12 10 (2.34%) AngularJS
13 9 (2.10%) CSS3
13 9 (2.10%) HTML5
13 9 (2.10%) Jest
14 8 (1.87%) Spring MVC
15 6 (1.40%) .NET Core
15 6 (1.40%) .NET Framework
15 6 (1.40%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 46 (10.75%) Product Ownership
2 30 (7.01%) Enterprise Software
3 26 (6.07%) Cloud Native
3 26 (6.07%) Embedded Systems
4 22 (5.14%) Distributed Systems
4 22 (5.14%) Self-Motivation
5 15 (3.50%) Management Information System
6 12 (2.80%) Legacy Systems
7 11 (2.57%) Data Centre
8 10 (2.34%) Data Protection Act
9 7 (1.64%) Greenfield Project
10 5 (1.17%) FPGA
10 5 (1.17%) Onboarding
10 5 (1.17%) PCIe
10 5 (1.17%) Public Cloud
11 4 (0.93%) Distributed Architecture
11 4 (0.93%) Virtual Team
12 3 (0.70%) AI Agents
12 3 (0.70%) Analytical Mindset
12 3 (0.70%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 28 (6.54%) Windows
2 22 (5.14%) Linux
3 7 (1.64%) Unix
4 6 (1.40%) FreeRTOS
4 6 (1.40%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.70%) Android
5 3 (0.70%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.70%) Embedded Linux
5 3 (0.70%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.47%) zOS
7 1 (0.23%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 203 (47.43%) Test Automation
2 180 (42.06%) Agile
3 155 (36.21%) CI/CD
4 134 (31.31%) DevOps
5 128 (29.91%) Software Engineering
6 96 (22.43%) Continuous Improvement
7 88 (20.56%) Problem-Solving
8 73 (17.06%) Test Scripting
9 71 (16.59%) SDLC
10 67 (15.65%) Scrum
11 65 (15.19%) Test Strategy
12 64 (14.95%) Validation
13 56 (13.08%) User Acceptance Testing
14 54 (12.62%) Regression Testing
15 51 (11.92%) Code Quality
15 51 (11.92%) Defect Management
16 49 (11.45%) Mentoring
17 46 (10.75%) Microservices
18 45 (10.51%) AI
19 43 (10.05%) Test Management
Programming Languages
1 78 (18.22%) Java
2 75 (17.52%) Python
3 56 (13.08%) SQL
4 42 (9.81%) C#
5 41 (9.58%) JavaScript
6 32 (7.48%) TypeScript
7 22 (5.14%) C++
8 19 (4.44%) C
9 13 (3.04%) PowerShell
10 6 (1.40%) Bash
10 6 (1.40%) PL/SQL
11 5 (1.17%) Apex Code
11 5 (1.17%) Go
11 5 (1.17%) Kotlin
12 3 (0.70%) Ada
12 3 (0.70%) MATLAB
12 3 (0.70%) Rust
12 3 (0.70%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.70%) VB
13 2 (0.47%) REXX
Qualifications
1 131 (30.61%) Security Cleared
2 105 (24.53%) SC Cleared
3 46 (10.75%) Degree
4 37 (8.64%) ISTQB
5 23 (5.37%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 11 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
7 10 (2.34%) Computer Science Degree
7 10 (2.34%) ISEB
8 9 (2.10%) DV Cleared
9 7 (1.64%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
10 4 (0.93%) CEH
10 4 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (0.93%) CISSP
10 4 (0.93%) CompTIA Security+
11 3 (0.70%) CCNA
12 2 (0.47%) A+ Certification
12 2 (0.47%) ISEB Practitioner
12 2 (0.47%) Network+ Certification
12 2 (0.47%) PMI Certification
12 2 (0.47%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (21.50%) QA
2 18 (4.21%) Accessibility
3 11 (2.57%) Data Quality
4 9 (2.10%) WCAG
5 8 (1.87%) PMO
6 5 (1.17%) Software Quality Assurance
7 4 (0.93%) NIST
8 3 (0.70%) ISO 20022
8 3 (0.70%) SLA
9 2 (0.47%) GRC
9 2 (0.47%) ISO 15022
9 2 (0.47%) MiFID
10 1 (0.23%) MIL-STD-1553
10 1 (0.23%) SEPA
System Software
1 39 (9.11%) Docker
2 12 (2.80%) Active Directory
3 9 (2.10%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (1.40%) Firmware
4 6 (1.40%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (0.93%) Embedded Firmware
5 4 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.70%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.70%) VMware Workstation
7 2 (0.47%) NFS
7 2 (0.47%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.23%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 49 (11.45%) Kubernetes
2 25 (5.84%) Terraform
3 15 (3.50%) Ansible
4 11 (2.57%) Prometheus
5 10 (2.34%) HP ALM
6 9 (2.10%) Grafana
7 6 (1.40%) HP Quality Center
7 6 (1.40%) Microsoft Intune
8 5 (1.17%) Packer
9 4 (0.93%) SCCM
10 3 (0.70%) Puppet
10 3 (0.70%) Salt
11 2 (0.47%) Kibana
11 2 (0.47%) Tivoli Storage Manager
12 1 (0.23%) Oracle ZFS
12 1 (0.23%) PTC Integrity
12 1 (0.23%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 32 (7.48%) Microsoft
1 32 (7.48%) Oracle
2 19 (4.44%) Salesforce
3 16 (3.74%) IBM
4 10 (2.34%) HP
4 10 (2.34%) VMware
5 9 (2.10%) Dell
5 9 (2.10%) SAP
6 7 (1.64%) Citrix
7 6 (1.40%) Conga
7 6 (1.40%) GoCardless
7 6 (1.40%) OpenLink
7 6 (1.40%) Splunk
8 5 (1.17%) Google
8 5 (1.17%) ServiceNow
9 4 (0.93%) Ab Initio
9 4 (0.93%) Teradata
10 3 (0.70%) Fortinet
10 3 (0.70%) Palo Alto
10 3 (0.70%) Siemens