Test Engineer Contracts in England

Test Engineer
UK > England

The median Test Engineer daily rate in England is £438, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 306 294 382
Rank change year-on-year -12 +88 +36
Contract jobs requiring a Test Engineer 183 268 294
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.75% 0.72% 0.58%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.81% 0.78% 0.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 126 191 201
10th Percentile £316 £300 £325
25th Percentile £380 £380 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £430 £513
Median % change year-on-year +1.74% -16.10% +9.92%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £625
90th Percentile £695 £590 £738
UK median daily rate £438 £425 £500
% change year-on-year +2.94% -15.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 28 15
10th Percentile £38.56 £26.88 £40.50
25th Percentile £50.00 £35.56 £50.00
Median hourly rate £57.50 £43.64 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +31.77% -16.88% -
75th Percentile £62.50 £59.89 £69.38
90th Percentile £63.00 £62.15 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £57.50 £42.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +35.29% -19.05% +9.55%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in England. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in England with a recognized job title 22,549 34,488 47,741
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.59% 92.73% 94.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,007 22,894 33,903
10th Percentile £300 £275 £313
25th Percentile £409 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £638 £643 £663
90th Percentile £750 £750 £763
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 900 2,432 1,409
10th Percentile £14.20 £13.00 £14.35
25th Percentile £18.51 £16.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £30.62 £36.31 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.67% -19.32% +100.00%
75th Percentile £63.75 £61.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £76.60
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £36.42 £45.00
% change year-on-year -20.37% -19.07% +91.49%

Test Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings that featured Test Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for Test Engineer in England

Test Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Test Engineer in England.

Daily rate trend for Test Engineer in England

Test Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Engineer in England over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Test Engineer in England

Test Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Test Engineer in England.

Hourly rate trend for Test Engineer in England

Test Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Engineer in England over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Engineer in England

Test Engineer
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 Test Engineer within the England region over the 6 months to 1 May 2025. 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 +46 83 £425 -2.86% 40
South East +38 51 £513 +20.59% 115
North of England -18 17 £366 -13.82% 79
East of England +22 10 £375 -10.71% 55
South West +19 9 £538 -7.33% 74
Midlands +10 9 £438 +71.57% 83
East Midlands -3 7 £438 +71.57% 19
North West -14 6 £375 -16.67% 43
North East - 6 £350 - 12
Yorkshire -4 5 £423 +0.90% 24
West Midlands +15 2 £358 -31.90% 61
Test Engineer
UK

Test Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, Test Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the England region featuring Test Engineer in the job title.

1 116 (63.39%) Test Automation
2 75 (40.98%) Agile
3 65 (35.52%) Java
4 61 (33.33%) Security Cleared
5 58 (31.69%) CI/CD
6 55 (30.05%) Social Skills
7 53 (28.96%) Problem-Solving
8 50 (27.32%) Selenium
9 46 (25.14%) SC Cleared
10 42 (22.95%) Test Scripting
10 42 (22.95%) Linux
10 42 (22.95%) Jenkins
11 41 (22.40%) Test Strategy
11 41 (22.40%) Python
11 41 (22.40%) AWS
12 40 (21.86%) QA
13 39 (21.31%) JIRA
13 39 (21.31%) API Testing
14 36 (19.67%) Git
15 34 (18.58%) Postman
16 31 (16.94%) JavaScript
17 30 (16.39%) Scrum
18 29 (15.85%) ISTQB
18 29 (15.85%) REST
19 28 (15.30%) REST Assured
20 27 (14.75%) DevOps
20 27 (14.75%) Cypress.io
20 27 (14.75%) Telecoms
21 26 (14.21%) Finance
21 26 (14.21%) Performance Testing

Test Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 14 (7.65%) Confluence
2 3 (1.64%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (1.09%) Tomcat
4 1 (0.55%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.55%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.55%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 2 (1.09%) CANalyzer
1 2 (1.09%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.09%) NEC Housing
1 2 (1.09%) SAP Hybris
2 1 (0.55%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.55%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 41 (22.40%) AWS
2 21 (11.48%) Azure
3 12 (6.56%) Azure DevOps
4 7 (3.83%) AWS Lambda
4 7 (3.83%) Serverless
5 6 (3.28%) GitHub
6 4 (2.19%) Amazon EC2
6 4 (2.19%) Azure Data Factory
7 3 (1.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 3 (1.64%) AWS CodePipeline
7 3 (1.64%) AWS Step Functions
7 3 (1.64%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 2 (1.09%) Amazon S3
8 2 (1.09%) GCP
8 2 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (1.09%) SAP Commerce Cloud
9 1 (0.55%) Amazon SQS
9 1 (0.55%) Cloud Computing
9 1 (0.55%) Power Platform
9 1 (0.55%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 19 (10.38%) LTE
2 16 (8.74%) Ethernet
3 15 (8.20%) GSM
3 15 (8.20%) MPLS
3 15 (8.20%) VPN
3 15 (8.20%) WAN
3 15 (8.20%) Wireshark
4 14 (7.65%) ATM
4 14 (7.65%) Frame Relay
4 14 (7.65%) GPRS
4 14 (7.65%) LAN
4 14 (7.65%) SAN
4 14 (7.65%) SDH
4 14 (7.65%) UMTS
5 8 (4.37%) Software-Defined Radio
6 7 (3.83%) SNMP
7 6 (3.28%) HTTP
8 5 (2.73%) 5G
9 4 (2.19%) DHCP
9 4 (2.19%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.19%) Big Data
1 4 (2.19%) MongoDB
1 4 (2.19%) NoSQL
1 4 (2.19%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (1.64%) Amazon RDS
2 3 (1.64%) Oracle Database
3 2 (1.09%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (1.09%) Delta Lake
3 2 (1.09%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.55%) Amazon Athena
4 1 (0.55%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.55%) DynamoDB
4 1 (0.55%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (0.55%) RDBMS
4 1 (0.55%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 50 (27.32%) Selenium
2 42 (22.95%) Jenkins
3 39 (21.31%) JIRA
4 36 (19.67%) Git
5 34 (18.58%) Postman
6 28 (15.30%) REST Assured
7 27 (14.75%) Cypress.io
8 23 (12.57%) JMeter
9 19 (10.38%) Cucumber
10 13 (7.10%) LoadRunner
11 10 (5.46%) GitLab
12 9 (4.92%) Appium
12 9 (4.92%) Robot Framework
12 9 (4.92%) SpecFlow
12 9 (4.92%) TestRail
13 8 (4.37%) WebDriver
14 7 (3.83%) Bitbucket
14 7 (3.83%) Gatling
14 7 (3.83%) GoogleTest
15 5 (2.73%) NUnit
General
1 55 (30.05%) Social Skills
2 27 (14.75%) Telecoms
3 26 (14.21%) Finance
3 26 (14.21%) Public Sector
4 21 (11.48%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (7.65%) Banking
6 12 (6.56%) Manufacturing
7 9 (4.92%) Electronics
8 7 (3.83%) Marketing
9 5 (2.73%) Aerospace
10 3 (1.64%) Automotive
10 3 (1.64%) Law
11 2 (1.09%) Aviation
11 2 (1.09%) Avionics
11 2 (1.09%) Health Technology
11 2 (1.09%) Military
11 2 (1.09%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.55%) Financial Institution
12 1 (0.55%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.55%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (15.85%) REST
2 20 (10.93%) Playwright
3 15 (8.20%) pytest
4 11 (6.01%) HTML
5 9 (4.92%) .NET
5 9 (4.92%) Node.js
5 9 (4.92%) RESTful
6 8 (4.37%) CSS
6 8 (4.37%) FIX Protocol
7 7 (3.83%) Kafka
8 6 (3.28%) Gherkin
8 6 (3.28%) React
9 5 (2.73%) Jest
9 5 (2.73%) Web Services
10 4 (2.19%) AngularJS
10 4 (2.19%) Play Framework
11 3 (1.64%) GraphQL
11 3 (1.64%) Puppeteer
11 3 (1.64%) PySpark
12 2 (1.09%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (9.84%) Self-Motivation
2 8 (4.37%) Product Ownership
2 8 (4.37%) SWIFT Messaging Network
3 4 (2.19%) Mobile App
3 4 (2.19%) Onboarding
4 3 (1.64%) Analytical Mindset
4 3 (1.64%) IoT
4 3 (1.64%) Operational Technology
4 3 (1.64%) PKI
4 3 (1.64%) SCADA
4 3 (1.64%) Virtual Team
5 2 (1.09%) Cloud Native
5 2 (1.09%) Housing Association
5 2 (1.09%) Infotainment
5 2 (1.09%) Linux Command Line
5 2 (1.09%) NHS
6 1 (0.55%) Data Centre
6 1 (0.55%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (0.55%) Life Science
6 1 (0.55%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 42 (22.95%) Linux
2 22 (12.02%) Windows
3 18 (9.84%) Unix
4 5 (2.73%) Android
5 4 (2.19%) Apple iOS
6 3 (1.64%) AIX
6 3 (1.64%) Windows Server 2012
7 2 (1.09%) Windows Server
8 1 (0.55%) CentOS
8 1 (0.55%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 116 (63.39%) Test Automation
2 75 (40.98%) Agile
3 58 (31.69%) CI/CD
4 53 (28.96%) Problem-Solving
5 42 (22.95%) Test Scripting
6 41 (22.40%) Test Strategy
7 39 (21.31%) API Testing
8 30 (16.39%) Scrum
9 27 (14.75%) DevOps
10 26 (14.21%) Performance Testing
11 25 (13.66%) BDD
11 25 (13.66%) Test Management
11 25 (13.66%) Validation
12 23 (12.57%) Software Testing
13 22 (12.02%) Regression Testing
14 17 (9.29%) Manual Testing
15 16 (8.74%) Integration Testing
15 16 (8.74%) SDET
16 15 (8.20%) Continuous Improvement
16 15 (8.20%) Non-Functional Testing
Programming Languages
1 65 (35.52%) Java
2 41 (22.40%) Python
3 31 (16.94%) JavaScript
4 23 (12.57%) SQL
5 15 (8.20%) TypeScript
6 10 (5.46%) Bash
6 10 (5.46%) C++
7 8 (4.37%) VB
8 7 (3.83%) C#
9 5 (2.73%) Ruby
9 5 (2.73%) Scala
10 4 (2.19%) PHP
11 3 (1.64%) Perl
11 3 (1.64%) PL/SQL
12 2 (1.09%) C
12 2 (1.09%) MATLAB
12 2 (1.09%) PowerShell
12 2 (1.09%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.55%) Groovy
13 1 (0.55%) XPath
Qualifications
1 61 (33.33%) Security Cleared
2 46 (25.14%) SC Cleared
3 29 (15.85%) ISTQB
4 24 (13.11%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 16 (8.74%) Degree
6 14 (7.65%) CCNP
6 14 (7.65%) Cisco Certification
6 14 (7.65%) ISEB
7 13 (7.10%) DV Cleared
8 9 (4.92%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (1.09%) MCSA
9 2 (1.09%) MCSE
9 2 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (1.09%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 1 (0.55%) AWS Certification
10 1 (0.55%) CEH
10 1 (0.55%) CISSP
10 1 (0.55%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.55%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (21.86%) QA
2 7 (3.83%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.09%) Data Quality
3 2 (1.09%) WCAG
System Software
1 7 (3.83%) Docker
2 4 (2.19%) Active Directory
2 4 (2.19%) Firmware
2 4 (2.19%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 5 (2.73%) Kubernetes
2 2 (1.09%) CA Wily
2 2 (1.09%) Kibana
2 2 (1.09%) Terraform
3 1 (0.55%) Ansible
3 1 (0.55%) Control-M
3 1 (0.55%) Grafana
3 1 (0.55%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 21 (11.48%) Microsoft
2 17 (9.29%) Cisco
3 14 (7.65%) Juniper
4 9 (4.92%) SAP
5 7 (3.83%) Google
6 6 (3.28%) Atlassian
7 5 (2.73%) VMware
8 4 (2.19%) Databricks
8 4 (2.19%) Splunk
9 3 (1.64%) Murex
9 3 (1.64%) Oracle
9 3 (1.64%) Salesforce
10 2 (1.09%) AppDynamics
10 2 (1.09%) Brio
10 2 (1.09%) Ericsson
10 2 (1.09%) Hitachi
10 2 (1.09%) HP
10 2 (1.09%) MuleSoft
10 2 (1.09%) NEC
10 2 (1.09%) Virgin Media