Test Leader Contract Job Trends in England

Test Lead
UK > England

The median Test Lead daily rate in England is £480, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 January 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 431 396 413
Rank change year-on-year -35 +17 +82
Contract jobs requiring a Test Leader 111 105 127
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.35% 0.37% 0.35%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.38% 0.40% 0.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 81 63 100
10th Percentile £300 £348 £368
25th Percentile £400 £371 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £445 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.87% -11.00% +6.27%
75th Percentile £588 £550 £578
90th Percentile £638 £648 £662
UK median daily rate £490 £441 £500
% change year-on-year +11.05% -11.75% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £50.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 - £51.00
75th Percentile - - £51.50
90th Percentile - - -
UK median hourly rate £55.00 - £51.00
% change year-on-year - - +27.50%

All Contract IT Job Roles
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 28,978 26,109 33,858
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.40% 92.88% 93.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,528 16,189 23,132
10th Percentile £300 £300 £281
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £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 1,750 814 1,430
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.91 £14.54
25th Percentile £18.26 £21.23 £20.00
Median hourly rate £27.21 £35.00 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -22.26% -23.71% +40.01%
75th Percentile £61.23 £64.73 £65.00
90th Percentile £73.41 £74.31 £77.00
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £32.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -20.00% -27.78% +41.93%

Test Leader
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Test Leader' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Test Leader job vacancy trend in England

Test Leader
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Test Leader job vacancies in England.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Test Leader job vacancies in England

Test Leader
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Leader in England over the 6 months to 1 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Test Leader in England

Test Leader
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Test Leader job vacancies in England.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Test Leader job vacancies in England

Test Leader
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 Leader within the England region over the 6 months to 1 January 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 -39 42 £500 +2.04% 12
South East +5 24 £560 +47.37% 5
Midlands -21 19 £410 -11.35% 1
North of England -54 17 £463 +32.14% 15
West Midlands -15 16 £420 -23.64% 1
Yorkshire -45 9 £463 -5.13% 15
North West -29 8 £463 +32.90%
South West -5 4 £335 -24.72%
East of England -19 4 £635 -0.20% 3
East Midlands -18 3 £400 +6.67%
Test Leader
UK

Test Leader Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 1 January 2026, Test Leader contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the England region featuring Test Leader in the job title.

1 47 (42.34%) Test Automation
2 40 (36.04%) Test Strategy
3 38 (34.23%) User Acceptance Testing
4 30 (27.03%) Agile
4 30 (27.03%) JIRA
4 30 (27.03%) QA
5 27 (24.32%) Defect Management
6 25 (22.52%) Test Scripting
7 22 (19.82%) End-to-End Testing
7 22 (19.82%) Problem-Solving
8 21 (18.92%) Stakeholder Management
9 20 (18.02%) Azure
10 19 (17.12%) Integration Testing
10 19 (17.12%) Test Management
11 18 (16.22%) Security Cleared
11 18 (16.22%) Selenium
12 17 (15.32%) Migration
12 17 (15.32%) Oracle
12 17 (15.32%) Regression Testing
12 17 (15.32%) Scenario Testing
13 16 (14.41%) SC Cleared
13 16 (14.41%) SQL
13 16 (14.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 15 (13.51%) ISTQB
14 15 (13.51%) Java
14 15 (13.51%) System Integration Testing
15 14 (12.61%) DevOps
15 14 (12.61%) ETL
15 14 (12.61%) Playwright
15 14 (12.61%) SAP

Test Leader Skill Set
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 4 (3.60%) Confluence
2 1 (0.90%) CMS
Applications
1 4 (3.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (1.80%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 7 (6.31%) Oracle EBS
2 4 (3.60%) SAP EWM
2 4 (3.60%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (2.70%) Oracle Payroll
4 2 (1.80%) Aladdin
4 2 (1.80%) BambooHR
4 2 (1.80%) Eagle PACE
4 2 (1.80%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.90%) Maximo
5 1 (0.90%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.90%) PORTIA
5 1 (0.90%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 20 (18.02%) Azure
2 9 (8.11%) AWS
2 9 (8.11%) Azure DevOps
2 9 (8.11%) Power Platform
3 5 (4.50%) GCP
3 5 (4.50%) SaaS
4 4 (3.60%) Tricentis Tosca
5 3 (2.70%) OCI
5 3 (2.70%) SuccessFactors
6 2 (1.80%) Azure Cosmos DB
6 2 (1.80%) Azure Data Factory
6 2 (1.80%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 2 (1.80%) GitHub
6 2 (1.80%) GitHub Actions
6 2 (1.80%) Snowflake
7 1 (0.90%) Dynamics 365
7 1 (0.90%) PaaS
7 1 (0.90%) Power Automate
7 1 (0.90%) PowerApps
7 1 (0.90%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.80%) DNS
1 2 (1.80%) LAN
1 2 (1.80%) VoIP
1 2 (1.80%) Wi-Fi
2 1 (0.90%) DSL
2 1 (0.90%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (7.21%) Power BI
2 5 (4.50%) Data Warehouse
2 5 (4.50%) Oracle Reports
3 3 (2.70%) Big Data
3 3 (2.70%) MongoDB
4 2 (1.80%) Amazon RDS
4 2 (1.80%) SAP HANA
4 2 (1.80%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.90%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
5 1 (0.90%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.90%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
5 1 (0.90%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.90%) Electronic Patient Records
5 1 (0.90%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
5 1 (0.90%) MySQL
5 1 (0.90%) Oracle Database
5 1 (0.90%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.90%) SAP BW
5 1 (0.90%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 1 (0.90%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 30 (27.03%) JIRA
2 18 (16.22%) Selenium
3 9 (8.11%) Jenkins
4 8 (7.21%) Cucumber
4 8 (7.21%) Postman
4 8 (7.21%) TestRail
5 6 (5.41%) GitLab
6 5 (4.50%) REST Assured
7 4 (3.60%) Cypress.io
7 4 (3.60%) NeoLoad
7 4 (3.60%) Zephyr
8 3 (2.70%) Git
8 3 (2.70%) JUnit
8 3 (2.70%) Maven
8 3 (2.70%) WebDriver
9 2 (1.80%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 2 (1.80%) Gatling
9 2 (1.80%) HP UFT
9 2 (1.80%) Pa11y
9 2 (1.80%) SoapUI
General
1 43 (38.74%) Social Skills
2 23 (20.72%) Finance
3 19 (17.12%) Public Sector
4 8 (7.21%) Banking
5 6 (5.41%) Analytical Skills
6 3 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
6 3 (2.70%) Manufacturing
6 3 (2.70%) Retail
7 2 (1.80%) Aerospace
7 2 (1.80%) Front Office
7 2 (1.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 2 (1.80%) Law
7 2 (1.80%) Legal
7 2 (1.80%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (1.80%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (0.90%) Back Office
8 1 (0.90%) Military
8 1 (0.90%) Pharmaceutical
8 1 (0.90%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (12.61%) Playwright
2 7 (6.31%) .NET
3 6 (5.41%) REST
4 5 (4.50%) SailPoint
5 3 (2.70%) LDAP
5 3 (2.70%) OpenID
5 3 (2.70%) Oracle Fusion
5 3 (2.70%) pytest
5 3 (2.70%) SAP Fiori
5 3 (2.70%) Spring
5 3 (2.70%) Spring Boot
6 2 (1.80%) Node.js
6 2 (1.80%) SAP PI
6 2 (1.80%) Spring Batch
6 2 (1.80%) Web Services
6 2 (1.80%) WireMock
6 2 (1.80%) XML
7 1 (0.90%) FHIR
7 1 (0.90%) Gherkin
7 1 (0.90%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 5 (4.50%) SCADA
2 3 (2.70%) Cloud Native
2 3 (2.70%) Data Structures
2 3 (2.70%) Legacy Systems
3 2 (1.80%) Management Information System
4 1 (0.90%) Equities
4 1 (0.90%) FMCG
4 1 (0.90%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 1 (0.90%) Onboarding
4 1 (0.90%) Product Ownership
4 1 (0.90%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.80%) Android
1 2 (1.80%) Apple iOS
1 2 (1.80%) Mac OS
1 2 (1.80%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (42.34%) Test Automation
2 40 (36.04%) Test Strategy
3 38 (34.23%) User Acceptance Testing
4 30 (27.03%) Agile
5 27 (24.32%) Defect Management
6 25 (22.52%) Test Scripting
7 22 (19.82%) End-to-End Testing
7 22 (19.82%) Problem-Solving
8 21 (18.92%) Stakeholder Management
9 19 (17.12%) Integration Testing
9 19 (17.12%) Test Management
10 17 (15.32%) Migration
10 17 (15.32%) Regression Testing
10 17 (15.32%) Scenario Testing
11 16 (14.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 15 (13.51%) System Integration Testing
13 14 (12.61%) DevOps
13 14 (12.61%) ETL
13 14 (12.61%) Validation
14 13 (11.71%) Test Planning
Programming Languages
1 16 (14.41%) SQL
2 15 (13.51%) Java
3 6 (5.41%) Python
4 3 (2.70%) C#
4 3 (2.70%) JavaScript
5 2 (1.80%) TypeScript
6 1 (0.90%) PHP
6 1 (0.90%) PL/SQL
6 1 (0.90%) VB
6 1 (0.90%) XPath
Qualifications
1 18 (16.22%) Security Cleared
2 16 (14.41%) SC Cleared
3 15 (13.51%) ISTQB
4 5 (4.50%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 3 (2.70%) Degree
6 2 (1.80%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 1 (0.90%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.90%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.90%) ISEB
7 1 (0.90%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (27.03%) QA
2 9 (8.11%) Accessibility
3 8 (7.21%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.80%) EU AI Act
4 2 (1.80%) NIST
4 2 (1.80%) WCAG
5 1 (0.90%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.90%) GDPR
5 1 (0.90%) HL7
5 1 (0.90%) MiFID
5 1 (0.90%) PMO
5 1 (0.90%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 3 (2.70%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
2 1 (0.90%) Docker
Systems Management
1 10 (9.01%) HP ALM
2 3 (2.70%) Kubernetes
3 2 (1.80%) Grafana
3 2 (1.80%) Kibana
4 1 (0.90%) HP Quality Center
Vendors
1 17 (15.32%) Oracle
2 14 (12.61%) SAP
3 10 (9.01%) HP
4 6 (5.41%) Microsoft
5 4 (3.60%) ServiceNow
6 3 (2.70%) CheckPoint
7 2 (1.80%) Avaloq
7 2 (1.80%) Dynatrace
7 2 (1.80%) GoldenSource
7 2 (1.80%) PagerDuty
7 2 (1.80%) Splunk
7 2 (1.80%) Workday
8 1 (0.90%) CA Agile Central
8 1 (0.90%) Charles River
8 1 (0.90%) Databricks
8 1 (0.90%) Duck Creek
8 1 (0.90%) MEDITECH
8 1 (0.90%) MuleSoft
8 1 (0.90%) SimCorp
8 1 (0.90%) Veracode