Test Manager Contract Job Trends in England

Test Manager
UK > England

The median Test Manager daily rate in England is £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 27 December 2025.

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

6 months to
27 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 428 361 359
Rank change year-on-year -67 -2 +23
Contract jobs requiring a Test Manager 117 145 198
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.37% 0.51% 0.54%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.40% 0.55% 0.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 78 97 136
10th Percentile £375 £396 £394
25th Percentile £423 £453 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% -2.27% +1.85%
75th Percentile £597 £638 £628
90th Percentile £675 £701 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -6.98% -2.27% +2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 3
10th Percentile - - £52.00
25th Percentile - - £53.13
Median hourly rate - £75.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year - +36.36% -2.65%
75th Percentile - - £60.00
90th Percentile - - £63.00
UK median hourly rate - £75.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year - +36.36% -2.65%

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 29,040 26,501 34,495
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.34% 92.91% 93.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,512 16,485 23,595
10th Percentile £295 £300 £285
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -0.94% -3.64%
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 1,779 837 1,444
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.91 £14.61
25th Percentile £18.35 £21.25 £19.50
Median hourly rate £27.00 £35.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.86% -22.22% +38.46%
75th Percentile £61.18 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.10 £73.85 £76.86
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £32.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -20.00% -27.78% +46.96%

Test Manager
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

Test Manager job vacancy trend in England

Test Manager
Daily Rate Trend in England

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

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

Test Manager
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Manager in England over the 6 months to 27 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Test Manager in England

Test Manager
Hourly Rate Trend in England

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

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

Test Manager
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 Manager within the England region over the 6 months to 27 December 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 -22 58 £489 -15.00% 10
South East -4 23 £538 +2.38% 7
Midlands -50 13 £400 -27.27% 3
North of England -60 12 £550 +12.47%
West Midlands -28 10 £463 -36.21% 3
North West -29 9 £525 +7.36%
South West -6 5 £536 +4.63%
East Midlands -28 3 £378 -31.27%
Yorkshire -43 3 £750 +50.75%
East of England -22 2 £675 -
Test Manager
UK

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

For the 6 months to 27 December 2025, Test Manager 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 Manager in the job title.

1 72 (61.54%) Test Strategy
2 52 (44.44%) Test Management
3 48 (41.03%) Stakeholder Management
4 47 (40.17%) QA
5 45 (38.46%) User Acceptance Testing
6 44 (37.61%) Test Automation
7 34 (29.06%) Agile
8 28 (23.93%) Azure
9 26 (22.22%) End-to-End Testing
10 25 (21.37%) Test Planning
11 21 (17.95%) JIRA
11 21 (17.95%) Migration
12 20 (17.09%) Validation
13 19 (16.24%) ERP
13 19 (16.24%) Security Cleared
14 18 (15.38%) Problem-Solving
14 18 (15.38%) Scenario Testing
14 18 (15.38%) Waterfall
15 17 (14.53%) DevOps
16 16 (13.68%) Defect Management
16 16 (13.68%) ISTQB
17 15 (12.82%) Continuous Improvement
17 15 (12.82%) Integration Testing
17 15 (12.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 14 (11.97%) Regression Testing
19 13 (11.11%) Oracle
19 13 (11.11%) SAP
19 13 (11.11%) SC Cleared
19 13 (11.11%) Software Testing
19 13 (11.11%) System Integration Testing

Test Manager 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 (3.42%) Confluence
2 3 (2.56%) SharePoint
3 2 (1.71%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.85%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 1 (0.85%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
1 1 (0.85%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (1.71%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
1 2 (1.71%) SAP ERP
1 2 (1.71%) Workday HCM
2 1 (0.85%) CODA-Financials
2 1 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.85%) Maximo
2 1 (0.85%) Oracle Cash Management
2 1 (0.85%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.85%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.85%) Oracle Financials
2 1 (0.85%) Oracle Payables
2 1 (0.85%) Oracle Receivables
2 1 (0.85%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
2 1 (0.85%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.85%) SAP Payroll
2 1 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 28 (23.93%) Azure
2 12 (10.26%) Azure DevOps
3 8 (6.84%) AWS
4 6 (5.13%) Entra ID
5 5 (4.27%) OCI
6 2 (1.71%) GCP
6 2 (1.71%) SaaS
6 2 (1.71%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
6 2 (1.71%) Salesforce Service Cloud
7 1 (0.85%) Dynamics 365
7 1 (0.85%) Microsoft 365
7 1 (0.85%) OneDrive
7 1 (0.85%) Power Platform
7 1 (0.85%) SuccessFactors
7 1 (0.85%) Tricentis Tosca
7 1 (0.85%) Veeva
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.71%) Firewall
2 1 (0.85%) IP Telephony
2 1 (0.85%) MPLS
2 1 (0.85%) SD-WAN
2 1 (0.85%) SMS
2 1 (0.85%) VLAN
2 1 (0.85%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.71%) Electronic Patient Records
2 1 (0.85%) BigQuery
2 1 (0.85%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (0.85%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 21 (17.95%) JIRA
2 7 (5.98%) Selenium
3 4 (3.42%) GitLab
3 4 (3.42%) HP UFT
4 3 (2.56%) Katalon Studio
5 2 (1.71%) REST Assured
6 1 (0.85%) Appium
6 1 (0.85%) TestRail
6 1 (0.85%) Zephyr
General
1 43 (36.75%) Social Skills
2 39 (33.33%) Finance
3 11 (9.40%) Public Sector
4 10 (8.55%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (6.84%) Presentation Skills
6 7 (5.98%) Banking
7 5 (4.27%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (4.27%) French Language
7 5 (4.27%) Influencing Skills
8 4 (3.42%) Telecoms
9 3 (2.56%) Investment Banking
9 3 (2.56%) Law
9 3 (2.56%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (1.71%) Marketing
10 2 (1.71%) Retail
11 1 (0.85%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.85%) Automotive
11 1 (0.85%) Billing
11 1 (0.85%) General Ledger
11 1 (0.85%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (3.42%) JWT
1 4 (3.42%) Middleware
1 4 (3.42%) OAuth
1 4 (3.42%) SAML
2 3 (2.56%) ADO
2 3 (2.56%) Playwright
3 2 (1.71%) RFC 2544
3 2 (1.71%) Web Services
4 1 (0.85%) Oracle Fusion
4 1 (0.85%) React Native
4 1 (0.85%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 6 (5.13%) Data Centre
2 5 (4.27%) Enterprise Software
2 5 (4.27%) Management Information System
3 4 (3.42%) Distributed Systems
4 3 (2.56%) Greenfield Project
4 3 (2.56%) Legacy Systems
4 3 (2.56%) Mainframe
4 3 (2.56%) Mobile App
4 3 (2.56%) Onboarding
4 3 (2.56%) Product Ownership
5 2 (1.71%) AI Agents
5 2 (1.71%) Virtual Team
6 1 (0.85%) Data Structures
6 1 (0.85%) Equities
6 1 (0.85%) IoT
6 1 (0.85%) Pharmacovigilance
6 1 (0.85%) Public Cloud
6 1 (0.85%) Reinsurance
6 1 (0.85%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.71%) Windows
2 1 (0.85%) VMS
2 1 (0.85%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 72 (61.54%) Test Strategy
2 52 (44.44%) Test Management
3 48 (41.03%) Stakeholder Management
4 45 (38.46%) User Acceptance Testing
5 44 (37.61%) Test Automation
6 34 (29.06%) Agile
7 26 (22.22%) End-to-End Testing
8 25 (21.37%) Test Planning
9 21 (17.95%) Migration
10 20 (17.09%) Validation
11 19 (16.24%) ERP
12 18 (15.38%) Problem-Solving
12 18 (15.38%) Scenario Testing
12 18 (15.38%) Waterfall
13 17 (14.53%) DevOps
14 16 (13.68%) Defect Management
15 15 (12.82%) Continuous Improvement
15 15 (12.82%) Integration Testing
15 15 (12.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 14 (11.97%) Regression Testing
Programming Languages
1 6 (5.13%) Java
2 4 (3.42%) C#
3 3 (2.56%) SQL
4 1 (0.85%) PL/SQL
4 1 (0.85%) Python
Qualifications
1 19 (16.24%) Security Cleared
2 16 (13.68%) ISTQB
3 13 (11.11%) SC Cleared
4 7 (5.98%) Degree
5 5 (4.27%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
6 4 (3.42%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.85%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.85%) CCIE
7 1 (0.85%) CCNP
7 1 (0.85%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (0.85%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.85%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.85%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (40.17%) QA
2 7 (5.98%) IFRS
2 7 (5.98%) IFRS 17
3 3 (2.56%) IFRS 9
3 3 (2.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 2 (1.71%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.85%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.85%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.85%) SLA
System Software
1 1 (0.85%) Active Directory
1 1 (0.85%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 8 (6.84%) HP ALM
2 2 (1.71%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (0.85%) SCCM
Vendors
1 13 (11.11%) Oracle
1 13 (11.11%) SAP
2 8 (6.84%) HP
2 8 (6.84%) Workday
3 7 (5.98%) ServiceNow
4 6 (5.13%) Microsoft
5 5 (4.27%) Cisco
6 2 (1.71%) Adobe
6 2 (1.71%) Avaloq
6 2 (1.71%) Cerner
6 2 (1.71%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.85%) Ariba
7 1 (0.85%) CA Agile Central
7 1 (0.85%) CODA
7 1 (0.85%) Duck Creek
7 1 (0.85%) IBM
7 1 (0.85%) JDA
7 1 (0.85%) Micro Focus
7 1 (0.85%) VMware
7 1 (0.85%) YouTube