Test Strategy Contract Job Trends in England

Test Strategy
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Test Strategy skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 30 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 195 224 235
Rank change year-on-year +29 +11 -72
Contract jobs citing Test Strategy 457 316 362
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.45% 1.12% 0.99%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.63% 1.26% 1.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 331 192 242
10th Percentile £350 £341 £376
25th Percentile £408 £411 £433
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £648
90th Percentile £671 £700 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 1 6
10th Percentile - - £38.00
25th Percentile £52.50 £82.50 £56.66
Median hourly rate £55.00 £85.00 £61.63
Median % change year-on-year -35.29% +37.92% +45.47%
75th Percentile £57.50 £87.50 -
90th Percentile - - £67.19
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £55.30 £61.63
% change year-on-year -0.54% -10.27% +45.47%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

Test Strategy 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 28,004 25,033 32,231
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 88.55% 88.72% 88.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,835 15,427 21,866
10th Percentile £303 £312 £306
25th Percentile £406 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £645 £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 1,779 821 1,411
10th Percentile £15.18 £15.62 £14.41
25th Percentile £17.96 £20.30 £19.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -22.22% +25.00%
75th Percentile £56.83 £64.73 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.99 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £43.95
% change year-on-year -22.62% -26.05% +25.57%

Test Strategy
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Test Strategy relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Test Strategy job vacancy trend in England

Test Strategy
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Test Strategy.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Test Strategy

Test Strategy
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Strategy in England over the 6 months to 30 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Test Strategy in England

Test Strategy
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Test Strategy.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Test Strategy

Test Strategy
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 Strategy within the England region over the 6 months to 30 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 +24 188 £525 -3.45% 105
Midlands +1 78 £515 -0.24% 108
North of England -28 77 £435 +2.24% 159
South East +12 73 £455 -11.61% 177
West Midlands +13 62 £525 +3.45% 59
Yorkshire -19 40 £435 +6.63% 77
North West -23 30 £400 -16.49% 77
South West -13 18 £531 +4.12% 67
East Midlands -13 16 £403 -23.29% 42
East of England -11 13 £633 -30.44% 90
North East -7 7 £545 +28.24% 5
Test Strategy
UK

Test Strategy
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 30 (6.56%) SAS
2 25 (5.47%) Confluence
3 16 (3.50%) Apache
4 14 (3.06%) WebLogic
5 8 (1.75%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (1.09%) Oracle Workflow
7 4 (0.88%) ArcGIS
8 3 (0.66%) Apache Spark
9 2 (0.44%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.44%) OpenStack
10 1 (0.22%) CMS
10 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Exchange
10 1 (0.22%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 1 (0.22%) SharePoint
10 1 (0.22%) WebSphere
Applications
1 4 (0.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.66%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.44%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 11 (2.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (1.09%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 4 (0.88%) SAP Payroll
4 3 (0.66%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.66%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.66%) Oracle FAH
4 3 (0.66%) Oracle General Ledger
4 3 (0.66%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 3 (0.66%) SAP ERP
5 2 (0.44%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.44%) Eagle PACE
5 2 (0.44%) Markit EDM
5 2 (0.44%) Maximo
5 2 (0.44%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.44%) Workday HCM
6 1 (0.22%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.22%) Oracle EBS R12
6 1 (0.22%) SAP EWM
6 1 (0.22%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 117 (25.60%) Azure
2 79 (17.29%) AWS
3 31 (6.78%) Azure DevOps
4 19 (4.16%) GCP
5 17 (3.72%) GitHub
6 16 (3.50%) OpenShift
6 16 (3.50%) Power Platform
7 15 (3.28%) Azure Monitor
8 12 (2.63%) GitHub Actions
9 11 (2.41%) SaaS
10 8 (1.75%) Dynamics 365
11 7 (1.53%) Azure Storage
12 6 (1.31%) Entra ID
12 6 (1.31%) PaaS
12 6 (1.31%) SuccessFactors
13 5 (1.09%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 5 (1.09%) Microsoft 365
13 5 (1.09%) Sentry
13 5 (1.09%) Serverless
14 4 (0.88%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.75%) HTTP
1 8 (1.75%) SD-WAN
2 7 (1.53%) Ethernet
2 7 (1.53%) Firewall
3 6 (1.31%) Wireshark
4 4 (0.88%) FTP
5 3 (0.66%) WAN
6 2 (0.44%) Calico
6 2 (0.44%) Cisco IOS
6 2 (0.44%) IOS XR
6 2 (0.44%) SNMP
6 2 (0.44%) Spanning Tree
6 2 (0.44%) SSH
6 2 (0.44%) TACACS
6 2 (0.44%) VSAN
7 1 (0.22%) Internet
7 1 (0.22%) MPLS
7 1 (0.22%) VLAN
7 1 (0.22%) Wi-Fi
7 1 (0.22%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (3.28%) SAS Enterprise Guide
1 15 (3.28%) SQL Server
2 12 (2.63%) Oracle Database
2 12 (2.63%) PostgreSQL
2 12 (2.63%) Power BI
3 11 (2.41%) SAS Visual Analytics
4 9 (1.97%) MySQL
5 8 (1.75%) Data Warehouse
6 7 (1.53%) MongoDB
6 7 (1.53%) Tableau
7 6 (1.31%) Big Data
8 4 (0.88%) Geospatial Data
8 4 (0.88%) GIS
8 4 (0.88%) KDB
8 4 (0.88%) Kdb+
8 4 (0.88%) NoSQL
8 4 (0.88%) Relational Database
8 4 (0.88%) SAS Data Integration Studio
9 3 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 2 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 83 (18.16%) Selenium
2 76 (16.63%) JIRA
3 52 (11.38%) GitLab
4 47 (10.28%) Jenkins
5 43 (9.41%) Postman
6 37 (8.10%) Cucumber
7 33 (7.22%) Cypress.io
8 32 (7.00%) REST Assured
9 29 (6.35%) Git
10 24 (5.25%) JMeter
11 23 (5.03%) JUnit
12 20 (4.38%) Gatling
13 14 (3.06%) LoadRunner
14 12 (2.63%) TestRail
15 9 (1.97%) Zephyr
16 8 (1.75%) Katalon Studio
17 6 (1.31%) Appium
17 6 (1.31%) Charles Proxy
17 6 (1.31%) CircleCI
17 6 (1.31%) SoapUI
General
1 185 (40.48%) Social Skills
2 103 (22.54%) Finance
3 56 (12.25%) Analytical Skills
4 48 (10.50%) Public Sector
5 41 (8.97%) Banking
6 17 (3.72%) Presentation Skills
7 14 (3.06%) Documentation Skills
7 14 (3.06%) Telecoms
8 13 (2.84%) Front Office
9 9 (1.97%) Investment Banking
9 9 (1.97%) Legal
10 8 (1.75%) Back Office
11 7 (1.53%) Influencing Skills
12 6 (1.31%) Local Government
12 6 (1.31%) Military
12 6 (1.31%) Organisational Skills
13 4 (0.88%) Manufacturing
13 4 (0.88%) Publishing
14 3 (0.66%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.66%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 76 (16.63%) Lead
2 73 (15.97%) Test Manager
3 54 (11.82%) Senior
4 51 (11.16%) Tester
5 47 (10.28%) Developer
5 47 (10.28%) Test Engineer
6 40 (8.75%) Analyst
7 39 (8.53%) Test Leader
8 23 (5.03%) Test Analyst
9 20 (4.38%) Automation Tester
10 18 (3.94%) Programme Manager
11 17 (3.72%) Programme Test Manager
11 17 (3.72%) Software Engineer
11 17 (3.72%) Test Programme Manager
11 17 (3.72%) Test Specialist
12 16 (3.50%) QA Leader
13 15 (3.28%) Senior Test Engineer
13 15 (3.28%) Test Automation Engineer
14 11 (2.41%) Architect
14 11 (2.41%) Monitoring Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (10.94%) REST
2 43 (9.41%) Playwright
3 21 (4.60%) pytest
4 20 (4.38%) RESTful
5 19 (4.16%) React
6 13 (2.84%) .NET
6 13 (2.84%) Middleware
7 12 (2.63%) OAuth
7 12 (2.63%) Web Services
8 11 (2.41%) Node.js
8 11 (2.41%) XML
9 10 (2.19%) Kafka
9 10 (2.19%) SOAP
10 9 (1.97%) JWT
10 9 (1.97%) SAML
11 7 (1.53%) Gherkin
11 7 (1.53%) JSON
11 7 (1.53%) RabbitMQ
12 6 (1.31%) gRPC
13 5 (1.09%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 22 (4.81%) Product Ownership
2 16 (3.50%) Mobile App
3 14 (3.06%) Cloud Native
4 13 (2.84%) Self-Motivation
5 11 (2.41%) Management Information System
6 10 (2.19%) Data Protection Act
7 9 (1.97%) Enterprise Software
7 9 (1.97%) Legacy Systems
8 8 (1.75%) Distributed Systems
9 7 (1.53%) Greenfield Project
9 7 (1.53%) Onboarding
10 6 (1.31%) Credit Risk
11 5 (1.09%) Algorithms
11 5 (1.09%) Fixed Income
12 4 (0.88%) Data Centre
13 3 (0.66%) AI Agents
13 3 (0.66%) Derivative
13 3 (0.66%) Equities
13 3 (0.66%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 2 (0.44%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 27 (5.91%) Linux
2 19 (4.16%) Unix
2 19 (4.16%) Windows
3 12 (2.63%) Apple iOS
4 11 (2.41%) Android
5 1 (0.22%) Mac OS X
5 1 (0.22%) VMS
5 1 (0.22%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.22%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 215 (47.05%) Test Automation
2 188 (41.14%) Agile
3 126 (27.57%) CI/CD
4 108 (23.63%) User Acceptance Testing
5 104 (22.76%) Stakeholder Management
6 100 (21.88%) DevOps
7 99 (21.66%) Problem-Solving
8 79 (17.29%) Test Scripting
9 73 (15.97%) Migration
10 71 (15.54%) Continuous Improvement
11 66 (14.44%) Scrum
11 66 (14.44%) Validation
12 65 (14.22%) Regression Testing
13 62 (13.57%) Software Testing
14 60 (13.13%) Test Management
15 59 (12.91%) Analytics
16 56 (12.25%) Defect Management
17 55 (12.04%) Scenario Testing
18 53 (11.60%) End-to-End Testing
19 49 (10.72%) Manual Testing
Programming Languages
1 87 (19.04%) SQL
2 86 (18.82%) Python
3 48 (10.50%) Java
4 47 (10.28%) JavaScript
5 24 (5.25%) TypeScript
6 19 (4.16%) C#
6 19 (4.16%) VB
7 12 (2.63%) Bash
8 8 (1.75%) Swift
9 7 (1.53%) Kotlin
9 7 (1.53%) PL/SQL
10 5 (1.09%) PHP
10 5 (1.09%) R
11 4 (0.88%) Ruby
12 3 (0.66%) C
13 2 (0.44%) Rust
14 1 (0.22%) Bicep
14 1 (0.22%) Go
14 1 (0.22%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.22%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 117 (25.60%) Security Cleared
2 90 (19.69%) SC Cleared
3 35 (7.66%) Degree
4 31 (6.78%) ISTQB
5 15 (3.28%) DV Cleared
6 13 (2.84%) Computer Science Degree
7 10 (2.19%) BPSS Clearance
8 8 (1.75%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 8 (1.75%) Master's Degree
9 7 (1.53%) FFIEC
10 6 (1.31%) SAP Certification
11 5 (1.09%) CFA
11 5 (1.09%) ISEB
11 5 (1.09%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 4 (0.88%) MCP
13 3 (0.66%) Cisco Certification
13 3 (0.66%) PMP
14 2 (0.44%) CISA
14 2 (0.44%) CISM
14 2 (0.44%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 142 (31.07%) QA
2 36 (7.88%) Accessibility
3 16 (3.50%) Data Quality
4 15 (3.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 13 (2.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (2.84%) WCAG
6 9 (1.97%) NIST
7 8 (1.75%) GRC
8 7 (1.53%) IFRS
8 7 (1.53%) PCI DSS
9 5 (1.09%) IFRS 17
10 3 (0.66%) GAAP
10 3 (0.66%) SLA
11 2 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.44%) Basel III
11 2 (0.44%) GDPR
11 2 (0.44%) HL7
11 2 (0.44%) IFRS 9
12 1 (0.22%) Software Quality Assurance
12 1 (0.22%) SOX 404
System Software
1 45 (9.85%) Docker
2 3 (0.66%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.44%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.44%) VMware NSX
3 2 (0.44%) vSphere
4 1 (0.22%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
Systems Management
1 48 (10.50%) Kubernetes
2 17 (3.72%) Grafana
3 16 (3.50%) HP ALM
4 14 (3.06%) Terraform
5 12 (2.63%) Ansible
6 10 (2.19%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.66%) Kibana
8 2 (0.44%) Istio
8 2 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.22%) Argo
9 1 (0.22%) Control-M
9 1 (0.22%) HP Quality Center
9 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Intune
9 1 (0.22%) RSA Archer
9 1 (0.22%) SCCM
9 1 (0.22%) SCOM
Vendors
1 54 (11.82%) Oracle
2 42 (9.19%) Microsoft
3 40 (8.75%) Splunk
4 31 (6.78%) Cisco
5 29 (6.35%) SAP
6 23 (5.03%) AppDynamics
6 23 (5.03%) Dynatrace
7 18 (3.94%) HP
8 13 (2.84%) ServiceNow
9 11 (2.41%) Workday
10 9 (1.97%) Salesforce
11 7 (1.53%) Google
11 7 (1.53%) Meraki
12 6 (1.31%) Juniper
12 6 (1.31%) Nokia
13 5 (1.09%) CheckPoint
13 5 (1.09%) IBM
13 5 (1.09%) Informatica
13 5 (1.09%) New Relic
14 4 (0.88%) ESRI