ISTQB Contract Job Trends in London

International Software Testing Qualification Board (ISTQB)
England > London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in London with a requirement for ISTQB qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 4 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 399 317 367
Rank change year-on-year -82 +50 +38
Contract jobs citing ISTQB 47 45 28
As % of all contract jobs in London 0.23% 0.33% 0.17%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.82% 1.25% 0.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 29 31 19
10th Percentile £326 £325 £221
25th Percentile £400 £353 £441
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £400 £475
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% -15.79% -4.04%
75th Percentile £600 £489 £575
90th Percentile £678 £600 £680
England median daily rate £430 £423 £475
% change year-on-year +1.78% -11.05% -4.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £45.00 -
England median hourly rate £60.00 £45.00 -
% change year-on-year +33.33% - -

All Academic and Professional Certifications
London

ISTQB falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications in London.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 5,745 3,592 4,041
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 28.35% 26.61% 24.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,160 2,414 2,590
10th Percentile £363 £356 £350
25th Percentile £456 £438 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £538 £538
Median % change year-on-year +2.33% - -2.27%
75th Percentile £650 £650 £650
90th Percentile £728 £738 £774
England median daily rate £533 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 106 84 62
10th Percentile £19.50 £19.05 £18.13
25th Percentile £24.47 - £25.81
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £36.65
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -31.38% -18.56%
75th Percentile £78.75 £35.94 £57.50
90th Percentile £155.00 £65.00 £74.63
England median hourly rate £50.74 £25.15 £52.50
% change year-on-year +101.76% -52.10% -

ISTQB
Job Vacancy Trend in London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing ISTQB relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in London.

ISTQB job vacancy trend in London

ISTQB
Daily Rate Trend in London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing ISTQB.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing ISTQB

ISTQB
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing ISTQB in London over the 6 months to 4 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for ISTQB in London

ISTQB
Hourly Rate Trend in London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing ISTQB.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing ISTQB

ISTQB
Contract Job Locations in London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing ISTQB within the London region over the 6 months to 4 October 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
Central London -18 5 £650 +26.83% 3
East London +4 1 £400 -
North London 0 1 £525 -
ISTQB
England

ISTQB
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London 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 7 (14.89%) Confluence
2 6 (12.77%) SharePoint
3 4 (8.51%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (2.13%) Appian
Applications
1 4 (8.51%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (6.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (2.13%) Chatbot
3 1 (2.13%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (4.26%) IntelliMatch
1 2 (4.26%) Summit
2 1 (2.13%) Oracle EBS R12
2 1 (2.13%) Oracle General Ledger
2 1 (2.13%) Oracle Payables
2 1 (2.13%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (2.13%) Oracle Receivables
2 1 (2.13%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (2.13%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 21 (44.68%) Azure
2 15 (31.91%) Azure DevOps
3 10 (21.28%) AWS
4 3 (6.38%) OpenShift
5 2 (4.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 2 (4.26%) Amazon EC2
5 2 (4.26%) Amazon EKS
5 2 (4.26%) Amazon EventBridge
5 2 (4.26%) Amazon S3
5 2 (4.26%) Amazon SQS
5 2 (4.26%) AWS Lambda
5 2 (4.26%) SaaS
5 2 (4.26%) Serverless
5 2 (4.26%) SuccessFactors
5 2 (4.26%) Tricentis Tosca
6 1 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
6 1 (2.13%) Entra ID
6 1 (2.13%) GCP
6 1 (2.13%) Power Platform
6 1 (2.13%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 5 (10.64%) Network Security
2 1 (2.13%) Firewall
2 1 (2.13%) LAN
2 1 (2.13%) SD-WAN
2 1 (2.13%) WAN
2 1 (2.13%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (6.38%) Oracle Database
1 3 (6.38%) Tableau
2 2 (4.26%) SQL Server
3 1 (2.13%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
3 1 (2.13%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (2.13%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 18 (38.30%) Selenium
2 17 (36.17%) JIRA
3 10 (21.28%) Jenkins
4 9 (19.15%) JMeter
5 6 (12.77%) GitLab
5 6 (12.77%) LoadRunner
5 6 (12.77%) Postman
6 5 (10.64%) Cypress.io
6 5 (10.64%) eggPlant
6 5 (10.64%) REST Assured
7 4 (8.51%) Git
7 4 (8.51%) HP UFT
8 3 (6.38%) Appium
8 3 (6.38%) SoapUI
8 3 (6.38%) SonarQube
8 3 (6.38%) TestRail
8 3 (6.38%) WebDriver
8 3 (6.38%) Zephyr
9 2 (4.26%) Cucumber
9 2 (4.26%) Gradle
General
1 23 (48.94%) Finance
1 23 (48.94%) Social Skills
2 19 (40.43%) Banking
3 15 (31.91%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (6.38%) Public Sector
5 2 (4.26%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (4.26%) Front Office
5 2 (4.26%) Police
5 2 (4.26%) Telecoms
6 1 (2.13%) Arabic Language
6 1 (2.13%) Financial Institution
6 1 (2.13%) General Ledger
6 1 (2.13%) Investment Banking
6 1 (2.13%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 13 (27.66%) Test Manager
2 8 (17.02%) Lead
3 7 (14.89%) Test Engineer
3 7 (14.89%) Tester
4 6 (12.77%) Senior
4 6 (12.77%) Test Leader
5 5 (10.64%) Network Manager
5 5 (10.64%) Test Automation Engineer
6 4 (8.51%) Analyst
7 3 (6.38%) Business Analyst
8 2 (4.26%) Development Engineer
8 2 (4.26%) Programme Manager
8 2 (4.26%) Programme Test Manager
8 2 (4.26%) QA Tester
8 2 (4.26%) Senior Software Engineer
8 2 (4.26%) Senior Test Engineer
8 2 (4.26%) Software Development Engineer
8 2 (4.26%) Software Engineer
8 2 (4.26%) Test Development Engineer
8 2 (4.26%) Test Programme Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (19.15%) Kafka
2 7 (14.89%) Playwright
3 6 (12.77%) REST
3 6 (12.77%) XML
4 5 (10.64%) .NET
4 5 (10.64%) Web Services
5 3 (6.38%) Middleware
5 3 (6.38%) SOAP
5 3 (6.38%) Terraform
6 2 (4.26%) HTML
6 2 (4.26%) XBRL
6 2 (4.26%) XSD
7 1 (2.13%) ADO
7 1 (2.13%) JSON
7 1 (2.13%) Oracle Fusion
7 1 (2.13%) pytest
7 1 (2.13%) RFC 2544
7 1 (2.13%) SailPoint
7 1 (2.13%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 4 (8.51%) SWIFT Messaging Network
2 3 (6.38%) Distributed Systems
3 2 (4.26%) Cloud Native
3 2 (4.26%) DTCC
3 2 (4.26%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 2 (4.26%) IVR
3 2 (4.26%) Onboarding
3 2 (4.26%) Product Ownership
3 2 (4.26%) Virtual Team
4 1 (2.13%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (2.13%) Data Centre
4 1 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
4 1 (2.13%) Fibre Optics
4 1 (2.13%) IoT
4 1 (2.13%) Low-Code
4 1 (2.13%) SCADA
4 1 (2.13%) Self-Motivation
4 1 (2.13%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 8 (17.02%) Linux
2 6 (12.77%) Unix
3 3 (6.38%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 31 (65.96%) Test Automation
2 24 (51.06%) Test Strategy
3 23 (48.94%) Agile
4 22 (46.81%) End-to-End Testing
5 21 (44.68%) Stakeholder Management
6 20 (42.55%) Defect Management
7 18 (38.30%) DevOps
8 16 (34.04%) User Acceptance Testing
9 15 (31.91%) Software Testing
10 14 (29.79%) CI/CD
11 13 (27.66%) Test Management
12 12 (25.53%) Problem-Solving
12 12 (25.53%) Test Planning
13 11 (23.40%) Scenario Testing
14 10 (21.28%) Acceptance Criteria
14 10 (21.28%) Continuous Improvement
14 10 (21.28%) Non-Functional Testing
14 10 (21.28%) Regression Testing
14 10 (21.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 10 (21.28%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 17 (36.17%) SQL
2 12 (25.53%) Java
3 11 (23.40%) Python
4 5 (10.64%) C#
4 5 (10.64%) JavaScript
5 2 (4.26%) PL/SQL
5 2 (4.26%) VB.NET
5 2 (4.26%) VBA
Qualifications
1 19 (40.43%) Security Cleared
2 17 (36.17%) SC Cleared
3 13 (27.66%) ISEB
4 12 (25.53%) Degree
5 10 (21.28%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 5 (10.64%) AWS Certification
6 5 (10.64%) DV Cleared
6 5 (10.64%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 2 (4.26%) Azure Certification
7 2 (4.26%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (4.26%) IIBA
8 1 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (2.13%) CCNA
8 1 (2.13%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (2.13%) ITIL Certification
8 1 (2.13%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (46.81%) QA
2 7 (14.89%) ISO 20022
3 3 (6.38%) ISO 15022
4 2 (4.26%) ISO 9001
5 1 (2.13%) Accessibility
5 1 (2.13%) Data Quality
5 1 (2.13%) EMIR
5 1 (2.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (2.13%) MiFID
5 1 (2.13%) NCSC
5 1 (2.13%) NIST
System Software
1 6 (12.77%) Docker
2 1 (2.13%) Firmware
2 1 (2.13%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 6 (12.77%) Kubernetes
2 5 (10.64%) Ansible
3 3 (6.38%) Control-M
3 3 (6.38%) HP Fortify
4 1 (2.13%) Argo
4 1 (2.13%) HP ALM
4 1 (2.13%) HP Quality Center
Vendors
1 10 (21.28%) Oracle
2 7 (14.89%) Microsoft
2 7 (14.89%) SAP
3 5 (10.64%) Citrix
4 3 (6.38%) Cisco
4 3 (6.38%) IBM
5 2 (4.26%) Avaloq
5 2 (4.26%) Bloomberg
5 2 (4.26%) Murex
5 2 (4.26%) Workday
6 1 (2.13%) Atlassian
6 1 (2.13%) Genesys
6 1 (2.13%) HP
6 1 (2.13%) Micro Focus
6 1 (2.13%) Parasoft
6 1 (2.13%) Qualtrics
6 1 (2.13%) SOASTA
6 1 (2.13%) Verint