Lead Tester Contract Job Trends in London

Lead Tester
England > London

The median Lead Tester daily rate in London is £565, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 25 February 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 395 346 380
Rank change year-on-year -49 +34 +136
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Tester 7 7 8
As % of all contract jobs in London 0.044% 0.052% 0.044%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.048% 0.056% 0.047%
Number of daily rates quoted 5 2 8
10th Percentile £458 £341 £395
25th Percentile £525 £343 £444
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £565 £345 £563
Median % change year-on-year +63.62% -38.67% -10.36%
75th Percentile £608 £348 £659
90th Percentile £609 £349 £688
England median daily rate £550 £345 £563
% change year-on-year +59.42% -38.67% -6.25%

All Contract IT Job Roles
London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in London. 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 London with a recognized job title 14,630 12,515 16,949
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.57% 93.61% 93.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,791 8,168 12,244
10th Percentile £350 £337 £325
25th Percentile £425 £435 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -5.17%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £788
England median daily rate £503 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.29% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 226 146 335
10th Percentile £18.07 £21.23 £15.97
25th Percentile £23.14 £24.68 £19.00
Median hourly rate £35.00 £35.75 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -2.10% +25.44% -18.57%
75th Percentile £60.19 £53.75 £47.50
90th Percentile £76.58 £78.58 £65.00
England median hourly rate £33.50 £36.50 £34.25
% change year-on-year -8.22% +6.57% -14.38%

Lead Tester
Job Vacancy Trend in London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Lead Tester' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in London.

Lead Tester job vacancy trend in London

Lead Tester
Daily Rate Trend in London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Lead Tester job vacancies in London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Lead Tester job vacancies in London

Lead Tester
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Lead Tester in London over the 6 months to 25 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Lead Tester in London

Lead Tester
Hourly Rate Trend in London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Lead Tester job vacancies in London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Lead Tester job vacancies in London

Lead Tester Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London

For the 6 months to 25 February 2026, Lead Tester 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 London region featuring Lead Tester in the job title.

1 4 (57.14%) Agile
1 4 (57.14%) SQL
1 4 (57.14%) Test Automation
2 3 (42.86%) Azure
2 3 (42.86%) Azure Cosmos DB
2 3 (42.86%) Azure Data Factory
2 3 (42.86%) Azure SQL Database
2 3 (42.86%) Azure Synapse Analytics
2 3 (42.86%) Data Lake
2 3 (42.86%) Data Warehouse
2 3 (42.86%) Databricks
2 3 (42.86%) End-to-End Testing
2 3 (42.86%) ETL
2 3 (42.86%) PySpark
2 3 (42.86%) Python
2 3 (42.86%) QA
2 3 (42.86%) Test Scripting
2 3 (42.86%) Visualisation
3 2 (28.57%) AWS
3 2 (28.57%) CI/CD
3 2 (28.57%) Offensive Security
3 2 (28.57%) Penetration Testing
3 2 (28.57%) SC Cleared
3 2 (28.57%) Security Cleared
3 2 (28.57%) Threat Intelligence
4 1 (14.29%) BDD
4 1 (14.29%) Cucumber
4 1 (14.29%) Event-Driven
4 1 (14.29%) Gatling
4 1 (14.29%) GitHub

Lead Tester Skill Set
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:

Cloud Services
1 3 (42.86%) Azure
1 3 (42.86%) Azure Cosmos DB
1 3 (42.86%) Azure Data Factory
1 3 (42.86%) Azure Synapse Analytics
2 2 (28.57%) AWS
3 1 (14.29%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 1 (14.29%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (42.86%) Azure SQL Database
1 3 (42.86%) Data Lake
1 3 (42.86%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (14.29%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 1 (14.29%) Cucumber
1 1 (14.29%) Gatling
1 1 (14.29%) JMeter
1 1 (14.29%) LoadRunner
1 1 (14.29%) REST Assured
1 1 (14.29%) Selenium
General
1 3 (42.86%) Social Skills
2 1 (14.29%) Finance
2 1 (14.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (42.86%) PySpark
2 1 (14.29%) Kafka
2 1 (14.29%) REST
2 1 (14.29%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 1 (14.29%) Distributed Systems
Processes & Methodologies
1 4 (57.14%) Agile
1 4 (57.14%) Test Automation
2 3 (42.86%) End-to-End Testing
2 3 (42.86%) ETL
2 3 (42.86%) Test Scripting
2 3 (42.86%) Visualisation
3 2 (28.57%) CI/CD
3 2 (28.57%) Offensive Security
3 2 (28.57%) Penetration Testing
3 2 (28.57%) Threat Intelligence
4 1 (14.29%) BDD
4 1 (14.29%) Event-Driven
4 1 (14.29%) Integration Testing
4 1 (14.29%) Performance Testing
4 1 (14.29%) Runbook
4 1 (14.29%) SDLC
4 1 (14.29%) SFIA
4 1 (14.29%) Test Strategy
4 1 (14.29%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
Programming Languages
1 4 (57.14%) SQL
2 3 (42.86%) Python
3 1 (14.29%) Java
Qualifications
1 2 (28.57%) SC Cleared
1 2 (28.57%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (42.86%) QA
Systems Management
1 1 (14.29%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 3 (42.86%) Databricks
2 1 (14.29%) Microsoft