Test Strategy Contract Job Trends in the Midlands

Test Strategy
England > Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the Midlands requiring Test Strategy skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 21 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 87 95 126
Rank change year-on-year +8 +31 -92
Contract jobs citing Test Strategy 82 35 7
As % of all contract jobs in the Midlands 2.60% 1.51% 0.27%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.01% 1.75% 0.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 55 28 3
10th Percentile £360 £305 £430
25th Percentile £441 £367 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £518 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.48% +3.50% -7.06%
75th Percentile £539 £575 -
90th Percentile £547 £756 -
England median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 1
Median hourly rate - - £55.00
England median hourly rate £55.00 £85.00 £61.63
% change year-on-year -35.29% +37.92% +45.47%

All Process and Methodology Skills
Midlands

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 the Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 2,724 1,999 2,201
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Midlands 86.28% 86.39% 84.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,703 1,255 1,508
10th Percentile £250 £250 £253
25th Percentile £375 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -4.04%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £589
90th Percentile £650 £700 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -3.81% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 199 71 94
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.70 £13.08
25th Percentile £16.35 £17.00 £16.77
Median hourly rate £18.87 £22.00 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.23% -4.35% +36.66%
75th Percentile £25.15 £32.91 £51.50
90th Percentile £31.00 £52.50 £67.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +19.85%

Test Strategy
Job Vacancy Trend in the Midlands

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

Test Strategy job vacancy trend in the Midlands

Test Strategy
Daily Rate Trend in the Midlands

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Midlands citing Test Strategy

Test Strategy
Daily Rate Histogram in the Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Strategy in the Midlands over the 6 months to 21 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Test Strategy in the Midlands

Test Strategy
Hourly Rate Trend in the Midlands

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Midlands citing Test Strategy

Test Strategy
Contract Job Locations in the Midlands

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 Midlands region over the 6 months to 21 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
West Midlands +11 64 £522 +2.30% 4
East Midlands -11 18 £421 -19.81% 3
Test Strategy
England

Test Strategy
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Midlands 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 25 (30.49%) SAS
2 16 (19.51%) Apache
3 14 (17.07%) WebLogic
4 8 (9.76%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (4.88%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 5 (6.10%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (3.66%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (1.22%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (2.44%) Maximo
1 2 (2.44%) Oracle ERP
1 2 (2.44%) Workday HCM
2 1 (1.22%) Oracle Assets
2 1 (1.22%) Oracle General Ledger
2 1 (1.22%) Oracle Payables
2 1 (1.22%) Oracle Receivables
2 1 (1.22%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 26 (31.71%) Azure
2 25 (30.49%) AWS
3 14 (17.07%) Azure Monitor
3 14 (17.07%) OpenShift
4 5 (6.10%) PaaS
4 5 (6.10%) Power Platform
5 4 (4.88%) Microsoft 365
6 3 (3.66%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (2.44%) GitHub
7 2 (2.44%) SaaS
8 1 (1.22%) AWS CodeBuild
8 1 (1.22%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (1.22%) Google Analytics
8 1 (1.22%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
8 1 (1.22%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 3 (3.66%) HTTP
2 1 (1.22%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (18.29%) SAS Enterprise Guide
2 11 (13.41%) Oracle Database
2 11 (13.41%) SAS Visual Analytics
3 5 (6.10%) Power BI
4 4 (4.88%) SAS Data Integration Studio
5 3 (3.66%) Tableau
6 1 (1.22%) Metadata
6 1 (1.22%) MongoDB
6 1 (1.22%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 23 (28.05%) Selenium
2 19 (23.17%) GitLab
3 15 (18.29%) Git
3 15 (18.29%) Jenkins
3 15 (18.29%) JUnit
4 11 (13.41%) JIRA
5 4 (4.88%) Cypress.io
6 3 (3.66%) LoadRunner
7 2 (2.44%) Cucumber
7 2 (2.44%) TestPartner
8 1 (1.22%) Gatling
8 1 (1.22%) NeoLoad
8 1 (1.22%) Postman
8 1 (1.22%) REST Assured
8 1 (1.22%) SoapUI
8 1 (1.22%) Zephyr
General
1 44 (53.66%) Social Skills
2 10 (12.20%) Public Sector
3 9 (10.98%) Finance
4 6 (7.32%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (3.66%) Analytical Skills
6 1 (1.22%) Banking
6 1 (1.22%) Marketing
6 1 (1.22%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (1.22%) Retail
6 1 (1.22%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 15 (18.29%) Test Specialist
2 11 (13.41%) Monitoring Engineer
2 11 (13.41%) Tester
3 10 (12.20%) Platform Engineer
4 8 (9.76%) Lead
5 7 (8.54%) Automation Tester
5 7 (8.54%) Test Automation Specialist
6 6 (7.32%) Release Manager
7 5 (6.10%) Analyst
7 5 (6.10%) Test Leader
8 4 (4.88%) Test Analyst
8 4 (4.88%) Test Manager
9 3 (3.66%) Manual Tester
9 3 (3.66%) QA Analyst
9 3 (3.66%) QA Test Analyst
9 3 (3.66%) Security Specialist
9 3 (3.66%) Test Engineer
10 2 (2.44%) Configuration Engineer
10 2 (2.44%) Network Specialist
10 2 (2.44%) Performance Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (23.17%) REST
2 14 (17.07%) pytest
3 3 (3.66%) .NET
3 3 (3.66%) Playwright
3 3 (3.66%) SailPoint
4 2 (2.44%) Apache NiFi
4 2 (2.44%) Middleware
4 2 (2.44%) React
5 1 (1.22%) Enzyme
5 1 (1.22%) GraphQL
5 1 (1.22%) Jest
5 1 (1.22%) jQuery
5 1 (1.22%) JSON
5 1 (1.22%) Node.js
5 1 (1.22%) RabbitMQ
5 1 (1.22%) Redux
5 1 (1.22%) Sass
Miscellaneous
1 4 (4.88%) Cloud Native
1 4 (4.88%) SCADA
2 2 (2.44%) Greenfield Project
2 2 (2.44%) Product Ownership
3 1 (1.22%) AI Agents
3 1 (1.22%) Data Centre
3 1 (1.22%) Legacy Code
3 1 (1.22%) Legacy Systems
3 1 (1.22%) Mainframe
3 1 (1.22%) Management Information System
3 1 (1.22%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 14 (17.07%) Linux
1 14 (17.07%) Unix
1 14 (17.07%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (54.88%) Analytics
2 34 (41.46%) Test Automation
3 33 (40.24%) CI/CD
4 30 (36.59%) DevOps
5 26 (31.71%) Agile
5 26 (31.71%) Continuous Improvement
6 23 (28.05%) Defect Management
7 22 (26.83%) Test Scripting
7 22 (26.83%) Visual Analytics
8 21 (25.61%) Problem-Solving
8 21 (25.61%) Stakeholder Management
9 20 (24.39%) Business Intelligence
9 20 (24.39%) Containerisation
10 19 (23.17%) Full-Stack Development
10 19 (23.17%) Incident Response
10 19 (23.17%) Log Analytics
10 19 (23.17%) Observability
10 19 (23.17%) Proactive Management
10 19 (23.17%) Service Management
10 19 (23.17%) Synthetic Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 18 (21.95%) SQL
2 13 (15.85%) Python
3 4 (4.88%) Java
4 3 (3.66%) JavaScript
5 2 (2.44%) C#
5 2 (2.44%) TypeScript
6 1 (1.22%) PHP
6 1 (1.22%) PL/SQL
6 1 (1.22%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 44 (53.66%) Security Cleared
2 39 (47.56%) SC Cleared
3 3 (3.66%) CISA
3 3 (3.66%) CISM
3 3 (3.66%) CISSP
3 3 (3.66%) DV Cleared
3 3 (3.66%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (10.98%) QA
2 5 (6.10%) Accessibility
3 3 (3.66%) COBIT
3 3 (3.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (3.66%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
3 3 (3.66%) NIST
3 3 (3.66%) NIST 800
4 1 (1.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 1 (1.22%) SLA
4 1 (1.22%) WCAG
System Software
1 17 (20.73%) Docker
Systems Management
1 19 (23.17%) Kubernetes
2 3 (3.66%) Kibana
2 3 (3.66%) RSA Archer
3 2 (2.44%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 37 (45.12%) Oracle
2 22 (26.83%) AppDynamics
2 22 (26.83%) Dynatrace
2 22 (26.83%) Splunk
3 18 (21.95%) Cisco
4 11 (13.41%) Microsoft
5 3 (3.66%) Alteryx
5 3 (3.66%) New Relic
5 3 (3.66%) Rapid7
5 3 (3.66%) ServiceNow
6 2 (2.44%) HP
6 2 (2.44%) IBM
6 2 (2.44%) MuleSoft
6 2 (2.44%) Workday
7 1 (1.22%) Adobe
7 1 (1.22%) Atlassian
7 1 (1.22%) Google
7 1 (1.22%) Salesforce
7 1 (1.22%) SAP