Test Engineer Contract Job Trends in the North East

Test Engineer
England > North East

The median Test Engineer daily rate in the North East is £445, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 20 September 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 30 34 30
Rank change year-on-year +4 -4 +31
Contract jobs requiring a Test Engineer 8 1 4
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the North East 2.75% 0.36% 1.67%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.03% 0.41% 1.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 7 0 2
10th Percentile £374 - £401
25th Percentile £418 - £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 - £411
Median % change year-on-year - - +9.67%
75th Percentile £486 - £425
90th Percentile £524 - £430
England median daily rate £406 £486 £475
% change year-on-year -16.43% +2.37% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £79.17 -
England median hourly rate £50.00 £55.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year -9.09% +4.76% -6.25%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
North East

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the North East. 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 the North East with a recognized job title 264 246 224
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.72% 88.81% 93.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 162 111 167
10th Percentile £191 £256 £253
25th Percentile £338 £385 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% -14.29%
75th Percentile £543 £590 £578
90th Percentile £642 £650 £667
England median daily rate £510 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 27 7
10th Percentile £11.95 £11.03 £14.95
25th Percentile £13.75 £22.25 £16.63
Median hourly rate £19.25 £46.18 £32.00
Median % change year-on-year -58.32% +44.31% +88.24%
75th Percentile £20.63 £48.09 £39.97
90th Percentile £48.80 £70.00 £46.18
England median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £45.00
% change year-on-year -45.54% +2.62% +73.08%

Test Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the North East

Job postings that featured Test Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the North East.

Job vacancy trend for Test Engineer in the North East

Test Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the North East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in the North East.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in the North East

Test Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the North East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Engineer in the North East over the 6 months to 20 September 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Test Engineer in the North East

Test Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the North East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in the North East.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in the North East

Test Engineer
Contract Job Locations in the North East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Test Engineer within the North East region over the 6 months to 20 September 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
Tyne and Wear - 8 £445 - 5
Test Engineer
England

Test Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the North East

For the 6 months to 20 September 2025, Test Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the North East region featuring Test Engineer in the job title.

1 8 (100.00%) Test Automation
1 8 (100.00%) CI/CD
2 7 (87.50%) Agile
3 6 (75.00%) Java
3 6 (75.00%) Cucumber
3 6 (75.00%) Public Sector
4 5 (62.50%) SC Cleared
4 5 (62.50%) Security Cleared
5 4 (50.00%) BDD
5 4 (50.00%) Selenium
5 4 (50.00%) REST Assured
5 4 (50.00%) API Testing
6 3 (37.50%) Accessibility
6 3 (37.50%) Performance Testing
6 3 (37.50%) Security Testing
6 3 (37.50%) AWS
6 3 (37.50%) Non-Functional Testing
6 3 (37.50%) Docker
6 3 (37.50%) Microservices
6 3 (37.50%) WireMock
7 2 (25.00%) Gherkin
7 2 (25.00%) Functional Testing
7 2 (25.00%) Spring Boot
7 2 (25.00%) QA Automation
7 2 (25.00%) REST
7 2 (25.00%) Azure
7 2 (25.00%) Integration Testing
7 2 (25.00%) JIRA
7 2 (25.00%) QA
7 2 (25.00%) JavaScript

Test Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the North East by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 1 (12.50%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 3 (37.50%) AWS
2 2 (25.00%) Azure
3 1 (12.50%) AWS Lambda
3 1 (12.50%) GCP
3 1 (12.50%) Serverless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (12.50%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 6 (75.00%) Cucumber
2 4 (50.00%) REST Assured
2 4 (50.00%) Selenium
3 2 (25.00%) JIRA
3 2 (25.00%) Postman
4 1 (12.50%) Gatling
4 1 (12.50%) Git
4 1 (12.50%) GitLab
4 1 (12.50%) Jenkins
4 1 (12.50%) JMeter
4 1 (12.50%) SoapUI
4 1 (12.50%) TestRail
General
1 6 (75.00%) Public Sector
2 1 (12.50%) Analytical Skills
2 1 (12.50%) Social Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (37.50%) WireMock
2 2 (25.00%) Gherkin
2 2 (25.00%) REST
2 2 (25.00%) Spring Boot
3 1 (12.50%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 1 (12.50%) Product Ownership
Processes & Methodologies
1 8 (100.00%) CI/CD
1 8 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 7 (87.50%) Agile
3 4 (50.00%) API Testing
3 4 (50.00%) BDD
4 3 (37.50%) Microservices
4 3 (37.50%) Non-Functional Testing
4 3 (37.50%) Performance Testing
4 3 (37.50%) Security Testing
5 2 (25.00%) Containerisation
5 2 (25.00%) Functional Testing
5 2 (25.00%) Integration Testing
5 2 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
5 2 (25.00%) QA Automation
5 2 (25.00%) Scrum
5 2 (25.00%) TDD
5 2 (25.00%) Validation
6 1 (12.50%) End-to-End Testing
6 1 (12.50%) Knowledge Transfer
6 1 (12.50%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 6 (75.00%) Java
2 2 (25.00%) JavaScript
2 2 (25.00%) Python
2 2 (25.00%) SQL
3 1 (12.50%) Bash
Qualifications
1 5 (62.50%) SC Cleared
1 5 (62.50%) Security Cleared
2 1 (12.50%) ISTQB
2 1 (12.50%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (37.50%) Accessibility
2 2 (25.00%) QA
3 1 (12.50%) Data Quality
3 1 (12.50%) WCAG
System Software
1 3 (37.50%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (12.50%) Ansible
1 1 (12.50%) Grafana
1 1 (12.50%) Kubernetes
1 1 (12.50%) Prometheus
1 1 (12.50%) Terraform
Vendors
1 1 (12.50%) Google