Lead Test Engineer Contract Job Trends in the North of England

Lead Test Engineer
England > North of England

The median Lead Test Engineer daily rate in the North of England is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 30 September 2025.

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

6 months to
30 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 177 164 196
Rank change year-on-year -13 +32 +49
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Test Engineer 4 3 3
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 0.10% 0.074% 0.058%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.11% 0.080% 0.062%
Number of daily rates quoted 4 2 3
10th Percentile - £471 -
25th Percentile £463 £484 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £513 £450
Median % change year-on-year -7.32% +13.89% -
75th Percentile £496 £534 £475
90th Percentile £512 £544 -
England median daily rate £475 £550 £450
% change year-on-year -13.64% +22.22% -28.00%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
North of England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the North of England. 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 of England with a recognized job title 3,674 3,744 4,834
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.08% 91.83% 93.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,437 2,073 3,266
10th Percentile £238 £273 £263
25th Percentile £369 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £493 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.67% -1.40% -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £663 £663 £675
England median daily rate £512 £525 £546
% change year-on-year -2.52% -3.85% -0.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 211 231 208
10th Percentile £13.00 £15.22 £15.75
25th Percentile £17.35 £17.72 £17.65
Median hourly rate £24.50 £32.50 £22.53
Median % change year-on-year -24.62% +44.25% +6.22%
75th Percentile £50.38 £50.50 £46.18
90th Percentile £73.75 £70.90 £64.13
England median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £45.88
% change year-on-year -44.11% -1.92% +73.48%

Lead Test Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the North of England

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

Job vacancy trend for Lead Test Engineer in the North of England

Lead Test Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Lead Test Engineer job vacancies in the North of England.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Lead Test Engineer job vacancies in the North of England

Lead Test Engineer
Contract Job Locations in the North of England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Lead Test Engineer within the North of England region over the 6 months to 30 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
Yorkshire -12 2 £475 -13.64% 2
North East - 2 £495 - 1
Lead Test Engineer
England

Lead Test Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the North of England

For the 6 months to 30 September 2025, Lead 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 of England region featuring Lead Test Engineer in the job title.

1 4 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 3 (75.00%) Agile
3 2 (50.00%) TDD
3 2 (50.00%) Penetration Testing
3 2 (50.00%) Java
3 2 (50.00%) JavaScript
3 2 (50.00%) Python
3 2 (50.00%) Azure
3 2 (50.00%) AWS
3 2 (50.00%) Bash
3 2 (50.00%) BDD
3 2 (50.00%) Node.js
3 2 (50.00%) Selenium
3 2 (50.00%) System Testing
3 2 (50.00%) Test Strategy
3 2 (50.00%) Gherkin
3 2 (50.00%) Ansible
3 2 (50.00%) Docker
3 2 (50.00%) DevOps
3 2 (50.00%) Microservices
3 2 (50.00%) GCP
3 2 (50.00%) GitLab
3 2 (50.00%) Kubernetes
3 2 (50.00%) Terraform
3 2 (50.00%) Grafana
3 2 (50.00%) The Twelve-Factor App
3 2 (50.00%) Digital Transformation Programme
3 2 (50.00%) Prometheus
3 2 (50.00%) Technical Leadership
3 2 (50.00%) Infrastructure as Code

Lead Test Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the North of England 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:

Cloud Services
1 2 (50.00%) AWS
1 2 (50.00%) Azure
1 2 (50.00%) GCP
Development Applications
1 2 (50.00%) GitLab
1 2 (50.00%) Selenium
General
1 2 (50.00%) Public Sector
2 1 (25.00%) Social Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (50.00%) Gherkin
1 2 (50.00%) Node.js
Processes & Methodologies
1 4 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 3 (75.00%) Agile
3 2 (50.00%) BDD
3 2 (50.00%) CI/CD
3 2 (50.00%) DevOps
3 2 (50.00%) Digital Transformation Programme
3 2 (50.00%) End-to-End Testing
3 2 (50.00%) Infrastructure as Code
3 2 (50.00%) Microservices
3 2 (50.00%) Penetration Testing
3 2 (50.00%) System Testing
3 2 (50.00%) TDD
3 2 (50.00%) Technical Leadership
3 2 (50.00%) Test Strategy
3 2 (50.00%) The Twelve-Factor App
4 1 (25.00%) Defect Management
4 1 (25.00%) Identity Access Management
4 1 (25.00%) Mentoring
4 1 (25.00%) Observability
4 1 (25.00%) Operational Stability
Programming Languages
1 2 (50.00%) Bash
1 2 (50.00%) Java
1 2 (50.00%) JavaScript
1 2 (50.00%) Python
Qualifications
1 1 (25.00%) SC Cleared
1 1 (25.00%) Security Cleared
System Software
1 2 (50.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (50.00%) Ansible
1 2 (50.00%) Grafana
1 2 (50.00%) Kubernetes
1 2 (50.00%) Prometheus
1 2 (50.00%) Terraform
Vendors
1 1 (25.00%) Google