SDET Contract Job Trends in the North of England

Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET)
England > North of England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North of England requiring SDET skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 19 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 210 161 180
Rank change year-on-year -49 +19 +55
Contract jobs citing SDET 1 1 6
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 0.021% 0.028% 0.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.024% 0.032% 0.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 1 1 6
10th Percentile - - £428
25th Percentile £375 £481 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -17.95% -2.50% +33.33%
75th Percentile £425 £494 £641
90th Percentile - - £688
England median daily rate £520 £456 £525
% change year-on-year +13.97% -13.10% -4.55%

All Process and Methodology Skills
North of England

SDET 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 North of England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 4,189 3,114 4,134
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 88.62% 86.69% 88.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,790 1,775 2,737
10th Percentile £215 £263 £290
25th Percentile £363 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.05% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £575 £600
90th Percentile £650 £671 £675
England median daily rate £505 £525 £544
% change year-on-year -3.81% -3.49% -1.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 262 157 191
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.22 £15.72
25th Percentile £19.36 £17.25 £17.74
Median hourly rate £28.96 £27.50 £28.44
Median % change year-on-year +5.29% -3.31% +27.82%
75th Percentile £51.50 £46.18 £46.18
90th Percentile £69.25 £66.45 £62.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +19.70%

SDET
Job Vacancy Trend in the North of England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SDET relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England.

SDET job vacancy trend in the North of England

SDET
Daily Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing SDET.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing SDET

SDET
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 SDET within the North of England region over the 6 months to 19 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
Yorkshire -41 1 £400 -17.95%
SDET
England

SDET
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North of England 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 1 (100.00%) Serverless
Development Applications
1 1 (100.00%) Cucumber
Job Titles
1 1 (100.00%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (100.00%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 1 (100.00%) Greenfield Project
Processes & Methodologies
1 1 (100.00%) Acceptance Criteria
1 1 (100.00%) BDD
1 1 (100.00%) CI/CD
1 1 (100.00%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 1 (100.00%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 1 (100.00%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (100.00%) QA