Test Strategy Contracts in the North of England

Test Strategy
England > North of England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the North of England requiring Test Strategy skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Test Strategy over the 6 months leading up to 26 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 118 133 151
Rank change year-on-year +15 +18 +12
Contract jobs citing Test Strategy 64 38 53
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the North of England 1.63% 0.87% 0.99%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.84% 1.04% 1.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 55 28 34
10th Percentile £320 £397 £408
25th Percentile £375 £424 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £479 £563
Median % change year-on-year -6.73% -14.80% +7.14%
75th Percentile £517 £575 £700
90th Percentile £545 - £743
England median daily rate £463 £513 £500
% change year-on-year -9.76% +2.50% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £81.75 £67.50 -
Median hourly rate £83.50 £70.00 -
Median % change year-on-year +19.29% - -
75th Percentile £85.25 £72.50 -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £60.00 £60.00 £61.63
% change year-on-year - -2.64% +137.04%

All Process and Methodology Skills
North of England

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 North of England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 3,487 3,666 4,801
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 88.77% 84.14% 89.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,227 2,228 3,227
10th Percentile £268 £300 £300
25th Percentile £375 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £500 £501
Median % change year-on-year -7.00% -0.10% +0.10%
75th Percentile £551 £585 £600
90th Percentile £650 £669 £688
England median daily rate £513 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.38% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 203 283 205
10th Percentile £12.82 £11.15 £15.73
25th Percentile £17.46 £13.50 £18.00
Median hourly rate £22.63 £22.88 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -1.07% -16.82% +36.61%
75th Percentile £43.39 £47.50 £43.75
90th Percentile £72.29 £68.50 £55.15
England median hourly rate £25.15 £40.33 £42.50
% change year-on-year -37.63% -5.12% +63.46%

Test Strategy
Job Vacancy Trend in the North of England

Job postings citing Test Strategy as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the North of England.

Job vacancy trend for Test Strategy in the North of England

Test Strategy
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the North of England

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Test Strategy in the North of England.

Daily rate trend for Test Strategy in the North of England

Test Strategy
Daily Rate Histogram in the North of England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Strategy in the North of England over the 6 months to 26 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Test Strategy in the North of England

Test Strategy
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the North of England

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Test Strategy in the North of England.

Hourly rate trend for Test Strategy in the North of England

Test Strategy
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 Test Strategy within the North of England region over the 6 months to 26 July 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
North West +21 34 £429 -4.67% 30
Yorkshire +3 28 £475 -13.64% 17
North East -7 2 £390 -7.14% 3
Test Strategy
England

Test Strategy
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:

Application Platforms
1 4 (6.25%) CICS
1 4 (6.25%) Confluence
2 2 (3.13%) WebSphere
3 1 (1.56%) JBoss
3 1 (1.56%) Oracle Workflow
3 1 (1.56%) Tomcat
Applications
1 5 (7.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 5 (7.81%) MS Visio
2 1 (1.56%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (3.13%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 5 (7.81%) AWS
2 3 (4.69%) GitHub
3 2 (3.13%) Google Play
3 2 (3.13%) SuccessFactors
4 1 (1.56%) Azure
4 1 (1.56%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 3 (4.69%) Ethernet
1 3 (4.69%) SD-WAN
2 2 (3.13%) Wireshark
3 1 (1.56%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (6.25%) DB2
2 3 (4.69%) Oracle Database
3 2 (3.13%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (3.13%) Hadoop
3 2 (3.13%) Relational Database
3 2 (3.13%) SQL Server
4 1 (1.56%) Electronic Patient Records
4 1 (1.56%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 14 (21.88%) JIRA
2 13 (20.31%) Selenium
3 11 (17.19%) Git
4 10 (15.63%) Jenkins
5 9 (14.06%) Cucumber
6 8 (12.50%) Maven
7 7 (10.94%) REST Assured
8 6 (9.38%) JUnit
9 5 (7.81%) CircleCI
9 5 (7.81%) IntelliJ
10 4 (6.25%) Gradle
11 3 (4.69%) Cypress.io
11 3 (4.69%) GitLab
11 3 (4.69%) HP UFT
11 3 (4.69%) Postman
11 3 (4.69%) TestRail
12 2 (3.13%) Eclipse
12 2 (3.13%) JMeter
12 2 (3.13%) SOAtest
12 2 (3.13%) TestNG
General
1 10 (15.63%) Analytical Skills
2 8 (12.50%) Finance
2 8 (12.50%) Public Sector
2 8 (12.50%) Social Skills
3 7 (10.94%) Banking
4 3 (4.69%) Local Government
5 2 (3.13%) General Ledger
5 2 (3.13%) Retail Banking
6 1 (1.56%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 21 (32.81%) Test Manager
2 8 (12.50%) Analyst
2 8 (12.50%) Business Analyst
2 8 (12.50%) Tester
3 7 (10.94%) Developer
3 7 (10.94%) Test Engineer
4 6 (9.38%) Senior
4 6 (9.38%) ServiceNow Business Analyst
5 5 (7.81%) Lead
5 5 (7.81%) Migration Manager
6 4 (6.25%) Automation Tester
6 4 (6.25%) Senior Analyst
6 4 (6.25%) Senior Business Analyst
7 3 (4.69%) iOS Developer
7 3 (4.69%) Network Engineer
7 3 (4.69%) Programme Manager
7 3 (4.69%) Programme Test Manager
7 3 (4.69%) Test Programme Manager
7 3 (4.69%) UAT Tester
8 2 (3.13%) Android Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (9.38%) RESTful
2 5 (7.81%) Playwright
3 3 (4.69%) SwiftUI
4 2 (3.13%) Android Jetpack
4 2 (3.13%) J2EE
4 2 (3.13%) Jetpack Compose
4 2 (3.13%) JSON
4 2 (3.13%) Node.js
4 2 (3.13%) pytest
4 2 (3.13%) REST
4 2 (3.13%) Web Services
4 2 (3.13%) XML
5 1 (1.56%) jQuery
5 1 (1.56%) SOAP
5 1 (1.56%) Spring
5 1 (1.56%) Spring Boot
5 1 (1.56%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 7 (10.94%) CMDB
1 7 (10.94%) Management Information System
2 5 (7.81%) Data Centre
2 5 (7.81%) Mainframe
2 5 (7.81%) Mobile App
3 4 (6.25%) VSAM
4 3 (4.69%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 3 (4.69%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (3.13%) Mobile Payment
5 2 (3.13%) NHS
5 2 (3.13%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (1.56%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 3 (4.69%) Apple iOS
1 3 (4.69%) Unix
2 2 (3.13%) Android
2 2 (3.13%) Windows
3 1 (1.56%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (46.88%) Test Automation
2 24 (37.50%) Agile
3 20 (31.25%) User Acceptance Testing
4 19 (29.69%) Continuous Improvement
5 18 (28.13%) CI/CD
6 16 (25.00%) Migration
7 15 (23.44%) Test Planning
8 14 (21.88%) Risk Management
8 14 (21.88%) Test Scripting
9 12 (18.75%) End-to-End Testing
9 12 (18.75%) Problem-Solving
9 12 (18.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 11 (17.19%) Scenario Testing
10 11 (17.19%) Software Testing
10 11 (17.19%) Stakeholder Management
10 11 (17.19%) Test Management
11 10 (15.63%) DevOps
12 8 (12.50%) Business Analysis
13 7 (10.94%) TDD
13 7 (10.94%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 16 (25.00%) Java
2 5 (7.81%) Python
3 4 (6.25%) COBOL
3 4 (6.25%) JavaScript
3 4 (6.25%) JCL
4 3 (4.69%) Bash
4 3 (4.69%) SQL
4 3 (4.69%) Swift
5 2 (3.13%) Kotlin
5 2 (3.13%) REXX
6 1 (1.56%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 8 (12.50%) Security Cleared
2 7 (10.94%) Degree
3 5 (7.81%) SC Cleared
4 4 (6.25%) ISTQB
5 2 (3.13%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (1.56%) CCNA
6 1 (1.56%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (1.56%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (46.88%) QA
2 3 (4.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (3.13%) Accessibility
3 2 (3.13%) Data Quality
3 2 (3.13%) WCAG
4 1 (1.56%) GDPR
System Software
1 3 (4.69%) Docker
Systems Management
1 6 (9.38%) HP ALM
2 2 (3.13%) Ansible
Vendors
1 9 (14.06%) Microsoft
2 7 (10.94%) Oracle
2 7 (10.94%) ServiceNow
3 6 (9.38%) HP
4 3 (4.69%) Cisco
4 3 (4.69%) Juniper
4 3 (4.69%) Nokia
4 3 (4.69%) SAP
5 2 (3.13%) Ab Initio
5 2 (3.13%) Google
5 2 (3.13%) Informatica
5 2 (3.13%) Meraki
5 2 (3.13%) Parasoft
5 2 (3.13%) Salesforce
6 1 (1.56%) Ariba