Software Testing Contracts in the North West

Software Testing
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the North West requiring Software Testing skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Software Testing over the 6 months leading up to 16 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 114 114 105
Rank change year-on-year 0 -9 +27
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 13 21 49
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the North West 0.66% 0.79% 1.60%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.74% 0.92% 1.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 7 9 43
10th Percentile £334 £388 £150
25th Percentile £376 £425 £285
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £395
Median % change year-on-year - +20.25% -16.84%
75th Percentile £606 £500 £515
90th Percentile £663 £528 £598
England median daily rate £448 £454 £500
% change year-on-year -1.32% -9.20% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 5 0
Median hourly rate £12.76 £45.88 -
Median % change year-on-year -72.19% - -
England median hourly rate £60.50 £62.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -3.20% +19.05% +7.14%

All Process and Methodology Skills
North West

Software Testing 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 West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,762 2,284 2,778
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 90.08% 85.96% 90.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,148 1,452 1,952
10th Percentile £300 £308 £313
25th Percentile £388 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £596 £588
90th Percentile £663 £689 £675
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% +2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 104 252 138
10th Percentile £15.23 £10.96 £16.78
25th Percentile £22.74 £13.50 £23.15
Median hourly rate £31.88 £24.15 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year +32.04% -32.93% +52.90%
75th Percentile £63.10 £45.96 £49.49
90th Percentile £85.03 £62.50 £66.00
England median hourly rate £28.75 £36.50 £37.30
% change year-on-year -21.23% -2.14% +49.20%

Software Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Job postings citing Software Testing as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Job vacancy trend for Software Testing in the North West

Software Testing
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the North West

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Software Testing in the North West.

Daily rate trend for Software Testing in the North West

Software Testing
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Testing in the North West over the 6 months to 16 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Software Testing in the North West

Software Testing
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Software Testing in the North West.

Hourly rate trend for Software Testing in the North West

Software Testing
Contract Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Software Testing within the North West region over the 6 months to 16 May 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
Manchester +15 7 £403 -17.44% 40
Lancashire -3 3 £483 - 34
Merseyside - 2 £625 - 7
Cheshire -5 1 £340 -17.58% 15
Software Testing
England

Software Testing
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the North West 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 (7.69%) CICS
Applications
1 1 (7.69%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (15.38%) Unit4 Business World
2 1 (7.69%) Misys Midas
Cloud Services
1 2 (15.38%) Power Automate
2 1 (7.69%) AWS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (15.38%) InterSystems Cache
2 1 (7.69%) DB2
2 1 (7.69%) Oracle Database
2 1 (7.69%) Relational Database
2 1 (7.69%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 5 (38.46%) Selenium
2 4 (30.77%) JMeter
2 4 (30.77%) LoadRunner
3 1 (7.69%) Cucumber
3 1 (7.69%) Eclipse
3 1 (7.69%) Git
3 1 (7.69%) IntelliJ
3 1 (7.69%) Jenkins
3 1 (7.69%) Maven
3 1 (7.69%) Postman
3 1 (7.69%) Rational DOORS
3 1 (7.69%) REST Assured
3 1 (7.69%) SpecFlow
General
1 8 (61.54%) Social Skills
2 7 (53.85%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (23.08%) Finance
4 1 (7.69%) Games
4 1 (7.69%) Manufacturing
4 1 (7.69%) Military
4 1 (7.69%) Pharmaceutical
4 1 (7.69%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 7 (53.85%) Tester
2 6 (46.15%) Software Tester
3 3 (23.08%) Test Manager
4 1 (7.69%) Automation Tester
4 1 (7.69%) C++ Software Engineer
4 1 (7.69%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (7.69%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 1 (7.69%) Mainframe
1 1 (7.69%) Onboarding
1 1 (7.69%) VSAM
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (53.85%) Test Automation
2 6 (46.15%) Test Strategy
3 5 (38.46%) CI/CD
3 5 (38.46%) DevOps
3 5 (38.46%) System Integration Testing
3 5 (38.46%) User Acceptance Testing
4 4 (30.77%) Data Validation
4 4 (30.77%) End-to-End Testing
4 4 (30.77%) Integration Testing
4 4 (30.77%) Manual Testing
4 4 (30.77%) Performance Testing
4 4 (30.77%) Process Improvement
4 4 (30.77%) System Testing
4 4 (30.77%) Validation
5 3 (23.08%) Problem-Solving
6 2 (15.38%) Change Management
6 2 (15.38%) Defect Management
6 2 (15.38%) ITIL
6 2 (15.38%) Service Management
6 2 (15.38%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 6 (46.15%) SQL
2 2 (15.38%) MUMPS
3 1 (7.69%) C++
3 1 (7.69%) COBOL
3 1 (7.69%) Java
3 1 (7.69%) JCL
Qualifications
1 7 (53.85%) ISTQB
2 2 (15.38%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
3 1 (7.69%) SC Cleared
3 1 (7.69%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (7.69%) MISRA
1 1 (7.69%) MISRA C
1 1 (7.69%) QA
Vendors
1 2 (15.38%) Microsoft
2 1 (7.69%) Atlassian
2 1 (7.69%) Oracle
2 1 (7.69%) Virgin Media