Tester Contracts in the North West

Tester
England > North West

The median Tester daily rate in the North West is £425, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 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
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 98 124 117
Rank change year-on-year +26 -7 +1
Contract jobs requiring a Tester 22 13 40
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the North West 1.12% 0.47% 1.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.21% 0.50% 1.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 16 8 28
10th Percentile £321 £368 -
25th Percentile £373 £375 £285
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £400 £340
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% +17.65% -12.26%
75th Percentile £500 £456 £438
90th Percentile £516 £503 £503
England median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% +14.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
Median hourly rate £12.76 - -
England median hourly rate £32.63 £30.15 £72.00
% change year-on-year +8.23% -58.13% +289.19%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
North West

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the North West. 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 West with a recognized job title 1,821 2,603 3,030
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.53% 94.48% 94.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,205 1,698 2,172
10th Percentile £250 £281 £300
25th Percentile £378 £393 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £493 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.65% -1.40% +5.26%
75th Percentile £563 £588 £588
90th Percentile £652 £675 £675
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 111 266 133
10th Percentile £13.00 £11.07 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.44 £13.50 £20.00
Median hourly rate £29.23 £26.53 £30.54
Median % change year-on-year +10.20% -13.15% +50.37%
75th Percentile £59.24 £46.18 £47.50
90th Percentile £83.41 £63.75 £65.00
England median hourly rate £30.62 £36.31 £45.00
% change year-on-year -15.67% -19.32% +100.00%

Tester
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Job postings that featured Tester in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Job vacancy trend for Tester in the North West

Tester
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the North West

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

Daily rate trend for Tester in the North West

Tester
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Tester in the North West over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Tester in the North West

Tester
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

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

Hourly rate trend for Tester in the North West

Tester
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 Tester within the North West region over the 6 months to 1 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 +23 16 £425 +6.25% 6
Cheshire +4 5 £436 +9.00% 2
Tester
England

Tester Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the North West

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, Tester 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 West region featuring Tester in the job title.

1 17 (77.27%) Test Automation
2 10 (45.45%) User Acceptance Testing
3 9 (40.91%) Test Scripting
4 8 (36.36%) System Testing
4 8 (36.36%) Selenium
4 8 (36.36%) System Integration Testing
4 8 (36.36%) Social Skills
5 7 (31.82%) CI/CD
5 7 (31.82%) JIRA
6 6 (27.27%) Agile
6 6 (27.27%) Software Testing
6 6 (27.27%) Onboarding
7 5 (22.73%) End-to-End Testing
7 5 (22.73%) Analytical Skills
7 5 (22.73%) Problem-Solving
7 5 (22.73%) JMeter
7 5 (22.73%) SQL
7 5 (22.73%) Performance Testing
7 5 (22.73%) Integration Testing
7 5 (22.73%) Manual Testing
7 5 (22.73%) ServiceNow
7 5 (22.73%) DevOps
8 4 (18.18%) Black-Box Testing
8 4 (18.18%) Process Improvement
8 4 (18.18%) Test Strategy
8 4 (18.18%) Data Validation
8 4 (18.18%) LoadRunner
8 4 (18.18%) Validation
8 4 (18.18%) ISTQB
8 4 (18.18%) Public Sector

Tester Skill Set
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 (4.55%) CICS
1 1 (4.55%) WebSphere
Applications
1 1 (4.55%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 2 (9.09%) AWS
2 1 (4.55%) Dynamics 365
2 1 (4.55%) OpenShift
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (4.55%) DB2
Development Applications
1 8 (36.36%) Selenium
2 7 (31.82%) JIRA
3 5 (22.73%) JMeter
4 4 (18.18%) LoadRunner
5 3 (13.64%) Cucumber
5 3 (13.64%) Postman
6 2 (9.09%) Cypress.io
6 2 (9.09%) Jenkins
7 1 (4.55%) Charles Proxy
7 1 (4.55%) Git
7 1 (4.55%) GitLab
7 1 (4.55%) Maven
7 1 (4.55%) REST Assured
7 1 (4.55%) SpecFlow
7 1 (4.55%) WebDriver
General
1 8 (36.36%) Social Skills
2 5 (22.73%) Analytical Skills
3 4 (18.18%) Public Sector
4 2 (9.09%) Banking
4 2 (9.09%) Finance
5 1 (4.55%) Financial Institution
5 1 (4.55%) Games
5 1 (4.55%) Manufacturing
5 1 (4.55%) Pharmaceutical
5 1 (4.55%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (13.64%) Playwright
2 1 (4.55%) Gherkin
2 1 (4.55%) Node.js
2 1 (4.55%) REST
2 1 (4.55%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 6 (27.27%) Onboarding
2 2 (9.09%) Virtual Team
3 1 (4.55%) Greenfield Project
3 1 (4.55%) Mainframe
3 1 (4.55%) Mobile App
3 1 (4.55%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 1 (4.55%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (77.27%) Test Automation
2 10 (45.45%) User Acceptance Testing
3 9 (40.91%) Test Scripting
4 8 (36.36%) System Integration Testing
4 8 (36.36%) System Testing
5 7 (31.82%) CI/CD
6 6 (27.27%) Agile
6 6 (27.27%) Software Testing
7 5 (22.73%) DevOps
7 5 (22.73%) End-to-End Testing
7 5 (22.73%) Integration Testing
7 5 (22.73%) Manual Testing
7 5 (22.73%) Performance Testing
7 5 (22.73%) Problem-Solving
8 4 (18.18%) Black-Box Testing
8 4 (18.18%) Data Validation
8 4 (18.18%) Process Improvement
8 4 (18.18%) Programme Delivery
8 4 (18.18%) Scenario Testing
8 4 (18.18%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 5 (22.73%) SQL
2 3 (13.64%) TypeScript
3 2 (9.09%) JavaScript
4 1 (4.55%) COBOL
4 1 (4.55%) Java
4 1 (4.55%) JCL
4 1 (4.55%) REXX
Qualifications
1 4 (18.18%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (9.09%) QA
Systems Management
1 1 (4.55%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 5 (22.73%) ServiceNow
2 3 (13.64%) Virgin Media
3 1 (4.55%) HP