Tester Contracts in the North West

Tester
England > North West

The median Tester daily rate in the North West is £363, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 28 August 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
28 Aug 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 112 108 113
Rank change year-on-year -4 +5 +12
DemandTrendContract jobs requiring a Tester 23 16 34
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the North West 1.04% 0.66% 1.19%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.13% 0.69% 1.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 21 6 27
10th Percentile £268 £356 £285
25th Percentile £313 £372 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £363 £400 £508
Median % change year-on-year -9.38% -21.18% +24.92%
75th Percentile £438 - £550
90th Percentile £519 £425 £645
England median daily rate £425 £450 £500
% change year-on-year -5.56% -10.00% +13.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
Median hourly rate £12.76 - -
England median hourly rate £32.71 £30.15 £53.50
% change year-on-year +8.49% -43.64% +224.24%

All DemandTrendContract 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.

DemandTrendContract vacancies in the North West with a recognized job title 2,034 2,319 2,659
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.12% 95.16% 93.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,305 1,377 1,828
10th Percentile £268 £275 £288
25th Percentile £363 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £493 £500
Median % change year-on-year -8.72% -1.40% +2.62%
75th Percentile £563 £585 £588
90th Percentile £659 £675 £670
England median daily rate £508 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -3.33% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 164 199 158
10th Percentile £13.00 £11.07 £15.93
25th Percentile £17.30 £16.58 £17.94
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.90 £30.65
Median % change year-on-year -23.54% +7.33% +34.71%
75th Percentile £50.19 £53.25 £46.18
90th Percentile £72.50 £70.90 £65.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £44.00 £43.86
% change year-on-year -42.84% +0.32% +68.69%

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
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Tester job vacancies in the North West.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Tester job vacancies 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 28 August 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Tester in the North West

Tester
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Tester job vacancies in the North West.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Tester job vacancies in the North West

Tester
DemandTrendContract 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 28 August 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
DemandTrendContract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Cheshire - 12 £340 -
Manchester -8 9 £425 +6.25% 4
Merseyside +3 1 £275 - 1
Tester
England

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

For the 6 months to 28 August 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 13 (56.52%) Test Scripting
2 11 (47.83%) Social Skills
3 10 (43.48%) Problem-Solving
3 10 (43.48%) Test Automation
3 10 (43.48%) JIRA
4 8 (34.78%) User Acceptance Testing
5 7 (30.43%) Agile
5 7 (30.43%) Java
5 7 (30.43%) SDLC
5 7 (30.43%) Scenario Testing
6 6 (26.09%) Test Strategy
6 6 (26.09%) ServiceNow
6 6 (26.09%) Analytical Skills
7 5 (21.74%) System Testing
7 5 (21.74%) Acceptance Criteria
7 5 (21.74%) Selenium
8 4 (17.39%) Computer Science
8 4 (17.39%) Software Testing
8 4 (17.39%) Degree
8 4 (17.39%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (17.39%) Virtual Team
8 4 (17.39%) Programme Delivery
8 4 (17.39%) System Integration Testing
8 4 (17.39%) CI/CD
8 4 (17.39%) AWS
8 4 (17.39%) Black-Box Testing
8 4 (17.39%) Root Cause Analysis
8 4 (17.39%) Cucumber
8 4 (17.39%) Jenkins
9 3 (13.04%) Continuous Improvement

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 3 (13.04%) CICS
2 1 (4.35%) CMS
2 1 (4.35%) EPiServer
2 1 (4.35%) WebSphere
Applications
1 1 (4.35%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 4 (17.39%) AWS
2 1 (4.35%) Azure
2 1 (4.35%) OpenShift
2 1 (4.35%) SaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (13.04%) DB2
2 2 (8.70%) Oracle Database
2 2 (8.70%) Relational Database
2 2 (8.70%) SQL Server
3 1 (4.35%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 10 (43.48%) JIRA
2 5 (21.74%) Selenium
3 4 (17.39%) Cucumber
3 4 (17.39%) Jenkins
4 3 (13.04%) REST Assured
4 3 (13.04%) TestRail
5 2 (8.70%) Eclipse
5 2 (8.70%) Git
5 2 (8.70%) IntelliJ
5 2 (8.70%) Maven
6 1 (4.35%) Cypress.io
6 1 (4.35%) Gatling
6 1 (4.35%) Postman
6 1 (4.35%) Zephyr
General
1 11 (47.83%) Social Skills
2 6 (26.09%) Analytical Skills
3 2 (8.70%) Banking
4 1 (4.35%) Finance
4 1 (4.35%) Games
4 1 (4.35%) Health Technology
4 1 (4.35%) Manufacturing
4 1 (4.35%) Pharmaceutical
4 1 (4.35%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (13.04%) REST
1 3 (13.04%) Web Services
2 2 (8.70%) .NET
2 2 (8.70%) AngularJS
2 2 (8.70%) CSS
2 2 (8.70%) HTML
2 2 (8.70%) LDAP
2 2 (8.70%) Playwright
2 2 (8.70%) SOAP
3 1 (4.35%) .NET Framework
3 1 (4.35%) Gherkin
3 1 (4.35%) jQuery
3 1 (4.35%) Node.js
3 1 (4.35%) Puppeteer
3 1 (4.35%) RESTful
3 1 (4.35%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 4 (17.39%) Virtual Team
2 3 (13.04%) Mainframe
2 3 (13.04%) Onboarding
2 3 (13.04%) VSAM
3 2 (8.70%) Self-Motivation
3 2 (8.70%) Smart Energy
3 2 (8.70%) Smart Meter
4 1 (4.35%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 1 (4.35%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (56.52%) Test Scripting
2 10 (43.48%) Problem-Solving
2 10 (43.48%) Test Automation
3 8 (34.78%) User Acceptance Testing
4 7 (30.43%) Agile
4 7 (30.43%) Scenario Testing
4 7 (30.43%) SDLC
5 6 (26.09%) Test Strategy
6 5 (21.74%) Acceptance Criteria
6 5 (21.74%) System Testing
7 4 (17.39%) Black-Box Testing
7 4 (17.39%) CI/CD
7 4 (17.39%) Computer Science
7 4 (17.39%) Programme Delivery
7 4 (17.39%) Root Cause Analysis
7 4 (17.39%) Software Testing
7 4 (17.39%) System Integration Testing
8 3 (13.04%) Stakeholder Management
8 3 (13.04%) Test Management
8 3 (13.04%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 7 (30.43%) Java
2 3 (13.04%) COBOL
2 3 (13.04%) JavaScript
2 3 (13.04%) JCL
3 2 (8.70%) C#
3 2 (8.70%) SQL
4 1 (4.35%) REXX
4 1 (4.35%) Scala
Qualifications
1 4 (17.39%) Computer Science Degree
1 4 (17.39%) Degree
2 1 (4.35%) CHECK Team Leader
2 1 (4.35%) CREST Certified
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (8.70%) QA
System Software
1 2 (8.70%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 3 (13.04%) HP ALM
2 2 (8.70%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 6 (26.09%) ServiceNow
2 3 (13.04%) HP
2 3 (13.04%) Oracle
3 2 (8.70%) Salesforce
4 1 (4.35%) Atlassian
4 1 (4.35%) Optimizely