Tester Contract Job Trends in Reading

Tester
Berkshire > Reading

The median Tester daily rate in Reading is £410, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 October 2025.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 59 82 76
Rank change year-on-year +23 -6 +14
Contract jobs requiring a Tester 6 13 14
As % of all contract jobs in Reading 0.96% 1.20% 1.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.05% 1.34% 1.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 3 2 4
10th Percentile £381 £149 £294
25th Percentile £391 £193 £330
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £410 £273 £388
Median % change year-on-year +50.46% -29.68% -16.22%
75th Percentile £422 £358 £447
90th Percentile £424 £406 £464
Berkshire median daily rate £413 £425 £400
% change year-on-year -2.94% +6.25% -13.51%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
Reading

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in Reading. 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 Reading with a recognized job title 574 968 1,027
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.40% 89.22% 92.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 391 539 696
10th Percentile £325 £331 £250
25th Percentile £450 £455 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £571 £525
Median % change year-on-year -7.98% +8.67% +5.00%
75th Percentile £608 £650 £625
90th Percentile £650 £700 £700
Berkshire median daily rate £508 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -3.33% +5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 26 12
10th Percentile - £48.18 £58.98
25th Percentile £14.75 £56.56 £61.04
Median hourly rate £28.00 £62.38 £64.31
Median % change year-on-year -55.11% -3.01% +16.93%
75th Percentile £65.00 £99.38 £69.56
90th Percentile £71.03 £100.00 £75.23
Berkshire median hourly rate £28.00 £61.28 £61.79
% change year-on-year -54.31% -0.83% +22.36%

Tester
Job Vacancy Trend in Reading

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Tester' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Reading.

Tester job vacancy trend in Reading

Tester
Daily Rate Trend in Reading

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Tester job vacancies in Reading.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Tester job vacancies in Reading

Tester
Hourly Rate Trend in Reading

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Tester job vacancies in Reading.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Tester job vacancies in Reading

Tester Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Reading

For the 6 months to 26 October 2025, Tester contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the Reading region featuring Tester in the job title.

1 3 (50.00%) Azure
1 3 (50.00%) Manual Testing
1 3 (50.00%) QA
1 3 (50.00%) Software Testing
1 3 (50.00%) Test Automation
2 2 (33.33%) API Testing
2 2 (33.33%) Azure DevOps
2 2 (33.33%) DevOps
2 2 (33.33%) End-to-End Testing
2 2 (33.33%) Internet
2 2 (33.33%) Intranet
2 2 (33.33%) Nessus
2 2 (33.33%) OSINT
2 2 (33.33%) Penetration Testing
2 2 (33.33%) Problem-Solving
2 2 (33.33%) Red Team
2 2 (33.33%) SDLC
2 2 (33.33%) Social Engineering
2 2 (33.33%) Test Scripting
2 2 (33.33%) Wireless
3 1 (16.67%) (ISC)2 CCSP
3 1 (16.67%) .NET
3 1 (16.67%) Agile
3 1 (16.67%) AWS
3 1 (16.67%) Burp Suite
3 1 (16.67%) C#
3 1 (16.67%) CCSP
3 1 (16.67%) CI/CD
3 1 (16.67%) Cisco Certification
3 1 (16.67%) CISSP

Tester Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Reading 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:

Applications
1 1 (16.67%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 3 (50.00%) Azure
2 2 (33.33%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (16.67%) AWS
3 1 (16.67%) GCP
3 1 (16.67%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 2 (33.33%) Internet
1 2 (33.33%) Intranet
1 2 (33.33%) Wireless
Development Applications
1 1 (16.67%) Burp Suite
1 1 (16.67%) Cypress.io
1 1 (16.67%) NUnit
1 1 (16.67%) Selenium
General
1 2 (33.33%) Social Skills
2 1 (16.67%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (16.67%) .NET
1 1 (16.67%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 1 (16.67%) Onboarding
1 1 (16.67%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 1 (16.67%) Kali Linux
1 1 (16.67%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (50.00%) Manual Testing
1 3 (50.00%) Software Testing
1 3 (50.00%) Test Automation
2 2 (33.33%) API Testing
2 2 (33.33%) DevOps
2 2 (33.33%) End-to-End Testing
2 2 (33.33%) OSINT
2 2 (33.33%) Penetration Testing
2 2 (33.33%) Problem-Solving
2 2 (33.33%) Red Team
2 2 (33.33%) SDLC
2 2 (33.33%) Social Engineering
2 2 (33.33%) Test Scripting
3 1 (16.67%) Cloud Security
3 1 (16.67%) Computer Science
3 1 (16.67%) Cybersecurity
3 1 (16.67%) Data Validation
3 1 (16.67%) OWASP
3 1 (16.67%) System Testing
3 1 (16.67%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 1 (16.67%) C#
Qualifications
1 1 (16.67%) (ISC)2 CCSP
1 1 (16.67%) CCSP
1 1 (16.67%) Cisco Certification
1 1 (16.67%) CISSP
1 1 (16.67%) Computer Science Degree
1 1 (16.67%) Degree
1 1 (16.67%) Master's Degree
1 1 (16.67%) OSCP
1 1 (16.67%) SANS
1 1 (16.67%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (50.00%) QA
Systems Management
1 2 (33.33%) Nessus
2 1 (16.67%) Nmap
Vendors
1 1 (16.67%) Virgin Media