ISTQB Contract Job Trends in the South East

International Software Testing Qualification Board (ISTQB)
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South East with a requirement for ISTQB qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 10 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 191 111 152
Rank change year-on-year -80 +41 +34
Contract jobs citing ISTQB 23 39 41
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.39% 1.29% 0.74%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.85% 3.20% 1.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 20 28 32
10th Percentile £361 £330 £354
25th Percentile £395 £397 £511
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £463 £550
Median % change year-on-year +7.03% -15.91% -
75th Percentile £525 £538 £603
90th Percentile £620 £575 £610
England median daily rate £419 £450 £525
% change year-on-year -6.94% -14.29% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 3
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £19.25
Median hourly rate - - £20.50
75th Percentile - - £27.75
90th Percentile - - £31.35
England median hourly rate £45.00 £83.50 £20.50
% change year-on-year -46.11% +307.32% -67.72%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
South East

ISTQB falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications in the South East.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 2,696 1,220 2,454
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 45.72% 40.41% 44.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,829 779 1,421
10th Percentile £308 £300 £329
25th Percentile £429 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £688 £738
England median daily rate £521 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 81 210
10th Percentile £16.35 £19.97 £17.38
25th Percentile £24.98 £28.00 £25.70
Median hourly rate £55.00 £57.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +0.26% -1.97%
75th Percentile £84.00 £71.25 £66.94
90th Percentile £90.09 £78.36 £85.65
England median hourly rate £47.54 £40.55 £40.00
% change year-on-year +17.25% +1.36% -23.81%

ISTQB
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing ISTQB relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

ISTQB job vacancy trend in the South East

ISTQB
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing ISTQB.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing ISTQB

ISTQB
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing ISTQB in the South East over the 6 months to 10 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for ISTQB in the South East

ISTQB
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing ISTQB.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing ISTQB

ISTQB
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing ISTQB within the South East region over the 6 months to 10 May 2026. 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
Thames Valley -50 10 £440 -2.22% 4
Hampshire -26 8 £538 +2.38% 1
Berkshire -39 6 £378 -16.11%
Buckinghamshire -29 4 £502 - 4
West Sussex -15 2 £358 -5.60%
Kent - 2 £500 - 1
Surrey -12 1 £363 - 3
ISTQB
England

ISTQB
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 (4.35%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (4.35%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (4.35%) Infor SunSystems
1 1 (4.35%) SAP FI-AR
Cloud Services
1 10 (43.48%) Azure
2 6 (26.09%) AWS
3 4 (17.39%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 2 (8.70%) BGP
1 2 (8.70%) Cisco ASA
1 2 (8.70%) Firewall
1 2 (8.70%) MPLS
1 2 (8.70%) Multicast
1 2 (8.70%) OSPF
1 2 (8.70%) TCP/IP
1 2 (8.70%) VLAN
1 2 (8.70%) VPN
1 2 (8.70%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (4.35%) Data Warehouse
1 1 (4.35%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 7 (30.43%) JIRA
2 3 (13.04%) TestRail
2 3 (13.04%) Zephyr
3 2 (8.70%) Git
3 2 (8.70%) Postman
3 2 (8.70%) Selenium
4 1 (4.35%) GitLab
4 1 (4.35%) Jenkins
4 1 (4.35%) JUnit
4 1 (4.35%) NUnit
4 1 (4.35%) SoapUI
4 1 (4.35%) Team Foundation Server
4 1 (4.35%) WebDriver
General
1 8 (34.78%) Social Skills
2 3 (13.04%) Analytical Skills
2 3 (13.04%) Telecoms
3 2 (8.70%) Aviation
4 1 (4.35%) Aerospace
4 1 (4.35%) Documentation Skills
4 1 (4.35%) Finance
4 1 (4.35%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 12 (52.17%) Analyst
1 12 (52.17%) Test Analyst
2 5 (21.74%) Infrastructure Analyst
2 5 (21.74%) Infrastructure Test Analyst
2 5 (21.74%) Test Manager
3 4 (17.39%) DV Cleared Test Analyst
4 3 (13.04%) Senior
4 3 (13.04%) Tester
5 2 (8.70%) Lead
5 2 (8.70%) Senior Tester
6 1 (4.35%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 1 (4.35%) Infrastructure Manager
6 1 (4.35%) ITSM Tester
6 1 (4.35%) Network Manager
6 1 (4.35%) QA Test Analyst
6 1 (4.35%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
6 1 (4.35%) SC Cleared Test Analyst
6 1 (4.35%) Senior Software Engineer
6 1 (4.35%) Technical Test Analyst
6 1 (4.35%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (4.35%) .NET
1 1 (4.35%) Flask
1 1 (4.35%) HTML
1 1 (4.35%) pytest
1 1 (4.35%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 2 (8.70%) Management Information System
2 1 (4.35%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 7 (30.43%) Windows
2 6 (26.09%) Linux
3 1 (4.35%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (69.57%) Test Management
2 11 (47.83%) Agile
2 11 (47.83%) CI/CD
2 11 (47.83%) Test Automation
3 8 (34.78%) Continuous Integration
3 8 (34.78%) DevOps
4 6 (26.09%) End-to-End Testing
4 6 (26.09%) Non-Functional Testing
4 6 (26.09%) Scaled Agile Framework
4 6 (26.09%) Software Testing
5 5 (21.74%) Defect Management
6 4 (17.39%) Continuous Improvement
6 4 (17.39%) Performance Testing
6 4 (17.39%) Regression Testing
6 4 (17.39%) User Acceptance Testing
7 3 (13.04%) Continuous Delivery
7 3 (13.04%) Integration Testing
7 3 (13.04%) Stakeholder Management
7 3 (13.04%) System Testing
7 3 (13.04%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 8 (34.78%) SQL
2 3 (13.04%) Python
3 2 (8.70%) Bash
3 2 (8.70%) Java
4 1 (4.35%) C
4 1 (4.35%) C#
4 1 (4.35%) PL/SQL
4 1 (4.35%) VB
Qualifications
1 15 (65.22%) Security Cleared
2 11 (47.83%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
3 10 (43.48%) DV Cleared
4 6 (26.09%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
4 6 (26.09%) SC Cleared
5 2 (8.70%) BC Cleared
5 2 (8.70%) CCIE
5 2 (8.70%) CCNP
5 2 (8.70%) Cisco Certification
5 2 (8.70%) Degree
6 1 (4.35%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (17.39%) QA
2 2 (8.70%) NCSC
3 1 (4.35%) GRC
System Software
1 4 (17.39%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (13.04%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (4.35%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (8.70%) Ansible
1 2 (8.70%) Cisco Prime
1 2 (8.70%) HP ALM
1 2 (8.70%) Iperf
1 2 (8.70%) Nmap
2 1 (4.35%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 6 (26.09%) Cisco
2 4 (17.39%) VMware
3 3 (13.04%) ServiceNow
4 2 (8.70%) CheckPoint
4 2 (8.70%) Fortinet
4 2 (8.70%) HP
4 2 (8.70%) Oracle
4 2 (8.70%) Palo Alto
4 2 (8.70%) SolarWinds
4 2 (8.70%) Tufin
5 1 (4.35%) Remedy
5 1 (4.35%) SAP