Manual Testing Contracts in the South East

Manual Testing
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South East requiring Manual Testing skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Manual Testing over the 6 months leading up to 29 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 137 183 196
Rank change year-on-year +46 +13 +25
Contract jobs citing Manual Testing 19 16 16
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 0.65% 0.29% 0.29%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.71% 0.34% 0.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 12 10 9
10th Percentile £375 £344 £275
25th Percentile £394 £395 £334
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £444 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.41% -11.25% +37.93%
75th Percentile £491 £475 £538
90th Percentile £500 £575 £645
England median daily rate £425 £450 £500
% change year-on-year -5.56% -10.00% +8.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 1
Median hourly rate £50.00 - £55.00
England median hourly rate £50.00 £60.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year -16.67% +9.09% +22.22%

All Process and Methodology Skills
South East

Manual 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 South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 2,668 4,666 4,983
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 91.34% 83.55% 89.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,716 2,714 3,430
10th Percentile £250 £255 £249
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +1.95% +0.05%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £619
90th Percentile £656 £700 £700
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 175 446 214
10th Percentile £13.25 £13.00 £16.24
25th Percentile £15.00 £18.23 £22.16
Median hourly rate £27.76 £47.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -41.56% -5.00% +127.79%
75th Percentile £62.37 £62.50 £64.91
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.93 £75.00
England median hourly rate £28.00 £37.18 £37.32
% change year-on-year -24.69% -0.38% +49.28%

Manual Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Job postings citing Manual Testing as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Job vacancy trend for Manual Testing in the South East

Manual Testing
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the South East

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Manual Testing in the South East.

Daily rate trend for Manual Testing in the South East

Manual Testing
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Manual Testing in the South East over the 6 months to 29 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Manual Testing in the South East

Manual Testing
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Manual Testing in the South East.

Hourly rate trend for Manual Testing in the South East

Manual Testing
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 Manual Testing within the South East region over the 6 months to 29 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
Hampshire +47 9 £400 +6.67% 32
Thames Valley +34 5 £475 +11.76% 53
Buckinghamshire +14 3 £375 - 18
Surrey +13 3 - - 10
Berkshire +27 2 £513 +20.59% 30
West Sussex +14 2 £475 -13.64% 8
Manual Testing
England

Manual Testing
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East 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 (15.79%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 4 (21.05%) Azure
1 4 (21.05%) Azure DevOps
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (10.53%) MS Access
Development Applications
1 9 (47.37%) JIRA
2 5 (26.32%) Selenium
2 5 (26.32%) SoapUI
3 4 (21.05%) Cucumber
3 4 (21.05%) Git
3 4 (21.05%) Postman
3 4 (21.05%) TestRail
4 3 (15.79%) Jenkins
4 3 (15.79%) JUnit
5 2 (10.53%) Appium
5 2 (10.53%) WebDriver
6 1 (5.26%) Cypress.io
6 1 (5.26%) JMeter
General
1 8 (42.11%) Social Skills
2 4 (21.05%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (15.79%) Finance
4 1 (5.26%) Legal
4 1 (5.26%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 8 (42.11%) Senior
2 5 (26.32%) Analyst
2 5 (26.32%) Test Analyst
3 4 (21.05%) Senior Analyst
3 4 (21.05%) Senior Test Analyst
4 3 (15.79%) Consultant
4 3 (15.79%) Test Engineer
4 3 (15.79%) Tester
5 2 (10.53%) Lead
5 2 (10.53%) Product Manager
5 2 (10.53%) QA Leader
5 2 (10.53%) QA Manager
5 2 (10.53%) QA Test Manager
5 2 (10.53%) Senior Tester
5 2 (10.53%) Software Test Engineer
5 2 (10.53%) Strategy Manager
5 2 (10.53%) Technical Consultant
5 2 (10.53%) Test Consultant
5 2 (10.53%) Test Strategy Manager
6 1 (5.26%) QA Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (15.79%) Playwright
1 3 (15.79%) SOAP
1 3 (15.79%) XML
2 2 (10.53%) Middleware
2 2 (10.53%) REST
2 2 (10.53%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 2 (10.53%) Self-Motivation
2 1 (5.26%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 2 (10.53%) Unix
1 2 (10.53%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (94.74%) Test Automation
2 12 (63.16%) Agile
3 10 (52.63%) Software Testing
4 7 (36.84%) Test Scripting
4 7 (36.84%) Test Strategy
5 6 (31.58%) Waterfall
6 5 (26.32%) DevOps
6 5 (26.32%) Functional Testing
6 5 (26.32%) Problem-Solving
6 5 (26.32%) Scrum
7 4 (21.05%) Defect Management
7 4 (21.05%) End-to-End Testing
7 4 (21.05%) SDLC
7 4 (21.05%) Validation
7 4 (21.05%) V-Model
8 3 (15.79%) BDD
8 3 (15.79%) CI/CD
8 3 (15.79%) Code Quality
8 3 (15.79%) Non-Functional Testing
8 3 (15.79%) User Stories
Programming Languages
1 7 (36.84%) SQL
2 2 (10.53%) Java
2 2 (10.53%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 5 (26.32%) Security Cleared
2 3 (15.79%) DV Cleared
2 3 (15.79%) ISTQB
3 1 (5.26%) Computer Science Degree
3 1 (5.26%) Degree
3 1 (5.26%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (36.84%) QA
2 1 (5.26%) Software Quality Assurance
Systems Management
1 1 (5.26%) HP ALM
1 1 (5.26%) HP Quality Center
Vendors
1 2 (10.53%) Citrix
1 2 (10.53%) Microsoft
2 1 (5.26%) Conga
2 1 (5.26%) HP
2 1 (5.26%) Salesforce
2 1 (5.26%) SAP