Software Testing Contracts in the South East

Software Testing
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South East requiring Software Testing skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Software Testing over the 6 months leading up to 30 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 103 118 119
Rank change year-on-year +15 +1 +4
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 43 88 93
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 1.47% 1.57% 1.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.60% 1.88% 1.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 20 65 52
10th Percentile £325 £205 £351
25th Percentile £363 £313 £374
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year -5.88% +6.25% -11.60%
75th Percentile £488 £630 £526
90th Percentile £502 £688 £587
England median daily rate £443 £450 £500
% change year-on-year -1.61% -10.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 10 23
10th Percentile £50.00 £18.35 -
25th Percentile £51.78 £29.19 £42.50
Median hourly rate £57.50 £62.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.26% +37.78% -
75th Percentile £62.50 £62.38 £54.38
90th Percentile £63.75 £65.20 £58.75
England median hourly rate £60.13 £62.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -3.80% +19.05% +7.14%

All Process and Methodology Skills
South East

Software 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 2,680 4,682 5,007
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 91.37% 83.41% 89.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,719 2,712 3,444
10th Percentile £250 £260 £250
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £511 £501
Median % change year-on-year -2.15% +2.10% +0.10%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £616
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 176 448 219
10th Percentile £13.25 £13.00 £16.25
25th Percentile £15.00 £18.20 £22.20
Median hourly rate £27.88 £47.50 £52.10
Median % change year-on-year -41.31% -8.83% +137.57%
75th Percentile £62.24 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.90 £75.00
England median hourly rate £28.17 £37.50 £37.50
% change year-on-year -24.89% - +50.00%

Software Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

Job vacancy trend for Software Testing in the South East

Software Testing
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the South East

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

Daily rate trend for Software Testing in the South East

Software Testing
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Testing in the South East over the 6 months to 30 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Software Testing in the South East

Software Testing
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

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

Hourly rate trend for Software Testing in the South East

Software Testing
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Testing in the South East over the 6 months to 30 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Testing in the South East

Software 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 Software Testing within the South East region over the 6 months to 30 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 +41 25 £400 - 67
Thames Valley 0 14 £375 -15.49% 155
Buckinghamshire +14 7 £375 -15.49% 51
Berkshire -12 6 £513 +9.33% 86
Surrey +10 2 - - 46
West Sussex +10 1 £290 -27.50% 21
East Sussex +1 1 - - 15
Oxfordshire - 1 - - 20
Software Testing
England

Software 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 5 (11.63%) Confluence
2 1 (2.33%) JBoss
2 1 (2.33%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (2.33%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 7 (16.28%) Azure
1 7 (16.28%) Azure DevOps
2 1 (2.33%) Azure Machine Learning
2 1 (2.33%) Cloud Computing
2 1 (2.33%) GitHub
2 1 (2.33%) npm
2 1 (2.33%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 8 (18.60%) Software-Defined Radio
2 7 (16.28%) SNMP
3 3 (6.98%) HTTP
4 2 (4.65%) 5G
4 2 (4.65%) Diameter Protocol
4 2 (4.65%) SIGTRAN
4 2 (4.65%) SMS
4 2 (4.65%) SS7
4 2 (4.65%) VoLTE
4 2 (4.65%) VoWiFi
4 2 (4.65%) Wireshark
5 1 (2.33%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (6.98%) MongoDB
1 3 (6.98%) MS Access
1 3 (6.98%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 21 (48.84%) JIRA
2 12 (27.91%) Git
3 10 (23.26%) Jenkins
4 8 (18.60%) Robot Framework
5 7 (16.28%) GoogleTest
5 7 (16.28%) SoapUI
6 5 (11.63%) Bitbucket
7 4 (9.30%) Eclipse
8 3 (6.98%) Selenium
8 3 (6.98%) WebDriver
9 2 (4.65%) Cucumber
9 2 (4.65%) Postman
9 2 (4.65%) QARun
9 2 (4.65%) WinRunner
10 1 (2.33%) IntelliJ
10 1 (2.33%) JUnit
10 1 (2.33%) LabVIEW
10 1 (2.33%) Toad
10 1 (2.33%) Visual Studio
General
1 14 (32.56%) Social Skills
2 6 (13.95%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (11.63%) Public Sector
4 3 (6.98%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (4.65%) Telecoms
6 1 (2.33%) Aerospace
6 1 (2.33%) Finance
6 1 (2.33%) Legal
6 1 (2.33%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 12 (27.91%) Senior
2 11 (25.58%) Analyst
2 11 (25.58%) Test Analyst
3 10 (23.26%) Tester
4 9 (20.93%) Software Test Engineer
4 9 (20.93%) Test Engineer
5 7 (16.28%) Senior Analyst
5 7 (16.28%) Senior Test Analyst
6 5 (11.63%) Lead
7 4 (9.30%) Senior Tester
8 3 (6.98%) Project Engineer
8 3 (6.98%) Project Leader
9 2 (4.65%) Automation Tester
9 2 (4.65%) Developer
9 2 (4.65%) Embedded Engineer
9 2 (4.65%) Network Analyst
9 2 (4.65%) Project Manager
9 2 (4.65%) QA Tester
9 2 (4.65%) Senior Network Analyst
10 1 (2.33%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (18.60%) CSS
1 8 (18.60%) HTML
2 7 (16.28%) SOAP
2 7 (16.28%) XML
3 3 (6.98%) Kafka
3 3 (6.98%) Middleware
3 3 (6.98%) Node.js
3 3 (6.98%) Web Services
4 2 (4.65%) REST
5 1 (2.33%) .NET
5 1 (2.33%) Spring
5 1 (2.33%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 6 (13.95%) Self-Motivation
2 2 (4.65%) Linux Command Line
3 1 (2.33%) Cyberattack
3 1 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
3 1 (2.33%) Driving Licence
3 1 (2.33%) Fibre Optics
3 1 (2.33%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 8 (18.60%) Linux
2 6 (13.95%) Windows
3 3 (6.98%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (69.77%) Agile
2 26 (60.47%) Test Automation
3 14 (32.56%) Integration Testing
3 14 (32.56%) Validation
3 14 (32.56%) Waterfall
4 13 (30.23%) Problem-Solving
5 10 (23.26%) Manual Testing
5 10 (23.26%) Test Scripting
6 9 (20.93%) Scrum
7 8 (18.60%) Defect Management
7 8 (18.60%) DevOps
7 8 (18.60%) SDLC
7 8 (18.60%) V-Model
8 7 (16.28%) Non-Functional Testing
8 7 (16.28%) SysML
8 7 (16.28%) System Integration Testing
8 7 (16.28%) UML
8 7 (16.28%) Verification and Validation
9 6 (13.95%) Logistics
9 6 (13.95%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 6 (13.95%) C++
1 6 (13.95%) JavaScript
2 5 (11.63%) C#
2 5 (11.63%) SQL
3 4 (9.30%) Python
4 3 (6.98%) Java
4 3 (6.98%) VB
5 1 (2.33%) Korn
Qualifications
1 20 (46.51%) Security Cleared
2 10 (23.26%) DV Cleared
3 9 (20.93%) SC Cleared
4 3 (6.98%) Degree
5 2 (4.65%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (4.65%) ISTQB
6 1 (2.33%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (16.28%) QA
2 3 (6.98%) Def Stans
3 1 (2.33%) PMO
System Software
1 5 (11.63%) Firmware
2 3 (6.98%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 1 (2.33%) HP ALM
1 1 (2.33%) HP Quality Center
Vendors
1 6 (13.95%) Microsoft
2 5 (11.63%) Atlassian
2 5 (11.63%) Google
3 3 (6.98%) Citrix
3 3 (6.98%) VMware
4 1 (2.33%) Conga
4 1 (2.33%) HP
4 1 (2.33%) OpenAI
4 1 (2.33%) Openreach
4 1 (2.33%) Red Hat
4 1 (2.33%) Salesforce
4 1 (2.33%) Splunk