Tester Contract Job Trends in the South East

Tester
England > South East

The median Tester daily rate in the South East is £400, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 October 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 190 123 148
Rank change year-on-year -67 +25 +13
Contract jobs requiring a Tester 47 46 28
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.72% 1.29% 0.65%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.79% 1.44% 0.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 35 29 15
10th Percentile £253 £354 £213
25th Percentile £325 £385 £306
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £414 £425
Median % change year-on-year -3.32% -2.65% -
75th Percentile £479 £519 £481
90th Percentile £595 £538 £569
England median daily rate £423 £455 £450
% change year-on-year -7.19% +1.17% -7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £32.71 -
England median hourly rate £40.00 £32.71 £50.00
% change year-on-year +22.29% -34.58% +8.70%

All Contract IT Job Roles
South East

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the South East. 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 the South East with a recognized job title 5,943 3,191 3,991
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.18% 89.36% 92.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,333 2,063 2,374
10th Percentile £295 £204 £243
25th Percentile £425 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £503
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -0.50% +0.50%
75th Percentile £625 £598 £625
90th Percentile £725 £663 £688
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 827 299 242
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.10 £16.00
25th Percentile £20.43 £15.53 £27.00
Median hourly rate £48.46 £24.00 £59.25
Median % change year-on-year +101.90% -59.49% +14.68%
75th Percentile £70.00 £55.00 £74.97
90th Percentile £87.83 £71.30 £78.75
England median hourly rate £42.15 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.59% -41.51% -6.52%

Tester
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

Tester job vacancy trend in the South East

Tester
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Tester job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Tester job vacancies in the South East

Tester
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

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

Daily rate histogram for Tester in the South East

Tester
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Tester job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Tester job vacancies in the South East

Tester
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 Tester within the South East region over the 6 months to 10 October 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 -46 12 £425 +3.98% 16
West Sussex - 12 £250 - 3
Hampshire -50 11 £513 +2.50% 12
Surrey -8 10 £325 - 8
Berkshire -31 9 £425 +3.34% 9
Buckinghamshire -29 3 £500 +60.51% 3
East Sussex +2 2 - - 1
Tester
England

Tester Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East

For the 6 months to 10 October 2026, 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 South East region featuring Tester in the job title.

1 28 (59.57%) Agile
2 24 (51.06%) Test Automation
3 21 (44.68%) QA
4 19 (40.43%) CI/CD
4 19 (40.43%) Security Cleared
5 16 (34.04%) Performance Testing
5 16 (34.04%) Test Strategy
6 15 (31.91%) End-to-End Testing
7 14 (29.79%) AWS
8 13 (27.66%) Continuous Improvement
8 13 (27.66%) Defect Management
8 13 (27.66%) Scenario Testing
9 12 (25.53%) Validation
10 11 (23.40%) Problem-Solving
10 11 (23.40%) SC Cleared
10 11 (23.40%) User Acceptance Testing
11 10 (21.28%) SQL
11 10 (21.28%) Test Scripting
12 9 (19.15%) Azure
12 9 (19.15%) DevOps
12 9 (19.15%) ISTQB
12 9 (19.15%) JMeter
12 9 (19.15%) Project Delivery
12 9 (19.15%) Stakeholder Management
12 9 (19.15%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
13 8 (17.02%) JIRA
13 8 (17.02%) LoadRunner
13 8 (17.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 7 (14.89%) Data Validation
14 7 (14.89%) DV Cleared

Tester Skill Set
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:

Application Platforms
1 2 (4.26%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 1 (2.13%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 14 (29.79%) AWS
2 9 (19.15%) Azure
3 5 (10.64%) GCP
4 4 (8.51%) Azure DevOps
5 2 (4.26%) Azure Monitor
6 1 (2.13%) BrowserStack
6 1 (2.13%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 3 (6.38%) HTTP
2 2 (4.26%) GPRS
2 2 (4.26%) GSM
2 2 (4.26%) LAN
2 2 (4.26%) LTE
2 2 (4.26%) MPLS
2 2 (4.26%) NGN
2 2 (4.26%) UMTS
2 2 (4.26%) VPN
2 2 (4.26%) WAN
2 2 (4.26%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (8.51%) Data Warehouse
2 3 (6.38%) Elasticsearch
3 2 (4.26%) Big Data
3 2 (4.26%) Oracle Reports
3 2 (4.26%) Spark SQL
4 1 (2.13%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 9 (19.15%) JMeter
2 8 (17.02%) JIRA
2 8 (17.02%) LoadRunner
3 6 (12.77%) Gatling
4 2 (4.26%) GitLab
4 2 (4.26%) Jenkins
4 2 (4.26%) NeoLoad
4 2 (4.26%) SpecFlow
4 2 (4.26%) Zephyr
5 1 (2.13%) Burp Suite
5 1 (2.13%) Selenium
General
1 15 (31.91%) Analytical Skills
2 14 (29.79%) Social Skills
3 10 (21.28%) Public Sector
4 9 (19.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 7 (14.89%) Finance
6 2 (4.26%) Banking
6 2 (4.26%) Billing
6 2 (4.26%) Telecoms
7 1 (2.13%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (2.13%) Electronics
7 1 (2.13%) Manufacturing
7 1 (2.13%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (6.38%) Kafka
2 2 (4.26%) Laravel
2 2 (4.26%) Playwright
2 2 (4.26%) PySpark
2 2 (4.26%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 6 (12.77%) Data Protection Act
2 5 (10.64%) Distributed Systems
2 5 (10.64%) Product Ownership
3 3 (6.38%) PKI
4 2 (4.26%) Cloud Native
4 2 (4.26%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (2.13%) Analytical Mindset
5 1 (2.13%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 6 (12.77%) Linux
1 6 (12.77%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (59.57%) Agile
2 24 (51.06%) Test Automation
3 19 (40.43%) CI/CD
4 16 (34.04%) Performance Testing
4 16 (34.04%) Test Strategy
5 15 (31.91%) End-to-End Testing
6 13 (27.66%) Continuous Improvement
6 13 (27.66%) Defect Management
6 13 (27.66%) Scenario Testing
7 12 (25.53%) Validation
8 11 (23.40%) Problem-Solving
8 11 (23.40%) User Acceptance Testing
9 10 (21.28%) Test Scripting
10 9 (19.15%) DevOps
10 9 (19.15%) Project Delivery
10 9 (19.15%) Stakeholder Management
10 9 (19.15%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
11 8 (17.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 7 (14.89%) Non-Functional Testing
12 7 (14.89%) Test Management
Programming Languages
1 10 (21.28%) SQL
2 4 (8.51%) Java
3 3 (6.38%) C#
3 3 (6.38%) Kotlin
3 3 (6.38%) Python
4 2 (4.26%) PHP
4 2 (4.26%) TypeScript
5 1 (2.13%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 19 (40.43%) Security Cleared
2 11 (23.40%) SC Cleared
3 9 (19.15%) ISTQB
4 7 (14.89%) DV Cleared
5 3 (6.38%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 2 (4.26%) CCNP
6 2 (4.26%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (4.26%) CREST Certified
6 2 (4.26%) OSCP
7 1 (2.13%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (44.68%) QA
2 3 (6.38%) Data Quality
3 1 (2.13%) Accessibility
3 1 (2.13%) ITGC
System Software
1 2 (4.26%) Docker
2 1 (2.13%) Virtual Machines
2 1 (2.13%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 3 (6.38%) Grafana
1 3 (6.38%) Kibana
2 2 (4.26%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 5 (10.64%) AppDynamics
1 5 (10.64%) Dynatrace
1 5 (10.64%) Tagetik
2 3 (6.38%) Cisco
3 2 (4.26%) Arista
3 2 (4.26%) Databricks
3 2 (4.26%) F5
3 2 (4.26%) Fortinet
3 2 (4.26%) Juniper
3 2 (4.26%) Microsoft
3 2 (4.26%) Oracle
4 1 (2.13%) CheckPoint
4 1 (2.13%) SAP
4 1 (2.13%) VMware