Tester Contract Job Trends in the South East

Tester
England > South East

The median Tester daily rate in the South East is £403, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 19 June 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 148 119 183
Rank change year-on-year -29 +64 -18
Contract jobs requiring a Tester 67 31 23
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.09% 1.03% 0.40%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.19% 1.13% 0.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 41 20 15
10th Percentile £281 £373 £187
25th Percentile £350 £402 £205
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £403 £475 £210
Median % change year-on-year -15.26% +126.19% -50.00%
75th Percentile £415 £500 £438
90th Percentile £514 £525 £499
England median daily rate £415 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -7.78% - -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £66.25 £51.25 £10.24
Median hourly rate £67.50 £52.50 £10.30
Median % change year-on-year +28.57% +409.71% -
75th Percentile £68.75 £53.75 £10.36
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £25.38 £32.63 £30.15
% change year-on-year -22.22% +8.23% -58.13%

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 5,644 2,752 5,323
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.55% 91.10% 92.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,406 1,812 3,125
10th Percentile £303 £220 £250
25th Percentile £417 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -
75th Percentile £613 £600 £625
90th Percentile £700 £660 £688
England median daily rate £521 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +1.56% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 575 194 564
10th Percentile £15.85 £14.20 £12.88
25th Percentile £25.00 £15.75 £18.98
Median hourly rate £50.00 £29.25 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +70.94% -41.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £80.03 £62.24 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £79.63
England median hourly rate £45.50 £28.75 £39.55
% change year-on-year +58.26% -27.31% -12.11%

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 19 June 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 19 June 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 -37 27 £405 -19.00% 1
Hampshire -24 23 £375 -21.05% 1
Berkshire -25 22 £405 -19.00% 1
Surrey -14 8 £319 -
West Sussex - 7 £358 - 1
Buckinghamshire - 5 £363 -
Kent - 2 £300 - 1
Tester
England

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

For the 6 months to 19 June 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 39 (58.21%) Security Cleared
2 27 (40.30%) Test Automation
3 21 (31.34%) QA
4 20 (29.85%) Agile
4 20 (29.85%) DV Cleared
5 17 (25.37%) SC Cleared
6 14 (20.90%) CI/CD
6 14 (20.90%) Test Strategy
7 12 (17.91%) AWS
7 12 (17.91%) JIRA
7 12 (17.91%) Windows
8 11 (16.42%) Validation
9 10 (14.93%) Performance Testing
9 10 (14.93%) Regression Testing
10 9 (13.43%) Nmap
10 9 (13.43%) Python
10 9 (13.43%) Scenario Testing
10 9 (13.43%) SQL
10 9 (13.43%) User Acceptance Testing
11 8 (11.94%) Burp Suite
11 8 (11.94%) Linux
11 8 (11.94%) Penetration Testing
11 8 (11.94%) Problem-Solving
12 7 (10.45%) Acceptance Criteria
12 7 (10.45%) Azure
12 7 (10.45%) Data Validation
12 7 (10.45%) Firewall
12 7 (10.45%) Integration Testing
12 7 (10.45%) Metasploit
12 7 (10.45%) Wireless

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 1 (1.49%) Confluence
Applications
1 6 (8.96%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (7.46%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (7.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 12 (17.91%) AWS
2 7 (10.45%) Azure
Communications & Networking
1 7 (10.45%) Firewall
1 7 (10.45%) Wireless
2 4 (5.97%) Wireshark
3 3 (4.48%) HTTP
3 3 (4.48%) MPLS
3 3 (4.48%) VPN
4 2 (2.99%) GPRS
4 2 (2.99%) GSM
4 2 (2.99%) LAN
4 2 (2.99%) LTE
4 2 (2.99%) NGN
4 2 (2.99%) UMTS
4 2 (2.99%) WAN
5 1 (1.49%) BGP
5 1 (1.49%) Cisco ASA
5 1 (1.49%) Multicast
5 1 (1.49%) OSPF
5 1 (1.49%) TCP/IP
5 1 (1.49%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (4.48%) Elasticsearch
2 2 (2.99%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (2.99%) Oracle Reports
2 2 (2.99%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 12 (17.91%) JIRA
2 8 (11.94%) Burp Suite
3 7 (10.45%) Metasploit
4 3 (4.48%) Gatling
4 3 (4.48%) JMeter
4 3 (4.48%) LoadRunner
4 3 (4.48%) Postman
5 2 (2.99%) GitLab
5 2 (2.99%) Jenkins
5 2 (2.99%) SpecFlow
5 2 (2.99%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 2 (2.99%) Zephyr
6 1 (1.49%) Cypress.io
6 1 (1.49%) Selenium
6 1 (1.49%) Tricentis qTest
6 1 (1.49%) WebDriver
General
1 23 (34.33%) Social Skills
2 18 (26.87%) Analytical Skills
3 8 (11.94%) Finance
4 7 (10.45%) Public Sector
5 5 (7.46%) Military
6 4 (5.97%) Electronics
6 4 (5.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (4.48%) Telecoms
8 2 (2.99%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (2.99%) French Language
9 1 (1.49%) Aviation
9 1 (1.49%) Billing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (4.48%) Playwright
2 2 (2.99%) Swagger
3 1 (1.49%) Kafka
3 1 (1.49%) REST
3 1 (1.49%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 6 (8.96%) Security Posture
2 3 (4.48%) Distributed Systems
3 2 (2.99%) Enterprise Software
3 2 (2.99%) Product Ownership
4 1 (1.49%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
4 1 (1.49%) Management Information System
4 1 (1.49%) PKI
4 1 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
4 1 (1.49%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 12 (17.91%) Windows
2 8 (11.94%) Linux
3 2 (2.99%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (40.30%) Test Automation
2 20 (29.85%) Agile
3 14 (20.90%) CI/CD
3 14 (20.90%) Test Strategy
4 11 (16.42%) Validation
5 10 (14.93%) Performance Testing
5 10 (14.93%) Regression Testing
6 9 (13.43%) Scenario Testing
6 9 (13.43%) User Acceptance Testing
7 8 (11.94%) Penetration Testing
7 8 (11.94%) Problem-Solving
8 7 (10.45%) Acceptance Criteria
8 7 (10.45%) Data Validation
8 7 (10.45%) Integration Testing
9 6 (8.96%) Cloud Security
9 6 (8.96%) Commercial Awareness
9 6 (8.96%) Functional Testing
9 6 (8.96%) Project Delivery
9 6 (8.96%) Regulatory Compliance
9 6 (8.96%) System Testing
Programming Languages
1 9 (13.43%) Python
1 9 (13.43%) SQL
2 6 (8.96%) JavaScript
3 4 (5.97%) C#
4 3 (4.48%) TypeScript
5 2 (2.99%) Bash
5 2 (2.99%) Java
6 1 (1.49%) Kotlin
6 1 (1.49%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 39 (58.21%) Security Cleared
2 20 (29.85%) DV Cleared
3 17 (25.37%) SC Cleared
4 6 (8.96%) CHECK Team Member
4 6 (8.96%) CREST Certified
4 6 (8.96%) Cyber Scheme
5 5 (7.46%) Degree
5 5 (7.46%) ISTQB
5 5 (7.46%) Postgraduate
6 3 (4.48%) CCNP
6 3 (4.48%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (1.49%) BC Cleared
7 1 (1.49%) CCIE
7 1 (1.49%) CEH
7 1 (1.49%) GPEN
7 1 (1.49%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 1 (1.49%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 1 (1.49%) OSCP
7 1 (1.49%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (31.34%) QA
2 6 (8.96%) GDPR
2 6 (8.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (8.96%) PCI DSS
3 5 (7.46%) PMO
4 2 (2.99%) Accessibility
5 1 (1.49%) Data Quality
5 1 (1.49%) ITGC
5 1 (1.49%) NCSC
System Software
1 1 (1.49%) Virtual Machines
1 1 (1.49%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 9 (13.43%) Nmap
2 3 (4.48%) Grafana
2 3 (4.48%) Kibana
3 1 (1.49%) Ansible
3 1 (1.49%) Cisco Prime
3 1 (1.49%) HP Quality Center
3 1 (1.49%) Iperf
3 1 (1.49%) Nessus
Vendors
1 5 (7.46%) Tagetik
2 4 (5.97%) Cisco
3 3 (4.48%) AppDynamics
3 3 (4.48%) Dynatrace
3 3 (4.48%) Fortinet
4 2 (2.99%) Arista
4 2 (2.99%) CheckPoint
4 2 (2.99%) F5
4 2 (2.99%) Juniper
4 2 (2.99%) Microsoft
4 2 (2.99%) Oracle
4 2 (2.99%) ServiceNow
5 1 (1.49%) Palo Alto
5 1 (1.49%) SAP
5 1 (1.49%) SolarWinds
5 1 (1.49%) Tufin
5 1 (1.49%) VMware