Tester Contract Job Trends in the South East

Tester
England > South East

The median Tester daily rate in the South East is £393, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 15 August 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 184 117 165
Rank change year-on-year -67 +48 +8
Contract jobs requiring a Tester 48 48 26
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.71% 1.35% 0.53%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.77% 1.50% 0.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 30 29 17
10th Percentile £252 £348 -
25th Percentile £308 £375 £205
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £393 £425 £225
Median % change year-on-year -7.65% +88.89% -45.78%
75th Percentile £507 £500 £450
90th Percentile £602 £525 £552
England median daily rate £418 £438 £443
% change year-on-year -4.57% -1.24% -11.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 2 1
10th Percentile - £34.56 -
25th Percentile £66.25 £37.35 £10.24
Median hourly rate £67.50 £42.61 £10.30
Median % change year-on-year +58.43% +313.64% -39.41%
75th Percentile £68.75 £48.49 £10.36
90th Percentile - £51.65 -
England median hourly rate £25.38 £32.71 £30.15
% change year-on-year -22.41% +8.49% -43.64%

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 6,236 3,209 4,522
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.23% 90.50% 92.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,673 2,075 2,778
10th Percentile £303 £207 £250
25th Percentile £425 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.91% +3.00%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £634
90th Percentile £714 £663 £688
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 752 267 377
10th Percentile £16.00 £13.75 £16.00
25th Percentile £26.25 £15.50 £27.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -56.15% +17.05%
75th Percentile £73.25 £57.50 £73.75
90th Percentile £86.61 £75.00 £80.00
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.30 £45.00
% change year-on-year +67.98% -43.78% +7.14%

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 15 August 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 15 August 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
Hampshire -32 22 £425 -10.53% 11
Thames Valley -51 10 £418 - 6
West Sussex - 9 £358 - 1
Berkshire -34 8 £418 -9.73% 3
Surrey -14 7 £319 - 2
Buckinghamshire -35 2 £369 +18.30% 1
Tester
England

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

For the 6 months to 15 August 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 25 (52.08%) Security Cleared
2 22 (45.83%) Agile
3 20 (41.67%) Test Automation
4 17 (35.42%) QA
5 15 (31.25%) DV Cleared
6 13 (27.08%) CI/CD
7 11 (22.92%) Performance Testing
7 11 (22.92%) Test Strategy
7 11 (22.92%) Validation
8 10 (20.83%) End-to-End Testing
8 10 (20.83%) SQL
8 10 (20.83%) Test Scripting
9 9 (18.75%) AWS
9 9 (18.75%) Continuous Improvement
9 9 (18.75%) Defect Management
9 9 (18.75%) SC Cleared
9 9 (18.75%) Scenario Testing
10 7 (14.58%) Data Validation
10 7 (14.58%) User Acceptance Testing
10 7 (14.58%) Windows
11 6 (12.50%) Azure
11 6 (12.50%) ISTQB
11 6 (12.50%) JIRA
11 6 (12.50%) Linux
11 6 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
11 6 (12.50%) Project Delivery
11 6 (12.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 6 (12.50%) System Integration Testing
11 6 (12.50%) System Testing
12 5 (10.42%) AppDynamics

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 (4.17%) Apache Spark
Cloud Services
1 9 (18.75%) AWS
2 6 (12.50%) Azure
3 2 (4.17%) Azure Monitor
3 2 (4.17%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 3 (6.25%) HTTP
2 2 (4.17%) GPRS
2 2 (4.17%) GSM
2 2 (4.17%) LAN
2 2 (4.17%) LTE
2 2 (4.17%) MPLS
2 2 (4.17%) NGN
2 2 (4.17%) UMTS
2 2 (4.17%) VPN
2 2 (4.17%) WAN
2 2 (4.17%) Wireshark
3 1 (2.08%) Firewall
3 1 (2.08%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (8.33%) Data Warehouse
2 3 (6.25%) Elasticsearch
3 2 (4.17%) Big Data
3 2 (4.17%) Oracle Reports
3 2 (4.17%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 6 (12.50%) JIRA
2 5 (10.42%) JMeter
2 5 (10.42%) LoadRunner
3 3 (6.25%) Gatling
4 2 (4.17%) GitLab
4 2 (4.17%) Jenkins
4 2 (4.17%) NeoLoad
4 2 (4.17%) SpecFlow
4 2 (4.17%) Zephyr
5 1 (2.08%) Burp Suite
5 1 (2.08%) Metasploit
5 1 (2.08%) Postman
General
1 13 (27.08%) Analytical Skills
2 12 (25.00%) Social Skills
3 7 (14.58%) Finance
4 5 (10.42%) Public Sector
5 4 (8.33%) Electronics
5 4 (8.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (4.17%) Billing
6 2 (4.17%) Telecoms
7 1 (2.08%) Banking
7 1 (2.08%) Documentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (4.17%) Kafka
1 2 (4.17%) Playwright
1 2 (4.17%) PySpark
1 2 (4.17%) Swagger
2 1 (2.08%) REST
2 1 (2.08%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 3 (6.25%) Data Protection Act
1 3 (6.25%) Distributed Systems
1 3 (6.25%) PKI
2 2 (4.17%) Cloud Native
2 2 (4.17%) Enterprise Software
2 2 (4.17%) Product Ownership
3 1 (2.08%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 7 (14.58%) Windows
2 6 (12.50%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (45.83%) Agile
2 20 (41.67%) Test Automation
3 13 (27.08%) CI/CD
4 11 (22.92%) Performance Testing
4 11 (22.92%) Test Strategy
4 11 (22.92%) Validation
5 10 (20.83%) End-to-End Testing
5 10 (20.83%) Test Scripting
6 9 (18.75%) Continuous Improvement
6 9 (18.75%) Defect Management
6 9 (18.75%) Scenario Testing
7 7 (14.58%) Data Validation
7 7 (14.58%) User Acceptance Testing
8 6 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
8 6 (12.50%) Project Delivery
8 6 (12.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 6 (12.50%) System Integration Testing
8 6 (12.50%) System Testing
9 5 (10.42%) Budgeting
9 5 (10.42%) Budgeting and Forecasting
Programming Languages
1 10 (20.83%) SQL
2 3 (6.25%) C#
3 2 (4.17%) Java
3 2 (4.17%) Kotlin
3 2 (4.17%) Python
3 2 (4.17%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 25 (52.08%) Security Cleared
2 15 (31.25%) DV Cleared
3 9 (18.75%) SC Cleared
4 6 (12.50%) ISTQB
5 3 (6.25%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 2 (4.17%) CCNP
6 2 (4.17%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (2.08%) CHECK Team Member
7 1 (2.08%) CREST Certified
7 1 (2.08%) Cyber Scheme
7 1 (2.08%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (35.42%) QA
2 3 (6.25%) Data Quality
3 1 (2.08%) Accessibility
3 1 (2.08%) GDPR
3 1 (2.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (2.08%) ITGC
3 1 (2.08%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 2 (4.17%) Docker
2 1 (2.08%) Virtual Machines
2 1 (2.08%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 3 (6.25%) Grafana
1 3 (6.25%) Kibana
2 2 (4.17%) Kubernetes
3 1 (2.08%) Nmap
Vendors
1 5 (10.42%) AppDynamics
1 5 (10.42%) Dynatrace
1 5 (10.42%) Tagetik
2 3 (6.25%) Cisco
3 2 (4.17%) Arista
3 2 (4.17%) Databricks
3 2 (4.17%) F5
3 2 (4.17%) Fortinet
3 2 (4.17%) Juniper
3 2 (4.17%) Microsoft
3 2 (4.17%) Oracle
4 1 (2.08%) CheckPoint
4 1 (2.08%) SAP
4 1 (2.08%) VMware