Tester Contract Job Trends in the South East

Tester
England > South East

The median Tester daily rate in the South East is £413, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 November 2025.

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

6 months to
6 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 128 148 102
Rank change year-on-year +20 -46 +115
Contract jobs requiring a Tester 50 32 118
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.30% 0.77% 2.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.46% 0.83% 2.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 34 15 21
10th Percentile £359 £213 -
25th Percentile £389 £306 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £413 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year -2.79% - +21.43%
75th Percentile £514 £481 £513
90th Percentile £613 £569 £600
England median daily rate £451 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +0.22% -5.26% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £16.50
Median hourly rate £32.71 - £17.00
75th Percentile - - £17.50
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £32.71 £77.50 £46.00
% change year-on-year -57.79% +68.48% +187.50%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 3,433 3,833 5,060
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.54% 92.47% 94.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,213 2,296 3,343
10th Percentile £205 £245 £210
25th Percentile £375 £400 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £508 £508
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% - +1.50%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £613
90th Percentile £663 £683 £688
England median daily rate £510 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -2.86% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 341 215 246
10th Percentile £13.50 £16.00 £16.00
25th Percentile £16.17 £26.63 £22.56
Median hourly rate £20.79 £57.50 £50.53
Median % change year-on-year -63.84% +13.80% +43.50%
75th Percentile £50.00 £71.57 £67.44
90th Percentile £72.00 £75.16 £76.53
England median hourly rate £25.15 £40.33 £45.88
% change year-on-year -37.63% -12.11% +52.93%

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 6 November 2025.

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 6 November 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 +16 24 £500 +6.67% 5
Thames Valley +6 22 £413 +58.65% 17
Berkshire +13 19 £413 -2.94% 12
Buckinghamshire +9 3 £300 - 5
Surrey +5 2 £425 - 2
West Sussex -10 1 £375 -18.92%
East Sussex - 1 - -
Tester
England

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

For the 6 months to 6 November 2025, 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 32 (64.00%) Test Automation
2 21 (42.00%) Security Cleared
3 14 (28.00%) JIRA
3 14 (28.00%) Python
3 14 (28.00%) Test Scripting
4 12 (24.00%) Agile
4 12 (24.00%) Penetration Testing
4 12 (24.00%) Test Strategy
5 11 (22.00%) Nmap
5 11 (22.00%) Software Testing
6 10 (20.00%) Bash
6 10 (20.00%) Jenkins
6 10 (20.00%) SOAP
6 10 (20.00%) Wireshark
7 9 (18.00%) DV Cleared
7 9 (18.00%) Red Team
8 8 (16.00%) Azure
8 8 (16.00%) Burp Suite
8 8 (16.00%) Kali Linux
8 8 (16.00%) Linux
8 8 (16.00%) OSCP
8 8 (16.00%) OWASP
8 8 (16.00%) SQL
9 7 (14.00%) .NET
9 7 (14.00%) CEH
9 7 (14.00%) Ethical Hacking
9 7 (14.00%) GPEN
9 7 (14.00%) Metasploit
9 7 (14.00%) MITRE ATT&CK
9 7 (14.00%) PowerShell

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 6 (12.00%) Confluence
2 1 (2.00%) Apache
Applications
1 2 (4.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (2.00%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 8 (16.00%) Azure
2 6 (12.00%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (2.00%) AWS
3 1 (2.00%) GCP
3 1 (2.00%) OCI
3 1 (2.00%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 10 (20.00%) Wireshark
2 4 (8.00%) Internet
2 4 (8.00%) Intranet
2 4 (8.00%) Wireless
3 3 (6.00%) BGP
3 3 (6.00%) Cisco ASA
3 3 (6.00%) Firewall
3 3 (6.00%) MPLS
3 3 (6.00%) Multicast
3 3 (6.00%) OSPF
3 3 (6.00%) TCP/IP
3 3 (6.00%) VLAN
3 3 (6.00%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.00%) Azure SQL Database
1 1 (2.00%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 14 (28.00%) JIRA
2 10 (20.00%) Jenkins
3 8 (16.00%) Burp Suite
4 7 (14.00%) Metasploit
4 7 (14.00%) Selenium
5 6 (12.00%) SoapUI
6 5 (10.00%) Cucumber
7 4 (8.00%) Bitbucket
7 4 (8.00%) REST Assured
8 3 (6.00%) Cypress.io
9 2 (4.00%) NUnit
9 2 (4.00%) Toad
10 1 (2.00%) Git
10 1 (2.00%) JMeter
10 1 (2.00%) TestRail
10 1 (2.00%) Visual Studio
General
1 17 (34.00%) Social Skills
2 9 (18.00%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (10.00%) Finance
4 4 (8.00%) Public Sector
5 3 (6.00%) Automotive
6 2 (4.00%) Telecoms
7 1 (2.00%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (20.00%) SOAP
2 7 (14.00%) .NET
2 7 (14.00%) XML
3 4 (8.00%) REST
3 4 (8.00%) RESTful
4 2 (4.00%) Playwright
4 2 (4.00%) Swagger
5 1 (2.00%) Apache NiFi
5 1 (2.00%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 6 (12.00%) Self-Motivation
2 1 (2.00%) Client/Server
2 1 (2.00%) LIMS
2 1 (2.00%) NHS
2 1 (2.00%) Onboarding
2 1 (2.00%) Security Posture
2 1 (2.00%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 8 (16.00%) Kali Linux
1 8 (16.00%) Linux
2 3 (6.00%) Windows
3 1 (2.00%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 32 (64.00%) Test Automation
2 14 (28.00%) Test Scripting
3 12 (24.00%) Agile
3 12 (24.00%) Penetration Testing
3 12 (24.00%) Test Strategy
4 11 (22.00%) Software Testing
5 9 (18.00%) Red Team
6 8 (16.00%) OWASP
7 7 (14.00%) Ethical Hacking
7 7 (14.00%) MITRE ATT&CK
7 7 (14.00%) Scenario Testing
8 6 (12.00%) DevOps
8 6 (12.00%) End-to-End Testing
8 6 (12.00%) Mentoring
8 6 (12.00%) Programme Delivery
8 6 (12.00%) Regression Testing
8 6 (12.00%) Root Cause Analysis
8 6 (12.00%) Validation
8 6 (12.00%) V-Model
8 6 (12.00%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 14 (28.00%) Python
2 10 (20.00%) Bash
3 8 (16.00%) SQL
4 7 (14.00%) PowerShell
5 6 (12.00%) C#
6 3 (6.00%) Java
7 1 (2.00%) JavaScript
7 1 (2.00%) Korn
Qualifications
1 21 (42.00%) Security Cleared
2 9 (18.00%) DV Cleared
3 8 (16.00%) OSCP
4 7 (14.00%) CEH
4 7 (14.00%) GPEN
4 7 (14.00%) SC Cleared
5 3 (6.00%) Cisco Certification
5 3 (6.00%) Degree
6 2 (4.00%) CCIE
6 2 (4.00%) CCNP
6 2 (4.00%) CISSP
6 2 (4.00%) ISTQB
7 1 (2.00%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 1 (2.00%) CCSP
7 1 (2.00%) CISM
7 1 (2.00%) ISEB
7 1 (2.00%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 1 (2.00%) PMI Certification
7 1 (2.00%) PMP
7 1 (2.00%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (14.00%) QA
2 2 (4.00%) Data Quality
3 1 (2.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (2.00%) NIST
3 1 (2.00%) PMO
3 1 (2.00%) SLA
Systems Management
1 11 (22.00%) Nmap
2 3 (6.00%) Ansible
2 3 (6.00%) Iperf
3 2 (4.00%) Nessus
Vendors
1 4 (8.00%) CheckPoint
2 3 (6.00%) Cisco
2 3 (6.00%) Fortinet
2 3 (6.00%) Oracle
2 3 (6.00%) Palo Alto
2 3 (6.00%) SolarWinds
3 1 (2.00%) Microsoft
3 1 (2.00%) SAP
3 1 (2.00%) Virgin Media
3 1 (2.00%) webMethods