Tester Contracts in the South West

Tester
England > South West

The median Tester daily rate in the South West is £413, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 16 July 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 108 131 126
Rank change year-on-year +23 -5 +20
Contract jobs requiring a Tester 12 23 36
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South West 0.64% 0.72% 1.03%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.71% 0.78% 1.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 6 10 29
10th Percentile £288 £357 £381
25th Percentile £316 £518 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £413 £546 £488
Median % change year-on-year -24.49% +12.05% +8.33%
75th Percentile £738 £580 £538
90th Percentile £825 £589 £616
England median daily rate £455 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +1.17% -10.00% +17.65%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
South West

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the South West. 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 West with a recognized job title 1,681 2,963 3,338
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.37% 92.59% 95.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,002 1,883 2,379
10th Percentile £235 £250 £313
25th Percentile £375 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% +5.00%
75th Percentile £619 £613 £650
90th Percentile £688 £700 £723
England median daily rate £513 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.38% -4.55% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 183 452 270
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.00 £17.70
25th Percentile £18.51 £29.75 £39.91
Median hourly rate £32.00 £57.47 £62.78
Median % change year-on-year -44.32% -8.45% +33.56%
75th Percentile £65.00 £71.25 £75.38
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £83.75
England median hourly rate £28.00 £40.00 £43.00
% change year-on-year -30.00% -6.98% +68.63%

Tester
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Job postings that featured Tester in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the South West.

Job vacancy trend for Tester in the South West

Tester
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the South West

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Tester in the South West.

Daily rate trend for Tester in the South West

Tester
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Tester in the South West over the 6 months to 16 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Tester in the South West

Tester
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Tester in the South West.

Hourly rate trend for Tester in the South West

Tester
Contract Job Locations in the South West

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 West region over the 6 months to 16 July 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
Gloucestershire +28 8 £800 +72.97% 6
Wiltshire +22 2 £313 -45.18% 2
Bristol +14 1 £325 +3.17% 1
Devon +7 1 - - 1
Tester
England

Tester Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South West

For the 6 months to 16 July 2025, Tester contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the South West region featuring Tester in the job title.

1 9 (75.00%) Security Cleared
2 6 (50.00%) SC Cleared
2 6 (50.00%) Test Automation
3 5 (41.67%) Software Testing
4 4 (33.33%) Agile
4 4 (33.33%) DV Cleared
5 3 (25.00%) QA
5 3 (25.00%) Continuous Integration
5 3 (25.00%) Manual Testing
5 3 (25.00%) Linux
5 3 (25.00%) Bash
5 3 (25.00%) Non-Functional Testing
5 3 (25.00%) Jenkins
5 3 (25.00%) Ansible
5 3 (25.00%) GitLab
5 3 (25.00%) Social Skills
5 3 (25.00%) CI/CD
5 3 (25.00%) Containerisation
6 2 (16.67%) Cybersecurity
6 2 (16.67%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 2 (16.67%) Coaching
6 2 (16.67%) User Stories
6 2 (16.67%) Finance
6 2 (16.67%) Penetration Testing
6 2 (16.67%) ISTQB
7 1 (8.33%) JIRA
7 1 (8.33%) Maximo
7 1 (8.33%) JavaScript
7 1 (8.33%) Visual Studio
7 1 (8.33%) ETL

Tester Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South West 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:

Business Applications
1 1 (8.33%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 1 (8.33%) AWS
1 1 (8.33%) Azure
1 1 (8.33%) Azure DevOps
1 1 (8.33%) GitHub
1 1 (8.33%) Serverless
Development Applications
1 3 (25.00%) GitLab
1 3 (25.00%) Jenkins
2 1 (8.33%) Cypress.io
2 1 (8.33%) JIRA
2 1 (8.33%) Visual Studio
General
1 3 (25.00%) Social Skills
2 2 (16.67%) Finance
3 1 (8.33%) Documentation Skills
3 1 (8.33%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (8.33%) AngularJS
1 1 (8.33%) AWS CDK
Miscellaneous
1 1 (8.33%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 3 (25.00%) Linux
2 1 (8.33%) Android
2 1 (8.33%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 6 (50.00%) Test Automation
2 5 (41.67%) Software Testing
3 4 (33.33%) Agile
4 3 (25.00%) CI/CD
4 3 (25.00%) Containerisation
4 3 (25.00%) Continuous Integration
4 3 (25.00%) Manual Testing
4 3 (25.00%) Non-Functional Testing
5 2 (16.67%) Coaching
5 2 (16.67%) Cybersecurity
5 2 (16.67%) Penetration Testing
5 2 (16.67%) User Stories
6 1 (8.33%) ETL
6 1 (8.33%) Integration Testing
6 1 (8.33%) Regression Testing
6 1 (8.33%) Test Management
6 1 (8.33%) Test Scripting
6 1 (8.33%) Use Case
6 1 (8.33%) User Acceptance Testing
6 1 (8.33%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 3 (25.00%) Bash
2 1 (8.33%) JavaScript
2 1 (8.33%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 9 (75.00%) Security Cleared
2 6 (50.00%) SC Cleared
3 4 (33.33%) DV Cleared
4 2 (16.67%) ISTQB
4 2 (16.67%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 1 (8.33%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (25.00%) QA
Systems Management
1 3 (25.00%) Ansible
2 1 (8.33%) Terraform
Vendors
1 1 (8.33%) IBM