Lead Test Engineer Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Lead Test Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Lead Test Engineer daily rate in the UK excluding London is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 3 November 2025.

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

6 months to
3 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 383 356 417
Rank change year-on-year -27 +61 +102
Contract jobs requiring a Lead Test Engineer 9 7 5
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.054% 0.042% 0.024%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.060% 0.046% 0.026%
Number of daily rates quoted 7 3 3
10th Percentile £400 £480 -
25th Percentile £463 £506 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £550 £450
Median % change year-on-year -13.64% +22.22% -
75th Percentile £511 £575 £475
90th Percentile £524 £591 -
UK median daily rate £488 £544 £450
% change year-on-year -10.34% +20.83% -28.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 4 0
Median hourly rate - £41.27 -
UK median hourly rate - £41.27 -

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. 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 UK excluding London with a recognized job title 15,003 15,325 19,499
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.70% 92.10% 93.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,288 8,775 12,937
10th Percentile £208 £218 £213
25th Percentile £363 £375 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £671 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,446 1,063 1,261
10th Percentile £13.75 £14.73 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.00 £19.28 £18.38
Median hourly rate £25.15 £36.17 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.46% -18.73% +85.42%
75th Percentile £50.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.71 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £37.39 £45.00
% change year-on-year -32.74% -16.91% +57.89%

Lead Test Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Lead Test Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Lead Test Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Lead Test Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Lead Test Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Lead Test Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Lead Test Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Lead Test Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 3 November 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Lead Test Engineer in the UK excluding London

Lead Test Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Lead Test Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Lead Test Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Lead Test Engineer
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Lead Test Engineer within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 3 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
North of England -35 6 £488 -4.88%
Yorkshire -26 3 £475 -13.64%
North East - 2 £495 -
Wales - 2 £305 - 1
East of England -15 1 - -
North West -26 1 £500 +5.26%
Lead Test Engineer
UK

Lead Test Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 3 November 2025, Lead Test Engineer 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 UK excluding London region featuring Lead Test Engineer in the job title.

1 8 (88.89%) Test Automation
2 6 (66.67%) Selenium
3 5 (55.56%) Agile
3 5 (55.56%) Test Strategy
4 4 (44.44%) Java
4 4 (44.44%) JavaScript
5 3 (33.33%) BDD
5 3 (33.33%) End-to-End Testing
5 3 (33.33%) Mentoring
5 3 (33.33%) Node.js
5 3 (33.33%) Test Scripting
6 2 (22.22%) Ansible
6 2 (22.22%) AWS
6 2 (22.22%) Azure
6 2 (22.22%) Bash
6 2 (22.22%) C#
6 2 (22.22%) CI/CD
6 2 (22.22%) Coaching
6 2 (22.22%) CSS
6 2 (22.22%) Cypress.io
6 2 (22.22%) DevOps
6 2 (22.22%) Digital Transformation Programme
6 2 (22.22%) Docker
6 2 (22.22%) GCP
6 2 (22.22%) Gherkin
6 2 (22.22%) GitLab
6 2 (22.22%) Grafana
6 2 (22.22%) HTML
6 2 (22.22%) Infrastructure as Code
6 2 (22.22%) Kubernetes

Lead Test Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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:

Cloud Services
1 2 (22.22%) AWS
1 2 (22.22%) Azure
1 2 (22.22%) GCP
2 1 (11.11%) Tricentis Tosca
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (11.11%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 6 (66.67%) Selenium
2 2 (22.22%) Cypress.io
2 2 (22.22%) GitLab
2 2 (22.22%) SpecFlow
3 1 (11.11%) Cucumber
3 1 (11.11%) JIRA
General
1 5 (55.56%) Public Sector
2 2 (22.22%) Social Skills
3 1 (11.11%) Local Government
3 1 (11.11%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (33.33%) Node.js
2 2 (22.22%) CSS
2 2 (22.22%) Gherkin
2 2 (22.22%) HTML
2 2 (22.22%) Playwright
3 1 (11.11%) Blazor
3 1 (11.11%) FHIR
3 1 (11.11%) GWT
Miscellaneous
1 1 (11.11%) NHS
1 1 (11.11%) Onboarding
Processes & Methodologies
1 8 (88.89%) Test Automation
2 5 (55.56%) Agile
2 5 (55.56%) Test Strategy
3 3 (33.33%) BDD
3 3 (33.33%) End-to-End Testing
3 3 (33.33%) Mentoring
3 3 (33.33%) Test Scripting
4 2 (22.22%) CI/CD
4 2 (22.22%) Coaching
4 2 (22.22%) DevOps
4 2 (22.22%) Digital Transformation Programme
4 2 (22.22%) Infrastructure as Code
4 2 (22.22%) Microservices
4 2 (22.22%) Open Source
4 2 (22.22%) Product Management
4 2 (22.22%) Product Requirements
4 2 (22.22%) System Testing
4 2 (22.22%) TDD
4 2 (22.22%) Technical Leadership
4 2 (22.22%) The Twelve-Factor App
Programming Languages
1 4 (44.44%) Java
1 4 (44.44%) JavaScript
2 2 (22.22%) Bash
2 2 (22.22%) C#
2 2 (22.22%) Python
3 1 (11.11%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 1 (11.11%) Degree
1 1 (11.11%) ISTQB
1 1 (11.11%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
1 1 (11.11%) Master's Degree
1 1 (11.11%) SC Cleared
1 1 (11.11%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (11.11%) Accessibility
1 1 (11.11%) HL7
1 1 (11.11%) QA
1 1 (11.11%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 2 (22.22%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (22.22%) Ansible
1 2 (22.22%) Grafana
1 2 (22.22%) Kubernetes
1 2 (22.22%) Prometheus
1 2 (22.22%) Terraform
2 1 (11.11%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 1 (11.11%) Cerner
1 1 (11.11%) Google
1 1 (11.11%) HP
1 1 (11.11%) MEDITECH
1 1 (11.11%) Virgin Media