Test Engineer Contracts in the UK excluding London

Test Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Test Engineer daily rate in the UK excluding London is £459, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 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
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 228 212 283
Rank change year-on-year -16 +71 -10
Contract jobs requiring a Test Engineer 108 197 183
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.85% 0.95% 0.76%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.92% 1.02% 0.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 66 134 112
10th Percentile £305 £261 £313
25th Percentile £357 £375 £397
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £425 £480
Median % change year-on-year +7.94% -11.46% +6.67%
75th Percentile £538 £555 £550
90th Percentile £575 £598 £575
UK median daily rate £438 £425 £500
% change year-on-year +2.94% -15.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 30 15
10th Percentile £38.56 £26.88 £40.50
25th Percentile £50.00 £35.00 £50.00
Median hourly rate £57.50 £42.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +35.29% -19.05% +3.24%
75th Percentile £62.50 £59.44 £69.38
90th Percentile £63.00 £62.05 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £57.50 £42.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +35.29% -19.05% +9.55%

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 11,767 19,240 22,667
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.17% 92.63% 94.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,552 11,748 15,893
10th Percentile £213 £213 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £395
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £492 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.46% -1.60% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £598 £595
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 829 2,243 1,165
10th Percentile £14.00 £12.50 £13.45
25th Percentile £17.61 £15.75 £18.09
Median hourly rate £28.00 £39.55 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -29.20% -6.94% +117.95%
75th Percentile £64.50 £61.30 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £36.42 £45.00
% change year-on-year -20.37% -19.07% +91.49%

Test Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings that featured Test Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Test Engineer in the UK excluding London

Test Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Test Engineer in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Test Engineer in the UK excluding London

Test Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Test Engineer in the UK excluding London

Test Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Test Engineer in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Test Engineer in the UK excluding London

Test Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Engineer in the UK excluding London

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 Test Engineer within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 1 May 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
South East +38 51 £513 +20.59% 117
North of England -18 17 £366 -13.82% 79
East of England +22 10 £375 -10.71% 56
South West +19 9 £538 -7.33% 74
Midlands +10 9 £438 +71.57% 83
East Midlands -3 7 £438 +71.57% 19
Scotland +16 6 £474 +30.33% 15
North West -14 6 £375 -16.67% 43
North East - 6 £350 - 12
Wales 0 5 £322 -11.29% 23
Yorkshire -4 5 £423 +0.90% 24
West Midlands +15 2 £358 -31.90% 61
Channel Islands - 1 - -
Test Engineer
UK

Test Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, Test Engineer 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 UK excluding London region featuring Test Engineer in the job title.

1 55 (50.93%) Test Automation
2 50 (46.30%) Agile
3 39 (36.11%) Security Cleared
4 34 (31.48%) Linux
5 31 (28.70%) Problem-Solving
5 31 (28.70%) Social Skills
6 28 (25.93%) ISTQB
6 28 (25.93%) SC Cleared
7 26 (24.07%) Java
8 25 (23.15%) Telecoms
9 24 (22.22%) Test Strategy
9 24 (22.22%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 23 (21.30%) Test Scripting
11 21 (19.44%) Microsoft
12 20 (18.52%) Regression Testing
12 20 (18.52%) JIRA
13 19 (17.59%) Public Sector
14 18 (16.67%) Self-Motivation
14 18 (16.67%) Git
14 18 (16.67%) Unix
15 17 (15.74%) Validation
15 17 (15.74%) LTE
15 17 (15.74%) Selenium
16 16 (14.81%) Test Management
16 16 (14.81%) SQL
16 16 (14.81%) Ethernet
16 16 (14.81%) Cisco
16 16 (14.81%) CI/CD
16 16 (14.81%) API Testing
17 15 (13.89%) VPN

Test Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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:

Application Platforms
1 12 (11.11%) Confluence
2 3 (2.78%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (1.85%) Tomcat
4 1 (0.93%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.93%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 3 (2.78%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.85%) CANalyzer
2 2 (1.85%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.93%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 11 (10.19%) Azure
2 8 (7.41%) AWS
3 5 (4.63%) Azure DevOps
4 3 (2.78%) AWS Lambda
4 3 (2.78%) Azure Data Factory
4 3 (2.78%) GCP
4 3 (2.78%) Serverless
5 2 (1.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 2 (1.85%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 2 (1.85%) GitHub
5 2 (1.85%) GitHub Actions
6 1 (0.93%) Amazon S3
6 1 (0.93%) Amazon SQS
6 1 (0.93%) BrowserStack
6 1 (0.93%) Datadog
6 1 (0.93%) npm
6 1 (0.93%) Sauce Labs
6 1 (0.93%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 17 (15.74%) LTE
2 16 (14.81%) Ethernet
3 15 (13.89%) GSM
3 15 (13.89%) MPLS
3 15 (13.89%) VPN
4 14 (12.96%) ATM
4 14 (12.96%) Frame Relay
4 14 (12.96%) GPRS
4 14 (12.96%) LAN
4 14 (12.96%) SAN
4 14 (12.96%) SDH
4 14 (12.96%) UMTS
4 14 (12.96%) WAN
4 14 (12.96%) Wireshark
5 8 (7.41%) Software-Defined Radio
6 7 (6.48%) SNMP
7 6 (5.56%) HTTP
8 3 (2.78%) DHCP
8 3 (2.78%) DNS
8 3 (2.78%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (2.78%) Big Data
1 3 (2.78%) MongoDB
2 2 (1.85%) Azure SQL Database
2 2 (1.85%) MariaDB
2 2 (1.85%) MySQL
2 2 (1.85%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.93%) Amazon Athena
3 1 (0.93%) Amazon Redshift
3 1 (0.93%) Delta Lake
3 1 (0.93%) DynamoDB
3 1 (0.93%) Elasticsearch
3 1 (0.93%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.93%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.93%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 20 (18.52%) JIRA
2 18 (16.67%) Git
3 17 (15.74%) Selenium
4 11 (10.19%) Jenkins
4 11 (10.19%) Postman
5 10 (9.26%) Cucumber
6 9 (8.33%) TestRail
7 8 (7.41%) Cypress.io
7 8 (7.41%) Robot Framework
8 7 (6.48%) GoogleTest
8 7 (6.48%) SpecFlow
9 6 (5.56%) REST Assured
10 5 (4.63%) Bitbucket
10 5 (4.63%) LabVIEW
11 4 (3.70%) Eclipse
11 4 (3.70%) NUnit
11 4 (3.70%) WebDriver
12 3 (2.78%) GitLab
12 3 (2.78%) LoadRunner
13 2 (1.85%) Gatling
General
1 31 (28.70%) Social Skills
2 25 (23.15%) Telecoms
3 19 (17.59%) Public Sector
4 14 (12.96%) Manufacturing
5 13 (12.04%) Finance
6 12 (11.11%) Electronics
7 11 (10.19%) Analytical Skills
8 7 (6.48%) Marketing
9 5 (4.63%) Aerospace
9 5 (4.63%) Banking
10 2 (1.85%) Automotive
10 2 (1.85%) Aviation
10 2 (1.85%) Avionics
10 2 (1.85%) Health Technology
10 2 (1.85%) Military
10 2 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.93%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.93%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.93%) Retail Banking
11 1 (0.93%) Welsh Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (12.04%) HTML
2 10 (9.26%) CSS
3 9 (8.33%) Playwright
4 8 (7.41%) .NET
5 5 (4.63%) Gherkin
6 4 (3.70%) AngularJS
6 4 (3.70%) Node.js
6 4 (3.70%) Web Services
7 3 (2.78%) PySpark
7 3 (2.78%) REST
7 3 (2.78%) RESTful
8 2 (1.85%) Blazor
8 2 (1.85%) GWT
8 2 (1.85%) J2EE
8 2 (1.85%) JSON
8 2 (1.85%) Kafka
8 2 (1.85%) React
8 2 (1.85%) SOAP
8 2 (1.85%) XML
8 2 (1.85%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (16.67%) Self-Motivation
2 5 (4.63%) NHS
3 4 (3.70%) Onboarding
3 4 (3.70%) Product Ownership
4 3 (2.78%) Analogue Electronics
4 3 (2.78%) IoT
4 3 (2.78%) Operational Technology
4 3 (2.78%) PKI
4 3 (2.78%) SCADA
5 2 (1.85%) Infotainment
5 2 (1.85%) Linux Command Line
6 1 (0.93%) Data Centre
6 1 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (0.93%) IBM Mainframe
6 1 (0.93%) Mainframe
6 1 (0.93%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 34 (31.48%) Linux
2 18 (16.67%) Unix
3 12 (11.11%) Windows
4 3 (2.78%) AIX
4 3 (2.78%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (1.85%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.93%) CentOS
6 1 (0.93%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 55 (50.93%) Test Automation
2 50 (46.30%) Agile
3 31 (28.70%) Problem-Solving
4 24 (22.22%) Test Strategy
5 23 (21.30%) Test Scripting
6 20 (18.52%) Regression Testing
7 17 (15.74%) Validation
8 16 (14.81%) API Testing
8 16 (14.81%) CI/CD
8 16 (14.81%) Test Management
9 14 (12.96%) Fault Management
9 14 (12.96%) Project Management
9 14 (12.96%) Scrum
10 13 (12.04%) BDD
10 13 (12.04%) Manual Testing
10 13 (12.04%) Verification and Validation
11 12 (11.11%) Performance Testing
11 12 (11.11%) Software Testing
12 11 (10.19%) DevOps
13 9 (8.33%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 26 (24.07%) Java
2 16 (14.81%) SQL
3 11 (10.19%) JavaScript
4 10 (9.26%) Python
5 9 (8.33%) C#
6 7 (6.48%) TypeScript
7 6 (5.56%) C++
8 3 (2.78%) Perl
8 3 (2.78%) PL/SQL
8 3 (2.78%) PowerShell
9 2 (1.85%) C
9 2 (1.85%) MATLAB
10 1 (0.93%) Bash
10 1 (0.93%) JCL
10 1 (0.93%) REXX
10 1 (0.93%) Scala
10 1 (0.93%) XPath
Qualifications
1 39 (36.11%) Security Cleared
2 28 (25.93%) ISTQB
2 28 (25.93%) SC Cleared
3 24 (22.22%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 15 (13.89%) ISEB
5 14 (12.96%) CCNP
5 14 (12.96%) Cisco Certification
5 14 (12.96%) Degree
6 10 (9.26%) DV Cleared
7 3 (2.78%) Master's Degree
8 2 (1.85%) MCSA
8 2 (1.85%) MCSE
8 2 (1.85%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (1.85%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 1 (0.93%) CEH
9 1 (0.93%) CISSP
9 1 (0.93%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.93%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (10.19%) QA
2 2 (1.85%) Accessibility
2 2 (1.85%) Data Quality
System Software
1 5 (4.63%) Docker
2 4 (3.70%) Active Directory
2 4 (3.70%) Firmware
2 4 (3.70%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 3 (2.78%) Kubernetes
2 2 (1.85%) CA Wily
2 2 (1.85%) Terraform
3 1 (0.93%) Ansible
3 1 (0.93%) Control-M
3 1 (0.93%) Grafana
3 1 (0.93%) HP ALM
3 1 (0.93%) Kibana
3 1 (0.93%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 21 (19.44%) Microsoft
2 16 (14.81%) Cisco
3 14 (12.96%) Juniper
4 8 (7.41%) Google
5 7 (6.48%) SAP
6 6 (5.56%) Atlassian
7 5 (4.63%) VMware
8 4 (3.70%) Splunk
9 3 (2.78%) Databricks
9 3 (2.78%) Mentor Graphics
9 3 (2.78%) Oracle
10 2 (1.85%) AppDynamics
10 2 (1.85%) Brio
10 2 (1.85%) HP
10 2 (1.85%) Virgin Media
11 1 (0.93%) IBM
11 1 (0.93%) MuleSoft
11 1 (0.93%) Perfecto Mobile
11 1 (0.93%) ServiceNow
11 1 (0.93%) Twitter