Test Leader Contracts in the UK excluding London

Test Lead
UK > UK excluding London

The median Test Lead daily rate in the UK excluding London is £450, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 23 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
23 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 299 346 352
Rank change year-on-year +47 +6 +22
Contract jobs requiring a Test Leader 43 45 92
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.34% 0.22% 0.40%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.37% 0.24% 0.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 29 26 67
10th Percentile £320 - £363
25th Percentile £360 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £394 £500
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% -21.25% +11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £493 £581
90th Percentile £600 £554 £680
UK median daily rate £450 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -10.00% -2.44% +4.59%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 0
Median hourly rate - £41.27 -
UK median hourly rate - £41.27 £52.00
% change year-on-year - -20.64% +103.92%

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 11,683 18,741 21,586
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.78% 92.50% 94.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,462 11,456 15,029
10th Percentile £213 £213 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £594 £598
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £508 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -3.33% -2.82% +2.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 812 2,282 1,102
10th Percentile £13.87 £12.50 £13.41
25th Percentile £17.30 £15.72 £18.04
Median hourly rate £26.42 £40.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -33.96% -5.88% +112.50%
75th Percentile £62.50 £61.60 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £27.94 £36.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -23.45% -18.89% +88.21%

Test Leader
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Job vacancy trend for Test Leader in the UK excluding London

Test Leader
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Daily rate trend for Test Leader in the UK excluding London

Test Leader
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Leader in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 23 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Test Leader in the UK excluding London

Test Leader
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Hourly rate trend for Test Leader in the UK excluding London

Test Leader
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 Leader within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 23 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
North of England +23 12 £438 -4.11% 20
South East +55 8 £425 -5.56% 42
Midlands +16 7 £330 -22.35% 21
East Midlands +15 7 £330 -16.46% 10
East of England +22 6 £600 +60.00% 12
South West +35 5 £575 +53.33% 11
North West +12 5 £348 -15.64% 11
Scotland +8 5 £550 -13.73% 13
North East - 5 £650 - 2
Yorkshire +15 2 £463 - 7
Test Leader
UK

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

For the 6 months to 23 May 2025, Test Leader 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 Leader in the job title.

1 19 (44.19%) Test Strategy
2 17 (39.53%) Test Automation
3 16 (37.21%) Social Skills
4 15 (34.88%) Stakeholder Management
4 15 (34.88%) QA
5 14 (32.56%) Agile
5 14 (32.56%) DevOps
6 12 (27.91%) Finance
7 11 (25.58%) User Acceptance Testing
8 10 (23.26%) Validation
8 10 (23.26%) Java
8 10 (23.26%) ERP
9 9 (20.93%) Test Management
9 9 (20.93%) Continuous Integration
10 8 (18.60%) Security Cleared
10 8 (18.60%) Test Planning
10 8 (18.60%) Waterfall
10 8 (18.60%) JavaScript
10 8 (18.60%) CI/CD
11 7 (16.28%) Azure DevOps
11 7 (16.28%) SAP
11 7 (16.28%) Microsoft
11 7 (16.28%) Azure
12 6 (13.95%) Cypress.io
12 6 (13.95%) Integration Testing
12 6 (13.95%) Jenkins
12 6 (13.95%) System Integration Testing
12 6 (13.95%) Oracle
12 6 (13.95%) JIRA
12 6 (13.95%) Problem-Solving

Test Leader 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 1 (2.33%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 5 (11.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (9.30%) SAP ERP
3 3 (6.98%) Finacle
3 3 (6.98%) Kondor
4 1 (2.33%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 7 (16.28%) Azure
1 7 (16.28%) Azure DevOps
2 2 (4.65%) BrowserStack
2 2 (4.65%) Dynamics 365
2 2 (4.65%) GitHub
2 2 (4.65%) SaaS
3 1 (2.33%) AWS
3 1 (2.33%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.33%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (4.65%) BigQuery
1 2 (4.65%) Oracle Reports
2 1 (2.33%) Power BI
2 1 (2.33%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 6 (13.95%) Cypress.io
1 6 (13.95%) Jenkins
1 6 (13.95%) JIRA
2 5 (11.63%) Selenium
3 4 (9.30%) Cucumber
3 4 (9.30%) JMeter
3 4 (9.30%) LoadRunner
3 4 (9.30%) NeoLoad
4 2 (4.65%) Postman
4 2 (4.65%) SoapUI
5 1 (2.33%) SpecFlow
5 1 (2.33%) Visual Studio
5 1 (2.33%) WebDriver
General
1 16 (37.21%) Social Skills
2 12 (27.91%) Finance
3 4 (9.30%) Analytical Skills
3 4 (9.30%) Banking
3 4 (9.30%) Pharmaceutical
4 3 (6.98%) Public Sector
5 2 (4.65%) Billing
6 1 (2.33%) Aerospace
6 1 (2.33%) Legal
6 1 (2.33%) Manufacturing
6 1 (2.33%) Retail Banking
6 1 (2.33%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (6.98%) Node.js
1 3 (6.98%) Oracle Fusion
2 1 (2.33%) .NET
2 1 (2.33%) JSON
2 1 (2.33%) RFC 2544
2 1 (2.33%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 5 (11.63%) Onboarding
2 4 (9.30%) FMCG
2 4 (9.30%) Life Science
3 3 (6.98%) Data Centre
3 3 (6.98%) Legacy Systems
4 2 (4.65%) Greenfield Project
5 1 (2.33%) EPoS
5 1 (2.33%) NHS
5 1 (2.33%) Operational Technology
5 1 (2.33%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 4 (9.30%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (44.19%) Test Strategy
2 17 (39.53%) Test Automation
3 15 (34.88%) Stakeholder Management
4 14 (32.56%) Agile
4 14 (32.56%) DevOps
5 11 (25.58%) User Acceptance Testing
6 10 (23.26%) ERP
6 10 (23.26%) Validation
7 9 (20.93%) Continuous Integration
7 9 (20.93%) Test Management
8 8 (18.60%) CI/CD
8 8 (18.60%) Test Planning
8 8 (18.60%) Waterfall
9 6 (13.95%) Integration Testing
9 6 (13.95%) Problem-Solving
9 6 (13.95%) System Integration Testing
10 5 (11.63%) CRM
10 5 (11.63%) Non-Functional Testing
10 5 (11.63%) Service Management
10 5 (11.63%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 10 (23.26%) Java
2 8 (18.60%) JavaScript
3 3 (6.98%) TypeScript
4 1 (2.33%) C#
4 1 (2.33%) PowerShell
4 1 (2.33%) SQL
Qualifications
1 8 (18.60%) Security Cleared
2 4 (9.30%) BPSS Clearance
2 4 (9.30%) DV Cleared
2 4 (9.30%) SC Cleared
3 2 (4.65%) ISTQB
4 1 (2.33%) APMG
4 1 (2.33%) ISEB
4 1 (2.33%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (34.88%) QA
2 2 (4.65%) GxP
2 2 (4.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
Systems Management
1 3 (6.98%) Ansible
1 3 (6.98%) Packer
1 3 (6.98%) Terraform
Vendors
1 7 (16.28%) Microsoft
1 7 (16.28%) SAP
2 6 (13.95%) Oracle
3 3 (6.98%) FIS
3 3 (6.98%) Murex
4 2 (4.65%) Nintex
5 1 (2.33%) Ariba
5 1 (2.33%) Cisco
5 1 (2.33%) Virgin Media