Tester Contracts in the UK excluding London

Tester
UK > UK excluding London

The median Tester daily rate in the UK excluding London is £425, 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 215 268 244
Rank change year-on-year +53 -24 -1
Contract jobs requiring a Tester 121 132 234
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.95% 0.64% 0.97%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.03% 0.69% 1.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 83 68 172
10th Percentile £266 £205 £285
25th Percentile £354 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year - - +3.03%
75th Percentile £500 £508 £503
90th Percentile £538 £600 £573
UK median daily rate £440 £450 £498
% change year-on-year -2.22% -9.68% +10.72%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 1
10th Percentile £16.61 - -
25th Percentile £22.38 £10.24 £52.00
Median hourly rate £32.63 £10.30 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year +216.80% -80.93% +195.89%
75th Percentile £43.50 £10.36 £56.00
90th Percentile £49.65 - -
UK median hourly rate £32.63 £30.15 £72.00
% change year-on-year +8.23% -58.13% +294.52%

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%

Tester
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Job vacancy trend for Tester in the UK excluding London

Tester
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Daily rate trend for Tester in the UK excluding London

Tester
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

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

Daily rate histogram for Tester in the UK excluding London

Tester
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Hourly rate trend for Tester in the UK excluding London

Tester
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

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

Hourly rate histogram for Tester in the UK excluding London

Tester
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 Tester 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
North of England +24 45 £425 -5.56% 119
South East +22 33 £450 +9.09% 127
Midlands +33 23 £475 +30.14% 105
North West +26 22 £425 +6.25% 53
West Midlands +30 20 £475 +134.57% 57
Yorkshire +4 19 £500 +8.11% 52
Scotland +17 10 £375 - 20
South West +39 5 £300 -43.66% 62
North East +1 4 £390 -35.00% 14
East Midlands +5 3 £250 -34.21% 42
East of England +31 2 - - 79
Wales +1 2 £600 +6.81% 14
Northern Ireland -9 1 £325 - 7
Tester
UK

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

For the 6 months to 1 May 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 UK excluding London region featuring Tester in the job title.

1 75 (61.98%) Test Automation
2 46 (38.02%) JIRA
3 44 (36.36%) Agile
4 40 (33.06%) Social Skills
5 39 (32.23%) QA
6 32 (26.45%) Selenium
7 30 (24.79%) Test Strategy
8 28 (23.14%) Problem-Solving
9 27 (22.31%) Test Scripting
10 24 (19.83%) Performance Testing
11 23 (19.01%) Azure
12 20 (16.53%) Manual Testing
12 20 (16.53%) Security Cleared
12 20 (16.53%) DevOps
12 20 (16.53%) Software Testing
12 20 (16.53%) SQL
13 19 (15.70%) Java
13 19 (15.70%) Analytical Skills
14 18 (14.88%) Finance
15 17 (14.05%) API Testing
16 16 (13.22%) Postman
17 15 (12.40%) Scenario Testing
17 15 (12.40%) System Integration Testing
17 15 (12.40%) Test Management
17 15 (12.40%) AWS
17 15 (12.40%) User Acceptance Testing
17 15 (12.40%) SCADA
18 14 (11.57%) Security Testing
18 14 (11.57%) Functional Testing
19 13 (10.74%) JMeter

Tester 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 7 (5.79%) Confluence
2 1 (0.83%) Appian
2 1 (0.83%) CICS
2 1 (0.83%) SAS
2 1 (0.83%) WebSphere
Applications
1 4 (3.31%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.83%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.83%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
1 1 (0.83%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 23 (19.01%) Azure
2 15 (12.40%) AWS
3 8 (6.61%) Azure DevOps
4 7 (5.79%) GCP
5 3 (2.48%) Entra ID
5 3 (2.48%) GitHub
6 2 (1.65%) Azure Data Factory
6 2 (1.65%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 2 (1.65%) Dynamics 365
6 2 (1.65%) Microsoft 365
7 1 (0.83%) Bloomreach
7 1 (0.83%) BrowserStack
7 1 (0.83%) OCI
7 1 (0.83%) OpenShift
7 1 (0.83%) Power Automate
7 1 (0.83%) Power Platform
7 1 (0.83%) PowerApps
7 1 (0.83%) SaaS
7 1 (0.83%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 5 (4.13%) BGP
1 5 (4.13%) MPLS
1 5 (4.13%) TCP/IP
1 5 (4.13%) VLAN
2 1 (0.83%) Converged Networks
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.65%) Azure SQL Database
1 2 (1.65%) Elasticsearch
1 2 (1.65%) MongoDB
2 1 (0.83%) DB2
2 1 (0.83%) Oracle Database
2 1 (0.83%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 46 (38.02%) JIRA
2 32 (26.45%) Selenium
3 16 (13.22%) Postman
4 13 (10.74%) JMeter
5 12 (9.92%) Git
6 11 (9.09%) Cucumber
7 10 (8.26%) Cypress.io
8 9 (7.44%) Jenkins
9 7 (5.79%) LoadRunner
9 7 (5.79%) Maven
9 7 (5.79%) SoapUI
10 6 (4.96%) IntelliJ
11 5 (4.13%) Robot Framework
11 5 (4.13%) SpecFlow
12 4 (3.31%) JUnit
12 4 (3.31%) REST Assured
13 3 (2.48%) Burp Suite
13 3 (2.48%) GitLab
13 3 (2.48%) Metasploit
14 2 (1.65%) TestNG
General
1 40 (33.06%) Social Skills
2 19 (15.70%) Analytical Skills
3 18 (14.88%) Finance
4 13 (10.74%) Public Sector
5 11 (9.09%) Documentation Skills
6 10 (8.26%) Banking
7 8 (6.61%) Telecoms
8 3 (2.48%) Aerospace
8 3 (2.48%) Manufacturing
9 2 (1.65%) Electronics
9 2 (1.65%) Marketing
9 2 (1.65%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.83%) Aviation
10 1 (0.83%) Back Office
10 1 (0.83%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.83%) Games
10 1 (0.83%) Pharmaceutical
10 1 (0.83%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.83%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (4.96%) Playwright
2 5 (4.13%) Gherkin
2 5 (4.13%) Middleware
3 3 (2.48%) PySpark
3 3 (2.48%) SOAP
3 3 (2.48%) XML
4 2 (1.65%) .NET
4 2 (1.65%) Node.js
4 2 (1.65%) REST
4 2 (1.65%) WireMock
5 1 (0.83%) AngularJS
5 1 (0.83%) DOM
5 1 (0.83%) HTML
5 1 (0.83%) jQuery
5 1 (0.83%) Nightwatchjs
5 1 (0.83%) OAuth
5 1 (0.83%) Oracle Fusion
5 1 (0.83%) React
5 1 (0.83%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 15 (12.40%) SCADA
2 9 (7.44%) Product Ownership
3 7 (5.79%) Onboarding
3 7 (5.79%) Self-Motivation
4 6 (4.96%) Legacy Systems
5 5 (4.13%) Cloud Native
6 3 (2.48%) Data Protection Act
6 3 (2.48%) Mobile App
7 2 (1.65%) Cyberattack
7 2 (1.65%) Mainframe
7 2 (1.65%) Virtual Team
8 1 (0.83%) Cyber Threat
8 1 (0.83%) Equities
8 1 (0.83%) Greenfield Project
8 1 (0.83%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 7 (5.79%) Linux
2 4 (3.31%) Windows
3 1 (0.83%) Android
3 1 (0.83%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.83%) Kali Linux
3 1 (0.83%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 75 (61.98%) Test Automation
2 44 (36.36%) Agile
3 30 (24.79%) Test Strategy
4 28 (23.14%) Problem-Solving
5 27 (22.31%) Test Scripting
6 24 (19.83%) Performance Testing
7 20 (16.53%) DevOps
7 20 (16.53%) Manual Testing
7 20 (16.53%) Software Testing
8 17 (14.05%) API Testing
9 15 (12.40%) Scenario Testing
9 15 (12.40%) System Integration Testing
9 15 (12.40%) Test Management
9 15 (12.40%) User Acceptance Testing
10 14 (11.57%) Functional Testing
10 14 (11.57%) Security Testing
11 12 (9.92%) CI/CD
11 12 (9.92%) End-to-End Testing
11 12 (9.92%) Non-Functional Testing
12 11 (9.09%) Systems Engineering
Programming Languages
1 20 (16.53%) SQL
2 19 (15.70%) Java
3 12 (9.92%) Python
4 6 (4.96%) C#
5 4 (3.31%) JavaScript
5 4 (3.31%) Perl
5 4 (3.31%) PL/SQL
5 4 (3.31%) TypeScript
6 3 (2.48%) Ruby
7 2 (1.65%) Bash
7 2 (1.65%) C
7 2 (1.65%) C++
7 2 (1.65%) JCL
7 2 (1.65%) REXX
8 1 (0.83%) COBOL
8 1 (0.83%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 20 (16.53%) Security Cleared
2 12 (9.92%) SC Cleared
3 8 (6.61%) DV Cleared
3 8 (6.61%) ISTQB
4 7 (5.79%) Degree
5 5 (4.13%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (2.48%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (1.65%) CEH
7 2 (1.65%) CISSP
7 2 (1.65%) CREST Certified
7 2 (1.65%) Cyber Scheme
7 2 (1.65%) GPEN
7 2 (1.65%) GWAPT
7 2 (1.65%) Master's Degree
7 2 (1.65%) OSCE
7 2 (1.65%) OSCP
8 1 (0.83%) CCDP
8 1 (0.83%) CCIE
8 1 (0.83%) CCNP
8 1 (0.83%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (32.23%) QA
2 7 (5.79%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.65%) Actionable Recommendations
3 2 (1.65%) Data Quality
3 2 (1.65%) GDPR
3 2 (1.65%) HIPAA
3 2 (1.65%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.83%) SLA
4 1 (0.83%) WCAG
System Software
1 9 (7.44%) Docker
2 1 (0.83%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.83%) Firmware
2 1 (0.83%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 7 (5.79%) Kubernetes
2 6 (4.96%) Ansible
2 6 (4.96%) HP ALM
3 2 (1.65%) Kibana
4 1 (0.83%) Puppet
Vendors
1 9 (7.44%) Microsoft
1 9 (7.44%) Oracle
2 6 (4.96%) HP
3 5 (4.13%) MuleSoft
3 5 (4.13%) ServiceNow
4 3 (2.48%) Databricks
4 3 (2.48%) EMC
4 3 (2.48%) Virgin Media
5 2 (1.65%) CyberArk
5 2 (1.65%) SAP
6 1 (0.83%) Avaloq
6 1 (0.83%) Cisco
6 1 (0.83%) Ingenico
6 1 (0.83%) Salesforce
6 1 (0.83%) Splunk