Tester Contracts in the UK excluding London

Tester
UK > UK excluding London

The median Tester daily rate in the UK excluding London is £406, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 22 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
22 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 204 291 239
Rank change year-on-year +87 -52 +9
Contract jobs requiring a Tester 128 104 210
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 1.00% 0.51% 0.92%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.09% 0.56% 0.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 96 65 148
10th Percentile £263 £205 £300
25th Percentile £325 £325 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £406 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year -4.47% - +3.66%
75th Percentile £500 £506 £500
90th Percentile £529 £600 £573
UK median daily rate £438 £450 £475
% change year-on-year -2.78% -5.26% +5.56%
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% +191.89%
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% +311.43%

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 11,749 18,731 21,611
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.89% 92.50% 94.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,490 11,452 15,051
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 £600
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £510 £525 £543
% change year-on-year -2.86% -3.31% +3.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 826 2,272 1,106
10th Percentile £13.93 £12.50 £13.41
25th Percentile £17.30 £15.74 £18.04
Median hourly rate £27.13 £40.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -32.19% -5.88% +112.50%
75th Percentile £63.56 £61.60 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £28.08 £36.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -23.08% -18.89% +87.50%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 +28 46 £425 -10.53% 25
Midlands +35 36 £400 +16.79% 21
South East +52 32 £475 +11.76% 39
West Midlands +31 23 £475 +134.57% 16
North West +25 23 £425 +6.25% 18
Yorkshire +5 19 £505 +6.32% 5
East Midlands +8 13 £268 -23.43% 5
South West +27 6 £300 -44.57% 12
Scotland +5 5 £400 +6.67% 9
North East +4 4 £390 -35.00% 3
East of England - 2 £300 - 11
Wales +3 1 £600 +17.99% 4
Northern Ireland -10 1 £325 -50.00% 4
Tester
UK

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

For the 6 months to 22 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 83 (64.84%) Test Automation
2 49 (38.28%) Agile
2 49 (38.28%) JIRA
3 41 (32.03%) QA
3 41 (32.03%) Social Skills
4 37 (28.91%) Selenium
5 34 (26.56%) Test Strategy
6 31 (24.22%) Test Scripting
6 31 (24.22%) Problem-Solving
7 27 (21.09%) Performance Testing
7 27 (21.09%) Java
8 25 (19.53%) Security Cleared
9 24 (18.75%) SQL
9 24 (18.75%) Software Testing
10 22 (17.19%) Manual Testing
10 22 (17.19%) DevOps
10 22 (17.19%) API Testing
11 21 (16.41%) Analytical Skills
11 21 (16.41%) Azure
12 20 (15.63%) Postman
13 18 (14.06%) Cucumber
14 17 (13.28%) Jenkins
14 17 (13.28%) Finance
14 17 (13.28%) SCADA
14 17 (13.28%) CI/CD
15 16 (12.50%) Scenario Testing
15 16 (12.50%) User Acceptance Testing
16 15 (11.72%) Test Management
16 15 (11.72%) Git
16 15 (11.72%) System Integration Testing

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 8 (6.25%) Confluence
2 2 (1.56%) CICS
3 1 (0.78%) Appian
3 1 (0.78%) SAS
3 1 (0.78%) WebLogic
3 1 (0.78%) WebSphere
Applications
1 5 (3.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.78%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.78%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
1 1 (0.78%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 21 (16.41%) Azure
2 13 (10.16%) AWS
3 9 (7.03%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (3.13%) GCP
4 4 (3.13%) GitHub
5 2 (1.56%) Azure Data Factory
5 2 (1.56%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 2 (1.56%) Entra ID
5 2 (1.56%) Power Platform
5 2 (1.56%) SaaS
6 1 (0.78%) Bloomreach
6 1 (0.78%) BrowserStack
6 1 (0.78%) Dynamics 365
6 1 (0.78%) Microsoft 365
6 1 (0.78%) OCI
6 1 (0.78%) OpenShift
6 1 (0.78%) Power Automate
6 1 (0.78%) PowerApps
6 1 (0.78%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.56%) BGP
1 2 (1.56%) MPLS
1 2 (1.56%) TCP/IP
1 2 (1.56%) VLAN
2 1 (0.78%) Converged Networks
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.56%) Azure SQL Database
1 2 (1.56%) DB2
1 2 (1.56%) Elasticsearch
1 2 (1.56%) MongoDB
1 2 (1.56%) Oracle Database
2 1 (0.78%) Oracle Reports
2 1 (0.78%) Power BI
2 1 (0.78%) Relational Database
2 1 (0.78%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 49 (38.28%) JIRA
2 37 (28.91%) Selenium
3 20 (15.63%) Postman
4 18 (14.06%) Cucumber
5 17 (13.28%) Jenkins
6 15 (11.72%) Git
7 14 (10.94%) JMeter
8 12 (9.38%) Cypress.io
9 8 (6.25%) LoadRunner
9 8 (6.25%) Maven
9 8 (6.25%) SoapUI
10 7 (5.47%) IntelliJ
10 7 (5.47%) REST Assured
11 5 (3.91%) GitLab
11 5 (3.91%) JUnit
11 5 (3.91%) SpecFlow
12 3 (2.34%) Burp Suite
12 3 (2.34%) Metasploit
12 3 (2.34%) TestNG
13 2 (1.56%) Robot Framework
General
1 41 (32.03%) Social Skills
2 21 (16.41%) Analytical Skills
3 17 (13.28%) Finance
4 13 (10.16%) Public Sector
5 12 (9.38%) Banking
6 11 (8.59%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (3.91%) Telecoms
8 4 (3.13%) Manufacturing
9 3 (2.34%) Aerospace
10 2 (1.56%) Electronics
10 2 (1.56%) Marketing
10 2 (1.56%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.78%) Aviation
11 1 (0.78%) Back Office
11 1 (0.78%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.78%) Games
11 1 (0.78%) Health Technology
11 1 (0.78%) Pharmaceutical
11 1 (0.78%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.78%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (5.47%) Gherkin
1 7 (5.47%) jQuery
1 7 (5.47%) Playwright
2 5 (3.91%) Middleware
2 5 (3.91%) XML
3 4 (3.13%) DOM
3 4 (3.13%) HTML
3 4 (3.13%) REST
3 4 (3.13%) SOAP
4 3 (2.34%) .NET
4 3 (2.34%) PySpark
4 3 (2.34%) RESTful
5 2 (1.56%) Node.js
5 2 (1.56%) Web Services
5 2 (1.56%) WireMock
6 1 (0.78%) .NET Framework
6 1 (0.78%) AngularJS
6 1 (0.78%) Nightwatchjs
6 1 (0.78%) pytest
6 1 (0.78%) React
Miscellaneous
1 17 (13.28%) SCADA
2 10 (7.81%) Product Ownership
3 7 (5.47%) Legacy Systems
3 7 (5.47%) Onboarding
4 5 (3.91%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (2.34%) Data Protection Act
5 3 (2.34%) Mainframe
5 3 (2.34%) Mobile App
6 2 (1.56%) Cloud Native
6 2 (1.56%) Virtual Team
6 2 (1.56%) VSAM
7 1 (0.78%) Cyber Threat
7 1 (0.78%) Cyberattack
7 1 (0.78%) Equities
7 1 (0.78%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 9 (7.03%) Linux
2 4 (3.13%) Windows
3 2 (1.56%) Unix
4 1 (0.78%) Android
4 1 (0.78%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.78%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (64.84%) Test Automation
2 49 (38.28%) Agile
3 34 (26.56%) Test Strategy
4 31 (24.22%) Problem-Solving
4 31 (24.22%) Test Scripting
5 27 (21.09%) Performance Testing
6 24 (18.75%) Software Testing
7 22 (17.19%) API Testing
7 22 (17.19%) DevOps
7 22 (17.19%) Manual Testing
8 17 (13.28%) CI/CD
9 16 (12.50%) Scenario Testing
9 16 (12.50%) User Acceptance Testing
10 15 (11.72%) System Integration Testing
10 15 (11.72%) Test Management
11 14 (10.94%) Functional Testing
11 14 (10.94%) Validation
12 13 (10.16%) Non-Functional Testing
12 13 (10.16%) Security Testing
13 12 (9.38%) Systems Engineering
Programming Languages
1 27 (21.09%) Java
2 24 (18.75%) SQL
3 10 (7.81%) Python
4 8 (6.25%) C#
5 6 (4.69%) JavaScript
6 4 (3.13%) Perl
6 4 (3.13%) PL/SQL
6 4 (3.13%) TypeScript
7 3 (2.34%) Bash
7 3 (2.34%) JCL
7 3 (2.34%) Ruby
8 2 (1.56%) C
8 2 (1.56%) C++
8 2 (1.56%) COBOL
8 2 (1.56%) REXX
9 1 (0.78%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 25 (19.53%) Security Cleared
2 14 (10.94%) SC Cleared
3 10 (7.81%) DV Cleared
3 10 (7.81%) ISTQB
4 7 (5.47%) Degree
5 5 (3.91%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (3.13%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (1.56%) CEH
7 2 (1.56%) CISSP
7 2 (1.56%) GPEN
7 2 (1.56%) GWAPT
7 2 (1.56%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 2 (1.56%) Master's Degree
7 2 (1.56%) OSCE
7 2 (1.56%) OSCP
8 1 (0.78%) CCDE
8 1 (0.78%) CCIE
8 1 (0.78%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (0.78%) CREST Certified
8 1 (0.78%) Cyber Scheme
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (32.03%) QA
2 6 (4.69%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.56%) Actionable Recommendations
3 2 (1.56%) Data Quality
3 2 (1.56%) GDPR
3 2 (1.56%) HIPAA
3 2 (1.56%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.78%) SLA
4 1 (0.78%) WCAG
System Software
1 6 (4.69%) Docker
2 1 (0.78%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.78%) Firmware
2 1 (0.78%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 6 (4.69%) HP ALM
2 4 (3.13%) Ansible
2 4 (3.13%) Kubernetes
3 2 (1.56%) Kibana
4 1 (0.78%) Puppet
Vendors
1 11 (8.59%) Microsoft
1 11 (8.59%) Oracle
2 6 (4.69%) HP
3 5 (3.91%) MuleSoft
3 5 (3.91%) ServiceNow
4 3 (2.34%) Databricks
4 3 (2.34%) EMC
4 3 (2.34%) Virgin Media
5 2 (1.56%) SAP
6 1 (0.78%) Cisco
6 1 (0.78%) Ingenico
6 1 (0.78%) Salesforce
6 1 (0.78%) Splunk