Exploratory Testing Contracts

Exploratory Testing
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Exploratory Testing skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Exploratory Testing over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 486 551 669
Rank change year-on-year +65 +118 +45
Contract jobs citing Exploratory Testing 34 31 49
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.12% 0.071% 0.082%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.13% 0.082% 0.091%
Number of daily rates quoted 22 25 39
10th Percentile £375 £352 £337
25th Percentile £380 £388 £402
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £445 £463
Median % change year-on-year +9.48% -3.72% +8.82%
75th Percentile £534 £488 £600
90th Percentile £538 £533 £671
UK excluding London median daily rate £508 £447 £413
% change year-on-year +13.66% +8.24% -13.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 0
Median hourly rate £50.00 £62.50 -
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £62.50 -
% change year-on-year -20.00% - -

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Exploratory Testing falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 26,594 37,597 53,655
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.84% 86.31% 89.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,149 24,227 37,238
10th Percentile £308 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £743 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.50% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,071 2,443 1,746
10th Percentile £14.41 £12.75 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.21 £16.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
Median % change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%
75th Percentile £60.38 £59.98 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £37.34 £36.00
% change year-on-year -26.35% +3.72% +80.00%

Exploratory Testing
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Exploratory Testing as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Exploratory Testing in the UK

Exploratory Testing
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Exploratory Testing.

Daily rate trend for Exploratory Testing in the UK

Exploratory Testing
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Exploratory Testing over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Exploratory Testing in the UK

Exploratory Testing
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Exploratory Testing.

Hourly rate trend for Exploratory Testing in the UK

Exploratory Testing
Top 11 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Exploratory Testing within the UK 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
England +59 33 £475 +6.67% 38
UK excluding London +68 21 £508 +13.66% 31
South East +56 13 £438 +25.00% 9
London +39 13 £438 -0.88% 15
Work from Home +36 9 £390 -11.91% 22
North of England +15 4 £520 +9.42% 5
Yorkshire +10 4 £520 +3.95% 3
Midlands +19 2 £476 +19.06% 7
East Midlands +7 2 £476 +19.06% 3
South West - 1 £325 - 3
Scotland - 1 £525 - 2

Exploratory Testing
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 6 (17.65%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 1 (2.94%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 6 (17.65%) AWS
2 5 (14.71%) Azure
2 5 (14.71%) Azure DevOps
3 4 (11.76%) GitHub
4 2 (5.88%) SaaS
5 1 (2.94%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 1 (2.94%) GCP
5 1 (2.94%) Slack
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (5.88%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 17 (50.00%) Selenium
2 9 (26.47%) Cucumber
2 9 (26.47%) Git
2 9 (26.47%) JIRA
2 9 (26.47%) Postman
3 7 (20.59%) JUnit
4 6 (17.65%) Cypress.io
4 6 (17.65%) Jenkins
5 4 (11.76%) Gradle
5 4 (11.76%) HP UFT
5 4 (11.76%) IntelliJ
5 4 (11.76%) Maven
6 3 (8.82%) JMeter
6 3 (8.82%) REST Assured
6 3 (8.82%) WebDriver
7 2 (5.88%) MSTest
7 2 (5.88%) NUnit
7 2 (5.88%) Ranorex
8 1 (2.94%) Hamcrest
8 1 (2.94%) SpecFlow
General
1 16 (47.06%) Social Skills
2 6 (17.65%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (8.82%) Documentation Skills
3 3 (8.82%) Finance
4 2 (5.88%) Public Sector
5 1 (2.94%) Banking
Job Titles
1 9 (26.47%) Tester
2 6 (17.65%) Test Engineer
3 5 (14.71%) QA Engineer
3 5 (14.71%) QA Tester
3 5 (14.71%) Senior
3 5 (14.71%) Senior Test Engineer
4 3 (8.82%) Java Engineer
4 3 (8.82%) Senior Java Engineer
4 3 (8.82%) Test Manager
5 2 (5.88%) Automation Tester
5 2 (5.88%) Developer
5 2 (5.88%) Developer in Test
5 2 (5.88%) Manual Tester
5 2 (5.88%) QA Manual Tester
5 2 (5.88%) QA Test Engineer
5 2 (5.88%) Quality Engineer
5 2 (5.88%) Senior QA Engineer
5 2 (5.88%) Software Developer
6 1 (2.94%) Lead
6 1 (2.94%) QA Automation Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (20.59%) .NET
2 6 (17.65%) Playwright
2 6 (17.65%) REST
3 4 (11.76%) JSON
4 3 (8.82%) Jest
4 3 (8.82%) Node.js
5 2 (5.88%) CSS
5 2 (5.88%) Gherkin
5 2 (5.88%) HTML
5 2 (5.88%) SOAP
5 2 (5.88%) Web Services
5 2 (5.88%) WebSockets
5 2 (5.88%) XML
5 2 (5.88%) YAML
6 1 (2.94%) Kafka
6 1 (2.94%) Nightwatchjs
6 1 (2.94%) WebdriverIO
6 1 (2.94%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 10 (29.41%) Product Ownership
2 8 (23.53%) Algorithms
3 6 (17.65%) Cloud Native
4 4 (11.76%) Data Structures
5 3 (8.82%) Analytical Mindset
5 3 (8.82%) Mobile App
6 1 (2.94%) Linux Command Line
6 1 (2.94%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (2.94%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 2 (5.88%) Android
1 2 (5.88%) Apple iOS
2 1 (2.94%) Linux
2 1 (2.94%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 32 (94.12%) Test Automation
2 23 (67.65%) Agile
3 14 (41.18%) Problem-Solving
3 14 (41.18%) Software Testing
4 12 (35.29%) CI/CD
4 12 (35.29%) Scenario Testing
5 10 (29.41%) BDD
5 10 (29.41%) DevOps
5 10 (29.41%) Mathematics
6 9 (26.47%) Performance Testing
6 9 (26.47%) Test Strategy
7 8 (23.53%) Data Modelling
7 8 (23.53%) Microservices
7 8 (23.53%) Optimization Problems
7 8 (23.53%) SDLC
7 8 (23.53%) User Stories
8 7 (20.59%) Acceptance Criteria
8 7 (20.59%) Continuous Improvement
8 7 (20.59%) Data Collection
8 7 (20.59%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 20 (58.82%) Java
2 9 (26.47%) JavaScript
3 8 (23.53%) Python
4 5 (14.71%) C#
5 3 (8.82%) SQL
6 2 (5.88%) PowerShell
7 1 (2.94%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 10 (29.41%) Degree
2 6 (17.65%) Security Cleared
3 5 (14.71%) Master's Degree
4 4 (11.76%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (8.82%) DV Cleared
5 3 (8.82%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (85.29%) QA
System Software
1 1 (2.94%) Docker
Vendors
1 2 (5.88%) Splunk
2 1 (2.94%) Microsoft