ISTQB Foundation Certification Contracts

ISTQB-BCS Certified Tester Foundation Level (CTFL) formerly ISEB Foundation
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for ISTQB Foundation Certification qualifications. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months to 27 April 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
27 Apr 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 548 638 628
Rank change year-on-year +90 -10 -50
Contract jobs citing ISTQB Foundation Certification 50 81 224
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.12% 0.14% 0.25%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.38% 0.50% 1.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 40 65 168
10th Percentile £345 £366 £323
25th Percentile £381 £420 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £488 £428
Median % change year-on-year +12.82% +13.90% +12.04%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £500
90th Percentile £603 £612 £608
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £500 £408
% change year-on-year +10.00% +22.47% +6.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 3
10th Percentile - - £17.70
25th Percentile £31.25 - £20.63
Median hourly rate £32.50 £52.00 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -37.50% +100.00% -
75th Percentile £33.75 - £30.75
90th Percentile - - £33.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 - -

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

ISTQB Foundation Certification is in the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for academic qualifications or professional certifications.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 13,270 16,337 19,076
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 30.65% 27.32% 21.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,165 10,899 12,575
10th Percentile £300 £325 £325
25th Percentile £425 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.73% +4.76% +8.25%
75th Percentile £650 £650 £625
90th Percentile £738 £743 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £530 £530 £500
% change year-on-year - +6.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,067 858 776
10th Percentile £13.86 £15.25 £13.46
25th Percentile £17.80 £20.06 £19.33
Median hourly rate £40.00 £54.00 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year -25.93% +30.12% +5.06%
75th Percentile £61.60 £68.25 £56.31
90th Percentile £75.25 £80.00 £66.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.28 £50.00 £31.89
% change year-on-year -19.45% +56.79% -14.39%

ISTQB Foundation Certification
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing ISTQB Foundation Certification as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for ISTQB Foundation Certification in the UK

ISTQB Foundation Certification
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing ISTQB Foundation Certification.

Daily rate trend for ISTQB Foundation Certification in the UK

ISTQB Foundation Certification
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing ISTQB Foundation Certification over the 6 months to 27 April 2024.

Daily rate histogram for ISTQB Foundation Certification in the UK

ISTQB Foundation Certification
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing ISTQB Foundation Certification.

Hourly rate trend for ISTQB Foundation Certification in the UK

ISTQB Foundation Certification
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 ISTQB Foundation Certification within the UK over the 6 months to 27 April 2024. 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 +97 41 £550 +11.39% 13
UK excluding London +53 37 £550 +10.00% 7
South East +29 27 £550 - 1
Work from Home +121 18 £500 +16.82% 4
London +94 9 £425 -6.39% 5
Scotland +34 3 £400 +23.08%
Midlands +11 3 £350 -17.36% 1
East Midlands - 2 £315 -
Isle of Man - 2 £388 -
East of England - 2 £475 -
West Midlands +16 1 £350 -17.36% 1

ISTQB Foundation Certification
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 3 (6.00%) Confluence
2 1 (2.00%) Adobe Experience Manager
Business Applications
1 1 (2.00%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 6 (12.00%) AWS
1 6 (12.00%) Azure
1 6 (12.00%) Azure DevOps
2 4 (8.00%) PaaS
3 2 (4.00%) Dynamics 365
3 2 (4.00%) IaaS
3 2 (4.00%) SaaS
4 1 (2.00%) BrowserStack
4 1 (2.00%) dbt
4 1 (2.00%) Sauce Labs
Communications & Networking
1 2 (4.00%) TCP/IP
2 1 (2.00%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (12.00%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 30 (60.00%) TestRail
2 15 (30.00%) JIRA
3 8 (16.00%) Cucumber
3 8 (16.00%) Git
4 5 (10.00%) SpecFlow
5 4 (8.00%) FitNesse
6 3 (6.00%) Jenkins
6 3 (6.00%) JMeter
6 3 (6.00%) LoadRunner
6 3 (6.00%) Selenium
7 2 (4.00%) Cypress.io
7 2 (4.00%) Subversion
7 2 (4.00%) TeamCity
7 2 (4.00%) WebDriver
8 1 (2.00%) Appium
8 1 (2.00%) Bitbucket
8 1 (2.00%) TestComplete
8 1 (2.00%) Zephyr
General
1 8 (16.00%) Finance
2 7 (14.00%) Social Skills
3 4 (8.00%) Public Sector
4 3 (6.00%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (6.00%) Back Office
4 3 (6.00%) Front Office
5 2 (4.00%) Automotive
5 2 (4.00%) Influencing Skills
5 2 (4.00%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (2.00%) Banking
6 1 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (2.00%) Marketing
6 1 (2.00%) Presentation Skills
6 1 (2.00%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 32 (64.00%) Analyst
2 31 (62.00%) Test Analyst
3 22 (44.00%) DV Cleared Test Analyst
4 5 (10.00%) QA Tester
4 5 (10.00%) Senior
4 5 (10.00%) Test Engineer
4 5 (10.00%) Tester
5 4 (8.00%) Lead
5 4 (8.00%) QA Engineer
5 4 (8.00%) Test Leader
6 3 (6.00%) Senior Analyst
6 3 (6.00%) Senior Test Analyst
6 3 (6.00%) Test Manager
7 2 (4.00%) Automation Test Analyst
7 2 (4.00%) Functional Analyst
7 2 (4.00%) Functional Test Analyst
7 2 (4.00%) Senior QA Tester
7 2 (4.00%) Senior Tester
7 2 (4.00%) Systems Engineer
7 2 (4.00%) Systems Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (6.00%) Playwright
1 3 (6.00%) REST
2 2 (4.00%) .NET
2 2 (4.00%) HTML
3 1 (2.00%) CSS
3 1 (2.00%) Flash
3 1 (2.00%) HTML5
3 1 (2.00%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 3 (6.00%) Virtual Team
2 2 (4.00%) Client/Server
2 2 (4.00%) Mobile App
3 1 (2.00%) Digital TV
3 1 (2.00%) Management Information System
3 1 (2.00%) NHS
3 1 (2.00%) PMI
3 1 (2.00%) Product Ownership
3 1 (2.00%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 4 (8.00%) Linux
1 4 (8.00%) Unix
2 1 (2.00%) Windows
2 1 (2.00%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 36 (72.00%) Test Automation
2 34 (68.00%) Agile
3 33 (66.00%) Test Management
4 28 (56.00%) Continuous Integration
5 15 (30.00%) Scaled Agile Framework
6 13 (26.00%) Requirements Analysis
7 10 (20.00%) Software Testing
7 10 (20.00%) Test Strategy
8 9 (18.00%) TDD
8 9 (18.00%) User Acceptance Testing
9 8 (16.00%) BDD
9 8 (16.00%) Defect Management
10 7 (14.00%) DevOps
11 6 (12.00%) End-to-End Testing
11 6 (12.00%) Problem-Solving
12 5 (10.00%) CI/CD
12 5 (10.00%) System Integration Testing
13 4 (8.00%) API Testing
13 4 (8.00%) Dependency Management
13 4 (8.00%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 8 (16.00%) SQL
2 7 (14.00%) JavaScript
2 7 (14.00%) Python
3 4 (8.00%) Shell Script
3 4 (8.00%) TypeScript
4 3 (6.00%) Java
5 2 (4.00%) C#
5 2 (4.00%) C++
5 2 (4.00%) VBA
5 2 (4.00%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 49 (98.00%) ISTQB
2 27 (54.00%) Security Cleared
3 23 (46.00%) DV Cleared
4 9 (18.00%) Degree
5 7 (14.00%) ISEB
6 2 (4.00%) CTC Cleared
6 2 (4.00%) HNC
6 2 (4.00%) Master's Degree
6 2 (4.00%) SC Cleared
7 1 (2.00%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (2.00%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (28.00%) QA
2 1 (2.00%) Accessibility
2 1 (2.00%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 1 (2.00%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 2 (4.00%) HP Quality Center
Vendors
1 8 (16.00%) Oracle
2 1 (2.00%) Adobe
2 1 (2.00%) Citrix
2 1 (2.00%) Microsoft
2 1 (2.00%) Perfecto Mobile
2 1 (2.00%) SAP
2 1 (2.00%) ScienceLogic
2 1 (2.00%) ServiceNow