Senior Tester Contracts

Senior Tester
UK

The median Senior Tester daily rate in the UK is £380, 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 498 552 692
Rank change year-on-year +54 +140 +111
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Tester 22 30 26
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.075% 0.069% 0.044%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.081% 0.074% 0.046%
Number of daily rates quoted 12 20 18
10th Percentile £333 £350 £421
25th Percentile £341 £379 £467
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £380 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -24.00% -4.76% +9.38%
75th Percentile £400 £581 £597
90th Percentile £501 £750 £618
UK excluding London median daily rate £380 £425 £525
% change year-on-year -10.59% -19.05% +20.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 1
Median hourly rate - - £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - -

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 with a recognized job title 27,084 40,415 56,464
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.52% 92.78% 94.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,692 26,309 39,470
10th Percentile £300 £275 £313
25th Percentile £406 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £492 £500
% change year-on-year -3.46% -1.60% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,035 2,664 1,570
10th Percentile £14.07 £12.86 £14.29
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.30 £19.50
Median hourly rate £29.00 £36.42 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.37% -19.07% +91.49%
75th Percentile £62.50 £60.75 £65.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £39.55 £42.50
% change year-on-year -29.20% -6.94% +117.95%

Senior Tester
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Senior Tester in the UK

Senior Tester
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Senior Tester.

Daily rate trend for Senior Tester in the UK

Senior Tester
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Senior Tester over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Senior Tester in the UK

Senior Tester
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Senior Tester.

Hourly rate trend for Senior Tester in the UK

Senior Tester
Top 8 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Senior Tester 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 +49 20 £363 -32.56% 6
London +33 12 £341 -40.70% 1
UK excluding London +60 8 £380 -10.59% 6
Work from Home +43 7 £341 -24.22% 5
South East +46 5 £345 -18.82% 2
North of England +20 2 £390 - 1
North West +18 2 £390 -
South West +43 1 - - 2

Senior Tester Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, Senior 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 featuring Senior Tester in the job title.

1 20 (90.91%) Test Automation
2 12 (54.55%) Agile
3 11 (50.00%) JavaScript
4 8 (36.36%) SQL
4 8 (36.36%) Mentoring
5 7 (31.82%) SoapUI
5 7 (31.82%) Continuous Improvement
5 7 (31.82%) Security Cleared
6 6 (27.27%) Manual Testing
6 6 (27.27%) Penetration Testing
6 6 (27.27%) QA
6 6 (27.27%) DevOps
6 6 (27.27%) SaaS
6 6 (27.27%) Analytical Skills
7 5 (22.73%) Vulnerability Scanning
7 5 (22.73%) Secure Coding
7 5 (22.73%) CREST Certified
7 5 (22.73%) Cyber Kill Chain
7 5 (22.73%) Cyber Defence
7 5 (22.73%) CCSAS
7 5 (22.73%) Problem-Solving
7 5 (22.73%) Postman
7 5 (22.73%) Red Team
7 5 (22.73%) Purple Team
7 5 (22.73%) PaaS
7 5 (22.73%) GWAPT
7 5 (22.73%) GPEN
7 5 (22.73%) OSCP
7 5 (22.73%) IaaS
7 5 (22.73%) OWASP

Senior Tester Skill Set
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 2 (9.09%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 1 (4.55%) Murex MxG2000
Cloud Services
1 6 (27.27%) SaaS
2 5 (22.73%) IaaS
2 5 (22.73%) PaaS
3 4 (18.18%) BrowserStack
4 3 (13.64%) Azure
5 2 (9.09%) AWS
5 2 (9.09%) Azure Data Factory
5 2 (9.09%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 1 (4.55%) Azure Functions
6 1 (4.55%) GitHub
6 1 (4.55%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 1 (4.55%) PuTTY
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (9.09%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 7 (31.82%) SoapUI
2 5 (22.73%) Postman
3 4 (18.18%) Appium
3 4 (18.18%) Cypress.io
3 4 (18.18%) JIRA
4 3 (13.64%) Jenkins
5 2 (9.09%) Cucumber
5 2 (9.09%) REST Assured
5 2 (9.09%) SpecFlow
6 1 (4.55%) Charles Proxy
6 1 (4.55%) TestRail
6 1 (4.55%) WebDriver
General
1 6 (27.27%) Analytical Skills
2 5 (22.73%) Legal
3 4 (18.18%) Public Sector
4 3 (13.64%) Finance
5 2 (9.09%) Electronics
5 2 (9.09%) Manufacturing
5 2 (9.09%) Marketing
5 2 (9.09%) Social Skills
5 2 (9.09%) Telecoms
6 1 (4.55%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (22.73%) CSS
1 5 (22.73%) HTML
2 3 (13.64%) Node.js
3 2 (9.09%) Gherkin
3 2 (9.09%) Playwright
3 2 (9.09%) PySpark
3 2 (9.09%) SOAP
3 2 (9.09%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 5 (22.73%) Cyber Defence
1 5 (22.73%) Cyber Kill Chain
2 2 (9.09%) Greenfield Project
2 2 (9.09%) Self-Motivation
3 1 (4.55%) Mobile App
3 1 (4.55%) Onboarding
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (90.91%) Test Automation
2 12 (54.55%) Agile
3 8 (36.36%) Mentoring
4 7 (31.82%) Continuous Improvement
5 6 (27.27%) DevOps
5 6 (27.27%) Manual Testing
5 6 (27.27%) Penetration Testing
6 5 (22.73%) Application Security
6 5 (22.73%) Computer Science
6 5 (22.73%) Cybersecurity
6 5 (22.73%) Ethical Hacking
6 5 (22.73%) Information Security
6 5 (22.73%) Offensive Security
6 5 (22.73%) OWASP
6 5 (22.73%) Performance Testing
6 5 (22.73%) Problem-Solving
6 5 (22.73%) Purple Team
6 5 (22.73%) Red Team
6 5 (22.73%) Secure Coding
6 5 (22.73%) Vulnerability Scanning
Programming Languages
1 11 (50.00%) JavaScript
2 8 (36.36%) SQL
3 5 (22.73%) PHP
3 5 (22.73%) Python
3 5 (22.73%) Ruby
4 2 (9.09%) Java
Qualifications
1 7 (31.82%) Security Cleared
2 5 (22.73%) CCSAS
2 5 (22.73%) CEH
2 5 (22.73%) CREST Certified
2 5 (22.73%) Degree
2 5 (22.73%) GIAC
2 5 (22.73%) GPEN
2 5 (22.73%) GWAPT
2 5 (22.73%) OSCP
2 5 (22.73%) SC Cleared
3 2 (9.09%) DV Cleared
3 2 (9.09%) ISTQB
4 1 (4.55%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (27.27%) QA
2 2 (9.09%) Data Quality
3 1 (4.55%) ISO 9001
Vendors
1 2 (9.09%) Databricks
1 2 (9.09%) SAP
2 1 (4.55%) Murex