Software Testing Contracts

Software Testing
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Software Testing skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Software Testing over the 6 months to 11 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
11 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 179 197 186
Rank change year-on-year +18 -11 +11
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 559 787 1,321
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.30% 1.36% 1.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.51% 1.52% 1.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 365 524 848
10th Percentile £309 £301 £331
25th Percentile £400 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -7.50% - +11.11%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £575
90th Percentile £688 £700 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £453
% change year-on-year +2.86% -3.31% +5.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 76 74
10th Percentile £37.55 - £17.25
25th Percentile £56.25 £42.50 £27.88
Median hourly rate £62.50 £52.74 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.52% +7.62% +7.69%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.75 £60.00
90th Percentile - £72.50 £65.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £52.50 £49.00
% change year-on-year +19.05% +7.14% +7.69%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Software Testing is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 37,094 51,920 79,222
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.26% 89.82% 90.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,889 35,981 55,625
10th Percentile £300 £325 £343
25th Percentile £413 £438 £426
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +3.77% +8.72%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £475
% change year-on-year - +5.26% +8.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,438 1,716 1,886
10th Percentile £12.75 £11.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.00 £16.24 £15.50
Median hourly rate £36.50 £36.40 £25.68
Median % change year-on-year +0.29% +41.73% +4.82%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.00 £49.50
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.06 £35.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year +8.74% +75.00% -6.98%

Software Testing
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Software Testing in the UK

Software Testing
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for Software Testing in the UK

Software Testing
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Testing over the 6 months to 11 May 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Software Testing in the UK

Software Testing
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for Software Testing in the UK

Software Testing
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Testing over the 6 months to 11 May 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Testing in the UK

Software Testing
Top 17 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Software Testing within the UK over the 6 months to 11 May 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 +18 498 £452 -9.60% 424
UK excluding London +4 291 £450 +2.86% 388
London +10 213 £470 -14.55% 71
Work from Home +28 198 £463 -2.63% 174
South East +23 95 £425 +0.59% 104
North of England +27 64 £441 +5.37% 72
East of England +7 46 £430 -4.44% 62
Yorkshire +42 43 £430 -9.47% 28
Midlands +23 43 £500 +18.34% 69
West Midlands +4 29 £500 +5.26% 39
South West -6 24 £550 +4.76% 48
North West -11 21 £475 +20.25% 41
East Midlands +25 14 £513 +36.67% 30
Scotland -10 12 £498 +4.84% 29
Northern Ireland +9 4 £550 - 7
Isle of Man - 2 - -
Wales +17 1 £210 -73.75% 11

Software 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 17 (3.04%) Confluence
2 7 (1.25%) SharePoint
3 6 (1.07%) CMS
4 5 (0.89%) Microsoft Exchange
5 4 (0.72%) Apache
5 4 (0.72%) OpenStack
5 4 (0.72%) WebLogic
6 3 (0.54%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.54%) Headless CMS
6 3 (0.54%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.18%) Appian
7 1 (0.18%) JBoss
7 1 (0.18%) MTS
7 1 (0.18%) SharePoint 2013
7 1 (0.18%) Tornado
Applications
1 27 (4.83%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.79%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (1.25%) Simulink
4 5 (0.89%) Stateflow
4 5 (0.89%) TargetLink
5 3 (0.54%) Windchill
6 1 (0.18%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.18%) Trello
Business Applications
1 10 (1.79%) Endur
2 5 (0.89%) FLEXCUBE
3 4 (0.72%) Oracle BPM
4 3 (0.54%) ENOVIA
4 3 (0.54%) NetSuite
4 3 (0.54%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.36%) SAP CO
5 2 (0.36%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.36%) SAP FI/CO
5 2 (0.36%) SAP FSCM
5 2 (0.36%) WebTrends
6 1 (0.18%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.18%) SAP APO
6 1 (0.18%) SAP IBP
6 1 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 91 (16.28%) Azure
2 74 (13.24%) AWS
3 55 (9.84%) Azure DevOps
4 30 (5.37%) GitHub
5 14 (2.50%) Serverless
6 12 (2.15%) AWS Lambda
6 12 (2.15%) SaaS
7 9 (1.61%) Amazon EC2
7 9 (1.61%) Amazon S3
7 9 (1.61%) Power Platform
8 8 (1.43%) PaaS
9 7 (1.25%) Dynamics 365
9 7 (1.25%) Entra ID
9 7 (1.25%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 6 (1.07%) Cloud Computing
10 6 (1.07%) GitHub Actions
10 6 (1.07%) IaaS
10 6 (1.07%) Microsoft 365
11 5 (0.89%) BrowserStack
11 5 (0.89%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 35 (6.26%) Modbus
1 35 (6.26%) RS-422
1 35 (6.26%) RS-485
2 16 (2.86%) LAN
3 6 (1.07%) DNS
3 6 (1.07%) TCP/IP
4 5 (0.89%) DHCP
4 5 (0.89%) HTTP
4 5 (0.89%) SNMP
4 5 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
5 4 (0.72%) Firewall
5 4 (0.72%) SMS
5 4 (0.72%) Software-Defined Radio
5 4 (0.72%) Wireless
6 3 (0.54%) 5G
6 3 (0.54%) FTP
6 3 (0.54%) Internet
6 3 (0.54%) SSL
6 3 (0.54%) VLAN
6 3 (0.54%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (5.37%) SQL Server
2 22 (3.94%) PostgreSQL
3 19 (3.40%) Oracle Database
4 15 (2.68%) Oracle Database 11g
5 12 (2.15%) MySQL
5 12 (2.15%) NoSQL
5 12 (2.15%) Relational Database
6 10 (1.79%) Amazon Redshift
7 8 (1.43%) Data Warehouse
8 7 (1.25%) Apache Cassandra
9 6 (1.07%) Power BI
10 5 (0.89%) Couchbase
10 5 (0.89%) MongoDB
10 5 (0.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 4 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
11 4 (0.72%) Data Lake
12 3 (0.54%) Big Data
12 3 (0.54%) MariaDB
13 2 (0.36%) DynamoDB
14 1 (0.18%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 86 (15.38%) Git
2 72 (12.88%) Selenium
3 60 (10.73%) JIRA
4 47 (8.41%) Jenkins
5 37 (6.62%) Cucumber
6 36 (6.44%) Postman
7 30 (5.37%) WebDriver
8 27 (4.83%) JUnit
9 21 (3.76%) Visual Studio
10 20 (3.58%) REST Assured
11 19 (3.40%) Appium
11 19 (3.40%) TestNG
12 18 (3.22%) Bitbucket
12 18 (3.22%) JMeter
13 16 (2.86%) GitLab
14 13 (2.33%) Cypress.io
15 12 (2.15%) SpecFlow
15 12 (2.15%) Subversion
16 11 (1.97%) SoapUI
16 11 (1.97%) TestRail
General
1 201 (35.96%) Social Skills
2 87 (15.56%) Finance
3 64 (11.45%) Analytical Skills
4 50 (8.94%) Electronics
5 42 (7.51%) Public Sector
6 37 (6.62%) Banking
7 35 (6.26%) Back Office
8 22 (3.94%) Telecoms
9 18 (3.22%) Organisational Skills
10 15 (2.68%) Investment Banking
11 11 (1.97%) Automotive
11 11 (1.97%) Retail
12 10 (1.79%) Aerospace
12 10 (1.79%) Manufacturing
13 9 (1.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 8 (1.43%) Marketing
15 6 (1.07%) Front Office
15 6 (1.07%) Retail Banking
16 5 (0.89%) Legal
16 5 (0.89%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 82 (14.67%) Developer
2 78 (13.95%) Analyst
3 66 (11.81%) Software Engineer
4 59 (10.55%) Senior
5 57 (10.20%) Test Engineer
6 50 (8.94%) Tester
7 47 (8.41%) Test Analyst
8 46 (8.23%) Lead
9 35 (6.26%) Test Manager
10 28 (5.01%) C++ Software Engineer
11 23 (4.11%) Senior Analyst
11 23 (4.11%) Software Developer
11 23 (4.11%) Storage Manager
12 21 (3.76%) Senior Test Analyst
13 19 (3.40%) Hardware Engineer
14 15 (2.68%) SQL Developer
15 14 (2.50%) Business Analyst
15 14 (2.50%) PostgreSQL Developer
15 14 (2.50%) QA Engineer
15 14 (2.50%) Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (7.51%) .NET
2 27 (4.83%) React
3 26 (4.65%) Web Services
4 24 (4.29%) .NET Framework
5 23 (4.11%) AngularJS
5 23 (4.11%) HTML
6 19 (3.40%) REST
7 18 (3.22%) CSS
7 18 (3.22%) RESTful
8 14 (2.50%) Redux
8 14 (2.50%) Spring
9 13 (2.33%) Node.js
9 13 (2.33%) SOAP
9 13 (2.33%) YAML
10 12 (2.15%) XML
11 11 (1.97%) Spring Boot
12 10 (1.79%) Gherkin
13 9 (1.61%) GraphQL
13 9 (1.61%) jQuery
14 7 (1.25%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 40 (7.16%) Self-Motivation
2 29 (5.19%) Product Ownership
3 21 (3.76%) Mobile App
4 16 (2.86%) Driving Licence
5 15 (2.68%) Algorithms
6 14 (2.50%) Data Centre
7 10 (1.79%) Management Information System
8 9 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
9 8 (1.43%) Greenfield Project
9 8 (1.43%) Life Science
9 8 (1.43%) Renewable Energy
10 7 (1.25%) Client/Server
10 7 (1.25%) Data Structures
10 7 (1.25%) Onboarding
11 6 (1.07%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 6 (1.07%) NHS
11 6 (1.07%) Replication
12 5 (0.89%) Clustering
12 5 (0.89%) Data Protection Act
12 5 (0.89%) FPGA
Operating Systems
1 56 (10.02%) Linux
2 51 (9.12%) Windows
3 28 (5.01%) Unix
4 24 (4.29%) Android
5 18 (3.22%) Windows 10
6 16 (2.86%) Windows 7
7 15 (2.68%) zOS
8 4 (0.72%) Apple iOS
8 4 (0.72%) Embedded Linux
8 4 (0.72%) Windows Server
9 2 (0.36%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.18%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 275 (49.19%) Agile
2 212 (37.92%) Test Automation
3 162 (28.98%) DevOps
4 149 (26.65%) Software Engineering
5 100 (17.89%) Continuous Integration
5 100 (17.89%) Problem-Solving
6 85 (15.21%) CI/CD
7 84 (15.03%) Test Strategy
8 82 (14.67%) Scrum
8 82 (14.67%) Unit Testing
9 72 (12.88%) TDD
10 68 (12.16%) Continuous Improvement
11 64 (11.45%) Test Scripting
12 60 (10.73%) Customer Requirements
13 58 (10.38%) SDLC
14 46 (8.23%) Computer Science
15 45 (8.05%) Performance Testing
15 45 (8.05%) Project Management
15 45 (8.05%) User Acceptance Testing
16 43 (7.69%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 106 (18.96%) SQL
2 97 (17.35%) C#
3 92 (16.46%) Java
4 83 (14.85%) Python
5 60 (10.73%) JavaScript
6 56 (10.02%) C++
7 55 (9.84%) C
8 31 (5.55%) TypeScript
9 27 (4.83%) Bash
10 25 (4.47%) PL/SQL
11 17 (3.04%) PowerShell
12 16 (2.86%) Kotlin
13 14 (2.50%) JCL
14 10 (1.79%) Go
14 10 (1.79%) REXX
15 9 (1.61%) Bourne shell
15 9 (1.61%) Korn
16 8 (1.43%) MATLAB
17 5 (0.89%) Perl
17 5 (0.89%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 119 (21.29%) Security Cleared
2 104 (18.60%) Degree
3 81 (14.49%) SC Cleared
4 50 (8.94%) ISTQB
5 34 (6.08%) Computer Science Degree
6 30 (5.37%) DV Cleared
7 14 (2.50%) ISEB
8 12 (2.15%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (1.43%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 8 (1.43%) Master's Degree
10 7 (1.25%) Numerate Degree
11 5 (0.89%) Chartered Engineer
12 4 (0.72%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 2 (0.36%) ISEB Practitioner
14 1 (0.18%) CEH
14 1 (0.18%) CISSP
14 1 (0.18%) CTC Cleared
14 1 (0.18%) DBS Check
14 1 (0.18%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
14 1 (0.18%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 86 (15.38%) QA
2 11 (1.97%) Accessibility
3 7 (1.25%) AUTOSAR
4 6 (1.07%) HL7
4 6 (1.07%) MISRA
4 6 (1.07%) MISRA C
4 6 (1.07%) PCI DSS
5 5 (0.89%) ISO 26262
5 5 (0.89%) Software Quality Assurance
6 4 (0.72%) WCAG
7 3 (0.54%) Data Quality
8 2 (0.36%) Automotive SPICE
8 2 (0.36%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 2 (0.36%) Disclosure Scotland
8 2 (0.36%) GDPR
8 2 (0.36%) ISO 9001
8 2 (0.36%) PMO
8 2 (0.36%) SLA
9 1 (0.18%) Def Stans
9 1 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 21 (3.76%) Firmware
2 20 (3.58%) Docker
3 14 (2.50%) NFS
3 14 (2.50%) Time Sharing Option
4 7 (1.25%) Active Directory
4 7 (1.25%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.72%) VirtualBox
5 4 (0.72%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 27 (4.83%) Kubernetes
2 26 (4.65%) Ansible
3 24 (4.29%) Tivoli Storage Manager
4 22 (3.94%) SCCM
5 15 (2.68%) Terraform
6 5 (0.89%) Puppet
7 3 (0.54%) HP ALM
7 3 (0.54%) HP Quality Center
7 3 (0.54%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (0.54%) Progress Chef
8 2 (0.36%) Grafana
8 2 (0.36%) Jamf Pro
8 2 (0.36%) Kibana
8 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Clustering
8 2 (0.36%) Opsgenie
8 2 (0.36%) Rancher
9 1 (0.18%) Iperf
9 1 (0.18%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 80 (14.31%) Microsoft
2 69 (12.34%) Oracle
3 32 (5.72%) IBM
4 25 (4.47%) HP
5 19 (3.40%) Broadcom
5 19 (3.40%) Dell
6 14 (2.50%) Brocade
6 14 (2.50%) CA
7 12 (2.15%) SAP
8 10 (1.79%) OpenLink
9 8 (1.43%) Google
10 7 (1.25%) Adobe
11 6 (1.07%) VMware
12 5 (0.89%) Databricks
12 5 (0.89%) Red Hat
12 5 (0.89%) Siemens
12 5 (0.89%) Splunk
12 5 (0.89%) Xilinx
13 4 (0.72%) Optimizely
13 4 (0.72%) ServiceNow