Test Engineer Contracts

The median contractor rate for a Test Engineer was £370 per day in advertised job vacancies during the 3 months to 25 June 2017.

The first table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics including a comparison to same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Test Engineer UK
Location	3 months to 25 Jun 2017	Same period 2016	Same period 2015
Rank	327	397	390
Rank change year-on-year	+70	-7
Contract jobs requiring a Test Engineer	289	277	261
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK	0.62%	0.52%	0.47%
As % of the Job Titles category	0.66%	0.55%	0.49%
Number of daily rates quoted	175	170	153
Median daily rate	£370	£370	£325
Median daily rate % change year-on-year	-	+13.84%
90% offered a daily rate of more than	£275	£226	£230
10% offered a daily rate of more than	£500	£500	£470
UK excluding London median daily rate	£338	£350	£295
% change year-on-year	-3.57%	+18.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted	43	24	22
Median hourly rate	£37.50	£37.50	£32.25
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year	-	+16.27%
90% offered a hourly rate of more than	£26.00	£25.00	£30.00
10% offered a hourly rate of more than	£54.50	£44.82	£41.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£37.50	£37.50	£32.25
% change year-on-year	-	+16.27%

The next table is for comparison with the above and includes summary statistics for all job roles in contract job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title. As such, the figures in the first row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract IT Job Roles UK
Contract job vacancies with a job title containing a recognized job role	43855	50329	53147
As % of all contract IT job vacancies advertised in the UK	94.75%	94.86%	94.84%
Number of daily rates quoted	28363	32827	33406
Median daily rate	£438	£425	£400
Median daily rate % change year-on-year	+2.94%	+6.25%
90% offered a daily rate of more than	£275	£260	£245
10% offered a daily rate of more than	£600	£600	£568
UK excluding London median daily rate	£400	£400	£370
% change year-on-year	-	+8.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted	1353	1495	2037
Median hourly rate	£18.00	£17.50	£16.50
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year	+2.85%	+6.06%
90% offered a hourly rate of more than	£11.50	£11.00	£11.00
10% offered a hourly rate of more than	£47.50	£44.00	£40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£17.50	£17.45	£16.00
% change year-on-year	+0.28%	+9.06%

Test Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

The job posting trend of jobs advertised that featured Test Engineer in the job title.

Job vacancy trend for Test Engineer in the UK

Test Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for daily rates quoted in contract jobs citing Test Engineer.

Contractor daily rate trend for Test Engineer in the UK

Test Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Histogram

The daily rate distribution of IT jobs citing Test Engineer over the 3 months to 25 June 2017.

Contractor daily rate histogram for Test Engineer in the UK

Test Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for contractor hourly rates quoted in IT jobs citing Test Engineer.

Contractor hourly rate trend for Test Engineer in the UK

Test Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Histogram

The hourly rate distribution of IT jobs citing Test Engineer over the 3 months to 25 June 2017.

Contractor hourly rate histogram for Test Engineer in the UK

Test Engineer
Top 30 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Test Engineer within the UK over the 3 months to 25 June 2017. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 3 month period last year.

Location	Rank Change on Same Period Last Year	Matching Contract IT Job Ads	Median Daily Rate Last 3 Months	Median Daily Rate % Change on Same Period Last Year	Live Job Vacancies
England	+54	267	£375	-	152
London	+3	90	£431	+7.81%	46
South East	+31	81	£323	-7.85%	30
East of England	+23	39	£338	-25.00%	20
Hampshire	+21	37	£310	+40.90%	10
South West	+1	27	£365	-14.11%	15
Berkshire	+23	23	£325	-8.77%	4
Cambridgeshire	+17	22	£338	-	16
City of London	+5	22	£500	+17.64%	9
Cambridge	+19	21	£338	-	13
Basingstoke	+1	16	£269	-	3
Wiltshire	+16	13	£300	+33.33%
Newcastle upon Tyne	+81	11	£350	+8.52%	1
Tyne and Wear	+77	11	£350	+8.52%	2
North East	+69	11	£350	+8.52%	2
Scotland	+39	11	£328	+24.76%	5
West Midlands	+25	10	£375	-21.05%	6
Surrey	-1	10	£363	-2.02%	3
Reading	+15	9	£375	+50.00%	2
South Wales	+3	9	£330	-26.66%	2
Wales	+2	9	£330	-26.66%	2
Hertfordshire	+4	8	£388	-	3
Somerset	-1	6	£365	-	1
Taunton	-	6	£365	-
Cardiff	+4	5	£330	-26.66%	1
Glasgow	+4	5	£370	+13.84%
Portsmouth	+3	5	-	-
Stevenage	+3	5	-	-	1
Brighton	-7	5	£500	-	1
East Sussex	-12	5	£500	+42.85%	1

Test Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring IT Skills

For the 6 months to 25 June 2017, Test Engineer contract jobs required the following IT skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the number co-occurrences and its proportion to all contract ads featuring Test Engineer in the job title.

1	338 (60.68%)	Test Automation
2	239 (42.91%)	Agile Software Development
3	182 (32.68%)	Selenium
4	167 (29.98%)	Java
5	138 (24.78%)	Cucumber
6	128 (22.98%)	QA
7	116 (20.83%)	BDD
8	102 (18.31%)	Python
9	97 (17.41%)	Test Scripting
10	96 (17.24%)	Jenkins
11	92 (16.52%)	Scrum
12	89 (15.98%)	WebDriver
13	84 (15.08%)	TDD
14	76 (13.64%)	SQL
15	75 (13.46%)	Continuous Integration

16	71 (12.75%)	JIRA
17	69 (12.39%)	C#
18	63 (11.31%)	Software Testing
19	62 (11.13%)	Security Cleared
19	62 (11.13%)	Telecoms
20	60 (10.77%)	Git (software)
21	59 (10.59%)	Linux
22	56 (10.05%)	Finance
23	54 (9.69%)	Test Strategy
24	53 (9.52%)	JavaScript
25	51 (9.16%)	SoapUI
26	50 (8.98%)	Web Services
27	49 (8.80%)	Ruby
27	49 (8.80%)	Software Engineering
28	48 (8.62%)	API Testing

Test Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring IT Skills by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same job type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
Applications
Business Applications
Cloud Services
Communications & Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
Development Applications
General
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
Miscellaneous
Operating Systems
Processes & Methodologies
Programming Languages
Qualifications
Quality Assurance & Compliance
System Software
Systems Management
Vendors

Application Platforms
1	18 (3.23%)	Confluence
2	5 (0.90%)	SharePoint
3	4 (0.72%)	Apache Spark
4	3 (0.54%)	BizTalk Server
4	3 (0.54%)	CMS
4	3 (0.54%)	Tomcat
4	3 (0.54%)	WebLogic
5	2 (0.36%)	Apache
5	2 (0.36%)	ATG Dynamo
5	2 (0.36%)	JBoss
5	2 (0.36%)	Skype for Business
6	1 (0.18%)	IIS
6	1 (0.18%)	Oracle SOA Suite
6	1 (0.18%)	Umbraco

Applications
1	14 (2.51%)	Microsoft Office
2	4 (0.72%)	Microsoft Excel
3	3 (0.54%)	MS Visio
4	2 (0.36%)	Microsoft PowerPoint

Business Applications
1	9 (1.62%)	LabWindows
2	2 (0.36%)	ION MarketView
2	2 (0.36%)	Payment Gateway
2	2 (0.36%)	SAP Oil and Gas
3	1 (0.18%)	Dynamics CRM
3	1 (0.18%)	Magento
3	1 (0.18%)	Remedy ITSM

Cloud Services
1	16 (2.87%)	Amazon AWS
2	13 (2.33%)	Microsoft Azure
3	12 (2.15%)	Sauce Labs
4	9 (1.62%)	GitHub
5	7 (1.26%)	SaaS
6	6 (1.08%)	BrowserStack
6	6 (1.08%)	Office 365
7	1 (0.18%)	Amazon EC2
7	1 (0.18%)	IaaS

Communications & Networking
1	36 (6.46%)	Wireless
2	30 (5.39%)	LTE
3	29 (5.21%)	3G
4	24 (4.31%)	4G
5	22 (3.95%)	Internet
6	20 (3.59%)	Bluetooth
7	19 (3.41%)	Value-Added Service
8	18 (3.23%)	WLAN
9	16 (2.87%)	Wi-Fi
10	14 (2.51%)	MVNO
11	13 (2.33%)	VoLTE
12	11 (1.97%)	NFC
13	10 (1.80%)	Ethernet
14	9 (1.62%)	TCP/IP
15	8 (1.44%)	RS-422
15	8 (1.44%)	SMS
16	7 (1.26%)	3GPP
16	7 (1.26%)	Firewall
16	7 (1.26%)	HTTP
16	7 (1.26%)	LAN

Database & Business Intelligence
1	25 (4.49%)	SQL Server
2	19 (3.41%)	MySQL
3	13 (2.33%)	PostgreSQL
4	7 (1.26%)	Hadoop
5	5 (0.90%)	Data Warehouse
6	4 (0.72%)	KDB
7	3 (0.54%)	Big Data
7	3 (0.54%)	DB2
7	3 (0.54%)	MongoDB
7	3 (0.54%)	RDBMS
7	3 (0.54%)	Relational Database
7	3 (0.54%)	SQL Server 2012
7	3 (0.54%)	SQLite
8	2 (0.36%)	Oracle Database
9	1 (0.18%)	Event Store
9	1 (0.18%)	Geospatial Data
9	1 (0.18%)	HBase
9	1 (0.18%)	Oracle Database 10g
9	1 (0.18%)	Oracle Reports
9	1 (0.18%)	PowerCenter

Development Applications
1	182 (32.68%)	Selenium
2	138 (24.78%)	Cucumber
3	96 (17.24%)	Jenkins
4	89 (15.98%)	WebDriver
5	71 (12.75%)	JIRA
6	60 (10.77%)	Git (software)
7	51 (9.16%)	SoapUI
8	34 (6.10%)	JUnit
9	30 (5.39%)	Calabash
10	26 (4.67%)	JMeter
11	24 (4.31%)	RSpec
12	23 (4.13%)	Subversion
13	22 (3.95%)	SpecFlow
14	21 (3.77%)	Appium
15	19 (3.41%)	Team Foundation Server
16	16 (2.87%)	Visual Studio
17	15 (2.69%)	TeamCity
18	14 (2.51%)	Bugzilla
18	14 (2.51%)	Capybara
19	11 (1.97%)	LoadRunner

General
1	62 (11.13%)	Telecoms
2	56 (10.05%)	Finance
3	31 (5.57%)	Banking
3	31 (5.57%)	Electronics
4	27 (4.85%)	Games
5	19 (3.41%)	Retail
6	11 (1.97%)	Retail Banking
7	7 (1.26%)	Back Office
7	7 (1.26%)	Manufacturing
7	7 (1.26%)	Marketing
8	6 (1.08%)	Investment Banking
9	5 (0.90%)	Advertising
9	5 (0.90%)	Aerospace
9	5 (0.90%)	Front Office
10	4 (0.72%)	Billing
11	3 (0.54%)	Law
11	3 (0.54%)	Pharmaceutical
12	2 (0.36%)	Automotive
12	2 (0.36%)	Music Industry
12	2 (0.36%)	Publishing

Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1	50 (8.98%)	Web Services
2	41 (7.36%)	JSON
3	29 (5.21%)	Gherkin
4	27 (4.85%)	.NET
4	27 (4.85%)	REST
5	23 (4.13%)	XML
6	21 (3.77%)	RESTful
7	19 (3.41%)	SOAP
8	15 (2.69%)	HTML
9	12 (2.15%)	Node.js
10	11 (1.97%)	HTML5
11	8 (1.44%)	CSS
11	8 (1.44%)	J2EE
12	7 (1.26%)	Middleware
13	6 (1.08%)	AngularJS
13	6 (1.08%)	jQuery
14	5 (0.90%)	Java EE
15	4 (0.72%)	ASP.NET
15	4 (0.72%)	React
16	3 (0.54%)	Unreal Engine

Miscellaneous
1	40 (7.18%)	Mobile App
2	25 (4.49%)	Analytical Skills
3	21 (3.77%)	Greenfield Project
4	17 (3.05%)	Foreign Exchange (FX)
5	14 (2.51%)	Computer Science
6	11 (1.97%)	Embedded Systems
6	11 (1.97%)	Management Information System
7	10 (1.80%)	Linux Command Line
8	9 (1.62%)	Smart Meter
9	8 (1.44%)	STB
10	6 (1.08%)	IPTV
11	5 (0.90%)	Equities
11	5 (0.90%)	User Experience
12	4 (0.72%)	Video on Demand
12	4 (0.72%)	Virtual Team
13	3 (0.54%)	Digital TV
13	3 (0.54%)	Internet of Things
13	3 (0.54%)	N-Tier
13	3 (0.54%)	RIA
14	2 (0.36%)	Enterprise Software

Operating Systems
1	59 (10.59%)	Linux
2	39 (7.00%)	Windows
3	32 (5.75%)	Android
4	29 (5.21%)	Apple iOS
5	13 (2.33%)	Unix
6	9 (1.62%)	Windows Server
7	8 (1.44%)	Windows Server 2012
8	5 (0.90%)	Windows Server 2008
9	4 (0.72%)	Windows 7
9	4 (0.72%)	Windows Server 2003
9	4 (0.72%)	Windows XP
10	3 (0.54%)	AIX
10	3 (0.54%)	CentOS
10	3 (0.54%)	Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10	3 (0.54%)	Windows 10
11	1 (0.18%)	Debian
11	1 (0.18%)	Kali Linux
11	1 (0.18%)	Windows 8
11	1 (0.18%)	Windows Mobile
11	1 (0.18%)	Windows Vista

Processes & Methodologies
1	338 (60.68%)	Test Automation
2	239 (42.91%)	Agile Software Development
3	116 (20.83%)	BDD
4	97 (17.41%)	Test Scripting
5	92 (16.52%)	Scrum
6	84 (15.08%)	TDD
7	75 (13.46%)	Continuous Integration
8	63 (11.31%)	Software Testing
9	54 (9.69%)	Test Strategy
10	49 (8.80%)	Software Engineering
11	48 (8.62%)	API Testing
12	46 (8.26%)	Validation
13	45 (8.08%)	Performance Testing
14	41 (7.36%)	Manual Testing
14	41 (7.36%)	Regression Testing
15	37 (6.64%)	Exploratory Testing
16	35 (6.28%)	Unit Testing
16	35 (6.28%)	User Stories
17	32 (5.75%)	Integration Testing
18	31 (5.57%)	Functional Testing

Programming Languages
1	167 (29.98%)	Java
2	102 (18.31%)	Python
3	76 (13.64%)	SQL
4	69 (12.39%)	C#
5	53 (9.52%)	JavaScript
6	49 (8.80%)	Ruby
7	33 (5.92%)	C++
8	32 (5.75%)	C
9	28 (5.03%)	Scala
10	26 (4.67%)	Perl
11	15 (2.69%)	Tcl
12	6 (1.08%)	Bash Shell
12	6 (1.08%)	PHP
13	5 (0.90%)	Shell Script
14	4 (0.72%)	Groovy
14	4 (0.72%)	PL/SQL
14	4 (0.72%)	T-SQL
15	3 (0.54%)	Apple Swift
16	2 (0.36%)	Embedded C++
17	1 (0.18%)	XQuery

Qualifications
1	62 (11.13%)	Security Cleared
2	44 (7.90%)	ISEB
3	43 (7.72%)	Degree
4	38 (6.82%)	ISTQB
5	37 (6.64%)	SC Cleared
6	20 (3.59%)	ISTQB Foundation Certification
7	18 (3.23%)	DV Cleared
8	8 (1.44%)	HNC
9	5 (0.90%)	CEH
9	5 (0.90%)	CISA
9	5 (0.90%)	CISSP
9	5 (0.90%)	OSCP
10	4 (0.72%)	BPSS Clearance
11	3 (0.54%)	Computer Science Degree
12	2 (0.36%)	ITIL Foundation Certificate
12	2 (0.36%)	MCITP
12	2 (0.36%)	MCSA
12	2 (0.36%)	MCSE
12	2 (0.36%)	MCTS
12	2 (0.36%)	Microsoft Certification

Quality Assurance & Compliance
1	128 (22.98%)	QA
2	16 (2.87%)	WCAG
3	10 (1.80%)	Def Stans
4	7 (1.26%)	DO-178B
4	7 (1.26%)	IEC 61508
5	4 (0.72%)	JSP 440
6	3 (0.54%)	Data Quality
7	2 (0.36%)	Disclosure Scotland
7	2 (0.36%)	GDPR
7	2 (0.36%)	MiFID
7	2 (0.36%)	SLA
8	1 (0.18%)	ISO 13485
8	1 (0.18%)	ISO/IEC 17025
8	1 (0.18%)	ISO/IEC 27001
8	1 (0.18%)	PCI DSS

System Software
1	16 (2.87%)	Docker
2	12 (2.15%)	Firmware
3	6 (1.08%)	VMware Infrastructure
4	5 (0.90%)	Active Directory
5	4 (0.72%)	VMware ESXi
6	3 (0.54%)	Hyper-V
6	3 (0.54%)	Virtual Machines
7	2 (0.36%)	vSphere
8	1 (0.18%)	Microsoft App-V
8	1 (0.18%)	Virtual Desktop

Systems Management
1	20 (3.59%)	HP Quality Center
2	5 (0.90%)	HP Fortify
3	4 (0.72%)	Graphite
4	3 (0.54%)	Grafana
4	3 (0.54%)	Netcool
4	3 (0.54%)	ZABBIX
5	2 (0.36%)	Ansible
5	2 (0.36%)	HP SiteScope
5	2 (0.36%)	McAfee ePO
5	2 (0.36%)	Puppet
6	1 (0.18%)	AirWatch
6	1 (0.18%)	BladeLogic
6	1 (0.18%)	Cisco CUCM
6	1 (0.18%)	Cisco UCCE
6	1 (0.18%)	Cisco UCCX
6	1 (0.18%)	Kubernetes
6	1 (0.18%)	Nessus
6	1 (0.18%)	Nexpose
6	1 (0.18%)	Opscode Chef
6	1 (0.18%)	vRealize

Vendors
1	46 (8.26%)	Microsoft
2	27 (4.85%)	HP
3	20 (3.59%)	Oracle
4	10 (1.80%)	IBM
5	9 (1.62%)	CA Agile Central
5	9 (1.62%)	Xamarin
6	8 (1.44%)	Serena
6	8 (1.44%)	VMware
7	6 (1.08%)	Juniper
8	5 (0.90%)	Cisco
8	5 (0.90%)	Google
9	4 (0.72%)	Nokia
9	4 (0.72%)	Sybase
10	3 (0.54%)	Atlassian
10	3 (0.54%)	BMC
10	3 (0.54%)	Dell
10	3 (0.54%)	EMC
10	3 (0.54%)	Remedy
10	3 (0.54%)	TIBCO
10	3 (0.54%)	TOWER Software