Test Engineer Contract Job Trends

Test Engineer
UK

The median Test Engineer daily rate in the UK is £447, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 October 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 253 344 335
Rank change year-on-year +91 -9 +18
Contract jobs requiring a Test Engineer 566 220 241
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.04% 0.66% 0.63%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.13% 0.73% 0.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 221 142 148
10th Percentile £305 £270 £320
25th Percentile £350 £312 £395
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £415 £463
Median % change year-on-year +7.71% -10.27% +2.21%
75th Percentile £538 £488 £550
90th Percentile £588 £588 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £423 £387 £450
% change year-on-year +9.17% -14.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 125 20 19
10th Percentile £28.23 £27.47 £25.00
25th Percentile £33.00 £34.75 £38.40
Median hourly rate £44.46 £48.75 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.81% -11.36% +4.76%
75th Percentile £61.50 £52.19 £67.50
90th Percentile £82.50 £62.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.46 £50.00 £49.08
% change year-on-year -11.09% +1.88% -6.52%

All Contract IT Job Roles
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 50,176 30,117 35,319
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.07% 90.80% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,458 18,999 21,350
10th Percentile £325 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £494
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.85% -1.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,042 1,639 1,491
10th Percentile £14.32 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £19.36 £17.30 £20.30
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £41.57
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -39.49% -6.60%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £68.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £25.00 £42.96
% change year-on-year +66.84% -41.80% -3.47%

Test Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Test Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Test Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Test Engineer
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Test Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Engineer over the 6 months to 9 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Test Engineer in the UK

Test Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Test Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Engineer over the 6 months to 9 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Engineer in the UK

Test Engineer
Top 16 Contract Job 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 6 months to 9 October 2026. 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 +74 489 £448 +6.55% 528
UK excluding London +76 418 £423 +9.17% 455
North of England -7 116 £410 -5.75% 88
London -52 98 £470 +9.30% 90
Work from Home -36 90 £438 +8.63% 170
South West +38 80 £550 - 63
East of England +34 78 £350 - 81
North West -2 65 £575 +45.57% 49
Midlands -4 58 £413 +14.58% 61
South East -43 54 £415 +40.68% 97
West Midlands -13 43 £460 +2.22% 38
North East -16 35 £328 -26.82% 24
Scotland +3 33 £525 +707.69% 52
Yorkshire -36 23 £450 +3.45% 15
East Midlands -11 15 £300 -16.67% 23
Wales -13 4 £300 -3.85% 8

Test Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 9 October 2026, Test Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Test Engineer in the job title.

1 247 (43.64%) Test Automation
2 174 (30.74%) Security Cleared
3 164 (28.98%) CI/CD
4 123 (21.73%) QA
4 123 (21.73%) SC Cleared
5 120 (21.20%) Agile
6 113 (19.96%) Validation
7 91 (16.08%) Playwright
7 91 (16.08%) Software Testing
7 91 (16.08%) Test Strategy
8 90 (15.90%) Java
9 89 (15.72%) DevOps
10 83 (14.66%) AWS
10 83 (14.66%) Test Scripting
11 82 (14.49%) API Testing
12 80 (14.13%) Python
13 76 (13.43%) Non-Functional Testing
14 75 (13.25%) Selenium
15 72 (12.72%) Performance Testing
16 71 (12.54%) Azure
17 68 (12.01%) End-to-End Testing
17 68 (12.01%) Jenkins
18 64 (11.31%) GitHub
19 59 (10.42%) Continuous Improvement
19 59 (10.42%) Cucumber
20 57 (10.07%) BDD
20 57 (10.07%) Problem-Solving
21 54 (9.54%) GitLab
22 53 (9.36%) JavaScript
23 49 (8.66%) SQL

Test Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 12 (2.12%) Confluence
2 6 (1.06%) Apache
2 6 (1.06%) Apache Airflow
2 6 (1.06%) Jupyter
2 6 (1.06%) SAS
2 6 (1.06%) SharePoint
3 5 (0.88%) Apache Spark
4 4 (0.71%) Mule
4 4 (0.71%) Mule ESB
5 2 (0.35%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 3 (0.53%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (0.53%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.18%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.18%) Simulink
2 1 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 7 (1.24%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.53%) Salesforce CRM
3 2 (0.35%) Lorenzo
4 1 (0.18%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.18%) Maximo
4 1 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 83 (14.66%) AWS
2 71 (12.54%) Azure
3 64 (11.31%) GitHub
4 34 (6.01%) Azure DevOps
4 34 (6.01%) GitHub Actions
5 29 (5.12%) GCP
6 9 (1.59%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 9 (1.59%) OpenShift
6 9 (1.59%) Power Platform
7 7 (1.24%) Amazon EMR
7 7 (1.24%) AWS Lambda
7 7 (1.24%) Serverless
8 6 (1.06%) Amazon S3
9 5 (0.88%) Amazon EC2
9 5 (0.88%) Amazon SQS
10 4 (0.71%) Amazon EventBridge
10 4 (0.71%) Azure Pipelines
10 4 (0.71%) BlazeMeter
10 4 (0.71%) BrowserStack
10 4 (0.71%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 13 (2.30%) Wi-Fi
2 12 (2.12%) Broadband
3 10 (1.77%) DNS
4 9 (1.59%) Firewall
5 8 (1.41%) LAN
6 7 (1.24%) 4G
6 7 (1.24%) HTTP
7 6 (1.06%) DHCP
7 6 (1.06%) TCP/IP
7 6 (1.06%) VLAN
8 5 (0.88%) 5G
8 5 (0.88%) IPv4
8 5 (0.88%) IPv6
8 5 (0.88%) PPP
8 5 (0.88%) UPnP
8 5 (0.88%) Wireshark
8 5 (0.88%) xDSL
9 4 (0.71%) WAN
9 4 (0.71%) Wireless
10 3 (0.53%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (3.89%) MongoDB
2 8 (1.41%) Data Warehouse
3 6 (1.06%) Amazon Athena
3 6 (1.06%) Big Data
4 5 (0.88%) MySQL
4 5 (0.88%) Neo4j
4 5 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (0.88%) Power BI
4 5 (0.88%) Relational Database
4 5 (0.88%) Tableau
5 4 (0.71%) DynamoDB
5 4 (0.71%) Electronic Patient Records
5 4 (0.71%) PowerCenter
6 3 (0.53%) Data Lake
7 2 (0.35%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.35%) Oracle Database
7 2 (0.35%) Oracle Reports
8 1 (0.18%) Apache Iceberg
8 1 (0.18%) Flink
8 1 (0.18%) Redis
Development Applications
1 75 (13.25%) Selenium
2 68 (12.01%) Jenkins
3 59 (10.42%) Cucumber
4 54 (9.54%) GitLab
5 48 (8.48%) JMeter
6 45 (7.95%) Postman
7 42 (7.42%) JIRA
8 40 (7.07%) REST Assured
9 34 (6.01%) Git
10 31 (5.48%) Gatling
11 27 (4.77%) Cypress.io
12 19 (3.36%) LoadRunner
13 16 (2.83%) LabVIEW
14 14 (2.47%) JUnit
15 11 (1.94%) Serenity BDD
15 11 (1.94%) TestNG
15 11 (1.94%) WebDriver
16 10 (1.77%) SpecFlow
16 10 (1.77%) Zephyr
17 8 (1.41%) Robot Framework
General
1 81 (14.31%) Social Skills
2 62 (10.95%) Public Sector
3 43 (7.60%) Analytical Skills
4 41 (7.24%) Electronics
5 36 (6.36%) Aerospace
6 35 (6.18%) Manufacturing
7 32 (5.65%) Finance
8 23 (4.06%) Telecoms
9 22 (3.89%) Automotive
10 20 (3.53%) Banking
11 16 (2.83%) Military
12 5 (0.88%) Law
13 3 (0.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.53%) Investment Banking
14 2 (0.35%) Documentation Skills
14 2 (0.35%) Financial Institution
14 2 (0.35%) Legal
14 2 (0.35%) Police
15 1 (0.18%) Influencing Skills
15 1 (0.18%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (16.08%) Playwright
2 36 (6.36%) Kafka
3 35 (6.18%) REST
4 22 (3.89%) Terraform
5 17 (3.00%) Spring Boot
6 16 (2.83%) Node.js
6 16 (2.83%) RESTful
7 15 (2.65%) pytest
7 15 (2.65%) Spring
8 13 (2.30%) .NET
8 13 (2.30%) React
9 10 (1.77%) SOAP
10 9 (1.59%) Web Services
11 8 (1.41%) HTML
12 7 (1.24%) ADO
12 7 (1.24%) WebdriverIO
13 6 (1.06%) Model Context Protocol
13 6 (1.06%) OpenTelemetry
14 5 (0.88%) Spring Cloud
15 4 (0.71%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 19 (3.36%) Distributed Systems
2 18 (3.18%) Product Ownership
3 17 (3.00%) Enterprise Software
4 14 (2.47%) Cloud Native
5 8 (1.41%) AI Agents
5 8 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
6 7 (1.24%) Onboarding
7 6 (1.06%) NHS
7 6 (1.06%) Virtual Team
8 5 (0.88%) Analogue Electronics
8 5 (0.88%) Distributed Architecture
8 5 (0.88%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (0.88%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 5 (0.88%) Wiki
9 4 (0.71%) Linux Command Line
10 3 (0.53%) Data Centre
10 3 (0.53%) Embedded Systems
10 3 (0.53%) IoT
11 2 (0.35%) Driving Licence
11 2 (0.35%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 24 (4.24%) Linux
2 13 (2.30%) Unix
3 12 (2.12%) Windows
4 4 (0.71%) VMS
4 4 (0.71%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.35%) CentOS
5 2 (0.35%) Embedded Linux
5 2 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.18%) Android
6 1 (0.18%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.18%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 247 (43.64%) Test Automation
2 164 (28.98%) CI/CD
3 120 (21.20%) Agile
4 113 (19.96%) Validation
5 91 (16.08%) Software Testing
5 91 (16.08%) Test Strategy
6 89 (15.72%) DevOps
7 83 (14.66%) Test Scripting
8 82 (14.49%) API Testing
9 76 (13.43%) Non-Functional Testing
10 72 (12.72%) Performance Testing
11 68 (12.01%) End-to-End Testing
12 59 (10.42%) Continuous Improvement
13 57 (10.07%) BDD
13 57 (10.07%) Problem-Solving
14 48 (8.48%) Microservices
15 46 (8.13%) Integration Testing
16 43 (7.60%) Defect Management
17 42 (7.42%) Manual Testing
18 41 (7.24%) Regression Testing
Programming Languages
1 90 (15.90%) Java
2 80 (14.13%) Python
3 53 (9.36%) JavaScript
4 49 (8.66%) SQL
5 31 (5.48%) TypeScript
6 23 (4.06%) C#
7 7 (1.24%) Apex Code
8 6 (1.06%) Bash
8 6 (1.06%) Kotlin
9 5 (0.88%) Ruby
10 4 (0.71%) MATLAB
10 4 (0.71%) Scala
11 3 (0.53%) C++
11 3 (0.53%) Perl
11 3 (0.53%) PowerShell
11 3 (0.53%) VBScript
12 2 (0.35%) Cypher
12 2 (0.35%) Groovy
12 2 (0.35%) R
13 1 (0.18%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 174 (30.74%) Security Cleared
2 123 (21.73%) SC Cleared
3 33 (5.83%) DV Cleared
4 22 (3.89%) ISTQB
5 16 (2.83%) Degree
5 16 (2.83%) HNC
6 11 (1.94%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (1.41%) HND
7 8 (1.41%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 4 (0.71%) ISEB
9 3 (0.53%) Cisco Certification
9 3 (0.53%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (0.35%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.35%) CCNA
10 2 (0.35%) CCNP
10 2 (0.35%) MOS
11 1 (0.18%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 123 (21.73%) QA
2 44 (7.77%) Accessibility
3 12 (2.12%) Data Quality
4 6 (1.06%) WCAG
5 3 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
5 3 (0.53%) ISO 20022
5 3 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (0.53%) NIST
6 2 (0.35%) SEPA
6 2 (0.35%) Software Quality Assurance
7 1 (0.18%) IEC 62304
7 1 (0.18%) ISO 13485
7 1 (0.18%) ISO 15022
7 1 (0.18%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 47 (8.30%) Docker
2 10 (1.77%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
3 4 (0.71%) VirtualBox
3 4 (0.71%) vSphere
4 3 (0.53%) Firmware
5 1 (0.18%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 38 (6.71%) Kubernetes
2 25 (4.42%) Grafana
3 12 (2.12%) Ansible
4 11 (1.94%) Prometheus
5 7 (1.24%) Kibana
6 3 (0.53%) Argo
6 3 (0.53%) HP ALM
7 2 (0.35%) Control-M
7 2 (0.35%) HP Fortify
7 2 (0.35%) HP Quality Center
8 1 (0.18%) Functional Safety
8 1 (0.18%) OPNET
Vendors
1 23 (4.06%) Splunk
2 22 (3.89%) Salesforce
3 16 (2.83%) Oracle
4 14 (2.47%) Informatica
5 13 (2.30%) Dynatrace
5 13 (2.30%) IBM
6 12 (2.12%) Microsoft
7 10 (1.77%) VMware
8 9 (1.59%) EMC
8 9 (1.59%) Google
9 8 (1.41%) Conga
9 8 (1.41%) GoCardless
10 6 (1.06%) AppDynamics
10 6 (1.06%) Cisco
10 6 (1.06%) New Relic
11 5 (0.88%) Databricks
11 5 (0.88%) HP
12 4 (0.71%) MuleSoft
12 4 (0.71%) TIBCO
13 3 (0.53%) Juniper