Test Engineer Contract Job Trends

Test Engineer
UK

The median Test Engineer daily rate in the UK is £425, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 2 February 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 315 328 299
Rank change year-on-year +13 -29 +96
Contract jobs requiring a Test Engineer 297 208 345
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.77% 0.67% 0.77%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.84% 0.72% 0.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 208 139 242
10th Percentile £300 £311 £350
25th Percentile £360 £376 £382
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £450 £425
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% +5.88% -8.11%
75th Percentile £519 £538 £512
90th Percentile £638 £576 £588
UK excluding London median daily rate £408 £450 £425
% change year-on-year -9.42% +5.88% -7.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 11 34
10th Percentile £28.25 £37.00 £35.00
25th Percentile £34.50 £47.94 £36.19
Median hourly rate £36.00 £62.50 £44.89
Median % change year-on-year -42.40% +39.24% -25.19%
75th Percentile £55.63 - £61.81
90th Percentile £61.84 - £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.00 £62.50 £44.89
% change year-on-year -42.40% +39.24% -25.19%

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 35,158 28,873 41,963
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.49% 92.93% 93.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,167 17,619 27,765
10th Percentile £300 £300 £275
25th Percentile £405 £408 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £479 £495
% change year-on-year -0.84% -3.23% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,109 850 2,268
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.92 £13.23
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £16.86
Median hourly rate £29.61 £33.00 £35.95
Median % change year-on-year -10.27% -8.21% +2.71%
75th Percentile £61.25 £62.50 £61.75
90th Percentile £70.77 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £31.76 £36.50
% change year-on-year -13.41% -12.99% +15.54%

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 2 February 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 2 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Engineer in the UK

Test Engineer
Top 17 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 2 February 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 -18 254 £425 -5.56% 202
UK excluding London -2 190 £408 -9.42% 199
North of England -3 82 £413 +10.00% 42
London -14 76 £435 -0.57% 29
Work from Home -6 64 £400 -18.12% 82
Yorkshire -33 37 £475 +16.42% 14
Midlands -25 36 £550 +29.41% 35
North East +2 25 £419 +31.89% 4
West Midlands -21 24 £675 +58.82% 30
South East -52 23 £305 -39.00% 46
North West -17 22 £390 +4.00% 24
East of England -10 18 £375 -6.25% 35
South West -21 13 £500 -4.76% 21
East Midlands -14 12 £400 -6.81% 5
Wales +10 11 £433 - 9
Scotland +9 6 £65 -86.28% 11
Northern Ireland 0 2 £450 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 2 February 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.

1 198 (66.67%) Test Automation
2 111 (37.37%) CI/CD
3 93 (31.31%) Agile
4 85 (28.62%) Security Cleared
5 75 (25.25%) Java
6 71 (23.91%) QA
7 68 (22.90%) API Testing
8 67 (22.56%) Cucumber
8 67 (22.56%) Selenium
9 66 (22.22%) AWS
10 64 (21.55%) SC Cleared
11 63 (21.21%) Azure
12 58 (19.53%) Test Strategy
13 55 (18.52%) Playwright
14 54 (18.18%) DevOps
14 54 (18.18%) Test Scripting
15 53 (17.85%) Postman
15 53 (17.85%) Python
16 52 (17.51%) Performance Testing
17 50 (16.84%) JIRA
18 48 (16.16%) BDD
18 48 (16.16%) GitLab
19 46 (15.49%) Jenkins
20 45 (15.15%) Accessibility
20 45 (15.15%) Manual Testing
20 45 (15.15%) Microservices
21 43 (14.48%) JavaScript
22 42 (14.14%) Software Testing
23 41 (13.80%) Functional Testing
23 41 (13.80%) REST

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 11 (3.70%) Confluence
2 3 (1.01%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.67%) Oracle Application Server
4 1 (0.34%) Drupal
4 1 (0.34%) SAS
Applications
1 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (0.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 1 (0.34%) MS Visio
1 1 (0.34%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 2 (0.67%) Aladdin
1 2 (0.67%) Workday HCM
2 1 (0.34%) CODA-Financials
2 1 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 66 (22.22%) AWS
2 63 (21.21%) Azure
3 26 (8.75%) Azure DevOps
4 23 (7.74%) GitHub
5 19 (6.40%) GCP
6 12 (4.04%) GitHub Actions
7 11 (3.70%) BrowserStack
8 9 (3.03%) Serverless
9 8 (2.69%) BlazeMeter
10 7 (2.36%) Power Platform
11 6 (2.02%) AWS Lambda
12 5 (1.68%) SaaS
12 5 (1.68%) Tricentis Tosca
13 4 (1.35%) Amazon SQS
13 4 (1.35%) PowerApps
14 3 (1.01%) Snowflake
15 2 (0.67%) Amazon EventBridge
15 2 (0.67%) AWS CodePipeline
15 2 (0.67%) Dynamics 365
15 2 (0.67%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.02%) Firewall
2 5 (1.68%) Ethernet
2 5 (1.68%) HTTP
2 5 (1.68%) Wireshark
3 4 (1.35%) 4G
3 4 (1.35%) 5G
3 4 (1.35%) SD-WAN
3 4 (1.35%) VoIP
4 3 (1.01%) 3G
4 3 (1.01%) Cisco IOS
4 3 (1.01%) DHCP
4 3 (1.01%) DNS
4 3 (1.01%) FTP
4 3 (1.01%) SNMP
4 3 (1.01%) Spanning Tree
4 3 (1.01%) SSH
4 3 (1.01%) TACACS
5 2 (0.67%) IOS XR
5 2 (0.67%) TCP/IP
5 2 (0.67%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (3.70%) MongoDB
2 6 (2.02%) SQL Server
3 5 (1.68%) MySQL
3 5 (1.68%) Relational Database
4 4 (1.35%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (0.67%) Neo4j
5 2 (0.67%) Oracle ODI
5 2 (0.67%) Oracle Reports
5 2 (0.67%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.67%) Power BI
5 2 (0.67%) Star Schema
6 1 (0.34%) Amazon QuickSight
6 1 (0.34%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (0.34%) Electronic Patient Records
6 1 (0.34%) MS Access
Development Applications
1 67 (22.56%) Cucumber
1 67 (22.56%) Selenium
2 53 (17.85%) Postman
3 50 (16.84%) JIRA
4 48 (16.16%) GitLab
5 46 (15.49%) Jenkins
6 36 (12.12%) REST Assured
7 29 (9.76%) Git
8 27 (9.09%) JMeter
9 20 (6.73%) Cypress.io
10 19 (6.40%) Gatling
11 9 (3.03%) Zephyr
12 8 (2.69%) LoadRunner
12 8 (2.69%) TestRail
13 7 (2.36%) HP UFT
13 7 (2.36%) Serenity BDD
14 6 (2.02%) WebDriver
15 5 (1.68%) Bitbucket
15 5 (1.68%) Newman
15 5 (1.68%) SpecFlow
General
1 63 (21.21%) Public Sector
2 51 (17.17%) Social Skills
3 27 (9.09%) Finance
4 24 (8.08%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (4.38%) Telecoms
6 11 (3.70%) Aerospace
6 11 (3.70%) Military
7 10 (3.37%) Banking
8 8 (2.69%) Automotive
9 4 (1.35%) Investment Banking
10 3 (1.01%) Back Office
10 3 (1.01%) Electronics
10 3 (1.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (0.67%) Front Office
11 2 (0.67%) Pharmaceutical
12 1 (0.34%) Avionics
12 1 (0.34%) Local Government
12 1 (0.34%) Retail
12 1 (0.34%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (18.52%) Playwright
2 41 (13.80%) REST
3 17 (5.72%) Node.js
4 13 (4.38%) .NET
4 13 (4.38%) Kafka
5 12 (4.04%) WireMock
6 11 (3.70%) Spring Boot
7 10 (3.37%) Gherkin
8 9 (3.03%) LDAP
8 9 (3.03%) OpenID
8 9 (3.03%) SailPoint
9 8 (2.69%) Spring
10 6 (2.02%) Middleware
10 6 (2.02%) pytest
10 6 (2.02%) RabbitMQ
10 6 (2.02%) RFC 2544
10 6 (2.02%) Swagger
11 5 (1.68%) gRPC
11 5 (1.68%) React
11 5 (1.68%) Spring Cloud
Miscellaneous
1 16 (5.39%) Product Ownership
2 13 (4.38%) Cloud Native
3 7 (2.36%) Data Centre
3 7 (2.36%) Fibre Optics
4 6 (2.02%) Mobile App
4 6 (2.02%) Self-Motivation
5 5 (1.68%) Onboarding
6 4 (1.35%) Distributed Systems
6 4 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
6 4 (1.35%) Management Information System
7 3 (1.01%) Embedded Systems
7 3 (1.01%) Infotainment
7 3 (1.01%) Low-Code
7 3 (1.01%) PKI
8 2 (0.67%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (0.67%) Hedge funds
8 2 (0.67%) NHS
8 2 (0.67%) Replication
9 1 (0.34%) Algorithms
9 1 (0.34%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
Operating Systems
1 6 (2.02%) Windows
2 5 (1.68%) Android
3 4 (1.35%) Apple iOS
4 3 (1.01%) Linux
4 3 (1.01%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.67%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 198 (66.67%) Test Automation
2 111 (37.37%) CI/CD
3 93 (31.31%) Agile
4 68 (22.90%) API Testing
5 58 (19.53%) Test Strategy
6 54 (18.18%) DevOps
6 54 (18.18%) Test Scripting
7 52 (17.51%) Performance Testing
8 48 (16.16%) BDD
9 45 (15.15%) Manual Testing
9 45 (15.15%) Microservices
10 42 (14.14%) Software Testing
11 41 (13.80%) Functional Testing
12 38 (12.79%) Non-Functional Testing
13 37 (12.46%) Problem-Solving
14 35 (11.78%) Regression Testing
15 31 (10.44%) Scenario Testing
16 30 (10.10%) Continuous Improvement
17 28 (9.43%) Integration Testing
17 28 (9.43%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 75 (25.25%) Java
2 53 (17.85%) Python
3 43 (14.48%) JavaScript
4 36 (12.12%) TypeScript
5 25 (8.42%) SQL
6 13 (4.38%) C#
7 11 (3.70%) Bash
7 11 (3.70%) Ruby
8 7 (2.36%) VBScript
9 5 (1.68%) PHP
10 3 (1.01%) C
10 3 (1.01%) C++
10 3 (1.01%) Scala
10 3 (1.01%) VB.NET
11 2 (0.67%) Bicep
11 2 (0.67%) Cypher
11 2 (0.67%) PowerShell
12 1 (0.34%) Perl
12 1 (0.34%) VBA
Qualifications
1 85 (28.62%) Security Cleared
2 64 (21.55%) SC Cleared
3 16 (5.39%) ISTQB
4 12 (4.04%) BPSS Clearance
5 8 (2.69%) DV Cleared
6 7 (2.36%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (2.36%) Degree
7 4 (1.35%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 3 (1.01%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (0.67%) AWS Certification
9 2 (0.67%) CCNA
9 2 (0.67%) CEH
9 2 (0.67%) Cisco Certification
9 2 (0.67%) CREST Certified
9 2 (0.67%) MCSA
9 2 (0.67%) MCSE
9 2 (0.67%) OSCP
9 2 (0.67%) SANS
9 2 (0.67%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 1 (0.34%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 71 (23.91%) QA
2 45 (15.15%) Accessibility
3 13 (4.38%) WCAG
4 6 (2.02%) Data Quality
5 4 (1.35%) NIST
6 2 (0.67%) EU AI Act
6 2 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.67%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.34%) HL7
7 1 (0.34%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 39 (13.13%) Docker
2 4 (1.35%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.67%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
3 2 (0.67%) Firmware
3 2 (0.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.34%) Squid
Systems Management
1 17 (5.72%) Kubernetes
2 15 (5.05%) Grafana
3 10 (3.37%) Terraform
4 9 (3.03%) Prometheus
5 6 (2.02%) Ansible
6 4 (1.35%) HP ALM
6 4 (1.35%) Kibana
7 2 (0.67%) HP Quality Center
8 1 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 26 (8.75%) Microsoft
2 14 (4.71%) Splunk
3 12 (4.04%) Cisco
4 9 (3.03%) ServiceNow
5 5 (1.68%) Citrix
5 5 (1.68%) Meraki
5 5 (1.68%) New Relic
5 5 (1.68%) Salesforce
6 4 (1.35%) AppDynamics
6 4 (1.35%) Dynatrace
6 4 (1.35%) HP
6 4 (1.35%) Oracle
7 3 (1.01%) Databricks
7 3 (1.01%) Google
7 3 (1.01%) Juniper
7 3 (1.01%) Nokia
7 3 (1.01%) UiPath
7 3 (1.01%) Virgin Media
8 2 (0.67%) Siemens
8 2 (0.67%) VMware