Test Engineer Contract Job Trends

Test Engineer
UK

The median Test Engineer daily rate in the UK is £445, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 September 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 266 339 339
Rank change year-on-year +73 0 +28
Contract jobs requiring a Test Engineer 528 216 236
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.97% 0.65% 0.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.05% 0.72% 0.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 205 131 151
10th Percentile £302 £270 £325
25th Percentile £350 £326 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £400 £488
Median % change year-on-year +11.25% -17.95% +4.00%
75th Percentile £538 £466 £574
90th Percentile £595 £550 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £375 £488
% change year-on-year +13.33% -23.08% +8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 117 24 16
10th Percentile £28.14 £29.85 £25.00
25th Percentile £33.00 £35.69 £38.40
Median hourly rate £53.00 £50.00 £48.75
Median % change year-on-year +6.00% +2.56% -7.14%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.81 £72.50
90th Percentile £82.50 £62.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £50.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +5.00% +17.65% -19.05%

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 50,324 30,039 35,625
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 91.06% 93.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,923 18,938 22,148
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.32%
75th Percentile £625 £622 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,732 1,556 1,742
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.67 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.06 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.90 £70.16 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +12.50%

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 10 September 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 10 September 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 10 September 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 +64 453 £450 +12.50% 221
UK excluding London +50 389 £425 +13.33% 217
North of England -8 102 £375 -13.74% 34
London -45 96 £463 +15.63% 23
Work from Home -39 86 £400 +2.50% 67
East of England +21 66 £350 -6.67% 41
South West +13 66 £550 +4.76% 42
Midlands -11 64 £440 +4.73% 38
South East -49 59 £430 +44.54% 49
West Midlands -7 49 £488 - 24
North West -24 45 £463 +4.52% 22
North East -14 38 £325 -26.97% 3
Scotland -13 32 £525 +707.69% 15
Yorkshire -40 22 £400 -6.92% 9
East Midlands -10 15 £300 -21.34% 14
Wales -12 6 £300 -6.71% 5
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 3

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

For the 6 months to 10 September 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.

1 235 (44.51%) Test Automation
2 164 (31.06%) Security Cleared
3 149 (28.22%) CI/CD
4 122 (23.11%) SC Cleared
5 112 (21.21%) Validation
6 106 (20.08%) Agile
7 94 (17.80%) QA
8 86 (16.29%) DevOps
9 85 (16.10%) Python
10 84 (15.91%) Test Strategy
11 83 (15.72%) Java
12 81 (15.34%) API Testing
13 80 (15.15%) Software Testing
14 78 (14.77%) Playwright
15 72 (13.64%) Selenium
16 71 (13.45%) AWS
16 71 (13.45%) Azure
17 69 (13.07%) Performance Testing
17 69 (13.07%) Test Scripting
18 60 (11.36%) GitHub
19 59 (11.17%) End-to-End Testing
20 58 (10.98%) Non-Functional Testing
21 57 (10.80%) BDD
22 54 (10.23%) Continuous Improvement
22 54 (10.23%) Jenkins
23 52 (9.85%) Problem-Solving
24 51 (9.66%) Postman
25 50 (9.47%) Cucumber
26 48 (9.09%) JMeter
27 47 (8.90%) GitLab

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 8 (1.52%) Confluence
2 6 (1.14%) Apache
2 6 (1.14%) Apache Airflow
2 6 (1.14%) Apache Spark
2 6 (1.14%) Jupyter
3 5 (0.95%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.57%) SAS
5 2 (0.38%) Mule
5 2 (0.38%) Mule ESB
5 2 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.19%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 5 (0.95%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.19%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.19%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 8 (1.52%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.57%) Findur
2 3 (0.57%) Salesforce CRM
3 2 (0.38%) Lorenzo
4 1 (0.19%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.19%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 71 (13.45%) AWS
1 71 (13.45%) Azure
2 60 (11.36%) GitHub
3 38 (7.20%) Azure DevOps
4 31 (5.87%) GitHub Actions
5 30 (5.68%) GCP
6 10 (1.89%) Power Platform
7 8 (1.52%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 7 (1.33%) Amazon EMR
9 6 (1.14%) AWS Lambda
9 6 (1.14%) Serverless
10 5 (0.95%) Amazon S3
10 5 (0.95%) BrowserStack
10 5 (0.95%) OpenShift
10 5 (0.95%) PowerApps
11 4 (0.76%) Amazon EC2
11 4 (0.76%) Amazon SQS
11 4 (0.76%) GitHub Copilot
12 3 (0.57%) Amazon ECR
12 3 (0.57%) BlazeMeter
Communications & Networking
1 13 (2.46%) DNS
2 12 (2.27%) Firewall
2 12 (2.27%) LAN
3 9 (1.70%) DHCP
4 8 (1.52%) TCP/IP
5 7 (1.33%) VLAN
5 7 (1.33%) WAN
6 5 (0.95%) HTTP
6 5 (0.95%) SD-WAN
7 4 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (0.76%) Wireshark
8 3 (0.57%) LTE
8 3 (0.57%) MPLS
8 3 (0.57%) VPN
9 2 (0.38%) 2G
9 2 (0.38%) 3G
9 2 (0.38%) 4G
9 2 (0.38%) Internet
9 2 (0.38%) Network Security
9 2 (0.38%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (3.60%) MongoDB
2 9 (1.70%) Big Data
3 6 (1.14%) Amazon Athena
3 6 (1.14%) Relational Database
3 6 (1.14%) Tableau
4 5 (0.95%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (0.95%) MySQL
4 5 (0.95%) Neo4j
4 5 (0.95%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (0.95%) Power BI
5 4 (0.76%) DynamoDB
5 4 (0.76%) Electronic Patient Records
6 3 (0.57%) Data Lake
7 2 (0.38%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.38%) Oracle Database
7 2 (0.38%) Oracle Reports
8 1 (0.19%) BigQuery
8 1 (0.19%) Flink
8 1 (0.19%) Redis
8 1 (0.19%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 72 (13.64%) Selenium
2 54 (10.23%) Jenkins
3 51 (9.66%) Postman
4 50 (9.47%) Cucumber
5 48 (9.09%) JMeter
6 47 (8.90%) GitLab
7 40 (7.58%) REST Assured
8 36 (6.82%) JIRA
9 31 (5.87%) Gatling
10 25 (4.73%) Git
11 22 (4.17%) Cypress.io
12 18 (3.41%) LabVIEW
13 14 (2.65%) LoadRunner
14 12 (2.27%) WebDriver
15 11 (2.08%) JUnit
16 10 (1.89%) Serenity BDD
16 10 (1.89%) SpecFlow
16 10 (1.89%) Zephyr
17 8 (1.52%) Robot Framework
17 8 (1.52%) TestNG
General
1 77 (14.58%) Social Skills
2 52 (9.85%) Public Sector
3 41 (7.77%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (7.58%) Aerospace
5 37 (7.01%) Electronics
6 31 (5.87%) Finance
7 26 (4.92%) Automotive
8 24 (4.55%) Manufacturing
9 19 (3.60%) Banking
10 11 (2.08%) Military
11 10 (1.89%) Telecoms
12 5 (0.95%) Law
13 4 (0.76%) Documentation Skills
13 4 (0.76%) Investment Banking
14 3 (0.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.57%) Marketing
15 2 (0.38%) Financial Institution
15 2 (0.38%) German Language
16 1 (0.19%) Legal
16 1 (0.19%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (14.77%) Playwright
2 39 (7.39%) REST
3 33 (6.25%) Kafka
4 20 (3.79%) Terraform
5 17 (3.22%) RESTful
6 14 (2.65%) .NET
6 14 (2.65%) pytest
7 13 (2.46%) Spring Boot
8 12 (2.27%) React
8 12 (2.27%) Spring
9 11 (2.08%) SOAP
10 9 (1.70%) Node.js
11 8 (1.52%) Web Services
12 7 (1.33%) Gherkin
13 6 (1.14%) ADO
13 6 (1.14%) HTML
13 6 (1.14%) Model Context Protocol
13 6 (1.14%) OpenTelemetry
13 6 (1.14%) XML
14 5 (0.95%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 20 (3.79%) Product Ownership
2 18 (3.41%) Enterprise Software
3 17 (3.22%) Distributed Systems
4 16 (3.03%) Cloud Native
5 12 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
6 7 (1.33%) AI Agents
7 6 (1.14%) NHS
7 6 (1.14%) Virtual Team
8 5 (0.95%) Distributed Architecture
8 5 (0.95%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (0.95%) Onboarding
9 4 (0.76%) Analogue Electronics
9 4 (0.76%) Linux Command Line
9 4 (0.76%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 3 (0.57%) Data Centre
10 3 (0.57%) Embedded Systems
10 3 (0.57%) IoT
11 2 (0.38%) Driving Licence
11 2 (0.38%) Mobile App
11 2 (0.38%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 16 (3.03%) Linux
1 16 (3.03%) Windows
2 11 (2.08%) Unix
3 4 (0.76%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.38%) Android
4 2 (0.38%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.38%) Embedded Linux
4 2 (0.38%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.19%) CentOS
5 1 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.19%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 235 (44.51%) Test Automation
2 149 (28.22%) CI/CD
3 112 (21.21%) Validation
4 106 (20.08%) Agile
5 86 (16.29%) DevOps
6 84 (15.91%) Test Strategy
7 81 (15.34%) API Testing
8 80 (15.15%) Software Testing
9 69 (13.07%) Performance Testing
9 69 (13.07%) Test Scripting
10 59 (11.17%) End-to-End Testing
11 58 (10.98%) Non-Functional Testing
12 57 (10.80%) BDD
13 54 (10.23%) Continuous Improvement
14 52 (9.85%) Problem-Solving
15 46 (8.71%) Integration Testing
16 43 (8.14%) Regression Testing
17 41 (7.77%) User Acceptance Testing
18 39 (7.39%) Microservices
19 36 (6.82%) Defect Management
Programming Languages
1 85 (16.10%) Python
2 83 (15.72%) Java
3 47 (8.90%) JavaScript
4 45 (8.52%) SQL
5 27 (5.11%) C#
6 26 (4.92%) TypeScript
7 9 (1.70%) Bash
8 7 (1.33%) Apex Code
8 7 (1.33%) Kotlin
9 5 (0.95%) PowerShell
9 5 (0.95%) Ruby
10 4 (0.76%) C++
10 4 (0.76%) MATLAB
11 3 (0.57%) C
11 3 (0.57%) Perl
11 3 (0.57%) Scala
12 2 (0.38%) Cypher
12 2 (0.38%) Groovy
12 2 (0.38%) R
13 1 (0.19%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 164 (31.06%) Security Cleared
2 122 (23.11%) SC Cleared
3 25 (4.73%) DV Cleared
4 23 (4.36%) ISTQB
5 15 (2.84%) Degree
6 10 (1.89%) BPSS Clearance
7 9 (1.70%) HNC
7 9 (1.70%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 8 (1.52%) HND
9 3 (0.57%) Cisco Certification
9 3 (0.57%) ISEB
10 2 (0.38%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.38%) CCNA
10 2 (0.38%) CCNP
10 2 (0.38%) Computer Science Degree
11 1 (0.19%) AWS Certification
11 1 (0.19%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.19%) MOS
11 1 (0.19%) Six Sigma Black Belt
11 1 (0.19%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (17.80%) QA
2 30 (5.68%) Accessibility
3 12 (2.27%) Data Quality
4 6 (1.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (0.95%) WCAG
6 4 (0.76%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 3 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
7 3 (0.57%) NIST
8 2 (0.38%) ISO 20022
8 2 (0.38%) Software Quality Assurance
9 1 (0.19%) GDPR
9 1 (0.19%) IEC 62304
9 1 (0.19%) ISO 13485
9 1 (0.19%) ISO 14001
9 1 (0.19%) ISO 15022
9 1 (0.19%) ISO 22301
9 1 (0.19%) ISO 9001
9 1 (0.19%) MIL-STD-1553
9 1 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 40 (7.58%) Docker
2 9 (1.70%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (0.95%) Virtual Desktop
4 4 (0.76%) vSphere
5 3 (0.57%) Active Directory
5 3 (0.57%) Firmware
5 3 (0.57%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 36 (6.82%) Kubernetes
2 24 (4.55%) Grafana
3 12 (2.27%) Prometheus
4 8 (1.52%) Ansible
5 7 (1.33%) Kibana
6 3 (0.57%) HP ALM
7 2 (0.38%) Argo
7 2 (0.38%) Control-M
7 2 (0.38%) HP Fortify
7 2 (0.38%) HP Quality Center
7 2 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.19%) Iperf
Vendors
1 27 (5.11%) Salesforce
2 20 (3.79%) Splunk
3 17 (3.22%) Microsoft
4 14 (2.65%) Dynatrace
5 12 (2.27%) IBM
6 11 (2.08%) EMC
7 9 (1.70%) Google
7 9 (1.70%) VMware
8 8 (1.52%) Conga
8 8 (1.52%) GoCardless
9 7 (1.33%) Oracle
10 6 (1.14%) Cisco
10 6 (1.14%) Databricks
10 6 (1.14%) New Relic
11 4 (0.76%) SAP
12 3 (0.57%) AppDynamics
12 3 (0.57%) Citrix
12 3 (0.57%) HP
12 3 (0.57%) Juniper
12 3 (0.57%) OpenLink