Test Engineer Contract Job Trends

Test Engineer
UK

The median Test Engineer daily rate in the UK is £420, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 14 November 2025.

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

6 months to
14 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 339 335 351
Rank change year-on-year -4 +16 +80
Contract jobs requiring a Test Engineer 234 227 305
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.66% 0.62% 0.66%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.72% 0.67% 0.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 151 139 213
10th Percentile £280 £318 £363
25th Percentile £335 £368 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £420 £468 £440
Median % change year-on-year -10.16% +6.25% -2.22%
75th Percentile £500 £563 £538
90th Percentile £600 £600 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £385 £438 £425
% change year-on-year -12.11% +2.94% -5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 15 18
10th Percentile £23.35 £29.80 £33.70
25th Percentile £33.00 £38.40 £35.63
Median hourly rate £36.00 £57.25 £41.25
Median % change year-on-year -37.12% +38.79% -31.25%
75th Percentile £50.00 £67.50 £54.69
90th Percentile £55.63 £72.50 £74.18
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.00 £57.25 £41.25
% change year-on-year -37.12% +38.79% -31.25%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 32,306 34,076 43,561
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.91% 92.86% 93.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,507 20,574 29,610
10th Percentile £278 £300 £294
25th Percentile £402 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £622 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,870 1,280 1,541
10th Percentile £14.19 £15.19 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +55.05%
75th Percentile £53.75 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +83.51%

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 14 November 2025.

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 14 November 2025.

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 14 November 2025. 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 -21 210 £425 -9.09% 230
UK excluding London -2 158 £385 -12.11% 202
North of England -18 64 £425 +6.25% 34
Work from Home +4 63 £403 -19.45% 62
London +11 57 £475 - 56
South East -6 32 £295 -41.00% 55
Yorkshire -29 27 £435 +6.62% 5
Midlands -18 23 £426 -4.45% 30
North West -14 19 £393 -1.88% 24
North East +2 18 £425 +37.10% 5
East of England -7 17 £363 +7.41% 44
West Midlands -24 15 £465 +9.41% 27
South West -21 10 £500 -4.76% 21
East Midlands -9 8 £360 -22.99% 3
Wales +5 6 £375 - 11
Scotland - 5 £65 - 10
Northern Ireland -6 1 £450 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 14 November 2025, 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.

1 146 (62.39%) Test Automation
2 85 (36.32%) CI/CD
3 82 (35.04%) Agile
4 70 (29.91%) Security Cleared
5 66 (28.21%) Selenium
6 63 (26.92%) Java
7 54 (23.08%) Cucumber
8 53 (22.65%) SC Cleared
8 53 (22.65%) Test Scripting
9 52 (22.22%) QA
10 51 (21.79%) Azure
11 50 (21.37%) DevOps
12 48 (20.51%) API Testing
13 42 (17.95%) Test Strategy
14 41 (17.52%) Software Testing
15 40 (17.09%) AWS
15 40 (17.09%) BDD
15 40 (17.09%) Postman
16 37 (15.81%) Problem-Solving
17 35 (14.96%) Python
18 34 (14.53%) Playwright
19 33 (14.10%) GitLab
20 32 (13.68%) JIRA
20 32 (13.68%) REST
21 30 (12.82%) Defect Management
21 30 (12.82%) Git
21 30 (12.82%) Performance Testing
22 29 (12.39%) Accessibility
22 29 (12.39%) Cisco
22 29 (12.39%) TDD

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 (3.42%) Confluence
2 3 (1.28%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.85%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.85%) Oracle Application Server
4 1 (0.43%) Drupal
4 1 (0.43%) Jupyter
4 1 (0.43%) SAS
Applications
1 2 (0.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.43%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (0.85%) Aladdin
1 2 (0.85%) Workday HCM
2 1 (0.43%) Cerner Millennium
2 1 (0.43%) CODA-Financials
2 1 (0.43%) ProductWriter
2 1 (0.43%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 51 (21.79%) Azure
2 40 (17.09%) AWS
3 26 (11.11%) Azure DevOps
4 12 (5.13%) GCP
5 10 (4.27%) Serverless
6 8 (3.42%) AWS Lambda
7 7 (2.99%) GitHub
7 7 (2.99%) Power Platform
8 5 (2.14%) Amazon SQS
8 5 (2.14%) BrowserStack
9 3 (1.28%) GitHub Actions
9 3 (1.28%) PowerApps
9 3 (1.28%) Snowflake
10 2 (0.85%) Dynamics 365
10 2 (0.85%) Tricentis Tosca
11 1 (0.43%) Amazon SageMaker
11 1 (0.43%) AWS CodePipeline
11 1 (0.43%) AWS Direct Connect
11 1 (0.43%) AWS Step Functions
11 1 (0.43%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 19 (8.12%) Firewall
2 8 (3.42%) WAN
2 8 (3.42%) Wireshark
3 6 (2.56%) 5G
3 6 (2.56%) Ethernet
3 6 (2.56%) HTTP
3 6 (2.56%) LAN
4 5 (2.14%) 4G
4 5 (2.14%) SD-WAN
5 4 (1.71%) VoIP
6 3 (1.28%) 3G
6 3 (1.28%) DHCP
6 3 (1.28%) DNS
7 2 (0.85%) LTE
8 1 (0.43%) 3GPP
8 1 (0.43%) FCAPS
8 1 (0.43%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.71%) MongoDB
2 3 (1.28%) Data Warehouse
2 3 (1.28%) Power BI
2 3 (1.28%) SQL Server
3 2 (0.85%) Oracle ODI
3 2 (0.85%) Oracle Reports
3 2 (0.85%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (0.85%) Star Schema
4 1 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.43%) Delta Lake
4 1 (0.43%) Electronic Patient Records
4 1 (0.43%) Parquet
4 1 (0.43%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 66 (28.21%) Selenium
2 54 (23.08%) Cucumber
3 40 (17.09%) Postman
4 33 (14.10%) GitLab
5 32 (13.68%) JIRA
6 30 (12.82%) Git
7 27 (11.54%) REST Assured
8 26 (11.11%) Jenkins
9 23 (9.83%) Cypress.io
10 21 (8.97%) JMeter
11 10 (4.27%) WebDriver
12 9 (3.85%) Bitbucket
12 9 (3.85%) Gatling
12 9 (3.85%) SpecFlow
13 6 (2.56%) LoadRunner
13 6 (2.56%) TestNG
14 5 (2.14%) Maven
15 4 (1.71%) Appium
15 4 (1.71%) TestRail
15 4 (1.71%) Zephyr
General
1 55 (23.50%) Social Skills
2 46 (19.66%) Public Sector
3 21 (8.97%) Telecoms
4 20 (8.55%) Analytical Skills
5 17 (7.26%) Finance
6 12 (5.13%) Banking
7 9 (3.85%) Aerospace
8 7 (2.99%) Investment Banking
8 7 (2.99%) Military
9 4 (1.71%) Back Office
9 4 (1.71%) Electronics
9 4 (1.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (1.71%) Manufacturing
10 3 (1.28%) Front Office
11 2 (0.85%) Automotive
11 2 (0.85%) Pharmaceutical
12 1 (0.43%) Documentation Skills
12 1 (0.43%) Health Technology
12 1 (0.43%) Law
12 1 (0.43%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (14.53%) Playwright
2 32 (13.68%) REST
3 18 (7.69%) RFC 2544
4 16 (6.84%) Node.js
5 12 (5.13%) WireMock
6 9 (3.85%) .NET
7 8 (3.42%) Kafka
8 7 (2.99%) Swagger
9 6 (2.56%) Middleware
9 6 (2.56%) pytest
9 6 (2.56%) RabbitMQ
9 6 (2.56%) React
9 6 (2.56%) Spring Boot
10 5 (2.14%) Gherkin
10 5 (2.14%) gRPC
10 5 (2.14%) JMS
10 5 (2.14%) WebSockets
11 4 (1.71%) JSON
12 3 (1.28%) OpenAPI
12 3 (1.28%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 17 (7.26%) Data Centre
1 17 (7.26%) Fibre Optics
2 14 (5.98%) Cloud Native
3 9 (3.85%) Self-Motivation
4 4 (1.71%) Embedded Systems
4 4 (1.71%) Onboarding
4 4 (1.71%) Product Ownership
5 3 (1.28%) Analogue Electronics
5 3 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
5 3 (1.28%) Low-Code
5 3 (1.28%) NHS
5 3 (1.28%) PKI
6 2 (0.85%) Replication
7 1 (0.43%) Algorithms
7 1 (0.43%) Distributed Systems
7 1 (0.43%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.43%) Greenfield Project
7 1 (0.43%) Mainframe
7 1 (0.43%) Mobile App
7 1 (0.43%) Synthetic Data
Operating Systems
1 6 (2.56%) Windows
2 2 (0.85%) Android
2 2 (0.85%) Apple iOS
2 2 (0.85%) Linux
2 2 (0.85%) Windows Server
2 2 (0.85%) Windows Server 2012
3 1 (0.43%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 146 (62.39%) Test Automation
2 85 (36.32%) CI/CD
3 82 (35.04%) Agile
4 53 (22.65%) Test Scripting
5 50 (21.37%) DevOps
6 48 (20.51%) API Testing
7 42 (17.95%) Test Strategy
8 41 (17.52%) Software Testing
9 40 (17.09%) BDD
10 37 (15.81%) Problem-Solving
11 30 (12.82%) Defect Management
11 30 (12.82%) Performance Testing
12 29 (12.39%) TDD
13 28 (11.97%) Non-Functional Testing
13 28 (11.97%) Scrum
14 26 (11.11%) End-to-End Testing
15 24 (10.26%) Microservices
16 23 (9.83%) Validation
17 22 (9.40%) Manual Testing
18 21 (8.97%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 63 (26.92%) Java
2 35 (14.96%) Python
3 28 (11.97%) JavaScript
4 23 (9.83%) C#
5 22 (9.40%) SQL
6 17 (7.26%) TypeScript
7 9 (3.85%) Bash
8 6 (2.56%) VB.NET
9 4 (1.71%) C
9 4 (1.71%) C++
10 2 (0.85%) VB
11 1 (0.43%) Apex Code
11 1 (0.43%) MATLAB
11 1 (0.43%) Perl
11 1 (0.43%) PowerShell
11 1 (0.43%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 70 (29.91%) Security Cleared
2 53 (22.65%) SC Cleared
3 11 (4.70%) Degree
3 11 (4.70%) ISTQB
4 6 (2.56%) DV Cleared
5 5 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
5 5 (2.14%) CCNA
5 5 (2.14%) Cisco Certification
5 5 (2.14%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (1.71%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
6 4 (1.71%) Master's Degree
7 3 (1.28%) CCNP
8 2 (0.85%) CEH
8 2 (0.85%) CREST Certified
8 2 (0.85%) HNC
8 2 (0.85%) HND
8 2 (0.85%) MCSA
8 2 (0.85%) MCSE
8 2 (0.85%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.85%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 52 (22.22%) QA
2 29 (12.39%) Accessibility
3 19 (8.12%) WCAG
4 4 (1.71%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.71%) NIST
5 2 (0.85%) EU AI Act
5 2 (0.85%) HL7
5 2 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.85%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.43%) SNOMED CT
6 1 (0.43%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 28 (11.97%) Docker
2 2 (0.85%) Active Directory
2 2 (0.85%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 13 (5.56%) Kubernetes
2 7 (2.99%) Ansible
2 7 (2.99%) Grafana
3 6 (2.56%) HP ALM
3 6 (2.56%) Terraform
4 4 (1.71%) Kibana
5 2 (0.85%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 29 (12.39%) Cisco
2 20 (8.55%) Microsoft
3 8 (3.42%) Splunk
4 7 (2.99%) HP
4 7 (2.99%) Nokia
5 6 (2.56%) Juniper
5 6 (2.56%) UiPath
6 5 (2.14%) Progress
6 5 (2.14%) Salesforce
7 4 (1.71%) AppDynamics
7 4 (1.71%) Databricks
7 4 (1.71%) Dynatrace
7 4 (1.71%) Meraki
7 4 (1.71%) Micro Focus
7 4 (1.71%) New Relic
7 4 (1.71%) Oracle
8 3 (1.28%) Virgin Media
9 2 (0.85%) SAP
9 2 (0.85%) VMware
9 2 (0.85%) Workday