Test Engineer Contract Job Trends

Test Engineer
UK

The median Test Engineer daily rate in the UK is £440, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 24 September 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 250 346 341
Rank change year-on-year +96 -5 +26
Contract jobs requiring a Test Engineer 555 216 236
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.01% 0.66% 0.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.10% 0.72% 0.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 211 134 148
10th Percentile £300 £270 £324
25th Percentile £350 £312 £395
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £440 £401 £475
Median % change year-on-year +9.62% -15.50% +3.54%
75th Percentile £535 £475 £556
90th Percentile £588 £538 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £420 £395 £475
% change year-on-year +6.33% -16.84% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 133 24 16
10th Percentile £28.23 £29.85 £25.00
25th Percentile £33.00 £35.69 £38.40
Median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 £48.75
Median % change year-on-year - +2.56% -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £57.81 £72.50
90th Percentile £81.10 £62.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year - +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 50,643 30,010 35,418
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 91.03% 92.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,934 18,949 21,605
10th Percentile £325 £277 £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 £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,909 1,607 1,616
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.75 £14.84
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.30 £20.75
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.70 £51.57 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £69.65 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.08 £43.90
% change year-on-year +69.49% -42.88% +0.83%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 +71 479 £433 +4.85% 503
UK excluding London +63 418 £420 +6.33% 445
North of England -2 112 £388 -10.92% 92
London -49 90 £454 +13.44% 74
Work from Home -39 88 £400 - 156
East of England +27 78 £350 -6.67% 71
South West +27 75 £550 +4.76% 83
Midlands -5 63 £405 +0.56% 69
South East -46 60 £430 +45.76% 87
North West -10 56 £463 +4.52% 57
West Midlands -9 48 £481 -1.28% 46
North East -18 37 £325 -27.37% 18
Scotland +3 31 £525 +707.69% 44
Yorkshire -31 22 £400 -8.05% 17
East Midlands -12 15 £300 -16.67% 22
Wales -13 5 £300 -3.85% 4
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 7

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

For the 6 months to 24 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.

1 238 (42.88%) Test Automation
2 165 (29.73%) Security Cleared
3 150 (27.03%) CI/CD
4 118 (21.26%) SC Cleared
5 113 (20.36%) Agile
6 112 (20.18%) Validation
7 107 (19.28%) QA
8 88 (15.86%) Software Testing
9 87 (15.68%) DevOps
9 87 (15.68%) Java
10 86 (15.50%) Test Strategy
11 83 (14.95%) Playwright
12 80 (14.41%) Python
13 78 (14.05%) API Testing
14 76 (13.69%) Test Scripting
15 75 (13.51%) Selenium
16 72 (12.97%) AWS
17 68 (12.25%) Azure
18 66 (11.89%) Performance Testing
19 63 (11.35%) End-to-End Testing
20 58 (10.45%) Jenkins
20 58 (10.45%) Non-Functional Testing
21 57 (10.27%) Continuous Improvement
21 57 (10.27%) Cucumber
22 56 (10.09%) BDD
22 56 (10.09%) GitHub
23 54 (9.73%) Problem-Solving
24 51 (9.19%) GitLab
25 47 (8.47%) Integration Testing
25 47 (8.47%) Postman

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 (1.98%) Confluence
2 6 (1.08%) Apache
2 6 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
2 6 (1.08%) Jupyter
3 5 (0.90%) Apache Spark
3 5 (0.90%) SharePoint
4 4 (0.72%) SAS
5 2 (0.36%) Mule
5 2 (0.36%) Mule ESB
5 2 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 5 (0.90%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.54%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.18%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.18%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 8 (1.44%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.54%) Salesforce CRM
3 2 (0.36%) Lorenzo
4 1 (0.18%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.18%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 72 (12.97%) AWS
2 68 (12.25%) Azure
3 56 (10.09%) GitHub
4 34 (6.13%) Azure DevOps
5 31 (5.59%) GCP
6 29 (5.23%) GitHub Actions
7 10 (1.80%) Power Platform
8 9 (1.62%) OpenShift
9 8 (1.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 7 (1.26%) Amazon EMR
11 6 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
11 6 (1.08%) Serverless
12 5 (0.90%) Amazon S3
12 5 (0.90%) PowerApps
13 4 (0.72%) Amazon EC2
13 4 (0.72%) Amazon SQS
13 4 (0.72%) BrowserStack
13 4 (0.72%) GitHub Copilot
14 3 (0.54%) Amazon ECR
14 3 (0.54%) Amazon EventBridge
Communications & Networking
1 12 (2.16%) DNS
2 11 (1.98%) Firewall
2 11 (1.98%) LAN
3 9 (1.62%) Wi-Fi
4 8 (1.44%) Broadband
4 8 (1.44%) DHCP
5 7 (1.26%) TCP/IP
6 6 (1.08%) VLAN
6 6 (1.08%) WAN
7 5 (0.90%) 4G
7 5 (0.90%) HTTP
7 5 (0.90%) SD-WAN
8 4 (0.72%) Wireshark
9 3 (0.54%) 5G
9 3 (0.54%) LTE
9 3 (0.54%) MPLS
9 3 (0.54%) PPP
9 3 (0.54%) UPnP
9 3 (0.54%) VPN
9 3 (0.54%) xDSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (3.60%) MongoDB
2 8 (1.44%) Big Data
3 6 (1.08%) Amazon Athena
3 6 (1.08%) Data Warehouse
3 6 (1.08%) Tableau
4 5 (0.90%) MySQL
4 5 (0.90%) Neo4j
4 5 (0.90%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (0.90%) Power BI
4 5 (0.90%) Relational Database
5 4 (0.72%) DynamoDB
5 4 (0.72%) Electronic Patient Records
6 3 (0.54%) Data Lake
7 2 (0.36%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.36%) Oracle Database
7 2 (0.36%) Oracle Reports
8 1 (0.18%) Apache Iceberg
8 1 (0.18%) Flink
8 1 (0.18%) PowerCenter
8 1 (0.18%) Redis
Development Applications
1 75 (13.51%) Selenium
2 58 (10.45%) Jenkins
3 57 (10.27%) Cucumber
4 51 (9.19%) GitLab
5 47 (8.47%) Postman
6 45 (8.11%) JMeter
7 41 (7.39%) JIRA
8 38 (6.85%) REST Assured
9 31 (5.59%) Gatling
10 30 (5.41%) Git
11 22 (3.96%) Cypress.io
12 20 (3.60%) LabVIEW
13 14 (2.52%) LoadRunner
14 12 (2.16%) JUnit
14 12 (2.16%) WebDriver
15 11 (1.98%) Serenity BDD
16 10 (1.80%) SpecFlow
16 10 (1.80%) Zephyr
17 9 (1.62%) Robot Framework
17 9 (1.62%) TestNG
General
1 77 (13.87%) Social Skills
2 55 (9.91%) Public Sector
3 45 (8.11%) Electronics
4 41 (7.39%) Aerospace
4 41 (7.39%) Analytical Skills
5 34 (6.13%) Manufacturing
6 32 (5.77%) Finance
7 26 (4.68%) Automotive
8 21 (3.78%) Banking
9 18 (3.24%) Telecoms
10 12 (2.16%) Military
11 5 (0.90%) Law
12 3 (0.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.54%) Investment Banking
13 2 (0.36%) Documentation Skills
13 2 (0.36%) Financial Institution
13 2 (0.36%) German Language
13 2 (0.36%) Marketing
14 1 (0.18%) Organisational Skills
14 1 (0.18%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 83 (14.95%) Playwright
2 37 (6.67%) REST
3 36 (6.49%) Kafka
4 20 (3.60%) Terraform
5 19 (3.42%) RESTful
6 16 (2.88%) Spring Boot
7 15 (2.70%) Spring
8 14 (2.52%) .NET
8 14 (2.52%) pytest
9 12 (2.16%) React
10 11 (1.98%) Node.js
10 11 (1.98%) SOAP
11 7 (1.26%) Web Services
12 6 (1.08%) ADO
12 6 (1.08%) Gherkin
12 6 (1.08%) HTML
12 6 (1.08%) Model Context Protocol
12 6 (1.08%) OpenTelemetry
13 5 (0.90%) Spring Cloud
14 4 (0.72%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 20 (3.60%) Product Ownership
2 19 (3.42%) Enterprise Software
3 18 (3.24%) Distributed Systems
4 15 (2.70%) Self-Motivation
5 14 (2.52%) Cloud Native
6 8 (1.44%) AI Agents
7 7 (1.26%) NHS
8 6 (1.08%) Onboarding
8 6 (1.08%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 6 (1.08%) Virtual Team
9 5 (0.90%) Analogue Electronics
9 5 (0.90%) Distributed Architecture
9 5 (0.90%) Legacy Systems
10 3 (0.54%) Data Centre
10 3 (0.54%) Embedded Systems
10 3 (0.54%) IoT
10 3 (0.54%) Linux Command Line
10 3 (0.54%) Wiki
11 2 (0.36%) Driving Licence
11 2 (0.36%) Fibre Optics
Operating Systems
1 21 (3.78%) Linux
2 16 (2.88%) Windows
3 13 (2.34%) Unix
4 4 (0.72%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.36%) Embedded Linux
5 2 (0.36%) Mac OS
5 2 (0.36%) VMS
6 1 (0.18%) Android
6 1 (0.18%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.18%) CentOS
6 1 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.18%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 238 (42.88%) Test Automation
2 150 (27.03%) CI/CD
3 113 (20.36%) Agile
4 112 (20.18%) Validation
5 88 (15.86%) Software Testing
6 87 (15.68%) DevOps
7 86 (15.50%) Test Strategy
8 78 (14.05%) API Testing
9 76 (13.69%) Test Scripting
10 66 (11.89%) Performance Testing
11 63 (11.35%) End-to-End Testing
12 58 (10.45%) Non-Functional Testing
13 57 (10.27%) Continuous Improvement
14 56 (10.09%) BDD
15 54 (9.73%) Problem-Solving
16 47 (8.47%) Integration Testing
17 45 (8.11%) Microservices
18 44 (7.93%) Regression Testing
19 40 (7.21%) Defect Management
20 39 (7.03%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 87 (15.68%) Java
2 80 (14.41%) Python
3 46 (8.29%) JavaScript
4 42 (7.57%) SQL
5 27 (4.86%) TypeScript
6 26 (4.68%) C#
7 7 (1.26%) Apex Code
7 7 (1.26%) Bash
8 6 (1.08%) Kotlin
9 5 (0.90%) Ruby
10 4 (0.72%) C++
10 4 (0.72%) MATLAB
10 4 (0.72%) Scala
11 3 (0.54%) C
11 3 (0.54%) Perl
11 3 (0.54%) PowerShell
12 2 (0.36%) Cypher
12 2 (0.36%) Groovy
12 2 (0.36%) R
13 1 (0.18%) COBOL
Qualifications
1 165 (29.73%) Security Cleared
2 118 (21.26%) SC Cleared
3 28 (5.05%) DV Cleared
4 22 (3.96%) ISTQB
5 17 (3.06%) Degree
6 13 (2.34%) HNC
7 12 (2.16%) BPSS Clearance
8 8 (1.44%) HND
8 8 (1.44%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 3 (0.54%) Cisco Certification
9 3 (0.54%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (0.54%) ISEB
10 2 (0.36%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.36%) CCNA
10 2 (0.36%) CCNP
11 1 (0.18%) AWS Certification
11 1 (0.18%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.18%) MOS
11 1 (0.18%) Six Sigma Black Belt
11 1 (0.18%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 107 (19.28%) QA
2 32 (5.77%) Accessibility
3 11 (1.98%) Data Quality
4 5 (0.90%) WCAG
5 4 (0.72%) ISO 20022
6 3 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
6 3 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.54%) NIST
7 2 (0.36%) SEPA
7 2 (0.36%) Software Quality Assurance
8 1 (0.18%) IEC 62304
8 1 (0.18%) ISO 13485
8 1 (0.18%) ISO 14001
8 1 (0.18%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.18%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.18%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 42 (7.57%) Docker
2 9 (1.62%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (0.72%) Virtual Desktop
3 4 (0.72%) vSphere
4 3 (0.54%) Active Directory
4 3 (0.54%) Firmware
4 3 (0.54%) VirtualBox
5 1 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 36 (6.49%) Kubernetes
2 24 (4.32%) Grafana
3 11 (1.98%) Prometheus
4 9 (1.62%) Ansible
5 7 (1.26%) Kibana
6 3 (0.54%) Argo
6 3 (0.54%) HP ALM
7 2 (0.36%) Control-M
7 2 (0.36%) HP Fortify
7 2 (0.36%) HP Quality Center
7 2 (0.36%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.18%) Iperf
8 1 (0.18%) OPNET
Vendors
1 26 (4.68%) Salesforce
2 23 (4.14%) Splunk
3 14 (2.52%) Dynatrace
3 14 (2.52%) Microsoft
4 12 (2.16%) IBM
5 10 (1.80%) EMC
6 9 (1.62%) Google
6 9 (1.62%) Oracle
6 9 (1.62%) VMware
7 8 (1.44%) Conga
7 8 (1.44%) GoCardless
8 6 (1.08%) Cisco
8 6 (1.08%) New Relic
9 5 (0.90%) Databricks
9 5 (0.90%) HP
10 4 (0.72%) AppDynamics
10 4 (0.72%) Informatica
11 3 (0.54%) Juniper
11 3 (0.54%) SAP
12 2 (0.36%) Citrix