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 28 February 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 322 321 289
Rank change year-on-year -1 -32 +108
Contract jobs requiring a Test Engineer 317 204 334
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.76% 0.67% 0.75%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.83% 0.72% 0.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 213 134 240
10th Percentile £300 £305 £349
25th Percentile £363 £363 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £438 £425
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% +2.94% -10.53%
75th Percentile £519 £538 £512
90th Percentile £636 £595 £557
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £470 £425
% change year-on-year -12.23% +10.59% -8.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 12 34
10th Percentile £29.15 £37.43 £32.38
25th Percentile £33.75 £49.69 £35.75
Median hourly rate £36.75 £62.50 £43.64
Median % change year-on-year -41.20% +43.23% -27.27%
75th Percentile £61.84 - £59.44
90th Percentile £64.05 £63.63 £62.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.75 £62.50 £43.64
% change year-on-year -41.20% +43.23% -27.57%

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 38,243 28,404 41,374
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.82% 92.82% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,036 17,847 27,236
10th Percentile £310 £293 £275
25th Percentile £409 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,330 852 2,355
10th Percentile £14.64 £16.25 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.30
Median hourly rate £33.50 £34.75 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.60% -0.71% -12.50%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.50 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -3.08% -7.14% -6.67%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 -16 267 £425 -2.86% 127
UK excluding London -17 196 £413 -12.23% 134
London -16 88 £435 +2.35% 11
North of England -12 81 £413 +13.79% 24
Work from Home -4 64 £400 -15.79% 33
Midlands -28 38 £550 +29.41% 20
Yorkshire -32 38 £475 +18.75% 6
West Midlands -23 32 £675 +119.51% 17
North East +3 26 £413 +29.92% 3
South East -58 25 £375 -25.00% 31
East of England -11 21 £375 -6.25% 28
North West -28 20 £373 -0.67% 15
South West -29 12 £413 -21.43% 18
Wales +3 10 £433 - 1
Scotland +14 8 £65 -86.28% 15
East Midlands -20 6 £400 -14.44% 3
Northern Ireland -2 3 £450 -

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

For the 6 months to 28 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.

1 211 (66.56%) Test Automation
2 123 (38.80%) CI/CD
3 99 (31.23%) Agile
3 99 (31.23%) Security Cleared
4 84 (26.50%) QA
5 78 (24.61%) Java
6 73 (23.03%) Selenium
7 72 (22.71%) SC Cleared
8 70 (22.08%) AWS
8 70 (22.08%) Azure
9 68 (21.45%) API Testing
9 68 (21.45%) Cucumber
10 62 (19.56%) DevOps
11 61 (19.24%) Playwright
12 60 (18.93%) JIRA
13 59 (18.61%) Python
14 56 (17.67%) Test Scripting
15 55 (17.35%) Test Strategy
16 53 (16.72%) BDD
16 53 (16.72%) Performance Testing
17 52 (16.40%) Microservices
17 52 (16.40%) Postman
18 51 (16.09%) GitLab
18 51 (16.09%) JavaScript
18 51 (16.09%) Jenkins
19 48 (15.14%) Accessibility
20 47 (14.83%) Software Testing
21 46 (14.51%) Docker
21 46 (14.51%) Functional Testing
21 46 (14.51%) Manual Testing

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 13 (4.10%) Confluence
2 3 (0.95%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.63%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.32%) SAS
Applications
1 1 (0.32%) Chatbot
1 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 1 (0.32%) MS Visio
1 1 (0.32%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 2 (0.63%) Workday HCM
2 1 (0.32%) Aladdin
2 1 (0.32%) CODA-Financials
2 1 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 70 (22.08%) AWS
1 70 (22.08%) Azure
2 31 (9.78%) Azure DevOps
3 30 (9.46%) GitHub
4 19 (5.99%) GCP
5 17 (5.36%) GitHub Actions
6 13 (4.10%) BrowserStack
7 9 (2.84%) Serverless
8 8 (2.52%) BlazeMeter
9 6 (1.89%) AWS Lambda
10 5 (1.58%) Power Platform
10 5 (1.58%) SaaS
10 5 (1.58%) Tricentis Tosca
11 4 (1.26%) Amazon SQS
12 3 (0.95%) Entra ID
12 3 (0.95%) Power Automate
12 3 (0.95%) PowerApps
13 2 (0.63%) Azure Sentinel
13 2 (0.63%) Dynamics 365
13 2 (0.63%) Sauce Labs
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.89%) Firewall
2 4 (1.26%) Broadband
3 3 (0.95%) BGP
3 3 (0.95%) Cisco IOS
3 3 (0.95%) DHCP
3 3 (0.95%) DNS
3 3 (0.95%) Ethernet
3 3 (0.95%) FTP
3 3 (0.95%) MPLS
3 3 (0.95%) OSPF
3 3 (0.95%) SD-WAN
3 3 (0.95%) SNMP
3 3 (0.95%) Spanning Tree
3 3 (0.95%) SSH
3 3 (0.95%) TACACS
3 3 (0.95%) VPN
3 3 (0.95%) WAN
3 3 (0.95%) Wireshark
4 2 (0.63%) 5G
4 2 (0.63%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (3.79%) MongoDB
2 6 (1.89%) SQL Server
3 5 (1.58%) MySQL
3 5 (1.58%) Relational Database
4 2 (0.63%) Neo4j
5 1 (0.32%) Amazon QuickSight
5 1 (0.32%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (0.32%) Data Warehouse
5 1 (0.32%) Electronic Patient Records
5 1 (0.32%) MS Access
5 1 (0.32%) Oracle Database
5 1 (0.32%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.32%) Power BI
5 1 (0.32%) Power Query
5 1 (0.32%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 73 (23.03%) Selenium
2 68 (21.45%) Cucumber
3 60 (18.93%) JIRA
4 52 (16.40%) Postman
5 51 (16.09%) GitLab
5 51 (16.09%) Jenkins
6 38 (11.99%) REST Assured
7 35 (11.04%) Git
8 28 (8.83%) JMeter
9 23 (7.26%) Cypress.io
10 18 (5.68%) Gatling
11 12 (3.79%) Zephyr
12 8 (2.52%) Serenity BDD
12 8 (2.52%) WebDriver
13 7 (2.21%) HP UFT
13 7 (2.21%) TestRail
14 6 (1.89%) JUnit
15 5 (1.58%) Appium
15 5 (1.58%) Bitbucket
15 5 (1.58%) SpecFlow
General
1 62 (19.56%) Public Sector
2 49 (15.46%) Social Skills
3 32 (10.09%) Finance
4 22 (6.94%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (4.10%) Military
5 13 (4.10%) Telecoms
6 12 (3.79%) Automotive
7 11 (3.47%) Aerospace
8 9 (2.84%) Banking
9 4 (1.26%) Electronics
9 4 (1.26%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (0.95%) Back Office
10 3 (0.95%) Investment Banking
11 2 (0.63%) Documentation Skills
11 2 (0.63%) Front Office
11 2 (0.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.63%) Pharmaceutical
12 1 (0.32%) Avionics
12 1 (0.32%) Local Government
12 1 (0.32%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 61 (19.24%) Playwright
2 40 (12.62%) REST
3 18 (5.68%) Node.js
4 14 (4.42%) Kafka
5 13 (4.10%) .NET
5 13 (4.10%) Spring Boot
5 13 (4.10%) WireMock
6 10 (3.15%) Spring
7 9 (2.84%) Gherkin
7 9 (2.84%) LDAP
7 9 (2.84%) OpenID
7 9 (2.84%) pytest
7 9 (2.84%) SailPoint
8 7 (2.21%) React
8 7 (2.21%) Swagger
9 6 (1.89%) HTML
9 6 (1.89%) Middleware
9 6 (1.89%) RabbitMQ
9 6 (1.89%) Spring Cloud
9 6 (1.89%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 18 (5.68%) Product Ownership
2 14 (4.42%) Cloud Native
3 7 (2.21%) Infotainment
4 6 (1.89%) Data Centre
4 6 (1.89%) Fibre Optics
4 6 (1.89%) Mobile App
5 5 (1.58%) Distributed Systems
5 5 (1.58%) Enterprise Software
5 5 (1.58%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (1.26%) Management Information System
6 4 (1.26%) Onboarding
7 3 (0.95%) Hedge funds
7 3 (0.95%) Low-Code
7 3 (0.95%) PKI
8 2 (0.63%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (0.63%) Distributed Architecture
8 2 (0.63%) Linux Command Line
9 1 (0.32%) AI Agents
9 1 (0.32%) Synthetic Data
9 1 (0.32%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 10 (3.15%) Windows
2 6 (1.89%) Android
3 5 (1.58%) Apple iOS
4 4 (1.26%) Linux
5 3 (0.95%) Mac OS
5 3 (0.95%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.63%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 211 (66.56%) Test Automation
2 123 (38.80%) CI/CD
3 99 (31.23%) Agile
4 68 (21.45%) API Testing
5 62 (19.56%) DevOps
6 56 (17.67%) Test Scripting
7 55 (17.35%) Test Strategy
8 53 (16.72%) BDD
8 53 (16.72%) Performance Testing
9 52 (16.40%) Microservices
10 47 (14.83%) Software Testing
11 46 (14.51%) Functional Testing
11 46 (14.51%) Manual Testing
12 42 (13.25%) Regression Testing
13 38 (11.99%) Non-Functional Testing
13 38 (11.99%) Problem-Solving
14 34 (10.73%) Continuous Improvement
15 33 (10.41%) Validation
16 32 (10.09%) Integration Testing
17 29 (9.15%) Scenario Testing
Programming Languages
1 78 (24.61%) Java
2 59 (18.61%) Python
3 51 (16.09%) JavaScript
4 40 (12.62%) TypeScript
5 20 (6.31%) SQL
6 18 (5.68%) C#
7 12 (3.79%) Ruby
8 11 (3.47%) Bash
9 7 (2.21%) VBScript
10 6 (1.89%) PowerShell
11 5 (1.58%) C++
11 5 (1.58%) PHP
12 4 (1.26%) C
13 3 (0.95%) Scala
13 3 (0.95%) VB.NET
14 2 (0.63%) AppleScript
14 2 (0.63%) Bicep
14 2 (0.63%) Cypher
14 2 (0.63%) Kusto Query Language
15 1 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 99 (31.23%) Security Cleared
2 72 (22.71%) SC Cleared
3 19 (5.99%) ISTQB
4 16 (5.05%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (3.15%) DV Cleared
6 6 (1.89%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (1.89%) Degree
7 5 (1.58%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 4 (1.26%) CCNP
8 4 (1.26%) Cisco Certification
9 3 (0.95%) CCNA
9 3 (0.95%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 3 (0.95%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (0.63%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.63%) CEH
10 2 (0.63%) CREST Certified
10 2 (0.63%) MCSE
10 2 (0.63%) OSCP
10 2 (0.63%) SANS
10 2 (0.63%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 84 (26.50%) QA
2 48 (15.14%) Accessibility
3 13 (4.10%) WCAG
4 6 (1.89%) Data Quality
5 4 (1.26%) NIST
6 2 (0.63%) EU AI Act
6 2 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.63%) NCSC
6 2 (0.63%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.32%) HL7
7 1 (0.32%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 46 (14.51%) Docker
2 5 (1.58%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.63%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
3 2 (0.63%) Firmware
3 2 (0.63%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.32%) Squid
4 1 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 20 (6.31%) Kubernetes
2 18 (5.68%) Grafana
3 12 (3.79%) Prometheus
4 10 (3.15%) Terraform
5 4 (1.26%) Ansible
5 4 (1.26%) HP ALM
6 2 (0.63%) HP Quality Center
6 2 (0.63%) Jamf Pro
6 2 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 21 (6.62%) Microsoft
2 11 (3.47%) ServiceNow
2 11 (3.47%) Splunk
3 9 (2.84%) Cisco
4 7 (2.21%) Citrix
5 5 (1.58%) UiPath
6 4 (1.26%) HP
6 4 (1.26%) Salesforce
7 3 (0.95%) Databricks
7 3 (0.95%) Google
7 3 (0.95%) Meraki
7 3 (0.95%) Oracle
8 2 (0.63%) Ciena
8 2 (0.63%) Optimizely
8 2 (0.63%) Pega
8 2 (0.63%) SAP
8 2 (0.63%) Siemens
8 2 (0.63%) Virgin Media
8 2 (0.63%) VMware
8 2 (0.63%) Workday