Test Planning Contracts

Test Planning
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Test Planning skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Test Planning over the 6 months leading up to 2 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 390 436 552
Rank change year-on-year +46 +116 +56
Contract jobs citing Test Planning 140 152 134
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.45% 0.35% 0.24%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.50% 0.41% 0.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 104 113 88
10th Percentile £325 £363 £387
25th Percentile £350 £405 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £410 £489 £500
Median % change year-on-year -16.21% -2.20% -2.44%
75th Percentile £500 £600 £588
90th Percentile £596 £712 £627
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £450 £509
% change year-on-year -11.11% -11.50% +1.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 0 4
10th Percentile £64.65 - £76.00
25th Percentile £77.50 - £85.00
Median hourly rate £82.50 - £90.00
75th Percentile £86.25 - -
90th Percentile £89.38 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.75 - £90.00
% change year-on-year - - +320.76%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Test Planning falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 28,184 37,006 49,957
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.85% 85.27% 89.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,766 23,597 34,412
10th Percentile £300 £300 £325
25th Percentile £405 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.86% -4.55% +1.38%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,384 2,548 1,711
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.75 £11.87
25th Percentile £17.44 £16.06 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £37.50 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.93% +4.17% +38.46%
75th Percentile £53.88 £61.30 £64.81
90th Percentile £70.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.66 £38.12 £35.00
% change year-on-year -35.31% +8.91% +64.71%

Test Planning
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Test Planning as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Test Planning in the UK

Test Planning
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Test Planning.

Daily rate trend for Test Planning in the UK

Test Planning
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Planning over the 6 months to 2 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Test Planning in the UK

Test Planning
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Test Planning.

Hourly rate trend for Test Planning in the UK

Test Planning
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Planning over the 6 months to 2 July 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Planning in the UK

Test Planning
Top 16 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Test Planning within the UK over the 6 months to 2 July 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 +45 125 £416 -14.70% 279
London +30 70 £468 -10.95% 118
UK excluding London +43 59 £400 -11.11% 182
Work from Home +36 48 £400 -21.95% 153
North of England +13 21 £425 -15.04% 36
North West +17 16 £425 -15.00% 22
South East +58 14 £375 -25.00% 62
Midlands +3 7 £425 - 21
South West +29 6 £400 -2.44% 19
East of England +20 6 £366 -2.33% 23
West Midlands +8 5 £425 -5.56% 15
Yorkshire -6 4 £435 -13.04% 13
Scotland +3 3 £550 +4.66% 11
East Midlands +2 2 - - 6
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 4
North East - 1 - - 1

Test Planning
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 14 (10.00%) Confluence
2 2 (1.43%) CICS
2 2 (1.43%) SharePoint
2 2 (1.43%) WebSphere
Applications
1 1 (0.71%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.71%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 1 (0.71%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (2.14%) Oracle EBS
1 3 (2.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (1.43%) Finacle
2 2 (1.43%) Kondor
2 2 (1.43%) Murex MxG2000
2 2 (1.43%) Oracle EBS R12
2 2 (1.43%) Salesforce CRM
2 2 (1.43%) SAP GTS
3 1 (0.71%) Endur
3 1 (0.71%) Oracle Financials
3 1 (0.71%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.71%) Oracle Receivables
3 1 (0.71%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.71%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.71%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.71%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 31 (22.14%) Azure
2 29 (20.71%) Azure DevOps
3 7 (5.00%) AWS
3 7 (5.00%) Power Platform
4 6 (4.29%) Power Automate
4 6 (4.29%) PowerApps
4 6 (4.29%) SaaS
5 5 (3.57%) AWS Lambda
5 5 (3.57%) GitHub
5 5 (3.57%) Microsoft 365
5 5 (3.57%) Serverless
6 4 (2.86%) Amazon S3
6 4 (2.86%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 3 (2.14%) Amazon EC2
7 3 (2.14%) Amazon ECS
7 3 (2.14%) Amazon ELB
7 3 (2.14%) AWS CloudFormation
7 3 (2.14%) AWS CloudTrail
7 3 (2.14%) Datadog
8 2 (1.43%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 7 (5.00%) Firewall
2 2 (1.43%) LAN
2 2 (1.43%) Wi-Fi
3 1 (0.71%) Broadband
3 1 (0.71%) Internet
3 1 (0.71%) Modbus
3 1 (0.71%) SSH
3 1 (0.71%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (5.00%) MS Access
1 7 (5.00%) SQL Server
2 5 (3.57%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (1.43%) DB2
3 2 (1.43%) Hadoop
3 2 (1.43%) Relational Database
4 1 (0.71%) Amazon Athena
4 1 (0.71%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.71%) Delta Lake
4 1 (0.71%) Oracle Reports
4 1 (0.71%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.71%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 40 (28.57%) JIRA
2 17 (12.14%) Jenkins
3 16 (11.43%) Selenium
4 13 (9.29%) Postman
5 10 (7.14%) REST Assured
6 8 (5.71%) Git
6 8 (5.71%) JMeter
7 6 (4.29%) Cucumber
7 6 (4.29%) Cypress.io
7 6 (4.29%) QARun
7 6 (4.29%) WinRunner
8 5 (3.57%) Zephyr
9 4 (2.86%) GitLab
9 4 (2.86%) TestRail
10 3 (2.14%) Appium
10 3 (2.14%) JUnit
10 3 (2.14%) Maven
10 3 (2.14%) Sonatype Nexus
10 3 (2.14%) SpecFlow
10 3 (2.14%) TestNG
General
1 61 (43.57%) Social Skills
2 43 (30.71%) Finance
3 23 (16.43%) Analytical Skills
4 17 (12.14%) Banking
5 14 (10.00%) Public Sector
6 9 (6.43%) Presentation Skills
7 7 (5.00%) Manufacturing
7 7 (5.00%) Marketing
7 7 (5.00%) Telecoms
8 6 (4.29%) Electronics
9 4 (2.86%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (2.86%) Legal
10 3 (2.14%) Back Office
10 3 (2.14%) General Ledger
10 3 (2.14%) Retail
11 2 (1.43%) Aerospace
11 2 (1.43%) Billing
11 2 (1.43%) Front Office
11 2 (1.43%) Investment Banking
11 2 (1.43%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 49 (35.00%) Analyst
2 37 (26.43%) Test Manager
3 31 (22.14%) Test Analyst
4 22 (15.71%) Lead
4 22 (15.71%) Senior
5 18 (12.86%) Senior Analyst
6 15 (10.71%) Business Analyst
6 15 (10.71%) Test Leader
7 14 (10.00%) Senior Test Analyst
8 13 (9.29%) Tester
9 8 (5.71%) Test Engineer
10 7 (5.00%) Finance Business Analyst
10 7 (5.00%) Financial Analyst
11 6 (4.29%) Automation Tester
11 6 (4.29%) Infrastructure Manager
11 6 (4.29%) Infrastructure Test Manager
12 5 (3.57%) Network Manager
12 5 (3.57%) Senior Business Analyst
12 5 (3.57%) UAT Analyst
13 4 (2.86%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (6.43%) Web Services
2 8 (5.71%) Playwright
3 7 (5.00%) Middleware
3 7 (5.00%) RFC 2544
4 4 (2.86%) REST
4 4 (2.86%) WebdriverIO
5 3 (2.14%) JSON
5 3 (2.14%) XML
6 2 (1.43%) .NET
6 2 (1.43%) ADO
6 2 (1.43%) Flutter
6 2 (1.43%) J2EE
6 2 (1.43%) Kafka
6 2 (1.43%) WireMock
7 1 (0.71%) boto
7 1 (0.71%) Chai
7 1 (0.71%) Gherkin
7 1 (0.71%) RabbitMQ
7 1 (0.71%) SOAP
7 1 (0.71%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 17 (12.14%) Product Ownership
2 12 (8.57%) Data Centre
3 5 (3.57%) Low-Code
3 5 (3.57%) SCADA
4 4 (2.86%) FPGA
4 4 (2.86%) Legacy Systems
4 4 (2.86%) Verilog
4 4 (2.86%) VHDL
5 3 (2.14%) Management Information System
5 3 (2.14%) Reinsurance
6 2 (1.43%) Derivative
6 2 (1.43%) EPoS
6 2 (1.43%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 2 (1.43%) Mainframe
6 2 (1.43%) Mobile App
6 2 (1.43%) Mobile Banking
6 2 (1.43%) Mobile Payment
6 2 (1.43%) Online Banking
6 2 (1.43%) OTC Derivatives
6 2 (1.43%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 19 (13.57%) Windows
2 10 (7.14%) Unix
3 3 (2.14%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 69 (49.29%) Test Automation
2 66 (47.14%) Agile
3 53 (37.86%) User Acceptance Testing
4 51 (36.43%) Test Strategy
5 43 (30.71%) Defect Management
6 38 (27.14%) DevOps
7 35 (25.00%) Test Management
8 33 (23.57%) Test Scripting
9 32 (22.86%) Integration Testing
10 31 (22.14%) Migration
11 30 (21.43%) System Integration Testing
12 28 (20.00%) Regression Testing
13 26 (18.57%) Problem-Solving
13 26 (18.57%) Software Testing
13 26 (18.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 24 (17.14%) Scenario Testing
15 23 (16.43%) Validation
16 22 (15.71%) CI/CD
16 22 (15.71%) Risk Management
16 22 (15.71%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 19 (13.57%) SQL
2 13 (9.29%) Java
3 10 (7.14%) C#
3 10 (7.14%) JavaScript
4 6 (4.29%) VB
5 5 (3.57%) Python
6 4 (2.86%) SystemVerilog
7 3 (2.14%) CodeQL
7 3 (2.14%) Shell Script
8 2 (1.43%) COBOL
8 2 (1.43%) JCL
8 2 (1.43%) REXX
8 2 (1.43%) RPG
8 2 (1.43%) SOQL
8 2 (1.43%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.71%) PL/SQL
9 1 (0.71%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 25 (17.86%) Security Cleared
2 24 (17.14%) SC Cleared
3 15 (10.71%) ISTQB
4 9 (6.43%) Degree
5 5 (3.57%) CBAP
5 5 (3.57%) Master's Degree
6 4 (2.86%) PhD
7 3 (2.14%) AWS Certification
8 2 (1.43%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (1.43%) IIBA
8 2 (1.43%) ISEB
8 2 (1.43%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 2 (1.43%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 2 (1.43%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.71%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.71%) DBS Check
9 1 (0.71%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (33.57%) QA
2 5 (3.57%) Accessibility
3 4 (2.86%) WCAG
4 2 (1.43%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.71%) EMIR
5 1 (0.71%) MiFID
5 1 (0.71%) NCSC
5 1 (0.71%) PMO
System Software
1 4 (2.86%) Docker
1 4 (2.86%) Firmware
2 1 (0.71%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 14 (10.00%) HP ALM
2 4 (2.86%) Terraform
3 2 (1.43%) HP Quality Center
4 1 (0.71%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 23 (16.43%) Microsoft
2 14 (10.00%) HP
3 13 (9.29%) SAP
4 10 (7.14%) Cisco
5 8 (5.71%) Oracle
6 7 (5.00%) Citrix
7 6 (4.29%) Salesforce
8 4 (2.86%) Murex
9 2 (1.43%) Ab Initio
9 2 (1.43%) FIS
9 2 (1.43%) Informatica
9 2 (1.43%) Parasoft
9 2 (1.43%) Workday
10 1 (0.71%) Atlassian
10 1 (0.71%) Charles River
10 1 (0.71%) CyberArk
10 1 (0.71%) Micro Focus
10 1 (0.71%) MuleSoft
10 1 (0.71%) OpenLink
10 1 (0.71%) ServiceNow