Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Contract Tester Skill Set
Period
to 19 September 2017

The median contractor rate for a Tester was £350 per day in advertised job vacancies during the 6 months to 19 September 2017.

The first table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics including a comparison to same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Tester
UK
6 months to
19 Sep 2017		 Same period 2016 Same period 2015
Rank 201 199 179
Rank change year-on-year -2 -20 -8
Contract jobs requiring a Tester 1277 1409 1572
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 1.29% 1.32% 1.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.36% 1.39% 1.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 757 903 1043
UK median daily rate £350 £363 £325
Median daily rate % change year-on-year -3.45% +11.54% -
10th Percentile £233 £225 £213
90th Percentile £501 £525 £463
UK excluding London median daily rate £338 £325 £313
% change year-on-year +3.85% +4.00% +0.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 16 17
UK median hourly rate £12.75 £22.00 £37.00
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year -42.05% -40.54% +78.31%
10th Percentile £10.00 £8.50 £23.00
90th Percentile £30.00 £42.19 £91.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £12.75 £31.19 £34.75
% change year-on-year -59.11% -10.26% +147.33%

The following table is for comparison with the above and includes 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.

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK
Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 93561 101498 107666
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 94.80% 94.83% 94.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 61101 66325 68182
UK median daily rate £438 £425 £400
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +2.94% +6.25% -
10th Percentile £263 £255 £243
90th Percentile £625 £600 £588
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £390 £375
% change year-on-year +2.56% +4.00% +7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2818 3137 4100
UK median hourly rate £18.81 £19.00 £18.00
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year -1.00% +5.56% +5.88%
10th Percentile £10.75 £10.31 £10.50
90th Percentile £48.75 £46.50 £43.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.00 £18.80 £17.50
% change year-on-year -4.26% +7.43% +4.04%

Tester
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Tester in the job title as a percentage of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Tester in the UK

Tester
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for daily rates quoted in contract jobs citing Tester.

Contractor daily rate trend for Tester in the UK

Tester
Contractor Daily Rate Histogram

The daily rate distribution of IT jobs citing Tester over the 6 months to 19 September 2017.

Contractor daily rate histogram for Tester in the UK

Tester
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for contractor hourly rates quoted in IT jobs citing Tester.

Contractor hourly rate trend for Tester in the UK

Tester
Contractor Hourly Rate Histogram

The hourly rate distribution of IT jobs citing Tester over the 6 months to 19 September 2017.

Contractor hourly rate histogram for Tester in the UK

Tester
Top 17 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Tester within the UK over the 6 months to 19 September 2017. 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
Job
Vacancies
England +6 1194 £350 -4.11% 185
UK excluding London +10 727 £338 +3.85% 129
London -23 540 £400 - 62
North of England +54 215 £346 +4.92% 39
South East -2 214 £330 -5.71% 34
Yorkshire +56 112 £360 +2.86% 16
East of England +6 88 £330 +1.54% 18
North West +22 77 £310 -6.42% 19
South West -11 75 £345 +6.15% 13
Scotland +34 67 £360 +20.00% 4
Midlands -7 62 £333 +2.31% 18
West Midlands -11 33 £338 +2.27% 9
East Midlands +7 28 £350 +13.73% 9
North East +33 26 £294 -8.20% 4
Wales -15 4 £328 +2.34% 2
Northern Ireland -53 2 £263 -38.24% 1
Channel Islands - 2 - -

Tester Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring IT Skills

For the 6 months to 19 September 2017, Tester contract jobs required the following IT skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the number co-occurrences and its proportion to all contract ads featuring Tester in the job title.

1 762 (59.67%) Test Automation
2 619 (48.47%) Agile Software Development
3 455 (35.63%) Selenium
4 374 (29.29%) QA
5 372 (29.13%) Java
6 287 (22.47%) SQL
7 276 (21.61%) Cucumber
8 274 (21.46%) JIRA
9 263 (20.60%) BDD
10 260 (20.36%) Test Scripting
11 241 (18.87%) Jenkins
12 229 (17.93%) Finance
13 219 (17.15%) WebDriver
14 212 (16.60%) Scrum
15 197 (15.43%) Continuous Integration
16 188 (14.72%) TDD
17 173 (13.55%) Functional Testing
18 154 (12.06%) C#
19 149 (11.67%) Web Services
19 149 (11.67%) Git (software)
20 139 (10.88%) Python
21 137 (10.73%) Regression Testing
22 130 (10.18%) JavaScript
23 129 (10.10%) Performance Testing
24 126 (9.87%) HP
25 124 (9.71%) SOAP
25 124 (9.71%) Software Testing
25 124 (9.71%) Test Strategy
26 117 (9.16%) Banking
27 114 (8.93%) Manual Testing

Tester Skill Set
Co-occurring IT Skills by Category

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

Application Platforms
1 71 (5.56%) Confluence
2 17 (1.33%) WebSphere
3 15 (1.17%) SharePoint
4 12 (0.94%) Apache Spark
4 12 (0.94%) CMS
5 7 (0.55%) SAS
6 6 (0.47%) Sitecore CMS
7 5 (0.39%) BizTalk Server
8 4 (0.31%) IIS
9 3 (0.23%) nginx
10 2 (0.16%) Elasticsearch
10 2 (0.16%) EPiServer
10 2 (0.16%) JBoss
10 2 (0.16%) SharePoint 2013
11 1 (0.078%) CICS
11 1 (0.078%) Drupal
11 1 (0.078%) MTS
11 1 (0.078%) Skype for Business
11 1 (0.078%) WebLogic
11 1 (0.078%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 39 (3.05%) Microsoft Excel
2 20 (1.57%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.31%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.16%) Simulink
6 1 (0.078%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 13 (1.02%) Magento
2 8 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.31%) Dynamics AX
3 4 (0.31%) Oracle Applications
3 4 (0.31%) Oracle EBS R12
4 3 (0.23%) Dynamics NAV
4 3 (0.23%) Misys Midas
4 3 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.23%) Oracle Financials
4 3 (0.23%) Temenos T24
5 2 (0.16%) IntelliMatch
5 2 (0.16%) Maximo
5 2 (0.16%) Remedy ITSM
5 2 (0.16%) SAP CRM
5 2 (0.16%) Unit4 Business World
6 1 (0.078%) OPENHousing
6 1 (0.078%) Oracle FAH
6 1 (0.078%) PeopleSoft HCM
6 1 (0.078%) Salesforce.com CRM
Cloud Services
1 49 (3.84%) Amazon AWS
2 24 (1.88%) Microsoft Azure
3 20 (1.57%) GitHub
4 14 (1.10%) Sauce Labs
5 9 (0.70%) BrowserStack
5 9 (0.70%) OpenShift
6 8 (0.63%) npm
7 6 (0.47%) SaaS
8 4 (0.31%) Cloud Computing
9 3 (0.23%) Google Cloud Platform
10 2 (0.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 2 (0.16%) Office 365
11 1 (0.078%) AWS CloudTrail
11 1 (0.078%) Dynamics 365
11 1 (0.078%) Google Analytics
11 1 (0.078%) PaaS
11 1 (0.078%) Salesforce Service Cloud
11 1 (0.078%) ServiceMax
11 1 (0.078%) Slack
11 1 (0.078%) vREST
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.37%) Internet
2 20 (1.57%) HTTP
3 11 (0.86%) Wireless
4 10 (0.78%) Bluetooth
5 7 (0.55%) Broadband
5 7 (0.55%) Firewall
5 7 (0.55%) PuTTY
5 7 (0.55%) WinSCP
5 7 (0.55%) Wireshark
6 6 (0.47%) NAS
6 6 (0.47%) TCP/IP
6 6 (0.47%) WAN
6 6 (0.47%) Wi-Fi
7 5 (0.39%) 802.11
7 5 (0.39%) ADSL
7 5 (0.39%) IPv4
7 5 (0.39%) IPv6
7 5 (0.39%) SMS
7 5 (0.39%) UPnP
7 5 (0.39%) VDSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (4.70%) SQL Server
2 35 (2.74%) Data Warehouse
3 34 (2.66%) Big Data
4 32 (2.51%) MongoDB
5 30 (2.35%) Relational Database
6 26 (2.04%) Hadoop
7 23 (1.80%) DB2
8 22 (1.72%) Redis
9 19 (1.49%) Oracle Database
10 15 (1.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 12 (0.94%) DbVisualizer
11 12 (0.94%) MySQL
11 12 (0.94%) Oracle Reports
12 11 (0.86%) NoSQL
12 11 (0.86%) Oracle Database 11g
12 11 (0.86%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 9 (0.70%) SQL Server 2012
14 8 (0.63%) SQL Server 2008
15 7 (0.55%) Oracle Database 10g
15 7 (0.55%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 455 (35.63%) Selenium
2 276 (21.61%) Cucumber
3 274 (21.46%) JIRA
4 241 (18.87%) Jenkins
5 219 (17.15%) WebDriver
6 149 (11.67%) Git (software)
7 100 (7.83%) SoapUI
8 87 (6.81%) JMeter
9 78 (6.11%) LoadRunner
10 61 (4.78%) SpecFlow
11 53 (4.15%) Team Foundation Server
12 49 (3.84%) TeamCity
13 44 (3.45%) Protractor
14 42 (3.29%) Appium
15 38 (2.98%) JUnit
16 36 (2.82%) Visual Studio
17 31 (2.43%) HP UFT
18 30 (2.35%) Atlassian Bamboo
19 29 (2.27%) Calabash
20 27 (2.11%) Hudson
General
1 229 (17.93%) Finance
2 117 (9.16%) Banking
3 74 (5.79%) Retail
4 45 (3.52%) Games
5 41 (3.21%) Marketing
6 38 (2.98%) Telecoms
7 21 (1.64%) Manufacturing
8 20 (1.57%) Corporate Banking
9 19 (1.49%) Electronics
10 18 (1.41%) Investment Banking
11 17 (1.33%) Legal
12 14 (1.10%) Retail Banking
13 9 (0.70%) Advertising
13 9 (0.70%) Publishing
14 6 (0.47%) Back Office
14 6 (0.47%) Financial Institution
14 6 (0.47%) Front Office
15 5 (0.39%) Law
16 4 (0.31%) Automotive
16 4 (0.31%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 149 (11.67%) Web Services
2 124 (9.71%) SOAP
3 102 (7.99%) Gherkin
4 95 (7.44%) .NET
5 88 (6.89%) REST
6 78 (6.11%) RESTful
7 67 (5.25%) XML
8 57 (4.46%) JSON
9 55 (4.31%) HTML
10 42 (3.29%) Node.js
11 33 (2.58%) AngularJS
12 24 (1.88%) CSS
13 23 (1.80%) J2EE
14 17 (1.33%) Middleware
14 17 (1.33%) RESTEasy
15 15 (1.17%) Spring
16 13 (1.02%) Chai
17 12 (0.94%) Behat
18 11 (0.86%) HTML5
19 9 (0.70%) ActiveMQ
Miscellaneous
1 88 (6.89%) Analytical Skills
2 82 (6.42%) Mobile App
3 29 (2.27%) Greenfield Project
4 26 (2.04%) STB
5 20 (1.57%) Computer Science
6 15 (1.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 13 (1.02%) User Experience
8 11 (0.86%) Management Information System
9 9 (0.70%) Fintech
9 9 (0.70%) Mainframe
10 8 (0.63%) Virtual Team
11 7 (0.55%) Credit Risk
11 7 (0.55%) Data Centre
11 7 (0.55%) Equities
11 7 (0.55%) Online Games
11 7 (0.55%) Smartphone
11 7 (0.55%) Video on Demand
12 6 (0.47%) Embedded Systems
12 6 (0.47%) Over-the-Top Content
13 5 (0.39%) Cyberthreat
Operating Systems
1 75 (5.87%) Linux
2 73 (5.72%) Windows
3 71 (5.56%) Unix
4 64 (5.01%) Android
5 61 (4.78%) Apple iOS
6 27 (2.11%) Mac OS X
7 12 (0.94%) Windows Server
8 11 (0.86%) Windows Server 2012
9 8 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 5 (0.39%) Windows 10
11 4 (0.31%) Solaris
11 4 (0.31%) Windows Mobile
12 3 (0.23%) AIX
12 3 (0.23%) VMS
13 1 (0.078%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.078%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.078%) Windows Phone
Processes & Methodologies
1 762 (59.67%) Test Automation
2 619 (48.47%) Agile Software Development
3 263 (20.60%) BDD
4 260 (20.36%) Test Scripting
5 212 (16.60%) Scrum
6 197 (15.43%) Continuous Integration
7 188 (14.72%) TDD
8 173 (13.55%) Functional Testing
9 137 (10.73%) Regression Testing
10 129 (10.10%) Performance Testing
11 124 (9.71%) Software Testing
11 124 (9.71%) Test Strategy
12 114 (8.93%) Manual Testing
13 107 (8.38%) API Testing
14 106 (8.30%) User Acceptance Testing
15 102 (7.99%) SDLC
16 97 (7.60%) Scenario Testing
17 94 (7.36%) Exploratory Testing
18 91 (7.13%) Defect Management
19 87 (6.81%) Non-Functional Testing
Programming Languages
1 372 (29.13%) Java
2 287 (22.47%) SQL
3 154 (12.06%) C#
4 139 (10.88%) Python
5 130 (10.18%) JavaScript
6 54 (4.23%) Ruby
7 46 (3.60%) Scala
8 38 (2.98%) Groovy
9 37 (2.90%) Shell Script
10 36 (2.82%) PHP
11 25 (1.96%) Bash Shell
12 18 (1.41%) C
12 18 (1.41%) VB
13 16 (1.25%) Apple Swift
13 16 (1.25%) Perl
14 13 (1.02%) PowerShell
15 11 (0.86%) VB.NET
16 10 (0.78%) C++
17 9 (0.70%) VBScript
18 8 (0.63%) F#
Qualifications
1 83 (6.50%) ISEB
2 79 (6.19%) Security Cleared
3 73 (5.72%) ISTQB
4 57 (4.46%) Degree
4 57 (4.46%) SC Cleared
5 30 (2.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 21 (1.64%) CREST Certified
7 15 (1.17%) DV Cleared
8 13 (1.02%) Computer Science Degree
9 10 (0.78%) BPSS Clearance
10 9 (0.70%) CHECK Team Member
11 7 (0.55%) ISEB Practitioner
12 5 (0.39%) Master's Degree
13 3 (0.23%) CEH
13 3 (0.23%) CISSP
13 3 (0.23%) Microsoft Certification
14 2 (0.16%) CHECK Team Leader
14 2 (0.16%) ITIL Certification
14 2 (0.16%) OSCP
14 2 (0.16%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 374 (29.29%) QA
2 22 (1.72%) Data Quality
3 10 (0.78%) WCAG
4 6 (0.47%) MiFID
5 5 (0.39%) Disclosure Scotland
5 5 (0.39%) SLA
6 4 (0.31%) WAI
7 3 (0.23%) GDPR
7 3 (0.23%) PMO
7 3 (0.23%) SEPA
8 2 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.16%) GAMP
8 2 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 1 (0.078%) Dodd-Frank
9 1 (0.078%) EMIR
9 1 (0.078%) IFRS
9 1 (0.078%) ISO 20022
9 1 (0.078%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 1 (0.078%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 32 (2.51%) Docker
2 8 (0.63%) Firmware
3 7 (0.55%) vSphere
4 5 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.31%) Active Directory
5 4 (0.31%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (0.23%) VirtualBox
7 2 (0.16%) Terminal Services
8 1 (0.078%) HDFS
8 1 (0.078%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.078%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 77 (6.03%) HP Quality Center
2 18 (1.41%) HP SiteScope
3 17 (1.33%) OpenView
4 11 (0.86%) Puppet
5 8 (0.63%) Ansible
6 7 (0.55%) vRealize
7 6 (0.47%) Kibana
8 4 (0.31%) Grafana
8 4 (0.31%) Opscode Chef
8 4 (0.31%) StatsD
9 3 (0.23%) HP Fortify
9 3 (0.23%) Nessus
9 3 (0.23%) Nmap
9 3 (0.23%) Perfmon
10 2 (0.16%) SCCM
10 2 (0.16%) Terraform
10 2 (0.16%) Tivoli
11 1 (0.078%) CA Service Virtualization
11 1 (0.078%) Kubernetes
11 1 (0.078%) Rancher
Vendors
1 126 (9.87%) HP
2 76 (5.95%) Oracle
3 74 (5.79%) Microsoft
4 27 (2.11%) IBM
5 26 (2.04%) Atlassian
5 26 (2.04%) SAP
6 21 (1.64%) hybris
7 12 (0.94%) Cloudera
7 12 (0.94%) Hortonworks
7 12 (0.94%) Informatica
7 12 (0.94%) Salesforce.com
8 10 (0.78%) VMware
8 10 (0.78%) Xamarin
9 9 (0.70%) Murex
10 8 (0.63%) Red Hat
11 7 (0.55%) Sitecore
11 7 (0.55%) Splunk
11 7 (0.55%) Workday
12 6 (0.47%) Remedy
13 5 (0.39%) Charles River
195 Tester job vacancies Nationwide