Tester Contracts

The median contractor rate for a Tester was £350 per day in advertised job vacancies during the 3 months to 28 June 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
Location	3 months to 28 Jun 2017	Same period 2016	Same period 2015
Rank	195	203	206
Rank change year-on-year	+8	+3
Contract jobs requiring a Tester	606	673	639
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK	1.29%	1.25%	1.16%
As % of the Job Titles category	1.36%	1.32%	1.22%
Number of daily rates quoted	347	446	413
Median daily rate	£350	£375	£323
Median daily rate % change year-on-year	-6.66%	+16.27%
90% offered a daily rate of more than	£250	£248	£210
10% offered a daily rate of more than	£475	£500	£425
UK excluding London median daily rate	£338	£331	£300
% change year-on-year	+1.96%	+10.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted	7	3	6
Median hourly rate	£16.08	£15.00	£37.25
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year	+7.20%	-59.73%
90% offered a hourly rate of more than	£10.00	£11.00	£26.25
10% offered a hourly rate of more than	£67.00	£35.00	£103.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£13.54	£27.50	£37.25
% change year-on-year	-50.76%	-26.17%

The next table is for comparison with the above and includes summary statistics for all job roles in contract job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title. As such, the figures in the first row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract IT Job Roles UK
Contract job vacancies with a job title containing a recognized job role	44648	51085	52304
As % of all contract IT job vacancies advertised in the UK	94.78%	94.85%	94.84%
Number of daily rates quoted	28819	33278	32902
Median daily rate	£438	£425	£400
Median daily rate % change year-on-year	+2.94%	+6.25%
90% offered a daily rate of more than	£275	£260	£245
10% offered a daily rate of more than	£600	£600	£568
UK excluding London median daily rate	£400	£400	£370
% change year-on-year	-	+8.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted	1391	1532	1988
Median hourly rate	£18.69	£17.50	£16.50
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year	+6.80%	+6.06%
90% offered a hourly rate of more than	£11.42	£11.00	£11.00
10% offered a hourly rate of more than	£47.50	£43.50	£40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£17.50	£17.50	£16.14
% change year-on-year	-	+8.42%

Tester
Job Vacancy Trend

The job posting trend of jobs advertised that featured Tester in the job title.

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 3 months to 28 June 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 3 months to 28 June 2017.

Contractor hourly rate histogram for Tester in the UK

Tester
Top 30 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 3 months to 28 June 2017. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 3 month period last year.

Location	Rank Change on Same Period Last Year	Matching Contract IT Job Ads	Median Daily Rate Last 3 Months	Median Daily Rate % Change on Same Period Last Year	Live Job Vacancies
England	+8	564	£350	-6.66%	181
London	-14	244	£400	-4.76%	56
South East	+33	103	£338	-3.57%	23
Yorkshire	+38	59	£350	-	21
West Yorkshire	+52	46	£350	-	13
Leeds	+48	43	£350	-	10
East of England	+14	42	£325	-7.14%	17
South West	-5	39	£350	+7.69%	8
Scotland	+39	35	£325	+5.69%	4
Buckinghamshire	+10	34	£325	-	1
North West	+8	29	£335	+3.07%	19
Milton Keynes	+6	28	£325	-	1
Manchester	+7	21	£300	-7.69%	13
Berkshire	+14	19	£338	-3.57%	1
City of London	-14	19	£400	-11.11%	16
West Midlands	+11	17	£313	+17.92%	20
North East	+63	16	£310	+5.08%	8
Oxfordshire	+8	16	£350	-12.50%	5
Hertfordshire	-1	16	£288	-25.80%	1
Edinburgh	+21	15	£318	+22.11%	1
Newcastle upon Tyne	+70	14	£300	+2.56%	2
Tyne and Wear	+67	14	£300	+2.56%	2
East Midlands	-2	14	£356	+18.55%	8
Cambridgeshire	+15	13	£230	-34.28%	13
Hampshire	-12	13	£325	-13.33%	6
Glasgow	-1	12	£310	-11.42%	3
Bristol	+2	11	£278	-24.48%	6
Wiltshire	-2	11	£369	+22.91%	1
South Yorkshire	-4	11	£375	+7.14%	1
Devon	-5	10	£350	+10.23%	1

Tester Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring IT Skills

For the 6 months to 28 June 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	750 (60.05%)	Test Automation
2	622 (49.80%)	Agile Software Development
3	478 (38.27%)	Selenium
4	362 (28.98%)	Java
5	340 (27.22%)	QA
6	282 (22.58%)	SQL
7	279 (22.34%)	Test Scripting
8	257 (20.58%)	Cucumber
9	254 (20.34%)	JIRA
10	238 (19.06%)	BDD
11	230 (18.41%)	Jenkins
12	229 (18.33%)	Scrum
13	220 (17.61%)	WebDriver
14	209 (16.73%)	Finance
15	178 (14.25%)	TDD

16	174 (13.93%)	Functional Testing
17	164 (13.13%)	Continuous Integration
18	149 (11.93%)	Web Services
19	143 (11.45%)	Python
20	141 (11.29%)	Test Strategy
21	140 (11.21%)	User Acceptance Testing
22	137 (10.97%)	C#
23	136 (10.89%)	Performance Testing
24	134 (10.73%)	Regression Testing
25	131 (10.49%)	Software Testing
26	120 (9.61%)	Git (software)
27	119 (9.53%)	API Testing
28	117 (9.37%)	Manual Testing
29	115 (9.21%)	.NET
30	112 (8.97%)	ISEB

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
Applications
Business Applications
Cloud Services
Communications & Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
Development Applications
General
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
Miscellaneous
Operating Systems
Processes & Methodologies
Programming Languages
Qualifications
Quality Assurance & Compliance
System Software
Systems Management
Vendors

Application Platforms
1	63 (5.04%)	Confluence
2	25 (2.00%)	SharePoint
3	17 (1.36%)	WebSphere
4	16 (1.28%)	CMS
5	11 (0.88%)	Apache Spark
6	10 (0.80%)	SAS
7	7 (0.56%)	SharePoint 2010
7	7 (0.56%)	Sitecore CMS
8	6 (0.48%)	BizTalk Server
8	6 (0.48%)	WebLogic
9	4 (0.32%)	IIS
9	4 (0.32%)	SharePoint 2013
10	2 (0.16%)	Adobe Experience Manager
10	2 (0.16%)	JBoss
10	2 (0.16%)	nginx
11	1 (0.080%)	Apache Solr
11	1 (0.080%)	Elasticsearch
11	1 (0.080%)	Moodle
11	1 (0.080%)	Tomcat
11	1 (0.080%)	WebSphere Portal

Applications
1	28 (2.24%)	Microsoft Excel
2	21 (1.68%)	Microsoft Office
3	10 (0.80%)	Microsoft PowerPoint
4	2 (0.16%)	MS Visio

Business Applications
1	17 (1.36%)	Dynamics CRM
2	14 (1.12%)	Magento
3	10 (0.80%)	SAP Oil and Gas
4	8 (0.64%)	Oracle Applications
5	6 (0.48%)	SAP FI
6	5 (0.40%)	Oracle EBS R12
7	4 (0.32%)	Dynamics AX
7	4 (0.32%)	Dynamics NAV
7	4 (0.32%)	Oracle ERP
8	3 (0.24%)	Oracle EBS
8	3 (0.24%)	SAP CRM
8	3 (0.24%)	Unit4 Business World
9	2 (0.16%)	FastStats
9	2 (0.16%)	iTrent
9	2 (0.16%)	Maximo
9	2 (0.16%)	Oracle Financials
9	2 (0.16%)	Remedy ITSM
9	2 (0.16%)	SAP CO
9	2 (0.16%)	SAP FI/CO
10	1 (0.080%)	Bloomberg TOMS

Cloud Services
1	32 (2.56%)	Amazon AWS
2	30 (2.40%)	Microsoft Azure
3	19 (1.52%)	GitHub
4	10 (0.80%)	BrowserStack
5	9 (0.72%)	OpenShift
6	6 (0.48%)	SaaS
7	5 (0.40%)	Office 365
7	5 (0.40%)	Sauce Labs
8	3 (0.24%)	Dynamics 365
8	3 (0.24%)	Google Cloud Platform
9	2 (0.16%)	vREST
10	1 (0.080%)	Amazon S3
10	1 (0.080%)	Google Play
10	1 (0.080%)	PaaS
10	1 (0.080%)	Salesforce Service Cloud
10	1 (0.080%)	ServiceMax
10	1 (0.080%)	TestFlight

Communications & Networking
1	35 (2.80%)	Internet
2	23 (1.84%)	HTTP
3	18 (1.44%)	PuTTY
3	18 (1.44%)	WinSCP
4	7 (0.56%)	Wi-Fi
5	6 (0.48%)	TCP/IP
6	5 (0.40%)	Bluetooth
6	5 (0.40%)	Broadband
6	5 (0.40%)	Wireless
7	4 (0.32%)	DVB
7	4 (0.32%)	Firewall
7	4 (0.32%)	WAN
8	3 (0.24%)	802.11
8	3 (0.24%)	ADSL
8	3 (0.24%)	BGP
8	3 (0.24%)	DHCP
8	3 (0.24%)	DNS
8	3 (0.24%)	IPv4
8	3 (0.24%)	IPv6
8	3 (0.24%)	Tactical Data Link

Database & Business Intelligence
1	73 (5.84%)	SQL Server
2	50 (4.00%)	Data Warehouse
3	33 (2.64%)	Oracle Database
4	32 (2.56%)	Relational Database
5	27 (2.16%)	MongoDB
6	26 (2.08%)	Big Data
7	24 (1.92%)	Oracle Database 11g
8	20 (1.60%)	Oracle Reports
9	19 (1.52%)	Hadoop
10	18 (1.44%)	DB2
10	18 (1.44%)	Oracle Database 10g
11	15 (1.20%)	SQL Server 2008
12	14 (1.12%)	DbVisualizer
12	14 (1.12%)	MySQL
12	14 (1.12%)	SQL Server 2012
13	12 (0.96%)	Oracle Database 12c
13	12 (0.96%)	SQL Server 2005
14	9 (0.72%)	Redis
15	8 (0.64%)	SQL Server Integration Services
16	7 (0.56%)	Oracle BI EE

Development Applications
1	478 (38.27%)	Selenium
2	257 (20.58%)	Cucumber
3	254 (20.34%)	JIRA
4	230 (18.41%)	Jenkins
5	220 (17.61%)	WebDriver
6	120 (9.61%)	Git (software)
7	101 (8.09%)	SoapUI
8	76 (6.08%)	Team Foundation Server
9	74 (5.92%)	LoadRunner
10	71 (5.68%)	TeamCity
11	69 (5.52%)	JMeter
12	65 (5.20%)	SpecFlow
13	47 (3.76%)	HP UFT
14	39 (3.12%)	Visual Studio
15	36 (2.88%)	JUnit
16	34 (2.72%)	Protractor
17	33 (2.64%)	Hudson
18	29 (2.32%)	Appium
19	24 (1.92%)	Calabash
20	22 (1.76%)	Atlassian Bamboo

General
1	209 (16.73%)	Finance
2	89 (7.13%)	Banking
3	59 (4.72%)	Retail
4	44 (3.52%)	Games
5	38 (3.04%)	Marketing
6	22 (1.76%)	Telecoms
7	17 (1.36%)	Manufacturing
8	13 (1.04%)	Corporate Banking
9	12 (0.96%)	Investment Banking
10	11 (0.88%)	Advertising
10	11 (0.88%)	Electronics
11	10 (0.80%)	Publishing
12	9 (0.72%)	Retail Banking
13	7 (0.56%)	Law
13	7 (0.56%)	Legal
14	4 (0.32%)	Financial Institution
14	4 (0.32%)	Military
15	3 (0.24%)	Front Office
15	3 (0.24%)	German Language
16	2 (0.16%)	Back Office

Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1	149 (11.93%)	Web Services
2	115 (9.21%)	.NET
3	109 (8.73%)	Gherkin
4	95 (7.61%)	SOAP
5	85 (6.81%)	RESTful
6	76 (6.08%)	XML
7	73 (5.84%)	REST
8	55 (4.40%)	JSON
9	54 (4.32%)	HTML
10	35 (2.80%)	Node.js
11	28 (2.24%)	AngularJS
12	26 (2.08%)	CSS
13	17 (1.36%)	J2EE
14	15 (1.20%)	Chai
15	13 (1.04%)	Behat
15	13 (1.04%)	Middleware
15	13 (1.04%)	RESTEasy
16	12 (0.96%)	HTML5
17	9 (0.72%)	Spring
18	7 (0.56%)	React

Miscellaneous
1	87 (6.97%)	Analytical Skills
2	66 (5.28%)	Mobile App
3	19 (1.52%)	Greenfield Project
3	19 (1.52%)	Management Information System
3	19 (1.52%)	STB
4	18 (1.44%)	Computer Science
4	18 (1.44%)	User Experience
5	14 (1.12%)	Smartphone
6	11 (0.88%)	Algorithms
7	10 (0.80%)	Client/Server
7	10 (0.80%)	NHS
8	9 (0.72%)	Foreign Exchange (FX)
8	9 (0.72%)	Mainframe
9	7 (0.56%)	Equities
9	7 (0.56%)	Fintech
9	7 (0.56%)	Online Games
10	5 (0.40%)	Data Centre
10	5 (0.40%)	Enterprise Software
10	5 (0.40%)	FMCG
10	5 (0.40%)	iSeries

Operating Systems
1	90 (7.21%)	Linux
2	78 (6.24%)	Windows
3	75 (6.00%)	Unix
4	48 (3.84%)	Apple iOS
5	47 (3.76%)	Android
6	17 (1.36%)	Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6	17 (1.36%)	Windows Server 2012
7	15 (1.20%)	Windows Server
8	13 (1.04%)	Mac OS X
9	4 (0.32%)	Solaris
9	4 (0.32%)	Windows 8
10	3 (0.24%)	AIX
10	3 (0.24%)	VMS
10	3 (0.24%)	Windows 10
10	3 (0.24%)	Windows 7
10	3 (0.24%)	Windows Server 2008
11	2 (0.16%)	Ubuntu
11	2 (0.16%)	Windows Mobile
12	1 (0.080%)	CentOS
12	1 (0.080%)	Embedded Linux

Processes & Methodologies
1	750 (60.05%)	Test Automation
2	622 (49.80%)	Agile Software Development
3	279 (22.34%)	Test Scripting
4	238 (19.06%)	BDD
5	229 (18.33%)	Scrum
6	178 (14.25%)	TDD
7	174 (13.93%)	Functional Testing
8	164 (13.13%)	Continuous Integration
9	141 (11.29%)	Test Strategy
10	140 (11.21%)	User Acceptance Testing
11	136 (10.89%)	Performance Testing
12	134 (10.73%)	Regression Testing
13	131 (10.49%)	Software Testing
14	119 (9.53%)	API Testing
15	117 (9.37%)	Manual Testing
16	107 (8.57%)	Defect Management
17	105 (8.41%)	Scenario Testing
18	104 (8.33%)	Exploratory Testing
19	91 (7.29%)	Non-Functional Testing
20	90 (7.21%)	SDLC

Programming Languages
1	362 (28.98%)	Java
2	282 (22.58%)	SQL
3	143 (11.45%)	Python
4	137 (10.97%)	C#
5	108 (8.65%)	JavaScript
6	71 (5.68%)	Ruby
7	70 (5.60%)	Scala
8	45 (3.60%)	Shell Script
9	44 (3.52%)	Groovy
10	36 (2.88%)	PHP
11	29 (2.32%)	Bash Shell
12	21 (1.68%)	F#
13	20 (1.60%)	VB
14	19 (1.52%)	C
15	14 (1.12%)	VBScript
16	13 (1.04%)	Perl
16	13 (1.04%)	PowerShell
16	13 (1.04%)	VB.NET
17	11 (0.88%)	C++
17	11 (0.88%)	PL/SQL

Qualifications
1	112 (8.97%)	ISEB
2	104 (8.33%)	ISTQB
3	86 (6.89%)	Security Cleared
4	53 (4.24%)	SC Cleared
5	50 (4.00%)	ISTQB Foundation Certification
6	47 (3.76%)	Degree
7	17 (1.36%)	ISEB Practitioner
8	16 (1.28%)	DV Cleared
9	14 (1.12%)	Computer Science Degree
10	13 (1.04%)	BPSS Clearance
11	10 (0.80%)	CREST Certified
11	10 (0.80%)	OSCP
12	7 (0.56%)	CHECK Team Member
12	7 (0.56%)	SANS
13	5 (0.40%)	CEH
14	4 (0.32%)	CHECK Team Leader
15	3 (0.24%)	CISA
15	3 (0.24%)	Numerate Degree
16	2 (0.16%)	Cisco Certification
16	2 (0.16%)	CISSP

Quality Assurance & Compliance
1	340 (27.22%)	QA
2	27 (2.16%)	Data Quality
3	6 (0.48%)	Disclosure Scotland
4	5 (0.40%)	WCAG
5	4 (0.32%)	PMO
6	3 (0.24%)	MiFID
6	3 (0.24%)	Sarbanes-Oxley
6	3 (0.24%)	SLA
7	2 (0.16%)	GDPR
7	2 (0.16%)	HL7
7	2 (0.16%)	PCI DSS
8	1 (0.080%)	Dodd-Frank
8	1 (0.080%)	EMIR
8	1 (0.080%)	IFRS
8	1 (0.080%)	ISO/IEC 27001
8	1 (0.080%)	JSP 440

System Software
1	22 (1.76%)	Docker
2	13 (1.04%)	vSphere
3	10 (0.80%)	Virtual Machines
4	8 (0.64%)	Active Directory
5	6 (0.48%)	Firmware
5	6 (0.48%)	Oracle RAC
6	4 (0.32%)	VMware Infrastructure
7	3 (0.24%)	VirtualBox
8	2 (0.16%)	Terminal Services
9	1 (0.080%)	Time Sharing Option

Systems Management
1	56 (4.48%)	HP Quality Center
2	12 (0.96%)	HP SiteScope
2	12 (0.96%)	vRealize
3	9 (0.72%)	OpenView
3	9 (0.72%)	Puppet
4	5 (0.40%)	Grafana
4	5 (0.40%)	Rancher
5	4 (0.32%)	Ansible
5	4 (0.32%)	Opscode Chef
5	4 (0.32%)	StatsD
5	4 (0.32%)	Tivoli
6	3 (0.24%)	Perfmon
7	2 (0.16%)	Ganglia
7	2 (0.16%)	Graphite
7	2 (0.16%)	HP Fortify
7	2 (0.16%)	Kibana
7	2 (0.16%)	nmon
7	2 (0.16%)	Tivoli Monitoring
8	1 (0.080%)	BMC PATROL
8	1 (0.080%)	Netcool

Vendors
1	107 (8.57%)	HP
1	107 (8.57%)	Oracle
2	89 (7.13%)	Microsoft
3	35 (2.80%)	SAP
4	34 (2.72%)	IBM
5	30 (2.40%)	Atlassian
6	21 (1.68%)	VMware
7	18 (1.44%)	hybris
8	16 (1.28%)	Red Hat
9	14 (1.12%)	Salesforce.com
10	12 (0.96%)	Cloudera
10	12 (0.96%)	Hortonworks
11	10 (0.80%)	Splunk
12	9 (0.72%)	Informatica
12	9 (0.72%)	Murex
13	8 (0.64%)	Remedy
13	8 (0.64%)	Xamarin
14	7 (0.56%)	New Relic
14	7 (0.56%)	Sitecore
14	7 (0.56%)	Workday