Software Testing Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Software Testing
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the West Midlands requiring Software Testing skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 108 88 94
Rank change year-on-year -20 +6 -20
Contract jobs citing Software Testing 31 21 17
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 1.38% 1.26% 0.92%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.58% 1.47% 1.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 24 17 7
10th Percentile £406 £273 £365
25th Percentile £459 £313 £484
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £400 £540
Median % change year-on-year +28.75% -25.93% -
75th Percentile £537 £438 £568
90th Percentile £540 £493 £588
England median daily rate £460 £445 £515
% change year-on-year +3.26% -13.59% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 2
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £72.50
Median hourly rate - - £75.00
75th Percentile - - £77.50
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +30.00%

All Process and Methodology Skills
West Midlands

Software Testing 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 in the West Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,959 1,424 1,569
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 87.38% 85.68% 85.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,238 899 1,067
10th Percentile £263 £225 £275
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +3.00% -
75th Percentile £587 £612 £600
90th Percentile £675 £725 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £544
% change year-on-year -3.81% -3.49% -1.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 106 47 50
10th Percentile £13.47 £14.70 £14.50
25th Percentile £16.13 £16.88 £17.56
Median hourly rate £20.25 £23.60 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.19% +2.61% +29.94%
75th Percentile £27.21 £34.38 £53.75
90th Percentile £38.01 £52.50 £67.63
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +19.30%

Software Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Software Testing relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands.

Software Testing job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

Software Testing
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Software Testing.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Software Testing

Software Testing
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Testing in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 16 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Software Testing in the West Midlands

Software Testing
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Software Testing.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Software Testing

Software Testing
Contract Job Locations in the West Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Software Testing within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 16 December 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
Shropshire -20 24 £517 +4.82% 3
Birmingham -4 7 £453 +57.39% 3
Software Testing
England

Software Testing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands 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 15 (48.39%) SAS
2 5 (16.13%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (6.45%) Apache
3 2 (6.45%) JBoss
3 2 (6.45%) WebLogic
Business Applications
1 2 (6.45%) Dynamics NAV
Cloud Services
1 9 (29.03%) AWS
1 9 (29.03%) Azure
2 5 (16.13%) PaaS
3 2 (6.45%) Cloud Computing
3 2 (6.45%) Dynamics 365
3 2 (6.45%) iPaaS
3 2 (6.45%) Power Automate
3 2 (6.45%) Power Platform
4 1 (3.23%) Azure DevOps
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (48.39%) SAS Enterprise Guide
2 7 (22.58%) MongoDB
2 7 (22.58%) Oracle Database
3 6 (19.35%) SAS Visual Analytics
4 2 (6.45%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 4 (12.90%) Selenium
2 3 (9.68%) Git
2 3 (9.68%) JUnit
3 2 (6.45%) Cucumber
3 2 (6.45%) Eclipse
3 2 (6.45%) IntelliJ
4 1 (3.23%) Gatling
4 1 (3.23%) GitLab
4 1 (3.23%) REST Assured
4 1 (3.23%) TestDirector
General
1 8 (25.81%) Public Sector
1 8 (25.81%) Social Skills
2 3 (9.68%) Finance
3 2 (6.45%) Influencing Skills
3 2 (6.45%) Manufacturing
4 1 (3.23%) Analytical Skills
Job Titles
1 15 (48.39%) Release Manager
2 5 (16.13%) Java Engineer
3 4 (12.90%) Lead
4 3 (9.68%) Consultant
4 3 (9.68%) Lead Java Engineer
5 2 (6.45%) Analyst
5 2 (6.45%) Business Systems Analyst
5 2 (6.45%) Systems Analyst
6 1 (3.23%) Data Integration Manager
6 1 (3.23%) Developer
6 1 (3.23%) Development Director
6 1 (3.23%) Integration Manager
6 1 (3.23%) Manual Tester
6 1 (3.23%) Open Source Engineer
6 1 (3.23%) Operations Engineer
6 1 (3.23%) Quality Engineer
6 1 (3.23%) Software Developer
6 1 (3.23%) Software Engineer
6 1 (3.23%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (19.35%) Spring
2 4 (12.90%) Spring Boot
2 4 (12.90%) Swagger
3 3 (9.68%) JSON
4 2 (6.45%) EJB
4 2 (6.45%) Hibernate
4 2 (6.45%) HTML
4 2 (6.45%) HTML5
4 2 (6.45%) J2EE
4 2 (6.45%) J2SE
4 2 (6.45%) Middleware
4 2 (6.45%) Play Framework
4 2 (6.45%) REST
4 2 (6.45%) SOAP
4 2 (6.45%) XML
5 1 (3.23%) Gherkin
5 1 (3.23%) RabbitMQ
5 1 (3.23%) React
5 1 (3.23%) RESTful
5 1 (3.23%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 2 (6.45%) Product Ownership
2 1 (3.23%) Data Protection Act
2 1 (3.23%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 2 (6.45%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (64.52%) CI/CD
2 15 (48.39%) Configuration Management
2 15 (48.39%) Data Integration
2 15 (48.39%) Migration
3 14 (45.16%) Validation
4 9 (29.03%) DevOps
5 8 (25.81%) Continuous Improvement
5 8 (25.81%) Defect Management
6 7 (22.58%) Agile
6 7 (22.58%) Analytics
6 7 (22.58%) Test Strategy
7 6 (19.35%) Microservices
7 6 (19.35%) Visual Analytics
8 5 (16.13%) Scrum
8 5 (16.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 3 (9.68%) Release Management
9 3 (9.68%) Risk Assessment
9 3 (9.68%) Security Testing
9 3 (9.68%) Software Engineering
9 3 (9.68%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 9 (29.03%) Java
2 6 (19.35%) SQL
3 3 (9.68%) Scala
4 1 (3.23%) Groovy
4 1 (3.23%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 20 (64.52%) SC Cleared
1 20 (64.52%) Security Cleared
2 1 (3.23%) BPSS Clearance
2 1 (3.23%) CEH
2 1 (3.23%) CISM
2 1 (3.23%) CISSP
2 1 (3.23%) CSSLP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (6.45%) Accessibility
1 2 (6.45%) QA
2 1 (3.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (3.23%) NIST
2 1 (3.23%) SLA
2 1 (3.23%) WCAG
System Software
1 3 (9.68%) Docker
Systems Management
1 5 (16.13%) Kubernetes
2 2 (6.45%) Puppet
Vendors
1 16 (51.61%) Oracle
2 4 (12.90%) Microsoft
3 2 (6.45%) webMethods