Test Engineer Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Test Engineer
England > West Midlands

The median Test Engineer daily rate in the West Midlands is £488, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 3 October 2026.

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

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 121 113 109
Rank change year-on-year -8 -4 +11
Contract jobs requiring a Test Engineer 44 12 8
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 1.22% 0.65% 0.42%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.34% 0.73% 0.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 9 1 1
10th Percentile £370 - -
25th Percentile £403 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £450 £425
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% +5.88% -22.73%
75th Percentile £538 £475 £438
90th Percentile £588 - -
England median daily rate £444 £418 £475
% change year-on-year +6.29% -12.11% +2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 1 0
10th Percentile £27.72 - -
25th Percentile £28.00 £28.50 -
Median hourly rate £37.50 £29.00 -
Median % change year-on-year +29.31% - -
75th Percentile £38.75 £29.50 -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £40.00 £50.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year -20.00% -9.09% +2.33%

All Contract IT Job Roles
West Midlands

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the West Midlands. 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 West Midlands with a recognized job title 3,282 1,653 1,761
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.27% 89.06% 93.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,952 1,067 1,113
10th Percentile £334 £235 £214
25th Percentile £413 £381 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £596 £588 £613
90th Percentile £688 £675 £713
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 250 108 62
10th Percentile £14.00 £12.62 £12.60
25th Percentile £17.74 £14.25 £14.44
Median hourly rate £28.30 £25.15 £22.05
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% +14.08% -2.65%
75th Percentile £53.13 £38.13 £33.23
90th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £49.88
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.90
% change year-on-year +68.99% -42.71% -4.44%

Test Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Test Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands.

Test Engineer job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

Test Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in the West Midlands.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in the West Midlands

Test Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Engineer in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 3 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Test Engineer in the West Midlands

Test Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in the West Midlands.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in the West Midlands

Test Engineer
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 Test Engineer within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 3 October 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
Warwickshire -5 19 £475 +5.56% 8
Birmingham - 12 £550 - 19
Coventry - 8 - - 1
Shropshire - 3 £328 - 2
Staffordshire - 2 - - 4
Test Engineer
England

Test Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands

For the 6 months to 3 October 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 across the West Midlands region featuring Test Engineer in the job title.

1 15 (34.09%) Test Automation
2 11 (25.00%) Validation
3 10 (22.73%) Software Testing
4 9 (20.45%) Security Cleared
5 8 (18.18%) Problem-Solving
6 7 (15.91%) AWS
7 6 (13.64%) Continuous Improvement
7 6 (13.64%) SQL
8 5 (11.36%) DevOps
8 5 (11.36%) End-to-End Testing
8 5 (11.36%) Non-Functional Testing
8 5 (11.36%) Software Engineering
8 5 (11.36%) System Testing
9 4 (9.09%) Digital Transformation Programme
9 4 (9.09%) ETL
9 4 (9.09%) Integration Testing
9 4 (9.09%) Java
9 4 (9.09%) Oracle
9 4 (9.09%) Performance Improvement
9 4 (9.09%) Playwright
9 4 (9.09%) SAS
9 4 (9.09%) SC Cleared
9 4 (9.09%) Test Scripting
9 4 (9.09%) Test Strategy
10 3 (6.82%) Agile
10 3 (6.82%) Azure
10 3 (6.82%) CI/CD
10 3 (6.82%) Degree
10 3 (6.82%) Docker
10 3 (6.82%) GitHub

Test Engineer Skill Set
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 4 (9.09%) SAS
2 1 (2.27%) Palantir Foundry
Cloud Services
1 7 (15.91%) AWS
2 3 (6.82%) Azure
2 3 (6.82%) GitHub
3 2 (4.55%) Azure DevOps
3 2 (4.55%) Entra ID
3 2 (4.55%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 2 (4.55%) DHCP
1 2 (4.55%) DNS
1 2 (4.55%) Firewall
1 2 (4.55%) Internet
1 2 (4.55%) LAN
1 2 (4.55%) Network Security
1 2 (4.55%) SD-WAN
1 2 (4.55%) SSL
1 2 (4.55%) TCP/IP
1 2 (4.55%) VPN
1 2 (4.55%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (6.82%) MongoDB
1 3 (6.82%) PowerCenter
2 2 (4.55%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (2.27%) Oracle Reports
3 1 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (2.27%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 3 (6.82%) GitLab
1 3 (6.82%) Jenkins
1 3 (6.82%) JIRA
1 3 (6.82%) REST Assured
1 3 (6.82%) Selenium
1 3 (6.82%) Serenity BDD
2 2 (4.55%) Browser DevTools
2 2 (4.55%) Gatling
2 2 (4.55%) JMeter
3 1 (2.27%) Cypress.io
3 1 (2.27%) Git
3 1 (2.27%) Postman
3 1 (2.27%) Zephyr
General
1 15 (34.09%) Automotive
2 7 (15.91%) Public Sector
3 6 (13.64%) Social Skills
4 3 (6.82%) Electronics
5 2 (4.55%) Analytical Skills
6 1 (2.27%) Manufacturing
6 1 (2.27%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (9.09%) Playwright
2 3 (6.82%) Kafka
3 2 (4.55%) SAML
4 1 (2.27%) Spring
4 1 (2.27%) Spring Boot
4 1 (2.27%) Spring Cloud
Miscellaneous
1 2 (4.55%) Distributed Architecture
1 2 (4.55%) Embedded Systems
1 2 (4.55%) Enterprise Software
1 2 (4.55%) Self-Motivation
2 1 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
2 1 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 2 (4.55%) Mac OS
1 2 (4.55%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (34.09%) Test Automation
2 11 (25.00%) Validation
3 10 (22.73%) Software Testing
4 8 (18.18%) Problem-Solving
5 6 (13.64%) Continuous Improvement
6 5 (11.36%) DevOps
6 5 (11.36%) End-to-End Testing
6 5 (11.36%) Non-Functional Testing
6 5 (11.36%) Software Engineering
6 5 (11.36%) System Testing
7 4 (9.09%) Digital Transformation Programme
7 4 (9.09%) ETL
7 4 (9.09%) Integration Testing
7 4 (9.09%) Performance Improvement
7 4 (9.09%) Test Scripting
7 4 (9.09%) Test Strategy
8 3 (6.82%) Microservices
8 3 (6.82%) Regression Testing
8 3 (6.82%) Scenario Testing
8 3 (6.82%) SDET
Programming Languages
1 6 (13.64%) SQL
2 4 (9.09%) Java
3 3 (6.82%) Python
4 2 (4.55%) MATLAB
5 1 (2.27%) C#
5 1 (2.27%) Kotlin
5 1 (2.27%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 9 (20.45%) Security Cleared
2 4 (9.09%) SC Cleared
3 3 (6.82%) Degree
4 2 (4.55%) Azure Certification
4 2 (4.55%) ISTQB
5 1 (2.27%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (6.82%) QA
2 1 (2.27%) Accessibility
2 1 (2.27%) Data Quality
System Software
1 3 (6.82%) Docker
2 2 (4.55%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 2 (4.55%) Single Sign-On
2 1 (2.27%) Grafana
2 1 (2.27%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 4 (9.09%) Oracle
2 3 (6.82%) Informatica
3 2 (4.55%) Citrix
3 2 (4.55%) Dynatrace
3 2 (4.55%) Zscaler
4 1 (2.27%) Foundry
4 1 (2.27%) Palantir
4 1 (2.27%) Splunk