SDET Contracts with Hybrid/Remote/WFH Options

Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET)
UK > Work from Home

The table below provides summary statistics for remote or hybrid contract work requiring SDET skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited SDET over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 287 309 434
Rank change year-on-year +22 +125 +5
Contract jobs citing SDET 17 36 43
As % of all contract jobs with a WFH option 0.17% 0.23% 0.17%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.19% 0.27% 0.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 25 33
10th Percentile £366 £381 £402
25th Percentile £380 £413 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% -10.00% -
75th Percentile £447 £500 £550
90th Percentile £575 £588 £650
UK median daily rate £431 £500 £550
% change year-on-year -13.75% -9.09% +10.00%

All Process and Methodology Skills
Work from Home

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

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 9,021 13,483 23,229
As % of all contract jobs with a WFH option 91.08% 87.87% 89.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,191 8,996 16,418
10th Percentile £340 £325 £363
25th Percentile £419 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year - -2.78% +2.86%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £763 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 224 579 532
10th Percentile £14.20 £15.17 £19.00
25th Percentile £19.56 £25.25 £30.54
Median hourly rate £39.52 £43.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.09% -21.82% +57.14%
75th Percentile £66.13 £60.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.25 £80.23
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
% change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%

SDET
Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

Job vacancies with remote working options citing SDET as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

SDET trend for jobs with Hybrid/Remote/WFH options

SDET
Daily Rate Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in job vacancies with remote working options citing SDET.

SDET daily rate for jobs with a WFH option

SDET
Daily Rate Histogram for Jobs with a WFH Option

Daily rate distribution for jobs with remote working options citing SDET over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

SDET daily rate histogram for jobs with a WFH option

SDET
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities with WFH Options 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 2 (11.76%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 8 (47.06%) Azure
2 5 (29.41%) AWS
2 5 (29.41%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (5.88%) GitHub
Development Applications
1 10 (58.82%) Jenkins
2 9 (52.94%) Selenium
3 6 (35.29%) GitLab
3 6 (35.29%) JIRA
3 6 (35.29%) SpecFlow
4 5 (29.41%) Appium
4 5 (29.41%) REST Assured
5 4 (23.53%) CircleCI
5 4 (23.53%) Gatling
5 4 (23.53%) Git
5 4 (23.53%) JMeter
5 4 (23.53%) NeoLoad
5 4 (23.53%) Postman
6 3 (17.65%) Cucumber
6 3 (17.65%) Cypress.io
7 2 (11.76%) SoapUI
8 1 (5.88%) Serenity BDD
8 1 (5.88%) TestComplete
8 1 (5.88%) Zephyr
General
1 8 (47.06%) Social Skills
2 6 (35.29%) Public Sector
3 2 (11.76%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (5.88%) Banking
4 1 (5.88%) Finance
4 1 (5.88%) Retail
Job Titles
1 8 (47.06%) Test Engineer
2 6 (35.29%) Developer
2 6 (35.29%) Developer in Test
2 6 (35.29%) Software Developer
3 4 (23.53%) Software Test Engineer
4 3 (17.65%) Senior
4 3 (17.65%) Senior Test Engineer
5 1 (5.88%) Automation Engineer
5 1 (5.88%) Automation Tester
5 1 (5.88%) Implementation Engineer
5 1 (5.88%) QA Engineer
5 1 (5.88%) Senior Implementation Engineer
5 1 (5.88%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (58.82%) Playwright
2 4 (23.53%) Play Framework
2 4 (23.53%) REST
3 1 (5.88%) .NET
3 1 (5.88%) Gherkin
3 1 (5.88%) Node.js
3 1 (5.88%) Pandas
3 1 (5.88%) pytest
3 1 (5.88%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 1 (5.88%) Data Protection Act
1 1 (5.88%) Virtual Team
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (94.12%) Test Automation
2 14 (82.35%) CI/CD
3 9 (52.94%) Agile
3 9 (52.94%) Software Testing
4 7 (41.18%) API Testing
4 7 (41.18%) Scrum
4 7 (41.18%) Test Scripting
5 6 (35.29%) Problem-Solving
6 5 (29.41%) DevOps
6 5 (29.41%) Integration Testing
7 4 (23.53%) Defect Management
7 4 (23.53%) Kanban
7 4 (23.53%) Logistics
7 4 (23.53%) Performance Testing
7 4 (23.53%) Stakeholder Management
7 4 (23.53%) Test Strategy
8 3 (17.65%) BDD
8 3 (17.65%) Performance Monitoring
9 2 (11.76%) Case Management
9 2 (11.76%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 10 (58.82%) Java
2 7 (41.18%) TypeScript
3 6 (35.29%) JavaScript
4 5 (29.41%) C#
4 5 (29.41%) Python
5 4 (23.53%) C++
5 4 (23.53%) PHP
5 4 (23.53%) Ruby
5 4 (23.53%) Scala
Qualifications
1 9 (52.94%) Security Cleared
2 8 (47.06%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (64.71%) QA
2 2 (11.76%) Accessibility
System Software
1 2 (11.76%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (11.76%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 1 (5.88%) Microsoft