ISTQB Foundation Certification Job Trends in England

ISTQB-BCS Certified Tester Foundation Level (CTFL) formerly ISEB Foundation
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies advertised in England with a requirement for ISTQB Foundation Certification qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months leading up to 13 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 569 649 643
Rank change year-on-year +80 -6 +179
Permanent jobs citing ISTQB Foundation Certification 36 27 41
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.069% 0.056% 0.083%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.21% 0.15% 0.28%
Number of salaries quoted 30 9 27
10th Percentile £33,750 £35,250 £32,750
25th Percentile £38,125 £38,233 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £46,250 £49,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.61% -2.00% +17.65%
75th Percentile £70,000 £63,750 £57,500
90th Percentile £76,375 £87,500 -
UK median annual salary £47,517 £48,250 £50,000
% change year-on-year -1.52% -3.50% +14.29%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
England

ISTQB Foundation Certification falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications in England.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 17,270 17,948 14,656
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 32.86% 37.41% 29.57%
Number of salaries quoted 6,996 7,018 9,980
10th Percentile £28,250 £32,500 £29,500
25th Percentile £36,250 £45,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -
75th Percentile £75,900 £77,500 £75,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £93,750 £93,750
UK median annual salary £55,000 £59,500 £57,500
% change year-on-year -7.56% +3.48% -

ISTQB Foundation Certification
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing ISTQB Foundation Certification relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in England.

ISTQB Foundation Certification job vacancy trend in England

ISTQB Foundation Certification
Salary Trend in England

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing ISTQB Foundation Certification.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing ISTQB Foundation Certification

ISTQB Foundation Certification
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing ISTQB Foundation Certification in England over the 6 months to 13 January 2026.

Salary histogram for ISTQB Foundation Certification in England

ISTQB Foundation Certification
Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing ISTQB Foundation Certification within the England region over the 6 months to 13 January 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London +63 11 £60,000 -12.73% 4
South West +19 11 £37,500 -23.47% 2
South East +27 7 £45,000 +38.46% 4
Midlands +29 5 £40,000 -5.88% 1
West Midlands +27 5 £40,000 -5.88% 1
East of England +22 1 £70,000 -
ISTQB Foundation Certification
UK

ISTQB Foundation Certification
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 1 (2.78%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (2.78%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (5.56%) Workday HCM
2 1 (2.78%) Elite 3E
2 1 (2.78%) Maximo
2 1 (2.78%) Postilion
Cloud Services
1 17 (47.22%) Azure
2 12 (33.33%) Azure DevOps
3 4 (11.11%) AWS
4 3 (8.33%) GCP
5 2 (5.56%) AWS CloudFormation
5 2 (5.56%) Azure Pipelines
5 2 (5.56%) SuccessFactors
6 1 (2.78%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.78%) ATM
1 1 (2.78%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (27.78%) Relational Database
2 1 (2.78%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 14 (38.89%) JIRA
2 12 (33.33%) Selenium
3 6 (16.67%) SpecFlow
4 4 (11.11%) Cypress.io
4 4 (11.11%) GitLab
4 4 (11.11%) Jenkins
4 4 (11.11%) TestRail
5 3 (8.33%) Gatling
5 3 (8.33%) Git
5 3 (8.33%) LoadRunner
5 3 (8.33%) Postman
5 3 (8.33%) Zephyr
6 2 (5.56%) CircleCI
6 2 (5.56%) Locust
6 2 (5.56%) Rational DOORS
6 2 (5.56%) REST Assured
6 2 (5.56%) Robot Framework
7 1 (2.78%) Katalon Studio
7 1 (2.78%) NeoLoad
7 1 (2.78%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 13 (36.11%) Social Skills
2 9 (25.00%) Analytical Skills
2 9 (25.00%) Finance
3 3 (8.33%) Back Office
3 3 (8.33%) Banking
4 2 (5.56%) Aerospace
5 1 (2.78%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (2.78%) Law
5 1 (2.78%) Legal
5 1 (2.78%) Organisational Skills
5 1 (2.78%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 12 (33.33%) Analyst
2 10 (27.78%) Test Analyst
2 10 (27.78%) Tester
3 6 (16.67%) Manual Tester
3 6 (16.67%) QA Analyst
4 5 (13.89%) Test Engineer
5 4 (11.11%) Automation Test Analyst
5 4 (11.11%) Lead
5 4 (11.11%) QA Engineer
5 4 (11.11%) QA Test Analyst
6 3 (8.33%) Banking Analyst
6 3 (8.33%) Financial Analyst
6 3 (8.33%) Quality Analyst
6 3 (8.33%) Senior
6 3 (8.33%) Software Tester
7 2 (5.56%) Automation Test Lead
7 2 (5.56%) Lead Test Engineer
7 2 (5.56%) Senior Test Engineer
7 2 (5.56%) Test Automation Engineer
7 2 (5.56%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (25.00%) .NET
2 6 (16.67%) Playwright
3 4 (11.11%) Gherkin
4 3 (8.33%) CSS
4 3 (8.33%) FIX Protocol
4 3 (8.33%) HTML
4 3 (8.33%) React
4 3 (8.33%) XML
5 2 (5.56%) Elastic Stack
5 2 (5.56%) GraphQL
5 2 (5.56%) REST
5 2 (5.56%) RESTful
6 1 (2.78%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 4 (11.11%) Product Ownership
2 3 (8.33%) Derivative
2 3 (8.33%) Equities
2 3 (8.33%) Fixed Income
2 3 (8.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 2 (5.56%) Self-Motivation
3 2 (5.56%) Virtual Team
4 1 (2.78%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (2.78%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 4 (11.11%) Windows
2 3 (8.33%) Linux
3 1 (2.78%) Windows Server
3 1 (2.78%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (66.67%) Test Automation
2 23 (63.89%) Software Testing
3 20 (55.56%) Agile
3 20 (55.56%) Manual Testing
4 18 (50.00%) DevOps
5 16 (44.44%) Regression Testing
6 12 (33.33%) Test Strategy
7 11 (30.56%) API Testing
8 10 (27.78%) Scrum
8 10 (27.78%) Test Scripting
9 9 (25.00%) Kanban
9 9 (25.00%) Test Management
10 8 (22.22%) BDD
10 8 (22.22%) End-to-End Testing
10 8 (22.22%) User Acceptance Testing
11 7 (19.44%) CI/CD
11 7 (19.44%) Problem-Solving
12 6 (16.67%) Continuous Improvement
12 6 (16.67%) SDLC
12 6 (16.67%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 18 (50.00%) SQL
2 7 (19.44%) Java
2 7 (19.44%) Python
3 6 (16.67%) C#
3 6 (16.67%) TypeScript
4 5 (13.89%) JavaScript
5 2 (5.56%) Bash
Qualifications
1 35 (97.22%) ISTQB
2 10 (27.78%) ISEB
3 6 (16.67%) DV Cleared
3 6 (16.67%) Security Cleared
4 5 (13.89%) Degree
5 3 (8.33%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
6 1 (2.78%) AWS Certification
6 1 (2.78%) Azure Certification
6 1 (2.78%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (41.67%) QA
2 2 (5.56%) Accessibility
System Software
1 4 (11.11%) Docker
2 1 (2.78%) Active Directory
2 1 (2.78%) Terminal Server
2 1 (2.78%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 4 (11.11%) Kubernetes
1 4 (11.11%) Terraform
2 2 (5.56%) Grafana
2 2 (5.56%) HP Quality Center
2 2 (5.56%) Nessus
2 2 (5.56%) Prometheus
3 1 (2.78%) HP ALM
3 1 (2.78%) SCCM
3 1 (2.78%) SCOM
Vendors
1 2 (5.56%) Guidewire
1 2 (5.56%) Oracle
1 2 (5.56%) Salesforce
1 2 (5.56%) Workday
2 1 (2.78%) AppDynamics
2 1 (2.78%) Cisco
2 1 (2.78%) Dynatrace
2 1 (2.78%) HP
2 1 (2.78%) IBM
2 1 (2.78%) iManage
2 1 (2.78%) Juniper
2 1 (2.78%) McAfee
2 1 (2.78%) Microsoft
2 1 (2.78%) NCR
2 1 (2.78%) SAP
2 1 (2.78%) Sitecore
2 1 (2.78%) VMware