ISTQB Job Trends in the UK excluding London

International Software Testing Qualification Board (ISTQB)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London with a requirement for ISTQB qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months leading up to 12 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 508 435 595
Rank change year-on-year -73 +160 -118
Permanent jobs citing ISTQB 73 106 134
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.11% 0.37% 0.19%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.47% 0.86% 0.73%
Number of salaries quoted 65 85 102
10th Percentile £32,750 £31,750 £32,500
25th Percentile £33,750 £36,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £47,500 £40,000
Median % change year-on-year - +18.75% -9.60%
75th Percentile £55,000 £67,500 £51,709
90th Percentile £65,000 £71,250 £64,705
UK median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £42,500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +23.53% -10.53%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK excluding London

ISTQB 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 the UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 15,659 12,358 18,237
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 23.93% 43.00% 26.52%
Number of salaries quoted 5,987 5,259 12,170
10th Percentile £28,250 £29,000 £27,000
25th Percentile £37,000 £37,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £53,500 £52,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.88% +4.00% -2.63%
75th Percentile £70,000 £66,268 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £78,750 £78,775
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £54,296
% change year-on-year +9.09% +1.30% -8.79%

ISTQB
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing ISTQB relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

ISTQB job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

ISTQB
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing ISTQB.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing ISTQB

ISTQB
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing ISTQB in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 12 May 2026.

Salary histogram for ISTQB in the UK excluding London

ISTQB
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing ISTQB within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 12 May 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
South East -9 30 £44,375 -6.58% 11
South West -38 25 £50,000 +42.86% 12
North of England -31 9 £50,000 -9.09% 4
West Midlands -53 6 £73,000 +8.15% 3
Midlands -65 6 £73,000 +8.15% 4
North West -5 5 £65,000 +18.18% 3
East of England -20 2 £47,500 -10.38% 3
Yorkshire -52 2 £50,000 +68.07%
North East - 2 - - 1
Wales -30 1 £52,000 -24.09%
ISTQB
UK

ISTQB
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 (1.37%) CMS
1 1 (1.37%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 1 (1.37%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 21 (28.77%) Azure
2 14 (19.18%) Azure DevOps
3 3 (4.11%) AWS
3 3 (4.11%) GCP
4 2 (2.74%) Azure Pipelines
4 2 (2.74%) BrowserStack
4 2 (2.74%) GitHub
5 1 (1.37%) Amazon EC2
5 1 (1.37%) Amazon EKS
5 1 (1.37%) Amazon S3
5 1 (1.37%) AWS CloudTrail
5 1 (1.37%) AWS Fargate
5 1 (1.37%) AWS Lambda
5 1 (1.37%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 3 (4.11%) Cisco ISE
2 2 (2.74%) HTTP
3 1 (1.37%) IPv4
3 1 (1.37%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (12.33%) Oracle Database
2 4 (5.48%) SQL Server
3 3 (4.11%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 34 (46.58%) JIRA
2 22 (30.14%) Selenium
3 19 (26.03%) Postman
3 19 (26.03%) Team Foundation Server
4 16 (21.92%) SoapUI
4 16 (21.92%) WebDriver
5 8 (10.96%) Git
6 7 (9.59%) Cypress.io
7 6 (8.22%) GitLab
7 6 (8.22%) Jenkins
7 6 (8.22%) Zephyr
8 3 (4.11%) Ranorex
8 3 (4.11%) REST Assured
8 3 (4.11%) Subversion
9 2 (2.74%) Gatling
9 2 (2.74%) JMeter
9 2 (2.74%) JUnit
9 2 (2.74%) TestRail
10 1 (1.37%) CircleCI
10 1 (1.37%) Locust
General
1 28 (38.36%) Social Skills
2 21 (28.77%) Finance
3 10 (13.70%) Manufacturing
4 8 (10.96%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (8.22%) Retail
6 5 (6.85%) Banking
7 3 (4.11%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (1.37%) Advertising
8 1 (1.37%) Aerospace
8 1 (1.37%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 19 (26.03%) Analyst
1 19 (26.03%) Lead
2 18 (24.66%) Test Analyst
3 15 (20.55%) Tester
4 11 (15.07%) QA Engineer
5 9 (12.33%) Senior
5 9 (12.33%) Test Leader
6 8 (10.96%) Software Tester
7 7 (9.59%) Test Engineer
8 4 (5.48%) Automation Engineer
8 4 (5.48%) QA Automation Engineer
8 4 (5.48%) Software Analyst
8 4 (5.48%) Software Test Analyst
9 3 (4.11%) Automation Tester
9 3 (4.11%) DV Cleared Test Analyst
9 3 (4.11%) Lead Test Analyst
9 3 (4.11%) Manual Tester
9 3 (4.11%) Senior Test Analyst
9 3 (4.11%) Senior Tester
9 3 (4.11%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (24.66%) .NET
1 18 (24.66%) HTML
2 16 (21.92%) SOAP
3 11 (15.07%) Playwright
4 4 (5.48%) XML
5 3 (4.11%) XSL
6 2 (2.74%) CSS
6 2 (2.74%) RESTful
7 1 (1.37%) boto
7 1 (1.37%) Gherkin
7 1 (1.37%) pytest
7 1 (1.37%) REST
7 1 (1.37%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 9 (12.33%) Product Ownership
2 7 (9.59%) Hybrid Cloud
3 5 (6.85%) Mobile App
4 4 (5.48%) Analytical Mindset
5 3 (4.11%) Client/Server
6 2 (2.74%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (1.37%) Embedded Systems
7 1 (1.37%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (1.37%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 9 (12.33%) Windows
2 4 (5.48%) Windows Server
3 3 (4.11%) Windows Server 2019
4 2 (2.74%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 55 (75.34%) Agile
2 52 (71.23%) Software Testing
3 43 (58.90%) Test Automation
4 32 (43.84%) Test Management
4 32 (43.84%) Test Scripting
5 29 (39.73%) Continuous Improvement
5 29 (39.73%) DevOps
5 29 (39.73%) Test Strategy
6 28 (38.36%) CI/CD
6 28 (38.36%) Scrum
7 27 (36.99%) Non-Functional Testing
8 26 (35.62%) API Testing
9 21 (28.77%) Manual Testing
10 19 (26.03%) Mentoring
11 17 (23.29%) Logistics
12 16 (21.92%) Cross-Browser Testing
13 15 (20.55%) Computer Science
13 15 (20.55%) Regression Testing
14 13 (17.81%) SDLC
14 13 (17.81%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 30 (41.10%) SQL
2 27 (36.99%) C#
3 20 (27.40%) Java
4 7 (9.59%) JavaScript
4 7 (9.59%) TypeScript
5 6 (8.22%) Clojure
6 4 (5.48%) Python
7 1 (1.37%) Bash
7 1 (1.37%) C
7 1 (1.37%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 33 (45.21%) Degree
2 19 (26.03%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
3 16 (21.92%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 10 (13.70%) Computer Science Degree
5 7 (9.59%) ISEB
6 6 (8.22%) DV Cleared
6 6 (8.22%) Security Cleared
7 5 (6.85%) Master's Degree
8 4 (5.48%) SC Cleared
9 2 (2.74%) CSQA
10 1 (1.37%) AWS Certification
10 1 (1.37%) CCNA
10 1 (1.37%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (1.37%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (1.37%) OSCP
10 1 (1.37%) RHCE
10 1 (1.37%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (36.99%) QA
2 3 (4.11%) Accessibility
2 3 (4.11%) GDPR
2 3 (4.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (2.74%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (2.74%) PCI DSS
4 1 (1.37%) Software Quality Assurance
4 1 (1.37%) WCAG
System Software
1 5 (6.85%) Docker
2 4 (5.48%) Active Directory
2 4 (5.48%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (4.11%) Terminal Server
4 1 (1.37%) Firmware
4 1 (1.37%) Squid
4 1 (1.37%) VMware NSX
4 1 (1.37%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 3 (4.11%) Kubernetes
1 3 (4.11%) SCCM
1 3 (4.11%) SCOM
1 3 (4.11%) Terraform
2 1 (1.37%) Ansible
2 1 (1.37%) Grafana
2 1 (1.37%) Packer
2 1 (1.37%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 10 (13.70%) Oracle
2 6 (8.22%) IFS
3 5 (6.85%) Microsoft
4 4 (5.48%) ServiceNow
4 4 (5.48%) VMware
5 3 (4.11%) Cisco
5 3 (4.11%) Juniper
5 3 (4.11%) McAfee
6 2 (2.74%) Guidewire
7 1 (1.37%) Red Hat
7 1 (1.37%) Splunk