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 6 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 444 457 438
Rank change year-on-year +13 -19 -16
Permanent jobs citing ISTQB 81 106 111
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.19% 0.29% 0.34%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.57% 0.77% 1.09%
Number of salaries quoted 64 62 80
10th Percentile £32,750 £31,750 £32,950
25th Percentile £33,750 £33,125 £37,875
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £47,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -10.53% - -
75th Percentile £48,750 £48,750 £53,750
90th Percentile £63,750 £67,425 £72,625
UK median annual salary £47,500 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -

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 14,112 13,812 10,141
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 33.53% 37.81% 31.38%
Number of salaries quoted 5,105 5,311 6,657
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £31,250 £42,062 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £48,122 £55,000 £51,716
Median % change year-on-year -12.51% +6.35% +3.43%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £81,250 £81,250 £77,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £59,430 £57,500
% change year-on-year -7.45% +3.36% -

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 6 January 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 6 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
South East +41 52 £42,500 -10.53% 27
South West +11 18 £37,500 +8.70% 19
West Midlands +11 6 £42,500 -22.73% 5
Midlands -2 6 £42,500 +6.25% 16
East of England +29 2 £60,000 +60.00% 13
North of England +4 2 £65,000 +52.94% 18
North West +16 1 £65,000 +62.50% 7
Scotland -2 1 - - 3
North East - 1 - - 2
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 (1.23%) CMS
Applications
1 7 (8.64%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.23%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (1.23%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 29 (35.80%) Azure
2 22 (27.16%) Azure DevOps
3 4 (4.94%) AWS
4 2 (2.47%) AWS CloudFormation
4 2 (2.47%) Azure Pipelines
4 2 (2.47%) Entra ID
4 2 (2.47%) GCP
5 1 (1.23%) GitHub
5 1 (1.23%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.47%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (8.64%) Relational Database
2 3 (3.70%) SQL Server
3 2 (2.47%) MongoDB
3 2 (2.47%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 43 (53.09%) JIRA
1 43 (53.09%) Selenium
2 36 (44.44%) Postman
3 33 (40.74%) Team Foundation Server
4 31 (38.27%) SoapUI
4 31 (38.27%) WebDriver
5 8 (9.88%) Cypress.io
6 7 (8.64%) Git
7 6 (7.41%) Jenkins
8 5 (6.17%) TestRail
9 4 (4.94%) GitLab
9 4 (4.94%) SpecFlow
10 3 (3.70%) Zephyr
11 2 (2.47%) CircleCI
11 2 (2.47%) Gatling
11 2 (2.47%) Locust
11 2 (2.47%) Ranorex
11 2 (2.47%) Rational DOORS
11 2 (2.47%) REST Assured
11 2 (2.47%) Robot Framework
General
1 31 (38.27%) Finance
2 29 (35.80%) Social Skills
3 7 (8.64%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (4.94%) Legal
5 2 (2.47%) Aerospace
5 2 (2.47%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (2.47%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (1.23%) Manufacturing
6 1 (1.23%) Retail
Job Titles
1 36 (44.44%) Analyst
2 34 (41.98%) Test Analyst
3 21 (25.93%) Tester
4 19 (23.46%) Senior
5 11 (13.58%) Lead
5 11 (13.58%) Senior Analyst
5 11 (13.58%) Senior Test Analyst
6 9 (11.11%) Test Engineer
7 6 (7.41%) Manual Tester
7 6 (7.41%) Software Tester
8 5 (6.17%) Automation Tester
8 5 (6.17%) Test Leader
8 5 (6.17%) Test Manager
9 4 (4.94%) Automation Test Analyst
9 4 (4.94%) Senior Test Engineer
9 4 (4.94%) Test Automation Engineer
10 3 (3.70%) Lead Test Analyst
10 3 (3.70%) QA Analyst
11 2 (2.47%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
11 2 (2.47%) Senior Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (43.21%) .NET
2 31 (38.27%) HTML
2 31 (38.27%) SOAP
3 9 (11.11%) Playwright
4 5 (6.17%) RESTful
5 4 (4.94%) Gherkin
5 4 (4.94%) XML
6 2 (2.47%) Elastic Stack
6 2 (2.47%) REST
6 2 (2.47%) XSL
Miscellaneous
1 12 (14.81%) Product Ownership
2 10 (12.35%) Self-Motivation
3 2 (2.47%) Client/Server
3 2 (2.47%) Enterprise Software
3 2 (2.47%) Mobile App
3 2 (2.47%) Virtual Team
4 1 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (1.23%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 11 (13.58%) Windows
2 2 (2.47%) Windows Server
2 2 (2.47%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 66 (81.48%) Software Testing
2 62 (76.54%) Agile
3 48 (59.26%) Scrum
4 46 (56.79%) API Testing
5 44 (54.32%) Test Scripting
6 42 (51.85%) Test Management
7 33 (40.74%) Non-Functional Testing
8 32 (39.51%) Mentoring
8 32 (39.51%) Test Automation
9 31 (38.27%) Cross-Browser Testing
10 29 (35.80%) DevOps
11 24 (29.63%) Logistics
12 23 (28.40%) Manual Testing
13 22 (27.16%) CI/CD
14 17 (20.99%) Test Strategy
15 14 (17.28%) Problem-Solving
15 14 (17.28%) Regression Testing
16 12 (14.81%) Code Quality
17 11 (13.58%) Continuous Improvement
18 7 (8.64%) Kanban
Programming Languages
1 55 (67.90%) SQL
2 44 (54.32%) C#
3 36 (44.44%) Java
4 8 (9.88%) JavaScript
5 7 (8.64%) TypeScript
6 5 (6.17%) Python
7 2 (2.47%) Bash
Qualifications
1 40 (49.38%) Degree
2 36 (44.44%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
3 23 (28.40%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 12 (14.81%) ISEB
5 8 (9.88%) Security Cleared
6 6 (7.41%) DV Cleared
7 5 (6.17%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (4.94%) SC Cleared
9 1 (1.23%) PMI Certification
9 1 (1.23%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (33.33%) QA
2 7 (8.64%) Software Quality Assurance
3 2 (2.47%) Accessibility
System Software
1 6 (7.41%) Docker
2 2 (2.47%) Active Directory
2 2 (2.47%) Terminal Server
2 2 (2.47%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 6 (7.41%) Kubernetes
2 4 (4.94%) Terraform
3 2 (2.47%) Grafana
3 2 (2.47%) HP Quality Center
3 2 (2.47%) Nessus
3 2 (2.47%) Prometheus
3 2 (2.47%) SCCM
3 2 (2.47%) SCOM
Vendors
1 8 (9.88%) Microsoft
2 2 (2.47%) Cisco
2 2 (2.47%) Guidewire
2 2 (2.47%) Juniper
2 2 (2.47%) McAfee
2 2 (2.47%) Oracle
2 2 (2.47%) ServiceNow
2 2 (2.47%) VMware
2 2 (2.47%) Workday
3 1 (1.23%) IBM