International Software Testing Qualification Board (ISTQB)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies with a requirement for ISTQB qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months leading up to 17 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 463 731 610
Rank change year-on-year +268 -121 -48
Permanent jobs citing ISTQB 276 168 383
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.49% 0.17% 0.38%
As % of the Qualifications category 1.00% 0.61% 1.17%
Number of salaries quoted 124 125 233
10th Percentile £32,000 £31,750 £33,750
25th Percentile £38,049 £36,250 £39,166
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,750 £42,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +24.12% -10.53% +5.56%
75th Percentile £67,500 £53,250 £56,000
90th Percentile £71,250 £67,500 £67,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £40,000 £44,750
% change year-on-year +18.75% -10.61% +2.87%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

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.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 27,682 27,465 32,787
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 49.59% 27.55% 32.92%
Number of salaries quoted 11,447 17,245 14,744
10th Percentile £32,500 £28,500 £31,350
25th Percentile £44,000 £38,500 £41,875
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £54,000 £59,563
Median % change year-on-year +1.85% -9.34% +8.30%
75th Percentile £68,750 £71,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £83,750 £87,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,000 £50,000 £52,000
% change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +4.00%

ISTQB
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing ISTQB as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for ISTQB in the UK

ISTQB
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing ISTQB.

Salary trend for ISTQB in the UK

ISTQB
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing ISTQB over the 6 months to 17 May 2025.

Salary histogram for ISTQB in the UK

ISTQB
Top 15 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing ISTQB within the UK over the 6 months to 17 May 2025. 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
England +241 271 £52,500 +23.53% 109
UK excluding London +253 228 £47,500 +18.75% 85
Midlands +178 162 £67,500 +36.84% 12
West Midlands +149 114 £67,500 +6.64% 9
East Midlands +56 48 £33,500 -8.22% 3
London +132 44 £61,250 +16.67% 30
Work from Home +104 44 £53,000 +24.71% 55
South East +62 27 £47,500 +11.76% 30
South West +103 18 £35,000 -9.68% 16
East of England +49 10 £53,000 +32.50% 12
North of England +28 6 £55,000 +29.41% 16
North West -1 5 £55,000 +46.67% 12
Wales +41 4 £68,500 +5.38% 1
Scotland +111 1 £55,000 +54.93% 1
Yorkshire +48 1 £29,750 -43.33% 4

ISTQB
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 5 (1.81%) Confluence
2 4 (1.45%) Apache Spark
2 4 (1.45%) Cloud Foundry
3 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.36%) Moodle
3 1 (0.36%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.36%) Totara
Applications
1 4 (1.45%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (1.09%) Elite 3E
2 2 (0.72%) Magento
3 1 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
3 1 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.36%) Oracle Financials
Cloud Services
1 44 (15.94%) Azure
2 22 (7.97%) Azure DevOps
3 21 (7.61%) AWS
4 14 (5.07%) GCP
5 11 (3.99%) Power Platform
6 9 (3.26%) SaaS
7 7 (2.54%) GitHub
8 6 (2.17%) Dynamics 365
9 4 (1.45%) Azure Data Factory
9 4 (1.45%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 3 (1.09%) Azure Logic Apps
10 3 (1.09%) Power Automate
10 3 (1.09%) PowerApps
10 3 (1.09%) Serverless
11 2 (0.72%) Amazon EC2
11 2 (0.72%) Amazon S3
11 2 (0.72%) Amazon SQS
11 2 (0.72%) AWS CloudTrail
11 2 (0.72%) AWS Lambda
11 2 (0.72%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 9 (3.26%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.17%) NoSQL
1 6 (2.17%) Power BI
2 5 (1.81%) MySQL
3 4 (1.45%) Big Data
3 4 (1.45%) Delta Lake
3 4 (1.45%) SQL Server
4 3 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (1.09%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.36%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 80 (28.99%) Selenium
2 60 (21.74%) JIRA
3 31 (11.23%) Postman
4 29 (10.51%) JMeter
5 17 (6.16%) Cypress.io
6 14 (5.07%) Appium
7 12 (4.35%) JUnit
8 11 (3.99%) Jenkins
8 11 (3.99%) LoadRunner
9 10 (3.62%) Git
9 10 (3.62%) TestRail
10 9 (3.26%) Gatling
11 8 (2.90%) REST Assured
11 8 (2.90%) SoapUI
11 8 (2.90%) TestNG
12 7 (2.54%) Locust
13 6 (2.17%) Robot Framework
14 5 (1.81%) Burp Suite
14 5 (1.81%) SpecFlow
15 4 (1.45%) Zephyr
General
1 41 (14.86%) Social Skills
2 33 (11.96%) Analytical Skills
3 16 (5.80%) Legal
4 13 (4.71%) Law
5 12 (4.35%) Finance
6 8 (2.90%) Cantonese Language
6 8 (2.90%) Mandarin Language
6 8 (2.90%) Public Sector
7 5 (1.81%) Organisational Skills
8 4 (1.45%) Financial Institution
9 3 (1.09%) Manufacturing
9 3 (1.09%) Retail
10 2 (0.72%) Banking
10 2 (0.72%) Investment Banking
11 1 (0.36%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.36%) Games
11 1 (0.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.36%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 149 (53.99%) Validation Engineer
2 133 (48.19%) Integration Engineer
3 132 (47.83%) Principal Engineer
4 131 (47.46%) Principal Systems Engineer
4 131 (47.46%) System Verification Engineer
4 131 (47.46%) Systems Integration Engineer
5 46 (16.67%) Analyst
6 40 (14.49%) Test Analyst
7 34 (12.32%) Senior
8 29 (10.51%) Test Engineer
9 25 (9.06%) Lead
9 25 (9.06%) QA Engineer
10 22 (7.97%) Senior Analyst
11 20 (7.25%) Automation Engineer
12 19 (6.88%) Tester
13 18 (6.52%) Senior Test Analyst
14 10 (3.62%) QA Analyst
14 10 (3.62%) Senior QA Engineer
14 10 (3.62%) Software Test Engineer
15 8 (2.90%) QA Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (3.62%) REST
2 8 (2.90%) Playwright
3 6 (2.17%) Web Services
4 5 (1.81%) React
4 5 (1.81%) YAML
5 4 (1.45%) Gherkin
5 4 (1.45%) pytest
6 3 (1.09%) CSS
6 3 (1.09%) HTML
6 3 (1.09%) Jest
6 3 (1.09%) JWT
6 3 (1.09%) Middleware
6 3 (1.09%) Node.js
6 3 (1.09%) OAuth
6 3 (1.09%) Swagger
6 3 (1.09%) WebdriverIO
7 2 (0.72%) .NET
7 2 (0.72%) ADO
7 2 (0.72%) boto
7 2 (0.72%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (6.52%) Operational Technology
1 18 (6.52%) SCADA
2 10 (3.62%) Product Ownership
3 3 (1.09%) Virtual Team
4 2 (0.72%) Biopharmaceutical
4 2 (0.72%) Driving Licence
4 2 (0.72%) Hybrid Cloud
4 2 (0.72%) Legacy Systems
4 2 (0.72%) Low-Code
4 2 (0.72%) Mobile App
4 2 (0.72%) Reinsurance
4 2 (0.72%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (0.36%) Blog
5 1 (0.36%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (0.36%) Digital Media
5 1 (0.36%) Distributed Architecture
5 1 (0.36%) EPoS
5 1 (0.36%) Management Information System
5 1 (0.36%) NHS
5 1 (0.36%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 11 (3.99%) Linux
2 8 (2.90%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 160 (57.97%) Validation
2 132 (47.83%) Systems Engineering
3 131 (47.46%) Verification and Validation
4 115 (41.67%) Test Automation
5 83 (30.07%) Agile
6 71 (25.72%) Software Testing
7 70 (25.36%) Manual Testing
8 40 (14.49%) Test Scripting
9 37 (13.41%) CI/CD
10 35 (12.68%) DevOps
11 32 (11.59%) Problem-Solving
12 31 (11.23%) Security Testing
13 28 (10.14%) Scrum
14 26 (9.42%) Mentoring
15 25 (9.06%) User Acceptance Testing
16 24 (8.70%) Regression Testing
17 23 (8.33%) Performance Testing
17 23 (8.33%) Test Strategy
18 22 (7.97%) Computer Science
18 22 (7.97%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 36 (13.04%) SQL
2 35 (12.68%) Python
3 30 (10.87%) JavaScript
4 21 (7.61%) Java
5 9 (3.26%) C#
6 7 (2.54%) TypeScript
7 4 (1.45%) Scala
8 1 (0.36%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 171 (61.96%) Degree
2 135 (48.91%) BPSS Clearance
3 131 (47.46%) Chartered Engineer
4 31 (11.23%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 23 (8.33%) Security Cleared
6 21 (7.61%) SC Cleared
7 13 (4.71%) ISEB
8 5 (1.81%) Azure Certification
9 4 (1.45%) Master's Degree
9 4 (1.45%) PMI Certification
9 4 (1.45%) PMP
10 3 (1.09%) CISSP
10 3 (1.09%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (0.72%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 1 (0.36%) AWS Certification
12 1 (0.36%) CSQA
12 1 (0.36%) DBS Check
12 1 (0.36%) DV Cleared
12 1 (0.36%) ISEB Practitioner
12 1 (0.36%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 78 (28.26%) QA
2 7 (2.54%) Accessibility
3 4 (1.45%) GDPR
4 3 (1.09%) Software Quality Assurance
5 2 (0.72%) GxP
6 1 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.36%) NCSC
System Software
1 7 (2.54%) Docker
Systems Management
1 8 (2.90%) Kubernetes
2 5 (1.81%) HP Quality Center
3 4 (1.45%) Terraform
4 1 (0.36%) Nessus
Vendors
1 19 (6.88%) Microsoft
2 6 (2.17%) Oracle
3 4 (1.45%) Databricks
4 3 (1.09%) SAP
5 2 (0.72%) Splunk
6 1 (0.36%) Atlassian
6 1 (0.36%) Cognos
6 1 (0.36%) Concur
6 1 (0.36%) Google
6 1 (0.36%) Reuters
6 1 (0.36%) Sitecore
6 1 (0.36%) Spotify