Test Strategy Contracts

Test Strategy
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Test Strategy skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Test Strategy over the 6 months to 9 June 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
9 Jun 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 218 250 216
Rank change year-on-year +32 -34 -16
Contract jobs citing Test Strategy 481 601 1,183
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.11% 1.08% 1.35%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.30% 1.21% 1.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 285 431 801
10th Percentile £354 £374 £400
25th Percentile £413 £425 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% +10.53%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £613
90th Percentile £675 £713 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.47% -5.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 8 8
10th Percentile - £52.16 £16.78
25th Percentile £60.00 £60.04 £17.00
Median hourly rate £61.25 £62.55 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.08% +229.21% -57.78%
75th Percentile £72.50 £67.54 £22.38
90th Percentile - £84.75 £26.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £62.55 £19.00
% change year-on-year -4.08% +229.21% -57.78%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Test Strategy is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 36,914 49,809 79,437
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.21% 89.64% 90.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,592 34,469 55,846
10th Percentile £300 £325 £350
25th Percentile £413 £438 £435
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +2.33% +7.50%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £649
90th Percentile £750 £750 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £490
% change year-on-year - +2.04% +8.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,564 1,687 1,868
10th Percentile £12.75 £10.70 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.00 £15.75 £15.75
Median hourly rate £36.50 £35.80 £25.68
Median % change year-on-year +1.96% +39.41% +11.65%
75th Percentile £61.25 £65.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.12 £35.00 £20.51
% change year-on-year +8.91% +70.69% -2.36%

Test Strategy
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Test Strategy in the UK

Test Strategy
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Test Strategy.

Daily rate trend for Test Strategy in the UK

Test Strategy
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Strategy over the 6 months to 9 June 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Test Strategy in the UK

Test Strategy
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Test Strategy.

Hourly rate trend for Test Strategy in the UK

Test Strategy
Top 17 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Test Strategy within the UK over the 6 months to 9 June 2024. 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +33 416 £513 +2.50% 131
UK excluding London +7 221 £487 +2.47% 103
London +62 219 £525 -4.55% 40
Work from Home +36 184 £500 +7.53% 63
East of England +27 44 £513 -26.79% 13
Midlands +15 44 £360 -31.75% 14
South East -36 39 £525 +26.81% 17
North of England +1 37 £463 -11.90% 24
West Midlands 0 34 £358 -32.83% 11
South West +17 26 £531 +1.19% 15
Scotland +21 18 £550 +26.73% 12
North West +7 17 £450 -7.69% 17
Yorkshire -8 17 £534 -3.00% 3
Wales +28 11 £535 -10.83% 2
East Midlands +13 10 £422 -43.27% 3
North East +13 3 £408 +5.16% 4
Isle of Man - 2 - -

Test Strategy
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 9 (1.87%) Microsoft Exchange
2 8 (1.66%) SharePoint
3 7 (1.46%) Confluence
4 6 (1.25%) MTS
5 3 (0.62%) CMS
5 3 (0.62%) Headless CMS
6 2 (0.42%) Apache
6 2 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.21%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.21%) IIS
Applications
1 4 (0.83%) Microsoft Excel
1 4 (0.83%) Microsoft Project
2 3 (0.62%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.42%) Maya
3 2 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.21%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.21%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 6 (1.25%) Aligne
1 6 (1.25%) Endur
1 6 (1.25%) EuroRunner
1 6 (1.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (1.04%) Oracle Cash Management
2 5 (1.04%) Oracle Payables
2 5 (1.04%) Oracle Receivables
3 4 (0.83%) Oracle Assets
3 4 (0.83%) Oracle General Ledger
3 4 (0.83%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.42%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.42%) Oracle Financials
4 2 (0.42%) Oracle Payroll
5 1 (0.21%) Bloomberg AIM
5 1 (0.21%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.21%) SAP CO
5 1 (0.21%) SAP FI
5 1 (0.21%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 91 (18.92%) Azure
2 55 (11.43%) Azure DevOps
3 33 (6.86%) Dynamics 365
4 28 (5.82%) AWS
5 22 (4.57%) Power Platform
6 20 (4.16%) Azure API Management
7 16 (3.33%) Azure Logic Apps
8 7 (1.46%) Tricentis Tosca
9 6 (1.25%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 6 (1.25%) Azure Monitor
9 6 (1.25%) OCI
9 6 (1.25%) SaaS
10 5 (1.04%) GitHub
10 5 (1.04%) Microsoft 365
10 5 (1.04%) PowerApps
11 4 (0.83%) Azure Sentinel
11 4 (0.83%) BrowserStack
11 4 (0.83%) Entra ID
11 4 (0.83%) GCP
11 4 (0.83%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.25%) HTTP
2 3 (0.62%) Network Security
2 3 (0.62%) Reverse Proxy
3 2 (0.42%) Internet
3 2 (0.42%) SAN
4 1 (0.21%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (6.65%) MySQL
2 22 (4.57%) Amazon Redshift
3 20 (4.16%) Power BI
4 13 (2.70%) SQL Server
5 12 (2.49%) Data Warehouse
6 7 (1.46%) Data Lake
6 7 (1.46%) Oracle Reports
7 6 (1.25%) MongoDB
7 6 (1.25%) NoSQL
8 5 (1.04%) Big Data
8 5 (1.04%) DynamoDB
8 5 (1.04%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 4 (0.83%) DB2
9 4 (0.83%) SAP HANA
9 4 (0.83%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 4 (0.83%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 3 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
10 3 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
11 2 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
11 2 (0.42%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 57 (11.85%) Git
2 53 (11.02%) Selenium
3 43 (8.94%) Postman
4 38 (7.90%) JIRA
5 37 (7.69%) JMeter
6 30 (6.24%) LoadRunner
7 29 (6.03%) Cucumber
8 26 (5.41%) JUnit
9 23 (4.78%) WebDriver
10 18 (3.74%) SpecFlow
10 18 (3.74%) Visual Studio
11 17 (3.53%) Appium
12 15 (3.12%) REST Assured
13 13 (2.70%) Cypress.io
13 13 (2.70%) TestNG
14 12 (2.49%) Jenkins
15 11 (2.29%) Gatling
15 11 (2.29%) SoapUI
16 10 (2.08%) eggPlant
16 10 (2.08%) SOAtest
General
1 141 (29.31%) Social Skills
2 128 (26.61%) Finance
3 41 (8.52%) Manufacturing
4 39 (8.11%) Electronics
5 33 (6.86%) Analytical Skills
5 33 (6.86%) Public Sector
6 31 (6.44%) Aerospace
7 29 (6.03%) Banking
8 20 (4.16%) Presentation Skills
9 18 (3.74%) Back Office
10 15 (3.12%) Retail
11 14 (2.91%) Legal
12 12 (2.49%) Front Office
13 11 (2.29%) Marketing
14 8 (1.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 8 (1.66%) Investment Banking
14 8 (1.66%) Telecoms
15 6 (1.25%) Documentation Skills
15 6 (1.25%) Law
16 5 (1.04%) Corporate Banking
Job Titles
1 100 (20.79%) Lead
2 99 (20.58%) Test Manager
3 56 (11.64%) Analyst
4 54 (11.23%) Architect
5 53 (11.02%) Senior
6 49 (10.19%) Test Leader
7 37 (7.69%) Test Architect
8 35 (7.28%) Test Engineer
9 31 (6.44%) Test Analyst
10 28 (5.82%) Tester
11 19 (3.95%) Developer
12 18 (3.74%) Business Analyst
13 16 (3.33%) Senior Test Engineer
14 15 (3.12%) Consultant
15 14 (2.91%) Senior Analyst
16 13 (2.70%) Automation Tester
17 12 (2.49%) Test Automation Engineer
18 11 (2.29%) Senior Test Analyst
19 10 (2.08%) Performance Test Leader
19 10 (2.08%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (6.65%) .NET
2 27 (5.61%) XML
3 19 (3.95%) Web Services
4 16 (3.33%) Oracle Fusion
4 16 (3.33%) REST
5 15 (3.12%) Playwright
6 13 (2.70%) .NET Framework
7 12 (2.49%) AngularJS
8 11 (2.29%) Gherkin
9 10 (2.08%) GraphQL
9 10 (2.08%) React
10 8 (1.66%) Middleware
11 6 (1.25%) JSON
12 5 (1.04%) SOAP
12 5 (1.04%) Swagger
13 4 (0.83%) ActiveMQ
13 4 (0.83%) CSS
13 4 (0.83%) HTML
13 4 (0.83%) Kafka
14 3 (0.62%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 36 (7.48%) Analogue Electronics
2 23 (4.78%) Product Ownership
3 15 (3.12%) Mobile App
4 14 (2.91%) Management Information System
5 9 (1.87%) Life Science
6 8 (1.66%) Equities
6 8 (1.66%) Hedge funds
6 8 (1.66%) LIMS
7 7 (1.46%) Market Risk
7 7 (1.46%) Renewable Energy
8 6 (1.25%) NHS
8 6 (1.25%) Onboarding
8 6 (1.25%) Solar Panel
9 5 (1.04%) Algorithms
9 5 (1.04%) Greenfield Project
9 5 (1.04%) Public Cloud
9 5 (1.04%) Security Posture
10 4 (0.83%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (0.83%) Virtual Team
10 4 (0.83%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 28 (5.82%) Windows
2 17 (3.53%) Linux
3 13 (2.70%) Unix
4 8 (1.66%) Android
5 4 (0.83%) Mac OS X
6 3 (0.62%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.42%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 170 (35.34%) Agile
2 168 (34.93%) Test Automation
3 80 (16.63%) Software Testing
3 80 (16.63%) Stakeholder Management
4 75 (15.59%) DevOps
5 72 (14.97%) Test Management
5 72 (14.97%) User Acceptance Testing
6 69 (14.35%) CI/CD
7 66 (13.72%) Continuous Integration
8 65 (13.51%) Scrum
8 65 (13.51%) Test Scripting
9 64 (13.31%) Project Management
10 60 (12.47%) Performance Testing
11 51 (10.60%) Problem-Solving
12 50 (10.40%) Non-Functional Testing
13 49 (10.19%) Functional Testing
14 48 (9.98%) Scenario Testing
15 45 (9.36%) Continuous Improvement
15 45 (9.36%) Defect Management
15 45 (9.36%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 60 (12.47%) SQL
2 54 (11.23%) C#
3 53 (11.02%) Java
4 25 (5.20%) Python
5 19 (3.95%) TypeScript
6 18 (3.74%) JavaScript
7 6 (1.25%) Kotlin
7 6 (1.25%) PHP
7 6 (1.25%) Shell Script
7 6 (1.25%) T-SQL
7 6 (1.25%) VB
8 5 (1.04%) C++
9 4 (0.83%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 4 (0.83%) Groovy
9 4 (0.83%) Kusto Query Language
9 4 (0.83%) PL/SQL
9 4 (0.83%) Scala
10 3 (0.62%) C
10 3 (0.62%) PowerShell
11 2 (0.42%) VBA
Qualifications
1 103 (21.41%) Security Cleared
2 98 (20.37%) SC Cleared
3 45 (9.36%) Degree
4 39 (8.11%) ISTQB
5 16 (3.33%) Master's Degree
6 15 (3.12%) Computer Science Degree
7 13 (2.70%) ISEB
8 9 (1.87%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 7 (1.46%) ITIL Certification
10 5 (1.04%) BPSS Clearance
11 4 (0.83%) CISM
11 4 (0.83%) CISSP
11 4 (0.83%) CompTIA Security+
11 4 (0.83%) DV Cleared
11 4 (0.83%) PMI Certification
12 3 (0.62%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 3 (0.62%) PMP
13 2 (0.42%) ISEB Practitioner
14 1 (0.21%) PgMP
14 1 (0.21%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 119 (24.74%) QA
2 17 (3.53%) Accessibility
3 8 (1.66%) Data Quality
3 8 (1.66%) HL7
4 7 (1.46%) PCI DSS
5 6 (1.25%) PMO
6 4 (0.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.62%) Disclosure Scotland
7 3 (0.62%) WCAG
8 2 (0.42%) SLA
9 1 (0.21%) EMIR
9 1 (0.21%) GDPR
9 1 (0.21%) IFRS
9 1 (0.21%) MiFID
9 1 (0.21%) NIST
System Software
1 11 (2.29%) Docker
2 6 (1.25%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.62%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.62%) vSphere
4 1 (0.21%) Terminal Services
4 1 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 21 (4.37%) Grafana
2 5 (1.04%) HP Quality Center
2 5 (1.04%) Kubernetes
3 3 (0.62%) HP ALM
3 3 (0.62%) Kibana
4 1 (0.21%) Puppet
4 1 (0.21%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (0.21%) Terraform
4 1 (0.21%) vRealize
Vendors
1 59 (12.27%) Microsoft
2 37 (7.69%) Oracle
3 24 (4.99%) SAP
4 21 (4.37%) Denodo
4 21 (4.37%) Talend
5 11 (2.29%) ServiceNow
6 9 (1.87%) Splunk
7 8 (1.66%) VMware
8 7 (1.46%) HP
9 6 (1.25%) IBM
9 6 (1.25%) InterSystems
10 5 (1.04%) CA Agile Central
10 5 (1.04%) iManage
10 5 (1.04%) Intapp
10 5 (1.04%) OpenAI
11 4 (0.83%) Adobe
11 4 (0.83%) Google
11 4 (0.83%) Salesforce
12 3 (0.62%) AppDynamics
12 3 (0.62%) Qualtrics