Tester Contracts

Tester
UK

The median Tester daily rate in the UK is £450 according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months to 7 June 2024.

The first table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics including a comparison to same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
7 Jun 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 320 282 290
Rank change year-on-year -38 +8 -29
Contract jobs requiring a Tester 297 517 818
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.68% 0.93% 0.93%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.74% 0.98% 0.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 211 378 610
10th Percentile £300 £325 £300
25th Percentile £360 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £490 £448
Median % change year-on-year -8.16% +9.50% +8.48%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £525
90th Percentile £688 £700 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £433 £410
% change year-on-year -1.73% +5.49% +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 2 22
10th Percentile £14.22 £55.80 £15.80
25th Percentile £20.18 £61.50 £16.25
Median hourly rate £30.15 £72.00 £18.50
Median % change year-on-year -58.13% +289.19% -58.89%
75th Percentile £40.09 £81.50 £40.50
90th Percentile £46.04 £86.60 £59.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £10.30 £54.00 £19.00
% change year-on-year -80.93% +184.21% -39.68%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

The following table is for comparison with the above and includes summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 40,368 52,724 84,133
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.87% 94.55% 95.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,997 36,785 59,307
10th Percentile £280 £313 £315
25th Percentile £408 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £540 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% +2.86% +7.14%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -2.50% +5.26% +9.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,898 1,484 1,963
10th Percentile £12.86 £14.25 £12.53
25th Percentile £16.30 £19.06 £15.90
Median hourly rate £37.50 £45.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +80.00% +15.00%
75th Percentile £61.60 £65.75 £49.50
90th Percentile £73.75 £76.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £42.50 £20.00
% change year-on-year -5.88% +112.50% +5.26%

Tester
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Tester in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Tester in the UK

Tester
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for Tester in the UK

Tester
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Tester over the 6 months to 7 June 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Tester in the UK

Tester
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for Tester in the UK

Tester
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Tester over the 6 months to 7 June 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Tester in the UK

Tester
Top 16 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Tester within the UK over the 6 months to 7 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 -41 256 £450 -10.00% 140
London +3 151 £471 -14.32% 30
UK excluding London -32 111 £425 -1.73% 110
Work from Home +27 95 £450 - 44
North of England -19 37 £475 +11.76% 34
South East -7 26 £210 -50.00% 14
Yorkshire +7 25 £493 +6.49% 11
South West +5 20 £550 +22.22% 24
Midlands +8 12 £350 -17.65% 12
East Midlands +8 10 £350 -7.89% 3
North West 0 9 £400 +6.67% 22
Scotland +35 8 £375 -12.38% 11
Northern Ireland +4 6 £613 - 1
North East -4 3 £600 +32.60% 1
West Midlands +2 2 £345 -34.29% 9
Wales - 2 £536 - 5

Tester Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 7 June 2024, Tester contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Tester in the job title.

1 176 (59.26%) Test Automation
2 105 (35.35%) Agile
3 73 (24.58%) Java
4 69 (23.23%) QA
5 62 (20.88%) Selenium
6 60 (20.20%) Security Cleared
6 60 (20.20%) Social Skills
7 52 (17.51%) Python
8 51 (17.17%) Software Testing
9 49 (16.50%) JavaScript
10 48 (16.16%) Test Scripting
11 47 (15.82%) SQL
12 45 (15.15%) CI/CD
13 44 (14.81%) JIRA
13 44 (14.81%) Scenario Testing
14 43 (14.48%) Azure
15 42 (14.14%) C#
16 41 (13.80%) Scrum
16 41 (13.80%) DevOps
17 39 (13.13%) Performance Testing
18 36 (12.12%) Manual Testing
18 36 (12.12%) SC Cleared
19 35 (11.78%) Regression Testing
20 34 (11.45%) JMeter
20 34 (11.45%) Cypress.io
21 33 (11.11%) Banking
22 32 (10.77%) Postman
23 31 (10.44%) Functional Testing
23 31 (10.44%) User Acceptance Testing
23 31 (10.44%) BDD

Tester Skill Set
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 14 (4.71%) Confluence
2 4 (1.35%) Apache
3 3 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.67%) CMS
4 2 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.34%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 3 (1.01%) Microsoft Office
1 3 (1.01%) Windchill
2 2 (0.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.67%) Mingle
3 1 (0.34%) Trello
Business Applications
1 5 (1.68%) Endur
2 3 (1.01%) ENOVIA
2 3 (1.01%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.34%) BASE24
3 1 (0.34%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.34%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 43 (14.48%) Azure
2 29 (9.76%) AWS
3 24 (8.08%) Azure DevOps
4 12 (4.04%) GitHub
5 9 (3.03%) BrowserStack
6 8 (2.69%) Firebase
7 7 (2.36%) BlazeMeter
8 6 (2.02%) Dynamics 365
8 6 (2.02%) GCP
8 6 (2.02%) Power Platform
8 6 (2.02%) SAP Commerce Cloud
9 4 (1.35%) Figma
9 4 (1.35%) Serverless
10 3 (1.01%) Amazon EKS
10 3 (1.01%) AWS Lambda
10 3 (1.01%) Azure Data Factory
10 3 (1.01%) Azure Monitor
11 2 (0.67%) Azure AKS
11 2 (0.67%) GitHub Actions
11 2 (0.67%) Sentry
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.36%) Wireless
2 4 (1.35%) Internet
3 3 (1.01%) BGP
3 3 (1.01%) Ethernet VPN
3 3 (1.01%) HTTP
3 3 (1.01%) MPLS
3 3 (1.01%) VPN
4 2 (0.67%) Firewall
4 2 (0.67%) Radio Access Network
5 1 (0.34%) 4G
5 1 (0.34%) 5G
5 1 (0.34%) ATM
5 1 (0.34%) DNS
5 1 (0.34%) LTE
5 1 (0.34%) Network Security
5 1 (0.34%) PuTTY
5 1 (0.34%) SMS
5 1 (0.34%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (6.06%) SQL Server
2 7 (2.36%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (1.68%) Data Warehouse
3 5 (1.68%) Power BI
4 3 (1.01%) Amazon Redshift
4 3 (1.01%) MongoDB
4 3 (1.01%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.67%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (0.67%) BigQuery
5 2 (0.67%) MariaDB
5 2 (0.67%) MySQL
5 2 (0.67%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.34%) Apache Hive
6 1 (0.34%) Big Data
6 1 (0.34%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.34%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.34%) Delta Lake
6 1 (0.34%) Hadoop
6 1 (0.34%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.34%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 62 (20.88%) Selenium
2 44 (14.81%) JIRA
3 34 (11.45%) Cypress.io
3 34 (11.45%) JMeter
4 32 (10.77%) Postman
5 30 (10.10%) Cucumber
6 21 (7.07%) Jenkins
7 19 (6.40%) GitLab
8 17 (5.72%) SpecFlow
9 16 (5.39%) Git
10 14 (4.71%) Appium
10 14 (4.71%) WebDriver
11 10 (3.37%) SoapUI
11 10 (3.37%) TestRail
12 9 (3.03%) JUnit
13 8 (2.69%) REST Assured
14 7 (2.36%) LoadRunner
14 7 (2.36%) Maven
15 6 (2.02%) FitNesse
15 6 (2.02%) TestComplete
General
1 60 (20.20%) Social Skills
2 33 (11.11%) Banking
3 29 (9.76%) Finance
4 28 (9.43%) Analytical Skills
5 27 (9.09%) Public Sector
6 14 (4.71%) Back Office
7 11 (3.70%) Investment Banking
8 10 (3.37%) Front Office
9 8 (2.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 7 (2.36%) Prime Brokerage
10 7 (2.36%) Telecoms
11 6 (2.02%) Manufacturing
12 5 (1.68%) Documentation Skills
12 5 (1.68%) Legal
12 5 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
12 5 (1.68%) Wholesale Banking
13 2 (0.67%) Games
13 2 (0.67%) Retail
14 1 (0.34%) Aerospace
14 1 (0.34%) Electronics
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (8.42%) REST
2 15 (5.05%) Gherkin
2 15 (5.05%) Playwright
3 14 (4.71%) .NET
4 13 (4.38%) WebdriverIO
5 12 (4.04%) ADO
6 11 (3.70%) JSON
7 10 (3.37%) Web Services
8 9 (3.03%) Middleware
8 9 (3.03%) XML
9 8 (2.69%) AngularJS
10 6 (2.02%) Spring
10 6 (2.02%) Spring Boot
11 5 (1.68%) .NET Framework
11 5 (1.68%) GraphQL
11 5 (1.68%) Node.js
11 5 (1.68%) SOAP
12 4 (1.35%) CSS
12 4 (1.35%) HTML
13 3 (1.01%) FIX Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 17 (5.72%) Mobile App
2 10 (3.37%) Product Ownership
3 8 (2.69%) Equities
4 6 (2.02%) Operational Technology
5 5 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
5 5 (1.68%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 5 (1.68%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (1.35%) Greenfield Project
6 4 (1.35%) Security Posture
7 3 (1.01%) Hedge funds
7 3 (1.01%) Virtual Team
8 2 (0.67%) Algorithms
8 2 (0.67%) Cloud Native
8 2 (0.67%) Cyber Threat
8 2 (0.67%) Derivative
8 2 (0.67%) Management Information System
8 2 (0.67%) PKI
9 1 (0.34%) Cyberattack
9 1 (0.34%) IoT
9 1 (0.34%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 12 (4.04%) Linux
2 9 (3.03%) Windows
3 8 (2.69%) Android
4 7 (2.36%) Apple iOS
5 6 (2.02%) Unix
6 1 (0.34%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 176 (59.26%) Test Automation
2 105 (35.35%) Agile
3 51 (17.17%) Software Testing
4 48 (16.16%) Test Scripting
5 45 (15.15%) CI/CD
6 44 (14.81%) Scenario Testing
7 41 (13.80%) DevOps
7 41 (13.80%) Scrum
8 39 (13.13%) Performance Testing
9 36 (12.12%) Manual Testing
10 35 (11.78%) Regression Testing
11 31 (10.44%) BDD
11 31 (10.44%) Functional Testing
11 31 (10.44%) User Acceptance Testing
12 30 (10.10%) Continuous Integration
13 29 (9.76%) Test Planning
14 28 (9.43%) Test Strategy
15 27 (9.09%) Problem-Solving
16 26 (8.75%) Test Management
17 24 (8.08%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 73 (24.58%) Java
2 52 (17.51%) Python
3 49 (16.50%) JavaScript
4 47 (15.82%) SQL
5 42 (14.14%) C#
6 16 (5.39%) TypeScript
7 11 (3.70%) C++
8 6 (2.02%) C
9 5 (1.68%) Bash
10 4 (1.35%) Kotlin
10 4 (1.35%) Shell Script
11 3 (1.01%) Perl
11 3 (1.01%) PowerShell
11 3 (1.01%) Ruby
11 3 (1.01%) Swift
12 2 (0.67%) Delphi
12 2 (0.67%) Groovy
12 2 (0.67%) VB
12 2 (0.67%) VBA
12 2 (0.67%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 60 (20.20%) Security Cleared
2 36 (12.12%) SC Cleared
3 18 (6.06%) Degree
4 16 (5.39%) DV Cleared
5 14 (4.71%) OSCP
6 13 (4.38%) CREST Certified
7 10 (3.37%) ISTQB
8 8 (2.69%) CEH
9 7 (2.36%) Computer Science Degree
9 7 (2.36%) GIAC
9 7 (2.36%) GPEN
10 5 (1.68%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 4 (1.35%) Master's Degree
12 1 (0.34%) BPSS Clearance
12 1 (0.34%) CHECK Team Leader
12 1 (0.34%) CHECK Team Member
12 1 (0.34%) CompTIA Security+
12 1 (0.34%) ECSA
12 1 (0.34%) OSCE
12 1 (0.34%) OSWP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (23.23%) QA
2 17 (5.72%) Accessibility
3 7 (2.36%) Data Quality
4 6 (2.02%) NIST
5 4 (1.35%) WCAG
6 2 (0.67%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.67%) Software Quality Assurance
7 1 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.34%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.34%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 8 (2.69%) Active Directory
1 8 (2.69%) Docker
Systems Management
1 10 (3.37%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.35%) Ansible
3 3 (1.01%) Terraform
4 2 (0.67%) Grafana
5 1 (0.34%) HP ALM
5 1 (0.34%) HP Quality Center
5 1 (0.34%) Kibana
5 1 (0.34%) Opsgenie
Vendors
1 18 (6.06%) Microsoft
1 18 (6.06%) Oracle
2 7 (2.36%) Google
3 6 (2.02%) Salesforce
3 6 (2.02%) ServiceNow
3 6 (2.02%) Splunk
4 3 (1.01%) Adobe
4 3 (1.01%) PTC
4 3 (1.01%) Qualtrics
4 3 (1.01%) Siemens
5 2 (0.67%) Atlassian
5 2 (0.67%) CA Agile Central
5 2 (0.67%) Databricks
5 2 (0.67%) Dynatrace
5 2 (0.67%) IBM
5 2 (0.67%) OpenLink
5 2 (0.67%) SAP
6 1 (0.34%) Cloudera
6 1 (0.34%) PagerDuty
6 1 (0.34%) WorldPay