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 18 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
18 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 201 225 222
Rank change year-on-year +24 -3 -7
Contract jobs citing Test Strategy 481 663 1,145
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.13% 1.16% 1.31%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.31% 1.30% 1.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 292 478 759
10th Percentile £358 £374 £390
25th Percentile £413 £421 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £523
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.40% +10.11%
75th Percentile £597 £595 £600
90th Percentile £699 £713 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 8 13
10th Percentile - £52.16 -
25th Percentile £60.00 £60.04 £17.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.55 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.92% +140.58% -42.22%
75th Percentile £72.50 £67.54 £35.00
90th Percentile - £84.75 £56.72
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 36,673 51,121 79,325
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.13% 89.77% 90.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,631 35,432 55,673
10th Percentile £300 £325 £344
25th Percentile £413 £438 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +3.77% +7.07%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £480
% change year-on-year - +4.17% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,440 1,683 1,892
10th Percentile £12.75 £10.63 £12.50
25th Percentile £15.99 £16.01 £15.50
Median hourly rate £36.05 £36.00 £25.68
Median % change year-on-year +0.13% +40.19% +7.00%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.00 £49.54
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £35.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year +7.14% +75.00% -4.99%

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 18 May 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 18 May 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 +30 414 £525 +1.79% 137
London +70 227 £550 - 50
UK excluding London -5 213 £500 +2.04% 109
Work from Home +21 188 £525 +12.90% 58
South East -8 44 £519 +25.30% 35
East of England +22 39 £513 -2.38% 18
Midlands -15 36 £380 -28.71% 16
North of England +1 34 £475 -9.52% 17
South West +11 27 £563 +9.76% 8
West Midlands -19 27 £358 -33.33% 11
Scotland +24 20 £539 +22.39% 11
Yorkshire -7 16 £517 -6.00% 3
North West +13 15 £450 - 10
Wales +25 11 £535 -14.40% 3
East Midlands +12 9 £422 -29.75% 5
North East +11 3 £408 +1.88% 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 10 (2.08%) SharePoint
2 9 (1.87%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (1.66%) Confluence
3 8 (1.66%) MTS
4 3 (0.62%) CMS
4 3 (0.62%) Headless CMS
5 2 (0.42%) Apache
6 1 (0.21%) IIS
6 1 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 7 (1.46%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 5 (1.04%) Spreadsheet
3 3 (0.62%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.42%) Maya
5 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.21%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.21%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 8 (1.66%) Aligne
1 8 (1.66%) Endur
1 8 (1.66%) EuroRunner
1 8 (1.66%) Oracle Applications
2 7 (1.46%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (1.25%) Oracle Cash Management
3 6 (1.25%) Oracle General Ledger
3 6 (1.25%) Oracle Payables
3 6 (1.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 6 (1.25%) Oracle Receivables
4 5 (1.04%) Oracle Assets
4 5 (1.04%) Oracle Financials
5 3 (0.62%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.42%) Loan IQ
6 2 (0.42%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.42%) Oracle Payroll
7 1 (0.21%) Oracle EBS R12
7 1 (0.21%) SAP HCM
7 1 (0.21%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 92 (19.13%) Azure
2 50 (10.40%) Azure DevOps
3 31 (6.44%) AWS
4 28 (5.82%) Dynamics 365
5 26 (5.41%) Power Platform
6 16 (3.33%) Azure API Management
6 16 (3.33%) Azure Logic Apps
6 16 (3.33%) OCI
7 10 (2.08%) SaaS
8 8 (1.66%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
9 7 (1.46%) Tricentis Tosca
10 6 (1.25%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 6 (1.25%) Oracle CX
10 6 (1.25%) PowerApps
11 5 (1.04%) Azure Monitor
11 5 (1.04%) Entra ID
11 5 (1.04%) GitHub
11 5 (1.04%) IaaS
11 5 (1.04%) PaaS
12 4 (0.83%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.25%) HTTP
2 3 (0.62%) Reverse Proxy
3 2 (0.42%) Internet
3 2 (0.42%) SAN
4 1 (0.21%) Network Security
4 1 (0.21%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (4.99%) MySQL
2 23 (4.78%) Power BI
3 14 (2.91%) Amazon Redshift
3 14 (2.91%) Oracle Reports
4 10 (2.08%) Data Warehouse
4 10 (2.08%) SQL Server
5 7 (1.46%) Data Lake
6 5 (1.04%) DynamoDB
6 5 (1.04%) MongoDB
6 5 (1.04%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 4 (0.83%) Big Data
7 4 (0.83%) NoSQL
7 4 (0.83%) SAP HANA
7 4 (0.83%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 4 (0.83%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 3 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
9 2 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.42%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.42%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 52 (10.81%) Selenium
2 50 (10.40%) Git
3 44 (9.15%) JIRA
4 39 (8.11%) Postman
5 30 (6.24%) JMeter
6 29 (6.03%) Cucumber
7 25 (5.20%) JUnit
8 24 (4.99%) LoadRunner
9 23 (4.78%) WebDriver
10 19 (3.95%) SpecFlow
11 17 (3.53%) Appium
12 16 (3.33%) Visual Studio
13 15 (3.12%) REST Assured
14 13 (2.70%) Jenkins
14 13 (2.70%) TestNG
15 12 (2.49%) Cypress.io
15 12 (2.49%) Gatling
16 11 (2.29%) SoapUI
17 10 (2.08%) eggPlant
17 10 (2.08%) SOAtest
General
1 153 (31.81%) Social Skills
2 130 (27.03%) Finance
3 39 (8.11%) Manufacturing
4 38 (7.90%) Public Sector
5 37 (7.69%) Electronics
6 31 (6.44%) Aerospace
7 30 (6.24%) Analytical Skills
8 29 (6.03%) Banking
9 23 (4.78%) Presentation Skills
10 17 (3.53%) Back Office
11 13 (2.70%) Legal
12 12 (2.49%) Marketing
12 12 (2.49%) Retail
13 11 (2.29%) Front Office
14 10 (2.08%) Investment Banking
15 8 (1.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 8 (1.66%) Telecoms
16 7 (1.46%) Documentation Skills
17 6 (1.25%) Law
18 5 (1.04%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 101 (21.00%) Lead
2 93 (19.33%) Test Manager
3 58 (12.06%) Architect
4 57 (11.85%) Senior
5 56 (11.64%) Analyst
6 49 (10.19%) Test Leader
7 41 (8.52%) Test Architect
8 31 (6.44%) Test Engineer
9 30 (6.24%) Tester
10 29 (6.03%) Test Analyst
11 22 (4.57%) Developer
12 18 (3.74%) Business Analyst
13 15 (3.12%) Automation Tester
14 14 (2.91%) Senior Analyst
14 14 (2.91%) Senior Test Engineer
15 13 (2.70%) Consultant
15 13 (2.70%) Project Manager
16 11 (2.29%) Senior Test Analyst
16 11 (2.29%) Test Automation Engineer
17 9 (1.87%) QA Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (6.44%) .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 10 (2.08%) Gherkin
8 10 (2.08%) GraphQL
8 10 (2.08%) React
9 6 (1.25%) JSON
10 5 (1.04%) CSS
10 5 (1.04%) HTML
10 5 (1.04%) SOAP
11 4 (0.83%) ActiveMQ
11 4 (0.83%) Kafka
11 4 (0.83%) Middleware
12 3 (0.62%) Node.js
12 3 (0.62%) React Native
Miscellaneous
1 34 (7.07%) Analogue Electronics
2 22 (4.57%) Product Ownership
3 15 (3.12%) Mobile App
4 14 (2.91%) Management Information System
5 11 (2.29%) Equities
6 10 (2.08%) Hedge funds
7 9 (1.87%) Market Risk
8 8 (1.66%) Greenfield Project
8 8 (1.66%) Life Science
8 8 (1.66%) LIMS
8 8 (1.66%) Renewable Energy
8 8 (1.66%) Solar Panel
9 6 (1.25%) NHS
9 6 (1.25%) Onboarding
9 6 (1.25%) Public Cloud
10 5 (1.04%) Algorithms
11 4 (0.83%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (0.83%) Virtual Team
11 4 (0.83%) Wiki
12 3 (0.62%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 26 (5.41%) Windows
2 14 (2.91%) Linux
2 14 (2.91%) Unix
3 8 (1.66%) Android
4 4 (0.83%) Mac OS X
5 3 (0.62%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.42%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 171 (35.55%) Test Automation
2 167 (34.72%) Agile
3 83 (17.26%) Software Testing
4 79 (16.42%) Stakeholder Management
5 77 (16.01%) User Acceptance Testing
6 70 (14.55%) DevOps
6 70 (14.55%) Project Management
7 67 (13.93%) CI/CD
7 67 (13.93%) Test Management
8 62 (12.89%) Performance Testing
8 62 (12.89%) Test Scripting
9 57 (11.85%) Continuous Integration
10 56 (11.64%) Scrum
11 54 (11.23%) Problem-Solving
12 51 (10.60%) Functional Testing
13 48 (9.98%) Non-Functional Testing
14 47 (9.77%) Migration
14 47 (9.77%) Scenario Testing
15 45 (9.36%) Continuous Improvement
16 42 (8.73%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 58 (12.06%) SQL
2 55 (11.43%) C#
3 51 (10.60%) Java
4 26 (5.41%) Python
5 21 (4.37%) TypeScript
6 19 (3.95%) 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%) PowerShell
9 4 (0.83%) Scala
10 3 (0.62%) ABAP
10 3 (0.62%) C
Qualifications
1 97 (20.17%) Security Cleared
2 93 (19.33%) SC Cleared
3 51 (10.60%) Degree
4 44 (9.15%) ISTQB
5 23 (4.78%) Master's Degree
6 15 (3.12%) Computer Science Degree
7 12 (2.49%) ISEB
8 9 (1.87%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 8 (1.66%) ITIL Certification
10 4 (0.83%) BPSS Clearance
10 4 (0.83%) CISM
10 4 (0.83%) CISSP
10 4 (0.83%) CompTIA Security+
10 4 (0.83%) DV Cleared
10 4 (0.83%) PMI Certification
11 3 (0.62%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 3 (0.62%) PMP
12 2 (0.42%) ISEB Practitioner
13 1 (0.21%) PgMP
13 1 (0.21%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 127 (26.40%) QA
2 13 (2.70%) Accessibility
3 9 (1.87%) Data Quality
4 8 (1.66%) HL7
4 8 (1.66%) PCI DSS
4 8 (1.66%) PMO
5 4 (0.83%) Disclosure Scotland
5 4 (0.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.62%) SLA
7 2 (0.42%) WCAG
8 1 (0.21%) EMIR
8 1 (0.21%) GDPR
8 1 (0.21%) IFRS
8 1 (0.21%) MiFID
8 1 (0.21%) NIST
System Software
1 11 (2.29%) Docker
2 5 (1.04%) 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 13 (2.70%) 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 52 (10.81%) Microsoft
2 44 (9.15%) Oracle
3 26 (5.41%) SAP
4 13 (2.70%) Denodo
4 13 (2.70%) Talend
5 11 (2.29%) ServiceNow
6 9 (1.87%) Splunk
7 7 (1.46%) Adobe
7 7 (1.46%) HP
8 6 (1.25%) InterSystems
9 5 (1.04%) CA Agile Central
9 5 (1.04%) iManage
9 5 (1.04%) Intapp
9 5 (1.04%) OpenAI
9 5 (1.04%) Salesforce
9 5 (1.04%) VMware
10 4 (0.83%) Google
10 4 (0.83%) IBM
11 3 (0.62%) AppDynamics
11 3 (0.62%) Qualtrics