A Global View on the Hard Skills and Testing Tools in Software Testing

Developing software with high quality is challenging in distributed software development. The purpose of the current study is to investigate the testing skills and tools required in the ever-changing world of global software engineering, according to industrial needs. We analysed 500 job ads from 33 countries. The results show that a quarter of the testers and a fifth of developers are asked to work in distributed projects. The testers are asked to be highly skilled in a variety of test activities and tools, while the testing-skills demand for developers is low and somewhat vague. The profile of testers has a strong technical component in addition to the managerial one. Our findings show that employers need most that testers are competent in automated testing. Furthermore, the industry does not cover all aspects of testing with the demand for testers and developers. Surprisingly, neither role is asked to test the implementation of the general data protection requirements. Our study bridges the industrial needs and the practitioners' skill development process. Therefore, software testers can use our study as a reference point to enhance their skills. Employers should use our results to check their testing-skill coverage within the development teams. Tertiary education providers are encouraged to use our findings, to update the curriculum in the software development area.