Skip to content
ESCO occupation

software tester

Back to ESCO occupations

Software testers perform software tests. They may also plan and design them. They may also debug and repair software although this mainly corresponds to designers and developers. They ensure that applications function properly before delivering them to internal and external clients.

2519.7 ISCO 2519 ESCO source
Competences
80
Groups
4
Essential
10
Optional
70

Competences and skills

80 ESCO relations
Essential knowledge 4 competences

Occupation specific

0 competences

No competences in this bucket.

Sector-specific

4 competences
levels of software testing

The levels of testing in the software development process, such as unit testing, integration testing, system testing and acceptance testing.

digital
ESCO source
software anomalies

The deviations of what is standard and exceptional events during software system performance, identification of incidents that can alter the flow and the process of system execution.

digital
ESCO source
software architecture models

The set of structures and models needed to understand or describe the software system, including the software elements, the relations between them and the properties of both elements and relations.

digital
ESCO source
software metrics

The metrics that measure a characteristic of the software system in order to determine the development of the software and evaluate it.

digital
ESCO source

Cross-sector

0 competences

No competences in this bucket.

Essential skills and competences 6 competences

Occupation specific

0 competences

No competences in this bucket.

Sector-specific

4 competences
execute software tests

Perform tests to ensure that a software product will perform flawlessly under the specified customer requirements and identify software defects (bugs) and malfunctions, using specialised software tools and testing techniques.

digital
ESCO source
perform software unit testing

Test single units of source code to determine whether or not they are suitable for use by creating short code fragments.

digital
ESCO source
provide software testing documentation

Describe software testing procedures to technical team and analysis of test outcomes to users and clients in order to inform them about state and efficiency of software.

digital
ESCO source
replicate customer software issues

Use specialised tools to replicate and analyse the conditions that caused the set of software states or outputs reported by the customer in order to provide adequate solutions.

digital
ESCO source

Cross-sector

2 competences
address problems critically

Identify the strengths and weaknesses of various abstract, rational concepts, such as issues, opinions, and approaches related to a specific problematic situation in order to formulate solutions and alternative methods of tackling the situation.

ESCO source
report test findings

Report test results with a focus on findings and recommendations, differentiating results by levels of severity. Include relevant information from the test plan and outline the test methodologies, using metrics, tables, and visual methods to clarify where needed.

ESCO source
Optional knowledge 60 competences

Occupation specific

0 competences

No competences in this bucket.

Sector-specific

56 competences
ABAP

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in ABAP.

digital
ESCO source
Agile project management

The agile project management approach is a methodology for planning, managing and overseeing of ICT resources in order to meet specific goals and using project management ICT tools.

digital
ESCO source
AJAX

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in AJAX.

digital
ESCO source
APL

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in APL.

digital
ESCO source
application usability

The process through which the learnability, efficiency, usefulness and ease of use of a software application can be defined and measured.

digital
ESCO source
ASP.NET

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in ASP.NET.

digital
ESCO source
Assembly (computer programming)

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Assembly.

digital
ESCO source
C#

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in C#.

digital
ESCO source
C++

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in C++.

digital
ESCO source
COBOL

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in COBOL.

digital
ESCO source
CoffeeScript

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in CoffeeScript.

digital
ESCO source
Common Lisp

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Common Lisp.

digital
ESCO source
Erlang

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Erlang.

digital
ESCO source
Groovy

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Groovy.

digital
ESCO source
Haskell

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Haskell.

digital
ESCO source
ICT debugging tools

The ICT tools used to test and debug programs and software code, such as GNU Debugger (GDB), Intel Debugger (IDB), Microsoft Visual Studio Debugger, Valgrind and WinDbg.

digital
ESCO source
ICT performance analysis methods

The methods used to analyse software, ICT system and network performance which provide guidance to root causes of issues within information systems. The methods can analyse resource bottlenecks, application times, wait latencies and benchmarking results.

digital
ESCO source
ICT project management methodologies

The methodologies or models for planning, managing and overseeing of ICT resources in order to meet specific goals, such methodologies are Waterfall, Incremental, V-Model, Scrum or Agile and using project management ICT tools.

digital
ESCO source
Java (computer programming)

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Java.

digital
ESCO source
JavaScript

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in JavaScript.

digital
ESCO source
LDAP

The computer language LDAP is a query language for retrieval of information from a database and of documents containing the needed information.

digital
ESCO source
lean project management

The lean project management approach is a methodology for planning, managing and overseeing of ICT resources in order to meet specific goals and using project management ICT tools.

digital
ESCO source
LINQ

The computer language LINQ is a query language for retrieval of information from a database and of documents containing the needed information. It is developed by the software company Microsoft.

digital
ESCO source
Lisp

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Lisp.

digital
ESCO source
MATLAB

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in MATLAB.

digital
ESCO source
MDX

The computer language MDX is a query language for retrieval of information from a database and of documents containing the needed information. It is developed by the software company Microsoft.

digital
ESCO source
Microsoft Visual C++

The computer program Visual C++ is a suite of software development tools for writing programs, such as compiler, debugger, code editor, code highlights, packaged in a unified user interface. It is developed by the software company Microsoft.

digital
ESCO source
ML (computer programming)

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in ML.

digital
ESCO source
N1QL

The computer language N1QL is a query language for retrieval of information from a database and of documents containing the needed information. It is developed by the software company Couchbase.

digital
ESCO source
Objective-C

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Objective-C.

digital
ESCO source
OpenEdge Advanced Business Language

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in OpenEdge Advanced Business Language.

digital
ESCO source
Pascal (computer programming)

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Pascal.

digital
ESCO source
Perl

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Perl.

digital
ESCO source
PHP

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in PHP.

digital
ESCO source
Process-based management

The process-based management approach is a methodology for planning, managing and overseeing of ICT resources in order to meet specific goals and using project management ICT tools.

digital
ESCO source
Prolog (computer programming)

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Prolog.

digital
ESCO source
Python (computer programming)

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Python.

digital
ESCO source
query languages

The field of standardised computer languages for retrieval of information from a database and of documents containing the needed information.

digital
ESCO source
R

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in R.

digital
ESCO source
resource description framework query language

The query languages such as SPARQL which are used to retrieve and manipulate data stored in Resource Description Framework format (RDF).

digital
ESCO source
Ruby (computer programming)

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Ruby.

digital
ESCO source
SAP R3

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in SAP R3.

digital
ESCO source
SAS language

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in SAS language.

digital
ESCO source
Scala

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Scala.

digital
ESCO source
Scratch (computer programming)

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Scratch.

digital
ESCO source
Smalltalk (computer programming)

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Smalltalk.

digital
ESCO source
software components libraries

The software packages, modules, web services and resources that cover a set of related functions and the databases where these reusable components can be found.

digital
ESCO source
SPARQL

The computer language SPARQL is a query language for retrieval of information from a database and of documents containing the needed information. It is developed by the international standards organisation World Wide Web Consortium.

digital
ESCO source
Swift (computer programming)

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Swift.

digital
ESCO source
tools for ICT test automation

The specialised software to execute or control tests and compare predicted testing outputs with actual testing results such as Selenium, QTP and LoadRunner

digital
ESCO source
trading software

The finance and trading integrated software solutions.

digital
ESCO source
TypeScript

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in TypeScript.

digital
ESCO source
unstructured data

The information that is not arranged in a pre-defined manner or does not have a pre-defined data model and is difficult to understand and find patterns in without using techniques such as data mining.

digital
ESCO source
VBScript

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in VBScript.

digital
ESCO source
Visual Basic

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Visual Basic.

digital
ESCO source
XQuery

The computer language XQuery is a query language for retrieval of information from a database and of documents containing the needed information. It is developed by the international standards organisation World Wide Web Consortium.

digital
ESCO source

Cross-sector

4 competences
audit techniques

The techniques and methods that support a systematic and independent examination of data, policies, operations and performances using computer-assisted audit tools and techniques (CAATs) such as spreadsheets, databases, statistical analysis and business intelligence software.

digital
ESCO source
computer programming

The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms (e.g. object oriented programming, functional programming) and of programming languages.

digCompdigital
ESCO source
digital systems

Systems to store, process and spread information in digital form. They are hardware, software and networks, as well as the ways in which these can be employed.

digital
ESCO source
hardware components

The essential components that make up a hardware system, such as liquid-crystal displays (LCD), camera sensors, microprocessors, memories, modems, batteries and their interconnections.

digital
ESCO source
Optional skills and competences 10 competences

Occupation specific

0 competences

No competences in this bucket.

Sector-specific

9 competences
conduct ICT code review

Examine and review systematically computer source code to identify errors in any stage of development and to improve the overall software quality.

digital
ESCO source
debug software

Repair computer code by analysing testing results, locating the defects causing the software to output an incorrect or unexpected result and remove these faults.

digital
ESCO source
develop automated software tests

Create software test sets in an automated manner, ​using specialised languages or tools, that can be performed by testing tools in order to save resources, gain efficiency and effectiveness in test execution.

digital
ESCO source
develop ICT test suite

Create a series of test cases to check software behaviour versus specifications. These test cases are then to be used during subsequent testing.

digital
ESCO source
execute integration testing

Perform testing of system or software components grouped in multiple ways to evaluate their ability to interconnect, their interface and their ability to provide global functionality.

digital
ESCO source
measure software usability

Check the convenience of the software product for the end user. Identify user problems and make adjustments to improve usability practice. Collect input data on how users evaluate software products.

digital
ESCO source
perform software recovery testing

Execute testing using specialised software tools to force failure of software in a variety of ways and checking how fast and better the software can recover against any type of crash or failure.

digital
ESCO source
plan software testing

Create and supervise tests plans. Decide on allocation of resources, tools and techniques. Set testing criteria for balancing incurred risks in case of remaining defects, adapt budgets and plan additional costs.

digital
ESCO source
use scripting programming

Utilise specialised ICT tools to create computer code that is interpreted by the corresponding run-time environments in order to extend applications and automate common computer operations. Use programming languages which support this method such as Unix Shell scripts, JavaScript, Python and Ruby.

digital
ESCO source

Cross-sector

1 competence
manage schedule of tasks

Maintain an overview of all the incoming tasks in order to prioritise the tasks, plan their execution, and integrate new tasks as they present themselves.

ESCO source