Course overview
ISTQB Advanced Level Test Analyst (CTAL‑TA) is a 3-day accredited training course aimed at experienced testers who want to gain the ISTQB Advanced Test Analyst certification. Aligned with the latest ISTQB syllabus, this course provides the essential knowledge and practical skills needed to design, execute, and manage effective functional testing at an advanced level.
Delegates will learn advanced black-box test design techniques, risk-based testing strategies, and how to contribute to quality assurance in both Agile and traditional development environments. The course also covers usability testing, requirements validation, defect management, and effective participation in reviews.
Delivered by certified experts with real-world experience, this course prepares you for the ISTQB Advanced Test Analyst exam and enhances your ability to apply structured testing techniques in the workplace with confidence and credibility.
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Course highlights
- Duration: 3-day intensive training (9am – 5pm)
- Format: available in virtual, or e-Learning
- Content: aligned with the latest ISTQB Advanced Level syllabus; includes test design techniques, risk-based testing, non-functional testing, defect management, and reviews
- Exam preparation: includes scenario-based question practice and structured revision
- Accreditation: fully accredited by UKITB on behalf of ISTQB
- SFIAplus level: rated at Level 5 by BCS
- Assessment: 45 multiple-choice questions in 120 minutes (150 minutes for non-native English speakers); 65% pass mark required
Why you should attend
- Deepen your test analysis and design skills with industry-standard techniques
- Learn to assess and mitigate quality risks in complex systems
- Master black-box and experience-based testing for functionality and usability
- Work more effectively in agile, waterfall, or hybrid teams
- Gain a globally recognised ISTQB Advanced certification
- Boost your career prospects as a Test Analyst, QA Consultant, or Senior Tester
Who is the course for
This course is ideal for:
- Test Analysts, QA Engineers, UAT Testers
- Business analysts involved in test planning
- Anyone with a CTFL certificate and at least 2 years of practical testing experience looking to advance their test design and analysis capabilities
Next steps in your testing career
Holders of this certification may choose to broaden their expertise by pursuing other Core Advanced Level certifications, such as Technical Test Analyst, Test Manager, or Test Automation Engineer.
For those wishing to specialise in Agile practices, the Agile Technical Tester (CTAL-ATT) is a natural next step. Alternatively, candidates can explore specialist certification streams that focus on areas such as specific testing technologies, quality characteristics, test levels, or industry-specific domains.
Watch our latest webinar
Want to explore the course in more detail before enrolling? Watch our webinar where we walk through the ISTQB Advanced Test Analyst syllabus, exam format, and key takeaways. Click here to watch the webinar
About ISTQB and the certified tester scheme
Founded in 2002, ISTQB (International Software Testing Qualifications Board) is a not-for-profit association comprising 66 national boards (including the UKITB) to provide worldwide coverage
ISTQB has defined the Advanced certification as part of their ‘Certified Tester’ scheme that, with over 240,000 certifications, has become the de facto world-wide standard for software testing qualifications.
The ‘Certified Tester’ scheme:
- Provides a set of professional qualifications widely-recognised by employers, customers and peers;
- Enables software suppliers to hire and train certified testers and thereby gain commercial advantage over their competitors by advertising their tester recruitment and development policies; and
- Enables comparison of testing skills across different countries, testers to move across country borders more easily, and multi-national/international projects to have a common understanding of testing issues.
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Entry requirements
The entry requirements for the Certified Tester Advanced Level Test Analyst qualification are that the candidate must hold the ISTQB Foundation certificate and it is also suggested that candidates have a minimum of 2 years testing experience.
Note that it is recommended that you attend an accredited training course run by an accredited training provider, as the overall exam pass rates are notably higher for candidates attending such courses.
Exam
To qualify as an internationally-recognized Certified Advanced Level Test Analyst and be issued with an ISTQB® Advanced Level Certificate, delegates must successfully pass the exam administered by the relevant National Board or Examination Provider.
- 45 multiple choice pick ‘n’ mix questions which consist of the questions followed by a list of options
- Duration of 120 minutes (or 150 minutes for candidates taking examinations that are not in their native language)
- A candidate must score at least 65% to pass
- Exam is included in the price
Course objectives
After successfully completing the course and passing the exam, delegates should be able to demonstrate the following business-based outcomes
- Perform the appropriate testing activities based on the software development lifecycle being used;
- Determine the proper prioritization of the testing activities based on the information provided by the risk analysis;
- Select and apply appropriate test techniques to ensure that tests provide an adequate level of confidence, based on defined coverage criteria;
- Provide the appropriate level of documentation relevant to their testing activities;
- Determine the appropriate types of functional testing to be performed;
- Work effectively in a usability testing team;
- Effectively participate in requirements / user story reviews with stakeholders, applying knowledge of typical mistakes made in work products;
- Improve the efficiency of the test process with the use of tools.
In addition, the newly qualified ISTQB Advanced Test Analyst should be able to demonstrate their skills in the following areas once they have completed the course and passed the exam:
- Explain how and why the timing and level of involvement for the Test Analyst varies when working with different software development lifecycle models.
- Summarize the appropriate tasks for the Test Analyst when conducting analysis and design activities.
- Explain why test conditions should be understood by the stakeholders.
- For a given project scenario, select the appropriate design level for test cases (high-level or low-level).
- Explain the issues to be considered in test case design.
- Summarize the appropriate tasks for the Test Analyst when conducting test implementation activities.
- Summarize the appropriate tasks for the Test Analyst when conducting test execution activities.
- For a given situation, participate in risk identification, perform risk assessment and propose appropriate risk mitigation.
- Analyze a given specification item(s) and design test cases by applying equivalence partitioning.
- Analyze a given specification item(s) and design test cases by applying boundary value analysis.
- Analyze a given specification item(s) and design test cases by applying decision table testing.
- Analyze a given specification item(s) and design test cases by applying state transition testing.
- Explain how classification tree diagrams support test techniques.
- Analyze a given specification item(s) and design test cases by applying pairwise testing.
- Analyze a system, or its requirement specification, in order to determine likely types of defects to be found and select the appropriate black-box test technique(s).
- Explain the principles of experience-based test techniques, and the benefits and drawbacks compared to black-box and defect-based test techniques.
- Determine exploratory tests from a given scenario.
- Describe the application of defect-based test techniques and differentiate their use from black-box test techniques.
- For a given project situation, determine which black-box or experience-based test techniques should be applied to achieve specific goals.
- Explain what test techniques are appropriate to test functional completeness, correctness and appropriateness.
- Define the typical defects to be targeted for the functional completeness, correctness and appropriateness characteristics.
- Define when the functional completeness, correctness and appropriateness characteristics should be tested in the software development lifecycle.
- Explain the approaches that would be suitable to verify and validate both the implementation of the usability requirements and the fulfillment of the user’s expectations.
- Explain the role of the test analyst in interoperability testing including identification of the defects to be targeted.
- Explain the role of the test analyst in portability testing including identification of the defects to be targeted.
- For a given set of requirements, determine the test conditions required to verify the functional and/or non-functional quality characteristics within the scope of the Test Analyst.
- Identify problems in a requirements specification according to checklist information provided in the syllabus.
- Identify problems in a user story according to checklist information provided in the syllabus.
- For a given scenario, determine the appropriate activities for a Test Analyst in a keyword-driven automation project.
- Explain the usage and types of test tools applied in test design, test data preparation and test execution.
Damien Paul| Senior Test Analyst| Jagex –
I thoroughly enjoyed the course. Karen was brilliant, really engaging and covered everything required, taking time to explain things or give examples where necessary. I would happily be trained by Karen again!
The course was run over three days, each day being a full day of learning. The days were consistently on time with and did not feel overly rushed or similarly too slow paced, allowing enough time to digest the information in each section before moving on. Breaking things up with the class exercises was useful and allowed an opportunity to engage more with the content and apply the learnings.
Overall I’m really happy with how the past three days have gone and look forward to applying my learnings in the exam
Sara Rodrigues| Lead Technical Tester| Innowave –
Karen should had give more pratical examples from her experience to us understand the concepts woth more examples.
Matthew Phillips| Test Analyst| LGT –
Very informative and good exercise examples to promote discussion around learning material. Karen communicated everything clearly and provided a great atmosphere to learn/develop without too much pressure.
Stephane VORK| Test Engineer| Sogeti SA –
Learnt a lot. The only downside is that some key element could have been more visually explained that they are
Leah Sprackland| Product Delivery Testing Team Manager |Allianz –
I found a lot of the slides were being skipped over and not as much of the course was actually taught. There were a lot of questions to everyone asking what they do in their role rather than teaching the theory. This was also called out by another participant at the end of the course who has already sat the course before. They said some areas were rushed and had they not done the course before they might not know all they needed to. This is concerning to me that if I’ve actually been taught what I need for the exam.
Oliver Jacques| Functional Test Analyst|Ocado –
The course was very useful, content very applicable and I feel satisfied with the overall course/exam structure.
I would like to add that the original TSG email mentioned the course begin son the 17th January not 15th January. It was only because my colleague also attended did I find out on the Monday morning I should have been in attendance. Thought I’d mention this as I understand its an automated process and there should be a root cause analysis to how this happened to avoid confusion in the future.
Apart from that I would highly recommend the course for others in the future.
Sarah Burgess| Functional Test Analyst|Ocado –
Some aspects were only briefly covered, felt there could be some more in depth coverage, but difficult to please everyone on the course
Christopher Olliffe –
Rosie was excellent at guiding us through the material and explaining everything clearly. 10/10.
Thomas Linforth | QA Analyst | We Buy Any Car –
The course was interesting and I have found a lot of the content useful for my role. The trainer was insightful, knowledgeable and kind. He made sure we were all okay and understood the content. The questions and scenarios helped to iron out and learn from any mistakes early. The online aspect did make the course slightly impersonal in terms of the other students, as we kept our cameras off and were mostly muted, so I sympathised with the trainer on that.
Chelsea Houston | Software Engineer / Test Analyst – Apprentice | Capgemini –
Good course with a lot of useful information. Good extension from the Foundation course. Came out of it with as much information as expected. Trainer good, easy to understand and get along with.
ashish chaudhary | Software Engineer | capgemini –
Get course Trainer was great
David Cook | QA Test Analyst | Caseware UK –
Found the course very useful, learnt lots of new things that I did not know previously and it fulfilled all that I expected to learn.
James Anderson | QA Tester Apprentice | Invotra Limited –
The course way very informative and interesting, it helped reinforce my existing learning as well as introduce me to new things as well.
andrew torrens | project team lead | BSO ITS –
very good learnt some good techniques and the tutor was very knowledgable