The most straight forward, and most efficient, would be to simply loop through the characters in the string:
int cnt = 0;
foreach (char c in test) {
if (c == '&') cnt++;
}
You can use Linq extensions to make a simpler, and almost as efficient version. There is a bit more overhead, but it's still surprisingly close to the loop in performance:
int cnt = test.Count(c => c == '&');
Then there is the old Replace
trick, however that is better suited for languages where looping is awkward (SQL) or slow (VBScript):
int cnt = test.Length - test.Replace("&", "").Length;