The first table below looks at the demand for Test Automation skills in IT contracts advertised across the UK. Included is a guide to the average contractor rates offered in IT contracts that have cited Test Automation over the 3 months to 24 May 2013 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years. The second table is for comparison and provides aggregates for all of the Processes & Methodologies category.

Note that daily contractor rates and hourly contractor rates are treated separately. When calculating average contractor rates, daily rates are not derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Location
3 months to
24 May 2013
Same period 2012 Same period 2011
Test Automation
Rank 243 334 331
Rank change year-on-year
+91 -3
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 346 266 280
As % of all contract IT jobs located in the UK 0.746% 0.456% 0.459%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.050% 0.672% 0.678%
Number of daily rates quoted 193 120 156
Average daily rate £370 £373 £375
Average daily rate % change year-on-year
-0.67% -0.66%
90% offered a daily rate of more than £257 £225 £275
10% offered a daily rate of more than £500 £475 £475
UK excluding London average daily rate £344 £316 £350
% change year-on-year
+8.86% -9.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 8 8
Average hourly rate £41.50 £42.50 £35.00
Average hourly rate % change year-on-year
-2.35% +21.42%
90% offered a hourly rate of more than £26.70 £24.76 £22.60
10% offered a hourly rate of more than £42.20 £53.70 £37.85
UK excluding London average hourly rate £32.50 £42.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year
-23.52% +21.42%
All Processes & Methodologies
UK
Contract IT job ads with a match in the
Processes & Methodologies category
32941 39581 41270
As % of all contract IT jobs located in the UK 71.01% 67.87% 67.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 19678 22705 23413
Average daily rate £413 £403 £438
Average daily rate % change year-on-year
+2.48% -8.00%
90% offered a daily rate of more than £275 £275 £275
10% offered a daily rate of more than £575 £580 £600
UK excluding London average daily rate £365 £365 £375
% change year-on-year
- -2.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 976 1282 1475
Average hourly rate £30.00 £25.00 £29.00
Average hourly rate % change year-on-year
+20.00% -13.79%
90% offered a hourly rate of more than £13.50 £12.50 £13.50
10% offered a hourly rate of more than £50.00 £45.00 £45.00
UK excluding London average hourly rate £30.00 £25.00 £29.50
% change year-on-year
+20.00% -15.25%

Test Automation
Jobs Demand Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving total of IT contractor jobs citing Test Automation within the UK as a proportion of the total demand within the Processes & Methodologies category.

Test Automation Jobs Demand Trend

Test Automation
Daily Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for daily rates quoted in IT contract jobs citing Test Automation within the UK.

Test Automation Daily Rate Trend

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram

This chart provides a histogram of daily rates quoted in contract IT jobs citing Test Automation within the UK over the 3 months to 24 May 2013.

Test Automation Daily Rate Histogram

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for hourly rates quoted in IT contractor jobs citing Test Automation within the UK.

Test Automation Hourly Rate Trend

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Histogram

This chart provides a histogram of hourly rates quoted in contract IT jobs citing Test Automation within the UK over the 3 months to 24 May 2013.

Test Automation Hourly Rate Histogram

Test Automation
Top 30 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the average contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Test Automation within the UK over the 3 months to 24 May 2013. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 3 month period last year.

Location
(Click each for more statistics)
Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Average
Daily Rate
Last 3 Months
Average Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
England +100 322 £375 -0.06%
London +42 137 £425 +6.25%
South East +66 90 £375 +12.78%
City of London +25 37 £425 +30.76%
Hampshire +21 37 £400 +18.51%
Berkshire +40 35 £375 -0.13%
Yorkshire +25 31 £275 -
West Yorkshire +29 30 £275 -
Leeds +17 28 £275 -
East of England +25 26 £350 -22.22%
North West +31 22 £323 -26.28%
Reading +25 14 £450 +328.57%
Cambridgeshire +17 13 £425 -5.55%
Scotland -12 13 £356 +18.75%
Surrey +23 11 £183 -26.26%
Cambridge +16 11 £450 +77.69%
Cheshire +10 11 £435 -
South West +34 7 £338 -5.59%
Manchester +12 7 £323 -26.28%
Hertfordshire +12 7 £325 -18.75%
Basingstoke - 7 £400 -
East Sussex +15 6 £350 -12.50%
Bracknell - 6 - -
Guildford - 6 - -
East Midlands -9 5 - -
Glasgow -13 5 £339 +28.07%
Salford - 5 £323 -
Andover +3 4 - -
Leicestershire -14 4 - -
Norwich - 4 £310 -

Test Automation
Top 30 Related IT Skills

For the 6 months to 24 May 2013, IT contractor jobs within the UK citing Test Automation also mentioned the following IT skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the number of jobs and their proportion against the total number of contract IT job ads sampled that cited Test Automation.

1 207 (33.99%) SQL
2 192 (31.53%) Java
3 182 (29.89%) Selenium
4 161 (26.44%) Agile Software Development
5 159 (26.11%) QA
6 136 (22.33%) C#
7 120 (19.70%) BDD
8 118 (19.38%) Scrum
9 115 (18.88%) TDD
10 110 (18.06%) .NET
11 108 (17.73%) Test Scripting
12 103 (16.91%) Finance
13 100 (16.42%) Web Services
14 96 (15.76%) Cucumber
15 94 (15.44%) Oracle
16 92 (15.11%) WebDriver
17 91 (14.94%) Linux
18 89 (14.61%) SQL Server
18 89 (14.61%) Continuous Integration
18 89 (14.61%) Automated Testing
19 85 (13.96%) Ruby
19 85 (13.96%) XML
20 84 (13.79%) Windows
20 84 (13.79%) HP Quality Center
21 82 (13.46%) C++
21 82 (13.46%) QuickTest Pro
22 74 (12.15%) Microsoft
23 72 (11.82%) Python
24 70 (11.49%) JavaScript
25 69 (11.33%) HP

Test Automation
Top Related IT Skills by Category

For the 6 months to 24 May 2013, IT contractor jobs within the UK citing Test Automation also mentioned the following IT skills grouped by category. The figures indicate the number of jobs and their proportion against the total number of contract IT job ads sampled that cited Test Automation. Up to 20 skills are shown per category.

Application Development
1 110 (18.06%) .NET
2 100 (16.42%) Web Services
3 85 (13.96%) XML
4 49 (8.046%) RESTful
5 48 (7.882%) JSON
6 47 (7.718%) HTML
6 47 (7.718%) SOAP
7 34 (5.583%) REST
8 33 (5.419%) CSS
9 32 (5.255%) Spring
10 31 (5.090%) Node.js
11 30 (4.926%) soapUI
12 26 (4.269%) HTML5
13 25 (4.105%) jQuery
14 19 (3.120%) J2EE
15 18 (2.956%) Hibernate
16 17 (2.791%) ASP.NET
17 16 (2.627%) .NET Framework
17 16 (2.627%) XSLT
17 16 (2.627%) CSS3
Application Platforms
1 32 (5.255%) Apache
2 30 (4.926%) IIS
3 27 (4.433%) Tomcat
4 26 (4.269%) Amazon AWS
5 25 (4.105%) nginx
5 25 (4.105%) Amazon EC2
5 25 (4.105%) Amazon S3
5 25 (4.105%) Route 53
6 24 (3.941%) SharePoint
7 21 (3.448%) Windows Azure
8 12 (1.970%) Confluence
9 11 (1.806%) Adobe CQ
10 8 (1.314%) Mule
10 8 (1.314%) MSMQ
11 7 (1.149%) SharePoint 2010
11 7 (1.149%) BizTalk Server
11 7 (1.149%) Apache Solr
11 7 (1.149%) TIBCO EMS
11 7 (1.149%) ESB
12 5 (0.821%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 34 (5.583%) MS Excel
2 23 (3.777%) MS Visio
3 7 (1.149%) MS Office
4 4 (0.657%) MS Project
5 2 (0.328%) MS PowerPoint
5 2 (0.328%) Mingle
6 1 (0.164%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.164%) Doxygen
Business Applications
1 17 (2.791%) Oracle EBS
2 14 (2.299%) SAP HR
3 5 (0.821%) SAP Oil and Gas
4 4 (0.657%) Oracle iProcurement
4 4 (0.657%) Oracle HRMS
5 3 (0.493%) Endur
6 2 (0.328%) SAP IS-U
6 2 (0.328%) Oracle Applications
6 2 (0.328%) SAP CRM
6 2 (0.328%) Oracle Payroll
7 1 (0.164%) BASE24
7 1 (0.164%) AWD
Communications & Networking
1 39 (6.404%) HTTP
2 31 (5.090%) Internet
3 29 (4.762%) DNS
4 24 (3.941%) TCP/IP
5 20 (3.284%) SSL
6 17 (2.791%) DHCP
7 12 (1.970%) Intrusion Detection
8 5 (0.821%) WAN
8 5 (0.821%) LAN
8 5 (0.821%) LDAP
9 3 (0.493%) xDSL
9 3 (0.493%) SNMP
9 3 (0.493%) 3GPP
9 3 (0.493%) Ethernet
9 3 (0.493%) Broadband
9 3 (0.493%) DVB
10 2 (0.328%) RTSP
10 2 (0.328%) Wi-Fi
10 2 (0.328%) Wireless
10 2 (0.328%) Bluetooth
Database & Business Intelligence
1 89 (14.61%) SQL Server
2 33 (5.419%) Data Warehouse
2 33 (5.419%) MySQL
3 32 (5.255%) MongoDB
4 26 (4.269%) Redis
5 25 (4.105%) Amazon RDS
6 24 (3.941%) Data Mining
7 17 (2.791%) Oracle 8/8i
8 16 (2.627%) SQL Server 2008
9 15 (2.463%) SQL Server 2005
10 11 (1.806%) Oracle 11g
11 10 (1.642%) Oracle 10g
11 10 (1.642%) NoSQL
12 8 (1.314%) Oracle Reports
13 7 (1.149%) Oracle OWB
13 7 (1.149%) Oracle BI EE
14 6 (0.985%) GIS
14 6 (0.985%) OLAP
14 6 (0.985%) OLTP
14 6 (0.985%) SQL Server 2012
Development Applications
1 182 (29.89%) Selenium
2 96 (15.76%) Cucumber
3 92 (15.11%) WebDriver
4 82 (13.46%) QuickTest Pro
5 53 (8.703%) Jenkins
6 52 (8.539%) Maven
7 49 (8.046%) JIRA
8 48 (7.882%) JUnit
8 48 (7.882%) Visual Studio
9 41 (6.732%) Git (software)
10 30 (4.926%) Team Foundation Server
11 27 (4.433%) Eclipse
12 25 (4.105%) FitNesse
13 23 (3.777%) Subversion
14 22 (3.612%) WATIR
14 22 (3.612%) LoadRunner
15 21 (3.448%) TeamCity
15 21 (3.448%) SpecFlow
16 17 (2.791%) Hudson
17 15 (2.463%) Rational Functional Tester
General
1 103 (16.91%) Finance
2 60 (9.852%) Games
3 58 (9.524%) Banking
4 48 (7.882%) Telecoms
5 44 (7.225%) Investment Banking
6 17 (2.791%) Front Office
7 13 (2.135%) Retail
8 12 (1.970%) Marketing
9 9 (1.478%) Publishing
10 5 (0.821%) Financial Institution
11 4 (0.657%) General Ledger
11 4 (0.657%) Back Office
12 3 (0.493%) Law
12 3 (0.493%) Manufacturing
12 3 (0.493%) Military
12 3 (0.493%) Electronics
12 3 (0.493%) Billing
13 2 (0.328%) Multimedia
13 2 (0.328%) Retail Banking
13 2 (0.328%) French Language
Job Titles
1 137 (22.50%) Analyst
2 120 (19.70%) Test Analyst
3 119 (19.54%) Tester
4 112 (18.39%) Developer
5 65 (10.67%) Test Engineer
6 55 (9.031%) Software Engineer
7 43 (7.061%) Test Manager
8 35 (5.747%) Automation Analyst
8 35 (5.747%) QA Engineer
9 33 (5.419%) QA Analyst
10 30 (4.926%) Java Developer
11 27 (4.433%) Automation Engineer
12 26 (4.269%) Consultant
13 25 (4.105%) Automation Test Analyst
13 25 (4.105%) Automation Tester
14 23 (3.777%) Test Consultant
15 20 (3.284%) Development Engineer
16 18 (2.956%) Functional Tester
17 17 (2.791%) Test Automation Engineer
18 16 (2.627%) Software Development Engineer
Miscellaneous
1 51 (8.374%) Computer Science
2 50 (8.210%) Open Source
3 38 (6.240%) Client/Server
4 30 (4.926%) Mobile App
5 24 (3.941%) Enterprise Software
5 24 (3.941%) Derivative
6 16 (2.627%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 14 (2.299%) Cloud Computing
7 14 (2.299%) New Media
8 13 (2.135%) Social Media
9 9 (1.478%) Management Information System
9 9 (1.478%) Streaming Video
10 8 (1.314%) Clustering
10 8 (1.314%) N-Tier
11 7 (1.149%) Equities
11 7 (1.149%) Credit Risk
11 7 (1.149%) Market Risk
11 7 (1.149%) Credit Derivative
12 6 (0.985%) Kinect
12 6 (0.985%) Digital Media
Operating Systems
1 91 (14.94%) Linux
2 84 (13.79%) Windows
3 32 (5.255%) UNIX
4 30 (4.926%) Android
5 24 (3.941%) Apple iOS
6 18 (2.956%) Windows Server 2008
7 15 (2.463%) Windows XP
7 15 (2.463%) Windows Server 2003
8 13 (2.135%) Windows 7
9 9 (1.478%) Mac OS X
10 6 (0.985%) Windows Mobile
11 5 (0.821%) Windows Phone
11 5 (0.821%) Windows 8
11 5 (0.821%) AIX
11 5 (0.821%) Solaris
12 3 (0.493%) CentOS
13 2 (0.328%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.164%) bada
14 1 (0.164%) Maemo
14 1 (0.164%) BlackBerry OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 161 (26.44%) Agile Software Development
2 120 (19.70%) BDD
3 118 (19.38%) Scrum
4 115 (18.88%) TDD
5 108 (17.73%) Test Scripting
6 89 (14.61%) Continuous Integration
6 89 (14.61%) Automated Testing
7 67 (11.00%) Performance Testing
8 61 (10.02%) Software Testing
9 59 (9.688%) Test Strategy
10 51 (8.374%) Regression Testing
11 49 (8.046%) Test Management
12 44 (7.225%) Kanban
13 43 (7.061%) OO
14 39 (6.404%) E-Commerce
14 39 (6.404%) Manual Testing
15 34 (5.583%) User Acceptance Testing
16 33 (5.419%) Automation Testing
17 32 (5.255%) Pair Programming
17 32 (5.255%) Security Testing
Programming Languages
1 207 (33.99%) SQL
2 192 (31.53%) Java
3 136 (22.33%) C#
4 85 (13.96%) Ruby
5 82 (13.46%) C++
6 72 (11.82%) Python
7 70 (11.49%) JavaScript
8 47 (7.718%) C
9 40 (6.568%) Perl
10 37 (6.076%) Bash shell
11 32 (5.255%) PHP
12 16 (2.627%) Shell Script
13 14 (2.299%) VB
14 12 (1.970%) Groovy
14 12 (1.970%) Objective-C
15 11 (1.806%) PowerShell
16 10 (1.642%) XPath
17 9 (1.478%) XQuery
17 9 (1.478%) PL/SQL
18 7 (1.149%) VBA
Qualifications
1 66 (10.84%) ISEB
2 62 (10.18%) Degree
3 51 (8.374%) Security Cleared
4 49 (8.046%) ISTQB
5 26 (4.269%) SC Cleared
6 14 (2.299%) ISEB Practitioner
7 9 (1.478%) DV Cleared
8 6 (0.985%) HP AIS
9 5 (0.821%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (0.821%) MCSD
10 3 (0.493%) BC Cleared
11 2 (0.328%) PMI Certification
12 1 (0.164%) Sun Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 159 (26.11%) QA
2 7 (1.149%) Basel III
3 4 (0.657%) SLA
4 2 (0.328%) ISO 9001
5 1 (0.164%) Data Quality
System Software
1 17 (2.791%) Active Directory
2 14 (2.299%) Oracle RAC
3 10 (1.642%) VMware ESX
4 9 (1.478%) VMware Infrastructure
5 7 (1.149%) Terminal Services
6 2 (0.328%) VMware Workstation
6 2 (0.328%) vCloud
7 1 (0.164%) Apache Flume
7 1 (0.164%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 84 (13.79%) HP Quality Center
2 18 (2.956%) Puppet
3 5 (0.821%) McAfee ePO
3 5 (0.821%) Netcool
4 3 (0.493%) Splunk
4 3 (0.493%) Control-M
5 1 (0.164%) HP SiteScope
5 1 (0.164%) BladeLogic
Vendors
1 94 (15.44%) Oracle
2 74 (12.15%) Microsoft
3 69 (11.33%) HP
4 33 (5.419%) SAP
5 20 (3.284%) Sybase
6 19 (3.120%) VMware
7 18 (2.956%) IBM
8 17 (2.791%) Percona
9 14 (2.299%) Adobe
10 13 (2.135%) Facebook
10 13 (2.135%) Twitter
11 9 (1.478%) hybris
12 7 (1.149%) TIBCO
13 6 (0.985%) Capita
13 6 (0.985%) CA
14 5 (0.821%) Informatica
14 5 (0.821%) Veritas
14 5 (0.821%) Citrix
14 5 (0.821%) Sun
14 5 (0.821%) McAfee
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Rate: From £450 to £500 per day
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Rate: £150 - £250 per day
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Andover, South East
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