Test Automation Contract Job Trends in Berkshire

Automated Testing
South East > Berkshire

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Berkshire requiring Test Automation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 3 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 86 29 46
Rank change year-on-year -57 +17 +10
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 36 81 79
As % of all contract jobs in Berkshire 1.96% 6.93% 4.00%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.30% 7.43% 4.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 29 43 38
10th Percentile £346 £436 £451
25th Percentile £400 £500 £516
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £423 £625 £600
Median % change year-on-year -32.40% +4.17% +9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £700 £650
90th Percentile £700 - £688
South East median daily rate £500 £513 £550
% change year-on-year -2.44% -6.82% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 3 0
Median hourly rate - £74.00 -
South East median hourly rate £67.50 £55.88 £38.50
% change year-on-year +20.81% +45.13% -27.36%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Berkshire

Test Automation falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in Berkshire.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,564 1,090 1,754
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Berkshire 85.23% 93.32% 88.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,033 639 917
10th Percentile £303 £313 £213
25th Percentile £400 £414 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £509
Median % change year-on-year - -1.77% -3.05%
75th Percentile £600 £620 £608
90th Percentile £690 £675 £680
South East median daily rate £513 £500 £501
% change year-on-year +2.50% -0.10% -1.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 138 26 101
10th Percentile £29.89 £22.29 £19.00
25th Percentile £76.69 £32.05 £41.50
Median hourly rate £83.00 £61.50 £61.00
Median % change year-on-year +34.97% +0.81% +5.50%
75th Percentile £88.00 £76.77 £71.75
90th Percentile £104.45 £88.19 £87.46
South East median hourly rate £52.50 £28.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year +87.50% -41.05% -5.00%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in Berkshire

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Test Automation relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Berkshire.

Test Automation job vacancy trend in Berkshire

Test Automation
Daily Rate Trend in Berkshire

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Berkshire citing Test Automation.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Berkshire citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram in Berkshire

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in Berkshire over the 6 months to 3 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in Berkshire

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Trend in Berkshire

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Berkshire citing Test Automation.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Berkshire citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Contract Job Locations in Berkshire

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Test Automation within the Berkshire region over the 6 months to 3 May 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Reading -63 12 £405 -37.69% 5
Wokingham -32 11 £350 -16.42% 2
Bracknell - 4 £600 - 1
Windsor - 4 £700 - 2
Slough - 2 £400 -
Test Automation
South East

Test Automation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Berkshire by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 1 (2.78%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 10 (27.78%) Azure
2 9 (25.00%) Azure DevOps
3 3 (8.33%) AWS
3 3 (8.33%) Entra ID
3 3 (8.33%) Serverless
4 2 (5.56%) Azure Key Vault
4 2 (5.56%) Azure Monitor
5 1 (2.78%) Azure AKS
5 1 (2.78%) Azure App Service
5 1 (2.78%) Azure Data Factory
5 1 (2.78%) Azure Storage
5 1 (2.78%) GCP
5 1 (2.78%) GitHub
5 1 (2.78%) GitHub Actions
5 1 (2.78%) IaaS
5 1 (2.78%) PaaS
5 1 (2.78%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 3 (8.33%) 2G
1 3 (8.33%) 5G
1 3 (8.33%) MPLS
1 3 (8.33%) VPN
2 2 (5.56%) 3G
2 2 (5.56%) 4G
2 2 (5.56%) Broadband
2 2 (5.56%) Diameter Protocol
2 2 (5.56%) LTE
2 2 (5.56%) SIGTRAN
2 2 (5.56%) SS7
2 2 (5.56%) WAN
2 2 (5.56%) Wireshark
3 1 (2.78%) Cisco Nexus
3 1 (2.78%) Ethernet VPN
3 1 (2.78%) GPRS
3 1 (2.78%) Mobile Backhaul
3 1 (2.78%) Multicast
3 1 (2.78%) NaaS
3 1 (2.78%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.78%) Azure SQL Database
1 1 (2.78%) NoSQL
1 1 (2.78%) Parquet
1 1 (2.78%) Power BI
1 1 (2.78%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 7 (19.44%) HP UFT
2 5 (13.89%) Jenkins
3 2 (5.56%) Burp Suite
3 2 (5.56%) JIRA
4 1 (2.78%) Git
4 1 (2.78%) Katalon Studio
4 1 (2.78%) Metasploit
4 1 (2.78%) Selenium
4 1 (2.78%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 15 (41.67%) Analytical Skills
2 13 (36.11%) Social Skills
3 7 (19.44%) Telecoms
4 4 (11.11%) Presentation Skills
5 2 (5.56%) Influencing Skills
5 2 (5.56%) Public Sector
6 1 (2.78%) Automotive
6 1 (2.78%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (2.78%) Law
6 1 (2.78%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 9 (25.00%) Test Engineer
2 7 (19.44%) Tester
3 6 (16.67%) Senior
3 6 (16.67%) Test Manager
4 3 (8.33%) Software Engineer
4 3 (8.33%) Strategy Manager
4 3 (8.33%) Test Strategy Manager
5 2 (5.56%) Designer
5 2 (5.56%) Developer
5 2 (5.56%) IP Engineer
5 2 (5.56%) Penetration Tester
5 2 (5.56%) Principal Engineer
5 2 (5.56%) Senior Software Engineer
6 1 (2.78%) Field Engineer
6 1 (2.78%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
6 1 (2.78%) Network Engineer
6 1 (2.78%) QA Engineer
6 1 (2.78%) Senior IP Engineer
6 1 (2.78%) Senior Test Engineer
6 1 (2.78%) Web Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (11.11%) OAuth
1 4 (11.11%) SAML
2 3 (8.33%) JWT
2 3 (8.33%) React
3 2 (5.56%) .NET
4 1 (2.78%) .NET Core
4 1 (2.78%) .NET Framework
4 1 (2.78%) ARM Templates
4 1 (2.78%) CSS
4 1 (2.78%) Entity Framework
4 1 (2.78%) Jest
4 1 (2.78%) JSON
4 1 (2.78%) Next.js
4 1 (2.78%) Node.js
4 1 (2.78%) OpenID
4 1 (2.78%) REST
4 1 (2.78%) Sass
4 1 (2.78%) Tailwind CSS
4 1 (2.78%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 4 (11.11%) Distributed Systems
2 2 (5.56%) Cloud Native
2 2 (5.56%) Enterprise Software
2 2 (5.56%) IoT
2 2 (5.56%) Product Ownership
2 2 (5.56%) Self-Motivation
3 1 (2.78%) AI Agents
3 1 (2.78%) Algorithms
3 1 (2.78%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (2.78%) IVR
3 1 (2.78%) Mobile App
3 1 (2.78%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 2 (5.56%) Kali Linux
1 2 (5.56%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (41.67%) CI/CD
2 14 (38.89%) DevOps
3 13 (36.11%) Problem-Solving
4 12 (33.33%) Agile
5 11 (30.56%) AI
6 10 (27.78%) Test Strategy
7 8 (22.22%) Software Testing
8 7 (19.44%) Code Quality
8 7 (19.44%) Functional Testing
8 7 (19.44%) Microservices
9 6 (16.67%) Continuous Improvement
9 6 (16.67%) Mentoring
9 6 (16.67%) Test Management
10 5 (13.89%) Machine Learning
10 5 (13.89%) OWASP
10 5 (13.89%) Penetration Testing
10 5 (13.89%) Scenario Testing
10 5 (13.89%) SDLC
10 5 (13.89%) Stakeholder Management
10 5 (13.89%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 10 (27.78%) JavaScript
2 9 (25.00%) Python
3 7 (19.44%) VBScript
4 4 (11.11%) TypeScript
5 2 (5.56%) C#
5 2 (5.56%) PowerShell
5 2 (5.56%) SQL
6 1 (2.78%) Bash
6 1 (2.78%) Bicep
6 1 (2.78%) Groovy
6 1 (2.78%) Java
6 1 (2.78%) R
Qualifications
1 7 (19.44%) Security Cleared
2 4 (11.11%) SC Cleared
3 2 (5.56%) CCNP
3 2 (5.56%) Cisco Certification
3 2 (5.56%) ISTQB
4 1 (2.78%) Azure Certification
4 1 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
4 1 (2.78%) CCIP
4 1 (2.78%) CEH
4 1 (2.78%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (2.78%) Degree
4 1 (2.78%) GPEN
4 1 (2.78%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
4 1 (2.78%) OSCP
4 1 (2.78%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (30.56%) QA
2 1 (2.78%) Accessibility
2 1 (2.78%) SLA
System Software
1 1 (2.78%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 2 (5.56%) Nmap
1 2 (5.56%) Terraform
2 1 (2.78%) Nessus
Vendors
1 3 (8.33%) Cisco
1 3 (8.33%) Fortinet
1 3 (8.33%) Juniper
1 3 (8.33%) SAP
1 3 (8.33%) ServiceNow
2 1 (2.78%) Arista
2 1 (2.78%) BT
2 1 (2.78%) CheckPoint
2 1 (2.78%) Databricks
2 1 (2.78%) Ericsson
2 1 (2.78%) F5
2 1 (2.78%) Microsoft
2 1 (2.78%) Nokia
2 1 (2.78%) Splunk
2 1 (2.78%) Workday