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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 20 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 47 39 58
Rank change year-on-year -8 +19 +2
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 49 82 63
As % of all contract jobs advertised in Berkshire 4.16% 4.81% 3.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.55% 5.51% 3.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 28 54 46
10th Percentile £341 £385 £365
25th Percentile £415 £502 £466
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £600 £556
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +7.87% +5.95%
75th Percentile £538 £650 £613
90th Percentile £565 £675 £638
South East median daily rate £500 £515 £538
% change year-on-year -2.91% -4.19% +14.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
Median hourly rate £17.30 - -
South East median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 £56.25
% change year-on-year - -11.11% -13.46%

All Process and 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 1,077 1,488 1,619
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Berkshire 91.35% 87.32% 89.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 668 777 1,013
10th Percentile £325 £325 £300
25th Percentile £413 £450 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -9.05% +4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £638
90th Percentile £650 £688 £700
South East median daily rate £500 £513 £518
% change year-on-year -2.44% -1.14% +1.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 72 64
10th Percentile £14.75 £19.51 £18.50
25th Percentile £17.30 £45.31 £48.18
Median hourly rate £32.31 £61.55 £58.44
Median % change year-on-year -47.50% +5.31% +41.87%
75th Percentile £58.00 £70.39 £72.08
90th Percentile £87.25 £87.32 £75.67
South East median hourly rate £20.73 £57.35 £53.00
% change year-on-year -63.85% +8.21% +70.14%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in Berkshire

Job postings citing Test Automation as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in Berkshire.

Job vacancy trend for Test Automation 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 20 September 2025.

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 20 September 2025. 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 -6 29 £500 -20.00% 10
Wokingham -4 6 £420 +162.50% 5
Windsor - 5 £513 - 2
Bracknell -9 1 £525 +23.53% 1
Test Automation
South East

Test Automation
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in Berkshire by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 1 (2.04%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 1 (2.04%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 30 (61.22%) Azure
2 25 (51.02%) AWS
3 9 (18.37%) Azure DevOps
4 6 (12.24%) Entra ID
5 3 (6.12%) GCP
5 3 (6.12%) Serverless
6 1 (2.04%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 1 (2.04%) Amazon ECS
6 1 (2.04%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (2.04%) AWS Lambda
6 1 (2.04%) Azure AKS
6 1 (2.04%) Azure App Service
6 1 (2.04%) Azure Functions
6 1 (2.04%) Azure Key Vault
6 1 (2.04%) Azure Logic Apps
6 1 (2.04%) Azure Monitor
6 1 (2.04%) Azure Pipelines
6 1 (2.04%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 1 (2.04%) GitHub Actions
6 1 (2.04%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 5 (10.20%) Firewall
2 3 (6.12%) Network Security
3 2 (4.08%) LAN
3 2 (4.08%) WAN
4 1 (2.04%) 3GPP
4 1 (2.04%) 5G
4 1 (2.04%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (16.33%) NoSQL
2 2 (4.08%) Relational Database
2 2 (4.08%) SQL Server
3 1 (2.04%) Azure SQL Database
3 1 (2.04%) Data Lake
3 1 (2.04%) Data Vault
3 1 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (2.04%) DynamoDB
3 1 (2.04%) MongoDB
3 1 (2.04%) MySQL
3 1 (2.04%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 21 (42.86%) JIRA
2 18 (36.73%) Selenium
3 15 (30.61%) Cucumber
4 13 (26.53%) GitLab
4 13 (26.53%) Jenkins
4 13 (26.53%) REST Assured
5 9 (18.37%) SonarQube
6 4 (8.16%) Git
7 3 (6.12%) Cypress.io
7 3 (6.12%) NUnit
8 2 (4.08%) SpecFlow
General
1 28 (57.14%) Social Skills
2 25 (51.02%) Analytical Skills
3 8 (16.33%) Law
4 4 (8.16%) Finance
4 4 (8.16%) Police
5 3 (6.12%) Billing
5 3 (6.12%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (6.12%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (2.04%) Automotive
6 1 (2.04%) Legal
6 1 (2.04%) Public Sector
6 1 (2.04%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 10 (20.41%) Software Engineer
2 9 (18.37%) Java Engineer
2 9 (18.37%) Java Software Engineer
3 7 (14.29%) Cloud Engineer
3 7 (14.29%) DevOps Engineer
3 7 (14.29%) Senior
4 6 (12.24%) AWS Engineer
4 6 (12.24%) Developer
5 4 (8.16%) Consultant
5 4 (8.16%) Java Developer
5 4 (8.16%) QA Consultant
5 4 (8.16%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
5 4 (8.16%) Senior Consultant
6 3 (6.12%) Automation Tester
6 3 (6.12%) AWS DevOps
6 3 (6.12%) AWS DevOps Engineer
6 3 (6.12%) Lead
6 3 (6.12%) Security Architect
6 3 (6.12%) Test Engineer
6 3 (6.12%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (28.57%) REST
2 13 (26.53%) Java EE
3 9 (18.37%) ARM Templates
4 5 (10.20%) Playwright
5 3 (6.12%) .NET
6 2 (4.08%) CSS
6 2 (4.08%) HTML
6 2 (4.08%) RFC 2544
7 1 (2.04%) Express.js
7 1 (2.04%) FastAPI
7 1 (2.04%) FHIR
7 1 (2.04%) GraphQL
7 1 (2.04%) Kafka
7 1 (2.04%) LangChain
7 1 (2.04%) Node.js
7 1 (2.04%) React
7 1 (2.04%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 6 (12.24%) Enterprise Software
2 3 (6.12%) Cloud Native
2 3 (6.12%) Cloud Security Posture
2 3 (6.12%) Hybrid Cloud
2 3 (6.12%) Public Cloud
2 3 (6.12%) Security Posture
3 2 (4.08%) Data Centre
3 2 (4.08%) Fibre Optics
4 1 (2.04%) Algorithms
4 1 (2.04%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 1 (2.04%) Linux
1 1 (2.04%) Windows
1 1 (2.04%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 34 (69.39%) DevOps
2 24 (48.98%) Problem-Solving
3 19 (38.78%) CI/CD
4 16 (32.65%) Configuration Management
4 16 (32.65%) Software Engineering
5 15 (30.61%) Infrastructure as Code
6 14 (28.57%) Continuous Integration
7 13 (26.53%) Agile
7 13 (26.53%) Software Architecture
7 13 (26.53%) Technical Leadership
8 12 (24.49%) Containerisation
9 11 (22.45%) Scenario Testing
9 11 (22.45%) Test Scripting
9 11 (22.45%) Validation
10 10 (20.41%) End-to-End Testing
11 9 (18.37%) Decision-Making
11 9 (18.37%) Load Testing
11 9 (18.37%) Performance Testing
12 8 (16.33%) Continuous Improvement
12 8 (16.33%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 15 (30.61%) Java
2 10 (20.41%) Python
2 10 (20.41%) SQL
3 5 (10.20%) C#
4 3 (6.12%) JavaScript
4 3 (6.12%) TypeScript
5 1 (2.04%) Bash
5 1 (2.04%) Bicep
5 1 (2.04%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 25 (51.02%) Security Cleared
2 23 (46.94%) SC Cleared
3 10 (20.41%) AWS Certification
4 5 (10.20%) Cisco Certification
5 3 (6.12%) (ISC)2 CCSP
5 3 (6.12%) Azure Certification
5 3 (6.12%) CCSP
5 3 (6.12%) CISSP
5 3 (6.12%) ISTQB
5 3 (6.12%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
6 2 (4.08%) CCNA
6 2 (4.08%) CCNP
7 1 (2.04%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (26.53%) QA
2 4 (8.16%) GDPR
2 4 (8.16%) PCI DSS
3 3 (6.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (6.12%) NIST
3 3 (6.12%) PSD2
4 1 (2.04%) Data Quality
4 1 (2.04%) HIPAA
4 1 (2.04%) HL7
4 1 (2.04%) SLA
System Software
1 15 (30.61%) Docker
Systems Management
1 14 (28.57%) Kubernetes
2 11 (22.45%) Terraform
3 9 (18.37%) Ansible
3 9 (18.37%) Docker Swarm
3 9 (18.37%) Podman
4 4 (8.16%) HP ALM
4 4 (8.16%) HP Quality Center
Vendors
1 4 (8.16%) HP
2 3 (6.12%) ServiceNow
2 3 (6.12%) Workday
3 2 (4.08%) Cisco
4 1 (2.04%) Databricks
4 1 (2.04%) Ericsson
4 1 (2.04%) Microsoft