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 1 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 59 39 59
Rank change year-on-year -20 +20 -7
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 49 86 62
As % of all contract jobs in Berkshire 3.52% 5.44% 3.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.93% 6.07% 3.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 36 52 44
10th Percentile £386 £385 £400
25th Percentile £407 £456 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £477 £593 £550
Median % change year-on-year -19.58% +7.73% +2.33%
75th Percentile £559 £651 £619
90th Percentile £613 £699 £638
South East median daily rate £475 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% +2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 0
10th Percentile £23.07 - -
25th Percentile £31.73 - -
Median hourly rate £46.15 - -
75th Percentile £60.58 - -
90th Percentile £69.23 - -
South East median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year - +53.85% -50.00%

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 1,247 1,416 1,624
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Berkshire 89.58% 89.62% 91.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 817 775 984
10th Percentile £306 £315 £213
25th Percentile £413 £423 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £543 £500
Median % change year-on-year -7.83% +8.50% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £621
90th Percentile £650 £691 £699
South East median daily rate £500 £513 £523
% change year-on-year -2.44% -1.91% +1.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 45 70
10th Percentile £14.75 £22.85 £24.33
25th Percentile £18.87 £41.25 £48.40
Median hourly rate £38.86 £58.38 £61.45
Median % change year-on-year -33.43% -5.00% +26.05%
75th Percentile £78.75 £64.73 £67.75
90th Percentile £95.00 £75.19 £76.47
South East median hourly rate £22.00 £54.68 £52.50
% change year-on-year -59.77% +4.15% +20.69%

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 1 December 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in Berkshire

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Automation in Berkshire over the 6 months to 1 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Automation in Berkshire

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 1 December 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 -26 18 £538 -14.00% 7
Wokingham -9 15 £425 +165.63%
Bracknell -12 5 £575 +35.29% 2
Windsor - 2 £500 -
Slough -6 1 £650 -
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 (2.04%) Apache Spark
Cloud Services
1 18 (36.73%) Azure
2 11 (22.45%) AWS
3 10 (20.41%) Entra ID
4 8 (16.33%) Azure DevOps
5 6 (12.24%) GCP
6 4 (8.16%) Serverless
7 3 (6.12%) Azure Functions
7 3 (6.12%) Azure Monitor
7 3 (6.12%) GitHub
7 3 (6.12%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (4.08%) Azure API Management
8 2 (4.08%) Power Platform
9 1 (2.04%) Amazon ECS
9 1 (2.04%) Amazon S3
9 1 (2.04%) Azure Data Factory
9 1 (2.04%) Azure Logic Apps
9 1 (2.04%) Azure Pipelines
9 1 (2.04%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 1 (2.04%) OCI
9 1 (2.04%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 7 (14.29%) Wireshark
2 4 (8.16%) Firewall
3 3 (6.12%) 5G
3 3 (6.12%) Network Security
3 3 (6.12%) WAN
4 2 (4.08%) 2G
4 2 (4.08%) Broadband
4 2 (4.08%) Internet
4 2 (4.08%) Intranet
4 2 (4.08%) LTE
4 2 (4.08%) Mobile Backhaul
4 2 (4.08%) MPLS
4 2 (4.08%) NaaS
4 2 (4.08%) SD-WAN
4 2 (4.08%) SSL
4 2 (4.08%) VoIP
4 2 (4.08%) VPN
4 2 (4.08%) Wireless
5 1 (2.04%) 3GPP
5 1 (2.04%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (14.29%) NoSQL
2 2 (4.08%) Power BI
2 2 (4.08%) Relational Database
2 2 (4.08%) SQL Server
2 2 (4.08%) Tableau
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 8 (16.33%) Burp Suite
2 7 (14.29%) JIRA
2 7 (14.29%) Metasploit
3 5 (10.20%) Selenium
4 3 (6.12%) Cypress.io
5 2 (4.08%) Cucumber
5 2 (4.08%) Git
5 2 (4.08%) Jenkins
5 2 (4.08%) NUnit
6 1 (2.04%) Appium
General
1 34 (69.39%) Social Skills
2 25 (51.02%) Analytical Skills
3 6 (12.24%) Telecoms
4 5 (10.20%) Documentation Skills
4 5 (10.20%) Influencing Skills
5 4 (8.16%) Presentation Skills
5 4 (8.16%) Public Sector
6 3 (6.12%) Finance
7 2 (4.08%) Automotive
7 2 (4.08%) Billing
8 1 (2.04%) Legal
Job Titles
1 11 (22.45%) Tester
2 10 (20.41%) Test Manager
3 9 (18.37%) Penetration Tester
4 7 (14.29%) DevOps Engineer
4 7 (14.29%) Senior
5 6 (12.24%) Cloud Engineer
6 5 (10.20%) AWS Engineer
7 4 (8.16%) Architect
8 3 (6.12%) Lead
8 3 (6.12%) Security Architect
9 2 (4.08%) AWS DevOps
9 2 (4.08%) AWS DevOps Engineer
9 2 (4.08%) Azure DevOps Engineer
9 2 (4.08%) Azure Engineer
9 2 (4.08%) Developer
9 2 (4.08%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
9 2 (4.08%) Strategy Manager
9 2 (4.08%) Technical Leader
9 2 (4.08%) Telecoms Specialist
9 2 (4.08%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (10.20%) OAuth
1 5 (10.20%) SAML
2 4 (8.16%) .NET
3 3 (6.12%) JWT
3 3 (6.12%) Playwright
4 2 (4.08%) .NET Core
4 2 (4.08%) .NET Framework
4 2 (4.08%) ARM Templates
4 2 (4.08%) ASP.NET
4 2 (4.08%) GraphQL
4 2 (4.08%) Microsoft Graph
4 2 (4.08%) OAuth2
4 2 (4.08%) OpenID
4 2 (4.08%) REST
5 1 (2.04%) Kafka
5 1 (2.04%) Node.js
5 1 (2.04%) React
5 1 (2.04%) RESTful
5 1 (2.04%) RFC 2544
5 1 (2.04%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 8 (16.33%) Enterprise Software
2 5 (10.20%) Cloud Native
3 4 (8.16%) Algorithms
3 4 (8.16%) Security Posture
4 3 (6.12%) Cloud Security Posture
4 3 (6.12%) Distributed Systems
4 3 (6.12%) Hybrid Cloud
4 3 (6.12%) IoT
4 3 (6.12%) Product Ownership
4 3 (6.12%) Public Cloud
5 2 (4.08%) Linux Command Line
6 1 (2.04%) Data Centre
6 1 (2.04%) Fibre Optics
6 1 (2.04%) Mobile App
6 1 (2.04%) TM Forum
6 1 (2.04%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 10 (20.41%) Linux
2 8 (16.33%) Kali Linux
3 1 (2.04%) Windows
3 1 (2.04%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 26 (53.06%) Problem-Solving
2 19 (38.78%) DevOps
3 18 (36.73%) Agile
3 18 (36.73%) CI/CD
4 17 (34.69%) Scenario Testing
5 15 (30.61%) Software Testing
6 14 (28.57%) Validation
7 13 (26.53%) Continuous Improvement
8 12 (24.49%) Penetration Testing
9 11 (22.45%) OWASP
9 11 (22.45%) Stakeholder Management
9 11 (22.45%) Test Management
10 10 (20.41%) SDLC
10 10 (20.41%) Test Strategy
11 9 (18.37%) End-to-End Testing
11 9 (18.37%) Red Team
11 9 (18.37%) Root Cause Analysis
12 8 (16.33%) Analytical Thinking
12 8 (16.33%) Resilience Testing
12 8 (16.33%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 20 (40.82%) Python
2 10 (20.41%) Bash
2 10 (20.41%) PowerShell
3 9 (18.37%) SQL
4 4 (8.16%) C#
4 4 (8.16%) Java
4 4 (8.16%) JavaScript
5 2 (4.08%) PHP
5 2 (4.08%) R
6 1 (2.04%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 19 (38.78%) Security Cleared
2 16 (32.65%) SC Cleared
3 9 (18.37%) AWS Certification
4 8 (16.33%) OSCP
5 7 (14.29%) CEH
5 7 (14.29%) GPEN
5 7 (14.29%) ISTQB
6 6 (12.24%) Cisco Certification
7 5 (10.20%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 4 (8.16%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 4 (8.16%) CCSP
8 4 (8.16%) CISSP
9 3 (6.12%) Azure Certification
10 2 (4.08%) BPSS Clearance
10 2 (4.08%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (4.08%) Degree
10 2 (4.08%) Master's Degree
11 1 (2.04%) CCNP
11 1 (2.04%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 1 (2.04%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (28.57%) QA
2 4 (8.16%) GDPR
2 4 (8.16%) PCI DSS
3 3 (6.12%) Data Quality
3 3 (6.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (6.12%) NIST
3 3 (6.12%) PSD2
4 2 (4.08%) SLA
5 1 (2.04%) HIPAA
System Software
1 5 (10.20%) Docker
2 2 (4.08%) Active Directory
3 1 (2.04%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 8 (16.33%) Nmap
2 5 (10.20%) Kubernetes
3 3 (6.12%) Terraform
4 2 (4.08%) Nessus
5 1 (2.04%) HP ALM
5 1 (2.04%) HP Quality Center
Vendors
1 6 (12.24%) ServiceNow
2 5 (10.20%) Workday
3 3 (6.12%) Cisco
3 3 (6.12%) Microsoft
4 2 (4.08%) Fortinet
4 2 (4.08%) Juniper
4 2 (4.08%) SAP
5 1 (2.04%) Databricks
5 1 (2.04%) Ericsson
5 1 (2.04%) HP