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 7 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 67 37 40
Rank change year-on-year -30 +3 +17
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 51 59 86
As % of all contract jobs in Berkshire 2.82% 5.02% 4.98%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.45% 5.48% 5.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 25 36 54
10th Percentile £368 £352 £385
25th Percentile £408 £475 £502
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £440 £513 £613
Median % change year-on-year -14.19% -16.29% +8.65%
75th Percentile £500 £700 £650
90th Percentile £640 - £675
South East median daily rate £450 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -10.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 0
10th Percentile £66.30 - -
25th Percentile £66.38 - -
Median hourly rate £68.22 £17.30 -
Median % change year-on-year +294.31% - -
75th Percentile £70.66 - -
90th Percentile £71.16 - -
South East median hourly rate £70.00 £50.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year +40.00% - -11.11%

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 1,477 1,076 1,502
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Berkshire 81.69% 91.50% 86.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 933 666 785
10th Percentile £350 £345 £325
25th Percentile £425 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £545 £514 £550
Median % change year-on-year +6.08% -6.59% +4.76%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £638
90th Percentile £733 £667 £696
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £514
% change year-on-year +5.00% -2.72% -0.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 139 40 76
10th Percentile £17.25 £14.75 £19.34
25th Percentile £41.69 £16.66 £45.31
Median hourly rate £82.00 £32.18 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year +154.82% -47.76% +2.67%
75th Percentile £88.00 £62.62 £71.89
90th Percentile £104.50 £87.28 £87.46
South East median hourly rate £52.50 £21.90 £57.35
% change year-on-year +139.73% -61.81% +10.08%

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 7 September 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 7 September 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 -33 35 £440 -26.67% 21
Wokingham -9 7 £500 +42.86% 2
Windsor -1 3 £475 -7.32% 4
Slough - 3 £410 - 2
Bracknell -2 1 - - 3
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 5 (9.80%) Confluence
2 4 (7.84%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 1 (1.96%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (1.96%) Oracle EBS
1 1 (1.96%) Oracle EBS R12
1 1 (1.96%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 21 (41.18%) Azure
2 13 (25.49%) Azure DevOps
3 11 (21.57%) AWS
4 8 (15.69%) Entra ID
4 8 (15.69%) GCP
5 6 (11.76%) Azure Key Vault
5 6 (11.76%) Azure Monitor
5 6 (11.76%) GitHub
6 5 (9.80%) Azure AKS
6 5 (9.80%) Azure App Service
6 5 (9.80%) GitHub Actions
7 4 (7.84%) IaaS
8 3 (5.88%) Azure API Management
8 3 (5.88%) Azure Storage
8 3 (5.88%) PaaS
9 2 (3.92%) AWS CloudFormation
9 2 (3.92%) OpenShift
10 1 (1.96%) Azure Sentinel
10 1 (1.96%) Microsoft Purview
10 1 (1.96%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 13 (25.49%) 2G
1 13 (25.49%) 3G
1 13 (25.49%) 4G
1 13 (25.49%) 5G
1 13 (25.49%) Diameter Protocol
1 13 (25.49%) SIGTRAN
1 13 (25.49%) SS7
2 3 (5.88%) BGP
2 3 (5.88%) Ethernet VPN
2 3 (5.88%) GPRS
2 3 (5.88%) GSM
2 3 (5.88%) LAN
2 3 (5.88%) LTE
2 3 (5.88%) MPLS
2 3 (5.88%) UMTS
2 3 (5.88%) VPN
2 3 (5.88%) VXLAN
2 3 (5.88%) WAN
2 3 (5.88%) Wireshark
3 2 (3.92%) NGN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (9.80%) Azure SQL Database
1 5 (9.80%) Data Warehouse
1 5 (9.80%) NoSQL
2 4 (7.84%) Big Data
3 3 (5.88%) Spark SQL
4 2 (3.92%) Data Lake
4 2 (3.92%) Metadata
4 2 (3.92%) Oracle Reports
4 2 (3.92%) SQL Server
5 1 (1.96%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (1.96%) BigQuery
5 1 (1.96%) Parquet
5 1 (1.96%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 10 (19.61%) Git
2 6 (11.76%) Jenkins
2 6 (11.76%) JIRA
3 5 (9.80%) GitLab
4 2 (3.92%) JMeter
4 2 (3.92%) tSQLt
5 1 (1.96%) Burp Suite
5 1 (1.96%) Cucumber
5 1 (1.96%) HP UFT
5 1 (1.96%) LoadRunner
5 1 (1.96%) NeoLoad
5 1 (1.96%) Postman
5 1 (1.96%) REST Assured
5 1 (1.96%) Selenium
General
1 22 (43.14%) Social Skills
2 21 (41.18%) Analytical Skills
3 18 (35.29%) Telecoms
4 4 (7.84%) Aerospace
4 4 (7.84%) Finance
5 1 (1.96%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 16 (31.37%) Senior
2 10 (19.61%) Designer
3 9 (17.65%) Mobile Designer
4 6 (11.76%) Developer
5 5 (9.80%) Consultant
5 5 (9.80%) Full-Stack Developer
5 5 (9.80%) Senior Consultant
5 5 (9.80%) Tester
6 3 (5.88%) Automation Consultant
6 3 (5.88%) Design Engineer
6 3 (5.88%) DevSecOps Engineer
6 3 (5.88%) Lead
6 3 (5.88%) Network Consultant
6 3 (5.88%) QA Engineer
6 3 (5.88%) Senior Network Consultant
6 3 (5.88%) Senior QA Engineer
6 3 (5.88%) Test Engineer
7 2 (3.92%) Full-Stack .NET Developer
7 2 (3.92%) React Developer
7 2 (3.92%) Software Assurance Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (23.53%) Terraform
2 8 (15.69%) REST
3 6 (11.76%) .NET
3 6 (11.76%) OAuth
3 6 (11.76%) SAML
4 5 (9.80%) .NET Core
4 5 (9.80%) .NET Framework
4 5 (9.80%) Entity Framework
4 5 (9.80%) OpenID
4 5 (9.80%) RESTful
5 3 (5.88%) ARM Templates
5 3 (5.88%) PySpark
6 2 (3.92%) JSON
6 2 (3.92%) React
7 1 (1.96%) Lightning Web Components
7 1 (1.96%) Middleware
7 1 (1.96%) Playwright
7 1 (1.96%) SOAP
7 1 (1.96%) WireMock
7 1 (1.96%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 8 (15.69%) Self-Motivation
2 7 (13.73%) Cloud Native
3 4 (7.84%) Product Ownership
4 2 (3.92%) AI Agents
4 2 (3.92%) Data Protection Act
4 2 (3.92%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (1.96%) Analytical Mindset
5 1 (1.96%) Distributed Architecture
5 1 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (1.96%) Hybrid Cloud
5 1 (1.96%) IVR
5 1 (1.96%) Management Information System
5 1 (1.96%) Mobile App
5 1 (1.96%) SCADA
5 1 (1.96%) Security Posture
5 1 (1.96%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 2 (3.92%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 31 (60.78%) CI/CD
2 23 (45.10%) DevOps
3 17 (33.33%) Roadmaps
3 17 (33.33%) Technical Leadership
4 16 (31.37%) Agile
4 16 (31.37%) Stakeholder Management
5 14 (27.45%) Problem-Solving
6 13 (25.49%) Validation
7 12 (23.53%) Continuous Improvement
8 10 (19.61%) Analytics
8 10 (19.61%) Technology Roadmap
9 9 (17.65%) Software Engineering
9 9 (17.65%) Test Strategy
10 8 (15.69%) Deployment Automation
10 8 (15.69%) Identity Access Management
10 8 (15.69%) Infrastructure as Code
11 7 (13.73%) Containerisation
11 7 (13.73%) Customer Requirements
11 7 (13.73%) Observability
11 7 (13.73%) Software Delivery
Programming Languages
1 17 (33.33%) Python
2 11 (21.57%) SQL
3 8 (15.69%) PowerShell
4 6 (11.76%) C#
5 5 (9.80%) Java
6 4 (7.84%) Bash
6 4 (7.84%) Bicep
7 2 (3.92%) Apex Code
7 2 (3.92%) JavaScript
7 2 (3.92%) T-SQL
8 1 (1.96%) Groovy
8 1 (1.96%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 10 (19.61%) Security Cleared
2 7 (13.73%) SC Cleared
3 5 (9.80%) Cisco Certification
4 4 (7.84%) CCNP
5 3 (5.88%) Azure Certification
6 2 (3.92%) CISSP
6 2 (3.92%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (3.92%) Degree
7 1 (1.96%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 1 (1.96%) AWS Certification
7 1 (1.96%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
7 1 (1.96%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (1.96%) CCNA
7 1 (1.96%) CEH
7 1 (1.96%) CISA
7 1 (1.96%) CompTIA Security+
7 1 (1.96%) CREST Certified
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (19.61%) QA
2 6 (11.76%) Data Quality
3 2 (3.92%) GDPR
3 2 (3.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (3.92%) NIST
4 1 (1.96%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (1.96%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 1 (1.96%) GRC
4 1 (1.96%) NCSC
4 1 (1.96%) PCI DSS
4 1 (1.96%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 7 (13.73%) Docker
2 5 (9.80%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 9 (17.65%) Ansible
1 9 (17.65%) Kubernetes
2 1 (1.96%) QRadar
Vendors
1 11 (21.57%) Microsoft
2 6 (11.76%) Arista
3 4 (7.84%) Cisco
3 4 (7.84%) Databricks
4 3 (5.88%) F5
4 3 (5.88%) Fortinet
4 3 (5.88%) Juniper
5 2 (3.92%) Google
5 2 (3.92%) Oracle
5 2 (3.92%) Salesforce
5 2 (3.92%) Splunk
6 1 (1.96%) Conga
6 1 (1.96%) CyberArk
6 1 (1.96%) Dynatrace
6 1 (1.96%) Ericsson
6 1 (1.96%) GoCardless
6 1 (1.96%) MuleSoft
6 1 (1.96%) Nokia
6 1 (1.96%) Parasoft