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 4 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 63 31 66
Rank change year-on-year -32 +35 -20
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 47 86 56
As % of all contract jobs in Berkshire 3.19% 6.12% 3.30%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.67% 6.71% 3.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 34 53 37
10th Percentile £405 £385 £425
25th Percentile £419 £456 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £496 £625 £550
Median % change year-on-year -20.64% +13.64% +1.15%
75th Percentile £597 £651 £620
90th Percentile £643 £698 £638
South East median daily rate £500 £513 £550
% change year-on-year -2.44% -6.82% +4.76%
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 £57.50 £50.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +15.00% +53.85% -50.00%

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 1,279 1,281 1,556
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Berkshire 86.71% 91.17% 91.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 870 709 942
10th Percentile £300 £300 £213
25th Percentile £413 £409 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -0.05%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £608
90th Percentile £650 £675 £687
South East median daily rate £500 £510 £516
% change year-on-year -1.96% -1.16% +1.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 59 36 69
10th Percentile £14.75 £27.00 £29.00
25th Percentile £19.19 £42.19 £48.40
Median hourly rate £55.00 £60.25 £61.65
Median % change year-on-year -8.71% -2.27% +2.74%
75th Percentile £81.50 £64.73 £67.75
90th Percentile £98.00 £70.93 £76.84
South East median hourly rate £22.50 £45.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year -50.00% -18.18% +28.87%

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 4 January 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in Berkshire

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Automation in Berkshire over the 6 months to 4 January 2026.

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 4 January 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
Wokingham -18 17 £423 +156.06% 1
Reading -32 15 £550 -12.00% 27
Bracknell -6 6 £588 +38.24% 1
Windsor - 3 £700 - 1
Slough -1 1 £650 - 54
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:

Cloud Services
1 17 (36.17%) Azure
2 12 (25.53%) AWS
3 10 (21.28%) Entra ID
4 8 (17.02%) Azure DevOps
5 6 (12.77%) GCP
6 5 (10.64%) Serverless
7 3 (6.38%) GitHub
7 3 (6.38%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (4.26%) Azure API Management
8 2 (4.26%) Azure Functions
8 2 (4.26%) Azure Monitor
8 2 (4.26%) Power Platform
9 1 (2.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 1 (2.13%) Amazon ECS
9 1 (2.13%) Amazon S3
9 1 (2.13%) AWS CloudFormation
9 1 (2.13%) AWS Lambda
9 1 (2.13%) Datadog
9 1 (2.13%) OCI
9 1 (2.13%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 7 (14.89%) Wireshark
2 3 (6.38%) Firewall
2 3 (6.38%) Network Security
3 2 (4.26%) 2G
3 2 (4.26%) 5G
3 2 (4.26%) Broadband
3 2 (4.26%) Internet
3 2 (4.26%) Intranet
3 2 (4.26%) LTE
3 2 (4.26%) Mobile Backhaul
3 2 (4.26%) MPLS
3 2 (4.26%) NaaS
3 2 (4.26%) SD-WAN
3 2 (4.26%) SSL
3 2 (4.26%) VoIP
3 2 (4.26%) VPN
3 2 (4.26%) WAN
3 2 (4.26%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (10.64%) NoSQL
2 2 (4.26%) Power BI
2 2 (4.26%) Tableau
3 1 (2.13%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 8 (17.02%) Burp Suite
2 7 (14.89%) Metasploit
3 5 (10.64%) Jenkins
3 5 (10.64%) JIRA
4 3 (6.38%) HP UFT
4 3 (6.38%) Selenium
5 2 (4.26%) Cucumber
5 2 (4.26%) Cypress.io
6 1 (2.13%) Appium
6 1 (2.13%) NUnit
General
1 33 (70.21%) Social Skills
2 28 (59.57%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (10.64%) Documentation Skills
3 5 (10.64%) Influencing Skills
3 5 (10.64%) Presentation Skills
3 5 (10.64%) Public Sector
3 5 (10.64%) Telecoms
4 3 (6.38%) Finance
5 1 (2.13%) Automotive
5 1 (2.13%) Billing
Job Titles
1 11 (23.40%) Test Manager
2 10 (21.28%) Tester
3 9 (19.15%) Penetration Tester
4 6 (12.77%) Senior
5 5 (10.64%) AWS Engineer
5 5 (10.64%) Cloud Engineer
6 4 (8.51%) Architect
6 4 (8.51%) DevOps Engineer
7 3 (6.38%) Security Architect
7 3 (6.38%) Strategy Manager
7 3 (6.38%) Test Engineer
7 3 (6.38%) Test Strategy Manager
8 2 (4.26%) Active Directory Engineer
8 2 (4.26%) AWS DevOps
8 2 (4.26%) AWS DevOps Engineer
8 2 (4.26%) Azure DevOps Engineer
8 2 (4.26%) Azure Engineer
8 2 (4.26%) Technical Leader
8 2 (4.26%) Telecoms Specialist
8 2 (4.26%) Test Strategist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (12.77%) OAuth
1 6 (12.77%) SAML
2 4 (8.51%) JWT
3 3 (6.38%) .NET
4 2 (4.26%) .NET Core
4 2 (4.26%) .NET Framework
4 2 (4.26%) ARM Templates
4 2 (4.26%) ASP.NET
4 2 (4.26%) GraphQL
4 2 (4.26%) Microsoft Graph
4 2 (4.26%) OAuth2
4 2 (4.26%) OpenID
4 2 (4.26%) REST
5 1 (2.13%) Node.js
5 1 (2.13%) Playwright
5 1 (2.13%) React
5 1 (2.13%) Spring
5 1 (2.13%) Spring Batch
5 1 (2.13%) Spring Boot
5 1 (2.13%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 8 (17.02%) Enterprise Software
2 5 (10.64%) Cloud Native
3 4 (8.51%) Algorithms
3 4 (8.51%) Distributed Systems
3 4 (8.51%) Security Posture
4 3 (6.38%) Cloud Security Posture
4 3 (6.38%) Hybrid Cloud
4 3 (6.38%) IoT
4 3 (6.38%) Product Ownership
4 3 (6.38%) Public Cloud
5 2 (4.26%) Linux Command Line
6 1 (2.13%) Mobile App
6 1 (2.13%) TM Forum
6 1 (2.13%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 9 (19.15%) Linux
2 8 (17.02%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (59.57%) Problem-Solving
2 19 (40.43%) CI/CD
3 18 (38.30%) Agile
3 18 (38.30%) DevOps
4 17 (36.17%) Scenario Testing
5 16 (34.04%) Software Testing
6 13 (27.66%) Penetration Testing
7 12 (25.53%) OWASP
7 12 (25.53%) Validation
8 11 (23.40%) Continuous Improvement
8 11 (23.40%) SDLC
8 11 (23.40%) Stakeholder Management
8 11 (23.40%) Test Management
9 10 (21.28%) Test Strategy
10 9 (19.15%) Red Team
10 9 (19.15%) Resilience Testing
11 8 (17.02%) Root Cause Analysis
12 7 (14.89%) Analytical Thinking
12 7 (14.89%) Infrastructure as Code
12 7 (14.89%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 18 (38.30%) Python
2 9 (19.15%) Bash
2 9 (19.15%) PowerShell
3 7 (14.89%) SQL
4 6 (12.77%) JavaScript
5 4 (8.51%) Java
6 3 (6.38%) C#
6 3 (6.38%) TypeScript
6 3 (6.38%) VBScript
7 2 (4.26%) PHP
7 2 (4.26%) R
Qualifications
1 18 (38.30%) Security Cleared
2 14 (29.79%) SC Cleared
3 8 (17.02%) AWS Certification
3 8 (17.02%) OSCP
4 7 (14.89%) CEH
4 7 (14.89%) GPEN
4 7 (14.89%) ISTQB
5 5 (10.64%) Cisco Certification
5 5 (10.64%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
6 4 (8.51%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 4 (8.51%) CCSP
6 4 (8.51%) CISSP
7 3 (6.38%) Azure Certification
8 2 (4.26%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (4.26%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (4.26%) Degree
8 2 (4.26%) Master's Degree
9 1 (2.13%) CCIE
9 1 (2.13%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 1 (2.13%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (34.04%) QA
2 3 (6.38%) GDPR
2 3 (6.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (6.38%) NIST
2 3 (6.38%) PCI DSS
2 3 (6.38%) PSD2
3 2 (4.26%) Data Quality
3 2 (4.26%) SLA
System Software
1 4 (8.51%) Docker
2 2 (4.26%) Active Directory
3 1 (2.13%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 8 (17.02%) Nmap
2 4 (8.51%) Kubernetes
3 3 (6.38%) Terraform
4 2 (4.26%) Nessus
Vendors
1 6 (12.77%) ServiceNow
2 5 (10.64%) Workday
3 3 (6.38%) SAP
4 2 (4.26%) Cisco
4 2 (4.26%) Fortinet
4 2 (4.26%) Juniper
4 2 (4.26%) Microsoft