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 10 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 86 28 44
Rank change year-on-year -58 +16 +11
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 32 79 76
As % of all contract jobs in Berkshire 1.74% 6.79% 3.93%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.06% 7.31% 4.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 25 42 39
10th Percentile £339 £403 £455
25th Percentile £371 £500 £519
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £405 £625 £615
Median % change year-on-year -35.20% +1.63% +11.82%
75th Percentile £588 £700 £650
90th Percentile £700 - £688
South East median daily rate £505 £501 £550
% change year-on-year +0.80% -9.00% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 3 0
Median hourly rate - £74.00 -
South East median hourly rate £67.50 £55.00 £38.50
% change year-on-year +22.73% +42.86% -30.63%

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 1,555 1,080 1,719
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Berkshire 84.69% 92.78% 88.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,027 631 901
10th Percentile £303 £305 £213
25th Percentile £400 £413 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £610 £608
90th Percentile £700 £675 £675
South East median daily rate £513 £500 £501
% change year-on-year +2.50% -0.20% -1.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 136 26 101
10th Percentile £33.25 £22.29 £18.50
25th Percentile £80.00 £32.05 £41.25
Median hourly rate £83.54 £61.50 £61.00
Median % change year-on-year +35.84% +0.81% +5.50%
75th Percentile £88.00 £76.77 £71.75
90th Percentile £104.75 £88.19 £87.46
South East median hourly rate £55.00 £28.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year +96.43% -41.05% -4.04%

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 10 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 10 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 -58 11 £405 -37.69% 4
Wokingham -28 10 £344 -17.91% 2
Windsor - 4 £700 -
Bracknell - 3 £600 - 1
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 (3.13%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 9 (28.13%) Azure
1 9 (28.13%) Azure DevOps
2 3 (9.38%) AWS
2 3 (9.38%) Serverless
3 2 (6.25%) Azure Key Vault
3 2 (6.25%) Azure Monitor
3 2 (6.25%) Entra ID
4 1 (3.13%) Azure AKS
4 1 (3.13%) Azure App Service
4 1 (3.13%) Azure Data Factory
4 1 (3.13%) Azure Storage
4 1 (3.13%) GitHub
4 1 (3.13%) GitHub Actions
4 1 (3.13%) IaaS
4 1 (3.13%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (6.25%) 2G
1 2 (6.25%) 3G
1 2 (6.25%) 4G
1 2 (6.25%) 5G
1 2 (6.25%) Diameter Protocol
1 2 (6.25%) MPLS
1 2 (6.25%) SIGTRAN
1 2 (6.25%) SS7
1 2 (6.25%) VPN
1 2 (6.25%) Wireshark
2 1 (3.13%) BGP
2 1 (3.13%) Cisco Nexus
2 1 (3.13%) Firewall
2 1 (3.13%) IPsec
2 1 (3.13%) LTE
2 1 (3.13%) OSPF
2 1 (3.13%) RSVP
2 1 (3.13%) SAN
2 1 (3.13%) SSL
2 1 (3.13%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (3.13%) Azure SQL Database
1 1 (3.13%) NoSQL
1 1 (3.13%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 7 (21.88%) HP UFT
2 5 (15.63%) Jenkins
3 2 (6.25%) Burp Suite
3 2 (6.25%) JIRA
4 1 (3.13%) Git
4 1 (3.13%) Katalon Studio
4 1 (3.13%) Metasploit
4 1 (3.13%) Selenium
4 1 (3.13%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 14 (43.75%) Analytical Skills
2 10 (31.25%) Social Skills
3 5 (15.63%) Telecoms
4 3 (9.38%) Presentation Skills
5 1 (3.13%) Automotive
5 1 (3.13%) Influencing Skills
5 1 (3.13%) Law
5 1 (3.13%) Marketing
5 1 (3.13%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 9 (28.13%) Test Engineer
2 7 (21.88%) Tester
3 5 (15.63%) Senior
4 4 (12.50%) Test Manager
5 3 (9.38%) Software Engineer
6 2 (6.25%) Designer
6 2 (6.25%) Developer
6 2 (6.25%) IP Engineer
6 2 (6.25%) Penetration Tester
6 2 (6.25%) Principal Engineer
6 2 (6.25%) Senior Software Engineer
6 2 (6.25%) Strategy Manager
6 2 (6.25%) Test Strategy Manager
7 1 (3.13%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
7 1 (3.13%) Front-End Web Developer (Client-Side Web Developer)
7 1 (3.13%) IP Network Engineer
7 1 (3.13%) QA Engineer
7 1 (3.13%) Senior IP Engineer
7 1 (3.13%) Senior QA Engineer
7 1 (3.13%) Senior Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (9.38%) OAuth
1 3 (9.38%) React
1 3 (9.38%) SAML
2 2 (6.25%) .NET
2 2 (6.25%) JWT
3 1 (3.13%) .NET Core
3 1 (3.13%) .NET Framework
3 1 (3.13%) ARM Templates
3 1 (3.13%) CSS
3 1 (3.13%) Entity Framework
3 1 (3.13%) Jest
3 1 (3.13%) JSON
3 1 (3.13%) Next.js
3 1 (3.13%) Node.js
3 1 (3.13%) OpenID
3 1 (3.13%) REST
3 1 (3.13%) Sass
3 1 (3.13%) Tailwind CSS
3 1 (3.13%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 3 (9.38%) Distributed Systems
2 2 (6.25%) Self-Motivation
3 1 (3.13%) AI Agents
3 1 (3.13%) Cloud Native
3 1 (3.13%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (3.13%) Enterprise Software
3 1 (3.13%) IoT
3 1 (3.13%) IVR
3 1 (3.13%) Mobile App
3 1 (3.13%) Product Ownership
3 1 (3.13%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 2 (6.25%) Kali Linux
1 2 (6.25%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (46.88%) CI/CD
2 13 (40.63%) DevOps
3 10 (31.25%) AI
3 10 (31.25%) Problem-Solving
4 9 (28.13%) Agile
5 8 (25.00%) Test Strategy
6 7 (21.88%) Functional Testing
6 7 (21.88%) Software Testing
7 6 (18.75%) Code Quality
7 6 (18.75%) Mentoring
7 6 (18.75%) Microservices
8 5 (15.63%) LLM
9 4 (12.50%) Continuous Improvement
9 4 (12.50%) Decision-Making
9 4 (12.50%) Machine Learning
9 4 (12.50%) Penetration Testing
9 4 (12.50%) SDLC
9 4 (12.50%) Software Engineering
9 4 (12.50%) Test Management
9 4 (12.50%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 10 (31.25%) JavaScript
2 8 (25.00%) Python
3 7 (21.88%) VBScript
4 4 (12.50%) TypeScript
5 2 (6.25%) C#
5 2 (6.25%) PowerShell
6 1 (3.13%) Bash
6 1 (3.13%) Bicep
6 1 (3.13%) Groovy
6 1 (3.13%) Java
6 1 (3.13%) SQL
Qualifications
1 5 (15.63%) Security Cleared
2 3 (9.38%) SC Cleared
3 2 (6.25%) CCNP
3 2 (6.25%) Cisco Certification
4 1 (3.13%) Azure Certification
4 1 (3.13%) CCIP
4 1 (3.13%) CEH
4 1 (3.13%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (3.13%) Degree
4 1 (3.13%) GPEN
4 1 (3.13%) ISTQB
4 1 (3.13%) OSCP
4 1 (3.13%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (31.25%) QA
2 1 (3.13%) Accessibility
System Software
1 1 (3.13%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 2 (6.25%) Nmap
1 2 (6.25%) Terraform
2 1 (3.13%) Nessus
Vendors
1 2 (6.25%) Cisco
1 2 (6.25%) Fortinet
1 2 (6.25%) Juniper
1 2 (6.25%) SAP
1 2 (6.25%) ServiceNow
2 1 (3.13%) Arista
2 1 (3.13%) BT
2 1 (3.13%) CheckPoint
2 1 (3.13%) Databricks
2 1 (3.13%) Ericsson
2 1 (3.13%) F5
2 1 (3.13%) Microsoft
2 1 (3.13%) Nokia
2 1 (3.13%) Splunk