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 5 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 60 46 37
Rank change year-on-year -14 -9 +15
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 58 50 91
As % of all contract jobs in Berkshire 3.23% 4.11% 5.52%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.91% 4.53% 6.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 29 35 63
10th Percentile £362 £352 £387
25th Percentile £405 £406 £509
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £448 £500 £620
Median % change year-on-year -10.50% -19.35% +12.73%
75th Percentile £500 £538 £650
90th Percentile £550 £550 £688
South East median daily rate £449 £475 £520
% change year-on-year -5.53% -8.65% -0.95%
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 £55.00
% change year-on-year +40.00% -9.09% -2.22%

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 1,483 1,103 1,441
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Berkshire 82.57% 90.71% 87.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 899 699 755
10th Percentile £350 £315 £325
25th Percentile £437 £413 £435
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £600 £638
90th Percentile £725 £650 £688
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £510
% change year-on-year +5.00% -1.96% -2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 161 45 65
10th Percentile £16.38 £14.75 £19.33
25th Percentile £35.00 £17.50 £41.25
Median hourly rate £80.00 £37.28 £60.60
Median % change year-on-year +114.59% -38.48% -0.04%
75th Percentile £91.31 £58.00 £64.73
90th Percentile £104.00 £87.40 £81.81
South East median hourly rate £47.50 £22.19 £58.38
% change year-on-year +114.06% -61.99% +7.35%

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 5 October 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 5 October 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 -25 33 £433 -13.50% 21
Wokingham -2 14 £475 +13.10% 6
Windsor +2 5 £475 -7.32% 1
Slough - 3 £410 - 11
Bracknell +3 1 - - 9
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 7 (12.07%) Confluence
2 4 (6.90%) Apache Spark
3 1 (1.72%) WebSphere
Applications
1 1 (1.72%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (1.72%) Oracle EBS
1 1 (1.72%) Oracle EBS R12
1 1 (1.72%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 28 (48.28%) Azure
2 20 (34.48%) Azure DevOps
3 12 (20.69%) AWS
4 10 (17.24%) Entra ID
5 8 (13.79%) Azure AKS
5 8 (13.79%) Azure App Service
5 8 (13.79%) Azure Key Vault
5 8 (13.79%) GCP
6 7 (12.07%) Azure Monitor
7 6 (10.34%) IaaS
8 5 (8.62%) Azure API Management
8 5 (8.62%) Azure Storage
8 5 (8.62%) GitHub
8 5 (8.62%) PaaS
9 4 (6.90%) GitHub Actions
10 3 (5.17%) AWS CloudFormation
10 3 (5.17%) OpenShift
11 2 (3.45%) Dynamics 365
12 1 (1.72%) BrowserStack
12 1 (1.72%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 11 (18.97%) 2G
1 11 (18.97%) 3G
1 11 (18.97%) 4G
1 11 (18.97%) 5G
1 11 (18.97%) Diameter Protocol
1 11 (18.97%) SIGTRAN
1 11 (18.97%) SS7
2 3 (5.17%) BGP
2 3 (5.17%) Ethernet VPN
2 3 (5.17%) GPRS
2 3 (5.17%) GSM
2 3 (5.17%) LAN
2 3 (5.17%) LTE
2 3 (5.17%) MPLS
2 3 (5.17%) UMTS
2 3 (5.17%) VPN
2 3 (5.17%) VXLAN
2 3 (5.17%) WAN
2 3 (5.17%) Wireshark
3 2 (3.45%) NGN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (13.79%) Azure SQL Database
2 7 (12.07%) NoSQL
3 5 (8.62%) Data Warehouse
4 4 (6.90%) Big Data
5 3 (5.17%) Parquet
5 3 (5.17%) Spark SQL
6 2 (3.45%) Data Lake
6 2 (3.45%) Metadata
6 2 (3.45%) Oracle Reports
6 2 (3.45%) SQL Server
7 1 (1.72%) Amazon Redshift
7 1 (1.72%) BigQuery
7 1 (1.72%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 12 (20.69%) Git
2 9 (15.52%) Jenkins
2 9 (15.52%) JIRA
3 6 (10.34%) GitLab
4 3 (5.17%) HP UFT
5 2 (3.45%) JMeter
5 2 (3.45%) tSQLt
6 1 (1.72%) Burp Suite
6 1 (1.72%) Cucumber
6 1 (1.72%) LoadRunner
6 1 (1.72%) NeoLoad
6 1 (1.72%) Postman
6 1 (1.72%) REST Assured
6 1 (1.72%) Selenium
General
1 22 (37.93%) Analytical Skills
2 20 (34.48%) Social Skills
3 16 (27.59%) Telecoms
4 7 (12.07%) Finance
5 4 (6.90%) Aerospace
6 2 (3.45%) Billing
6 2 (3.45%) General Ledger
7 1 (1.72%) Banking
7 1 (1.72%) Electronics
7 1 (1.72%) German Language
7 1 (1.72%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 15 (25.86%) Senior
2 9 (15.52%) Developer
3 8 (13.79%) Designer
3 8 (13.79%) Full-Stack Developer
3 8 (13.79%) Mobile Designer
4 6 (10.34%) Consultant
5 5 (8.62%) Senior Consultant
5 5 (8.62%) Test Engineer
5 5 (8.62%) Tester
6 4 (6.90%) Azure Developer
7 3 (5.17%) .NET Developer
7 3 (5.17%) Automation Consultant
7 3 (5.17%) Design Engineer
7 3 (5.17%) DevSecOps Engineer
7 3 (5.17%) Full-Stack .NET Developer
7 3 (5.17%) Lead
7 3 (5.17%) Network Consultant
7 3 (5.17%) QA Engineer
7 3 (5.17%) React Developer
7 3 (5.17%) Senior QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (25.86%) Terraform
2 10 (17.24%) REST
3 8 (13.79%) .NET
3 8 (13.79%) .NET Core
3 8 (13.79%) .NET Framework
3 8 (13.79%) Entity Framework
3 8 (13.79%) OAuth
3 8 (13.79%) SAML
4 7 (12.07%) OpenID
4 7 (12.07%) RESTful
5 5 (8.62%) ARM Templates
5 5 (8.62%) React
6 4 (6.90%) JSON
7 3 (5.17%) PySpark
8 2 (3.45%) Middleware
9 1 (1.72%) Jakarta EE
9 1 (1.72%) JNDI
9 1 (1.72%) Playwright
9 1 (1.72%) SOAP
9 1 (1.72%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 8 (13.79%) Cloud Native
2 6 (10.34%) Self-Motivation
3 5 (8.62%) Product Ownership
4 3 (5.17%) Wiki
5 2 (3.45%) AI Agents
5 2 (3.45%) Data Protection Act
5 2 (3.45%) Distributed Systems
5 2 (3.45%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (3.45%) SCADA
6 1 (1.72%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (1.72%) Distributed Architecture
6 1 (1.72%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (1.72%) IVR
6 1 (1.72%) Legacy Applications
6 1 (1.72%) Management Information System
6 1 (1.72%) Mobile App
6 1 (1.72%) Onboarding
6 1 (1.72%) Operational Technology
6 1 (1.72%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 3 (5.17%) Linux
2 1 (1.72%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 37 (63.79%) CI/CD
2 30 (51.72%) DevOps
3 18 (31.03%) Problem-Solving
4 17 (29.31%) Agile
4 17 (29.31%) Technical Leadership
5 16 (27.59%) Roadmaps
5 16 (27.59%) Stakeholder Management
6 15 (25.86%) Validation
7 12 (20.69%) Continuous Improvement
8 11 (18.97%) Analytics
8 11 (18.97%) Deployment Automation
9 10 (17.24%) Identity Access Management
9 10 (17.24%) Technology Roadmap
10 9 (15.52%) Containerisation
10 9 (15.52%) Infrastructure as Code
10 9 (15.52%) Software Delivery
10 9 (15.52%) Software Engineering
11 8 (13.79%) Full-Stack Development
11 8 (13.79%) Impact Assessments
11 8 (13.79%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 20 (34.48%) Python
2 14 (24.14%) SQL
3 10 (17.24%) PowerShell
4 8 (13.79%) C#
5 6 (10.34%) Bicep
5 6 (10.34%) Java
6 4 (6.90%) Bash
7 3 (5.17%) VBScript
8 2 (3.45%) Apex Code
8 2 (3.45%) JavaScript
8 2 (3.45%) T-SQL
9 1 (1.72%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 14 (24.14%) Security Cleared
2 10 (17.24%) SC Cleared
3 5 (8.62%) Azure Certification
3 5 (8.62%) Cisco Certification
4 4 (6.90%) CCNP
5 3 (5.17%) Degree
6 2 (3.45%) CISSP
6 2 (3.45%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (1.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 1 (1.72%) AWS Certification
7 1 (1.72%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
7 1 (1.72%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (1.72%) CCNA
7 1 (1.72%) CEH
7 1 (1.72%) CISA
7 1 (1.72%) CompTIA Security+
7 1 (1.72%) CREST Certified
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (24.14%) QA
2 6 (10.34%) Data Quality
3 2 (3.45%) GDPR
3 2 (3.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (3.45%) NIST
4 1 (1.72%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (1.72%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 1 (1.72%) GRC
4 1 (1.72%) NCSC
4 1 (1.72%) PCI DSS
4 1 (1.72%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 9 (15.52%) Docker
2 7 (12.07%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 12 (20.69%) Kubernetes
2 9 (15.52%) Ansible
3 1 (1.72%) Argo
3 1 (1.72%) Podman
3 1 (1.72%) QRadar
Vendors
1 15 (25.86%) Microsoft
2 6 (10.34%) Arista
3 4 (6.90%) Cisco
4 3 (5.17%) Databricks
4 3 (5.17%) F5
4 3 (5.17%) Fortinet
4 3 (5.17%) Juniper
5 2 (3.45%) Google
5 2 (3.45%) Oracle
5 2 (3.45%) Salesforce
6 1 (1.72%) Conga
6 1 (1.72%) CyberArk
6 1 (1.72%) Dynatrace
6 1 (1.72%) GoCardless
6 1 (1.72%) IBM
6 1 (1.72%) MuleSoft
6 1 (1.72%) Parasoft
6 1 (1.72%) Splunk