Test Automation Contract Job Trends in Bristol

Automated Testing
South West > Bristol

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Bristol requiring Test Automation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 53 51
Rank change year-on-year +13 -2 +9
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 30 11 25
As % of all contract jobs in Bristol 3.50% 1.73% 2.63%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.09% 1.93% 3.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 22 9 22
10th Percentile £356 £230 £407
25th Percentile £463 £288 £484
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £563
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -6.67% +3.69%
75th Percentile £535 £575 £645
90th Percentile £552 £677 £792
South West median daily rate £550 £570 £550
% change year-on-year -3.51% +3.64% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 0 3
10th Percentile - - £66.15
25th Percentile - - £69.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 - £77.50
75th Percentile - - £81.25
90th Percentile - - -
South West median hourly rate £65.00 - £45.00
% change year-on-year - - -20.86%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Bristol

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 Bristol.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 734 570 807
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Bristol 85.65% 89.62% 84.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 376 313 497
10th Percentile £288 £213 £288
25th Percentile £402 £355 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -9.52% +5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £645
90th Percentile £741 £705 £700
South West median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 188 69 115
10th Percentile £16.32 £34.20 £37.00
25th Percentile £29.94 £58.00 £58.75
Median hourly rate £63.25 £65.00 £67.25
Median % change year-on-year -2.69% -3.35% +8.47%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.75 £78.13
90th Percentile £67.25 £75.00 £84.15
South West median hourly rate £38.94 £65.00 £59.84
% change year-on-year -40.09% +8.62% -2.70%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in Bristol

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Test Automation relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Bristol.

Test Automation job vacancy trend in Bristol

Test Automation
Daily Rate Trend in Bristol

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Bristol citing Test Automation.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Bristol citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram in Bristol

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in Bristol over the 6 months to 14 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in Bristol

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Trend in Bristol

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Bristol citing Test Automation.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Bristol citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Bristol 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 (16.67%) Oracle Application Server
Cloud Services
1 5 (16.67%) AWS
1 5 (16.67%) Power Platform
1 5 (16.67%) Snowflake
2 2 (6.67%) Azure
2 2 (6.67%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 2 (6.67%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (16.67%) Data Warehouse
1 5 (16.67%) GIS
1 5 (16.67%) Oracle ODI
1 5 (16.67%) Oracle Reports
1 5 (16.67%) PostgreSQL
1 5 (16.67%) Power BI
1 5 (16.67%) Star Schema
2 2 (6.67%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 12 (40.00%) Selenium
2 11 (36.67%) Cypress.io
3 10 (33.33%) Postman
3 10 (33.33%) REST Assured
4 5 (16.67%) DBeaver
5 2 (6.67%) Git
5 2 (6.67%) JIRA
6 1 (3.33%) GitLab
6 1 (3.33%) Jenkins
6 1 (3.33%) SoapUI
General
1 5 (16.67%) Analytical Skills
2 2 (6.67%) Finance
2 2 (6.67%) Public Sector
2 2 (6.67%) Social Skills
3 1 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 9 (30.00%) Lead
1 9 (30.00%) QA Leader
2 5 (16.67%) C++ Software Engineer
2 5 (16.67%) Data Engineer
2 5 (16.67%) Quality Engineer
2 5 (16.67%) Senior
2 5 (16.67%) Software Engineer
3 4 (13.33%) Mobile Engineer
3 4 (13.33%) Security Engineer
4 3 (10.00%) Developer
4 3 (10.00%) ETL Tester
4 3 (10.00%) Tester
5 2 (6.67%) Analyst
5 2 (6.67%) Test Analyst
5 2 (6.67%) Test Engineer
6 1 (3.33%) Applications Engineer
6 1 (3.33%) QA Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (16.67%) Middleware
1 5 (16.67%) Oracle GoldenGate
1 5 (16.67%) Qt
2 3 (10.00%) SOAP
3 2 (6.67%) AngularJS
3 2 (6.67%) JMS
3 2 (6.67%) Playwright
3 2 (6.67%) React
3 2 (6.67%) XML
3 2 (6.67%) XSD
4 1 (3.33%) REST
4 1 (3.33%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 9 (30.00%) Self-Motivation
2 5 (16.67%) Replication
2 5 (16.67%) Video\Live Streaming
3 4 (13.33%) Mobile App
4 3 (10.00%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 5 (16.67%) Linux
1 5 (16.67%) Windows
2 4 (13.33%) Android
2 4 (13.33%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 11 (36.67%) Software Testing
1 11 (36.67%) Test Strategy
2 10 (33.33%) Test Scripting
3 9 (30.00%) Agile
4 7 (23.33%) CI/CD
5 6 (20.00%) AI
6 5 (16.67%) Analytics
6 5 (16.67%) Business Intelligence
6 5 (16.67%) Dimensional Modelling
6 5 (16.67%) ETL
6 5 (16.67%) Information Security
6 5 (16.67%) Software Engineering
7 4 (13.33%) Application Security
8 3 (10.00%) Cryptography
8 3 (10.00%) DevSecOps
8 3 (10.00%) Mobile Development
8 3 (10.00%) Penetration Testing
8 3 (10.00%) Project Delivery
8 3 (10.00%) Scrum
8 3 (10.00%) Threat Modelling
Programming Languages
1 8 (26.67%) SQL
2 6 (20.00%) Python
3 5 (16.67%) C++
4 1 (3.33%) Java
4 1 (3.33%) JavaScript
4 1 (3.33%) Kotlin
4 1 (3.33%) Objective-C
4 1 (3.33%) Swift
4 1 (3.33%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 14 (46.67%) SC Cleared
1 14 (46.67%) Security Cleared
2 1 (3.33%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (46.67%) QA
2 5 (16.67%) Data Quality
Vendors
1 7 (23.33%) Microsoft
2 5 (16.67%) Oracle
3 3 (10.00%) Blue Prism
4 2 (6.67%) ServiceNow
5 1 (3.33%) Salesforce