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

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 42 52
Rank change year-on-year -5 +10 -3
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 36 28 26
As % of all contract jobs in Bristol 2.65% 3.83% 2.94%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.44% 4.12% 3.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 16 18 19
10th Percentile £381 £311 £373
25th Percentile £422 £335 £453
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £456 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.37% -8.75% -4.76%
75th Percentile £638 £531 £589
90th Percentile £713 £557 £590
South West median daily rate £475 £545 £550
% change year-on-year -12.84% -0.91% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 7 3
10th Percentile £58.25 £55.34 -
25th Percentile £61.25 - £75.00
Median hourly rate £67.50 £65.00 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.85% -18.75% +3.23%
75th Percentile £69.38 - £85.00
90th Percentile £69.75 - -
South West median hourly rate £58.92 £65.00 £80.00
% change year-on-year -9.36% -18.75% +3.23%

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 1,046 679 733
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Bristol 77.03% 92.76% 82.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 529 338 386
10th Percentile £325 £250 £277
25th Percentile £450 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -2.56% -7.14%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £589
90th Percentile £678 £740 £716
South West median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 272 148 134
10th Percentile £20.73 £12.82 £48.60
25th Percentile £46.25 £18.87 £64.06
Median hourly rate £65.00 £32.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +100.00% -53.57% +7.69%
75th Percentile £68.75 £65.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £72.54 £70.00 £77.50
South West median hourly rate £62.00 £25.15 £67.50
% change year-on-year +146.52% -62.74% +8.00%

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 1 October 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in Bristol

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Automation in Bristol over the 6 months to 1 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Automation in Bristol

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 1 (2.78%) Apache
1 1 (2.78%) Apache Spark
Cloud Services
1 8 (22.22%) GitHub
2 7 (19.44%) AWS
3 3 (8.33%) GitHub Actions
4 2 (5.56%) GCP
5 1 (2.78%) Amazon S3
5 1 (2.78%) Datadog
5 1 (2.78%) Figma
5 1 (2.78%) npm
5 1 (2.78%) OpenShift
5 1 (2.78%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.78%) Firewall
1 1 (2.78%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (11.11%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (2.78%) Big Data
2 1 (2.78%) Hadoop
2 1 (2.78%) Metadata
2 1 (2.78%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 9 (25.00%) Git
2 5 (13.89%) Xcode
2 5 (13.89%) XCTest
2 5 (13.89%) XCUITest
3 3 (8.33%) Cucumber
3 3 (8.33%) GitLab
4 2 (5.56%) Postman
4 2 (5.56%) Rational DOORS
4 2 (5.56%) Rational Rhapsody
4 2 (5.56%) Selenium
5 1 (2.78%) Cypress.io
5 1 (2.78%) fastlane
5 1 (2.78%) Jenkins
5 1 (2.78%) JUnit
5 1 (2.78%) SonarQube
5 1 (2.78%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 13 (36.11%) Social Skills
2 3 (8.33%) Banking
3 2 (5.56%) Documentation Skills
3 2 (5.56%) Finance
3 2 (5.56%) Public Sector
3 2 (5.56%) Retail
4 1 (2.78%) Law
Job Titles
1 9 (25.00%) Developer
2 6 (16.67%) Senior
3 5 (13.89%) Front-End Engineer (Client-Side Engineer)
3 5 (13.89%) Mobile Engineer
3 5 (13.89%) Security Engineer
4 4 (11.11%) DevOps Engineer
4 4 (11.11%) iOS Developer
4 4 (11.11%) Senior Developer
4 4 (11.11%) Senior iOS Developer
5 3 (8.33%) AWS DevOps
5 3 (8.33%) AWS DevOps Engineer
5 3 (8.33%) AWS Engineer
5 3 (8.33%) Robotic Process Automation Developer
6 2 (5.56%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
6 2 (5.56%) Full-Stack Engineer
6 2 (5.56%) JavaScript Engineer
6 2 (5.56%) Lead
6 2 (5.56%) Software Engineer
7 1 (2.78%) Network Engineer
7 1 (2.78%) QA Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (19.44%) React
1 7 (19.44%) REST
2 5 (13.89%) Jest
3 4 (11.11%) Playwright
3 4 (11.11%) Quarkus
3 4 (11.11%) Terraform
4 3 (8.33%) .NET
4 3 (8.33%) RESTful
5 2 (5.56%) Gherkin
5 2 (5.56%) Next.js
5 2 (5.56%) Node.js
5 2 (5.56%) Pulumi
5 2 (5.56%) React Native
6 1 (2.78%) Apache NiFi
6 1 (2.78%) GraphQL
6 1 (2.78%) Jinja
6 1 (2.78%) Kafka
6 1 (2.78%) NETCONF
6 1 (2.78%) Vitest
6 1 (2.78%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 6 (16.67%) Mobile App
1 6 (16.67%) Security Posture
2 3 (8.33%) Cloud Native
3 1 (2.78%) AI Agents
3 1 (2.78%) Algorithms
3 1 (2.78%) Data Centre
3 1 (2.78%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (2.78%) Embedded Systems
3 1 (2.78%) Greenfield Project
3 1 (2.78%) Product Ownership
3 1 (2.78%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 10 (27.78%) Apple iOS
2 5 (13.89%) Android
3 2 (5.56%) Linux
4 1 (2.78%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (41.67%) CI/CD
2 14 (38.89%) DevOps
3 11 (30.56%) TDD
4 8 (22.22%) AI
5 7 (19.44%) Continuous Improvement
5 7 (19.44%) Infrastructure as Code
5 7 (19.44%) Software Engineering
6 6 (16.67%) Agile
6 6 (16.67%) Penetration Testing
6 6 (16.67%) Workflow
7 5 (13.89%) Application Security
7 5 (13.89%) Continuous Integration
7 5 (13.89%) Cryptography
7 5 (13.89%) Deployment Automation
7 5 (13.89%) Design Patterns
7 5 (13.89%) DevSecOps
7 5 (13.89%) iOS Development
7 5 (13.89%) MVVM
7 5 (13.89%) Threat Modelling
7 5 (13.89%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 11 (30.56%) JavaScript
2 8 (22.22%) TypeScript
3 5 (13.89%) Python
3 5 (13.89%) Swift
4 4 (11.11%) Java
5 3 (8.33%) C
5 3 (8.33%) C++
6 1 (2.78%) MATLAB
6 1 (2.78%) SQL
Qualifications
1 8 (22.22%) Security Cleared
2 6 (16.67%) SC Cleared
3 1 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
3 1 (2.78%) Cisco Certification
3 1 (2.78%) Degree
3 1 (2.78%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (13.89%) Accessibility
1 5 (13.89%) QA
1 5 (13.89%) WCAG
2 2 (5.56%) Def Stans
System Software
1 2 (5.56%) Docker
2 1 (2.78%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (2.78%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 6 (16.67%) Kubernetes
2 2 (5.56%) Ansible
2 2 (5.56%) Grafana
3 1 (2.78%) FortiGate
3 1 (2.78%) Istio
3 1 (2.78%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 3 (8.33%) Blue Prism
2 1 (2.78%) Cisco
2 1 (2.78%) F5
2 1 (2.78%) Fortinet
2 1 (2.78%) Google
2 1 (2.78%) Salesforce
2 1 (2.78%) VMware