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 28 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 54 40 50
Rank change year-on-year -14 +10 +2
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 33 28 26
As % of all contract jobs in Bristol 2.46% 3.80% 2.93%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.20% 4.11% 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 £469 £540 £550
% change year-on-year -13.19% -1.82% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 7 3
10th Percentile £66.63 £55.34 -
25th Percentile £67.19 - £75.00
Median hourly rate £68.75 £65.00 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.77% -18.75% +3.23%
75th Percentile £69.69 - £85.00
90th Percentile £69.88 - -
South West median hourly rate £56.43 £65.00 £80.00
% change year-on-year -13.18% -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 1,031 681 733
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Bristol 76.83% 92.53% 82.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 526 344 385
10th Percentile £325 £251 £290
25th Percentile £450 £379 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -2.56% -7.14%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £590
90th Percentile £675 £734 £716
South West median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 267 150 136
10th Percentile £21.06 £12.82 £49.00
25th Percentile £46.25 £18.87 £64.69
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 28 September 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:

Cloud Services
1 8 (24.24%) GitHub
2 7 (21.21%) AWS
3 3 (9.09%) GitHub Actions
4 2 (6.06%) GCP
5 1 (3.03%) Datadog
5 1 (3.03%) Figma
5 1 (3.03%) npm
5 1 (3.03%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (3.03%) Firewall
1 1 (3.03%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (12.12%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 9 (27.27%) Git
2 5 (15.15%) Xcode
2 5 (15.15%) XCTest
2 5 (15.15%) XCUITest
3 3 (9.09%) Cucumber
4 2 (6.06%) GitLab
4 2 (6.06%) Postman
4 2 (6.06%) Rational DOORS
4 2 (6.06%) Rational Rhapsody
4 2 (6.06%) Selenium
5 1 (3.03%) Cypress.io
5 1 (3.03%) fastlane
5 1 (3.03%) Jenkins
5 1 (3.03%) JUnit
5 1 (3.03%) SonarQube
5 1 (3.03%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 13 (39.39%) Social Skills
2 2 (6.06%) Documentation Skills
2 2 (6.06%) Finance
2 2 (6.06%) Public Sector
2 2 (6.06%) Retail
3 1 (3.03%) Banking
3 1 (3.03%) Law
Job Titles
1 9 (27.27%) Developer
2 6 (18.18%) Senior
3 5 (15.15%) Front-End Engineer (Client-Side Engineer)
4 4 (12.12%) DevOps Engineer
4 4 (12.12%) iOS Developer
4 4 (12.12%) Senior Developer
4 4 (12.12%) Senior iOS Developer
5 3 (9.09%) AWS DevOps
5 3 (9.09%) AWS DevOps Engineer
5 3 (9.09%) AWS Engineer
5 3 (9.09%) Mobile Engineer
5 3 (9.09%) Robotic Process Automation Developer
5 3 (9.09%) Security Engineer
6 2 (6.06%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
6 2 (6.06%) Full-Stack Engineer
6 2 (6.06%) JavaScript Engineer
6 2 (6.06%) Lead
6 2 (6.06%) Software Engineer
7 1 (3.03%) Network Engineer
7 1 (3.03%) QA Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (21.21%) React
2 6 (18.18%) REST
3 5 (15.15%) Jest
4 4 (12.12%) Playwright
4 4 (12.12%) Quarkus
5 3 (9.09%) .NET
5 3 (9.09%) RESTful
5 3 (9.09%) Terraform
6 2 (6.06%) Gherkin
6 2 (6.06%) Next.js
6 2 (6.06%) Node.js
6 2 (6.06%) Pulumi
6 2 (6.06%) React Native
7 1 (3.03%) GraphQL
7 1 (3.03%) Jinja
7 1 (3.03%) Kafka
7 1 (3.03%) NETCONF
7 1 (3.03%) Vitest
7 1 (3.03%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 4 (12.12%) Mobile App
1 4 (12.12%) Security Posture
2 3 (9.09%) Cloud Native
3 1 (3.03%) AI Agents
3 1 (3.03%) Data Centre
3 1 (3.03%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (3.03%) Embedded Systems
3 1 (3.03%) Greenfield Project
3 1 (3.03%) Product Ownership
3 1 (3.03%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 8 (24.24%) Apple iOS
2 3 (9.09%) Android
3 2 (6.06%) Linux
4 1 (3.03%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (42.42%) CI/CD
2 13 (39.39%) DevOps
3 11 (33.33%) TDD
4 7 (21.21%) AI
4 7 (21.21%) Continuous Improvement
4 7 (21.21%) Infrastructure as Code
4 7 (21.21%) Software Engineering
5 6 (18.18%) Agile
5 6 (18.18%) Workflow
6 5 (15.15%) Continuous Integration
6 5 (15.15%) Design Patterns
6 5 (15.15%) iOS Development
6 5 (15.15%) MVVM
7 4 (12.12%) Async-Await
7 4 (12.12%) Deployment Automation
7 4 (12.12%) Mentoring
7 4 (12.12%) Microservices
7 4 (12.12%) Technical Debt
7 4 (12.12%) Test Strategy
7 4 (12.12%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 11 (33.33%) JavaScript
2 8 (24.24%) TypeScript
3 5 (15.15%) Swift
4 4 (12.12%) Java
4 4 (12.12%) Python
5 3 (9.09%) C
5 3 (9.09%) C++
6 1 (3.03%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 7 (21.21%) Security Cleared
2 6 (18.18%) SC Cleared
3 1 (3.03%) BPSS Clearance
3 1 (3.03%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (15.15%) Accessibility
1 5 (15.15%) QA
1 5 (15.15%) WCAG
2 2 (6.06%) Def Stans
System Software
1 2 (6.06%) Docker
2 1 (3.03%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (3.03%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 5 (15.15%) Kubernetes
2 2 (6.06%) Grafana
3 1 (3.03%) Ansible
3 1 (3.03%) FortiGate
3 1 (3.03%) Istio
3 1 (3.03%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 3 (9.09%) Blue Prism
2 1 (3.03%) Cisco
2 1 (3.03%) F5
2 1 (3.03%) Fortinet
2 1 (3.03%) Google
2 1 (3.03%) Salesforce
2 1 (3.03%) VMware