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

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 39 52
Rank change year-on-year -12 +13 -3
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 31 28 25
As % of all contract jobs in Bristol 2.30% 3.76% 2.79%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.97% 4.09% 3.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 18 18
10th Percentile £378 £311 £371
25th Percentile £406 £335 £452
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £456 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.37% -8.75% -4.31%
75th Percentile £638 £531 £584
90th Percentile £720 £557 £590
South West median daily rate £450 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -18.18% - +8.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 7 3
10th Percentile £57.25 £55.34 -
25th Percentile £58.75 - £75.00
Median hourly rate £62.50 £65.00 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -18.75% +3.23%
75th Percentile £66.25 - £85.00
90th Percentile £67.75 - -
South West median hourly rate £57.50 £65.00 £80.00
% change year-on-year -11.54% -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 1,045 685 745
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Bristol 77.58% 91.95% 83.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 537 334 388
10th Percentile £339 £250 £261
25th Percentile £450 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £482
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -1.35% -8.29%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £688 £743 £725
South West median daily rate £538 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +7.50% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 263 152 139
10th Percentile £20.50 £13.04 £47.15
25th Percentile £45.63 £18.87 £62.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £32.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +100.00% -53.57% +7.69%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £72.54 £68.68 £77.50
South West median hourly rate £62.00 £25.15 £67.50
% change year-on-year +146.52% -62.74% +12.50%

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 10 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
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 (3.23%) Apache
1 1 (3.23%) Apache Spark
Cloud Services
1 7 (22.58%) AWS
1 7 (22.58%) GitHub
2 2 (6.45%) GCP
2 2 (6.45%) GitHub Actions
3 1 (3.23%) Amazon S3
3 1 (3.23%) Datadog
3 1 (3.23%) Figma
3 1 (3.23%) npm
3 1 (3.23%) OpenShift
3 1 (3.23%) SaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (12.90%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (3.23%) Big Data
2 1 (3.23%) Hadoop
2 1 (3.23%) Metadata
2 1 (3.23%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 8 (25.81%) Git
2 5 (16.13%) Xcode
2 5 (16.13%) XCTest
2 5 (16.13%) XCUITest
3 3 (9.68%) Cucumber
4 2 (6.45%) GitLab
4 2 (6.45%) Postman
4 2 (6.45%) Rational DOORS
4 2 (6.45%) Rational Rhapsody
4 2 (6.45%) Selenium
5 1 (3.23%) Cypress.io
5 1 (3.23%) fastlane
5 1 (3.23%) Jenkins
5 1 (3.23%) JUnit
5 1 (3.23%) SonarQube
5 1 (3.23%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 11 (35.48%) Social Skills
2 4 (12.90%) Finance
3 3 (9.68%) Banking
4 2 (6.45%) Documentation Skills
4 2 (6.45%) Public Sector
4 2 (6.45%) Retail
5 1 (3.23%) Influencing Skills
5 1 (3.23%) Law
5 1 (3.23%) Military
Job Titles
1 6 (19.35%) Developer
1 6 (19.35%) Senior
2 5 (16.13%) Front-End Engineer (Client-Side Engineer)
3 4 (12.90%) DevOps Engineer
3 4 (12.90%) iOS Developer
3 4 (12.90%) Mobile Engineer
3 4 (12.90%) Security Engineer
3 4 (12.90%) Senior Developer
3 4 (12.90%) Senior iOS Developer
4 3 (9.68%) AWS DevOps
4 3 (9.68%) AWS DevOps Engineer
4 3 (9.68%) AWS Engineer
5 2 (6.45%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 2 (6.45%) Full-Stack Engineer
5 2 (6.45%) JavaScript Engineer
5 2 (6.45%) Lead
5 2 (6.45%) Software Engineer
6 1 (3.23%) QA Manager
6 1 (3.23%) Senior Software Engineer
6 1 (3.23%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (22.58%) React
2 6 (19.35%) REST
3 5 (16.13%) Jest
4 4 (12.90%) Playwright
4 4 (12.90%) Quarkus
5 3 (9.68%) .NET
5 3 (9.68%) RESTful
5 3 (9.68%) Terraform
6 2 (6.45%) Gherkin
6 2 (6.45%) Next.js
6 2 (6.45%) Node.js
6 2 (6.45%) Pulumi
6 2 (6.45%) React Native
7 1 (3.23%) Apache NiFi
7 1 (3.23%) GraphQL
7 1 (3.23%) Kafka
7 1 (3.23%) Oracle Fusion
7 1 (3.23%) Vitest
7 1 (3.23%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 5 (16.13%) Mobile App
2 4 (12.90%) Security Posture
3 3 (9.68%) Cloud Native
4 1 (3.23%) AI Agents
4 1 (3.23%) Algorithms
4 1 (3.23%) Data Protection Act
4 1 (3.23%) Greenfield Project
4 1 (3.23%) Product Ownership
4 1 (3.23%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 9 (29.03%) Apple iOS
2 4 (12.90%) Android
3 1 (3.23%) Linux
3 1 (3.23%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (45.16%) DevOps
2 13 (41.94%) CI/CD
3 11 (35.48%) TDD
4 7 (22.58%) AI
4 7 (22.58%) Continuous Improvement
4 7 (22.58%) Software Engineering
5 6 (19.35%) Infrastructure as Code
6 5 (16.13%) Async-Await
6 5 (16.13%) Continuous Integration
6 5 (16.13%) Deployment Automation
6 5 (16.13%) iOS Development
6 5 (16.13%) MVVM
6 5 (16.13%) Pair Programming
6 5 (16.13%) Validation
7 4 (12.90%) Cryptography
7 4 (12.90%) Design Patterns
7 4 (12.90%) Mentoring
7 4 (12.90%) Microservices
7 4 (12.90%) Penetration Testing
7 4 (12.90%) Threat Modelling
Programming Languages
1 11 (35.48%) JavaScript
2 8 (25.81%) TypeScript
3 5 (16.13%) Swift
4 4 (12.90%) Java
4 4 (12.90%) Python
5 2 (6.45%) C
5 2 (6.45%) C++
6 1 (3.23%) SQL
Qualifications
1 5 (16.13%) Security Cleared
2 4 (12.90%) SC Cleared
3 1 (3.23%) Degree
3 1 (3.23%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (16.13%) Accessibility
1 5 (16.13%) WCAG
2 4 (12.90%) QA
3 2 (6.45%) Def Stans
System Software
1 2 (6.45%) Docker
Systems Management
1 6 (19.35%) Kubernetes
2 2 (6.45%) Grafana
3 1 (3.23%) Ansible
3 1 (3.23%) Istio
3 1 (3.23%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 1 (3.23%) F5
1 1 (3.23%) Google
1 1 (3.23%) Oracle
1 1 (3.23%) Salesforce