Test Automation Contract Job Trends in the East of England

Automated Testing
England > East of England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the East of England requiring Test Automation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 31 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 55 74
Rank change year-on-year +8 +19 -30
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 74 28 34
As % of all contract jobs in the East of England 3.31% 2.89% 1.76%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.19% 3.20% 2.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 24 22 15
10th Percentile £300 £259 £420
25th Percentile £434 £368 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £471 £498
Median % change year-on-year +6.31% -5.28% +4.74%
75th Percentile £706 £515 £529
90th Percentile £750 £549 £546
England median daily rate £475 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 3 17
10th Percentile £36.80 £44.56 £51.25
25th Percentile £60.75 £46.60 £52.50
Median hourly rate £70.00 £50.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +40.00% -20.00% -18.83%
75th Percentile £74.00 £62.50 £90.00
90th Percentile £74.80 £70.00 -
England median hourly rate £66.25 £55.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +20.45% -8.33% -15.49%

All Process & Methodology Skills
East of England

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 the East of England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,766 875 1,627
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East of England 78.91% 90.39% 84.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 890 459 675
10th Percentile £200 £225 £201
25th Percentile £375 £400 £315
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year -1.00% +11.11% -5.26%
75th Percentile £588 £599 £575
90th Percentile £681 £675 £673
England median daily rate £514 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.05% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 435 172 616
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.09 £16.49 £15.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £36.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -31.56% -8.13% +81.82%
75th Percentile £67.50 £72.50 £62.81
90th Percentile £74.25 £83.85 £75.00
England median hourly rate £47.00 £28.75 £37.50
% change year-on-year +63.48% -23.33% -

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in the East of England

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

Test Automation job vacancy trend in the East of England

Test Automation
Daily Rate Trend in the East of England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the East of England citing Test Automation.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the East of England citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram in the East of England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in the East of England over the 6 months to 31 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in the East of England

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Trend in the East of England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the East of England citing Test Automation.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the East of England citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Histogram in the East of England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Automation in the East of England over the 6 months to 31 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Automation in the East of England

Test Automation
Contract Job Locations in the East of England

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 East of England region over the 6 months to 31 May 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
Hertfordshire -6 24 £600 +26.32% 16
Suffolk +5 14 £700 +142.42% 4
Bedfordshire +2 14 £305 -47.00% 4
Essex -4 11 £300 -25.00% 1
Cambridgeshire +3 8 £425 +11.48% 7
Norfolk - 3 £700 - 4
Test Automation
England

Test Automation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the East of England 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 3 (4.05%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (2.70%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (1.35%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.35%) SAP ERP
1 1 (1.35%) SAP S/4HANA
1 1 (1.35%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 8 (10.81%) Azure
2 7 (9.46%) AWS
2 7 (9.46%) GitHub
3 5 (6.76%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (5.41%) Apple Pay
4 4 (5.41%) Google Ads
5 3 (4.05%) GitHub Actions
6 2 (2.70%) GCP
6 2 (2.70%) Sauce Labs
6 2 (2.70%) Serverless
6 2 (2.70%) TestFlight
7 1 (1.35%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (1.35%) Amazon Kinesis
7 1 (1.35%) Azure Cosmos DB
7 1 (1.35%) Azure Data Factory
7 1 (1.35%) Azure Functions
7 1 (1.35%) dbt
7 1 (1.35%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 6 (8.11%) Wi-Fi
2 4 (5.41%) Ethernet
3 3 (4.05%) Modbus
3 3 (4.05%) RS-232
3 3 (4.05%) RS-422
3 3 (4.05%) RS-485
4 2 (2.70%) Bluetooth
5 1 (1.35%) SpaceWire
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.35%) Metadata
1 1 (1.35%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 12 (16.22%) Rational DOORS
2 11 (14.86%) JIRA
3 10 (13.51%) Git
3 10 (13.51%) GitLab
4 9 (12.16%) Gradle
4 9 (12.16%) Rational Rhapsody
5 5 (6.76%) Postman
6 4 (5.41%) Jenkins
7 3 (4.05%) Newman
7 3 (4.05%) Selenium
7 3 (4.05%) Visual Studio
8 2 (2.70%) Android Studio
8 2 (2.70%) Appium
8 2 (2.70%) Cypress.io
8 2 (2.70%) LabVIEW
8 2 (2.70%) MSTest
8 2 (2.70%) Sourcetree
8 2 (2.70%) Team Foundation Server
8 2 (2.70%) Xcode
9 1 (1.35%) Cucumber
General
1 18 (24.32%) Social Skills
2 16 (21.62%) Analytical Skills
3 9 (12.16%) Documentation Skills
4 8 (10.81%) Electronics
5 6 (8.11%) Aerospace
6 4 (5.41%) Manufacturing
7 3 (4.05%) Automotive
7 3 (4.05%) Banking
8 2 (2.70%) Finance
8 2 (2.70%) Public Sector
9 1 (1.35%) Financial Institution
9 1 (1.35%) Law
Job Titles
1 16 (21.62%) Test Engineer
2 14 (18.92%) Developer
3 12 (16.22%) Software Engineer
4 9 (12.16%) Embedded Engineer
4 9 (12.16%) Java Developer
5 7 (9.46%) Principal Engineer
5 7 (9.46%) Principal Software Engineer
5 7 (9.46%) Software Developer
6 6 (8.11%) Hardware Engineer
6 6 (8.11%) Test Automation Engineer
7 5 (6.76%) Java Software Developer
7 5 (6.76%) Software Test Engineer
8 4 (5.41%) Administrator
8 4 (5.41%) Data Engineer
8 4 (5.41%) Hardware Test Engineer
8 4 (5.41%) Linux Administrator
8 4 (5.41%) Systems Engineer
9 2 (2.70%) Ada Engineer
9 2 (2.70%) Electronics Test Engineer
9 2 (2.70%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (12.16%) Spring Boot
2 6 (8.11%) React
2 6 (8.11%) Spring
3 5 (6.76%) pytest
4 3 (4.05%) .NET
4 3 (4.05%) Pandas
4 3 (4.05%) WinForms
4 3 (4.05%) WPF
4 3 (4.05%) XML
4 3 (4.05%) XML Schema
5 2 (2.70%) Great Expectations
5 2 (2.70%) Playwright
5 2 (2.70%) XSD
6 1 (1.35%) AngularJS
6 1 (1.35%) Blazor
6 1 (1.35%) Entity Framework
6 1 (1.35%) Kafka
6 1 (1.35%) REST
6 1 (1.35%) Web Services
6 1 (1.35%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 9 (12.16%) Embedded Systems
2 4 (5.41%) Product Ownership
3 3 (4.05%) Acoustics
4 2 (2.70%) Analogue Electronics
4 2 (2.70%) Enterprise Software
4 2 (2.70%) Greenfield Project
4 2 (2.70%) Life Science
4 2 (2.70%) Linux Command Line
4 2 (2.70%) Team-Oriented Environment
5 1 (1.35%) Augmented Reality
5 1 (1.35%) Data Centre
5 1 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (1.35%) Device Driver
5 1 (1.35%) N-Tier
5 1 (1.35%) Onboarding
5 1 (1.35%) PCIe
5 1 (1.35%) Video\Live Streaming
5 1 (1.35%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 10 (13.51%) Windows
2 9 (12.16%) Linux
3 5 (6.76%) Android
4 4 (5.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (1.35%) Embedded Linux
5 1 (1.35%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 35 (47.30%) Software Engineering
2 34 (45.95%) Agile
3 28 (37.84%) Problem-Solving
4 21 (28.38%) CI/CD
5 19 (25.68%) Validation
6 16 (21.62%) DevOps
6 16 (21.62%) Software Testing
7 12 (16.22%) Microservices
7 12 (16.22%) Test Scripting
7 12 (16.22%) User Stories
8 11 (14.86%) TDD
8 11 (14.86%) Verification and Validation
9 9 (12.16%) Containerisation
9 9 (12.16%) Data Acquisition
9 9 (12.16%) Embedded Software Development
9 9 (12.16%) SDLC
9 9 (12.16%) Workflow
9 9 (12.16%) Workflow Management
10 8 (10.81%) Continuous Integration
10 8 (10.81%) Regression Testing
Programming Languages
1 18 (24.32%) Python
2 16 (21.62%) C
2 16 (21.62%) C++
3 13 (17.57%) Java
4 12 (16.22%) SQL
5 9 (12.16%) Ada
5 9 (12.16%) C#
6 6 (8.11%) TypeScript
7 3 (4.05%) JavaScript
7 3 (4.05%) Shell Script
8 1 (1.35%) Bash
8 1 (1.35%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 25 (33.78%) Security Cleared
2 16 (21.62%) SC Cleared
3 7 (9.46%) ISTQB
4 5 (6.76%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 4 (5.41%) Degree
6 1 (1.35%) AWS Certification
6 1 (1.35%) Azure Certification
6 1 (1.35%) DV Cleared
6 1 (1.35%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (13.51%) QA
2 9 (12.16%) Def Stans
3 4 (5.41%) Data Quality
3 4 (5.41%) PCI DSS
4 1 (1.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (1.35%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 4 (5.41%) Firmware
2 1 (1.35%) Docker
Systems Management
1 9 (12.16%) Ansible
2 3 (4.05%) Grafana
2 3 (4.05%) HP Quality Center
3 2 (2.70%) HP ALM
3 2 (2.70%) Kibana
3 2 (2.70%) Rundeck
4 1 (1.35%) Kubernetes
4 1 (1.35%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 4 (5.41%) Lauterbach
2 3 (4.05%) Databricks
2 3 (4.05%) HP
2 3 (4.05%) Microsoft
3 2 (2.70%) Atlassian
3 2 (2.70%) Red Hat
3 2 (2.70%) SAP
3 2 (2.70%) Siemens
4 1 (1.35%) EMC
4 1 (1.35%) Fiserv
4 1 (1.35%) Informatica
4 1 (1.35%) Ingenico
4 1 (1.35%) NVIDIA
4 1 (1.35%) Oracle
4 1 (1.35%) Talend