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 25 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 60 55
Rank change year-on-year +4 -5 -14
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 49 29 54
As % of all contract jobs in the East of England 2.92% 2.63% 3.02%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.55% 3.07% 3.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 22 19 23
10th Percentile £355 £298 £380
25th Percentile £450 £313 £428
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £593 £400 £485
Median % change year-on-year +48.13% -17.53% +2.11%
75th Percentile £697 £531 £575
90th Percentile £750 £610 £606
England median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 1 25
10th Percentile £45.95 - £58.75
25th Percentile £66.63 £82.50 -
Median hourly rate £67.00 £85.00 £90.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.18% -5.56% +112.44%
75th Percentile £69.38 £87.50 -
90th Percentile £72.00 - -
England median hourly rate £60.00 £77.19 £75.00
% change year-on-year -22.27% +2.92% +25.00%

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 1,381 945 1,552
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East of England 82.30% 85.60% 86.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 607 416 780
10th Percentile £195 £241 £250
25th Percentile £350 £350 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £581 £600 £600
90th Percentile £681 £691 £700
England median daily rate £503 £525 £533
% change year-on-year -4.29% -1.41% -3.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 437 173 417
10th Percentile £13.92 £15.62 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.00 £16.22 £15.00
Median hourly rate £20.09 £40.00 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -49.78% +33.33% +34.83%
75th Percentile £60.00 £68.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £84.45 £77.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £34.06 £37.18
% change year-on-year -26.15% -8.41% +9.93%

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 25 January 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 25 January 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 25 January 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
Cambridgeshire +7 24 £550 +15.30% 29
Hertfordshire -14 11 £675 +96.36% 38
Suffolk - 9 £700 - 29
Bedfordshire -9 3 £475 -26.92% 20
Essex -5 1 - - 20
Norfolk -25 1 - - 23
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 2 (4.08%) Confluence
2 1 (2.04%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 1 (2.04%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 25 (51.02%) Azure
2 12 (24.49%) GitHub
3 10 (20.41%) Azure AKS
3 10 (20.41%) Azure DevOps
3 10 (20.41%) GitHub Copilot
3 10 (20.41%) Serverless
4 9 (18.37%) Azure Functions
4 9 (18.37%) PaaS
5 5 (10.20%) AWS
6 4 (8.16%) GCP
7 1 (2.04%) Amazon EC2
7 1 (2.04%) Amazon ECS
7 1 (2.04%) Amazon S3
7 1 (2.04%) AWS Lambda
7 1 (2.04%) Azure API Management
7 1 (2.04%) BlazeMeter
7 1 (2.04%) Entra ID
7 1 (2.04%) Google Ads
7 1 (2.04%) Microsoft 365
7 1 (2.04%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 2 (4.08%) Wi-Fi
2 1 (2.04%) Bluetooth
2 1 (2.04%) Ethernet
2 1 (2.04%) Internet
2 1 (2.04%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.04%) Electronic Patient Records
1 1 (2.04%) NoSQL
1 1 (2.04%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 11 (22.45%) JIRA
2 5 (10.20%) Git
2 5 (10.20%) Selenium
3 4 (8.16%) Jenkins
3 4 (8.16%) JMeter
3 4 (8.16%) Rational DOORS
4 3 (6.12%) Rational Rhapsody
5 2 (4.08%) MSTest
5 2 (4.08%) Postman
5 2 (4.08%) Robot Framework
5 2 (4.08%) Team Foundation Server
6 1 (2.04%) Cypress.io
6 1 (2.04%) Gatling
6 1 (2.04%) GitLab
6 1 (2.04%) LoadRunner
6 1 (2.04%) Locust
6 1 (2.04%) Newman
6 1 (2.04%) TestCafe
6 1 (2.04%) TestRail
6 1 (2.04%) Visual Studio
General
1 8 (16.33%) Social Skills
2 4 (8.16%) Manufacturing
3 3 (6.12%) Aerospace
3 3 (6.12%) Public Sector
4 2 (4.08%) Analytical Skills
4 2 (4.08%) Documentation Skills
4 2 (4.08%) Electronics
5 1 (2.04%) Automotive
5 1 (2.04%) Finance
5 1 (2.04%) Law
5 1 (2.04%) Marketing
5 1 (2.04%) Pharmaceutical
5 1 (2.04%) Retail
5 1 (2.04%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 10 (20.41%) Senior
2 9 (18.37%) Test Engineer
3 8 (16.33%) Developer
3 8 (16.33%) Software Engineer
4 7 (14.29%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 4 (8.16%) Software Developer
6 3 (6.12%) C++ Software Engineer
6 3 (6.12%) Lead
6 3 (6.12%) Senior Developer
6 3 (6.12%) Test Leader
7 2 (4.08%) Artificial Intelligence Developer
7 2 (4.08%) Embedded Engineer
7 2 (4.08%) Performance Engineer
7 2 (4.08%) Performance Test Engineer
7 2 (4.08%) QA Leader
7 2 (4.08%) Senior Software Developer
7 2 (4.08%) Software Test Engineer
7 2 (4.08%) Test Automation Engineer
7 2 (4.08%) Verification Engineer
8 1 (2.04%) Test Programme Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (30.61%) .NET
2 13 (26.53%) PyTorch
2 13 (26.53%) TensorFlow
3 11 (22.45%) RESTful
4 10 (20.41%) Semantic Kernel
5 8 (16.33%) React
6 4 (8.16%) scikit-learn
7 3 (6.12%) pytest
8 1 (2.04%) AngularJS
8 1 (2.04%) CSS
8 1 (2.04%) Entity Framework
8 1 (2.04%) HTML
8 1 (2.04%) Node.js
8 1 (2.04%) Pandas
8 1 (2.04%) Redux
8 1 (2.04%) REST
8 1 (2.04%) Software Packaging
8 1 (2.04%) Taurus
8 1 (2.04%) WinForms
8 1 (2.04%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 15 (30.61%) Cloud Native
2 11 (22.45%) Algorithms
3 4 (8.16%) FPGA
3 4 (8.16%) PCIe
3 4 (8.16%) Product Ownership
4 3 (6.12%) State Machine
5 1 (2.04%) CPLD
5 1 (2.04%) Data Centre
5 1 (2.04%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (2.04%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 1 (2.04%) Hybrid Cloud
5 1 (2.04%) Onboarding
5 1 (2.04%) Raspberry Pi
5 1 (2.04%) Robotics
5 1 (2.04%) Verilog
Operating Systems
1 9 (18.37%) Windows
2 5 (10.20%) Linux
3 1 (2.04%) Robot Operating System
3 1 (2.04%) Windows 10
3 1 (2.04%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (55.10%) Agile
2 24 (48.98%) Problem-Solving
3 21 (42.86%) Software Engineering
4 20 (40.82%) AI
5 19 (38.78%) CI/CD
6 18 (36.73%) Validation
7 16 (32.65%) Machine Learning
7 16 (32.65%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
8 15 (30.61%) LLM
8 15 (30.61%) Prompt Engineering
9 14 (28.57%) Data Pipeline
10 12 (24.49%) DevOps
11 10 (20.41%) API Management
11 10 (20.41%) Data Privacy
11 10 (20.41%) Data Science
11 10 (20.41%) Scrum
12 9 (18.37%) API Design
12 9 (18.37%) Deep Learning
13 7 (14.29%) Continuous Improvement
13 7 (14.29%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 20 (40.82%) Python
2 7 (14.29%) C#
2 7 (14.29%) C++
3 6 (12.24%) TypeScript
4 4 (8.16%) C
4 4 (8.16%) SQL
5 3 (6.12%) Ada
5 3 (6.12%) JavaScript
6 2 (4.08%) SystemVerilog
7 1 (2.04%) Perl
7 1 (2.04%) PowerShell
7 1 (2.04%) Tcl
7 1 (2.04%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 10 (20.41%) MCP
2 9 (18.37%) Security Cleared
3 5 (10.20%) SC Cleared
4 4 (8.16%) ISTQB
5 2 (4.08%) Degree
5 2 (4.08%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
6 1 (2.04%) Azure Certification
6 1 (2.04%) DV Cleared
6 1 (2.04%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (30.61%) EU AI Act
2 14 (28.57%) NIST
3 13 (26.53%) QA
4 3 (6.12%) Def Stans
5 1 (2.04%) Accessibility
5 1 (2.04%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (2.04%) HL7
5 1 (2.04%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 4 (8.16%) Docker
2 3 (6.12%) Firmware
3 2 (4.08%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 4 (8.16%) Kubernetes
2 3 (6.12%) HP ALM
3 2 (4.08%) HP Quality Center
4 1 (2.04%) Ansible
4 1 (2.04%) Consul
4 1 (2.04%) Grafana
4 1 (2.04%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (2.04%) Prometheus
4 1 (2.04%) SCCM
4 1 (2.04%) SCOM
4 1 (2.04%) Terraform
Vendors
1 18 (36.73%) Microsoft
2 10 (20.41%) Foundry
3 3 (6.12%) HP
4 2 (4.08%) Oracle
4 2 (4.08%) Siemens
5 1 (2.04%) Cerner
5 1 (2.04%) MEDITECH
5 1 (2.04%) New Relic
5 1 (2.04%) SAP
5 1 (2.04%) Veeam
5 1 (2.04%) Zscaler