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 19 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 64 84
Rank change year-on-year +23 +20 -48
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 86 35 26
As % of all contract jobs in the East of England 3.84% 2.84% 1.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.88% 3.22% 1.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 28 22 11
10th Percentile - £211 £410
25th Percentile £74 £309 £441
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £459 £498
Median % change year-on-year -1.91% -7.79% +4.74%
75th Percentile £567 £511 £529
90th Percentile £739 £547 £540
England median daily rate £475 £484 £525
% change year-on-year -1.86% -7.81% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 5 11
10th Percentile £38.40 £45.92 £48.00
25th Percentile £60.13 £50.00 £51.25
Median hourly rate £67.50 £67.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.75% +21.82% -28.57%
75th Percentile £74.00 - £63.75
90th Percentile - £71.80 £66.25
England median hourly rate £67.50 £50.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +35.00% -9.09% -27.63%

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 1,761 1,087 1,502
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East of England 78.55% 88.09% 84.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 866 523 595
10th Percentile £190 £200 £200
25th Percentile £400 £375 £308
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £425
Median % change year-on-year - +17.65% -15.00%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £553
90th Percentile £688 £650 £650
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 404 239 560
10th Percentile £14.23 £14.99 £14.48
25th Percentile £16.74 £17.67 £15.62
Median hourly rate £40.00 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% -6.25% +90.48%
75th Percentile £68.75 £67.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.63 £82.50 £70.00
England median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.50
% change year-on-year +86.88% -34.68% -9.41%

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 19 July 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 19 July 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 19 July 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 +2 32 £625 +31.58% 19
Bedfordshire +8 21 £74 -87.13% 3
Suffolk -2 11 £495 +65.00% 1
Essex -9 11 £300 -25.00% 3
Cambridgeshire +7 8 £375 +17.19% 14
Norfolk - 3 £700 - 3
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 (3.49%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (2.33%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (1.16%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (2.33%) SAP ERP
1 2 (2.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (1.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 8 (9.30%) AWS
1 8 (9.30%) Azure
1 8 (9.30%) GitHub
2 5 (5.81%) GitHub Actions
3 4 (4.65%) Apple Pay
3 4 (4.65%) Azure DevOps
4 3 (3.49%) Google Ads
5 2 (2.33%) Anthropic Claude
5 2 (2.33%) Azure AKS
5 2 (2.33%) GitHub Copilot
5 2 (2.33%) Google Gemini
5 2 (2.33%) Sauce Labs
5 2 (2.33%) TestFlight
6 1 (1.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 1 (1.16%) Amazon Kinesis
6 1 (1.16%) Azure Data Factory
6 1 (1.16%) dbt
6 1 (1.16%) GCP
6 1 (1.16%) SaaS
6 1 (1.16%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 6 (6.98%) Wi-Fi
2 3 (3.49%) Ethernet
2 3 (3.49%) Modbus
2 3 (3.49%) RS-232
2 3 (3.49%) RS-422
2 3 (3.49%) RS-485
3 2 (2.33%) Bluetooth
4 1 (1.16%) SpaceWire
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.49%) MySQL
2 2 (2.33%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (2.33%) Redis
2 2 (2.33%) Relational Database
3 1 (1.16%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 14 (16.28%) GitLab
2 11 (12.79%) Git
2 11 (12.79%) Rational DOORS
3 10 (11.63%) JIRA
4 9 (10.47%) Gradle
4 9 (10.47%) Rational Rhapsody
5 5 (5.81%) Postman
6 4 (4.65%) Jenkins
7 3 (3.49%) MSTest
7 3 (3.49%) Newman
7 3 (3.49%) Selenium
8 2 (2.33%) Android Studio
8 2 (2.33%) Appium
8 2 (2.33%) Claude Code
8 2 (2.33%) Cypress.io
8 2 (2.33%) LabVIEW
8 2 (2.33%) Sourcetree
8 2 (2.33%) Team Foundation Server
8 2 (2.33%) Visual Studio
8 2 (2.33%) Xcode
General
1 17 (19.77%) Analytical Skills
1 17 (19.77%) Social Skills
2 10 (11.63%) Electronics
3 9 (10.47%) Documentation Skills
4 6 (6.98%) Aerospace
5 5 (5.81%) Manufacturing
6 3 (3.49%) Automotive
6 3 (3.49%) Banking
6 3 (3.49%) Retail
7 2 (2.33%) Finance
7 2 (2.33%) Law
8 1 (1.16%) Financial Institution
8 1 (1.16%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 20 (23.26%) Software Engineer
2 19 (22.09%) Test Engineer
3 16 (18.60%) Principal Engineer
4 15 (17.44%) Principal Software Engineer
5 11 (12.79%) Developer
6 9 (10.47%) Embedded Engineer
6 9 (10.47%) Java Developer
7 8 (9.30%) Software Test Engineer
8 6 (6.98%) Hardware Engineer
8 6 (6.98%) Test Automation Engineer
9 5 (5.81%) Java Software Developer
9 5 (5.81%) Software Developer
10 4 (4.65%) Administrator
10 4 (4.65%) Data Engineer
10 4 (4.65%) Hardware Test Engineer
10 4 (4.65%) Linux Administrator
10 4 (4.65%) Systems Engineer
11 3 (3.49%) Lead
11 3 (3.49%) Python Engineer
11 3 (3.49%) Senior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (10.47%) Spring Boot
2 6 (6.98%) Spring
3 5 (5.81%) pytest
4 4 (4.65%) React
4 4 (4.65%) REST
5 3 (3.49%) .NET
5 3 (3.49%) Pandas
5 3 (3.49%) XML
5 3 (3.49%) XML Schema
6 2 (2.33%) Celery
6 2 (2.33%) Django
6 2 (2.33%) JWT
6 2 (2.33%) Next.js
6 2 (2.33%) Node.js
6 2 (2.33%) OAuth
6 2 (2.33%) Playwright
6 2 (2.33%) Vue
6 2 (2.33%) WinForms
6 2 (2.33%) WPF
6 2 (2.33%) XSD
Miscellaneous
1 17 (19.77%) Embedded Systems
2 4 (4.65%) Cloud Native
3 3 (3.49%) Acoustics
4 2 (2.33%) Analogue Electronics
4 2 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
4 2 (2.33%) Greenfield Project
4 2 (2.33%) Life Science
4 2 (2.33%) Linux Command Line
4 2 (2.33%) Security Posture
4 2 (2.33%) Team-Oriented Environment
5 1 (1.16%) Augmented Reality
5 1 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (1.16%) Device Driver
5 1 (1.16%) N-Tier
5 1 (1.16%) Video\Live Streaming
5 1 (1.16%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 15 (17.44%) Linux
2 9 (10.47%) Windows
3 6 (6.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (5.81%) Android
5 2 (2.33%) Ubuntu
6 1 (1.16%) Embedded Linux
6 1 (1.16%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 46 (53.49%) Software Engineering
2 37 (43.02%) Agile
3 32 (37.21%) Software Testing
4 29 (33.72%) CI/CD
4 29 (33.72%) Problem-Solving
5 22 (25.58%) Test Scripting
6 21 (24.42%) DevOps
6 21 (24.42%) Validation
7 13 (15.12%) Microservices
8 11 (12.79%) Containerisation
8 11 (12.79%) TDD
9 10 (11.63%) AI
9 10 (11.63%) Scrum
9 10 (11.63%) Verification and Validation
10 9 (10.47%) Data Acquisition
10 9 (10.47%) Embedded Software Development
10 9 (10.47%) End-to-End Testing
10 9 (10.47%) Workflow
10 9 (10.47%) Workflow Management
11 8 (9.30%) Continuous Integration
Programming Languages
1 19 (22.09%) Python
2 18 (20.93%) C
3 17 (19.77%) C++
4 13 (15.12%) Java
5 11 (12.79%) SQL
6 9 (10.47%) Ada
7 8 (9.30%) C#
8 3 (3.49%) JavaScript
8 3 (3.49%) Shell Script
8 3 (3.49%) TypeScript
9 1 (1.16%) Bash
9 1 (1.16%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 29 (33.72%) Security Cleared
2 21 (24.42%) SC Cleared
3 8 (9.30%) ISTQB
4 5 (5.81%) Degree
4 5 (5.81%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 2 (2.33%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (1.16%) AWS Certification
6 1 (1.16%) DV Cleared
6 1 (1.16%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (13.95%) QA
2 9 (10.47%) Def Stans
3 4 (4.65%) Data Quality
3 4 (4.65%) PCI DSS
4 1 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (1.16%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 5 (5.81%) Docker
2 4 (4.65%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 11 (12.79%) Ansible
2 5 (5.81%) Kubernetes
3 4 (4.65%) HP Quality Center
3 4 (4.65%) Terraform
4 3 (3.49%) Grafana
4 3 (3.49%) HP ALM
5 2 (2.33%) Kibana
5 2 (2.33%) Rundeck
6 1 (1.16%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 4 (4.65%) HP
1 4 (4.65%) IBM
1 4 (4.65%) Lauterbach
2 3 (3.49%) Databricks
2 3 (3.49%) Microsoft
2 3 (3.49%) SAP
2 3 (3.49%) Siemens
3 2 (2.33%) Atlassian
3 2 (2.33%) Red Hat
4 1 (1.16%) EMC
4 1 (1.16%) Fiserv
4 1 (1.16%) Informatica
4 1 (1.16%) Ingenico
4 1 (1.16%) NVIDIA
4 1 (1.16%) Talend