Test Automation Contracts in England

Automated Testing
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England requiring Test Automation skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Test Automation over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 47 59 49
Rank change year-on-year +12 -10 0
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,112 1,250 2,330
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 4.57% 3.36% 4.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.01% 3.88% 5.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 767 818 1,686
10th Percentile £338 £363 £375
25th Percentile £400 £430 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% +0.92%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £738 £725 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £550
% change year-on-year -2.44% -6.82% +4.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 53 42
10th Percentile £37.92 £50.25 £39.68
25th Percentile £44.51 £52.50 £51.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £61.25
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -2.04% +2.08%
75th Percentile £64.52 £82.50 £77.75
90th Percentile £72.00 £90.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% +13.64%

All Process and Methodology Skills
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 England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 22,202 32,193 45,529
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 91.16% 86.56% 90.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,534 21,105 31,969
10th Percentile £310 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +2.33%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £675
90th Percentile £750 £750 £765
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 921 2,246 1,592
10th Percentile £14.42 £12.92 £10.87
25th Percentile £18.20 £16.01 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.07 £36.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.25% -4.00% +53.06%
75th Percentile £63.75 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
% change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings citing Test Automation as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for Test Automation in England

Test Automation
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Test Automation in England.

Daily rate trend for Test Automation in England

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in England over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in England

Test Automation
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Test Automation in England.

Hourly rate trend for Test Automation in England

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Automation in England over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Automation in England

Test Automation
Contract Job Locations in 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 England region over the 6 months to 1 May 2025. 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
London +3 612 £511 -7.05% 587
South East +18 176 £513 -6.82% 312
North of England +7 144 £450 -5.26% 261
Midlands +44 72 £463 +8.82% 144
North West +4 70 £450 -10.00% 153
Yorkshire +1 58 £488 +8.33% 72
South West +39 46 £500 -9.09% 133
West Midlands +31 43 £495 +16.47% 85
East Midlands +19 29 £444 +5.91% 53
East of England +10 19 £490 -1.51% 101
North East +11 16 £395 -2.47% 37
Test Automation
UK

Test Automation
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 74 (6.65%) Confluence
2 17 (1.53%) Apache Spark
3 10 (0.90%) Apache
4 6 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (0.45%) SharePoint
6 3 (0.27%) CICS
7 2 (0.18%) CMS
7 2 (0.18%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.18%) nginx
7 2 (0.18%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.18%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.18%) WebSphere
7 2 (0.18%) WordPress
8 1 (0.090%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.090%) Drupal
8 1 (0.090%) IIS
8 1 (0.090%) Oracle Coherence
8 1 (0.090%) SAS
8 1 (0.090%) Umbraco
Applications
1 14 (1.26%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.36%) Chatbot
2 4 (0.36%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.18%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.090%) CATIA
4 1 (0.090%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (0.81%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.36%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.27%) Infor CloudSuite
3 3 (0.27%) Shopify
4 2 (0.18%) Aladdin
4 2 (0.18%) Finacle
4 2 (0.18%) NEC Housing
4 2 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.18%) SAP CRM
4 2 (0.18%) SAP Hybris
4 2 (0.18%) SimCorp Dimension
5 1 (0.090%) Murex MxG2000
5 1 (0.090%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.090%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.090%) SAP CO
5 1 (0.090%) SAP FI
5 1 (0.090%) SAP FI/CO
5 1 (0.090%) SAP SD
5 1 (0.090%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.090%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 256 (23.02%) Azure
2 232 (20.86%) AWS
3 113 (10.16%) Azure DevOps
4 87 (7.82%) GitHub
5 71 (6.38%) GCP
6 46 (4.14%) GitHub Actions
7 38 (3.42%) Serverless
8 29 (2.61%) SaaS
9 25 (2.25%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 23 (2.07%) AWS Lambda
11 22 (1.98%) Cloud Computing
11 22 (1.98%) Power Platform
12 21 (1.89%) Azure AKS
13 20 (1.80%) Azure Service Bus
13 20 (1.80%) BrowserStack
14 19 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
14 19 (1.71%) Entra ID
14 19 (1.71%) Slack
15 17 (1.53%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 16 (1.44%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 31 (2.79%) HTTP
2 17 (1.53%) DNS
3 16 (1.44%) Firewall
4 14 (1.26%) TCP/IP
5 12 (1.08%) Wireless
6 10 (0.90%) Network Security
6 10 (0.90%) VLAN
7 9 (0.81%) BGP
8 8 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
9 7 (0.63%) MPLS
10 6 (0.54%) DOCSIS
10 6 (0.54%) Multicast
10 6 (0.54%) VPN
11 5 (0.45%) SNMP
11 5 (0.45%) SSH
12 4 (0.36%) DHCP
12 4 (0.36%) LAN
12 4 (0.36%) SAN
12 4 (0.36%) SSL
13 3 (0.27%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (5.94%) PostgreSQL
2 63 (5.67%) SQL Server
3 51 (4.59%) NoSQL
4 43 (3.87%) MongoDB
5 28 (2.52%) MySQL
6 22 (1.98%) Relational Database
7 19 (1.71%) Apache Cassandra
7 19 (1.71%) Data Warehouse
8 18 (1.62%) Big Data
9 17 (1.53%) Data Lake
10 16 (1.44%) Elasticsearch
11 13 (1.17%) Power BI
12 12 (1.08%) DynamoDB
12 12 (1.08%) Hadoop
13 8 (0.72%) Oracle Database
14 7 (0.63%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.63%) InfluxDB
14 7 (0.63%) MS Access
15 6 (0.54%) Metadata
16 5 (0.45%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 207 (18.62%) Selenium
2 197 (17.72%) Git
2 197 (17.72%) Jenkins
3 194 (17.45%) JIRA
4 111 (9.98%) Cucumber
5 100 (8.99%) Cypress.io
6 93 (8.36%) Postman
7 82 (7.37%) GitLab
8 61 (5.49%) REST Assured
9 60 (5.40%) JMeter
10 59 (5.31%) JUnit
11 32 (2.88%) Appium
11 32 (2.88%) Bitbucket
12 31 (2.79%) SonarQube
13 28 (2.52%) SoapUI
14 25 (2.25%) SpecFlow
15 24 (2.16%) Maven
16 23 (2.07%) Jasmine
17 16 (1.44%) IntelliJ
17 16 (1.44%) WebDriver
General
1 306 (27.52%) Social Skills
2 234 (21.04%) Finance
3 153 (13.76%) Analytical Skills
4 129 (11.60%) Public Sector
5 95 (8.54%) Banking
6 63 (5.67%) Telecoms
7 47 (4.23%) Manufacturing
8 44 (3.96%) Electronics
8 44 (3.96%) Marketing
9 41 (3.69%) Front Office
10 22 (1.98%) Investment Banking
11 20 (1.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 15 (1.35%) Financial Institution
13 13 (1.17%) Law
14 12 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
15 10 (0.90%) Documentation Skills
15 10 (0.90%) Retail
16 9 (0.81%) Organisational Skills
17 8 (0.72%) Legal
18 7 (0.63%) Billing
Job Titles
1 226 (20.32%) Developer
2 158 (14.21%) Senior
3 143 (12.86%) Tester
4 116 (10.43%) Test Engineer
5 99 (8.90%) Analyst
6 88 (7.91%) Lead
7 77 (6.92%) Software Engineer
8 63 (5.67%) Automation Tester
9 62 (5.58%) Test Analyst
10 61 (5.49%) Architect
11 58 (5.22%) QA Engineer
12 47 (4.23%) Senior Developer
13 46 (4.14%) DevOps Engineer
14 44 (3.96%) Test Manager
15 42 (3.78%) Java Developer
16 41 (3.69%) Test Automation Engineer
17 34 (3.06%) Full-Stack Developer
18 33 (2.97%) Python Engineer
19 31 (2.79%) Python Developer
20 30 (2.70%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 105 (9.44%) REST
2 101 (9.08%) .NET
3 83 (7.46%) RESTful
4 70 (6.29%) HTML
4 70 (6.29%) React
5 69 (6.21%) CSS
6 63 (5.67%) Kafka
7 58 (5.22%) Playwright
8 54 (4.86%) Node.js
9 48 (4.32%) pytest
10 40 (3.60%) Spring Boot
11 38 (3.42%) Spring
12 33 (2.97%) Web Services
13 32 (2.88%) AngularJS
14 30 (2.70%) Swagger
15 29 (2.61%) OpenAPI
16 27 (2.43%) .NET Framework
17 23 (2.07%) JSON
18 22 (1.98%) XML
19 21 (1.89%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 45 (4.05%) Product Ownership
2 31 (2.79%) Cloud Native
3 26 (2.34%) Algorithms
3 26 (2.34%) Onboarding
4 23 (2.07%) Fixed Income
5 21 (1.89%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 20 (1.80%) Mobile App
7 19 (1.71%) Distributed Systems
8 18 (1.62%) Data Structures
9 17 (1.53%) Public Cloud
10 16 (1.44%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 16 (1.44%) Self-Motivation
11 14 (1.26%) Greenfield Project
11 14 (1.26%) Management Information System
12 13 (1.17%) Equities
13 12 (1.08%) Derivative
13 12 (1.08%) Virtual Team
14 10 (0.90%) Data Protection Act
14 10 (0.90%) Linux Command Line
14 10 (0.90%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 129 (11.60%) Linux
2 83 (7.46%) Windows
3 50 (4.50%) Unix
4 29 (2.61%) Android
4 29 (2.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (1.44%) Apple iOS
6 7 (0.63%) Embedded Linux
7 4 (0.36%) Windows Server
8 3 (0.27%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.27%) Mac OS X
9 2 (0.18%) CentOS
9 2 (0.18%) VMS
9 2 (0.18%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.18%) Windows 7
9 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
9 2 (0.18%) zOS
10 1 (0.090%) AIX
10 1 (0.090%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 474 (42.63%) Agile
2 426 (38.31%) CI/CD
3 326 (29.32%) DevOps
4 234 (21.04%) Problem-Solving
5 169 (15.20%) Software Engineering
6 143 (12.86%) Test Strategy
7 138 (12.41%) Continuous Integration
8 135 (12.14%) Microservices
9 130 (11.69%) Software Testing
9 130 (11.69%) Test Scripting
10 127 (11.42%) Containerisation
10 127 (11.42%) Manual Testing
11 114 (10.25%) API Testing
11 114 (10.25%) Scrum
11 114 (10.25%) TDD
12 113 (10.16%) Performance Testing
13 97 (8.72%) Validation
14 90 (8.09%) BDD
15 89 (8.00%) Integration Testing
15 89 (8.00%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 303 (27.25%) Python
2 278 (25.00%) Java
3 228 (20.50%) SQL
4 179 (16.10%) JavaScript
5 138 (12.41%) C#
6 82 (7.37%) TypeScript
7 57 (5.13%) PowerShell
8 53 (4.77%) Bash
9 42 (3.78%) C++
10 30 (2.70%) Go
11 17 (1.53%) Kotlin
11 17 (1.53%) Shell Script
12 16 (1.44%) Ruby
13 14 (1.26%) PHP
14 13 (1.17%) Groovy
14 13 (1.17%) Scala
15 10 (0.90%) C
16 8 (0.72%) Rust
16 8 (0.72%) T-SQL
16 8 (0.72%) VB
Qualifications
1 265 (23.83%) Security Cleared
2 199 (17.90%) SC Cleared
3 122 (10.97%) Degree
4 61 (5.49%) DV Cleared
5 58 (5.22%) Computer Science Degree
6 40 (3.60%) ISTQB
7 15 (1.35%) Azure Certification
8 13 (1.17%) BPSS Clearance
8 13 (1.17%) Master's Degree
9 10 (0.90%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 9 (0.81%) AWS Certification
10 9 (0.81%) CEH
11 6 (0.54%) CCNP
11 6 (0.54%) Cisco Certification
11 6 (0.54%) CREST Certified
11 6 (0.54%) OSCP
12 5 (0.45%) CCNA
12 5 (0.45%) CCSAS
12 5 (0.45%) GPEN
12 5 (0.45%) GWAPT
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 259 (23.29%) QA
2 46 (4.14%) Accessibility
3 18 (1.62%) Data Quality
4 14 (1.26%) WCAG
5 13 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 8 (0.72%) Software Quality Assurance
7 7 (0.63%) GDPR
8 4 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
8 4 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 3 (0.27%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.27%) ISO 9001
10 2 (0.18%) GMP
10 2 (0.18%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.18%) GRC
10 2 (0.18%) ITGC
10 2 (0.18%) MISRA
10 2 (0.18%) MISRA C
10 2 (0.18%) NCSC
10 2 (0.18%) SLA
10 2 (0.18%) SOX 404
System Software
1 140 (12.59%) Docker
2 30 (2.70%) Active Directory
3 5 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
4 4 (0.36%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.27%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.18%) Firmware
6 2 (0.18%) FreeRADIUS
6 2 (0.18%) iptables
6 2 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.18%) vSphere
7 1 (0.090%) Time Sharing Option
7 1 (0.090%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
7 1 (0.090%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 163 (14.66%) Kubernetes
2 92 (8.27%) Terraform
3 86 (7.73%) Ansible
4 25 (2.25%) Grafana
5 18 (1.62%) Puppet
6 13 (1.17%) Progress Chef
7 10 (0.90%) Docker Swarm
7 10 (0.90%) Podman
7 10 (0.90%) Prometheus
8 9 (0.81%) HP ALM
9 8 (0.72%) Argo
10 5 (0.45%) Kibana
11 4 (0.36%) Proxmox
12 3 (0.27%) Control-M
12 3 (0.27%) Kustomize
12 3 (0.27%) Packer
12 3 (0.27%) Rancher
12 3 (0.27%) vRealize
12 3 (0.27%) WMI
12 3 (0.27%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 89 (8.00%) Microsoft
2 67 (6.03%) SAP
3 59 (5.31%) Oracle
4 35 (3.15%) Google
5 29 (2.61%) Databricks
5 29 (2.61%) ServiceNow
6 23 (2.07%) Salesforce
6 23 (2.07%) Splunk
7 16 (1.44%) Cisco
8 14 (1.26%) HP
9 10 (0.90%) Informatica
9 10 (0.90%) VMware
10 9 (0.81%) ION Trading
11 8 (0.72%) Virgin Media
12 7 (0.63%) Atlassian
12 7 (0.63%) Citrix
13 6 (0.54%) Dataiku
14 5 (0.45%) Bloomberg
14 5 (0.45%) IBM
14 5 (0.45%) Red Hat