Test Automation Contract Job Trends in England

Automated Testing
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Test Automation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 10 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 48 58
Rank change year-on-year +1 +10 -9
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,784 1,097 1,305
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.22% 4.48% 3.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.96% 4.91% 4.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,148 773 869
10th Percentile £350 £317 £363
25th Percentile £402 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £490 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.06% -6.67% -4.55%
75th Percentile £575 £613 £630
90th Percentile £658 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £475 £494 £513
% change year-on-year -3.75% -3.71% -6.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 101 24 48
10th Percentile £36.00 £41.55 £52.13
25th Percentile £56.25 £47.87 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% -8.33% -14.89%
75th Percentile £70.00 £70.13 £73.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.41 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +18.18% -8.33% -10.95%

All Process & 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 35,948 22,351 32,031
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.10% 91.35% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,764 14,463 20,809
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £413 £407 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,246 1,016 2,371
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.81
25th Percentile £20.75 £18.12 £16.00
Median hourly rate £47.00 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +67.86% -25.33% +4.17%
75th Percentile £68.00 £58.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £27.28 £36.50
% change year-on-year +61.14% -25.26% +1.39%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

Test Automation job vacancy trend in England

Test Automation
Daily Rate Trend in England

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

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

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in England over the 6 months to 10 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in England

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Trend in England

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

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

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Automation in England over the 6 months to 10 June 2026.

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 10 June 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
London -1 822 £500 -1.48% 180
North of England +9 358 £463 +3.47% 124
Midlands +7 220 £450 +9.09% 71
West Midlands +30 198 £459 -4.97% 46
South East -32 186 £475 -5.00% 115
Yorkshire -4 153 £500 +5.26% 30
North West +3 148 £475 +12.16% 67
South West +30 103 £463 -2.63% 52
East of England +19 82 £495 +7.90% 62
North East +4 65 £425 +6.25% 28
East Midlands -45 22 £409 +48.64% 25
Test Automation
UK

Test Automation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in 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
1 146 (8.18%) Confluence
2 42 (2.35%) SAS
3 40 (2.24%) Apache Airflow
4 35 (1.96%) Apache Spark
5 14 (0.78%) Apache
6 12 (0.67%) CMS
6 12 (0.67%) SharePoint
7 9 (0.50%) Appian
8 8 (0.45%) Camunda
9 5 (0.28%) nginx
9 5 (0.28%) Tomcat
10 4 (0.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.22%) WebLogic
11 3 (0.17%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.17%) Kentico
11 3 (0.17%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.056%) Anypoint
12 1 (0.056%) Ethereum
12 1 (0.056%) Mendix
Applications
1 27 (1.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (0.73%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.50%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.17%) Simulink
8 1 (0.056%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.056%) Mingle
8 1 (0.056%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 18 (1.01%) Aladdin
2 17 (0.95%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.50%) Payment Gateway
4 8 (0.45%) Findur
4 8 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
5 6 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
5 6 (0.34%) SAP ERP
5 6 (0.34%) Shopify
6 5 (0.28%) BambooHR
6 5 (0.28%) Loan IQ
7 3 (0.17%) Distributed Ledger
7 3 (0.17%) Maximo
7 3 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
8 2 (0.11%) Infor CloudSuite
8 2 (0.11%) Infor LN
8 2 (0.11%) Infor M3
8 2 (0.11%) iTrent
8 2 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.11%) SAP MDG
8 2 (0.11%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 496 (27.80%) AWS
2 477 (26.74%) Azure
3 283 (15.86%) GitHub
4 211 (11.83%) Azure DevOps
5 168 (9.42%) GitHub Actions
6 129 (7.23%) GCP
7 124 (6.95%) Serverless
8 86 (4.82%) AWS Lambda
9 74 (4.15%) Amazon S3
10 65 (3.64%) Power Platform
11 52 (2.91%) Amazon ECS
11 52 (2.91%) OpenShift
12 48 (2.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 40 (2.24%) Azure Data Factory
14 34 (1.91%) Snowflake
15 33 (1.85%) Amazon EC2
15 33 (1.85%) Amazon EKS
16 32 (1.79%) dbt
17 29 (1.63%) AWS CloudFormation
18 26 (1.46%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.18%) Firewall
2 15 (0.84%) SAN
3 14 (0.78%) HTTP
4 9 (0.50%) MPLS
4 9 (0.50%) TCP/IP
4 9 (0.50%) VPN
4 9 (0.50%) WAN
5 8 (0.45%) Network Security
6 6 (0.34%) Ethernet
6 6 (0.34%) Wi-Fi
6 6 (0.34%) Wireshark
7 5 (0.28%) BGP
7 5 (0.28%) Multicast
7 5 (0.28%) SSL
7 5 (0.28%) VLAN
8 4 (0.22%) 5G
8 4 (0.22%) FTP
8 4 (0.22%) LAN
8 4 (0.22%) NAS
8 4 (0.22%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 101 (5.66%) PostgreSQL
2 83 (4.65%) Data Warehouse
3 81 (4.54%) SQL Server
4 79 (4.43%) MongoDB
5 76 (4.26%) NoSQL
6 52 (2.91%) Relational Database
7 48 (2.69%) Power BI
8 45 (2.52%) DynamoDB
9 35 (1.96%) Oracle Reports
10 33 (1.85%) Pentaho
11 26 (1.46%) Amazon Athena
12 25 (1.40%) Big Data
12 25 (1.40%) Tableau
13 24 (1.35%) Amazon RDS
13 24 (1.35%) Data Lake
14 23 (1.29%) Redis
15 22 (1.23%) Metadata
16 20 (1.12%) Amazon Redshift
17 18 (1.01%) MySQL
17 18 (1.01%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 342 (19.17%) JIRA
2 308 (17.26%) Git
3 295 (16.54%) Jenkins
4 256 (14.35%) GitLab
5 239 (13.40%) Selenium
6 143 (8.02%) Postman
7 129 (7.23%) Cucumber
8 99 (5.55%) REST Assured
9 91 (5.10%) JUnit
10 81 (4.54%) Cypress.io
11 80 (4.48%) JMeter
12 53 (2.97%) Zephyr
13 51 (2.86%) WebDriver
14 43 (2.41%) SonarQube
15 38 (2.13%) Gatling
16 37 (2.07%) Gradle
17 32 (1.79%) Bitbucket
18 30 (1.68%) Maven
18 30 (1.68%) Mockito
19 27 (1.51%) SpecFlow
General
1 489 (27.41%) Social Skills
2 321 (17.99%) Finance
3 232 (13.00%) Public Sector
4 222 (12.44%) Analytical Skills
5 153 (8.58%) Banking
6 44 (2.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 41 (2.30%) Documentation Skills
8 31 (1.74%) Investment Banking
9 26 (1.46%) Front Office
10 25 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
11 21 (1.18%) Telecoms
12 17 (0.95%) Organisational Skills
12 17 (0.95%) Retail
13 16 (0.90%) Financial Institution
13 16 (0.90%) Legal
14 15 (0.84%) Aerospace
14 15 (0.84%) Military
15 13 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
16 12 (0.67%) Marketing
17 11 (0.62%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 352 (19.73%) Developer
2 268 (15.02%) Senior
3 199 (11.15%) Test Engineer
4 197 (11.04%) Lead
5 193 (10.82%) Tester
6 107 (6.00%) Data Engineer
7 99 (5.55%) Java Developer
8 93 (5.21%) Analyst
8 93 (5.21%) Software Engineer
9 86 (4.82%) Test Automation Engineer
10 82 (4.60%) Architect
11 75 (4.20%) QA Engineer
12 74 (4.15%) DevOps Engineer
13 70 (3.92%) Automation Tester
13 70 (3.92%) Senior Developer
13 70 (3.92%) Test Leader
14 53 (2.97%) Automation Engineer
15 50 (2.80%) Full-Stack Developer
15 50 (2.80%) Test Analyst
16 48 (2.69%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 199 (11.15%) REST
2 192 (10.76%) Playwright
3 160 (8.97%) React
4 134 (7.51%) Kafka
5 131 (7.34%) RESTful
6 130 (7.29%) Spring
7 117 (6.56%) .NET
8 106 (5.94%) Spring Boot
9 93 (5.21%) Node.js
10 66 (3.70%) AngularJS
11 64 (3.59%) HTML
12 57 (3.20%) CSS
13 52 (2.91%) pytest
14 43 (2.41%) OAuth
15 41 (2.30%) Jest
16 37 (2.07%) Swagger
17 34 (1.91%) OpenID
18 32 (1.79%) .NET Framework
19 31 (1.74%) Gherkin
19 31 (1.74%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 205 (11.49%) Cloud Native
2 124 (6.95%) Product Ownership
3 105 (5.89%) Distributed Systems
4 51 (2.86%) Legacy Systems
5 50 (2.80%) Data Protection Act
6 40 (2.24%) Enterprise Software
6 40 (2.24%) Mobile App
7 37 (2.07%) Self-Motivation
8 34 (1.91%) Virtual Team
9 32 (1.79%) Distributed Architecture
10 28 (1.57%) Onboarding
11 23 (1.29%) Algorithms
12 21 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
12 21 (1.18%) Management Information System
13 20 (1.12%) Embedded Systems
13 20 (1.12%) Fixed Income
13 20 (1.12%) NHS
14 19 (1.07%) Security Posture
15 17 (0.95%) Data Centre
16 16 (0.90%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 118 (6.61%) Linux
2 76 (4.26%) Windows
3 52 (2.91%) Unix
4 40 (2.24%) Android
5 37 (2.07%) Apple iOS
6 17 (0.95%) Windows Server
7 16 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (0.67%) Mac OS X
9 7 (0.39%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.39%) Solaris
10 5 (0.28%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.22%) Embedded Linux
11 4 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.17%) AIX
12 3 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.11%) CentOS
13 2 (0.11%) Kali Linux
14 1 (0.056%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 945 (52.97%) CI/CD
2 819 (45.91%) Agile
3 615 (34.47%) DevOps
4 333 (18.67%) Problem-Solving
5 296 (16.59%) Microservices
6 293 (16.42%) Continuous Improvement
7 280 (15.70%) Test Strategy
8 268 (15.02%) Scrum
9 255 (14.29%) Software Engineering
9 255 (14.29%) Validation
10 231 (12.95%) Infrastructure as Code
11 216 (12.11%) Observability
12 214 (12.00%) AI
13 210 (11.77%) TDD
14 209 (11.72%) Containerisation
15 192 (10.76%) ETL
16 184 (10.31%) Software Testing
17 180 (10.09%) Test Scripting
18 177 (9.92%) User Acceptance Testing
19 174 (9.75%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 449 (25.17%) Python
2 444 (24.89%) Java
3 434 (24.33%) SQL
4 229 (12.84%) JavaScript
5 200 (11.21%) TypeScript
6 173 (9.70%) C#
7 70 (3.92%) PowerShell
8 55 (3.08%) Bash
9 44 (2.47%) Kotlin
10 43 (2.41%) C++
11 30 (1.68%) C
11 30 (1.68%) PL/SQL
11 30 (1.68%) Scala
12 28 (1.57%) Go
13 26 (1.46%) Apex Code
14 24 (1.35%) Bicep
15 21 (1.18%) Swift
16 16 (0.90%) Groovy
17 15 (0.84%) Ruby
18 12 (0.67%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 555 (31.11%) Security Cleared
2 443 (24.83%) SC Cleared
3 85 (4.76%) ISTQB
4 72 (4.04%) Degree
5 68 (3.81%) BPSS Clearance
5 68 (3.81%) DV Cleared
6 36 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
7 18 (1.01%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 14 (0.78%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 13 (0.73%) Master's Degree
10 12 (0.67%) AWS Certification
10 12 (0.67%) Cisco Certification
11 11 (0.62%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 11 (0.62%) CCNP
11 11 (0.62%) SAFe Agilist
12 8 (0.45%) Azure Certification
13 7 (0.39%) DBS Check
14 6 (0.34%) CISSP
15 5 (0.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 5 (0.28%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 389 (21.80%) QA
2 125 (7.01%) Accessibility
3 111 (6.22%) Data Quality
4 54 (3.03%) WCAG
5 29 (1.63%) GDPR
6 11 (0.62%) ISO 20022
6 11 (0.62%) NCSC
7 10 (0.56%) Def Stans
7 10 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 10 (0.56%) NIST
8 9 (0.50%) SLA
9 6 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 5 (0.28%) FATCA
10 5 (0.28%) Software Quality Assurance
11 4 (0.22%) HL7
11 4 (0.22%) PCI DSS
11 4 (0.22%) SEPA
12 3 (0.17%) HIPAA
12 3 (0.17%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 3 (0.17%) PSD2
System Software
1 293 (16.42%) Docker
2 26 (1.46%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (1.01%) Active Directory
4 14 (0.78%) Firmware
5 13 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.39%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
7 6 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
8 4 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.11%) SRDF
10 1 (0.056%) Hyper-V
10 1 (0.056%) KVM
10 1 (0.056%) Squid
10 1 (0.056%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.056%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 297 (16.65%) Kubernetes
2 209 (11.72%) Terraform
3 92 (5.16%) Grafana
4 88 (4.93%) Ansible
5 83 (4.65%) Prometheus
6 26 (1.46%) Argo
7 13 (0.73%) HP ALM
8 12 (0.67%) Puppet
9 11 (0.62%) Kibana
10 10 (0.56%) Dell DRAC
10 10 (0.56%) HP Quality Center
11 9 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
12 8 (0.45%) Kustomize
13 7 (0.39%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 7 (0.39%) NetIQ Identity Manager
14 6 (0.34%) NetBackup
15 5 (0.28%) Progress Chef
16 4 (0.22%) Nmap
16 4 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
16 4 (0.22%) WMI
Vendors
1 150 (8.41%) Microsoft
2 148 (8.30%) Oracle
3 72 (4.04%) Salesforce
4 58 (3.25%) Databricks
5 55 (3.08%) ServiceNow
6 54 (3.03%) Talend
7 49 (2.75%) Splunk
8 47 (2.63%) Red Hat
9 45 (2.52%) Google
10 38 (2.13%) Denodo
11 30 (1.68%) VMware
12 27 (1.51%) SAP
13 26 (1.46%) UiPath
14 24 (1.35%) Dynatrace
14 24 (1.35%) Informatica
15 23 (1.29%) IBM
16 21 (1.18%) Cisco
17 16 (0.90%) HP
18 14 (0.78%) Blue Prism
19 13 (0.73%) OpenAI