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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 50 50
Rank change year-on-year +4 0 +3
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,985 1,248 1,289
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.34% 4.52% 3.88%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.11% 4.98% 4.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,280 860 870
10th Percentile £331 £313 £356
25th Percentile £409 £381 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £479 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.20% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £625
90th Percentile £664 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £475 £494 £513
% change year-on-year -3.80% -3.61% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 101 33 23
10th Percentile £37.25 £41.17 £43.50
25th Percentile £60.00 £45.00 £50.63
Median hourly rate £69.50 £50.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +39.00% -9.09% -13.73%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £71.87
90th Percentile £74.00 £73.70 £82.90
UK median hourly rate £69.75 £50.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +39.50% -9.09% -16.03%

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 38,841 25,050 28,543
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.95% 90.82% 85.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,105 15,945 18,525
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £511 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.68% -2.61% -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £626 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,548 1,450 1,590
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £14.12
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.87 £18.14
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +5.81%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.45 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.56 £25.15 £40.94
% change year-on-year +65.23% -38.57% +0.61%

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 19 August 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 19 August 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 19 August 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 +6 902 £500 -1.48% 679
North of England +7 396 £466 +3.56% 210
Midlands +7 269 £450 - 121
West Midlands +23 253 £450 -10.00% 77
South East -33 216 £459 -8.20% 230
Yorkshire -4 162 £475 -5.00% 54
North West -11 140 £492 +15.76% 108
South West -6 113 £469 +7.14% 149
North East +16 102 £450 +3.45% 48
East of England +8 79 £450 -1.91% 116
East Midlands -44 16 £425 +23.19% 44
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
1 168 (8.46%) Confluence
2 51 (2.57%) Apache Airflow
3 46 (2.32%) Apache Spark
4 43 (2.17%) SAS
5 38 (1.91%) SharePoint
6 21 (1.06%) Apache
7 13 (0.65%) CMS
8 11 (0.55%) WebLogic
9 6 (0.30%) Camunda
9 6 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.25%) nginx
10 5 (0.25%) Tomcat
11 4 (0.20%) Jupyter
11 4 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
12 3 (0.15%) Kentico
12 3 (0.15%) OpenStack
13 2 (0.10%) Anypoint
13 2 (0.10%) Apache Pulsar
13 2 (0.10%) Mule
Applications
1 25 (1.26%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (0.81%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.35%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.25%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.20%) Simulink
7 3 (0.15%) Trello
8 1 (0.050%) Mingle
8 1 (0.050%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 25 (1.26%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.76%) Aladdin
3 14 (0.71%) SAP S/4HANA
4 13 (0.65%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.40%) Findur
6 7 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
7 6 (0.30%) SAP ERP
8 5 (0.25%) BambooHR
9 4 (0.20%) Shopify
10 3 (0.15%) Distributed Ledger
11 2 (0.10%) Infor CloudSuite
11 2 (0.10%) Infor LN
11 2 (0.10%) Infor M3
11 2 (0.10%) Loan IQ
11 2 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
11 2 (0.10%) SAP GRC
11 2 (0.10%) SAP MDG
12 1 (0.050%) Maximo
12 1 (0.050%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 596 (30.03%) Azure
2 591 (29.77%) AWS
3 350 (17.63%) GitHub
4 275 (13.85%) Azure DevOps
5 219 (11.03%) GitHub Actions
6 155 (7.81%) Serverless
7 147 (7.41%) GCP
8 111 (5.59%) AWS Lambda
9 91 (4.58%) Power Platform
10 87 (4.38%) Amazon S3
11 71 (3.58%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 67 (3.38%) Amazon ECS
13 63 (3.17%) OpenShift
14 53 (2.67%) dbt
15 52 (2.62%) Amazon EKS
16 48 (2.42%) GitHub Copilot
17 47 (2.37%) Snowflake
18 46 (2.32%) Amazon EC2
19 44 (2.22%) Azure Data Factory
20 42 (2.12%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 26 (1.31%) Firewall
2 18 (0.91%) HTTP
3 17 (0.86%) 4G
4 16 (0.81%) 5G
4 16 (0.81%) DNS
4 16 (0.81%) Network Security
5 15 (0.76%) 2G
5 15 (0.76%) 3G
5 15 (0.76%) Diameter Protocol
5 15 (0.76%) SIGTRAN
5 15 (0.76%) SS7
5 15 (0.76%) WAN
6 13 (0.65%) TCP/IP
7 12 (0.60%) LAN
7 12 (0.60%) SAN
8 11 (0.55%) Wi-Fi
9 9 (0.45%) BGP
10 8 (0.40%) Ethernet VPN
10 8 (0.40%) VXLAN
11 7 (0.35%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 121 (6.10%) Data Warehouse
2 115 (5.79%) PostgreSQL
3 105 (5.29%) NoSQL
4 88 (4.43%) MongoDB
5 81 (4.08%) SQL Server
6 78 (3.93%) Power BI
7 64 (3.22%) Relational Database
8 46 (2.32%) DynamoDB
9 41 (2.07%) Oracle Reports
10 39 (1.96%) Pentaho
11 36 (1.81%) Data Lake
12 34 (1.71%) Metadata
13 30 (1.51%) Amazon Athena
14 29 (1.46%) Big Data
15 27 (1.36%) Amazon RDS
16 26 (1.31%) Amazon Redshift
17 25 (1.26%) MySQL
17 25 (1.26%) Redis
18 24 (1.21%) Tableau
19 20 (1.01%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 401 (20.20%) Git
2 349 (17.58%) JIRA
3 323 (16.27%) Jenkins
4 264 (13.30%) GitLab
5 236 (11.89%) Selenium
6 143 (7.20%) Postman
7 127 (6.40%) Cucumber
8 99 (4.99%) JUnit
9 97 (4.89%) Cypress.io
10 83 (4.18%) REST Assured
11 77 (3.88%) JMeter
12 71 (3.58%) Zephyr
13 60 (3.02%) SonarQube
14 49 (2.47%) Gatling
14 49 (2.47%) WebDriver
15 44 (2.22%) Gradle
16 41 (2.07%) Bitbucket
17 34 (1.71%) Maven
18 32 (1.61%) Mockito
19 23 (1.16%) Appium
General
1 555 (27.96%) Social Skills
2 385 (19.40%) Finance
3 280 (14.11%) Analytical Skills
4 246 (12.39%) Public Sector
5 173 (8.72%) Banking
6 63 (3.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 40 (2.02%) Documentation Skills
8 39 (1.96%) Telecoms
9 32 (1.61%) Retail
10 29 (1.46%) Influencing Skills
11 28 (1.41%) Front Office
11 28 (1.41%) Investment Banking
12 23 (1.16%) Financial Institution
13 20 (1.01%) Military
14 19 (0.96%) Aerospace
15 17 (0.86%) Back Office
16 15 (0.76%) Legal
17 14 (0.71%) Automotive
17 14 (0.71%) Law
18 13 (0.65%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 397 (20.00%) Developer
2 318 (16.02%) Senior
3 212 (10.68%) Lead
4 191 (9.62%) Test Engineer
5 169 (8.51%) Tester
6 143 (7.20%) Data Engineer
7 121 (6.10%) Java Developer
8 106 (5.34%) Software Engineer
9 105 (5.29%) Analyst
10 93 (4.69%) DevOps Engineer
11 87 (4.38%) Senior Developer
11 87 (4.38%) Test Automation Engineer
12 86 (4.33%) Architect
13 83 (4.18%) QA Engineer
14 71 (3.58%) Test Leader
15 68 (3.43%) Full-Stack Developer
16 66 (3.32%) Test Analyst
17 65 (3.27%) Automation Engineer
18 60 (3.02%) Automation Tester
19 57 (2.87%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 278 (14.01%) REST
2 214 (10.78%) Playwright
3 187 (9.42%) Kafka
4 185 (9.32%) RESTful
5 177 (8.92%) React
6 160 (8.06%) Spring
7 140 (7.05%) .NET
8 130 (6.55%) Spring Boot
9 100 (5.04%) Node.js
10 97 (4.89%) HTML
11 90 (4.53%) AngularJS
12 84 (4.23%) CSS
13 58 (2.92%) OAuth
14 53 (2.67%) JSON
15 48 (2.42%) pytest
16 47 (2.37%) XML
17 45 (2.27%) Jest
18 42 (2.12%) .NET Framework
18 42 (2.12%) PySpark
18 42 (2.12%) Quarkus
Miscellaneous
1 301 (15.16%) Cloud Native
2 148 (7.46%) Product Ownership
3 140 (7.05%) Distributed Systems
4 75 (3.78%) Enterprise Software
5 53 (2.67%) Onboarding
6 51 (2.57%) Legacy Systems
7 47 (2.37%) Data Protection Act
7 47 (2.37%) Self-Motivation
8 39 (1.96%) Mobile App
9 38 (1.91%) AI Agents
10 32 (1.61%) Virtual Team
11 25 (1.26%) Embedded Systems
11 25 (1.26%) Security Posture
12 22 (1.11%) Distributed Architecture
13 21 (1.06%) Management Information System
14 19 (0.96%) Data Centre
15 18 (0.91%) Fixed Income
16 17 (0.86%) Data Structures
17 16 (0.81%) NHS
18 14 (0.71%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 142 (7.15%) Linux
2 90 (4.53%) Windows
3 80 (4.03%) Unix
4 36 (1.81%) Apple iOS
5 34 (1.71%) Android
6 29 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 19 (0.96%) Windows Server
8 7 (0.35%) Solaris
9 6 (0.30%) Embedded Linux
9 6 (0.30%) Mac OS X
10 5 (0.25%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.25%) Windows 7
10 5 (0.25%) Windows Server 2003
10 5 (0.25%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.20%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.15%) AIX
12 3 (0.15%) Mac OS
12 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.10%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,162 (58.54%) CI/CD
2 924 (46.55%) Agile
3 761 (38.34%) DevOps
4 397 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
5 392 (19.75%) Continuous Improvement
6 361 (18.19%) Microservices
7 342 (17.23%) Software Engineering
8 326 (16.42%) Infrastructure as Code
8 326 (16.42%) Scrum
9 318 (16.02%) Validation
10 300 (15.11%) Test Strategy
11 297 (14.96%) AI
12 268 (13.50%) Containerisation
13 250 (12.59%) Observability
14 233 (11.74%) TDD
15 232 (11.69%) ETL
16 220 (11.08%) SDLC
17 213 (10.73%) Data Pipeline
17 213 (10.73%) End-to-End Testing
18 209 (10.53%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 535 (26.95%) Python
2 505 (25.44%) SQL
3 495 (24.94%) Java
4 260 (13.10%) JavaScript
5 209 (10.53%) TypeScript
6 173 (8.72%) C#
7 98 (4.94%) PowerShell
8 73 (3.68%) Bash
9 47 (2.37%) Kotlin
10 46 (2.32%) Bicep
11 38 (1.91%) C++
12 30 (1.51%) C
13 28 (1.41%) PL/SQL
14 26 (1.31%) Scala
15 25 (1.26%) Go
16 23 (1.16%) Apex Code
17 17 (0.86%) Ruby
17 17 (0.86%) Shell Script
17 17 (0.86%) Swift
18 16 (0.81%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 645 (32.49%) Security Cleared
2 545 (27.46%) SC Cleared
3 101 (5.09%) ISTQB
4 99 (4.99%) Degree
5 60 (3.02%) DV Cleared
6 54 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
7 52 (2.62%) Computer Science Degree
8 33 (1.66%) AWS Certification
9 28 (1.41%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 19 (0.96%) Azure Certification
11 15 (0.76%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 12 (0.60%) Cisco Certification
12 12 (0.60%) ISEB
12 12 (0.60%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 11 (0.55%) SAFe Agilist
14 10 (0.50%) CISSP
14 10 (0.50%) Master's Degree
14 10 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
15 8 (0.40%) CCNP
16 7 (0.35%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 516 (25.99%) QA
2 147 (7.41%) Accessibility
3 143 (7.20%) Data Quality
4 76 (3.83%) WCAG
5 39 (1.96%) GDPR
6 15 (0.76%) ISO 20022
7 14 (0.71%) NCSC
8 13 (0.65%) SLA
9 11 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 10 (0.50%) NIST
11 7 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
11 7 (0.35%) Def Stans
12 6 (0.30%) GRC
12 6 (0.30%) Software Quality Assurance
13 5 (0.25%) FATCA
13 5 (0.25%) PCI DSS
14 4 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 3 (0.15%) EU AI Act
15 3 (0.15%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 3 (0.15%) MiFID
System Software
1 385 (19.40%) Docker
2 31 (1.56%) VMware Infrastructure
3 30 (1.51%) Active Directory
4 17 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
5 14 (0.71%) Firmware
6 5 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (0.25%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.10%) SRDF
9 1 (0.050%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.050%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 390 (19.65%) Kubernetes
2 288 (14.51%) Terraform
3 116 (5.84%) Ansible
4 100 (5.04%) Grafana
5 84 (4.23%) Prometheus
6 40 (2.02%) Argo
7 22 (1.11%) Puppet
8 21 (1.06%) Progress Chef
9 12 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
10 11 (0.55%) HP ALM
11 10 (0.50%) Control-M
11 10 (0.50%) Dell DRAC
11 10 (0.50%) Kibana
12 7 (0.35%) Kustomize
13 6 (0.30%) Istio
13 6 (0.30%) Microsoft Intune
13 6 (0.30%) Packer
14 5 (0.25%) HP Fortify
14 5 (0.25%) HP Quality Center
14 5 (0.25%) SCCM
Vendors
1 209 (10.53%) Microsoft
2 170 (8.56%) Oracle
3 82 (4.13%) Databricks
4 74 (3.73%) Salesforce
5 63 (3.17%) Red Hat
6 61 (3.07%) Google
7 58 (2.92%) Talend
8 54 (2.72%) Splunk
9 45 (2.27%) IBM
10 43 (2.17%) ServiceNow
11 42 (2.12%) Denodo
12 37 (1.86%) VMware
13 36 (1.81%) SAP
14 34 (1.71%) Informatica
15 33 (1.66%) Dynatrace
16 31 (1.56%) Cisco
17 25 (1.26%) UiPath
18 18 (0.91%) HP
19 11 (0.55%) Fortinet
20 10 (0.50%) Sage