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 5 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 46 47 54
Rank change year-on-year +1 +7 -13
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,414 1,293 1,567
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.81% 4.16% 3.97%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.31% 4.80% 4.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 987 882 1,128
10th Percentile £315 £338 £386
25th Percentile £400 £404 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £506 £535
Median % change year-on-year -1.19% -5.33% -7.04%
75th Percentile £588 £603 £638
90th Percentile £688 £688 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -7.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 8 59
10th Percentile £42.39 £41.75 £37.50
25th Percentile £46.25 £46.25 £49.38
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £75.00
Median % change year-on-year +13.04% -23.33% +25.00%
75th Percentile £67.00 £66.44 £90.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £78.40 -
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £53.75 £75.00
% change year-on-year +20.93% -28.33% +25.00%

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 26,653 26,912 35,008
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 90.59% 86.57% 88.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,923 16,411 24,057
10th Percentile £295 £313 £313
25th Percentile £405 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,722 972 1,474
10th Percentile £14.70 £15.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.79 £20.00 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £38.04 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -33.88% -15.48% +28.57%
75th Percentile £45.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £74.40 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £35.36 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.87% -20.54% +27.14%

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 5 November 2025.

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 5 November 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 5 November 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 -5 649 £513 -2.38% 718
North of England -6 272 £481 +6.35% 177
Midlands +26 159 £492 +5.81% 93
South East -16 145 £475 -7.32% 621
Yorkshire -6 130 £513 +7.89% 38
West Midlands +16 118 £515 +0.39% 54
North West -10 104 £400 -11.11% 113
South West +16 84 £537 -2.36% 121
East of England +14 58 £413 +3.13% 97
East Midlands +8 41 £360 -7.10% 35
North East +13 40 £488 +14.71% 27
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 80 (5.66%) Confluence
2 50 (3.54%) SAS
3 24 (1.70%) Apache Spark
4 19 (1.34%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (1.13%) Apache
6 11 (0.78%) SharePoint
7 9 (0.64%) CMS
8 8 (0.57%) Oracle Application Server
9 5 (0.35%) JBoss
9 5 (0.35%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.28%) WebLogic
11 3 (0.21%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.21%) CICS
11 3 (0.21%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.21%) nginx
11 3 (0.21%) WordPress
12 2 (0.14%) Headless CMS
12 2 (0.14%) Mule
12 2 (0.14%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 25 (1.77%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.85%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.42%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.28%) Simulink
5 4 (0.28%) Windchill
6 3 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 14 (0.99%) Aladdin
2 8 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.28%) SAP HR
3 4 (0.28%) SAP PLM
4 3 (0.21%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.21%) Workday HCM
5 2 (0.14%) Eagle PACE
5 2 (0.14%) Markit EDM
5 2 (0.14%) Maximo
5 2 (0.14%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.14%) Temenos T24
6 1 (0.071%) Algo Collateral
6 1 (0.071%) CODA-Financials
6 1 (0.071%) MoSes
6 1 (0.071%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.071%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.071%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.071%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.071%) Sage X3
6 1 (0.071%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 371 (26.24%) Azure
2 327 (23.13%) AWS
3 174 (12.31%) GitHub
4 151 (10.68%) Azure DevOps
5 132 (9.34%) GCP
6 94 (6.65%) Serverless
7 81 (5.73%) GitHub Actions
8 47 (3.32%) Power Platform
9 43 (3.04%) OpenShift
10 35 (2.48%) AWS Lambda
11 34 (2.40%) Amazon S3
12 30 (2.12%) Snowflake
13 29 (2.05%) SaaS
14 27 (1.91%) AWS CloudFormation
15 26 (1.84%) Azure AKS
16 22 (1.56%) Azure Data Factory
16 22 (1.56%) Entra ID
17 21 (1.49%) Azure Monitor
17 21 (1.49%) Power Automate
18 20 (1.41%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 37 (2.62%) Firewall
2 29 (2.05%) Wireshark
3 26 (1.84%) HTTP
4 21 (1.49%) HTTPS
5 20 (1.41%) SSL
6 16 (1.13%) Network Security
7 15 (1.06%) TCP/IP
8 14 (0.99%) VPN
9 13 (0.92%) SD-WAN
10 12 (0.85%) Multicast
10 12 (0.85%) WAN
11 10 (0.71%) DNS
12 9 (0.64%) Ethernet
13 6 (0.42%) Internet
13 6 (0.42%) MPLS
14 5 (0.35%) Broadband
14 5 (0.35%) VLAN
15 4 (0.28%) BGP
15 4 (0.28%) Bluetooth
15 4 (0.28%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 94 (6.65%) PostgreSQL
2 78 (5.52%) NoSQL
3 65 (4.60%) MongoDB
4 59 (4.17%) SQL Server
5 57 (4.03%) Relational Database
6 39 (2.76%) Data Warehouse
7 25 (1.77%) Pentaho
8 23 (1.63%) Power BI
9 22 (1.56%) Data Lake
9 22 (1.56%) Oracle Database
10 18 (1.27%) Big Data
10 18 (1.27%) BigQuery
11 17 (1.20%) Amazon RDS
12 15 (1.06%) SAS Enterprise Guide
13 12 (0.85%) DynamoDB
13 12 (0.85%) Redis
14 11 (0.78%) Apache Cassandra
14 11 (0.78%) Delta Lake
14 11 (0.78%) MySQL
15 10 (0.71%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 264 (18.67%) JIRA
2 258 (18.25%) Git
3 247 (17.47%) Jenkins
4 241 (17.04%) Selenium
5 167 (11.81%) GitLab
6 131 (9.26%) Cucumber
7 102 (7.21%) Cypress.io
8 100 (7.07%) Postman
9 86 (6.08%) JUnit
10 68 (4.81%) REST Assured
11 56 (3.96%) JMeter
12 46 (3.25%) Bitbucket
13 42 (2.97%) SonarQube
14 41 (2.90%) Maven
15 28 (1.98%) Sonatype Nexus
16 25 (1.77%) Mockito
17 23 (1.63%) SpecFlow
18 22 (1.56%) Appium
18 22 (1.56%) Gatling
18 22 (1.56%) TestNG
General
1 408 (28.85%) Social Skills
2 233 (16.48%) Finance
3 174 (12.31%) Analytical Skills
4 141 (9.97%) Public Sector
5 122 (8.63%) Banking
6 29 (2.05%) Documentation Skills
7 25 (1.77%) Front Office
8 23 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 23 (1.63%) Investment Banking
9 19 (1.34%) Pharmaceutical
10 18 (1.27%) Financial Institution
10 18 (1.27%) Telecoms
11 17 (1.20%) Manufacturing
12 16 (1.13%) Retail
13 15 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
14 14 (0.99%) Organisational Skills
15 11 (0.78%) Aerospace
15 11 (0.78%) Electronics
16 10 (0.71%) Law
16 10 (0.71%) Military
Job Titles
1 297 (21.00%) Developer
2 228 (16.12%) Senior
3 178 (12.59%) Tester
4 134 (9.48%) Test Engineer
5 111 (7.85%) Lead
6 93 (6.58%) Automation Tester
7 85 (6.01%) Java Developer
8 83 (5.87%) Analyst
9 77 (5.45%) Software Engineer
10 64 (4.53%) Test Analyst
11 54 (3.82%) Data Engineer
12 51 (3.61%) Senior Developer
13 48 (3.39%) Automation Engineer
14 47 (3.32%) QA Engineer
14 47 (3.32%) Test Automation Engineer
15 45 (3.18%) DevOps Engineer
16 42 (2.97%) Test Manager
17 39 (2.76%) Test Leader
18 31 (2.19%) Full-Stack Developer
19 30 (2.12%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 171 (12.09%) REST
2 125 (8.84%) React
3 123 (8.70%) Playwright
4 107 (7.57%) .NET
5 100 (7.07%) RESTful
6 87 (6.15%) Kafka
7 77 (5.45%) Node.js
8 72 (5.09%) Spring
9 66 (4.67%) HTML
9 66 (4.67%) SOAP
9 66 (4.67%) Spring Boot
10 62 (4.38%) XML
11 61 (4.31%) JSON
12 60 (4.24%) CSS
13 54 (3.82%) pytest
14 44 (3.11%) AngularJS
15 43 (3.04%) Jest
16 39 (2.76%) Web Services
17 33 (2.33%) Gherkin
18 32 (2.26%) JMS
Miscellaneous
1 126 (8.91%) Cloud Native
2 86 (6.08%) Product Ownership
3 42 (2.97%) Mobile App
4 36 (2.55%) Security Posture
5 33 (2.33%) Self-Motivation
6 30 (2.12%) Distributed Systems
7 26 (1.84%) Algorithms
8 22 (1.56%) Public Cloud
9 21 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
10 20 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
10 20 (1.41%) Greenfield Project
11 19 (1.34%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 18 (1.27%) Management Information System
13 17 (1.20%) Legacy Systems
13 17 (1.20%) Onboarding
14 16 (1.13%) Data Structures
14 16 (1.13%) Virtual Team
15 15 (1.06%) Genomics
16 14 (0.99%) Reinsurance
17 13 (0.92%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 153 (10.82%) Linux
2 69 (4.88%) Windows
3 52 (3.68%) Unix
4 45 (3.18%) Android
5 32 (2.26%) Apple iOS
6 18 (1.27%) Mac OS X
7 16 (1.13%) Windows Server
8 14 (0.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 10 (0.71%) Kali Linux
10 9 (0.64%) CentOS
11 4 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.21%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.071%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.071%) Robot Operating System
13 1 (0.071%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.071%) VMS
13 1 (0.071%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 681 (48.16%) CI/CD
2 680 (48.09%) Agile
3 514 (36.35%) DevOps
4 350 (24.75%) Problem-Solving
5 216 (15.28%) Test Strategy
6 210 (14.85%) Scrum
7 205 (14.50%) Microservices
8 192 (13.58%) TDD
9 187 (13.22%) Containerisation
10 183 (12.94%) Continuous Improvement
11 181 (12.80%) Test Scripting
12 176 (12.45%) Software Engineering
13 160 (11.32%) Infrastructure as Code
14 156 (11.03%) Software Testing
15 145 (10.25%) BDD
16 141 (9.97%) SDLC
16 141 (9.97%) Validation
17 126 (8.91%) AI
18 123 (8.70%) Analytics
19 113 (7.99%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 400 (28.29%) Python
2 327 (23.13%) Java
3 266 (18.81%) SQL
4 189 (13.37%) JavaScript
5 146 (10.33%) C#
6 133 (9.41%) TypeScript
7 85 (6.01%) Bash
8 58 (4.10%) PowerShell
9 37 (2.62%) Go
10 32 (2.26%) C++
11 23 (1.63%) Kotlin
12 19 (1.34%) Bicep
13 12 (0.85%) Perl
13 12 (0.85%) PHP
14 10 (0.71%) Groovy
14 10 (0.71%) PL/SQL
14 10 (0.71%) Shell Script
15 8 (0.57%) C
15 8 (0.57%) Scala
15 8 (0.57%) Swift
Qualifications
1 321 (22.70%) Security Cleared
2 251 (17.75%) SC Cleared
3 87 (6.15%) Degree
4 56 (3.96%) ISTQB
5 45 (3.18%) DV Cleared
6 44 (3.11%) Computer Science Degree
7 41 (2.90%) BPSS Clearance
8 21 (1.49%) AWS Certification
9 20 (1.41%) Master's Degree
10 18 (1.27%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 17 (1.20%) CISSP
12 16 (1.13%) OSCP
13 14 (0.99%) Cisco Certification
13 14 (0.99%) MCP
14 12 (0.85%) Azure Certification
14 12 (0.85%) CEH
14 12 (0.85%) GPEN
15 10 (0.71%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
16 9 (0.64%) CISM
17 8 (0.57%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 307 (21.71%) QA
2 106 (7.50%) Accessibility
3 63 (4.46%) Data Quality
4 34 (2.40%) NIST
5 32 (2.26%) WCAG
6 24 (1.70%) GDPR
7 21 (1.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 18 (1.27%) EU AI Act
9 14 (0.99%) NCSC
10 13 (0.92%) SEPA
11 11 (0.78%) PCI DSS
11 11 (0.78%) PSD2
12 10 (0.71%) NIST 800
13 9 (0.64%) SLA
14 7 (0.50%) COBIT
15 6 (0.42%) ISO 20022
15 6 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 6 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 5 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
17 4 (0.28%) SOC 2
System Software
1 270 (19.09%) Docker
2 25 (1.77%) Active Directory
3 8 (0.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.35%) Firmware
4 5 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (0.35%) zsh
5 3 (0.21%) QEMU
5 3 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
5 3 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.071%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 236 (16.69%) Kubernetes
2 152 (10.75%) Terraform
3 117 (8.27%) Ansible
4 55 (3.89%) Grafana
5 34 (2.40%) Prometheus
6 20 (1.41%) HP ALM
7 15 (1.06%) Nmap
8 14 (0.99%) CSIRT
9 13 (0.92%) Argo
9 13 (0.92%) NetBackup
10 12 (0.85%) Progress Chef
11 9 (0.64%) Puppet
12 7 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
13 6 (0.42%) HP Quality Center
13 6 (0.42%) Kibana
13 6 (0.42%) Nessus
14 5 (0.35%) Podman
14 5 (0.35%) RSA Archer
15 4 (0.28%) WMI
16 3 (0.21%) CloudHub
Vendors
1 151 (10.68%) Microsoft
2 129 (9.12%) Oracle
3 57 (4.03%) Splunk
4 54 (3.82%) ServiceNow
5 48 (3.39%) Databricks
6 45 (3.18%) Salesforce
7 43 (3.04%) Google
8 40 (2.83%) SAP
9 27 (1.91%) Talend
10 25 (1.77%) Denodo
11 22 (1.56%) VMware
12 21 (1.49%) F5
12 21 (1.49%) HP
13 20 (1.41%) Cisco
14 19 (1.34%) UiPath
15 18 (1.27%) Red Hat
15 18 (1.27%) webMethods
16 14 (0.99%) Atlassian
17 13 (0.92%) Commvault
17 13 (0.92%) IBM