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

6 months to
15 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 48 52
Rank change year-on-year +3 +4 +1
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,988 1,262 1,295
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.34% 4.56% 3.89%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.10% 5.02% 4.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,276 870 873
10th Percentile £329 £313 £356
25th Percentile £406 £381 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £625
90th Percentile £663 £716 £738
UK median daily rate £475 £495 £513
% change year-on-year -4.04% -3.41% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 105 33 24
10th Percentile £38.35 £41.17 £44.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £45.00 £50.94
Median hourly rate £68.22 £50.00 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year +36.43% -11.11% -13.79%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £71.88
90th Percentile £74.00 £73.70 £81.85
UK median hourly rate £68.22 £50.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +36.43% -9.09% -16.35%

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 38,995 25,146 28,578
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.11% 90.84% 85.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,229 16,020 18,598
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £629 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £755
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,544 1,434 1,645
10th Percentile £14.45 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.87 £18.35
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +3.61%
75th Percentile £68.60 £50.38 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £41.50
% change year-on-year +67.00% -39.40% -1.19%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +6 897 £500 -1.48% 1,030
North of England +13 393 £465 +2.31% 212
Midlands +8 276 £450 - 122
West Midlands +26 260 £450 -10.00% 80
South East -30 217 £462 -7.60% 243
Yorkshire -5 160 £475 -5.00% 62
North West -14 141 £492 +16.62% 107
South West -9 114 £475 +10.14% 146
North East +15 100 £438 +0.57% 43
East of England +12 80 £450 -1.91% 114
East Midlands -45 16 £425 +25.00% 42
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
1 170 (8.55%) Confluence
2 50 (2.52%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (2.36%) Apache Spark
4 44 (2.21%) SAS
5 37 (1.86%) SharePoint
6 23 (1.16%) Apache
7 13 (0.65%) CMS
8 10 (0.50%) WebLogic
9 6 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.25%) Camunda
10 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
11 4 (0.20%) Jupyter
11 4 (0.20%) nginx
11 4 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.20%) Tomcat
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 23 (1.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (0.80%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.35%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.30%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.20%) Simulink
8 3 (0.15%) Trello
9 1 (0.050%) Mingle
9 1 (0.050%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 25 (1.26%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.75%) Aladdin
3 13 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
4 12 (0.60%) 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
8 5 (0.25%) Shopify
9 3 (0.15%) Distributed Ledger
10 2 (0.10%) Infor CloudSuite
10 2 (0.10%) Infor LN
10 2 (0.10%) Infor M3
10 2 (0.10%) Loan IQ
10 2 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
10 2 (0.10%) SAP GRC
10 2 (0.10%) SAP MDG
11 1 (0.050%) Maximo
11 1 (0.050%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 595 (29.93%) Azure
2 589 (29.63%) AWS
3 357 (17.96%) GitHub
4 269 (13.53%) Azure DevOps
5 222 (11.17%) GitHub Actions
6 152 (7.65%) GCP
6 152 (7.65%) Serverless
7 108 (5.43%) AWS Lambda
8 91 (4.58%) Power Platform
9 86 (4.33%) Amazon S3
10 69 (3.47%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 67 (3.37%) Amazon ECS
12 64 (3.22%) OpenShift
13 52 (2.62%) dbt
14 49 (2.46%) Amazon EKS
15 48 (2.41%) GitHub Copilot
16 47 (2.36%) Snowflake
17 45 (2.26%) Amazon EC2
17 45 (2.26%) Azure Data Factory
18 40 (2.01%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 26 (1.31%) Firewall
2 17 (0.86%) 4G
2 17 (0.86%) HTTP
3 16 (0.80%) 5G
3 16 (0.80%) Network Security
4 15 (0.75%) 2G
4 15 (0.75%) 3G
4 15 (0.75%) Diameter Protocol
4 15 (0.75%) DNS
4 15 (0.75%) SIGTRAN
4 15 (0.75%) SS7
4 15 (0.75%) WAN
5 13 (0.65%) TCP/IP
6 12 (0.60%) LAN
6 12 (0.60%) SAN
7 11 (0.55%) Wi-Fi
8 8 (0.40%) BGP
9 7 (0.35%) DHCP
9 7 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
9 7 (0.35%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (6.24%) PostgreSQL
2 120 (6.04%) Data Warehouse
3 102 (5.13%) NoSQL
4 89 (4.48%) MongoDB
5 79 (3.97%) SQL Server
6 78 (3.92%) Power BI
7 63 (3.17%) Relational Database
8 46 (2.31%) DynamoDB
9 41 (2.06%) Oracle Reports
10 39 (1.96%) Pentaho
11 36 (1.81%) Data Lake
12 34 (1.71%) Metadata
13 30 (1.51%) Amazon Athena
13 30 (1.51%) Big Data
14 25 (1.26%) Amazon RDS
14 25 (1.26%) Amazon Redshift
14 25 (1.26%) MySQL
14 25 (1.26%) Redis
15 24 (1.21%) Tableau
16 20 (1.01%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 405 (20.37%) Git
2 355 (17.86%) JIRA
3 329 (16.55%) Jenkins
4 264 (13.28%) GitLab
5 242 (12.17%) Selenium
6 144 (7.24%) Postman
7 137 (6.89%) Cucumber
8 105 (5.28%) JUnit
9 94 (4.73%) Cypress.io
10 83 (4.18%) JMeter
10 83 (4.18%) REST Assured
11 70 (3.52%) Zephyr
12 61 (3.07%) SonarQube
13 55 (2.77%) WebDriver
14 48 (2.41%) Gatling
15 44 (2.21%) Gradle
16 40 (2.01%) Bitbucket
17 36 (1.81%) Maven
18 32 (1.61%) Mockito
19 23 (1.16%) SpecFlow
General
1 553 (27.82%) Social Skills
2 377 (18.96%) Finance
3 279 (14.03%) Analytical Skills
4 245 (12.32%) Public Sector
5 170 (8.55%) Banking
6 63 (3.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 40 (2.01%) Documentation Skills
8 39 (1.96%) Telecoms
9 32 (1.61%) Retail
10 29 (1.46%) Influencing Skills
11 28 (1.41%) Investment Banking
12 26 (1.31%) Front Office
13 23 (1.16%) Financial Institution
14 21 (1.06%) Military
15 19 (0.96%) Aerospace
16 17 (0.86%) Back Office
17 16 (0.80%) Organisational Skills
18 15 (0.75%) Legal
19 14 (0.70%) Automotive
19 14 (0.70%) Law
Job Titles
1 389 (19.57%) Developer
2 319 (16.05%) Senior
3 215 (10.81%) Lead
4 195 (9.81%) Test Engineer
5 175 (8.80%) Tester
6 142 (7.14%) Data Engineer
7 121 (6.09%) Java Developer
8 110 (5.53%) Software Engineer
9 104 (5.23%) Analyst
10 89 (4.48%) DevOps Engineer
11 88 (4.43%) Architect
12 87 (4.38%) Test Automation Engineer
13 85 (4.28%) QA Engineer
14 84 (4.23%) Senior Developer
15 73 (3.67%) Test Leader
16 67 (3.37%) Full-Stack Developer
17 65 (3.27%) Automation Engineer
17 65 (3.27%) Test Analyst
18 64 (3.22%) Automation Tester
19 54 (2.72%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 271 (13.63%) REST
2 213 (10.71%) Playwright
3 187 (9.41%) Kafka
4 185 (9.31%) RESTful
5 174 (8.75%) React
6 167 (8.40%) Spring
7 137 (6.89%) .NET
8 128 (6.44%) Spring Boot
9 100 (5.03%) Node.js
10 94 (4.73%) HTML
11 90 (4.53%) AngularJS
12 82 (4.12%) CSS
13 57 (2.87%) OAuth
14 51 (2.57%) JSON
15 48 (2.41%) pytest
16 46 (2.31%) XML
17 45 (2.26%) Jest
18 43 (2.16%) .NET Framework
18 43 (2.16%) Quarkus
19 42 (2.11%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 297 (14.94%) Cloud Native
2 146 (7.34%) Product Ownership
3 143 (7.19%) Distributed Systems
4 73 (3.67%) Enterprise Software
5 53 (2.67%) Onboarding
6 50 (2.52%) Legacy Systems
7 48 (2.41%) Data Protection Act
8 47 (2.36%) Self-Motivation
9 39 (1.96%) Mobile App
10 38 (1.91%) AI Agents
11 33 (1.66%) Virtual Team
12 28 (1.41%) Distributed Architecture
12 28 (1.41%) Embedded Systems
13 26 (1.31%) Security Posture
14 21 (1.06%) Management Information System
15 18 (0.91%) Data Centre
15 18 (0.91%) Fixed Income
16 17 (0.86%) Data Structures
17 16 (0.80%) NHS
18 15 (0.75%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 140 (7.04%) Linux
2 89 (4.48%) Windows
3 79 (3.97%) Unix
4 39 (1.96%) Apple iOS
5 36 (1.81%) Android
6 28 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 18 (0.91%) Windows Server
8 7 (0.35%) Mac OS X
9 6 (0.30%) Embedded Linux
9 6 (0.30%) Solaris
10 5 (0.25%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.25%) Windows 7
10 5 (0.25%) Windows Server 2003
11 4 (0.20%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.20%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
12 3 (0.15%) AIX
12 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.10%) CentOS
13 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,155 (58.10%) CI/CD
2 924 (46.48%) Agile
3 752 (37.83%) DevOps
4 392 (19.72%) Continuous Improvement
5 391 (19.67%) Problem-Solving
6 368 (18.51%) Microservices
7 341 (17.15%) Software Engineering
8 326 (16.40%) Scrum
8 326 (16.40%) Validation
9 321 (16.15%) Infrastructure as Code
10 307 (15.44%) Test Strategy
11 298 (14.99%) AI
12 266 (13.38%) Containerisation
13 258 (12.98%) Observability
14 242 (12.17%) TDD
15 233 (11.72%) ETL
16 221 (11.12%) SDLC
17 217 (10.92%) End-to-End Testing
18 214 (10.76%) Data Pipeline
19 209 (10.51%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 527 (26.51%) Python
2 494 (24.85%) Java
3 493 (24.80%) SQL
4 258 (12.98%) JavaScript
5 205 (10.31%) TypeScript
6 170 (8.55%) C#
7 94 (4.73%) PowerShell
8 72 (3.62%) Bash
9 48 (2.41%) Kotlin
10 45 (2.26%) Bicep
11 41 (2.06%) C++
12 30 (1.51%) C
13 27 (1.36%) PL/SQL
13 27 (1.36%) Scala
14 25 (1.26%) Go
15 23 (1.16%) Apex Code
16 20 (1.01%) Swift
17 17 (0.86%) Groovy
17 17 (0.86%) Ruby
18 15 (0.75%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 649 (32.65%) Security Cleared
2 547 (27.52%) SC Cleared
3 100 (5.03%) ISTQB
4 93 (4.68%) Degree
5 57 (2.87%) DV Cleared
6 54 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
7 48 (2.41%) Computer Science Degree
8 31 (1.56%) AWS Certification
9 30 (1.51%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 18 (0.91%) Azure Certification
11 15 (0.75%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 12 (0.60%) Cisco Certification
13 11 (0.55%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 11 (0.55%) SAFe Agilist
14 10 (0.50%) CISSP
14 10 (0.50%) ISEB
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
1 512 (25.75%) QA
2 148 (7.44%) Accessibility
3 144 (7.24%) Data Quality
4 76 (3.82%) WCAG
5 41 (2.06%) GDPR
6 14 (0.70%) NCSC
7 13 (0.65%) ISO 20022
8 12 (0.60%) 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
13 5 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 3 (0.15%) EU AI Act
14 3 (0.15%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 3 (0.15%) MiFID
System Software
1 383 (19.27%) Docker
2 29 (1.46%) Active Directory
2 29 (1.46%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
4 14 (0.70%) Firmware
5 4 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
5 4 (0.20%) VMware NSX
6 3 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
7 2 (0.10%) SRDF
8 1 (0.050%) Embedded Firmware
8 1 (0.050%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.050%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 392 (19.72%) Kubernetes
2 284 (14.29%) Terraform
3 113 (5.68%) Ansible
4 107 (5.38%) Grafana
5 91 (4.58%) Prometheus
6 41 (2.06%) Argo
7 23 (1.16%) Puppet
8 20 (1.01%) Progress Chef
9 11 (0.55%) HP ALM
9 11 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
10 10 (0.50%) Control-M
10 10 (0.50%) Dell DRAC
10 10 (0.50%) Kibana
11 7 (0.35%) Kustomize
12 6 (0.30%) Microsoft Intune
12 6 (0.30%) Packer
13 5 (0.25%) HP Fortify
13 5 (0.25%) HP Quality Center
13 5 (0.25%) Istio
13 5 (0.25%) SCCM
Vendors
1 203 (10.21%) Microsoft
2 168 (8.45%) Oracle
3 82 (4.12%) Databricks
4 75 (3.77%) Salesforce
5 63 (3.17%) Red Hat
6 59 (2.97%) Google
7 58 (2.92%) Talend
8 54 (2.72%) Splunk
9 44 (2.21%) IBM
10 43 (2.16%) ServiceNow
11 42 (2.11%) Denodo
12 35 (1.76%) SAP
12 35 (1.76%) VMware
13 34 (1.71%) Dynatrace
13 34 (1.71%) Informatica
14 31 (1.56%) Cisco
15 25 (1.26%) UiPath
16 18 (0.91%) HP
17 11 (0.55%) Fortinet
18 10 (0.50%) Sage