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

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 50 51
Rank change year-on-year +3 +1 +2
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,985 1,252 1,288
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.34% 4.53% 3.89%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.11% 4.99% 4.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,278 865 870
10th Percentile £329 £313 £356
25th Percentile £406 £380 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £625
90th Percentile £663 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £475 £496 £513
% change year-on-year -4.23% -3.22% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 33 23
10th Percentile £37.80 £41.17 £43.50
25th Percentile £60.17 £45.00 £50.63
Median hourly rate £69.00 £50.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.00% -9.09% -13.73%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £71.87
90th Percentile £74.00 £73.70 £82.90
UK median hourly rate £69.25 £50.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +38.50% -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 38,860 25,068 28,450
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.96% 90.79% 85.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,105 15,945 18,530
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 £626 £627 £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 2,559 1,442 1,597
10th Percentile £14.28 £14.20 £14.15
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.87 £18.16
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +5.94%
75th Percentile £68.55 £50.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £40.94
% change year-on-year +67.00% -38.57% +0.86%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 +5 902 £500 -1.72% 651
North of England +9 393 £465 +2.31% 197
Midlands +5 271 £450 - 123
West Midlands +26 255 £450 -10.00% 77
South East -33 215 £462 -7.60% 229
Yorkshire -7 161 £475 -5.00% 50
North West -10 140 £492 +16.62% 101
South West -5 111 £463 +7.25% 140
North East +17 100 £438 +0.57% 46
East of England +11 82 £450 -1.91% 107
East Midlands -45 16 £425 +25.00% 46
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
1 167 (8.41%) Confluence
2 50 (2.52%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (2.37%) Apache Spark
4 43 (2.17%) SAS
5 38 (1.91%) SharePoint
6 23 (1.16%) Apache
7 13 (0.65%) CMS
8 11 (0.55%) WebLogic
9 6 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.25%) Camunda
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 24 (1.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (0.81%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (0.45%) 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 13 (0.65%) Payment Gateway
3 13 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
4 8 (0.40%) Findur
5 7 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.30%) SAP ERP
7 5 (0.25%) BambooHR
7 5 (0.25%) Shopify
8 3 (0.15%) Distributed Ledger
9 2 (0.10%) Infor CloudSuite
9 2 (0.10%) Infor LN
9 2 (0.10%) Infor M3
9 2 (0.10%) Loan IQ
9 2 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.10%) SAP GRC
9 2 (0.10%) SAP MDG
10 1 (0.050%) Maximo
10 1 (0.050%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 596 (30.03%) Azure
2 588 (29.62%) AWS
3 351 (17.68%) GitHub
4 273 (13.75%) Azure DevOps
5 221 (11.13%) GitHub Actions
6 151 (7.61%) Serverless
7 150 (7.56%) GCP
8 108 (5.44%) AWS Lambda
9 91 (4.58%) Power Platform
10 85 (4.28%) Amazon S3
11 69 (3.48%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 67 (3.38%) Amazon ECS
13 63 (3.17%) OpenShift
14 52 (2.62%) dbt
15 49 (2.47%) Amazon EKS
16 48 (2.42%) GitHub Copilot
17 47 (2.37%) Snowflake
18 45 (2.27%) Amazon EC2
18 45 (2.27%) Azure Data Factory
19 41 (2.07%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 25 (1.26%) Firewall
2 18 (0.91%) HTTP
3 17 (0.86%) 4G
4 16 (0.81%) 5G
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%) DNS
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%) PostgreSQL
2 120 (6.05%) Data Warehouse
3 103 (5.19%) NoSQL
4 87 (4.38%) MongoDB
5 82 (4.13%) 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 25 (1.26%) Amazon RDS
15 25 (1.26%) Amazon Redshift
15 25 (1.26%) MySQL
15 25 (1.26%) Redis
16 24 (1.21%) Tableau
17 21 (1.06%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 401 (20.20%) Git
2 350 (17.63%) JIRA
3 325 (16.37%) Jenkins
4 264 (13.30%) GitLab
5 240 (12.09%) Selenium
6 141 (7.10%) Postman
7 132 (6.65%) Cucumber
8 104 (5.24%) JUnit
9 96 (4.84%) Cypress.io
10 82 (4.13%) REST Assured
11 81 (4.08%) JMeter
12 70 (3.53%) Zephyr
13 60 (3.02%) SonarQube
14 54 (2.72%) WebDriver
15 49 (2.47%) Gatling
16 44 (2.22%) Gradle
17 40 (2.02%) Bitbucket
18 34 (1.71%) Maven
19 32 (1.61%) Mockito
20 23 (1.16%) Appium
General
1 547 (27.56%) Social Skills
2 383 (19.29%) Finance
3 282 (14.21%) Analytical Skills
4 245 (12.34%) Public Sector
5 174 (8.77%) 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
17 14 (0.71%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 395 (19.90%) Developer
2 318 (16.02%) Senior
3 215 (10.83%) Lead
4 193 (9.72%) Test Engineer
5 171 (8.61%) Tester
6 141 (7.10%) Data Engineer
7 121 (6.10%) Java Developer
8 108 (5.44%) Software Engineer
9 103 (5.19%) Analyst
10 90 (4.53%) DevOps Engineer
11 88 (4.43%) Architect
12 86 (4.33%) Senior Developer
12 86 (4.33%) Test Automation Engineer
13 84 (4.23%) QA Engineer
14 73 (3.68%) Test Leader
15 67 (3.38%) Full-Stack Developer
16 65 (3.27%) Automation Engineer
16 65 (3.27%) Test Analyst
17 60 (3.02%) Automation Tester
18 56 (2.82%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 275 (13.85%) REST
2 213 (10.73%) Playwright
3 186 (9.37%) Kafka
3 186 (9.37%) RESTful
4 174 (8.77%) React
5 163 (8.21%) Spring
6 142 (7.15%) .NET
7 128 (6.45%) Spring Boot
8 100 (5.04%) Node.js
9 94 (4.74%) HTML
10 90 (4.53%) AngularJS
11 82 (4.13%) CSS
12 58 (2.92%) OAuth
13 53 (2.67%) JSON
14 47 (2.37%) pytest
14 47 (2.37%) XML
15 45 (2.27%) Jest
16 44 (2.22%) .NET Framework
17 42 (2.12%) PySpark
17 42 (2.12%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 297 (14.96%) Cloud Native
2 148 (7.46%) Product Ownership
3 139 (7.00%) Distributed Systems
4 75 (3.78%) Enterprise Software
5 53 (2.67%) Onboarding
6 52 (2.62%) Legacy Systems
7 47 (2.37%) Self-Motivation
8 46 (2.32%) Data Protection Act
9 38 (1.91%) AI Agents
9 38 (1.91%) Mobile App
10 33 (1.66%) Virtual Team
11 28 (1.41%) Embedded Systems
12 26 (1.31%) Distributed Architecture
13 25 (1.26%) Security Posture
14 22 (1.11%) Management Information System
15 19 (0.96%) Data Centre
16 18 (0.91%) Data Structures
16 18 (0.91%) Fixed Income
17 16 (0.81%) NHS
18 15 (0.76%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 141 (7.10%) Linux
2 91 (4.58%) Windows
3 79 (3.98%) Unix
4 37 (1.86%) Apple iOS
5 35 (1.76%) 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%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.20%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.15%) AIX
12 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.10%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,156 (58.24%) CI/CD
2 924 (46.55%) Agile
3 756 (38.09%) DevOps
4 393 (19.80%) Problem-Solving
5 392 (19.75%) Continuous Improvement
6 365 (18.39%) Microservices
7 342 (17.23%) Software Engineering
8 326 (16.42%) Scrum
9 324 (16.32%) Validation
10 322 (16.22%) Infrastructure as Code
11 305 (15.37%) Test Strategy
12 297 (14.96%) AI
13 268 (13.50%) Containerisation
14 255 (12.85%) Observability
15 239 (12.04%) TDD
16 232 (11.69%) ETL
17 222 (11.18%) SDLC
18 218 (10.98%) End-to-End Testing
19 213 (10.73%) Data Pipeline
20 211 (10.63%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 533 (26.85%) Python
2 499 (25.14%) SQL
3 498 (25.09%) Java
4 258 (13.00%) JavaScript
5 205 (10.33%) TypeScript
6 175 (8.82%) C#
7 96 (4.84%) PowerShell
8 71 (3.58%) Bash
9 47 (2.37%) Kotlin
10 45 (2.27%) Bicep
11 41 (2.07%) C++
12 30 (1.51%) C
13 28 (1.41%) PL/SQL
14 27 (1.36%) Scala
15 25 (1.26%) Go
16 23 (1.16%) Apex Code
17 18 (0.91%) Swift
18 17 (0.86%) Ruby
19 16 (0.81%) Groovy
19 16 (0.81%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 649 (32.70%) Security Cleared
2 548 (27.61%) SC Cleared
3 103 (5.19%) ISTQB
4 95 (4.79%) Degree
5 58 (2.92%) DV Cleared
6 54 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
7 48 (2.42%) Computer Science Degree
8 31 (1.56%) AWS Certification
8 31 (1.56%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 18 (0.91%) Azure Certification
10 15 (0.76%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 12 (0.60%) Cisco Certification
11 12 (0.60%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 11 (0.55%) ISEB
12 11 (0.55%) SAFe Agilist
13 10 (0.50%) CISSP
13 10 (0.50%) Master's Degree
13 10 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
14 8 (0.40%) CCNP
15 7 (0.35%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 516 (25.99%) QA
2 146 (7.36%) Accessibility
3 142 (7.15%) 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
1 386 (19.45%) 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
1 393 (19.80%) Kubernetes
2 284 (14.31%) Terraform
3 115 (5.79%) Ansible
4 103 (5.19%) Grafana
5 88 (4.43%) Prometheus
6 40 (2.02%) Argo
7 22 (1.11%) 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
1 206 (10.38%) Microsoft
2 170 (8.56%) Oracle
3 82 (4.13%) Databricks
4 74 (3.73%) Salesforce
5 63 (3.17%) Red Hat
6 60 (3.02%) Google
7 58 (2.92%) Talend
8 54 (2.72%) Splunk
9 45 (2.27%) IBM
10 44 (2.22%) ServiceNow
11 42 (2.12%) Denodo
12 37 (1.86%) VMware
13 35 (1.76%) 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