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 17 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 49 56
Rank change year-on-year +3 +7 -7
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,822 1,100 1,322
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.24% 4.45% 3.53%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.98% 4.87% 4.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,177 774 874
10th Percentile £338 £317 £363
25th Percentile £405 £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 £625
90th Percentile £663 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £475 £493 £513
% change year-on-year -3.65% -3.80% -6.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 107 25 50
10th Percentile £36.19 £41.78 £51.13
25th Percentile £59.63 £46.25 £52.50
Median hourly rate £67.50 £55.00 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +22.73% -4.35% -19.01%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.50 £71.88
90th Percentile £74.40 £77.38 £85.50
UK median hourly rate £67.50 £52.50 £57.50
% change year-on-year +28.57% -8.70% -12.88%

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 36,560 22,594 31,972
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.16% 91.33% 85.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,106 14,607 20,685
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £415 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.48% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £726 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,294 1,062 2,382
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £21.00 £18.10 £16.06
Median hourly rate £47.00 £27.45 £37.75
Median % change year-on-year +71.22% -27.28% +7.09%
75th Percentile £68.00 £57.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £26.27 £37.34
% change year-on-year +67.37% -29.66% +6.69%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 +5 830 £500 -1.48% 226
North of England +12 366 £455 +1.79% 150
Midlands +10 228 £450 +7.46% 66
West Midlands +31 209 £450 -10.00% 38
South East -27 192 £481 -3.75% 157
North West +3 149 £475 +15.29% 77
Yorkshire +3 146 £500 +5.26% 48
South West +15 105 £450 -5.26% 55
East of England +18 84 £495 +10.00% 61
North East +5 79 £425 +6.25% 26
East Midlands -41 19 £418 +54.63% 28
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
1 156 (8.56%) Confluence
2 42 (2.31%) SAS
3 41 (2.25%) Apache Airflow
4 36 (1.98%) Apache Spark
5 15 (0.82%) Apache
6 14 (0.77%) SharePoint
7 12 (0.66%) CMS
8 9 (0.49%) Appian
9 8 (0.44%) Camunda
10 5 (0.27%) nginx
10 5 (0.27%) Tomcat
10 5 (0.27%) WebLogic
11 4 (0.22%) Jupyter
12 3 (0.16%) Kentico
12 3 (0.16%) Microsoft Exchange
12 3 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
13 2 (0.11%) Anypoint
13 2 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
13 2 (0.11%) Mule
14 1 (0.055%) Solana
Applications
1 29 (1.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (0.82%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.49%) MS Visio
5 8 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.16%) Simulink
8 1 (0.055%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.055%) Mingle
8 1 (0.055%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 19 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.99%) Aladdin
3 10 (0.55%) Payment Gateway
4 8 (0.44%) Findur
4 8 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
5 6 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
5 6 (0.33%) SAP ERP
5 6 (0.33%) Shopify
6 5 (0.27%) BambooHR
6 5 (0.27%) Loan IQ
7 3 (0.16%) Distributed Ledger
7 3 (0.16%) Maximo
7 3 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
8 2 (0.11%) Infor LN
8 2 (0.11%) Infor M3
8 2 (0.11%) IntelliMatch
8 2 (0.11%) iTrent
8 2 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.11%) Summit
8 2 (0.11%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 504 (27.66%) AWS
2 493 (27.06%) Azure
3 288 (15.81%) GitHub
4 219 (12.02%) Azure DevOps
5 177 (9.71%) GitHub Actions
6 135 (7.41%) Serverless
7 122 (6.70%) GCP
8 92 (5.05%) AWS Lambda
9 80 (4.39%) Amazon S3
10 69 (3.79%) Power Platform
11 62 (3.40%) OpenShift
12 54 (2.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 54 (2.96%) Amazon ECS
13 45 (2.47%) Azure Data Factory
14 39 (2.14%) Amazon EC2
15 37 (2.03%) dbt
16 35 (1.92%) Snowflake
17 33 (1.81%) Amazon EKS
18 28 (1.54%) AWS CloudFormation
18 28 (1.54%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 20 (1.10%) Firewall
2 15 (0.82%) HTTP
2 15 (0.82%) SAN
3 11 (0.60%) WAN
4 10 (0.55%) Network Security
5 9 (0.49%) MPLS
5 9 (0.49%) VPN
6 8 (0.44%) TCP/IP
7 6 (0.33%) BGP
7 6 (0.33%) Ethernet
7 6 (0.33%) LAN
7 6 (0.33%) SD-WAN
7 6 (0.33%) VLAN
7 6 (0.33%) Wi-Fi
7 6 (0.33%) Wireshark
8 5 (0.27%) Multicast
9 4 (0.22%) 4G
9 4 (0.22%) NAS
9 4 (0.22%) Reverse Proxy
9 4 (0.22%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 103 (5.65%) PostgreSQL
2 92 (5.05%) Data Warehouse
3 82 (4.50%) MongoDB
4 78 (4.28%) NoSQL
5 72 (3.95%) SQL Server
6 56 (3.07%) Relational Database
7 51 (2.80%) Power BI
8 45 (2.47%) DynamoDB
9 35 (1.92%) Oracle Reports
10 34 (1.87%) Pentaho
11 31 (1.70%) Amazon Athena
12 25 (1.37%) Amazon Redshift
12 25 (1.37%) Big Data
12 25 (1.37%) Data Lake
13 24 (1.32%) Amazon RDS
13 24 (1.32%) Redis
14 23 (1.26%) Tableau
15 22 (1.21%) Metadata
16 20 (1.10%) Oracle Database
17 17 (0.93%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 344 (18.88%) JIRA
2 323 (17.73%) Git
3 294 (16.14%) Jenkins
4 264 (14.49%) GitLab
5 230 (12.62%) Selenium
6 139 (7.63%) Postman
7 128 (7.03%) Cucumber
8 94 (5.16%) JUnit
8 94 (5.16%) REST Assured
9 85 (4.67%) Cypress.io
10 82 (4.50%) JMeter
11 53 (2.91%) SonarQube
11 53 (2.91%) Zephyr
12 50 (2.74%) WebDriver
13 42 (2.31%) Gradle
14 39 (2.14%) Gatling
15 34 (1.87%) Bitbucket
16 32 (1.76%) Mockito
17 30 (1.65%) Maven
18 27 (1.48%) SpecFlow
General
1 497 (27.28%) Social Skills
2 336 (18.44%) Finance
3 243 (13.34%) Public Sector
4 234 (12.84%) Analytical Skills
5 154 (8.45%) Banking
6 49 (2.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 42 (2.31%) Documentation Skills
8 30 (1.65%) Investment Banking
9 26 (1.43%) Front Office
10 25 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
11 22 (1.21%) Telecoms
12 20 (1.10%) Financial Institution
13 19 (1.04%) Retail
14 17 (0.93%) Organisational Skills
15 16 (0.88%) Military
16 15 (0.82%) Aerospace
16 15 (0.82%) Legal
17 12 (0.66%) Law
17 12 (0.66%) Marketing
17 12 (0.66%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 361 (19.81%) Developer
2 286 (15.70%) Senior
3 197 (10.81%) Test Engineer
4 195 (10.70%) Lead
4 195 (10.70%) Tester
5 121 (6.64%) Data Engineer
6 108 (5.93%) Java Developer
7 99 (5.43%) Software Engineer
8 94 (5.16%) Analyst
9 83 (4.56%) Architect
10 81 (4.45%) DevOps Engineer
11 78 (4.28%) Test Automation Engineer
12 72 (3.95%) Senior Developer
13 71 (3.90%) QA Engineer
14 70 (3.84%) Automation Tester
15 66 (3.62%) Test Leader
16 54 (2.96%) Automation Engineer
17 52 (2.85%) Test Analyst
18 49 (2.69%) Full-Stack Developer
19 45 (2.47%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 203 (11.14%) REST
2 192 (10.54%) Playwright
3 169 (9.28%) React
4 139 (7.63%) Kafka
5 138 (7.57%) Spring
6 135 (7.41%) RESTful
7 112 (6.15%) Spring Boot
8 107 (5.87%) .NET
9 95 (5.21%) Node.js
10 75 (4.12%) AngularJS
11 63 (3.46%) HTML
12 58 (3.18%) CSS
13 49 (2.69%) pytest
14 46 (2.52%) OAuth
15 43 (2.36%) Jest
16 38 (2.09%) Quarkus
17 37 (2.03%) Swagger
18 33 (1.81%) Gherkin
19 32 (1.76%) .NET Framework
19 32 (1.76%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 213 (11.69%) Cloud Native
2 126 (6.92%) Product Ownership
3 112 (6.15%) Distributed Systems
4 53 (2.91%) Legacy Systems
5 51 (2.80%) Data Protection Act
6 44 (2.41%) Enterprise Software
7 41 (2.25%) Mobile App
8 39 (2.14%) Self-Motivation
9 36 (1.98%) Virtual Team
10 33 (1.81%) Onboarding
11 32 (1.76%) Distributed Architecture
12 22 (1.21%) Greenfield Project
12 22 (1.21%) Management Information System
13 21 (1.15%) Algorithms
13 21 (1.15%) Embedded Systems
13 21 (1.15%) Security Posture
14 19 (1.04%) Fixed Income
15 17 (0.93%) AI Agents
15 17 (0.93%) NHS
16 16 (0.88%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 115 (6.31%) Linux
2 76 (4.17%) Windows
3 52 (2.85%) Unix
4 40 (2.20%) Android
5 38 (2.09%) Apple iOS
6 18 (0.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (0.88%) Windows Server
8 12 (0.66%) Mac OS X
9 7 (0.38%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.38%) Solaris
10 5 (0.27%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.22%) Embedded Linux
11 4 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.16%) AIX
12 3 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.11%) CentOS
13 2 (0.11%) Kali Linux
13 2 (0.11%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 973 (53.40%) CI/CD
2 844 (46.32%) Agile
3 633 (34.74%) DevOps
4 338 (18.55%) Problem-Solving
5 305 (16.74%) Microservices
6 302 (16.58%) Continuous Improvement
7 278 (15.26%) Scrum
8 276 (15.15%) Test Strategy
9 275 (15.09%) Software Engineering
10 270 (14.82%) Validation
11 246 (13.50%) Infrastructure as Code
12 226 (12.40%) Observability
13 224 (12.29%) AI
14 216 (11.86%) Containerisation
15 206 (11.31%) TDD
16 191 (10.48%) ETL
17 184 (10.10%) Software Testing
18 178 (9.77%) End-to-End Testing
18 178 (9.77%) User Acceptance Testing
19 174 (9.55%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 460 (25.25%) Python
2 449 (24.64%) Java
3 439 (24.09%) SQL
4 227 (12.46%) JavaScript
5 206 (11.31%) TypeScript
6 173 (9.50%) C#
7 70 (3.84%) PowerShell
8 57 (3.13%) Bash
9 45 (2.47%) Kotlin
10 41 (2.25%) C++
11 30 (1.65%) C
11 30 (1.65%) Go
11 30 (1.65%) PL/SQL
11 30 (1.65%) Scala
12 28 (1.54%) Apex Code
13 27 (1.48%) Bicep
14 22 (1.21%) Swift
15 16 (0.88%) Groovy
16 15 (0.82%) Ruby
17 13 (0.71%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 576 (31.61%) Security Cleared
2 462 (25.36%) SC Cleared
3 86 (4.72%) ISTQB
4 75 (4.12%) Degree
5 67 (3.68%) DV Cleared
6 65 (3.57%) BPSS Clearance
7 37 (2.03%) Computer Science Degree
8 19 (1.04%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 16 (0.88%) AWS Certification
10 15 (0.82%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 14 (0.77%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 14 (0.77%) Master's Degree
12 13 (0.71%) Cisco Certification
13 11 (0.60%) CCNP
13 11 (0.60%) SAFe Agilist
14 8 (0.44%) Azure Certification
15 7 (0.38%) DBS Check
16 6 (0.33%) CISSP
17 5 (0.27%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 5 (0.27%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 400 (21.95%) QA
2 135 (7.41%) Accessibility
3 122 (6.70%) Data Quality
4 61 (3.35%) WCAG
5 30 (1.65%) GDPR
6 13 (0.71%) ISO 20022
7 12 (0.66%) NCSC
8 10 (0.55%) Def Stans
8 10 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 10 (0.55%) NIST
9 9 (0.49%) SLA
10 5 (0.27%) FATCA
11 4 (0.22%) HL7
11 4 (0.22%) PCI DSS
11 4 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 4 (0.22%) SEPA
11 4 (0.22%) Software Quality Assurance
12 3 (0.16%) GRC
12 3 (0.16%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 3 (0.16%) SOC 2
System Software
1 300 (16.47%) Docker
2 26 (1.43%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (0.88%) Active Directory
4 14 (0.77%) Firmware
5 12 (0.66%) Virtual Machines
6 5 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.22%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
7 4 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.11%) SRDF
9 1 (0.055%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.055%) Squid
9 1 (0.055%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.055%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 313 (17.18%) Kubernetes
2 221 (12.13%) Terraform
3 93 (5.10%) Grafana
4 91 (4.99%) Ansible
5 85 (4.67%) Prometheus
6 35 (1.92%) Argo
7 13 (0.71%) HP ALM
8 12 (0.66%) Puppet
9 11 (0.60%) Kibana
10 10 (0.55%) Dell DRAC
10 10 (0.55%) HP Quality Center
11 9 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
12 8 (0.44%) Kustomize
13 7 (0.38%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 7 (0.38%) NetIQ Identity Manager
14 6 (0.33%) NetBackup
15 5 (0.27%) Istio
15 5 (0.27%) Progress Chef
16 4 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
16 4 (0.22%) Rancher
Vendors
1 154 (8.45%) Microsoft
2 148 (8.12%) Oracle
3 75 (4.12%) Salesforce
4 62 (3.40%) Databricks
5 55 (3.02%) Red Hat
5 55 (3.02%) Talend
6 50 (2.74%) Splunk
7 48 (2.63%) Google
7 48 (2.63%) ServiceNow
8 38 (2.09%) Denodo
9 30 (1.65%) Informatica
10 29 (1.59%) VMware
11 28 (1.54%) UiPath
12 27 (1.48%) Dynatrace
13 26 (1.43%) SAP
14 23 (1.26%) IBM
15 22 (1.21%) Cisco
16 16 (0.88%) HP
17 15 (0.82%) OpenAI
18 14 (0.77%) Blue Prism