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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 51 51
Rank change year-on-year +4 0 +1
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,974 1,251 1,302
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.33% 4.53% 3.91%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.09% 4.98% 4.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,265 860 877
10th Percentile £330 £313 £357
25th Percentile £406 £383 £418
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -1.32%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £625
90th Percentile £663 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £475 £495 £513
% change year-on-year -3.94% -3.51% -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 38,785 25,097 28,627
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.06% 90.81% 85.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,091 16,007 18,621
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,533 1,429 1,649
10th Percentile £14.48 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.34 £17.87 £18.50
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £68.75 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £41.50
% change year-on-year +68.19% -39.40% -2.35%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 +7 886 £500 -0.74% 646
North of England +12 393 £465 +1.20% 173
Midlands +5 274 £450 +1.12% 106
West Midlands +24 258 £450 -10.00% 68
South East -35 216 £459 -8.20% 196
Yorkshire -5 160 £475 -5.00% 49
North West -5 141 £492 +16.62% 87
South West -6 114 £475 +11.76% 117
North East +15 100 £438 +0.57% 37
East of England +13 80 £450 -1.91% 72
East Midlands -50 16 £425 +25.00% 38
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
1 169 (8.56%) Confluence
2 50 (2.53%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (2.38%) Apache Spark
4 44 (2.23%) SAS
5 33 (1.67%) SharePoint
6 23 (1.17%) Apache
7 13 (0.66%) CMS
8 10 (0.51%) WebLogic
9 5 (0.25%) Camunda
9 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.20%) Jupyter
10 4 (0.20%) nginx
10 4 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 4 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.20%) Tomcat
11 3 (0.15%) Kentico
11 3 (0.15%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.10%) Anypoint
12 2 (0.10%) Apache Pulsar
12 2 (0.10%) Mule
Applications
1 19 (0.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.35%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.30%) Chatbot
4 6 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.20%) Simulink
7 3 (0.15%) Trello
8 1 (0.051%) Mingle
8 1 (0.051%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 25 (1.27%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.76%) Aladdin
3 13 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
4 12 (0.61%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.41%) 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 (0.051%) Maximo
11 1 (0.051%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 590 (29.89%) Azure
2 586 (29.69%) AWS
3 355 (17.98%) GitHub
4 266 (13.48%) Azure DevOps
5 221 (11.20%) GitHub Actions
6 152 (7.70%) Serverless
7 150 (7.60%) GCP
8 108 (5.47%) AWS Lambda
9 91 (4.61%) Power Platform
10 86 (4.36%) Amazon S3
11 69 (3.50%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 67 (3.39%) Amazon ECS
13 62 (3.14%) OpenShift
14 52 (2.63%) dbt
15 49 (2.48%) Amazon EKS
16 48 (2.43%) GitHub Copilot
17 47 (2.38%) Snowflake
18 45 (2.28%) Amazon EC2
18 45 (2.28%) Azure Data Factory
19 40 (2.03%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.22%) Firewall
2 17 (0.86%) 4G
2 17 (0.86%) HTTP
3 16 (0.81%) 5G
3 16 (0.81%) Network Security
4 15 (0.76%) 2G
4 15 (0.76%) 3G
4 15 (0.76%) Diameter Protocol
4 15 (0.76%) DNS
4 15 (0.76%) SIGTRAN
4 15 (0.76%) SS7
5 13 (0.66%) TCP/IP
5 13 (0.66%) WAN
6 12 (0.61%) SAN
7 10 (0.51%) LAN
8 9 (0.46%) Wi-Fi
9 8 (0.41%) BGP
10 7 (0.35%) DHCP
10 7 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
10 7 (0.35%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 122 (6.18%) PostgreSQL
2 120 (6.08%) Data Warehouse
3 102 (5.17%) NoSQL
4 89 (4.51%) MongoDB
5 79 (4.00%) SQL Server
6 78 (3.95%) Power BI
7 62 (3.14%) Relational Database
8 46 (2.33%) DynamoDB
9 41 (2.08%) Oracle Reports
10 39 (1.98%) Pentaho
11 36 (1.82%) Data Lake
12 34 (1.72%) Metadata
13 30 (1.52%) Amazon Athena
13 30 (1.52%) Big Data
14 25 (1.27%) Amazon RDS
14 25 (1.27%) Amazon Redshift
14 25 (1.27%) MySQL
14 25 (1.27%) Redis
15 24 (1.22%) Tableau
16 20 (1.01%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 402 (20.36%) Git
2 354 (17.93%) JIRA
3 328 (16.62%) Jenkins
4 262 (13.27%) GitLab
5 238 (12.06%) Selenium
6 144 (7.29%) Postman
7 137 (6.94%) Cucumber
8 105 (5.32%) JUnit
9 94 (4.76%) Cypress.io
10 83 (4.20%) JMeter
10 83 (4.20%) REST Assured
11 70 (3.55%) Zephyr
12 61 (3.09%) SonarQube
13 55 (2.79%) WebDriver
14 48 (2.43%) Gatling
15 44 (2.23%) Gradle
16 40 (2.03%) Bitbucket
17 36 (1.82%) Maven
18 32 (1.62%) Mockito
19 23 (1.17%) SpecFlow
General
1 551 (27.91%) Social Skills
2 375 (19.00%) Finance
3 278 (14.08%) Analytical Skills
4 243 (12.31%) Public Sector
5 168 (8.51%) Banking
6 61 (3.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 40 (2.03%) Documentation Skills
8 37 (1.87%) Telecoms
9 32 (1.62%) Retail
10 29 (1.47%) Influencing Skills
11 28 (1.42%) Investment Banking
12 26 (1.32%) Front Office
13 23 (1.17%) Financial Institution
14 21 (1.06%) Military
15 19 (0.96%) Aerospace
16 17 (0.86%) Back Office
17 16 (0.81%) Organisational Skills
18 15 (0.76%) Legal
19 14 (0.71%) Automotive
19 14 (0.71%) Law
Job Titles
1 387 (19.60%) Developer
2 318 (16.11%) Senior
3 214 (10.84%) Lead
4 191 (9.68%) Test Engineer
5 175 (8.87%) Tester
6 142 (7.19%) Data Engineer
7 121 (6.13%) Java Developer
8 110 (5.57%) Software Engineer
9 104 (5.27%) Analyst
10 88 (4.46%) Architect
10 88 (4.46%) DevOps Engineer
11 86 (4.36%) Test Automation Engineer
12 84 (4.26%) QA Engineer
12 84 (4.26%) Senior Developer
13 73 (3.70%) Test Leader
14 67 (3.39%) Full-Stack Developer
15 65 (3.29%) Test Analyst
16 64 (3.24%) Automation Engineer
16 64 (3.24%) Automation Tester
17 54 (2.74%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 271 (13.73%) REST
2 212 (10.74%) Playwright
3 186 (9.42%) Kafka
4 183 (9.27%) RESTful
5 173 (8.76%) React
6 167 (8.46%) Spring
7 135 (6.84%) .NET
8 128 (6.48%) Spring Boot
9 100 (5.07%) Node.js
10 90 (4.56%) AngularJS
10 90 (4.56%) HTML
11 80 (4.05%) CSS
12 55 (2.79%) OAuth
13 51 (2.58%) JSON
14 46 (2.33%) pytest
15 45 (2.28%) Jest
16 44 (2.23%) XML
17 43 (2.18%) .NET Framework
17 43 (2.18%) Quarkus
18 42 (2.13%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 295 (14.94%) Cloud Native
2 146 (7.40%) Product Ownership
3 143 (7.24%) Distributed Systems
4 73 (3.70%) Enterprise Software
5 51 (2.58%) Onboarding
6 50 (2.53%) Legacy Systems
7 48 (2.43%) Data Protection Act
8 47 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
9 39 (1.98%) Mobile App
10 37 (1.87%) AI Agents
11 33 (1.67%) Virtual Team
12 28 (1.42%) Distributed Architecture
12 28 (1.42%) Embedded Systems
13 26 (1.32%) Security Posture
14 21 (1.06%) Management Information System
15 18 (0.91%) Fixed Income
16 17 (0.86%) Data Structures
17 16 (0.81%) Data Centre
17 16 (0.81%) NHS
18 15 (0.76%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 137 (6.94%) Linux
2 85 (4.31%) Windows
3 76 (3.85%) Unix
4 39 (1.98%) Apple iOS
5 36 (1.82%) Android
6 28 (1.42%) 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 1,150 (58.26%) CI/CD
2 917 (46.45%) Agile
3 746 (37.79%) DevOps
4 391 (19.81%) Continuous Improvement
5 389 (19.71%) Problem-Solving
6 366 (18.54%) Microservices
7 341 (17.27%) Software Engineering
8 324 (16.41%) Scrum
8 324 (16.41%) Validation
9 319 (16.16%) Infrastructure as Code
10 303 (15.35%) Test Strategy
11 291 (14.74%) AI
12 262 (13.27%) Containerisation
13 257 (13.02%) Observability
14 240 (12.16%) TDD
15 233 (11.80%) ETL
16 220 (11.14%) SDLC
17 215 (10.89%) End-to-End Testing
18 213 (10.79%) Data Pipeline
19 205 (10.39%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 523 (26.49%) Python
2 489 (24.77%) Java
3 488 (24.72%) SQL
4 255 (12.92%) JavaScript
5 205 (10.39%) TypeScript
6 169 (8.56%) C#
7 94 (4.76%) PowerShell
8 72 (3.65%) Bash
9 48 (2.43%) Kotlin
10 45 (2.28%) Bicep
11 41 (2.08%) C++
12 30 (1.52%) C
13 27 (1.37%) PL/SQL
13 27 (1.37%) Scala
14 25 (1.27%) Go
15 23 (1.17%) Apex Code
16 20 (1.01%) Swift
17 17 (0.86%) Groovy
17 17 (0.86%) Ruby
18 15 (0.76%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 643 (32.57%) Security Cleared
2 541 (27.41%) SC Cleared
3 98 (4.96%) ISTQB
4 92 (4.66%) Degree
5 57 (2.89%) DV Cleared
6 54 (2.74%) BPSS Clearance
7 47 (2.38%) Computer Science Degree
8 31 (1.57%) AWS Certification
9 28 (1.42%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 18 (0.91%) Azure Certification
11 15 (0.76%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 11 (0.56%) Cisco Certification
12 11 (0.56%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 11 (0.56%) SAFe Agilist
13 10 (0.51%) CISSP
13 10 (0.51%) Microsoft Certification
14 9 (0.46%) ISEB
14 9 (0.46%) Master's Degree
15 8 (0.41%) CCNP
16 7 (0.35%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 508 (25.73%) QA
2 146 (7.40%) Accessibility
3 144 (7.29%) Data Quality
4 76 (3.85%) WCAG
5 40 (2.03%) GDPR
6 14 (0.71%) NCSC
7 13 (0.66%) ISO 20022
8 12 (0.61%) SLA
9 10 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 9 (0.46%) 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
1 380 (19.25%) Docker
2 29 (1.47%) Active Directory
2 29 (1.47%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
4 14 (0.71%) 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 (0.051%) Embedded Firmware
8 1 (0.051%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.051%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 389 (19.71%) Kubernetes
2 281 (14.24%) Terraform
3 112 (5.67%) Ansible
4 106 (5.37%) Grafana
5 90 (4.56%) Prometheus
6 40 (2.03%) Argo
7 23 (1.17%) Puppet
8 20 (1.01%) Progress Chef
9 11 (0.56%) HP ALM
9 11 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
10 10 (0.51%) Control-M
10 10 (0.51%) Dell DRAC
10 10 (0.51%) 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
1 198 (10.03%) Microsoft
2 166 (8.41%) Oracle
3 82 (4.15%) Databricks
4 75 (3.80%) Salesforce
5 63 (3.19%) Red Hat
6 58 (2.94%) Google
6 58 (2.94%) Talend
7 54 (2.74%) Splunk
8 44 (2.23%) IBM
9 42 (2.13%) Denodo
9 42 (2.13%) ServiceNow
10 35 (1.77%) VMware
11 34 (1.72%) Dynatrace
11 34 (1.72%) Informatica
12 33 (1.67%) SAP
13 29 (1.47%) Cisco
14 25 (1.27%) UiPath
15 18 (0.91%) HP
16 11 (0.56%) Fortinet
17 10 (0.51%) Sage