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 24 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 45 56
Rank change year-on-year -3 +11 -10
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,658 1,137 1,312
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.43% 4.68% 3.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.13% 5.15% 4.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,111 789 888
10th Percentile £331 £338 £375
25th Percentile £400 £400 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% -4.76% -7.08%
75th Percentile £575 £638 £640
90th Percentile £676 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -5.00% -2.44% -6.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 55 7 56
10th Percentile £26.53 £38.81 £46.50
25th Percentile £51.88 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £61.25
Median % change year-on-year +14.54% -7.35% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £70.01 £84.38
90th Percentile - £76.18 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £61.25
% change year-on-year +14.54% -7.35% +2.08%

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 32,321 22,086 32,747
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.33% 90.81% 86.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,717 14,513 21,645
10th Percentile £313 £310 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,977 834 2,155
10th Percentile £15.31 £15.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.67 £16.00
Median hourly rate £35.00 £33.00 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.06% - -12.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £58.70
90th Percentile £75.40 £77.41 £71.89
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year - - -9.47%

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 24 March 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 24 March 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 24 March 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 -1 824 £500 -0.50% 185
North of England +2 319 £487 +9.44% 160
Midlands +14 190 £474 -0.73% 77
South East -29 167 £500 -13.04% 147
West Midlands +15 161 £478 -3.87% 49
North West +9 149 £463 +2.78% 83
Yorkshire -16 136 £509 +7.11% 40
South West -6 80 £500 -4.76% 73
East of England +1 57 £585 +22.19% 67
North East 0 37 £425 +11.67% 37
East Midlands -23 29 £400 +8.11% 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
1 115 (6.94%) Confluence
2 58 (3.50%) SAS
3 27 (1.63%) Apache Spark
4 15 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.78%) SharePoint
6 9 (0.54%) Apache
7 8 (0.48%) Appian
8 6 (0.36%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 5 (0.30%) CMS
9 5 (0.30%) WebLogic
10 4 (0.24%) Camunda
10 4 (0.24%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.24%) Oracle Application Server
11 3 (0.18%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.18%) nginx
12 2 (0.12%) Magnolia
12 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.12%) Tomcat
12 2 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 25 (1.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.66%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.66%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.12%) Simulink
7 1 (0.060%) Mingle
7 1 (0.060%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 24 (1.45%) Aladdin
2 6 (0.36%) Findur
2 6 (0.36%) Loan IQ
2 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
3 5 (0.30%) Maximo
3 5 (0.30%) Shopify
3 5 (0.30%) Workday HCM
4 4 (0.24%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.24%) SAP HR
5 3 (0.18%) BambooHR
6 2 (0.12%) iTrent
6 2 (0.12%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
6 2 (0.12%) Summit
7 1 (0.060%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.060%) Oracle EBS R12
7 1 (0.060%) Oracle General Ledger
7 1 (0.060%) PORTIA
7 1 (0.060%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 458 (27.62%) Azure
2 412 (24.85%) AWS
3 281 (16.95%) GitHub
4 208 (12.55%) Azure DevOps
5 154 (9.29%) GitHub Actions
6 149 (8.99%) GCP
7 116 (7.00%) Serverless
8 66 (3.98%) OpenShift
9 58 (3.50%) AWS Lambda
10 56 (3.38%) Power Platform
11 55 (3.32%) Amazon S3
12 40 (2.41%) Azure AKS
13 36 (2.17%) Snowflake
14 34 (2.05%) Amazon ECS
15 33 (1.99%) Azure Data Factory
16 32 (1.93%) AWS CloudFormation
17 30 (1.81%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 29 (1.75%) SaaS
19 27 (1.63%) Amazon EKS
20 26 (1.57%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.63%) Firewall
2 16 (0.97%) VPN
3 15 (0.90%) TCP/IP
4 13 (0.78%) SD-WAN
4 13 (0.78%) WAN
5 12 (0.72%) HTTP
5 12 (0.72%) Wireshark
6 11 (0.66%) Network Security
7 10 (0.60%) SSL
8 9 (0.54%) HTTPS
9 8 (0.48%) DNS
9 8 (0.48%) Ethernet
9 8 (0.48%) MPLS
9 8 (0.48%) Multicast
10 7 (0.42%) FTP
10 7 (0.42%) SAN
11 5 (0.30%) AMQP
11 5 (0.30%) Cisco IPT
11 5 (0.30%) VLAN
12 4 (0.24%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 97 (5.85%) PostgreSQL
2 69 (4.16%) NoSQL
3 68 (4.10%) SQL Server
4 57 (3.44%) MongoDB
5 50 (3.02%) Relational Database
6 49 (2.96%) Data Warehouse
7 31 (1.87%) DynamoDB
7 31 (1.87%) Power BI
8 29 (1.75%) Pentaho
9 25 (1.51%) BigQuery
10 24 (1.45%) Oracle Database
11 23 (1.39%) Tableau
12 22 (1.33%) MySQL
13 20 (1.21%) Redis
14 18 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
14 18 (1.09%) Oracle Reports
15 14 (0.84%) Azure SQL Database
16 13 (0.78%) Amazon Athena
16 13 (0.78%) Data Lake
17 12 (0.72%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 317 (19.12%) JIRA
2 313 (18.88%) Git
3 310 (18.70%) Jenkins
4 243 (14.66%) GitLab
5 242 (14.60%) Selenium
6 142 (8.56%) Cucumber
7 125 (7.54%) Postman
8 105 (6.33%) JUnit
9 94 (5.67%) Cypress.io
10 83 (5.01%) REST Assured
11 76 (4.58%) JMeter
12 40 (2.41%) WebDriver
13 36 (2.17%) SpecFlow
14 34 (2.05%) Maven
15 32 (1.93%) SonarQube
16 31 (1.87%) Zephyr
17 30 (1.81%) Gatling
17 30 (1.81%) Gradle
17 30 (1.81%) TestRail
18 29 (1.75%) Bitbucket
General
1 469 (28.29%) Social Skills
2 302 (18.21%) Finance
3 235 (14.17%) Public Sector
4 187 (11.28%) Analytical Skills
5 144 (8.69%) Banking
6 33 (1.99%) Documentation Skills
7 30 (1.81%) Investment Banking
8 27 (1.63%) Front Office
8 27 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 21 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
9 21 (1.27%) Telecoms
10 19 (1.15%) Organisational Skills
11 16 (0.97%) Influencing Skills
12 15 (0.90%) Pharmaceutical
13 14 (0.84%) Financial Institution
13 14 (0.84%) Military
14 13 (0.78%) Aerospace
14 13 (0.78%) Legal
15 10 (0.60%) Electronics
16 9 (0.54%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 344 (20.75%) Developer
2 274 (16.53%) Senior
3 193 (11.64%) Lead
4 184 (11.10%) Tester
5 177 (10.68%) Test Engineer
6 87 (5.25%) Analyst
7 86 (5.19%) Automation Tester
7 86 (5.19%) Java Developer
8 85 (5.13%) Data Engineer
9 80 (4.83%) Test Automation Engineer
10 75 (4.52%) Software Engineer
11 72 (4.34%) Test Leader
12 71 (4.28%) QA Engineer
13 65 (3.92%) Senior Developer
14 60 (3.62%) Architect
14 60 (3.62%) DevOps Engineer
15 54 (3.26%) Test Analyst
16 53 (3.20%) Automation Engineer
16 53 (3.20%) Test Manager
17 40 (2.41%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 206 (12.42%) REST
2 191 (11.52%) Playwright
3 138 (8.32%) React
4 132 (7.96%) Spring
5 120 (7.24%) RESTful
6 116 (7.00%) .NET
7 115 (6.94%) Kafka
7 115 (6.94%) Node.js
8 104 (6.27%) Spring Boot
9 77 (4.64%) pytest
10 60 (3.62%) AngularJS
11 51 (3.08%) OAuth
12 50 (3.02%) HTML
13 48 (2.90%) Jest
14 47 (2.83%) CSS
15 39 (2.35%) Web Services
16 35 (2.11%) GraphQL
16 35 (2.11%) WireMock
17 33 (1.99%) JSON
17 33 (1.99%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 172 (10.37%) Cloud Native
2 105 (6.33%) Product Ownership
3 88 (5.31%) Distributed Systems
4 45 (2.71%) Mobile App
5 41 (2.47%) Algorithms
6 38 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
7 37 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
8 26 (1.57%) Onboarding
8 26 (1.57%) Virtual Team
9 25 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
9 25 (1.51%) Security Posture
9 25 (1.51%) Self-Motivation
10 24 (1.45%) Equities
11 23 (1.39%) Data Structures
12 21 (1.27%) Greenfield Project
12 21 (1.27%) Management Information System
13 20 (1.21%) Distributed Architecture
14 19 (1.15%) Public Cloud
15 16 (0.97%) Fixed Income
15 16 (0.97%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 123 (7.42%) Linux
2 80 (4.83%) Windows
3 43 (2.59%) Android
4 36 (2.17%) Apple iOS
5 29 (1.75%) Unix
6 18 (1.09%) Windows Server
7 14 (0.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 11 (0.66%) Mac OS X
9 9 (0.54%) Kali Linux
10 6 (0.36%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.24%) CentOS
12 3 (0.18%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.12%) Windows 10
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
14 1 (0.060%) FreeRTOS
14 1 (0.060%) Robot Operating System
14 1 (0.060%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 862 (51.99%) CI/CD
2 780 (47.04%) Agile
3 619 (37.33%) DevOps
4 408 (24.61%) Problem-Solving
5 269 (16.22%) Continuous Improvement
6 263 (15.86%) Microservices
7 257 (15.50%) Test Strategy
8 231 (13.93%) Scrum
9 228 (13.75%) Containerisation
10 214 (12.91%) AI
11 205 (12.36%) Test Scripting
12 204 (12.30%) Validation
13 202 (12.18%) Infrastructure as Code
13 202 (12.18%) Software Engineering
14 193 (11.64%) TDD
15 189 (11.40%) Observability
16 187 (11.28%) Analytics
17 178 (10.74%) Software Testing
18 176 (10.62%) Regression Testing
19 164 (9.89%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 512 (30.88%) Python
2 404 (24.37%) Java
3 365 (22.01%) SQL
4 239 (14.41%) JavaScript
5 232 (13.99%) TypeScript
6 168 (10.13%) C#
7 73 (4.40%) PowerShell
8 62 (3.74%) Bash
9 47 (2.83%) C++
10 30 (1.81%) C
11 29 (1.75%) Kotlin
12 26 (1.57%) Go
13 24 (1.45%) Bicep
14 22 (1.33%) Apex Code
15 21 (1.27%) PL/SQL
16 18 (1.09%) Ruby
16 18 (1.09%) Scala
17 17 (1.03%) Swift
18 15 (0.90%) Groovy
19 12 (0.72%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 485 (29.25%) Security Cleared
2 368 (22.20%) SC Cleared
3 84 (5.07%) Degree
4 78 (4.70%) ISTQB
5 59 (3.56%) BPSS Clearance
6 55 (3.32%) DV Cleared
7 52 (3.14%) Computer Science Degree
8 23 (1.39%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 23 (1.39%) Master's Degree
9 14 (0.84%) Cisco Certification
10 12 (0.72%) Azure Certification
10 12 (0.72%) OSCP
11 10 (0.60%) AWS Certification
11 10 (0.60%) CEH
11 10 (0.60%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 9 (0.54%) CCNP
12 9 (0.54%) Microsoft Certification
13 8 (0.48%) CISSP
13 8 (0.48%) ISEB
14 7 (0.42%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 380 (22.92%) QA
2 113 (6.82%) Accessibility
3 96 (5.79%) Data Quality
4 40 (2.41%) WCAG
5 30 (1.81%) GDPR
6 20 (1.21%) NIST
7 15 (0.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 15 (0.90%) NCSC
8 10 (0.60%) Def Stans
8 10 (0.60%) EU AI Act
8 10 (0.60%) ISO 20022
8 10 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 10 (0.60%) SLA
9 8 (0.48%) PSD2
10 6 (0.36%) SEPA
10 6 (0.36%) SOC 2
11 5 (0.30%) HL7
11 5 (0.30%) MiFID
11 5 (0.30%) PCI DSS
11 5 (0.30%) PERC
System Software
1 321 (19.36%) Docker
2 26 (1.57%) Active Directory
3 8 (0.48%) Firmware
4 7 (0.42%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
4 7 (0.42%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.18%) ISA Server
8 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.12%) SRDF
9 1 (0.060%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.060%) KVM
9 1 (0.060%) Squid
9 1 (0.060%) Time Sharing Option
9 1 (0.060%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 317 (19.12%) Kubernetes
2 188 (11.34%) Terraform
3 103 (6.21%) Grafana
4 90 (5.43%) Ansible
5 79 (4.76%) Prometheus
6 20 (1.21%) Puppet
7 18 (1.09%) Argo
7 18 (1.09%) HP ALM
8 14 (0.84%) Progress Chef
9 12 (0.72%) Nmap
10 11 (0.66%) NetBackup
10 11 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
11 10 (0.60%) HP Quality Center
12 9 (0.54%) Forefront Identity Manager
12 9 (0.54%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 7 (0.42%) Kibana
14 6 (0.36%) Rancher
15 5 (0.30%) Podman
16 4 (0.24%) Dell DRAC
16 4 (0.24%) Istio
Vendors
1 144 (8.69%) Microsoft
2 135 (8.14%) Oracle
3 65 (3.92%) Databricks
4 57 (3.44%) Salesforce
5 56 (3.38%) Splunk
6 52 (3.14%) Google
7 51 (3.08%) ServiceNow
8 41 (2.47%) SAP
9 39 (2.35%) Red Hat
10 33 (1.99%) Talend
11 25 (1.51%) Denodo
12 21 (1.27%) HP
12 21 (1.27%) IBM
13 20 (1.21%) Cisco
13 20 (1.21%) VMware
14 18 (1.09%) Dynatrace
15 16 (0.97%) MuleSoft
16 15 (0.90%) Workday
17 14 (0.84%) OpenAI
18 13 (0.78%) UiPath