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

6 months to
1 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 45 56
Rank change year-on-year -2 +11 -12
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,621 1,169 1,344
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.58% 4.58% 3.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.26% 5.07% 4.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,105 784 938
10th Percentile £331 £327 £379
25th Percentile £400 £400 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% -4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £575 £638 £638
90th Percentile £680 £725 £719
UK median daily rate £476 £500 £517
% change year-on-year -4.85% -3.29% -6.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 5 56
10th Percentile £39.13 - £46.50
25th Percentile £51.56 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £74.00 £65.75
Median % change year-on-year -12.16% +12.55% +12.39%
75th Percentile £68.44 £77.19 £90.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £83.38 -
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £60.90 £65.75
% change year-on-year +6.73% -7.37% +15.35%

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 30,846 23,044 33,123
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 87.12% 90.26% 87.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,757 14,550 21,943
10th Percentile £313 £307 £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 £617 £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 1,917 778 2,099
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.50 £13.29
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £28.55 £35.00 £34.21
Median % change year-on-year -18.43% +2.31% -2.92%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.00 £59.94
90th Percentile £73.41 £75.73 £72.07
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £33.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% -1.52% -5.71%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -3 786 £500 -4.76% 211
North of England +7 318 £500 +17.65% 184
Midlands +10 187 £476 +2.86% 104
South East -19 162 £496 -9.82% 245
West Midlands +10 154 £486 +0.54% 58
North West +2 137 £450 +4.96% 86
Yorkshire -15 136 £513 +15.49% 66
South West -3 81 £515 -6.36% 130
East of England +2 59 £570 +25.55% 122
North East +13 49 £488 +28.09% 32
East Midlands -15 33 £400 +7.38% 43
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
1 110 (6.79%) Confluence
2 61 (3.76%) SAS
3 27 (1.67%) Apache Spark
4 12 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
5 11 (0.68%) SharePoint
6 9 (0.56%) Apache
7 8 (0.49%) Appian
8 6 (0.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 5 (0.31%) CMS
9 5 (0.31%) WebLogic
10 4 (0.25%) Camunda
10 4 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.25%) Oracle Application Server
11 3 (0.19%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.19%) nginx
11 3 (0.19%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.12%) Magnolia
12 2 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.12%) Tomcat
12 2 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 26 (1.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.74%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (0.56%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.062%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 19 (1.17%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.31%) Loan IQ
2 5 (0.31%) Maximo
2 5 (0.31%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.25%) SAP HR
3 4 (0.25%) Shopify
4 3 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.12%) iTrent
5 2 (0.12%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.12%) Summit
6 1 (0.062%) Cloudability
6 1 (0.062%) CODA-Financials
6 1 (0.062%) Infor CloudSuite
6 1 (0.062%) Infor LN
6 1 (0.062%) PORTIA
6 1 (0.062%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 441 (27.21%) Azure
2 390 (24.06%) AWS
3 260 (16.04%) GitHub
4 185 (11.41%) Azure DevOps
5 157 (9.69%) GCP
6 136 (8.39%) GitHub Actions
7 109 (6.72%) Serverless
8 68 (4.19%) OpenShift
9 53 (3.27%) Power Platform
10 46 (2.84%) AWS Lambda
11 43 (2.65%) Amazon S3
12 40 (2.47%) Azure AKS
13 33 (2.04%) Azure Data Factory
14 32 (1.97%) SaaS
15 31 (1.91%) Azure Functions
16 30 (1.85%) Snowflake
17 29 (1.79%) Entra ID
18 28 (1.73%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 28 (1.73%) AWS CloudFormation
19 26 (1.60%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 32 (1.97%) Firewall
2 20 (1.23%) Wireshark
3 19 (1.17%) VPN
4 18 (1.11%) TCP/IP
5 15 (0.93%) HTTP
6 13 (0.80%) SD-WAN
6 13 (0.80%) SSL
7 12 (0.74%) HTTPS
7 12 (0.74%) WAN
8 10 (0.62%) Network Security
9 9 (0.56%) DNS
9 9 (0.56%) Ethernet
9 9 (0.56%) MPLS
10 8 (0.49%) Multicast
10 8 (0.49%) VLAN
11 7 (0.43%) AMQP
11 7 (0.43%) FTP
12 5 (0.31%) Cisco IPT
12 5 (0.31%) SAN
13 4 (0.25%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 96 (5.92%) PostgreSQL
2 69 (4.26%) NoSQL
3 62 (3.82%) MongoDB
3 62 (3.82%) SQL Server
4 53 (3.27%) Relational Database
5 45 (2.78%) Data Warehouse
6 33 (2.04%) Pentaho
7 28 (1.73%) Power BI
8 26 (1.60%) Oracle Database
9 22 (1.36%) DynamoDB
9 22 (1.36%) MySQL
10 21 (1.30%) BigQuery
11 18 (1.11%) Oracle Reports
11 18 (1.11%) Redis
12 17 (1.05%) Tableau
13 16 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
14 14 (0.86%) Data Lake
15 13 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
15 13 (0.80%) Big Data
15 13 (0.80%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 312 (19.25%) JIRA
2 306 (18.88%) Git
3 300 (18.51%) Jenkins
4 247 (15.24%) GitLab
5 241 (14.87%) Selenium
6 142 (8.76%) Cucumber
7 141 (8.70%) Postman
8 103 (6.35%) JUnit
9 101 (6.23%) Cypress.io
10 87 (5.37%) REST Assured
11 76 (4.69%) JMeter
12 37 (2.28%) SonarQube
13 36 (2.22%) Maven
13 36 (2.22%) WebDriver
14 35 (2.16%) SpecFlow
15 31 (1.91%) Gatling
16 30 (1.85%) Gradle
17 29 (1.79%) TestRail
18 28 (1.73%) Zephyr
19 25 (1.54%) Bitbucket
General
1 427 (26.34%) Social Skills
2 263 (16.22%) Finance
3 219 (13.51%) Public Sector
4 183 (11.29%) Analytical Skills
5 132 (8.14%) Banking
6 25 (1.54%) Documentation Skills
6 25 (1.54%) Investment Banking
7 23 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 22 (1.36%) Front Office
9 20 (1.23%) Pharmaceutical
10 18 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
10 18 (1.11%) Telecoms
11 16 (0.99%) Military
11 16 (0.99%) Organisational Skills
12 13 (0.80%) Financial Institution
12 13 (0.80%) Influencing Skills
13 12 (0.74%) Aerospace
14 9 (0.56%) Electronics
15 8 (0.49%) Legal
16 7 (0.43%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 344 (21.22%) Developer
2 269 (16.59%) Senior
3 194 (11.97%) Lead
4 192 (11.84%) Tester
5 175 (10.80%) Test Engineer
6 93 (5.74%) Java Developer
7 85 (5.24%) Data Engineer
8 83 (5.12%) Automation Tester
9 81 (5.00%) Software Engineer
10 80 (4.94%) Analyst
11 73 (4.50%) Test Automation Engineer
12 64 (3.95%) Test Leader
13 63 (3.89%) Senior Developer
14 61 (3.76%) QA Engineer
15 54 (3.33%) DevOps Engineer
16 52 (3.21%) Architect
16 52 (3.21%) Test Manager
17 51 (3.15%) Test Analyst
18 48 (2.96%) Automation Engineer
19 39 (2.41%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 204 (12.58%) REST
2 199 (12.28%) Playwright
3 141 (8.70%) React
4 131 (8.08%) Spring
5 122 (7.53%) .NET
6 117 (7.22%) RESTful
7 114 (7.03%) Kafka
7 114 (7.03%) Node.js
8 107 (6.60%) Spring Boot
9 82 (5.06%) pytest
10 54 (3.33%) HTML
11 53 (3.27%) AngularJS
12 52 (3.21%) CSS
13 49 (3.02%) Jest
14 48 (2.96%) OAuth
15 43 (2.65%) Web Services
16 37 (2.28%) GraphQL
16 37 (2.28%) JSON
17 36 (2.22%) WireMock
18 35 (2.16%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 177 (10.92%) Cloud Native
2 96 (5.92%) Product Ownership
3 69 (4.26%) Distributed Systems
4 44 (2.71%) Mobile App
5 41 (2.53%) Algorithms
6 38 (2.34%) Legacy Systems
7 35 (2.16%) Security Posture
8 33 (2.04%) Data Protection Act
9 26 (1.60%) Data Structures
10 25 (1.54%) Onboarding
11 23 (1.42%) Enterprise Software
12 22 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
12 22 (1.36%) Virtual Team
13 20 (1.23%) Equities
13 20 (1.23%) Greenfield Project
13 20 (1.23%) Management Information System
14 18 (1.11%) Distributed Architecture
14 18 (1.11%) Public Cloud
15 15 (0.93%) Derivative
16 14 (0.86%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 134 (8.27%) Linux
2 77 (4.75%) Windows
3 42 (2.59%) Android
4 38 (2.34%) Unix
5 37 (2.28%) Apple iOS
6 17 (1.05%) Mac OS X
6 17 (1.05%) Windows Server
7 11 (0.68%) Kali Linux
7 11 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 7 (0.43%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.31%) CentOS
10 2 (0.12%) Solaris
10 2 (0.12%) VMS
10 2 (0.12%) Windows 10
10 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
10 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.062%) FreeRTOS
11 1 (0.062%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.062%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 839 (51.76%) CI/CD
2 789 (48.67%) Agile
3 597 (36.83%) DevOps
4 416 (25.66%) Problem-Solving
5 270 (16.66%) Microservices
6 256 (15.79%) Continuous Improvement
7 253 (15.61%) Test Strategy
8 235 (14.50%) Containerisation
9 234 (14.44%) Scrum
10 220 (13.57%) AI
11 216 (13.33%) Test Scripting
12 205 (12.65%) Software Engineering
13 201 (12.40%) Validation
14 198 (12.21%) Infrastructure as Code
15 196 (12.09%) TDD
16 180 (11.10%) Software Testing
17 178 (10.98%) Analytics
18 173 (10.67%) Observability
19 156 (9.62%) API Testing
20 155 (9.56%) BDD
Programming Languages
1 499 (30.78%) Python
2 400 (24.68%) Java
3 342 (21.10%) SQL
4 248 (15.30%) JavaScript
5 237 (14.62%) TypeScript
6 153 (9.44%) C#
7 63 (3.89%) Bash
8 58 (3.58%) PowerShell
9 43 (2.65%) C++
10 31 (1.91%) Go
11 24 (1.48%) Kotlin
12 23 (1.42%) Bicep
12 23 (1.42%) PL/SQL
13 18 (1.11%) C
14 17 (1.05%) Apex Code
15 16 (0.99%) Swift
16 15 (0.93%) Scala
17 12 (0.74%) Ruby
17 12 (0.74%) T-SQL
18 11 (0.68%) PHP
Qualifications
1 474 (29.24%) Security Cleared
2 364 (22.46%) SC Cleared
3 91 (5.61%) Degree
4 77 (4.75%) ISTQB
5 55 (3.39%) BPSS Clearance
6 54 (3.33%) DV Cleared
7 53 (3.27%) Computer Science Degree
8 28 (1.73%) Master's Degree
9 25 (1.54%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 18 (1.11%) OSCP
11 14 (0.86%) Cisco Certification
11 14 (0.86%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 13 (0.80%) Azure Certification
12 13 (0.80%) GPEN
12 13 (0.80%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 12 (0.74%) AWS Certification
13 12 (0.74%) CEH
14 11 (0.68%) CISSP
14 11 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
15 10 (0.62%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 367 (22.64%) QA
2 119 (7.34%) Accessibility
3 88 (5.43%) Data Quality
4 39 (2.41%) WCAG
5 30 (1.85%) NIST
6 28 (1.73%) GDPR
7 18 (1.11%) EU AI Act
8 16 (0.99%) NCSC
9 12 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 11 (0.68%) ISO 20022
11 9 (0.56%) PSD2
11 9 (0.56%) SLA
12 8 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 7 (0.43%) Def Stans
13 7 (0.43%) SEPA
14 6 (0.37%) SOC 2
15 5 (0.31%) MiFID
15 5 (0.31%) NIST 800
15 5 (0.31%) PCI DSS
15 5 (0.31%) PERC
System Software
1 343 (21.16%) Docker
2 31 (1.91%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.43%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
4 6 (0.37%) Firmware
4 6 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
4 6 (0.37%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.19%) ISA Server
7 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
7 2 (0.12%) SRDF
7 2 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.062%) Embedded Firmware
8 1 (0.062%) KVM
8 1 (0.062%) QEMU
8 1 (0.062%) Squid
8 1 (0.062%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.062%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 323 (19.93%) Kubernetes
2 180 (11.10%) Terraform
3 96 (5.92%) Ansible
4 94 (5.80%) Grafana
5 67 (4.13%) Prometheus
6 18 (1.11%) Nmap
7 17 (1.05%) Puppet
8 16 (0.99%) HP ALM
9 15 (0.93%) Argo
9 15 (0.93%) Progress Chef
10 12 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
11 10 (0.62%) HP Quality Center
11 10 (0.62%) NetBackup
12 7 (0.43%) Kibana
12 7 (0.43%) Nessus
13 6 (0.37%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 6 (0.37%) NetIQ Identity Manager
14 5 (0.31%) Podman
15 4 (0.25%) CSIRT
15 4 (0.25%) Rancher
Vendors
1 145 (8.95%) Oracle
2 143 (8.82%) Microsoft
3 61 (3.76%) Databricks
3 61 (3.76%) ServiceNow
4 60 (3.70%) Splunk
5 54 (3.33%) Google
6 53 (3.27%) Salesforce
7 37 (2.28%) Talend
8 36 (2.22%) SAP
9 30 (1.85%) Red Hat
10 29 (1.79%) Denodo
11 22 (1.36%) VMware
12 21 (1.30%) Cisco
13 20 (1.23%) IBM
14 18 (1.11%) HP
15 15 (0.93%) OpenAI
15 15 (0.93%) Workday
16 14 (0.86%) Atlassian
16 14 (0.86%) Foundry
16 14 (0.86%) MuleSoft