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 11 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 53 48
Rank change year-on-year +5 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,025 1,237 1,349
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.36% 4.45% 4.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.14% 4.89% 4.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,277 836 914
10th Percentile £329 £313 £352
25th Percentile £410 £385 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -3.85% -3.70%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £606
90th Percentile £671 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £502
% change year-on-year -4.95% -0.30% -4.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 100 36 16
10th Percentile £39.73 £41.67 £41.25
25th Percentile £56.25 £49.75 £49.38
Median hourly rate £67.50 £57.13 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +18.16% -0.65% -23.33%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £72.53
90th Percentile £74.10 £71.75 £85.00
UK median hourly rate £69.50 £55.88 £57.50
% change year-on-year +24.38% -2.83% -23.33%

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 39,380 25,274 28,344
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.88% 90.84% 85.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,176 16,039 17,819
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £634 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,707 1,489 1,353
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.33 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.85 £17.79 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.19% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £66.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +3.61%

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 11 September 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 11 September 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 11 September 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 +6 928 £500 - 893
North of England +3 405 £460 +0.05% 209
Midlands +7 248 £450 -2.70% 113
West Midlands +23 233 £458 -11.02% 72
South East -12 232 £450 -10.00% 238
Yorkshire -13 163 £470 -6.09% 65
North West -11 143 £492 +16.59% 111
South West -8 114 £475 -5.00% 165
North East +11 106 £425 -4.49% 33
East of England +11 85 £450 +31.39% 108
East Midlands -41 15 £418 +17.61% 41
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
1 176 (8.69%) Confluence
2 50 (2.47%) Apache Airflow
3 41 (2.02%) SharePoint
4 38 (1.88%) Apache Spark
5 29 (1.43%) SAS
6 22 (1.09%) Apache
7 14 (0.69%) CMS
8 12 (0.59%) Camunda
9 10 (0.49%) WebLogic
10 7 (0.35%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (0.30%) Microsoft Exchange
12 4 (0.20%) Jupyter
12 4 (0.20%) nginx
12 4 (0.20%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.20%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.15%) Kentico
14 2 (0.099%) Anypoint
14 2 (0.099%) Apache Pulsar
14 2 (0.099%) Mule
Applications
1 23 (1.14%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (0.74%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.30%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.15%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.15%) Simulink
5 3 (0.15%) Trello
6 2 (0.099%) Mingle
6 2 (0.099%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 26 (1.28%) Dynamics CRM
2 17 (0.84%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (0.64%) Payment Gateway
4 11 (0.54%) Aladdin
5 8 (0.40%) Findur
6 7 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
6 7 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
7 6 (0.30%) SAP ERP
8 5 (0.25%) SAP GRC
9 3 (0.15%) Distributed Ledger
9 3 (0.15%) Shopify
10 2 (0.099%) BambooHR
10 2 (0.099%) Oracle ERP
10 2 (0.099%) SAP MDG
11 1 (0.049%) FLEXCUBE
11 1 (0.049%) SAP MM
11 1 (0.049%) SAP QM
11 1 (0.049%) SAP SD
11 1 (0.049%) Summit
11 1 (0.049%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 620 (30.62%) AWS
2 598 (29.53%) Azure
3 349 (17.23%) GitHub
4 277 (13.68%) Azure DevOps
5 219 (10.81%) GitHub Actions
6 162 (8.00%) Serverless
7 155 (7.65%) GCP
8 121 (5.98%) AWS Lambda
9 94 (4.64%) Power Platform
10 92 (4.54%) Amazon S3
11 79 (3.90%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 69 (3.41%) Amazon ECS
13 66 (3.26%) OpenShift
14 59 (2.91%) Amazon EKS
15 56 (2.77%) GitHub Copilot
16 55 (2.72%) dbt
17 49 (2.42%) Snowflake
18 48 (2.37%) AWS CloudFormation
19 46 (2.27%) Amazon EC2
20 41 (2.02%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.14%) HTTP
2 21 (1.04%) 4G
3 20 (0.99%) DNS
3 20 (0.99%) Firewall
4 19 (0.94%) 5G
5 18 (0.89%) TCP/IP
6 16 (0.79%) 2G
6 16 (0.79%) 3G
6 16 (0.79%) Diameter Protocol
6 16 (0.79%) Network Security
6 16 (0.79%) SIGTRAN
6 16 (0.79%) SS7
7 15 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
8 14 (0.69%) WAN
9 12 (0.59%) LAN
10 10 (0.49%) BGP
10 10 (0.49%) Broadband
10 10 (0.49%) DHCP
11 9 (0.44%) SAN
12 8 (0.40%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (5.78%) PostgreSQL
2 111 (5.48%) Data Warehouse
3 98 (4.84%) NoSQL
4 91 (4.49%) MongoDB
5 89 (4.40%) Relational Database
6 84 (4.15%) SQL Server
7 78 (3.85%) Power BI
8 41 (2.02%) DynamoDB
9 35 (1.73%) Data Lake
10 34 (1.68%) Metadata
10 34 (1.68%) Oracle Reports
11 31 (1.53%) Big Data
12 30 (1.48%) Amazon Athena
13 28 (1.38%) MySQL
13 28 (1.38%) Pentaho
14 27 (1.33%) Amazon RDS
14 27 (1.33%) Amazon Redshift
15 26 (1.28%) Redis
16 24 (1.19%) Oracle Database
17 19 (0.94%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 436 (21.53%) Git
2 348 (17.19%) JIRA
3 326 (16.10%) Jenkins
4 280 (13.83%) GitLab
5 252 (12.44%) Selenium
6 136 (6.72%) Postman
7 130 (6.42%) Cucumber
8 113 (5.58%) JUnit
9 100 (4.94%) Cypress.io
10 93 (4.59%) REST Assured
11 82 (4.05%) SonarQube
12 80 (3.95%) JMeter
13 60 (2.96%) Zephyr
14 55 (2.72%) Gatling
15 50 (2.47%) Gradle
15 50 (2.47%) Maven
16 45 (2.22%) Mockito
16 45 (2.22%) WebDriver
17 39 (1.93%) Bitbucket
18 24 (1.19%) LoadRunner
General
1 569 (28.10%) Social Skills
2 389 (19.21%) Finance
3 301 (14.86%) Analytical Skills
4 259 (12.79%) Public Sector
5 184 (9.09%) Banking
6 68 (3.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 42 (2.07%) Telecoms
8 35 (1.73%) Front Office
9 34 (1.68%) Retail
10 32 (1.58%) Documentation Skills
11 29 (1.43%) Investment Banking
12 28 (1.38%) Influencing Skills
13 25 (1.23%) Military
14 22 (1.09%) Financial Institution
15 19 (0.94%) Aerospace
16 18 (0.89%) Law
17 17 (0.84%) Back Office
18 16 (0.79%) Manufacturing
18 16 (0.79%) Marketing
19 14 (0.69%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 433 (21.38%) Developer
2 330 (16.30%) Senior
3 198 (9.78%) Lead
4 196 (9.68%) Test Engineer
5 153 (7.56%) Tester
6 136 (6.72%) Java Developer
7 123 (6.07%) Data Engineer
8 119 (5.88%) Software Engineer
9 111 (5.48%) Analyst
10 98 (4.84%) DevOps Engineer
10 98 (4.84%) Senior Developer
11 89 (4.40%) QA Engineer
11 89 (4.40%) Test Automation Engineer
12 88 (4.35%) Architect
13 71 (3.51%) Full-Stack Developer
14 68 (3.36%) Test Analyst
15 67 (3.31%) Automation Engineer
16 64 (3.16%) Java Engineer
16 64 (3.16%) Test Leader
17 62 (3.06%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 309 (15.26%) REST
2 294 (14.52%) Terraform
3 224 (11.06%) Playwright
4 208 (10.27%) RESTful
5 206 (10.17%) Kafka
6 193 (9.53%) Spring
7 188 (9.28%) React
8 165 (8.15%) Spring Boot
9 143 (7.06%) .NET
10 122 (6.02%) HTML
11 106 (5.23%) Node.js
12 104 (5.14%) CSS
13 102 (5.04%) AngularJS
14 61 (3.01%) OAuth
15 56 (2.77%) JSON
16 53 (2.62%) SOAP
17 52 (2.57%) XML
18 47 (2.32%) PySpark
18 47 (2.32%) pytest
19 46 (2.27%) Next.js
Miscellaneous
1 319 (15.75%) Cloud Native
2 168 (8.30%) Product Ownership
3 145 (7.16%) Distributed Systems
4 82 (4.05%) Enterprise Software
5 58 (2.86%) Onboarding
6 52 (2.57%) Data Protection Act
7 51 (2.52%) Legacy Systems
8 50 (2.47%) AI Agents
9 49 (2.42%) Self-Motivation
10 43 (2.12%) Mobile App
11 35 (1.73%) Virtual Team
12 26 (1.28%) Security Posture
13 23 (1.14%) Data Structures
14 21 (1.04%) Embedded Systems
15 20 (0.99%) Management Information System
16 17 (0.84%) Data Centre
16 17 (0.84%) Distributed Architecture
17 16 (0.79%) Greenfield Project
18 15 (0.74%) Fixed Income
18 15 (0.74%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 141 (6.96%) Linux
2 85 (4.20%) Windows
3 81 (4.00%) Unix
4 40 (1.98%) Apple iOS
5 38 (1.88%) Android
6 31 (1.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 21 (1.04%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.30%) Solaris
8 6 (0.30%) VMS
9 5 (0.25%) Embedded Linux
9 5 (0.25%) Mac OS X
9 5 (0.25%) Windows 10
9 5 (0.25%) Windows 7
9 5 (0.25%) Windows Server 2003
10 4 (0.20%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
11 3 (0.15%) AIX
11 3 (0.15%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.099%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,212 (59.85%) CI/CD
2 968 (47.80%) Agile
3 755 (37.28%) DevOps
4 404 (19.95%) Continuous Improvement
5 401 (19.80%) Problem-Solving
6 395 (19.51%) Microservices
7 393 (19.41%) Software Engineering
8 348 (17.19%) Infrastructure as Code
9 346 (17.09%) Scrum
10 340 (16.79%) Validation
11 322 (15.90%) AI
12 308 (15.21%) Test Strategy
13 298 (14.72%) Containerisation
14 269 (13.28%) Observability
15 264 (13.04%) SDLC
16 252 (12.44%) TDD
17 245 (12.10%) Software Testing
18 229 (11.31%) Stakeholder Management
19 217 (10.72%) End-to-End Testing
20 197 (9.73%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 559 (27.60%) Python
2 543 (26.81%) Java
3 500 (24.69%) SQL
4 292 (14.42%) JavaScript
5 231 (11.41%) TypeScript
6 166 (8.20%) C#
7 92 (4.54%) PowerShell
8 77 (3.80%) Bash
9 47 (2.32%) Bicep
9 47 (2.32%) Kotlin
10 33 (1.63%) C++
11 28 (1.38%) Scala
12 26 (1.28%) Go
13 25 (1.23%) PL/SQL
14 23 (1.14%) Apex Code
14 23 (1.14%) C
15 18 (0.89%) Shell Script
16 17 (0.84%) Groovy
16 17 (0.84%) Ruby
16 17 (0.84%) Swift
Qualifications
1 657 (32.44%) Security Cleared
2 545 (26.91%) SC Cleared
3 112 (5.53%) Degree
4 93 (4.59%) ISTQB
5 80 (3.95%) DV Cleared
6 66 (3.26%) BPSS Clearance
7 60 (2.96%) Computer Science Degree
8 38 (1.88%) AWS Certification
9 27 (1.33%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 22 (1.09%) Azure Certification
11 17 (0.84%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 14 (0.69%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 13 (0.64%) Master's Degree
14 12 (0.59%) ISEB
15 11 (0.54%) SAFe Agilist
16 10 (0.49%) Microsoft Certification
17 9 (0.44%) Cisco Certification
17 9 (0.44%) CISSP
18 8 (0.40%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
19 7 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 543 (26.81%) QA
2 160 (7.90%) Accessibility
3 135 (6.67%) Data Quality
4 88 (4.35%) WCAG
5 38 (1.88%) GDPR
6 16 (0.79%) ISO 20022
7 14 (0.69%) NCSC
8 13 (0.64%) SLA
9 12 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 11 (0.54%) GRC
10 11 (0.54%) NIST
11 7 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
12 6 (0.30%) Software Quality Assurance
13 5 (0.25%) FATCA
13 5 (0.25%) HL7
13 5 (0.25%) PCI DSS
14 4 (0.20%) Def Stans
14 4 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 3 (0.15%) EU AI Act
16 2 (0.099%) SOC 2
System Software
1 403 (19.90%) Docker
2 34 (1.68%) Active Directory
3 28 (1.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.89%) Virtual Machines
5 11 (0.54%) Firmware
6 5 (0.25%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.15%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.049%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.049%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 395 (19.51%) Kubernetes
2 111 (5.48%) Ansible
3 105 (5.19%) Grafana
4 84 (4.15%) Prometheus
5 39 (1.93%) Argo
6 21 (1.04%) Progress Chef
6 21 (1.04%) Puppet
7 12 (0.59%) HP ALM
7 12 (0.59%) Kibana
8 11 (0.54%) Control-M
8 11 (0.54%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (0.35%) Kustomize
9 7 (0.35%) Microsoft Intune
10 6 (0.30%) Dell DRAC
11 5 (0.25%) HP Fortify
11 5 (0.25%) HP Quality Center
11 5 (0.25%) Istio
11 5 (0.25%) Packer
11 5 (0.25%) SCCM
12 4 (0.20%) WMI
Vendors
1 206 (10.17%) Microsoft
2 155 (7.65%) Oracle
3 82 (4.05%) Databricks
4 70 (3.46%) Salesforce
5 65 (3.21%) Google
6 59 (2.91%) Red Hat
7 52 (2.57%) IBM
8 47 (2.32%) Talend
9 46 (2.27%) Splunk
10 45 (2.22%) ServiceNow
11 41 (2.02%) SAP
12 39 (1.93%) Dynatrace
13 35 (1.73%) VMware
14 34 (1.68%) Denodo
15 33 (1.63%) Informatica
16 30 (1.48%) Cisco
17 28 (1.38%) UiPath
18 17 (0.84%) HP
19 13 (0.64%) OpenAI
20 12 (0.59%) MuleSoft