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 27 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 51 45 56
Rank change year-on-year -6 +11 -14
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,485 1,260 1,396
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.67% 4.42% 3.78%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.28% 4.98% 4.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,017 853 1,000
10th Percentile £331 £325 £400
25th Percentile £400 £400 £435
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% -6.52%
75th Percentile £588 £612 £638
90th Percentile £700 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 2 50
10th Percentile £41.94 £51.00 £34.98
25th Percentile £50.00 £56.25 £47.22
Median hourly rate £63.50 £67.50 £76.25
Median % change year-on-year -5.93% -11.48% +27.08%
75th Percentile £67.00 £78.75 £90.00
90th Percentile £67.60 £84.00 -
UK median hourly rate £61.75 £47.50 £77.50
% change year-on-year +30.00% -38.71% +29.17%

All Process and 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 28,126 25,301 32,618
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 88.47% 88.70% 88.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,892 15,616 22,141
10th Percentile £301 £311 £310
25th Percentile £406 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £645 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £528
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.47% -4.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,807 836 1,442
10th Percentile £15.18 £15.62 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.98 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +25.64%
75th Percentile £56.69 £64.79 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.65 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -23.53% +21.43%

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 27 December 2025.

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 27 December 2025.

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 27 December 2025. 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 -5 719 £500 -3.85% 520
North of England +5 305 £488 +13.04% 501
Midlands +11 154 £495 -0.50% 322
Yorkshire -5 144 £513 +13.89% 205
South East -24 141 £500 -2.44% 517
North West +10 119 £425 +6.25% 250
West Midlands +13 117 £517 -6.05% 168
South West +5 76 £550 -1.79% 255
East of England -5 47 £550 +37.50% 299
North East +19 44 £488 +34.48% 46
East Midlands +2 37 £400 -13.51% 135
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 81 (5.45%) Confluence
2 53 (3.57%) SAS
3 24 (1.62%) Apache Spark
4 15 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.88%) SharePoint
6 9 (0.61%) Apache
7 6 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 6 (0.40%) CMS
7 6 (0.40%) OpenStack
7 6 (0.40%) Oracle Application Server
8 4 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.20%) Anypoint
9 3 (0.20%) WebLogic
10 2 (0.13%) Appian
10 2 (0.13%) JBoss
10 2 (0.13%) Magnolia
10 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
10 2 (0.13%) nginx
10 2 (0.13%) Sitecore CMS
10 2 (0.13%) WordPress
Applications
1 16 (1.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.67%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (0.61%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.20%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.20%) Simulink
5 3 (0.20%) Windchill
6 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.13%) Trello
Business Applications
1 17 (1.14%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.27%) SAP HR
3 3 (0.20%) SAP PLM
3 3 (0.20%) Workday HCM
4 2 (0.13%) Eagle PACE
4 2 (0.13%) Markit EDM
4 2 (0.13%) Maximo
4 2 (0.13%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.13%) SAP FI
4 2 (0.13%) Shopify
5 1 (0.067%) Algo Collateral
5 1 (0.067%) CODA-Financials
5 1 (0.067%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.067%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.067%) Oracle General Ledger
5 1 (0.067%) PORTIA
5 1 (0.067%) Summit
5 1 (0.067%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 408 (27.47%) Azure
2 346 (23.30%) AWS
3 207 (13.94%) GitHub
4 163 (10.98%) Azure DevOps
5 145 (9.76%) GCP
6 105 (7.07%) GitHub Actions
7 98 (6.60%) Serverless
8 51 (3.43%) OpenShift
9 46 (3.10%) Power Platform
10 40 (2.69%) Amazon S3
10 40 (2.69%) Azure AKS
11 39 (2.63%) AWS Lambda
12 36 (2.42%) SaaS
13 33 (2.22%) Snowflake
14 30 (2.02%) AWS CloudFormation
15 27 (1.82%) Amazon EKS
15 27 (1.82%) Azure Data Factory
15 27 (1.82%) Power Automate
16 26 (1.75%) Azure Functions
16 26 (1.75%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 40 (2.69%) Firewall
2 32 (2.15%) Wireshark
3 29 (1.95%) HTTP
4 22 (1.48%) HTTPS
4 22 (1.48%) SSL
5 20 (1.35%) TCP/IP
6 17 (1.14%) VPN
7 15 (1.01%) Network Security
7 15 (1.01%) SD-WAN
8 12 (0.81%) Ethernet
9 10 (0.67%) DNS
9 10 (0.67%) WAN
10 9 (0.61%) Multicast
11 8 (0.54%) AMQP
12 7 (0.47%) FTP
12 7 (0.47%) VLAN
13 6 (0.40%) Internet
14 5 (0.34%) Broadband
14 5 (0.34%) Cisco IPT
14 5 (0.34%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 98 (6.60%) PostgreSQL
2 75 (5.05%) NoSQL
3 65 (4.38%) Relational Database
4 64 (4.31%) MongoDB
5 63 (4.24%) SQL Server
6 34 (2.29%) Data Warehouse
7 28 (1.89%) Pentaho
8 23 (1.55%) BigQuery
8 23 (1.55%) Power BI
9 19 (1.28%) MySQL
9 19 (1.28%) Oracle Database
10 18 (1.21%) Big Data
10 18 (1.21%) Redis
11 17 (1.14%) Data Lake
12 15 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
12 15 (1.01%) SAS Enterprise Guide
13 12 (0.81%) Azure SQL Database
14 11 (0.74%) Apache Cassandra
14 11 (0.74%) DynamoDB
15 10 (0.67%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 274 (18.45%) Git
2 269 (18.11%) Jenkins
3 262 (17.64%) JIRA
4 233 (15.69%) Selenium
5 201 (13.54%) GitLab
6 127 (8.55%) Cucumber
7 109 (7.34%) Postman
8 97 (6.53%) Cypress.io
9 78 (5.25%) JUnit
10 67 (4.51%) REST Assured
11 55 (3.70%) JMeter
12 42 (2.83%) Bitbucket
13 37 (2.49%) SonarQube
14 31 (2.09%) Maven
15 28 (1.89%) SpecFlow
16 27 (1.82%) TestRail
17 24 (1.62%) Gradle
18 23 (1.55%) Gatling
18 23 (1.55%) Mockito
19 21 (1.41%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 409 (27.54%) Social Skills
2 251 (16.90%) Finance
3 194 (13.06%) Public Sector
4 159 (10.71%) Analytical Skills
5 111 (7.47%) Banking
6 31 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
7 26 (1.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 24 (1.62%) Telecoms
9 23 (1.55%) Pharmaceutical
10 21 (1.41%) Front Office
10 21 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
11 20 (1.35%) Investment Banking
12 17 (1.14%) Financial Institution
13 13 (0.88%) Manufacturing
13 13 (0.88%) Military
13 13 (0.88%) Organisational Skills
14 10 (0.67%) Aerospace
14 10 (0.67%) Marketing
14 10 (0.67%) Retail
15 9 (0.61%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 331 (22.29%) Developer
2 247 (16.63%) Senior
3 167 (11.25%) Tester
4 162 (10.91%) Test Engineer
5 128 (8.62%) Lead
6 95 (6.40%) Java Developer
7 87 (5.86%) Automation Tester
8 79 (5.32%) Software Engineer
9 67 (4.51%) Test Automation Engineer
10 64 (4.31%) Analyst
11 62 (4.18%) QA Engineer
11 62 (4.18%) Senior Developer
12 61 (4.11%) Data Engineer
13 51 (3.43%) DevOps Engineer
14 50 (3.37%) Automation Engineer
15 46 (3.10%) Test Analyst
15 46 (3.10%) Test Leader
16 44 (2.96%) Test Manager
17 37 (2.49%) Full-Stack Developer
18 35 (2.36%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 188 (12.66%) REST
2 149 (10.03%) Playwright
3 129 (8.69%) React
4 123 (8.28%) .NET
5 108 (7.27%) RESTful
6 106 (7.14%) Node.js
7 103 (6.94%) Kafka
8 97 (6.53%) Spring
9 91 (6.13%) Spring Boot
10 68 (4.58%) pytest
11 60 (4.04%) HTML
12 57 (3.84%) CSS
12 57 (3.84%) XML
13 55 (3.70%) AngularJS
13 55 (3.70%) JSON
14 54 (3.64%) SOAP
15 40 (2.69%) Jest
15 40 (2.69%) JMS
16 38 (2.56%) Web Services
17 35 (2.36%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 152 (10.24%) Cloud Native
2 96 (6.46%) Product Ownership
3 47 (3.16%) Distributed Systems
4 46 (3.10%) Mobile App
5 40 (2.69%) Security Posture
6 30 (2.02%) Algorithms
7 25 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
8 23 (1.55%) Self-Motivation
9 22 (1.48%) Enterprise Software
10 21 (1.41%) Onboarding
11 20 (1.35%) Data Structures
12 19 (1.28%) Public Cloud
13 18 (1.21%) Management Information System
14 17 (1.14%) Greenfield Project
14 17 (1.14%) Legacy Systems
15 16 (1.08%) Genomics
15 16 (1.08%) Life Science
16 14 (0.94%) Data Centre
16 14 (0.94%) Derivative
16 14 (0.94%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 152 (10.24%) Linux
2 71 (4.78%) Windows
3 50 (3.37%) Unix
4 38 (2.56%) Android
5 29 (1.95%) Apple iOS
6 19 (1.28%) Mac OS X
7 18 (1.21%) Windows Server
8 10 (0.67%) Kali Linux
9 8 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 6 (0.40%) CentOS
11 3 (0.20%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.20%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.13%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.13%) VMS
13 1 (0.067%) FreeRTOS
13 1 (0.067%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.067%) Windows Embedded Compact
13 1 (0.067%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 734 (49.43%) Agile
2 727 (48.96%) CI/CD
3 562 (37.85%) DevOps
4 393 (26.46%) Problem-Solving
5 235 (15.82%) Microservices
6 219 (14.75%) Containerisation
7 217 (14.61%) Scrum
8 215 (14.48%) Test Strategy
9 212 (14.28%) Continuous Improvement
10 199 (13.40%) TDD
11 187 (12.59%) Test Scripting
12 184 (12.39%) Software Engineering
13 181 (12.19%) Infrastructure as Code
14 159 (10.71%) Software Testing
15 155 (10.44%) AI
16 154 (10.37%) Validation
17 147 (9.90%) BDD
17 147 (9.90%) SDLC
18 139 (9.36%) Analytics
19 131 (8.82%) API Testing
Programming Languages
1 448 (30.17%) Python
2 346 (23.30%) Java
3 300 (20.20%) SQL
4 209 (14.07%) JavaScript
5 173 (11.65%) TypeScript
6 145 (9.76%) C#
7 83 (5.59%) Bash
8 62 (4.18%) PowerShell
9 35 (2.36%) C++
10 33 (2.22%) Go
11 24 (1.62%) Kotlin
12 22 (1.48%) Bicep
13 20 (1.35%) PL/SQL
14 14 (0.94%) PHP
15 12 (0.81%) Perl
16 11 (0.74%) Apex Code
16 11 (0.74%) Groovy
16 11 (0.74%) Ruby
16 11 (0.74%) Swift
17 8 (0.54%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 386 (25.99%) Security Cleared
2 297 (20.00%) SC Cleared
3 91 (6.13%) Degree
4 59 (3.97%) ISTQB
5 49 (3.30%) Computer Science Degree
6 47 (3.16%) DV Cleared
7 43 (2.90%) BPSS Clearance
8 22 (1.48%) Master's Degree
9 19 (1.28%) AWS Certification
10 18 (1.21%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 18 (1.21%) OSCP
11 15 (1.01%) Azure Certification
11 15 (1.01%) CISSP
12 14 (0.94%) Cisco Certification
12 14 (0.94%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 14 (0.94%) MCP
13 13 (0.88%) CEH
14 12 (0.81%) GPEN
15 11 (0.74%) Oracle Certification
16 10 (0.67%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 333 (22.42%) QA
2 109 (7.34%) Accessibility
3 65 (4.38%) Data Quality
4 33 (2.22%) GDPR
4 33 (2.22%) NIST
4 33 (2.22%) WCAG
5 18 (1.21%) EU AI Act
5 18 (1.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 18 (1.21%) NCSC
6 14 (0.94%) PSD2
7 11 (0.74%) ISO 20022
7 11 (0.74%) PCI DSS
8 9 (0.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 9 (0.61%) SEPA
9 8 (0.54%) SLA
10 6 (0.40%) NIST 800
11 5 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
11 5 (0.34%) MiFID
11 5 (0.34%) PERC
12 4 (0.27%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 316 (21.28%) Docker
2 29 (1.95%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.40%) Firmware
4 5 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.20%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
5 3 (0.20%) ISA Server
5 3 (0.20%) QEMU
5 3 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
5 3 (0.20%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.20%) zsh
6 1 (0.067%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.067%) KVM
6 1 (0.067%) Squid
6 1 (0.067%) Time Sharing Option
6 1 (0.067%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.067%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 281 (18.92%) Kubernetes
2 179 (12.05%) Terraform
3 113 (7.61%) Ansible
4 72 (4.85%) Grafana
5 45 (3.03%) Prometheus
6 16 (1.08%) Nmap
7 15 (1.01%) Progress Chef
8 14 (0.94%) CSIRT
9 13 (0.88%) NetBackup
10 12 (0.81%) Puppet
11 11 (0.74%) HP ALM
11 11 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
12 10 (0.67%) Argo
13 7 (0.47%) Kibana
13 7 (0.47%) Nessus
14 6 (0.40%) Podman
15 4 (0.27%) Forefront Identity Manager
15 4 (0.27%) NetIQ Identity Manager
15 4 (0.27%) Rancher
15 4 (0.27%) SCCM
Vendors
1 153 (10.30%) Microsoft
2 150 (10.10%) Oracle
3 63 (4.24%) Splunk
4 58 (3.91%) Databricks
5 54 (3.64%) ServiceNow
6 48 (3.23%) Salesforce
7 44 (2.96%) SAP
8 39 (2.63%) Google
9 28 (1.89%) Denodo
9 28 (1.89%) Talend
10 23 (1.55%) VMware
11 22 (1.48%) Cisco
11 22 (1.48%) F5
12 21 (1.41%) Red Hat
13 19 (1.28%) webMethods
14 17 (1.14%) IBM
14 17 (1.14%) MuleSoft
15 15 (1.01%) Atlassian
16 14 (0.94%) Dynatrace
16 14 (0.94%) Workday