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 2 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 51 46
Rank change year-on-year +6 -5 +8
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,104 1,301 1,356
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.52% 4.65% 4.17%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.34% 5.11% 4.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,337 888 921
10th Percentile £320 £313 £350
25th Percentile £406 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -1.96% -7.27%
75th Percentile £581 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -5.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 98 35 15
10th Percentile £40.00 £41.28 £44.50
25th Percentile £55.00 £48.13 £50.63
Median hourly rate £69.25 £57.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.43% -4.17% -20.00%
75th Percentile £74.00 £67.00 £79.75
90th Percentile £77.00 £71.80 £85.00
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £55.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year +27.27% -4.35% -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 39,430 25,460 28,039
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.71% 90.97% 86.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,919 16,157 17,165
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £512 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.64% -2.57% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £645
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 2,918 1,560 1,201
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.42 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.60 £17.87 £20.25
Median hourly rate £40.08 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.36% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.00 £67.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.28 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +53.96% -40.82% -

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 2 October 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 2 October 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 2 October 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 +8 953 £500 - 1,603
North of England 0 428 £453 -4.63% 508
Midlands +10 264 £450 -2.70% 253
West Midlands +24 249 £450 -13.34% 167
South East -15 224 £449 -5.53% 465
Yorkshire -4 178 £469 -6.25% 162
North West -13 155 £492 +16.23% 274
South West -4 116 £475 -12.84% 316
North East +6 102 £425 -11.69% 72
East of England +13 94 £375 -7.69% 225
East Midlands -45 15 £418 +15.97% 85
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
1 178 (8.46%) Confluence
2 61 (2.90%) Apache Airflow
3 43 (2.04%) Apache Spark
4 40 (1.90%) SharePoint
5 34 (1.62%) Apache
6 24 (1.14%) SAS
7 16 (0.76%) CMS
8 13 (0.62%) Camunda
9 9 (0.43%) WebLogic
10 7 (0.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (0.29%) Jupyter
11 6 (0.29%) Microsoft Exchange
12 5 (0.24%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.19%) Palantir Foundry
14 3 (0.14%) Kentico
14 3 (0.14%) nginx
15 2 (0.095%) Anypoint
15 2 (0.095%) Mule
15 2 (0.095%) Oracle Workflow
15 2 (0.095%) Tomcat
Applications
1 20 (0.95%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (0.81%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.29%) Chatbot
3 6 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.19%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.14%) Mingle
5 3 (0.14%) Trello
6 2 (0.095%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.048%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.048%) Simulink
7 1 (0.048%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 29 (1.38%) Dynamics CRM
2 19 (0.90%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (0.62%) Payment Gateway
4 10 (0.48%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.29%) SAP ERP
7 5 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
7 5 (0.24%) SAP GRC
8 4 (0.19%) SAP MDG
9 2 (0.095%) BambooHR
9 2 (0.095%) Findur
9 2 (0.095%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.095%) Shopify
10 1 (0.048%) FLEXCUBE
10 1 (0.048%) Maximo
10 1 (0.048%) Misys Equation
10 1 (0.048%) Misys Midas
10 1 (0.048%) SAP QM
10 1 (0.048%) Summit
10 1 (0.048%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 665 (31.61%) AWS
2 634 (30.13%) Azure
3 359 (17.06%) GitHub
4 292 (13.88%) Azure DevOps
5 214 (10.17%) GitHub Actions
6 173 (8.22%) GCP
7 167 (7.94%) Serverless
8 123 (5.85%) AWS Lambda
9 106 (5.04%) Power Platform
10 103 (4.90%) Amazon S3
11 85 (4.04%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 71 (3.37%) OpenShift
13 69 (3.28%) GitHub Copilot
14 67 (3.18%) Amazon ECS
15 66 (3.14%) Amazon EKS
16 57 (2.71%) dbt
17 52 (2.47%) Snowflake
18 50 (2.38%) AWS CloudFormation
19 48 (2.28%) Amazon EC2
20 43 (2.04%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 25 (1.19%) DNS
2 24 (1.14%) 4G
3 23 (1.09%) Firewall
4 22 (1.05%) HTTP
4 22 (1.05%) TCP/IP
5 21 (1.00%) 5G
5 21 (1.00%) Wi-Fi
6 20 (0.95%) Broadband
7 17 (0.81%) Network Security
8 14 (0.67%) 2G
8 14 (0.67%) 3G
8 14 (0.67%) Diameter Protocol
8 14 (0.67%) SIGTRAN
8 14 (0.67%) SS7
9 13 (0.62%) BGP
9 13 (0.62%) WAN
10 12 (0.57%) Ethernet VPN
10 12 (0.57%) LAN
10 12 (0.57%) VXLAN
11 11 (0.52%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 123 (5.85%) PostgreSQL
2 112 (5.32%) Data Warehouse
3 97 (4.61%) NoSQL
4 96 (4.56%) MongoDB
5 89 (4.23%) Relational Database
6 86 (4.09%) SQL Server
7 84 (3.99%) Power BI
8 41 (1.95%) Data Lake
8 41 (1.95%) Metadata
9 38 (1.81%) DynamoDB
10 35 (1.66%) Oracle Reports
11 33 (1.57%) Big Data
12 32 (1.52%) MySQL
13 30 (1.43%) Amazon RDS
14 29 (1.38%) Amazon Redshift
14 29 (1.38%) Pentaho
15 28 (1.33%) Amazon Athena
15 28 (1.33%) Redis
16 27 (1.28%) Oracle Database
17 20 (0.95%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 472 (22.43%) Git
2 350 (16.63%) JIRA
3 333 (15.83%) Jenkins
4 302 (14.35%) GitLab
5 277 (13.17%) Selenium
6 167 (7.94%) Cucumber
7 145 (6.89%) Postman
8 133 (6.32%) JUnit
9 100 (4.75%) Cypress.io
10 99 (4.71%) REST Assured
11 85 (4.04%) JMeter
12 84 (3.99%) SonarQube
13 67 (3.18%) Gatling
14 64 (3.04%) Zephyr
15 57 (2.71%) Maven
16 52 (2.47%) Gradle
17 48 (2.28%) Mockito
18 42 (2.00%) WebDriver
19 36 (1.71%) Bitbucket
20 28 (1.33%) TestNG
General
1 593 (28.18%) Social Skills
2 412 (19.58%) Finance
3 317 (15.07%) Analytical Skills
4 255 (12.12%) Public Sector
5 203 (9.65%) Banking
6 68 (3.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 56 (2.66%) Telecoms
8 35 (1.66%) Retail
9 33 (1.57%) Front Office
10 31 (1.47%) Investment Banking
10 31 (1.47%) Military
11 27 (1.28%) Influencing Skills
12 25 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
13 22 (1.05%) Financial Institution
14 20 (0.95%) Manufacturing
15 19 (0.90%) Aerospace
15 19 (0.90%) Marketing
16 18 (0.86%) Law
17 15 (0.71%) Back Office
18 14 (0.67%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 448 (21.29%) Developer
2 335 (15.92%) Senior
3 210 (9.98%) Lead
4 206 (9.79%) Test Engineer
5 146 (6.94%) Tester
6 141 (6.70%) Data Engineer
7 135 (6.42%) Java Developer
8 120 (5.70%) Software Engineer
9 106 (5.04%) Analyst
10 99 (4.71%) Architect
11 95 (4.52%) QA Engineer
12 91 (4.33%) Senior Developer
13 90 (4.28%) Test Automation Engineer
14 89 (4.23%) DevOps Engineer
15 74 (3.52%) Automation Engineer
15 74 (3.52%) Full-Stack Developer
16 69 (3.28%) Java Engineer
16 69 (3.28%) Test Leader
17 67 (3.18%) Test Analyst
18 62 (2.95%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 338 (16.06%) REST
2 321 (15.26%) Terraform
3 237 (11.26%) Playwright
4 231 (10.98%) Kafka
5 221 (10.50%) RESTful
6 207 (9.84%) Spring
7 192 (9.13%) React
8 172 (8.17%) Spring Boot
9 151 (7.18%) .NET
10 137 (6.51%) HTML
11 114 (5.42%) CSS
12 109 (5.18%) Node.js
13 93 (4.42%) AngularJS
14 86 (4.09%) OAuth
15 66 (3.14%) JSON
16 59 (2.80%) Middleware
17 58 (2.76%) SOAP
18 55 (2.61%) Web Services
19 54 (2.57%) OpenID
20 53 (2.52%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 343 (16.30%) Cloud Native
2 174 (8.27%) Product Ownership
3 155 (7.37%) Distributed Systems
4 91 (4.33%) Enterprise Software
5 76 (3.61%) Onboarding
6 69 (3.28%) AI Agents
7 48 (2.28%) Legacy Systems
7 48 (2.28%) Self-Motivation
8 45 (2.14%) Data Protection Act
8 45 (2.14%) Mobile App
9 32 (1.52%) Security Posture
10 31 (1.47%) Data Structures
11 27 (1.28%) Virtual Team
12 23 (1.09%) Management Information System
13 21 (1.00%) Embedded Systems
14 20 (0.95%) Data Centre
15 18 (0.86%) Private Cloud
16 17 (0.81%) Distributed Architecture
17 16 (0.76%) Fixed Income
17 16 (0.76%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 149 (7.08%) Linux
2 98 (4.66%) Windows
3 80 (3.80%) Unix
4 45 (2.14%) Apple iOS
5 40 (1.90%) Android
6 30 (1.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 22 (1.05%) Windows Server
8 8 (0.38%) VMS
9 6 (0.29%) Mac OS X
9 6 (0.29%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.29%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.24%) Windows 7
10 5 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
11 3 (0.14%) AIX
11 3 (0.14%) CentOS
11 3 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
11 3 (0.14%) Solaris
11 3 (0.14%) zOS
12 2 (0.095%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.095%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,296 (61.60%) CI/CD
2 1,024 (48.67%) Agile
3 788 (37.45%) DevOps
4 428 (20.34%) Microservices
5 427 (20.29%) Continuous Improvement
6 424 (20.15%) Problem-Solving
7 415 (19.72%) Software Engineering
8 370 (17.59%) Infrastructure as Code
9 369 (17.54%) AI
9 369 (17.54%) Validation
10 366 (17.40%) Scrum
11 323 (15.35%) Test Strategy
12 312 (14.83%) Containerisation
13 284 (13.50%) Observability
14 273 (12.98%) Software Testing
14 273 (12.98%) TDD
15 270 (12.83%) SDLC
16 253 (12.02%) Stakeholder Management
17 233 (11.07%) End-to-End Testing
18 214 (10.17%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 594 (28.23%) Python
2 586 (27.85%) Java
3 540 (25.67%) SQL
4 326 (15.49%) JavaScript
5 244 (11.60%) TypeScript
6 177 (8.41%) C#
7 89 (4.23%) PowerShell
8 78 (3.71%) Bash
9 50 (2.38%) Bicep
10 49 (2.33%) Kotlin
11 38 (1.81%) Go
12 37 (1.76%) C++
12 37 (1.76%) Scala
13 24 (1.14%) Shell Script
14 23 (1.09%) PL/SQL
15 18 (0.86%) C
15 18 (0.86%) Swift
16 17 (0.81%) Apex Code
17 16 (0.76%) Groovy
18 11 (0.52%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 664 (31.56%) Security Cleared
2 552 (26.24%) SC Cleared
3 122 (5.80%) Degree
4 93 (4.42%) ISTQB
5 85 (4.04%) BPSS Clearance
6 82 (3.90%) DV Cleared
7 68 (3.23%) Computer Science Degree
8 46 (2.19%) AWS Certification
9 25 (1.19%) Azure Certification
10 24 (1.14%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 14 (0.67%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 14 (0.67%) CISSP
11 14 (0.67%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 14 (0.67%) Master's Degree
12 13 (0.62%) ISEB
13 12 (0.57%) Cisco Certification
13 12 (0.57%) Microsoft Certification
14 9 (0.43%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
15 8 (0.38%) SAFe Agilist
16 7 (0.33%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 580 (27.57%) QA
2 178 (8.46%) Accessibility
3 143 (6.80%) Data Quality
4 94 (4.47%) WCAG
5 38 (1.81%) GDPR
6 19 (0.90%) ISO 20022
7 17 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 16 (0.76%) NIST
9 13 (0.62%) SLA
10 12 (0.57%) GRC
10 12 (0.57%) NCSC
11 8 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
12 7 (0.33%) SOC 2
13 6 (0.29%) PCI DSS
13 6 (0.29%) Software Quality Assurance
14 5 (0.24%) FATCA
14 5 (0.24%) HL7
15 4 (0.19%) HIPAA
15 4 (0.19%) SEPA
16 3 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 428 (20.34%) Docker
2 39 (1.85%) Active Directory
3 29 (1.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.48%) Firmware
6 8 (0.38%) VMware NSX
7 3 (0.14%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.095%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.048%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.048%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.048%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 420 (19.96%) Kubernetes
2 124 (5.89%) Ansible
3 119 (5.66%) Grafana
4 86 (4.09%) Prometheus
5 35 (1.66%) Argo
6 26 (1.24%) Kibana
7 23 (1.09%) Puppet
8 22 (1.05%) Progress Chef
9 14 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
10 11 (0.52%) Control-M
11 10 (0.48%) HP ALM
12 8 (0.38%) Microsoft Intune
13 7 (0.33%) Kustomize
14 6 (0.29%) HP Fortify
14 6 (0.29%) SCCM
15 5 (0.24%) Dell DRAC
15 5 (0.24%) Istio
15 5 (0.24%) Packer
16 4 (0.19%) Rancher
16 4 (0.19%) WMI
Vendors
1 218 (10.36%) Microsoft
2 149 (7.08%) Oracle
3 94 (4.47%) Databricks
4 77 (3.66%) Google
5 58 (2.76%) IBM
6 57 (2.71%) Salesforce
7 54 (2.57%) ServiceNow
8 50 (2.38%) Red Hat
8 50 (2.38%) Splunk
9 45 (2.14%) Talend
10 43 (2.04%) SAP
11 40 (1.90%) Dynatrace
12 38 (1.81%) Informatica
13 37 (1.76%) VMware
14 36 (1.71%) Denodo
15 33 (1.57%) Cisco
16 31 (1.47%) UiPath
17 18 (0.86%) Foundry
17 18 (0.86%) OpenAI
18 16 (0.76%) HP