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 5 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 46 58
Rank change year-on-year -2 +12 -11
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,699 1,127 1,266
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.39% 4.63% 3.37%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.10% 5.09% 3.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,132 777 847
10th Percentile £332 £337 £363
25th Percentile £402 £400 £433
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% -4.76% -6.25%
75th Percentile £575 £638 £639
90th Percentile £686 £725 £733
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -5.00% -2.44% -6.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 72 9 53
10th Percentile £34.35 £41.66 £39.00
25th Percentile £54.89 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.50 £56.75 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.42% +3.18% -12.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.50 £82.50
90th Percentile - £75.84 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.50 £53.38 £55.00
% change year-on-year +22.72% -2.95% -12.00%

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 33,286 22,141 32,539
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.92% 90.87% 86.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,341 14,591 21,484
10th Percentile £313 £311 £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 £614 £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 2,040 863 2,161
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.99 £12.92
25th Percentile £19.45 £19.00 £15.89
Median hourly rate £37.50 £32.50 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +15.38% -1.71% -11.83%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £58.70
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.10 £70.66
UK median hourly rate £35.71 £31.52 £33.00
% change year-on-year +13.29% -4.48% -11.53%

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 5 April 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 5 April 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 5 April 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 0 831 £500 - 183
North of England +3 331 £475 +5.56% 162
Midlands +6 199 £472 -1.15% 83
South East -25 180 £500 -3.29% 145
West Midlands +17 171 £475 -6.40% 57
North West +6 144 £464 +3.06% 82
Yorkshire -5 142 £500 +3.90% 41
South West +1 83 £475 -9.52% 72
East of England 0 56 £620 +26.53% 65
North East +7 48 £425 +8.97% 39
East Midlands -27 28 £400 -0.93% 26
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
1 109 (6.42%) Confluence
2 66 (3.88%) SAS
3 25 (1.47%) Apache Spark
4 21 (1.24%) Apache Airflow
5 14 (0.82%) SharePoint
6 9 (0.53%) Apache
7 8 (0.47%) Appian
8 6 (0.35%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 6 (0.35%) Camunda
8 6 (0.35%) WebLogic
9 5 (0.29%) CMS
9 5 (0.29%) nginx
10 4 (0.24%) Tomcat
11 3 (0.18%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 2 (0.12%) Magnolia
12 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
12 2 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 27 (1.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.65%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.65%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.41%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.18%) Simulink
7 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.059%) Mingle
8 1 (0.059%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 22 (1.29%) Aladdin
2 7 (0.41%) Findur
3 6 (0.35%) Loan IQ
3 6 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
3 6 (0.35%) Shopify
4 5 (0.29%) Maximo
5 4 (0.24%) BambooHR
5 4 (0.24%) Dynamics CRM
5 4 (0.24%) SAP HR
5 4 (0.24%) Workday HCM
6 3 (0.18%) Distributed Ledger
7 2 (0.12%) iTrent
7 2 (0.12%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
7 2 (0.12%) Summit
8 1 (0.059%) Algo Collateral
8 1 (0.059%) Oracle General Ledger
8 1 (0.059%) PORTIA
8 1 (0.059%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 458 (26.96%) Azure
2 412 (24.25%) AWS
3 280 (16.48%) GitHub
4 210 (12.36%) Azure DevOps
5 154 (9.06%) GitHub Actions
6 141 (8.30%) GCP
7 112 (6.59%) Serverless
8 77 (4.53%) OpenShift
9 58 (3.41%) AWS Lambda
10 54 (3.18%) Power Platform
11 53 (3.12%) Amazon S3
12 38 (2.24%) Azure AKS
13 35 (2.06%) Snowflake
14 33 (1.94%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 33 (1.94%) Amazon ECS
14 33 (1.94%) Azure Data Factory
15 32 (1.88%) AWS CloudFormation
16 27 (1.59%) Azure Monitor
16 27 (1.59%) SaaS
17 26 (1.53%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.35%) Firewall
2 15 (0.88%) HTTP
3 13 (0.77%) TCP/IP
4 11 (0.65%) VPN
5 10 (0.59%) Network Security
5 10 (0.59%) SSL
5 10 (0.59%) Wireshark
6 9 (0.53%) Ethernet
6 9 (0.53%) FTP
6 9 (0.53%) SAN
7 8 (0.47%) MPLS
7 8 (0.47%) Multicast
7 8 (0.47%) SD-WAN
7 8 (0.47%) WAN
8 7 (0.41%) HTTPS
9 6 (0.35%) 5G
9 6 (0.35%) DNS
10 5 (0.29%) AMQP
10 5 (0.29%) Cisco IPT
10 5 (0.29%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 94 (5.53%) PostgreSQL
2 73 (4.30%) SQL Server
3 70 (4.12%) NoSQL
4 59 (3.47%) MongoDB
5 52 (3.06%) Relational Database
6 50 (2.94%) Data Warehouse
7 35 (2.06%) DynamoDB
8 32 (1.88%) Pentaho
9 29 (1.71%) Power BI
10 26 (1.53%) BigQuery
11 24 (1.41%) Oracle Database
11 24 (1.41%) Tableau
12 23 (1.35%) MySQL
13 21 (1.24%) Redis
14 19 (1.12%) Oracle Reports
15 17 (1.00%) Amazon RDS
16 15 (0.88%) Metadata
17 14 (0.82%) SAS Enterprise Guide
18 13 (0.77%) Amazon Athena
18 13 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 334 (19.66%) Git
2 320 (18.83%) JIRA
3 300 (17.66%) Jenkins
4 253 (14.89%) Selenium
5 234 (13.77%) GitLab
6 136 (8.00%) Cucumber
7 135 (7.95%) Postman
8 110 (6.47%) JUnit
9 91 (5.36%) Cypress.io
10 86 (5.06%) REST Assured
11 75 (4.41%) JMeter
12 42 (2.47%) SonarQube
12 42 (2.47%) WebDriver
13 37 (2.18%) Maven
14 35 (2.06%) Zephyr
15 34 (2.00%) SpecFlow
16 32 (1.88%) Gradle
17 30 (1.77%) TestRail
18 29 (1.71%) Mockito
19 27 (1.59%) Bitbucket
General
1 474 (27.90%) Social Skills
2 304 (17.89%) Finance
3 238 (14.01%) Public Sector
4 180 (10.59%) Analytical Skills
5 148 (8.71%) Banking
6 35 (2.06%) Documentation Skills
7 30 (1.77%) Front Office
8 29 (1.71%) Investment Banking
9 26 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 24 (1.41%) Telecoms
11 21 (1.24%) Presentation Skills
12 19 (1.12%) Organisational Skills
13 17 (1.00%) Legal
14 16 (0.94%) Financial Institution
14 16 (0.94%) Influencing Skills
15 15 (0.88%) Aerospace
16 14 (0.82%) Pharmaceutical
17 11 (0.65%) Military
18 10 (0.59%) Back Office
18 10 (0.59%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 352 (20.72%) Developer
2 269 (15.83%) Senior
3 188 (11.07%) Lead
4 186 (10.95%) Tester
5 176 (10.36%) Test Engineer
6 94 (5.53%) Java Developer
7 92 (5.41%) Analyst
8 87 (5.12%) Data Engineer
9 85 (5.00%) Automation Tester
10 81 (4.77%) Test Automation Engineer
11 78 (4.59%) Software Engineer
12 72 (4.24%) QA Engineer
13 68 (4.00%) Test Leader
14 67 (3.94%) Senior Developer
15 63 (3.71%) Architect
15 63 (3.71%) DevOps Engineer
16 55 (3.24%) Test Analyst
17 52 (3.06%) Automation Engineer
17 52 (3.06%) Test Manager
18 45 (2.65%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 220 (12.95%) REST
2 189 (11.12%) Playwright
3 147 (8.65%) React
4 136 (8.00%) Spring
5 127 (7.47%) RESTful
6 117 (6.89%) Kafka
7 114 (6.71%) .NET
8 113 (6.65%) Node.js
9 107 (6.30%) Spring Boot
10 79 (4.65%) pytest
11 70 (4.12%) AngularJS
12 51 (3.00%) OAuth
13 49 (2.88%) HTML
13 49 (2.88%) Jest
14 45 (2.65%) CSS
15 38 (2.24%) Web Services
16 35 (2.06%) JSON
17 34 (2.00%) GraphQL
17 34 (2.00%) WireMock
18 33 (1.94%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 177 (10.42%) Cloud Native
2 110 (6.47%) Product Ownership
3 89 (5.24%) Distributed Systems
4 48 (2.83%) Mobile App
5 38 (2.24%) Data Protection Act
5 38 (2.24%) Legacy Systems
6 35 (2.06%) Algorithms
7 31 (1.82%) Self-Motivation
8 30 (1.77%) Virtual Team
9 29 (1.71%) Onboarding
10 28 (1.65%) Security Posture
11 26 (1.53%) Enterprise Software
12 22 (1.29%) Data Structures
12 22 (1.29%) Management Information System
13 21 (1.24%) Equities
14 19 (1.12%) Distributed Architecture
14 19 (1.12%) NHS
15 18 (1.06%) Greenfield Project
16 17 (1.00%) Fixed Income
17 15 (0.88%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 129 (7.59%) Linux
2 83 (4.89%) Windows
3 47 (2.77%) Android
4 39 (2.30%) Apple iOS
5 34 (2.00%) Unix
6 19 (1.12%) Windows Server
7 15 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.77%) Mac OS X
9 7 (0.41%) Kali Linux
9 7 (0.41%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.29%) Solaris
11 4 (0.24%) CentOS
11 4 (0.24%) Windows Server 2008
12 3 (0.18%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.059%) FreeRTOS
13 1 (0.059%) Robot Operating System
13 1 (0.059%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.059%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 880 (51.80%) CI/CD
2 797 (46.91%) Agile
3 625 (36.79%) DevOps
4 400 (23.54%) Problem-Solving
5 274 (16.13%) Continuous Improvement
6 268 (15.77%) Microservices
7 256 (15.07%) Test Strategy
8 239 (14.07%) Scrum
9 236 (13.89%) Containerisation
10 222 (13.07%) Validation
11 211 (12.42%) AI
12 209 (12.30%) Infrastructure as Code
13 205 (12.07%) Software Engineering
13 205 (12.07%) Test Scripting
14 196 (11.54%) Observability
15 195 (11.48%) Analytics
15 195 (11.48%) TDD
16 176 (10.36%) Regression Testing
16 176 (10.36%) Software Testing
17 175 (10.30%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 500 (29.43%) Python
2 418 (24.60%) Java
3 379 (22.31%) SQL
4 233 (13.71%) JavaScript
5 226 (13.30%) TypeScript
6 170 (10.01%) C#
7 73 (4.30%) PowerShell
8 60 (3.53%) Bash
9 46 (2.71%) C++
10 32 (1.88%) C
11 29 (1.71%) Kotlin
12 25 (1.47%) Apex Code
13 24 (1.41%) Bicep
13 24 (1.41%) Go
14 23 (1.35%) PL/SQL
15 19 (1.12%) Ruby
16 18 (1.06%) Scala
16 18 (1.06%) Swift
17 14 (0.82%) Groovy
18 12 (0.71%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 522 (30.72%) Security Cleared
2 401 (23.60%) SC Cleared
3 87 (5.12%) Degree
4 85 (5.00%) ISTQB
5 61 (3.59%) BPSS Clearance
6 60 (3.53%) DV Cleared
7 51 (3.00%) Computer Science Degree
8 25 (1.47%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 22 (1.29%) Master's Degree
10 15 (0.88%) Cisco Certification
11 12 (0.71%) Azure Certification
12 10 (0.59%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 10 (0.59%) OSCP
13 9 (0.53%) AWS Certification
13 9 (0.53%) CCNP
13 9 (0.53%) Microsoft Certification
14 8 (0.47%) CEH
14 8 (0.47%) CISSP
14 8 (0.47%) ISEB
15 7 (0.41%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 381 (22.42%) QA
2 100 (5.89%) Accessibility
2 100 (5.89%) Data Quality
3 42 (2.47%) WCAG
4 34 (2.00%) GDPR
5 16 (0.94%) NIST
6 15 (0.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 14 (0.82%) NCSC
8 12 (0.71%) ISO 20022
9 10 (0.59%) Def Stans
9 10 (0.59%) SLA
10 9 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 8 (0.47%) PSD2
12 7 (0.41%) SEPA
13 6 (0.35%) SOC 2
14 5 (0.29%) EU AI Act
14 5 (0.29%) HL7
14 5 (0.29%) MiFID
14 5 (0.29%) PCI DSS
14 5 (0.29%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 334 (19.66%) Docker
2 25 (1.47%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.65%) Firmware
4 10 (0.59%) VMware Infrastructure
5 7 (0.41%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
5 7 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
9 3 (0.18%) ISA Server
10 2 (0.12%) SRDF
11 1 (0.059%) Embedded Firmware
11 1 (0.059%) KVM
11 1 (0.059%) Squid
11 1 (0.059%) Time Sharing Option
11 1 (0.059%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.059%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 331 (19.48%) Kubernetes
2 197 (11.60%) Terraform
3 98 (5.77%) Grafana
4 80 (4.71%) Ansible
5 78 (4.59%) Prometheus
6 26 (1.53%) Argo
7 19 (1.12%) HP ALM
8 18 (1.06%) Puppet
9 13 (0.77%) Progress Chef
9 13 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
10 10 (0.59%) Forefront Identity Manager
10 10 (0.59%) HP Quality Center
10 10 (0.59%) NetIQ Identity Manager
10 10 (0.59%) Nmap
11 9 (0.53%) NetBackup
12 6 (0.35%) Kibana
12 6 (0.35%) Rancher
13 5 (0.29%) Dell DRAC
13 5 (0.29%) Podman
14 4 (0.24%) Istio
Vendors
1 153 (9.01%) Oracle
2 144 (8.48%) Microsoft
3 63 (3.71%) Databricks
4 61 (3.59%) Salesforce
5 54 (3.18%) Splunk
6 52 (3.06%) Google
6 52 (3.06%) ServiceNow
7 46 (2.71%) Red Hat
8 40 (2.35%) SAP
9 38 (2.24%) Talend
10 32 (1.88%) Denodo
11 23 (1.35%) IBM
11 23 (1.35%) VMware
12 22 (1.29%) HP
13 18 (1.06%) Dynatrace
14 17 (1.00%) Cisco
15 16 (0.94%) MuleSoft
15 16 (0.94%) Workday
16 14 (0.82%) OpenAI
17 13 (0.77%) Informatica