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

6 months to
1 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 52 51
Rank change year-on-year +6 -1 +3
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,935 1,217 1,307
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.25% 4.41% 3.87%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.98% 4.86% 4.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,237 837 888
10th Percentile £325 £313 £363
25th Percentile £406 £380 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £488 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% -7.14% -2.33%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £626
90th Percentile £663 £719 £738
UK median daily rate £475 £488 £513
% change year-on-year -2.56% -4.88% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 104 31 26
10th Percentile £40.00 £40.84 £45.00
25th Percentile £60.25 £44.76 £51.25
Median hourly rate £67.50 £50.00 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +35.00% -13.04% -11.88%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £71.88
90th Percentile £74.00 £75.00 £81.25
UK median hourly rate £67.50 £50.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year +35.00% -13.04% -12.21%

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 38,823 25,045 28,976
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.31% 90.74% 85.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,257 16,045 18,963
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £523 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.60% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,475 1,380 1,752
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.87 £17.80
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £42.03
Median % change year-on-year +78.93% -40.16% -1.11%
75th Percentile £68.75 £51.65 £65.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £70.16 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%

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 August 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 August 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 August 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 +3 870 £500 -1.96% 439
North of England +15 386 £464 +3.06% 146
Midlands +11 267 £450 +9.76% 75
West Midlands +34 249 £450 -2.17% 50
South East -30 207 £459 -8.20% 168
Yorkshire +9 157 £496 +4.47% 43
North West -9 139 £489 +15.82% 81
South West +2 111 £463 +8.82% 107
North East +13 98 £425 +6.25% 23
East of England +14 79 £450 - 56
East Midlands -40 18 £425 +30.37% 25
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
1 173 (8.94%) Confluence
2 47 (2.43%) Apache Airflow
3 43 (2.22%) Apache Spark
4 42 (2.17%) SAS
5 27 (1.40%) SharePoint
6 21 (1.09%) Apache
7 13 (0.67%) CMS
8 11 (0.57%) WebLogic
9 6 (0.31%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.26%) Camunda
10 5 (0.26%) nginx
10 5 (0.26%) Tomcat
11 4 (0.21%) Jupyter
11 4 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
12 3 (0.16%) Appian
12 3 (0.16%) Kentico
13 2 (0.10%) Anypoint
13 2 (0.10%) Apache Pulsar
13 2 (0.10%) Mule
13 2 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 21 (1.09%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.72%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.41%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.21%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.21%) Simulink
6 4 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.16%) Trello
8 1 (0.052%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 26 (1.34%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.78%) Aladdin
3 12 (0.62%) Payment Gateway
4 11 (0.57%) SAP S/4HANA
5 8 (0.41%) Findur
5 8 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.31%) SAP ERP
6 6 (0.31%) Shopify
7 5 (0.26%) BambooHR
8 3 (0.16%) Distributed Ledger
9 2 (0.10%) Infor CloudSuite
9 2 (0.10%) Infor LN
9 2 (0.10%) Infor M3
9 2 (0.10%) Loan IQ
9 2 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.10%) SAP MDG
10 1 (0.052%) Maximo
10 1 (0.052%) Summit
10 1 (0.052%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 571 (29.51%) AWS
2 570 (29.46%) Azure
3 344 (17.78%) GitHub
4 257 (13.28%) Azure DevOps
5 217 (11.21%) GitHub Actions
6 148 (7.65%) Serverless
7 146 (7.55%) GCP
8 101 (5.22%) AWS Lambda
9 86 (4.44%) Power Platform
10 85 (4.39%) Amazon S3
11 65 (3.36%) OpenShift
12 64 (3.31%) Amazon ECS
13 61 (3.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 50 (2.58%) dbt
15 45 (2.33%) Amazon EKS
16 44 (2.27%) GitHub Copilot
17 43 (2.22%) Amazon EC2
17 43 (2.22%) Azure Data Factory
18 42 (2.17%) Snowflake
19 36 (1.86%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.14%) Firewall
2 16 (0.83%) Network Security
3 15 (0.78%) HTTP
4 13 (0.67%) 2G
4 13 (0.67%) 3G
4 13 (0.67%) 4G
4 13 (0.67%) Diameter Protocol
4 13 (0.67%) SAN
4 13 (0.67%) SIGTRAN
4 13 (0.67%) SS7
4 13 (0.67%) WAN
5 12 (0.62%) 5G
6 10 (0.52%) LAN
7 8 (0.41%) DNS
7 8 (0.41%) TCP/IP
7 8 (0.41%) Wi-Fi
8 7 (0.36%) VPN
9 6 (0.31%) BGP
9 6 (0.31%) HTTPS
9 6 (0.31%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (6.10%) PostgreSQL
2 111 (5.74%) Data Warehouse
3 96 (4.96%) NoSQL
4 92 (4.75%) MongoDB
5 81 (4.19%) SQL Server
6 71 (3.67%) Power BI
7 58 (3.00%) Relational Database
8 49 (2.53%) DynamoDB
9 38 (1.96%) Oracle Reports
10 36 (1.86%) Pentaho
11 30 (1.55%) Amazon Athena
11 30 (1.55%) Data Lake
12 28 (1.45%) Big Data
12 28 (1.45%) Metadata
13 25 (1.29%) Amazon RDS
13 25 (1.29%) MySQL
14 24 (1.24%) Amazon Redshift
14 24 (1.24%) Redis
15 19 (0.98%) Oracle Database
16 17 (0.88%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 374 (19.33%) Git
2 360 (18.60%) JIRA
3 317 (16.38%) Jenkins
4 259 (13.39%) GitLab
5 239 (12.35%) Selenium
6 137 (7.08%) Cucumber
7 132 (6.82%) Postman
8 103 (5.32%) JUnit
9 97 (5.01%) Cypress.io
10 91 (4.70%) REST Assured
11 78 (4.03%) JMeter
12 64 (3.31%) Zephyr
13 60 (3.10%) SonarQube
14 52 (2.69%) WebDriver
15 48 (2.48%) Gatling
16 42 (2.17%) Bitbucket
16 42 (2.17%) Gradle
17 35 (1.81%) Mockito
18 33 (1.71%) Maven
19 26 (1.34%) SpecFlow
General
1 525 (27.13%) Social Skills
2 372 (19.22%) Finance
3 261 (13.49%) Analytical Skills
4 248 (12.82%) Public Sector
5 165 (8.53%) Banking
6 59 (3.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 38 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
8 32 (1.65%) Retail
8 32 (1.65%) Telecoms
9 31 (1.60%) Influencing Skills
10 29 (1.50%) Investment Banking
11 27 (1.40%) Front Office
12 22 (1.14%) Financial Institution
12 22 (1.14%) Military
13 17 (0.88%) Aerospace
14 15 (0.78%) Legal
14 15 (0.78%) Organisational Skills
15 14 (0.72%) Back Office
16 13 (0.67%) Automotive
17 12 (0.62%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 394 (20.36%) Developer
2 314 (16.23%) Senior
3 204 (10.54%) Lead
4 191 (9.87%) Test Engineer
5 174 (8.99%) Tester
6 138 (7.13%) Data Engineer
7 126 (6.51%) Java Developer
8 112 (5.79%) Software Engineer
9 101 (5.22%) Analyst
10 90 (4.65%) DevOps Engineer
10 90 (4.65%) Senior Developer
11 85 (4.39%) Architect
12 84 (4.34%) QA Engineer
12 84 (4.34%) Test Automation Engineer
13 68 (3.51%) Full-Stack Developer
14 67 (3.46%) Test Leader
15 63 (3.26%) Test Analyst
16 62 (3.20%) Automation Tester
17 58 (3.00%) Automation Engineer
18 51 (2.64%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 249 (12.87%) REST
2 215 (11.11%) Playwright
3 178 (9.20%) React
4 171 (8.84%) RESTful
5 161 (8.32%) Kafka
6 156 (8.06%) Spring
7 137 (7.08%) .NET
8 121 (6.25%) Spring Boot
9 109 (5.63%) Node.js
10 90 (4.65%) AngularJS
11 77 (3.98%) HTML
12 74 (3.82%) CSS
13 56 (2.89%) OAuth
14 47 (2.43%) Jest
14 47 (2.43%) pytest
15 45 (2.33%) JSON
15 45 (2.33%) Quarkus
16 44 (2.27%) .NET Framework
16 44 (2.27%) Gherkin
17 41 (2.12%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 281 (14.52%) Cloud Native
2 144 (7.44%) Distributed Systems
3 140 (7.24%) Product Ownership
4 65 (3.36%) Enterprise Software
5 53 (2.74%) Legacy Systems
6 50 (2.58%) Data Protection Act
7 47 (2.43%) Onboarding
8 46 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
9 38 (1.96%) Mobile App
10 32 (1.65%) Virtual Team
11 31 (1.60%) AI Agents
11 31 (1.60%) Distributed Architecture
12 27 (1.40%) Embedded Systems
13 26 (1.34%) Security Posture
14 22 (1.14%) Management Information System
15 20 (1.03%) Fixed Income
16 18 (0.93%) Algorithms
16 18 (0.93%) Data Structures
17 17 (0.88%) Greenfield Project
18 16 (0.83%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 120 (6.20%) Linux
2 78 (4.03%) Windows
3 63 (3.26%) Unix
4 39 (2.02%) Android
4 39 (2.02%) Apple iOS
5 25 (1.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 18 (0.93%) Windows Server
7 13 (0.67%) Mac OS X
8 7 (0.36%) Mac OS
8 7 (0.36%) Solaris
9 6 (0.31%) Embedded Linux
10 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.21%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.16%) AIX
12 3 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.10%) CentOS
14 1 (0.052%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,129 (58.35%) CI/CD
2 921 (47.60%) Agile
3 730 (37.73%) DevOps
4 373 (19.28%) Problem-Solving
5 372 (19.22%) Microservices
6 370 (19.12%) Continuous Improvement
7 332 (17.16%) Software Engineering
8 322 (16.64%) Scrum
9 307 (15.87%) Infrastructure as Code
10 297 (15.35%) Validation
11 290 (14.99%) Test Strategy
12 283 (14.63%) AI
13 257 (13.28%) Containerisation
14 254 (13.13%) TDD
15 253 (13.07%) Observability
16 217 (11.21%) ETL
17 214 (11.06%) SDLC
18 207 (10.70%) Data Pipeline
18 207 (10.70%) Software Testing
19 196 (10.13%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 496 (25.63%) Python
2 485 (25.06%) Java
3 465 (24.03%) SQL
4 240 (12.40%) JavaScript
5 208 (10.75%) TypeScript
6 177 (9.15%) C#
7 76 (3.93%) PowerShell
8 65 (3.36%) Bash
9 51 (2.64%) Kotlin
10 43 (2.22%) Bicep
11 39 (2.02%) C++
12 28 (1.45%) C
13 27 (1.40%) PL/SQL
14 26 (1.34%) Go
14 26 (1.34%) Scala
15 23 (1.19%) Apex Code
16 22 (1.14%) Swift
17 18 (0.93%) Ruby
18 16 (0.83%) Groovy
19 12 (0.62%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 603 (31.16%) Security Cleared
2 498 (25.74%) SC Cleared
3 88 (4.55%) Degree
4 86 (4.44%) ISTQB
5 58 (3.00%) BPSS Clearance
5 58 (3.00%) DV Cleared
6 41 (2.12%) Computer Science Degree
7 28 (1.45%) AWS Certification
8 23 (1.19%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 16 (0.83%) Azure Certification
10 15 (0.78%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 13 (0.67%) Cisco Certification
12 11 (0.57%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 11 (0.57%) SAFe Agilist
13 10 (0.52%) CCNP
13 10 (0.52%) Master's Degree
14 9 (0.47%) CISSP
14 9 (0.47%) Microsoft Certification
15 7 (0.36%) DBS Check
16 6 (0.31%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 488 (25.22%) QA
2 149 (7.70%) Accessibility
3 137 (7.08%) Data Quality
4 77 (3.98%) WCAG
5 37 (1.91%) GDPR
6 13 (0.67%) NCSC
7 11 (0.57%) NIST
8 10 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 10 (0.52%) SLA
9 9 (0.47%) ISO 20022
10 6 (0.31%) Software Quality Assurance
11 5 (0.26%) Def Stans
11 5 (0.26%) FATCA
11 5 (0.26%) PCI DSS
12 4 (0.21%) GRC
13 3 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
13 3 (0.16%) EU AI Act
13 3 (0.16%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 3 (0.16%) MiFID
13 3 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 362 (18.71%) Docker
2 27 (1.40%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (1.19%) Active Directory
4 16 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
5 12 (0.62%) Firmware
6 5 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.10%) SRDF
8 2 (0.10%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.052%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.052%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 379 (19.59%) Kubernetes
2 269 (13.90%) Terraform
3 103 (5.32%) Ansible
4 97 (5.01%) Grafana
5 85 (4.39%) Prometheus
6 42 (2.17%) Argo
7 20 (1.03%) Puppet
8 14 (0.72%) Progress Chef
9 13 (0.67%) HP ALM
10 12 (0.62%) Kibana
11 10 (0.52%) Dell DRAC
11 10 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
12 7 (0.36%) Kustomize
13 6 (0.31%) Istio
13 6 (0.31%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.26%) Forefront Identity Manager
14 5 (0.26%) HP Quality Center
14 5 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
14 5 (0.26%) NetIQ Identity Manager
15 4 (0.21%) Control-M
Vendors
1 187 (9.66%) Microsoft
2 155 (8.01%) Oracle
3 76 (3.93%) Salesforce
4 74 (3.82%) Databricks
5 61 (3.15%) Red Hat
6 57 (2.95%) Talend
7 56 (2.89%) Google
8 49 (2.53%) Splunk
9 39 (2.02%) Denodo
9 39 (2.02%) ServiceNow
10 33 (1.71%) Informatica
10 33 (1.71%) VMware
11 31 (1.60%) Dynatrace
11 31 (1.60%) IBM
12 28 (1.45%) SAP
13 26 (1.34%) UiPath
14 25 (1.29%) Cisco
15 20 (1.03%) HP
16 13 (0.67%) Fortinet
17 11 (0.57%) OpenAI