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

6 months to
10 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 44 56
Rank change year-on-year -2 +12 -10
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,630 1,141 1,324
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.50% 4.61% 3.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.20% 5.09% 4.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,109 784 905
10th Percentile £331 £332 £375
25th Percentile £400 £400 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% -4.76% -7.49%
75th Percentile £575 £638 £638
90th Percentile £680 £725 £719
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -5.00% -2.44% -6.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 7 60
10th Percentile £33.09 £38.81 £47.70
25th Percentile £50.63 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +14.54% -9.20% +4.17%
75th Percentile £69.38 £76.35 £84.38
90th Percentile £70.00 £81.31 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year +14.54% -9.20% +6.84%

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 31,340 22,420 33,107
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.60% 90.56% 86.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,068 14,466 21,877
10th Percentile £313 £308 £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 £615 £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 1,932 799 2,164
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.26 £13.02
25th Percentile £18.84 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £30.00 £34.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.04% +6.15% -8.84%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £58.53
90th Percentile £74.26 £77.25 £71.83
UK median hourly rate £29.61 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -8.89% - -7.14%

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 10 March 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 10 March 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 10 March 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 +2 794 £500 -4.76% 204
North of England +3 319 £488 +9.55% 150
Midlands +4 192 £475 +2.70% 81
South East -20 164 £500 -9.09% 202
West Midlands +5 159 £481 -0.41% 49
North West +6 140 £450 +0.56% 71
Yorkshire -10 134 £500 +5.26% 49
South West -2 80 £515 -1.90% 90
East of England -5 57 £570 +21.93% 81
North East +11 49 £488 +28.09% 30
East Midlands -22 33 £400 +7.38% 32
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
1 112 (6.87%) Confluence
2 62 (3.80%) SAS
3 28 (1.72%) Apache Spark
4 14 (0.86%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.80%) SharePoint
6 9 (0.55%) Apache
7 8 (0.49%) Appian
8 6 (0.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 5 (0.31%) CMS
9 5 (0.31%) WebLogic
10 4 (0.25%) Camunda
10 4 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.25%) Oracle Application Server
11 3 (0.18%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.18%) nginx
11 3 (0.18%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.12%) Magnolia
12 2 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.12%) Tomcat
12 2 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 26 (1.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.67%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.67%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.061%) Mingle
7 1 (0.061%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 22 (1.35%) Aladdin
2 6 (0.37%) Loan IQ
3 5 (0.31%) Maximo
3 5 (0.31%) Shopify
3 5 (0.31%) Workday HCM
4 4 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.25%) SAP HR
5 3 (0.18%) BambooHR
5 3 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.12%) iTrent
6 2 (0.12%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
6 2 (0.12%) Summit
7 1 (0.061%) CODA-Financials
7 1 (0.061%) Infor M3
7 1 (0.061%) IntelliMatch
7 1 (0.061%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.061%) PORTIA
Cloud Services
1 446 (27.36%) Azure
2 392 (24.05%) AWS
3 268 (16.44%) GitHub
4 192 (11.78%) Azure DevOps
5 151 (9.26%) GCP
6 144 (8.83%) GitHub Actions
7 109 (6.69%) Serverless
8 70 (4.29%) OpenShift
9 59 (3.62%) Power Platform
10 49 (3.01%) AWS Lambda
11 46 (2.82%) Amazon S3
12 45 (2.76%) Azure AKS
13 36 (2.21%) Snowflake
14 34 (2.09%) Azure Data Factory
15 30 (1.84%) Azure Functions
16 29 (1.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 28 (1.72%) Amazon EKS
17 28 (1.72%) AWS CloudFormation
17 28 (1.72%) SaaS
18 27 (1.66%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 31 (1.90%) Firewall
2 18 (1.10%) Wireshark
3 16 (0.98%) TCP/IP
3 16 (0.98%) VPN
4 14 (0.86%) HTTP
5 13 (0.80%) SD-WAN
5 13 (0.80%) SSL
6 12 (0.74%) HTTPS
6 12 (0.74%) WAN
7 10 (0.61%) Network Security
8 8 (0.49%) DNS
8 8 (0.49%) Ethernet
8 8 (0.49%) MPLS
9 7 (0.43%) AMQP
9 7 (0.43%) FTP
9 7 (0.43%) Multicast
9 7 (0.43%) SAN
10 5 (0.31%) Cisco IPT
10 5 (0.31%) VLAN
11 4 (0.25%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 97 (5.95%) PostgreSQL
2 68 (4.17%) NoSQL
3 67 (4.11%) SQL Server
4 58 (3.56%) MongoDB
5 51 (3.13%) Relational Database
6 47 (2.88%) Data Warehouse
7 34 (2.09%) Pentaho
8 33 (2.02%) Power BI
9 26 (1.60%) Oracle Database
10 24 (1.47%) BigQuery
11 23 (1.41%) DynamoDB
11 23 (1.41%) Tableau
12 21 (1.29%) MySQL
13 19 (1.17%) Redis
14 18 (1.10%) Oracle Reports
15 16 (0.98%) Azure SQL Database
16 15 (0.92%) Amazon RDS
16 15 (0.92%) Data Lake
17 13 (0.80%) SAS Enterprise Guide
18 12 (0.74%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 312 (19.14%) Git
1 312 (19.14%) JIRA
2 302 (18.53%) Jenkins
3 245 (15.03%) Selenium
4 244 (14.97%) GitLab
5 145 (8.90%) Cucumber
6 138 (8.47%) Postman
7 101 (6.20%) JUnit
8 97 (5.95%) Cypress.io
9 86 (5.28%) REST Assured
10 75 (4.60%) JMeter
11 36 (2.21%) SpecFlow
11 36 (2.21%) WebDriver
12 35 (2.15%) Maven
13 34 (2.09%) SonarQube
14 31 (1.90%) Gatling
15 30 (1.84%) Gradle
16 29 (1.78%) Zephyr
17 28 (1.72%) TestRail
18 25 (1.53%) Bitbucket
General
1 444 (27.24%) Social Skills
2 279 (17.12%) Finance
3 222 (13.62%) Public Sector
4 177 (10.86%) Analytical Skills
5 137 (8.40%) Banking
6 29 (1.78%) Documentation Skills
7 26 (1.60%) Investment Banking
8 23 (1.41%) Front Office
9 22 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 21 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
11 20 (1.23%) Pharmaceutical
12 19 (1.17%) Telecoms
13 16 (0.98%) Organisational Skills
14 15 (0.92%) Influencing Skills
15 14 (0.86%) Military
16 13 (0.80%) Financial Institution
17 11 (0.67%) Aerospace
17 11 (0.67%) Legal
18 10 (0.61%) Electronics
19 7 (0.43%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 339 (20.80%) Developer
2 264 (16.20%) Senior
3 201 (12.33%) Lead
4 186 (11.41%) Tester
5 176 (10.80%) Test Engineer
6 88 (5.40%) Java Developer
7 86 (5.28%) Data Engineer
8 83 (5.09%) Automation Tester
9 82 (5.03%) Analyst
10 73 (4.48%) Software Engineer
10 73 (4.48%) Test Automation Engineer
11 70 (4.29%) Test Leader
12 65 (3.99%) QA Engineer
13 60 (3.68%) Senior Developer
14 57 (3.50%) DevOps Engineer
15 55 (3.37%) Architect
16 53 (3.25%) Test Manager
17 51 (3.13%) Test Analyst
18 48 (2.94%) Automation Engineer
19 39 (2.39%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 206 (12.64%) REST
2 196 (12.02%) Playwright
3 140 (8.59%) React
4 129 (7.91%) Spring
5 127 (7.79%) .NET
6 119 (7.30%) RESTful
7 115 (7.06%) Node.js
8 113 (6.93%) Kafka
9 104 (6.38%) Spring Boot
10 83 (5.09%) pytest
11 54 (3.31%) HTML
12 52 (3.19%) AngularJS
12 52 (3.19%) CSS
13 49 (3.01%) OAuth
14 48 (2.94%) Jest
15 41 (2.52%) Web Services
16 37 (2.27%) JSON
17 36 (2.21%) GraphQL
17 36 (2.21%) WireMock
18 34 (2.09%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 177 (10.86%) Cloud Native
2 95 (5.83%) Product Ownership
3 71 (4.36%) Distributed Systems
4 43 (2.64%) Mobile App
5 41 (2.52%) Algorithms
6 37 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
7 33 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
8 30 (1.84%) Security Posture
9 25 (1.53%) Data Structures
10 24 (1.47%) Onboarding
10 24 (1.47%) Self-Motivation
11 23 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
11 23 (1.41%) Virtual Team
12 22 (1.35%) Equities
13 21 (1.29%) Management Information System
14 19 (1.17%) Distributed Architecture
14 19 (1.17%) Greenfield Project
15 18 (1.10%) Public Cloud
16 16 (0.98%) Derivative
16 16 (0.98%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 135 (8.28%) Linux
2 80 (4.91%) Windows
3 41 (2.52%) Android
4 36 (2.21%) Apple iOS
4 36 (2.21%) Unix
5 19 (1.17%) Windows Server
6 16 (0.98%) Mac OS X
7 12 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 11 (0.67%) Kali Linux
9 7 (0.43%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.37%) CentOS
11 2 (0.12%) Solaris
11 2 (0.12%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.061%) FreeRTOS
12 1 (0.061%) Robot Operating System
12 1 (0.061%) VMS
12 1 (0.061%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 851 (52.21%) CI/CD
2 781 (47.91%) Agile
3 606 (37.18%) DevOps
4 414 (25.40%) Problem-Solving
5 270 (16.56%) Continuous Improvement
6 265 (16.26%) Microservices
7 260 (15.95%) Test Strategy
8 233 (14.29%) Containerisation
9 232 (14.23%) Scrum
10 224 (13.74%) AI
11 212 (13.01%) Test Scripting
12 199 (12.21%) Validation
13 197 (12.09%) Software Engineering
14 195 (11.96%) TDD
15 193 (11.84%) Infrastructure as Code
16 187 (11.47%) Analytics
17 182 (11.17%) Software Testing
18 172 (10.55%) Observability
19 160 (9.82%) Regression Testing
20 158 (9.69%) API Testing
Programming Languages
1 503 (30.86%) Python
2 397 (24.36%) Java
3 356 (21.84%) SQL
4 243 (14.91%) JavaScript
5 234 (14.36%) TypeScript
6 155 (9.51%) C#
7 67 (4.11%) PowerShell
8 60 (3.68%) Bash
9 44 (2.70%) C++
10 29 (1.78%) Go
11 24 (1.47%) Bicep
11 24 (1.47%) C
12 23 (1.41%) Kotlin
12 23 (1.41%) PL/SQL
13 19 (1.17%) Apex Code
14 15 (0.92%) Scala
14 15 (0.92%) Swift
15 13 (0.80%) Ruby
16 12 (0.74%) Groovy
16 12 (0.74%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 477 (29.26%) Security Cleared
2 367 (22.52%) SC Cleared
3 93 (5.71%) Degree
4 76 (4.66%) ISTQB
5 57 (3.50%) BPSS Clearance
6 55 (3.37%) Computer Science Degree
6 55 (3.37%) DV Cleared
7 26 (1.60%) Master's Degree
8 23 (1.41%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 14 (0.86%) Azure Certification
9 14 (0.86%) Cisco Certification
9 14 (0.86%) OSCP
10 13 (0.80%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 13 (0.80%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 12 (0.74%) CEH
12 11 (0.67%) CISSP
12 11 (0.67%) Microsoft Certification
13 9 (0.55%) AWS Certification
13 9 (0.55%) CCNP
13 9 (0.55%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 369 (22.64%) QA
2 113 (6.93%) Accessibility
3 95 (5.83%) Data Quality
4 36 (2.21%) WCAG
5 30 (1.84%) NIST
6 28 (1.72%) GDPR
7 18 (1.10%) EU AI Act
8 15 (0.92%) NCSC
9 12 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 11 (0.67%) ISO 20022
11 9 (0.55%) PSD2
11 9 (0.55%) SLA
12 8 (0.49%) Def Stans
12 8 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 7 (0.43%) SEPA
14 6 (0.37%) SOC 2
15 5 (0.31%) MiFID
15 5 (0.31%) NIST 800
15 5 (0.31%) PCI DSS
15 5 (0.31%) PERC
System Software
1 342 (20.98%) Docker
2 28 (1.72%) Active Directory
3 8 (0.49%) Firmware
4 7 (0.43%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
4 7 (0.43%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.18%) ISA Server
6 3 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
7 2 (0.12%) SRDF
8 1 (0.061%) Embedded Firmware
8 1 (0.061%) KVM
8 1 (0.061%) Squid
8 1 (0.061%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.061%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 326 (20.00%) Kubernetes
2 187 (11.47%) Terraform
3 99 (6.07%) Grafana
4 96 (5.89%) Ansible
5 72 (4.42%) Prometheus
6 18 (1.10%) Puppet
7 17 (1.04%) HP ALM
8 16 (0.98%) Argo
9 15 (0.92%) Progress Chef
10 14 (0.86%) Nmap
11 11 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
12 10 (0.61%) HP Quality Center
12 10 (0.61%) NetBackup
13 7 (0.43%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 7 (0.43%) Kibana
13 7 (0.43%) NetIQ Identity Manager
14 5 (0.31%) Podman
14 5 (0.31%) Rancher
15 4 (0.25%) CSIRT
15 4 (0.25%) Dell DRAC
Vendors
1 147 (9.02%) Microsoft
2 142 (8.71%) Oracle
3 66 (4.05%) Databricks
4 60 (3.68%) Splunk
5 56 (3.44%) ServiceNow
6 54 (3.31%) Google
7 51 (3.13%) Salesforce
8 38 (2.33%) Talend
9 37 (2.27%) SAP
10 31 (1.90%) Red Hat
11 30 (1.84%) Denodo
12 22 (1.35%) VMware
13 20 (1.23%) Cisco
13 20 (1.23%) IBM
14 19 (1.17%) HP
15 18 (1.10%) Workday
16 15 (0.92%) MuleSoft
16 15 (0.92%) OpenAI
17 14 (0.86%) Dynatrace
17 14 (0.86%) Foundry