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

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 50 46
Rank change year-on-year +5 -4 +7
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,089 1,313 1,353
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.51% 4.68% 4.17%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.33% 5.14% 4.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,330 901 917
10th Percentile £320 £313 £350
25th Percentile £406 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £603
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 96 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 £56.25 £57.50
% change year-on-year +24.44% -2.17% -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 39,229 25,540 27,994
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.68% 90.96% 86.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,740 16,195 17,136
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £512 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.54% -2.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £643
90th Percentile £738 £734 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,947 1,574 1,191
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.54 £17.87 £20.50
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.47 £46.55 £67.01
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £38.62 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +53.57% -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 4 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 4 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 4 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 +5 944 £500 -1.96% 1,553
North of England -4 423 £453 -4.63% 671
Midlands +17 266 £450 -2.70% 361
West Midlands +20 251 £450 -13.21% 217
South East -10 225 £450 -5.26% 574
Yorkshire -6 175 £463 -7.50% 222
North West -9 154 £492 +23.06% 316
South West -4 113 £456 -16.28% 385
North East +5 101 £425 -11.69% 134
East of England +17 94 £371 -7.25% 289
East Midlands -40 15 £418 +17.61% 144
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
1 179 (8.57%) Confluence
2 59 (2.82%) Apache Airflow
3 43 (2.06%) Apache Spark
4 40 (1.91%) SharePoint
5 34 (1.63%) Apache
6 23 (1.10%) SAS
7 16 (0.77%) CMS
8 13 (0.62%) Camunda
9 10 (0.48%) WebLogic
10 7 (0.34%) 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 (0.096%) Anypoint
15 2 (0.096%) Apache Pulsar
15 2 (0.096%) Mule
15 2 (0.096%) Tomcat
Applications
1 20 (0.96%) 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 (0.096%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.048%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.048%) Simulink
7 1 (0.048%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 29 (1.39%) Dynamics CRM
2 19 (0.91%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.57%) Payment Gateway
4 10 (0.48%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.34%) 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 (0.096%) BambooHR
9 2 (0.096%) Findur
9 2 (0.096%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.096%) Shopify
10 1 (0.048%) Infor M3
10 1 (0.048%) Oracle EBS R12
10 1 (0.048%) Sage 50
10 1 (0.048%) SAP EWM
10 1 (0.048%) SAP HCM
10 1 (0.048%) SAP LE
10 1 (0.048%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 654 (31.31%) AWS
2 627 (30.01%) Azure
3 355 (16.99%) GitHub
4 290 (13.88%) Azure DevOps
5 212 (10.15%) GitHub Actions
6 171 (8.19%) GCP
7 167 (7.99%) Serverless
8 123 (5.89%) AWS Lambda
9 106 (5.07%) Power Platform
10 103 (4.93%) Amazon S3
11 83 (3.97%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 71 (3.40%) OpenShift
13 67 (3.21%) Amazon ECS
13 67 (3.21%) GitHub Copilot
14 66 (3.16%) Amazon EKS
15 55 (2.63%) dbt
16 53 (2.54%) Snowflake
17 50 (2.39%) AWS CloudFormation
18 48 (2.30%) Amazon EC2
19 43 (2.06%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.29%) DNS
2 24 (1.15%) 4G
2 24 (1.15%) Firewall
3 23 (1.10%) TCP/IP
4 22 (1.05%) HTTP
5 21 (1.01%) 5G
5 21 (1.01%) Wi-Fi
6 20 (0.96%) Broadband
7 19 (0.91%) Network Security
8 14 (0.67%) 2G
8 14 (0.67%) 3G
8 14 (0.67%) BGP
8 14 (0.67%) Diameter Protocol
8 14 (0.67%) SIGTRAN
8 14 (0.67%) SS7
8 14 (0.67%) WAN
9 12 (0.57%) Ethernet VPN
9 12 (0.57%) LAN
9 12 (0.57%) VXLAN
10 11 (0.53%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 122 (5.84%) PostgreSQL
2 109 (5.22%) Data Warehouse
3 94 (4.50%) NoSQL
4 92 (4.40%) MongoDB
5 88 (4.21%) Relational Database
6 86 (4.12%) SQL Server
7 84 (4.02%) Power BI
8 41 (1.96%) Data Lake
8 41 (1.96%) Metadata
9 36 (1.72%) DynamoDB
10 32 (1.53%) Big Data
10 32 (1.53%) MySQL
10 32 (1.53%) Oracle Reports
11 31 (1.48%) Pentaho
12 30 (1.44%) Amazon RDS
13 29 (1.39%) Amazon Redshift
14 28 (1.34%) Amazon Athena
14 28 (1.34%) Redis
15 27 (1.29%) Oracle Database
16 20 (0.96%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 466 (22.31%) Git
2 348 (16.66%) JIRA
3 333 (15.94%) Jenkins
4 301 (14.41%) GitLab
5 274 (13.12%) Selenium
6 166 (7.95%) Cucumber
7 140 (6.70%) Postman
8 131 (6.27%) JUnit
9 99 (4.74%) Cypress.io
10 97 (4.64%) REST Assured
11 84 (4.02%) SonarQube
12 83 (3.97%) JMeter
13 66 (3.16%) Gatling
14 61 (2.92%) Zephyr
15 53 (2.54%) Maven
16 48 (2.30%) Gradle
17 45 (2.15%) Mockito
18 42 (2.01%) WebDriver
19 37 (1.77%) Bitbucket
20 27 (1.29%) TestNG
General
1 588 (28.15%) Social Skills
2 408 (19.53%) Finance
3 318 (15.22%) Analytical Skills
4 256 (12.25%) Public Sector
5 202 (9.67%) Banking
6 68 (3.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 56 (2.68%) Telecoms
8 34 (1.63%) Retail
9 31 (1.48%) Front Office
9 31 (1.48%) Investment Banking
10 30 (1.44%) Military
11 27 (1.29%) Influencing Skills
12 25 (1.20%) Documentation Skills
13 20 (0.96%) Financial Institution
13 20 (0.96%) Manufacturing
14 19 (0.91%) Law
14 19 (0.91%) Marketing
15 18 (0.86%) Aerospace
16 15 (0.72%) Back Office
17 14 (0.67%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 443 (21.21%) Developer
2 328 (15.70%) Senior
3 208 (9.96%) Lead
4 202 (9.67%) Test Engineer
5 143 (6.85%) Tester
6 141 (6.75%) Data Engineer
7 130 (6.22%) Java Developer
8 120 (5.74%) Software Engineer
9 106 (5.07%) Analyst
10 101 (4.83%) Architect
11 96 (4.60%) QA Engineer
12 90 (4.31%) DevOps Engineer
13 87 (4.16%) Test Automation Engineer
14 85 (4.07%) Senior Developer
15 74 (3.54%) Automation Engineer
16 73 (3.49%) Full-Stack Developer
17 68 (3.26%) Java Engineer
17 68 (3.26%) Test Analyst
17 68 (3.26%) Test Leader
18 60 (2.87%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 333 (15.94%) REST
2 321 (15.37%) Terraform
3 234 (11.20%) Playwright
4 226 (10.82%) Kafka
5 218 (10.44%) RESTful
6 203 (9.72%) Spring
7 191 (9.14%) React
8 168 (8.04%) Spring Boot
9 150 (7.18%) .NET
10 138 (6.61%) HTML
11 115 (5.51%) CSS
12 108 (5.17%) Node.js
13 94 (4.50%) AngularJS
14 85 (4.07%) OAuth
15 66 (3.16%) JSON
16 59 (2.82%) Middleware
17 57 (2.73%) SOAP
18 55 (2.63%) Web Services
18 55 (2.63%) XML
19 53 (2.54%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 337 (16.13%) Cloud Native
2 173 (8.28%) Product Ownership
3 154 (7.37%) Distributed Systems
4 91 (4.36%) Enterprise Software
5 76 (3.64%) Onboarding
6 69 (3.30%) AI Agents
7 48 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
7 48 (2.30%) Self-Motivation
8 45 (2.15%) Data Protection Act
9 44 (2.11%) Mobile App
10 31 (1.48%) Data Structures
10 31 (1.48%) Security Posture
11 27 (1.29%) Virtual Team
12 23 (1.10%) Management Information System
13 20 (0.96%) Data Centre
13 20 (0.96%) Embedded Systems
14 18 (0.86%) Private Cloud
15 17 (0.81%) Distributed Architecture
16 16 (0.77%) Greenfield Project
16 16 (0.77%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 145 (6.94%) Linux
2 99 (4.74%) Windows
3 77 (3.69%) Unix
4 44 (2.11%) Apple iOS
5 40 (1.91%) Android
6 30 (1.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 22 (1.05%) Windows Server
8 8 (0.38%) VMS
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 4 (0.19%) Mac OS X
12 3 (0.14%) AIX
12 3 (0.14%) CentOS
12 3 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (0.14%) Solaris
12 3 (0.14%) zOS
13 2 (0.096%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.096%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,291 (61.80%) CI/CD
2 1,018 (48.73%) Agile
3 786 (37.63%) DevOps
4 425 (20.34%) Continuous Improvement
5 422 (20.20%) Microservices
5 422 (20.20%) Problem-Solving
6 415 (19.87%) Software Engineering
7 370 (17.71%) AI
8 369 (17.66%) Infrastructure as Code
9 367 (17.57%) Validation
10 365 (17.47%) Scrum
11 317 (15.17%) Test Strategy
12 308 (14.74%) Containerisation
13 278 (13.31%) Observability
14 272 (13.02%) Software Testing
15 269 (12.88%) SDLC
15 269 (12.88%) TDD
16 255 (12.21%) Stakeholder Management
17 229 (10.96%) End-to-End Testing
18 210 (10.05%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 594 (28.43%) Python
2 581 (27.81%) Java
3 537 (25.71%) SQL
4 325 (15.56%) JavaScript
5 243 (11.63%) TypeScript
6 176 (8.43%) C#
7 90 (4.31%) PowerShell
8 79 (3.78%) Bash
9 50 (2.39%) Bicep
10 49 (2.35%) Kotlin
11 38 (1.82%) Go
12 36 (1.72%) C++
12 36 (1.72%) Scala
13 24 (1.15%) Shell Script
14 23 (1.10%) PL/SQL
15 17 (0.81%) Apex Code
15 17 (0.81%) Swift
16 16 (0.77%) C
16 16 (0.77%) Groovy
17 11 (0.53%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 663 (31.74%) Security Cleared
2 551 (26.38%) SC Cleared
3 121 (5.79%) Degree
4 90 (4.31%) BPSS Clearance
4 90 (4.31%) ISTQB
5 82 (3.93%) DV Cleared
6 67 (3.21%) Computer Science Degree
7 46 (2.20%) AWS Certification
8 25 (1.20%) Azure Certification
8 25 (1.20%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 14 (0.67%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 14 (0.67%) CISSP
9 14 (0.67%) ISEB
9 14 (0.67%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 14 (0.67%) Master's Degree
10 12 (0.57%) Microsoft Certification
11 11 (0.53%) Cisco Certification
12 9 (0.43%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 8 (0.38%) SAFe Agilist
14 7 (0.34%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 574 (27.48%) QA
2 180 (8.62%) Accessibility
3 141 (6.75%) Data Quality
4 95 (4.55%) WCAG
5 37 (1.77%) GDPR
6 17 (0.81%) ISO 20022
6 17 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 16 (0.77%) NIST
8 13 (0.62%) SLA
9 12 (0.57%) GRC
9 12 (0.57%) NCSC
10 8 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
11 7 (0.34%) SOC 2
12 6 (0.29%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.29%) Software Quality Assurance
13 5 (0.24%) FATCA
13 5 (0.24%) HL7
14 4 (0.19%) HIPAA
15 3 (0.14%) EU AI Act
15 3 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 423 (20.25%) Docker
2 39 (1.87%) Active Directory
3 29 (1.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.91%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.48%) Firmware
6 7 (0.34%) VMware NSX
7 3 (0.14%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.096%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.048%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.048%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.048%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 417 (19.96%) Kubernetes
2 123 (5.89%) Ansible
3 117 (5.60%) Grafana
4 84 (4.02%) Prometheus
5 35 (1.68%) Argo
6 26 (1.24%) Kibana
7 23 (1.10%) Puppet
8 22 (1.05%) Progress Chef
9 14 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
10 11 (0.53%) Control-M
11 10 (0.48%) HP ALM
12 8 (0.38%) Microsoft Intune
13 7 (0.34%) 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%) HP Quality Center
16 4 (0.19%) Rancher
Vendors
1 217 (10.39%) Microsoft
2 149 (7.13%) Oracle
3 93 (4.45%) Databricks
4 78 (3.73%) Google
5 58 (2.78%) IBM
6 57 (2.73%) Salesforce
7 54 (2.58%) ServiceNow
8 50 (2.39%) Red Hat
9 49 (2.35%) Splunk
10 47 (2.25%) Talend
11 44 (2.11%) SAP
12 40 (1.91%) Dynatrace
13 39 (1.87%) Informatica
14 38 (1.82%) VMware
15 33 (1.58%) Denodo
16 32 (1.53%) Cisco
17 31 (1.48%) UiPath
18 18 (0.86%) Foundry
18 18 (0.86%) OpenAI
19 16 (0.77%) HP