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

6 months to
4 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 45 56
Rank change year-on-year -2 +11 -13
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,570 1,154 1,380
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.71% 4.42% 3.63%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.37% 4.93% 4.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,079 759 977
10th Percentile £338 £337 £375
25th Percentile £402 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £584 £613 £638
90th Percentile £688 £725 £712
UK median daily rate £494 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -1.25% -4.76% -5.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 3 57
10th Percentile £28.25 £73.44 £49.50
25th Percentile £44.50 £74.85 £52.50
Median hourly rate £62.50 £77.19 £68.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.03% +12.69% +17.09%
75th Percentile £67.00 £82.35 £90.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £85.44 -
UK median hourly rate £61.25 £74.00 £68.50
% change year-on-year -17.23% +8.03% +20.18%

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 29,221 23,402 33,182
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 87.65% 89.60% 87.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,693 14,362 22,190
10th Percentile £306 £310 £300
25th Percentile £410 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £640 £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 1,820 750 1,958
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £13.41
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.01 £16.69
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £35.25
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -0.71% +0.71%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £61.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +9.38%

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 February 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 February 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 February 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 -1 753 £500 -2.44% 225
North of England +2 325 £500 +17.65% 127
South East -18 162 £496 -0.80% 189
Midlands +15 160 £503 +5.45% 56
Yorkshire -13 148 £523 +16.11% 33
North West +5 132 £447 +11.75% 79
West Midlands +16 128 £519 +6.19% 33
South West +9 82 £525 -6.25% 79
East of England -1 52 £593 +48.13% 58
North East +15 49 £488 +34.48% 15
East Midlands -9 32 £397 -14.27% 23
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 86 (5.48%) Confluence
2 59 (3.76%) SAS
3 19 (1.21%) Apache Spark
4 14 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.83%) SharePoint
6 9 (0.57%) Apache
7 7 (0.45%) Appian
8 6 (0.38%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 6 (0.38%) Oracle Application Server
9 5 (0.32%) CMS
9 5 (0.32%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.25%) Camunda
10 4 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.19%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.19%) WebLogic
12 2 (0.13%) Magnolia
12 2 (0.13%) nginx
12 2 (0.13%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.13%) WordPress
Applications
1 23 (1.46%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.70%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (0.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.51%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.064%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.064%) SOLIDWORKS
6 1 (0.064%) Trello
Business Applications
1 20 (1.27%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.32%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.25%) Loan IQ
3 4 (0.25%) Maximo
3 4 (0.25%) SAP HR
4 3 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.13%) Eagle PACE
5 2 (0.13%) iTrent
5 2 (0.13%) Markit EDM
5 2 (0.13%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.13%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.13%) Shopify
5 2 (0.13%) Summit
6 1 (0.064%) Cloudability
6 1 (0.064%) ION Anvil
6 1 (0.064%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.064%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.064%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 423 (26.94%) Azure
2 367 (23.38%) AWS
3 230 (14.65%) GitHub
4 171 (10.89%) Azure DevOps
5 154 (9.81%) GCP
6 122 (7.77%) GitHub Actions
7 107 (6.82%) Serverless
8 61 (3.89%) OpenShift
9 51 (3.25%) Power Platform
10 46 (2.93%) AWS Lambda
11 41 (2.61%) Azure AKS
12 40 (2.55%) Amazon S3
13 39 (2.48%) SaaS
14 35 (2.23%) Snowflake
15 30 (1.91%) Azure Functions
16 29 (1.85%) Amazon EKS
16 29 (1.85%) AWS CloudFormation
16 29 (1.85%) Entra ID
17 28 (1.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 28 (1.78%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 36 (2.29%) Firewall
2 32 (2.04%) Wireshark
3 21 (1.34%) HTTPS
3 21 (1.34%) TCP/IP
4 20 (1.27%) HTTP
4 20 (1.27%) VPN
5 17 (1.08%) SSL
6 14 (0.89%) Network Security
6 14 (0.89%) SD-WAN
7 11 (0.70%) Ethernet
7 11 (0.70%) WAN
8 10 (0.64%) MPLS
8 10 (0.64%) VLAN
9 9 (0.57%) DNS
9 9 (0.57%) Multicast
10 7 (0.45%) AMQP
10 7 (0.45%) FTP
11 5 (0.32%) BGP
11 5 (0.32%) Cisco IPT
11 5 (0.32%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 83 (5.29%) PostgreSQL
2 70 (4.46%) NoSQL
3 68 (4.33%) MongoDB
4 61 (3.89%) SQL Server
5 54 (3.44%) Relational Database
6 32 (2.04%) Pentaho
7 29 (1.85%) Data Warehouse
8 27 (1.72%) Power BI
9 23 (1.46%) Oracle Database
10 22 (1.40%) BigQuery
11 21 (1.34%) MySQL
12 18 (1.15%) Redis
13 17 (1.08%) Tableau
14 16 (1.02%) Big Data
14 16 (1.02%) DynamoDB
14 16 (1.02%) SAS Enterprise Guide
15 15 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
16 13 (0.83%) Data Lake
16 13 (0.83%) Star Schema
17 12 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 284 (18.09%) JIRA
2 283 (18.03%) Jenkins
3 273 (17.39%) Git
4 232 (14.78%) GitLab
5 224 (14.27%) Selenium
6 127 (8.09%) Postman
7 125 (7.96%) Cucumber
8 94 (5.99%) Cypress.io
9 82 (5.22%) JUnit
10 81 (5.16%) REST Assured
11 63 (4.01%) JMeter
12 36 (2.29%) SonarQube
13 33 (2.10%) Maven
14 31 (1.97%) Gradle
14 31 (1.97%) TestRail
15 30 (1.91%) Bitbucket
16 28 (1.78%) Gatling
16 28 (1.78%) Mockito
17 26 (1.66%) SpecFlow
17 26 (1.66%) WebDriver
General
1 407 (25.92%) Social Skills
2 260 (16.56%) Finance
3 212 (13.50%) Public Sector
4 178 (11.34%) Analytical Skills
5 122 (7.77%) Banking
6 30 (1.91%) Documentation Skills
7 27 (1.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 24 (1.53%) Investment Banking
9 23 (1.46%) Pharmaceutical
10 22 (1.40%) Front Office
11 21 (1.34%) Telecoms
12 19 (1.21%) Presentation Skills
13 15 (0.96%) Financial Institution
14 14 (0.89%) Military
15 11 (0.70%) Aerospace
16 10 (0.64%) Influencing Skills
16 10 (0.64%) Manufacturing
17 9 (0.57%) Electronics
17 9 (0.57%) Legal
17 9 (0.57%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 360 (22.93%) Developer
2 258 (16.43%) Senior
3 183 (11.66%) Tester
4 171 (10.89%) Test Engineer
5 161 (10.25%) Lead
6 101 (6.43%) Java Developer
7 86 (5.48%) Automation Tester
8 77 (4.90%) Analyst
9 76 (4.84%) Software Engineer
10 71 (4.52%) Test Automation Engineer
11 66 (4.20%) Senior Developer
12 61 (3.89%) Data Engineer
13 59 (3.76%) QA Engineer
13 59 (3.76%) Test Leader
14 56 (3.57%) DevOps Engineer
15 50 (3.18%) Automation Engineer
15 50 (3.18%) Test Analyst
16 47 (2.99%) Test Manager
17 42 (2.68%) Architect
18 41 (2.61%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 214 (13.63%) REST
2 172 (10.96%) Playwright
3 135 (8.60%) React
4 118 (7.52%) Spring
5 117 (7.45%) .NET
6 116 (7.39%) RESTful
7 114 (7.26%) Node.js
8 109 (6.94%) Kafka
8 109 (6.94%) Spring Boot
9 73 (4.65%) pytest
10 52 (3.31%) SOAP
11 50 (3.18%) AngularJS
11 50 (3.18%) HTML
11 50 (3.18%) JSON
12 48 (3.06%) OAuth
13 47 (2.99%) XML
14 45 (2.87%) CSS
14 45 (2.87%) Jest
15 43 (2.74%) Web Services
16 37 (2.36%) JMS
Miscellaneous
1 171 (10.89%) Cloud Native
2 96 (6.11%) Product Ownership
3 55 (3.50%) Distributed Systems
4 47 (2.99%) Mobile App
5 40 (2.55%) Security Posture
6 36 (2.29%) Algorithms
7 30 (1.91%) Legacy Systems
8 26 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
9 22 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
9 22 (1.40%) Onboarding
9 22 (1.40%) Virtual Team
10 21 (1.34%) Management Information System
11 20 (1.27%) Data Structures
11 20 (1.27%) Greenfield Project
12 18 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
13 17 (1.08%) Equities
13 17 (1.08%) Public Cloud
14 16 (1.02%) SWIFT Messaging Network
15 15 (0.96%) Genomics
15 15 (0.96%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 149 (9.49%) Linux
2 75 (4.78%) Windows
3 44 (2.80%) Unix
4 38 (2.42%) Android
5 34 (2.17%) Apple iOS
6 20 (1.27%) Mac OS X
6 20 (1.27%) Windows Server
7 12 (0.76%) Kali Linux
8 6 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.25%) CentOS
10 3 (0.19%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.13%) VMS
11 2 (0.13%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.064%) FreeRTOS
12 1 (0.064%) Robot Operating System
12 1 (0.064%) Windows Embedded Compact
12 1 (0.064%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 781 (49.75%) CI/CD
2 751 (47.83%) Agile
3 586 (37.32%) DevOps
4 411 (26.18%) Problem-Solving
5 242 (15.41%) Microservices
6 236 (15.03%) Test Strategy
7 229 (14.59%) Containerisation
7 229 (14.59%) Continuous Improvement
8 211 (13.44%) Scrum
9 201 (12.80%) Test Scripting
10 191 (12.17%) AI
11 188 (11.97%) Infrastructure as Code
12 187 (11.91%) Software Engineering
13 185 (11.78%) TDD
14 180 (11.46%) Validation
15 170 (10.83%) Software Testing
16 152 (9.68%) Analytics
16 152 (9.68%) API Testing
17 142 (9.04%) BDD
18 141 (8.98%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 474 (30.19%) Python
2 383 (24.39%) Java
3 320 (20.38%) SQL
4 230 (14.65%) JavaScript
5 219 (13.95%) TypeScript
6 142 (9.04%) C#
7 77 (4.90%) Bash
8 58 (3.69%) PowerShell
9 37 (2.36%) C++
9 37 (2.36%) Go
10 23 (1.46%) Bicep
11 21 (1.34%) Kotlin
12 20 (1.27%) PL/SQL
13 16 (1.02%) Apex Code
13 16 (1.02%) Scala
14 14 (0.89%) C
15 12 (0.76%) Groovy
15 12 (0.76%) Swift
16 11 (0.70%) PHP
17 10 (0.64%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 449 (28.60%) Security Cleared
2 345 (21.97%) SC Cleared
3 92 (5.86%) Degree
4 68 (4.33%) ISTQB
5 58 (3.69%) BPSS Clearance
6 57 (3.63%) DV Cleared
7 52 (3.31%) Computer Science Degree
8 30 (1.91%) Master's Degree
9 21 (1.34%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 19 (1.21%) OSCP
11 16 (1.02%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 14 (0.89%) CEH
13 13 (0.83%) AWS Certification
13 13 (0.83%) Cisco Certification
13 13 (0.83%) GPEN
13 13 (0.83%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 12 (0.76%) CISSP
15 11 (0.70%) Azure Certification
15 11 (0.70%) Oracle Certification
16 10 (0.64%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 329 (20.96%) QA
2 111 (7.07%) Accessibility
3 78 (4.97%) Data Quality
4 35 (2.23%) WCAG
5 32 (2.04%) NIST
6 31 (1.97%) GDPR
7 21 (1.34%) NCSC
8 18 (1.15%) EU AI Act
9 16 (1.02%) ISO 20022
9 16 (1.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 14 (0.89%) PSD2
11 12 (0.76%) SEPA
12 10 (0.64%) SLA
13 9 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 7 (0.45%) PCI DSS
15 6 (0.38%) NIST 800
15 6 (0.38%) SOC 2
16 5 (0.32%) Def Stans
16 5 (0.32%) PERC
17 4 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 335 (21.34%) Docker
2 32 (2.04%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.45%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
4 5 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.25%) Firmware
5 4 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.19%) ISA Server
6 3 (0.19%) QEMU
6 3 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
7 2 (0.13%) VMware Infrastructure
8 1 (0.064%) Embedded Firmware
8 1 (0.064%) KVM
8 1 (0.064%) Squid
8 1 (0.064%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.064%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.064%) zsh
Systems Management
1 304 (19.36%) Kubernetes
2 180 (11.46%) Terraform
3 99 (6.31%) Ansible
4 80 (5.10%) Grafana
5 55 (3.50%) Prometheus
6 20 (1.27%) Nmap
7 17 (1.08%) HP ALM
8 15 (0.96%) Progress Chef
9 13 (0.83%) CSIRT
9 13 (0.83%) Puppet
10 11 (0.70%) Argo
10 11 (0.70%) NetBackup
11 10 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
12 9 (0.57%) HP Quality Center
13 8 (0.51%) Nessus
14 7 (0.45%) Kibana
15 5 (0.32%) Forefront Identity Manager
15 5 (0.32%) Iperf
15 5 (0.32%) NetIQ Identity Manager
15 5 (0.32%) Podman
Vendors
1 151 (9.62%) Microsoft
2 150 (9.55%) Oracle
3 68 (4.33%) Splunk
4 56 (3.57%) ServiceNow
5 53 (3.38%) Databricks
5 53 (3.38%) Salesforce
6 49 (3.12%) Google
7 44 (2.80%) SAP
8 32 (2.04%) Denodo
8 32 (2.04%) Talend
9 23 (1.46%) Red Hat
10 22 (1.40%) Cisco
11 19 (1.21%) VMware
12 18 (1.15%) F5
12 18 (1.15%) OpenAI
12 18 (1.15%) webMethods
13 17 (1.08%) HP
13 17 (1.08%) IBM
14 16 (1.02%) Dynatrace
14 16 (1.02%) MuleSoft