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

6 months to
13 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 52 45
Rank change year-on-year +8 -7 +8
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,166 1,289 1,356
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.65% 4.62% 4.24%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.48% 5.08% 4.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,396 894 917
10th Percentile £320 £313 £350
25th Percentile £406 £400 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -0.99% -7.55%
75th Percentile £575 £589 £600
90th Percentile £675 £699 £688
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 97 33 13
10th Percentile £40.00 £41.06 £43.50
25th Percentile £55.00 £45.00 £50.00
Median hourly rate £69.00 £55.00 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +25.45% -4.35% -23.33%
75th Percentile £74.00 £67.00 £71.88
90th Percentile £77.00 £73.40 £82.90
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £52.50 £57.50
% change year-on-year +33.33% -8.70% -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 39,523 25,365 27,653
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.90% 90.87% 86.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,845 16,097 16,849
10th Percentile £325 £293 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,022 1,590 1,111
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.36 £17.87 £20.27
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -5.56%
75th Percentile £67.44 £44.80 £66.80
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.28 £74.44
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -10.11%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 +9 982 £500 -2.20% 1,238
North of England -5 435 £450 -5.26% 378
Midlands +15 283 £450 -2.96% 147
West Midlands +19 268 £450 -13.46% 101
South East -7 237 £450 -5.26% 302
Yorkshire -6 182 £463 -9.76% 121
North West -13 160 £492 +23.00% 196
South West -6 111 £450 -16.67% 147
North East +1 98 £425 -11.69% 61
East of England +10 93 £367 -22.74% 133
East Midlands -39 15 £418 +15.97% 46
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
1 189 (8.73%) Confluence
2 59 (2.72%) Apache Airflow
3 46 (2.12%) Apache Spark
4 42 (1.94%) SharePoint
5 35 (1.62%) Apache
6 31 (1.43%) SAS
7 16 (0.74%) CMS
8 14 (0.65%) Camunda
9 12 (0.55%) WebLogic
10 7 (0.32%) Microsoft Exchange
10 7 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (0.28%) Jupyter
12 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
14 3 (0.14%) Kentico
14 3 (0.14%) nginx
15 2 (0.092%) Anypoint
15 2 (0.092%) Mule
15 2 (0.092%) Oracle Workflow
15 2 (0.092%) Tomcat
Applications
1 22 (1.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (0.74%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.28%) Chatbot
4 6 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.14%) Mingle
5 3 (0.14%) Trello
6 2 (0.092%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.046%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.046%) Simulink
7 1 (0.046%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 28 (1.29%) Dynamics CRM
2 21 (0.97%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.55%) Payment Gateway
4 10 (0.46%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.28%) SAP ERP
7 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
7 5 (0.23%) SAP GRC
8 4 (0.18%) SAP MDG
9 2 (0.092%) Oracle ERP
10 1 (0.046%) Findur
10 1 (0.046%) FLEXCUBE
10 1 (0.046%) Maximo
10 1 (0.046%) Oracle EBS R12
10 1 (0.046%) SAP FI
10 1 (0.046%) SAP MM
10 1 (0.046%) SAP PP
10 1 (0.046%) SAP QM
10 1 (0.046%) SAP SD
10 1 (0.046%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 683 (31.53%) AWS
2 647 (29.87%) Azure
3 377 (17.41%) GitHub
4 304 (14.04%) Azure DevOps
5 230 (10.62%) GitHub Actions
6 184 (8.49%) GCP
7 170 (7.85%) Serverless
8 127 (5.86%) AWS Lambda
9 112 (5.17%) Power Platform
10 107 (4.94%) Amazon S3
11 85 (3.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 72 (3.32%) OpenShift
13 70 (3.23%) Amazon ECS
14 68 (3.14%) GitHub Copilot
15 66 (3.05%) Amazon EKS
16 54 (2.49%) AWS CloudFormation
16 54 (2.49%) dbt
17 51 (2.35%) Snowflake
18 49 (2.26%) Amazon EC2
18 49 (2.26%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 33 (1.52%) DNS
2 29 (1.34%) TCP/IP
3 27 (1.25%) Firewall
4 25 (1.15%) 4G
5 24 (1.11%) Broadband
5 24 (1.11%) HTTP
6 23 (1.06%) Wi-Fi
7 22 (1.02%) 5G
8 20 (0.92%) Network Security
9 18 (0.83%) BGP
10 16 (0.74%) WAN
11 14 (0.65%) 2G
11 14 (0.65%) 3G
11 14 (0.65%) Diameter Protocol
11 14 (0.65%) SIGTRAN
11 14 (0.65%) SS7
12 13 (0.60%) DHCP
13 12 (0.55%) IPv4
13 12 (0.55%) LAN
13 12 (0.55%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 130 (6.00%) PostgreSQL
2 108 (4.99%) Data Warehouse
3 97 (4.48%) Relational Database
4 96 (4.43%) MongoDB
5 95 (4.39%) NoSQL
5 95 (4.39%) SQL Server
6 84 (3.88%) Power BI
7 48 (2.22%) Metadata
8 43 (1.99%) Data Lake
9 38 (1.75%) DynamoDB
10 35 (1.62%) MySQL
11 34 (1.57%) Pentaho
12 32 (1.48%) Big Data
12 32 (1.48%) Oracle Database
12 32 (1.48%) Oracle Reports
13 31 (1.43%) Amazon RDS
14 29 (1.34%) Amazon Athena
14 29 (1.34%) Amazon Redshift
15 28 (1.29%) Redis
16 25 (1.15%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 495 (22.85%) Git
2 362 (16.71%) JIRA
3 345 (15.93%) Jenkins
4 306 (14.13%) GitLab
5 286 (13.20%) Selenium
6 178 (8.22%) Cucumber
7 149 (6.88%) Postman
8 141 (6.51%) JUnit
9 105 (4.85%) Cypress.io
10 101 (4.66%) REST Assured
11 87 (4.02%) JMeter
11 87 (4.02%) SonarQube
12 70 (3.23%) Gatling
13 62 (2.86%) Zephyr
14 58 (2.68%) Maven
15 56 (2.59%) Gradle
16 50 (2.31%) Mockito
17 42 (1.94%) WebDriver
18 40 (1.85%) Bitbucket
19 29 (1.34%) TestNG
General
1 624 (28.81%) Social Skills
2 425 (19.62%) Finance
3 340 (15.70%) Analytical Skills
4 263 (12.14%) Public Sector
5 211 (9.74%) Banking
6 68 (3.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 58 (2.68%) Telecoms
8 36 (1.66%) Retail
9 35 (1.62%) Front Office
9 35 (1.62%) Investment Banking
10 31 (1.43%) Military
11 30 (1.39%) Influencing Skills
12 24 (1.11%) Documentation Skills
13 21 (0.97%) Marketing
14 20 (0.92%) Financial Institution
14 20 (0.92%) Manufacturing
15 19 (0.88%) Law
16 18 (0.83%) Aerospace
16 18 (0.83%) Back Office
17 14 (0.65%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 456 (21.05%) Developer
2 345 (15.93%) Senior
3 221 (10.20%) Lead
4 205 (9.46%) Test Engineer
5 145 (6.69%) Data Engineer
6 144 (6.65%) Tester
7 134 (6.19%) Java Developer
8 122 (5.63%) Software Engineer
9 116 (5.36%) Analyst
10 107 (4.94%) Architect
11 100 (4.62%) QA Engineer
12 94 (4.34%) Senior Developer
13 92 (4.25%) DevOps Engineer
14 87 (4.02%) Test Automation Engineer
15 81 (3.74%) Automation Engineer
16 80 (3.69%) Test Analyst
17 73 (3.37%) Java Engineer
18 71 (3.28%) Full-Stack Developer
18 71 (3.28%) Test Leader
19 58 (2.68%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 363 (16.76%) REST
2 324 (14.96%) Terraform
3 254 (11.73%) Playwright
4 237 (10.94%) RESTful
5 236 (10.90%) Kafka
6 215 (9.93%) Spring
7 200 (9.23%) React
8 179 (8.26%) Spring Boot
9 160 (7.39%) .NET
10 143 (6.60%) HTML
11 118 (5.45%) CSS
12 112 (5.17%) Node.js
13 101 (4.66%) AngularJS
14 92 (4.25%) OAuth
15 72 (3.32%) JSON
16 63 (2.91%) Middleware
17 62 (2.86%) SOAP
18 60 (2.77%) Web Services
18 60 (2.77%) XML
19 58 (2.68%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 342 (15.79%) Cloud Native
2 190 (8.77%) Product Ownership
3 160 (7.39%) Distributed Systems
4 103 (4.76%) Enterprise Software
5 78 (3.60%) Onboarding
6 72 (3.32%) AI Agents
7 52 (2.40%) Legacy Systems
8 51 (2.35%) Self-Motivation
9 48 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
9 48 (2.22%) Mobile App
10 35 (1.62%) Data Structures
11 31 (1.43%) Security Posture
12 25 (1.15%) Management Information System
12 25 (1.15%) Virtual Team
13 22 (1.02%) Data Centre
14 20 (0.92%) Algorithms
14 20 (0.92%) Distributed Architecture
14 20 (0.92%) Embedded Systems
15 19 (0.88%) Private Cloud
16 17 (0.78%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 150 (6.93%) Linux
2 101 (4.66%) Windows
3 78 (3.60%) Unix
4 47 (2.17%) Apple iOS
5 41 (1.89%) Android
6 28 (1.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 22 (1.02%) Windows Server
8 9 (0.42%) VMS
9 8 (0.37%) macOS
10 6 (0.28%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.28%) Windows 10
11 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
11 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
12 4 (0.18%) zOS
13 3 (0.14%) AIX
13 3 (0.14%) CentOS
13 3 (0.14%) Solaris
14 2 (0.092%) Embedded Linux
14 2 (0.092%) Windows Server 2008
14 2 (0.092%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,365 (63.02%) CI/CD
2 1,066 (49.22%) Agile
3 820 (37.86%) DevOps
4 455 (21.01%) Continuous Improvement
5 444 (20.50%) Microservices
6 442 (20.41%) Problem-Solving
7 437 (20.18%) Software Engineering
8 388 (17.91%) Validation
9 380 (17.54%) AI
10 375 (17.31%) Scrum
11 371 (17.13%) Infrastructure as Code
12 325 (15.00%) Containerisation
12 325 (15.00%) Test Strategy
13 293 (13.53%) Observability
14 285 (13.16%) Stakeholder Management
15 284 (13.11%) SDLC
16 276 (12.74%) Software Testing
17 274 (12.65%) TDD
18 235 (10.85%) End-to-End Testing
19 228 (10.53%) Deployment Automation
Programming Languages
1 628 (28.99%) Python
2 606 (27.98%) Java
3 568 (26.22%) SQL
4 336 (15.51%) JavaScript
5 256 (11.82%) TypeScript
6 188 (8.68%) C#
7 90 (4.16%) PowerShell
8 78 (3.60%) Bash
9 54 (2.49%) Bicep
9 54 (2.49%) Kotlin
10 40 (1.85%) Go
11 38 (1.75%) Scala
12 37 (1.71%) C++
13 25 (1.15%) Shell Script
14 23 (1.06%) PL/SQL
15 20 (0.92%) Swift
16 18 (0.83%) Apex Code
17 16 (0.74%) Groovy
18 15 (0.69%) C
19 12 (0.55%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 692 (31.95%) Security Cleared
2 579 (26.73%) SC Cleared
3 131 (6.05%) Degree
4 107 (4.94%) ISTQB
5 97 (4.48%) BPSS Clearance
6 85 (3.92%) DV Cleared
7 72 (3.32%) Computer Science Degree
8 48 (2.22%) AWS Certification
9 35 (1.62%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 28 (1.29%) Azure Certification
11 16 (0.74%) ISEB
12 14 (0.65%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 14 (0.65%) CISSP
12 14 (0.65%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 13 (0.60%) Master's Degree
14 12 (0.55%) Microsoft Certification
15 11 (0.51%) Cisco Certification
16 10 (0.46%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
17 8 (0.37%) SAFe Agilist
18 6 (0.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 601 (27.75%) QA
2 183 (8.45%) Accessibility
3 148 (6.83%) Data Quality
4 94 (4.34%) WCAG
5 39 (1.80%) GDPR
6 17 (0.78%) ISO 20022
6 17 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 16 (0.74%) NIST
8 13 (0.60%) SLA
9 12 (0.55%) NCSC
10 11 (0.51%) GRC
11 8 (0.37%) Actionable Recommendations
12 7 (0.32%) SOC 2
13 6 (0.28%) HL7
13 6 (0.28%) PCI DSS
14 5 (0.23%) FATCA
14 5 (0.23%) Software Quality Assurance
15 4 (0.18%) HIPAA
16 3 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 3 (0.14%) SEPA
System Software
1 442 (20.41%) Docker
2 39 (1.80%) Active Directory
3 33 (1.52%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.46%) Firmware
6 7 (0.32%) VMware NSX
7 3 (0.14%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.092%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.046%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.046%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.046%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 436 (20.13%) Kubernetes
2 128 (5.91%) Ansible
3 119 (5.49%) Grafana
4 83 (3.83%) Prometheus
5 35 (1.62%) Argo
6 25 (1.15%) Kibana
7 24 (1.11%) Puppet
8 23 (1.06%) Progress Chef
9 13 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
10 11 (0.51%) Control-M
11 9 (0.42%) HP ALM
12 8 (0.37%) Microsoft Intune
13 7 (0.32%) Kustomize
14 6 (0.28%) HP Fortify
14 6 (0.28%) SCCM
15 5 (0.23%) Istio
15 5 (0.23%) Packer
15 5 (0.23%) Podman
16 4 (0.18%) Dell DRAC
16 4 (0.18%) Rancher
Vendors
1 227 (10.48%) Microsoft
2 165 (7.62%) Oracle
3 98 (4.52%) Databricks
4 87 (4.02%) Google
5 61 (2.82%) Salesforce
6 59 (2.72%) IBM
7 53 (2.45%) Splunk
8 51 (2.35%) Red Hat
8 51 (2.35%) ServiceNow
9 49 (2.26%) Talend
10 48 (2.22%) SAP
11 43 (1.99%) Dynatrace
12 42 (1.94%) Informatica
12 42 (1.94%) VMware
13 35 (1.62%) Cisco
14 33 (1.52%) Denodo
14 33 (1.52%) UiPath
15 24 (1.11%) Foundry
16 20 (0.92%) OpenAI
17 16 (0.74%) MuleSoft