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

6 months to
26 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 50 46
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 +5
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,065 1,280 1,351
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.44% 4.58% 4.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.24% 5.04% 4.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,318 871 918
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 £592 £600
90th Percentile £673 £700 £691
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 36 16
10th Percentile £40.00 £41.39 £41.25
25th Percentile £55.00 £49.06 £49.38
Median hourly rate £68.22 £56.25 £58.75
Median % change year-on-year +21.27% -4.26% -21.67%
75th Percentile £72.08 £67.00 £77.13
90th Percentile £77.00 £71.00 £85.00
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £55.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year +27.27% -4.35% -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 39,398 25,390 28,245
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.63% 90.87% 86.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,997 16,126 17,350
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £423
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £645
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,849 1,543 1,244
10th Percentile £13.90 £14.41 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.60 £17.87 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.56 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.23% -41.51% -1.94%
75th Percentile £67.70 £47.50 £66.61
90th Percentile £79.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +59.05% -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 26 September 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 26 September 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 26 September 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 +5 938 £500 -1.72% 1,462
North of England +1 410 £450 -5.26% 492
Midlands +14 264 £450 -2.70% 215
West Midlands +26 249 £454 -12.47% 147
South East -21 222 £448 -5.79% 443
Yorkshire -6 175 £460 -8.00% 150
North West -14 142 £492 +15.82% 267
South West -6 111 £463 -14.15% 291
North East +2 100 £425 -10.53% 75
East of England +8 92 £375 +17.19% 204
East Midlands -45 15 £418 +15.97% 67
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 (8.38%) Confluence
2 60 (2.91%) Apache Airflow
3 40 (1.94%) SharePoint
4 39 (1.89%) Apache Spark
5 29 (1.40%) Apache
5 29 (1.40%) SAS
6 16 (0.77%) CMS
7 14 (0.68%) Camunda
8 10 (0.48%) WebLogic
9 7 (0.34%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.29%) Jupyter
10 6 (0.29%) Microsoft Exchange
11 5 (0.24%) nginx
11 5 (0.24%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.19%) Palantir Foundry
12 4 (0.19%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.15%) Kentico
14 2 (0.097%) Anypoint
14 2 (0.097%) Mule
Applications
1 22 (1.07%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (0.82%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.29%) Chatbot
3 6 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.19%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.15%) Trello
6 2 (0.097%) Mingle
6 2 (0.097%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.048%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.048%) Simulink
7 1 (0.048%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 28 (1.36%) Dynamics CRM
2 19 (0.92%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (0.63%) 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 (0.097%) BambooHR
9 2 (0.097%) Distributed Ledger
9 2 (0.097%) Findur
9 2 (0.097%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.097%) 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 LE
10 1 (0.048%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 649 (31.43%) AWS
2 619 (29.98%) Azure
3 354 (17.14%) GitHub
4 286 (13.85%) Azure DevOps
5 209 (10.12%) GitHub Actions
6 165 (7.99%) GCP
7 160 (7.75%) Serverless
8 118 (5.71%) AWS Lambda
9 100 (4.84%) Power Platform
10 93 (4.50%) Amazon S3
11 81 (3.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 68 (3.29%) OpenShift
13 67 (3.24%) GitHub Copilot
14 62 (3.00%) Amazon ECS
15 60 (2.91%) Amazon EKS
16 56 (2.71%) dbt
17 51 (2.47%) Snowflake
18 48 (2.32%) AWS CloudFormation
19 43 (2.08%) Amazon EC2
20 41 (1.99%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 25 (1.21%) 4G
2 23 (1.11%) DNS
2 23 (1.11%) HTTP
3 22 (1.07%) 5G
3 22 (1.07%) Firewall
4 21 (1.02%) TCP/IP
4 21 (1.02%) Wi-Fi
5 19 (0.92%) Broadband
6 15 (0.73%) 2G
6 15 (0.73%) 3G
6 15 (0.73%) Diameter Protocol
6 15 (0.73%) Network Security
6 15 (0.73%) SIGTRAN
6 15 (0.73%) SS7
7 13 (0.63%) BGP
7 13 (0.63%) WAN
8 12 (0.58%) Ethernet VPN
8 12 (0.58%) LAN
8 12 (0.58%) VXLAN
9 11 (0.53%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 119 (5.76%) PostgreSQL
2 109 (5.28%) Data Warehouse
3 96 (4.65%) NoSQL
4 95 (4.60%) MongoDB
5 89 (4.31%) Relational Database
6 88 (4.26%) SQL Server
7 80 (3.87%) Power BI
8 40 (1.94%) Data Lake
9 38 (1.84%) DynamoDB
10 37 (1.79%) Metadata
11 34 (1.65%) Oracle Reports
12 30 (1.45%) Pentaho
13 29 (1.40%) Big Data
13 29 (1.40%) MySQL
13 29 (1.40%) Redis
14 28 (1.36%) Amazon Redshift
15 27 (1.31%) Amazon Athena
16 26 (1.26%) Oracle Database
17 25 (1.21%) Amazon RDS
18 20 (0.97%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 468 (22.66%) Git
2 342 (16.56%) JIRA
3 331 (16.03%) Jenkins
4 296 (14.33%) GitLab
5 268 (12.98%) Selenium
6 152 (7.36%) Cucumber
7 138 (6.68%) Postman
8 128 (6.20%) JUnit
9 101 (4.89%) Cypress.io
10 95 (4.60%) REST Assured
11 82 (3.97%) JMeter
11 82 (3.97%) SonarQube
12 66 (3.20%) Gatling
13 61 (2.95%) Zephyr
14 55 (2.66%) Maven
15 51 (2.47%) Gradle
16 48 (2.32%) Mockito
17 43 (2.08%) WebDriver
18 36 (1.74%) Bitbucket
19 26 (1.26%) LoadRunner
General
1 573 (27.75%) Social Skills
2 403 (19.52%) Finance
3 301 (14.58%) Analytical Skills
4 255 (12.35%) Public Sector
5 197 (9.54%) Banking
6 68 (3.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 55 (2.66%) Telecoms
8 34 (1.65%) Retail
9 32 (1.55%) Front Office
10 29 (1.40%) Military
11 28 (1.36%) Investment Banking
12 27 (1.31%) Influencing Skills
13 26 (1.26%) Documentation Skills
14 21 (1.02%) Financial Institution
15 20 (0.97%) Manufacturing
16 18 (0.87%) Law
17 17 (0.82%) Aerospace
17 17 (0.82%) Marketing
18 14 (0.68%) Automotive
19 12 (0.58%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 437 (21.16%) Developer
2 331 (16.03%) Senior
3 203 (9.83%) Lead
4 195 (9.44%) Test Engineer
5 149 (7.22%) Tester
6 134 (6.49%) Data Engineer
7 131 (6.34%) Java Developer
8 117 (5.67%) Software Engineer
9 109 (5.28%) Analyst
10 96 (4.65%) Architect
11 92 (4.46%) DevOps Engineer
11 92 (4.46%) Senior Developer
12 91 (4.41%) QA Engineer
13 87 (4.21%) Test Automation Engineer
14 73 (3.54%) Automation Engineer
15 71 (3.44%) Full-Stack Developer
16 69 (3.34%) Java Engineer
17 68 (3.29%) Test Analyst
18 64 (3.10%) Test Leader
19 63 (3.05%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 329 (15.93%) REST
2 316 (15.30%) Terraform
3 238 (11.53%) Playwright
4 223 (10.80%) Kafka
5 213 (10.31%) RESTful
6 205 (9.93%) Spring
7 195 (9.44%) React
8 172 (8.33%) Spring Boot
9 155 (7.51%) .NET
10 133 (6.44%) HTML
11 114 (5.52%) CSS
12 112 (5.42%) Node.js
13 92 (4.46%) AngularJS
14 81 (3.92%) OAuth
15 64 (3.10%) JSON
16 59 (2.86%) SOAP
17 58 (2.81%) Middleware
18 56 (2.71%) pytest
19 53 (2.57%) Web Services
19 53 (2.57%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 340 (16.46%) Cloud Native
2 168 (8.14%) Product Ownership
3 151 (7.31%) Distributed Systems
4 88 (4.26%) Enterprise Software
5 74 (3.58%) Onboarding
6 62 (3.00%) AI Agents
7 49 (2.37%) Legacy Systems
8 46 (2.23%) Self-Motivation
9 45 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
10 40 (1.94%) Mobile App
11 31 (1.50%) Virtual Team
12 28 (1.36%) Data Structures
13 27 (1.31%) Security Posture
14 23 (1.11%) Management Information System
15 21 (1.02%) Embedded Systems
16 20 (0.97%) Data Centre
17 17 (0.82%) Distributed Architecture
17 17 (0.82%) Legacy Applications
17 17 (0.82%) Private Cloud
18 16 (0.77%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 145 (7.02%) Linux
2 97 (4.70%) Windows
3 82 (3.97%) Unix
4 39 (1.89%) Apple iOS
5 35 (1.69%) Android
6 29 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 22 (1.07%) Windows Server
8 8 (0.39%) VMS
9 6 (0.29%) Mac OS X
10 5 (0.24%) Solaris
10 5 (0.24%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.24%) Windows 7
10 5 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
11 4 (0.19%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
12 3 (0.15%) AIX
12 3 (0.15%) CentOS
12 3 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (0.15%) Mac OS
12 3 (0.15%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,275 (61.74%) CI/CD
2 1,003 (48.57%) Agile
3 779 (37.72%) DevOps
4 422 (20.44%) Continuous Improvement
5 418 (20.24%) Microservices
6 413 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
7 406 (19.66%) Software Engineering
8 365 (17.68%) Validation
9 363 (17.58%) Infrastructure as Code
10 358 (17.34%) Scrum
11 356 (17.24%) AI
12 322 (15.59%) Test Strategy
13 310 (15.01%) Containerisation
14 282 (13.66%) Observability
15 268 (12.98%) SDLC
16 262 (12.69%) TDD
17 261 (12.64%) Software Testing
18 250 (12.11%) Stakeholder Management
19 227 (10.99%) End-to-End Testing
20 212 (10.27%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 581 (28.14%) Python
2 569 (27.55%) Java
3 516 (24.99%) SQL
4 316 (15.30%) JavaScript
5 242 (11.72%) TypeScript
6 177 (8.57%) C#
7 88 (4.26%) PowerShell
8 75 (3.63%) Bash
9 47 (2.28%) Bicep
10 45 (2.18%) Kotlin
11 38 (1.84%) Go
12 35 (1.69%) Scala
13 34 (1.65%) C++
14 25 (1.21%) PL/SQL
15 24 (1.16%) Shell Script
16 19 (0.92%) Apex Code
17 18 (0.87%) C
18 16 (0.77%) Groovy
19 15 (0.73%) Swift
20 11 (0.53%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 649 (31.43%) Security Cleared
2 543 (26.30%) SC Cleared
3 118 (5.71%) Degree
4 94 (4.55%) ISTQB
5 82 (3.97%) DV Cleared
6 80 (3.87%) BPSS Clearance
7 68 (3.29%) Computer Science Degree
8 43 (2.08%) AWS Certification
9 26 (1.26%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 23 (1.11%) Azure Certification
11 14 (0.68%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 14 (0.68%) CISSP
11 14 (0.68%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 14 (0.68%) Master's Degree
12 13 (0.63%) ISEB
13 12 (0.58%) Cisco Certification
13 12 (0.58%) Microsoft Certification
14 8 (0.39%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 8 (0.39%) SAFe Agilist
15 7 (0.34%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 571 (27.65%) QA
2 171 (8.28%) Accessibility
3 141 (6.83%) Data Quality
4 91 (4.41%) WCAG
5 38 (1.84%) GDPR
6 19 (0.92%) ISO 20022
7 16 (0.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 15 (0.73%) NIST
9 13 (0.63%) SLA
10 12 (0.58%) GRC
10 12 (0.58%) NCSC
11 8 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
12 6 (0.29%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.29%) SOC 2
12 6 (0.29%) Software Quality Assurance
13 5 (0.24%) FATCA
13 5 (0.24%) HL7
14 4 (0.19%) HIPAA
14 4 (0.19%) SEPA
15 3 (0.15%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 427 (20.68%) Docker
2 36 (1.74%) Active Directory
3 31 (1.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.92%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.48%) Firmware
6 8 (0.39%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.15%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.048%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.048%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 413 (20.00%) Kubernetes
2 119 (5.76%) Ansible
3 113 (5.47%) Grafana
4 81 (3.92%) Prometheus
5 34 (1.65%) Argo
6 23 (1.11%) Kibana
7 21 (1.02%) Progress Chef
8 20 (0.97%) Puppet
9 14 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
10 12 (0.58%) HP ALM
11 11 (0.53%) Control-M
12 8 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
13 7 (0.34%) Kustomize
14 6 (0.29%) HP Fortify
15 5 (0.24%) Dell DRAC
15 5 (0.24%) Istio
15 5 (0.24%) Packer
15 5 (0.24%) SCCM
16 4 (0.19%) HP Quality Center
16 4 (0.19%) WMI
Vendors
1 215 (10.41%) Microsoft
2 153 (7.41%) Oracle
3 90 (4.36%) Databricks
4 76 (3.68%) Google
5 60 (2.91%) IBM
6 59 (2.86%) Salesforce
7 54 (2.62%) ServiceNow
8 53 (2.57%) Red Hat
9 52 (2.52%) Splunk
10 46 (2.23%) Talend
11 43 (2.08%) SAP
12 41 (1.99%) Dynatrace
13 39 (1.89%) VMware
14 38 (1.84%) Denodo
15 34 (1.65%) Cisco
16 32 (1.55%) Informatica
17 30 (1.45%) UiPath
18 18 (0.87%) HP
19 17 (0.82%) Foundry
19 17 (0.82%) OpenAI