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

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 50 46
Rank change year-on-year +6 -4 +7
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,102 1,305 1,352
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.52% 4.66% 4.17%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.33% 5.12% 4.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,338 896 918
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 £582 £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 97 35 15
10th Percentile £40.00 £41.28 £44.50
25th Percentile £55.00 £48.13 £50.63
Median hourly rate £69.00 £57.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% -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 39,417 25,490 28,010
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.73% 90.96% 86.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,890 16,169 17,141
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -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 2,936 1,564 1,197
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.44 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.59 £17.87 £20.25
Median hourly rate £40.08 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.36% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.00 £67.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.43 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £25.15 £42.27
% change year-on-year +53.96% -40.49% -0.55%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 +8 950 £500 - 1,682
North of England 0 427 £453 -4.63% 715
Midlands +12 267 £450 -2.70% 397
West Midlands +25 252 £450 -13.34% 235
South East -13 225 £450 -5.26% 642
Yorkshire -5 177 £469 -6.25% 229
North West -14 155 £492 +23.06% 348
South West -9 113 £469 -13.99% 430
North East +5 102 £425 -11.69% 141
East of England +15 96 £375 -6.25% 341
East Midlands -48 15 £418 +15.97% 162
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 (8.52%) Confluence
2 59 (2.81%) Apache Airflow
3 43 (2.05%) Apache Spark
4 40 (1.90%) SharePoint
5 34 (1.62%) Apache
6 23 (1.09%) SAS
7 16 (0.76%) CMS
8 13 (0.62%) Camunda
9 10 (0.48%) WebLogic
10 7 (0.33%) 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 (0.095%) Anypoint
15 2 (0.095%) Apache Pulsar
15 2 (0.095%) Mule
15 2 (0.095%) Tomcat
Applications
1 20 (0.95%) 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 (0.095%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.048%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.048%) Simulink
7 1 (0.048%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 29 (1.38%) Dynamics CRM
2 19 (0.90%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (0.62%) Payment Gateway
4 10 (0.48%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.33%) 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 (0.095%) BambooHR
9 2 (0.095%) Findur
9 2 (0.095%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.095%) 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
1 657 (31.26%) AWS
2 632 (30.07%) Azure
3 358 (17.03%) GitHub
4 291 (13.84%) Azure DevOps
5 213 (10.13%) GitHub Actions
6 172 (8.18%) GCP
7 168 (7.99%) Serverless
8 123 (5.85%) AWS Lambda
9 106 (5.04%) Power Platform
10 103 (4.90%) Amazon S3
11 84 (4.00%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 71 (3.38%) OpenShift
13 69 (3.28%) GitHub Copilot
14 67 (3.19%) Amazon ECS
15 66 (3.14%) Amazon EKS
16 56 (2.66%) dbt
17 53 (2.52%) Snowflake
18 50 (2.38%) AWS CloudFormation
19 48 (2.28%) Amazon EC2
20 43 (2.05%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 26 (1.24%) DNS
2 24 (1.14%) 4G
3 23 (1.09%) Firewall
3 23 (1.09%) TCP/IP
4 22 (1.05%) HTTP
5 21 (1.00%) 5G
5 21 (1.00%) Wi-Fi
6 20 (0.95%) Broadband
7 18 (0.86%) 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 (0.52%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 123 (5.85%) PostgreSQL
2 109 (5.19%) Data Warehouse
3 95 (4.52%) MongoDB
3 95 (4.52%) NoSQL
4 88 (4.19%) Relational Database
5 86 (4.09%) SQL Server
6 84 (4.00%) Power BI
7 41 (1.95%) Data Lake
7 41 (1.95%) Metadata
8 37 (1.76%) DynamoDB
9 32 (1.52%) Big Data
9 32 (1.52%) MySQL
9 32 (1.52%) Oracle Reports
10 31 (1.47%) Pentaho
11 30 (1.43%) Amazon RDS
12 29 (1.38%) Amazon Redshift
13 28 (1.33%) Amazon Athena
13 28 (1.33%) Redis
14 27 (1.28%) Oracle Database
15 20 (0.95%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 468 (22.26%) Git
2 348 (16.56%) JIRA
3 334 (15.89%) Jenkins
4 302 (14.37%) GitLab
5 276 (13.13%) Selenium
6 168 (7.99%) Cucumber
7 141 (6.71%) Postman
8 132 (6.28%) JUnit
9 99 (4.71%) Cypress.io
9 99 (4.71%) REST Assured
10 84 (4.00%) JMeter
10 84 (4.00%) SonarQube
11 67 (3.19%) Gatling
12 61 (2.90%) Zephyr
13 55 (2.62%) Maven
14 50 (2.38%) Gradle
15 47 (2.24%) Mockito
16 42 (2.00%) WebDriver
17 37 (1.76%) Bitbucket
18 28 (1.33%) TestNG
General
1 590 (28.07%) Social Skills
2 411 (19.55%) Finance
3 318 (15.13%) Analytical Skills
4 257 (12.23%) Public Sector
5 202 (9.61%) Banking
6 68 (3.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 56 (2.66%) Telecoms
8 34 (1.62%) Retail
9 33 (1.57%) Front Office
10 31 (1.47%) Investment Banking
10 31 (1.47%) Military
11 27 (1.28%) Influencing Skills
12 24 (1.14%) Documentation Skills
13 22 (1.05%) Financial Institution
14 20 (0.95%) Manufacturing
15 19 (0.90%) Aerospace
15 19 (0.90%) Law
15 19 (0.90%) Marketing
16 15 (0.71%) Back Office
17 14 (0.67%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 448 (21.31%) Developer
2 333 (15.84%) Senior
3 209 (9.94%) Lead
4 206 (9.80%) Test Engineer
5 144 (6.85%) Tester
6 141 (6.71%) Data Engineer
7 133 (6.33%) Java Developer
8 120 (5.71%) Software Engineer
9 109 (5.19%) Analyst
10 101 (4.80%) Architect
11 95 (4.52%) QA Engineer
12 89 (4.23%) DevOps Engineer
12 89 (4.23%) Senior Developer
12 89 (4.23%) Test Automation Engineer
13 75 (3.57%) Full-Stack Developer
14 73 (3.47%) Automation Engineer
15 69 (3.28%) Test Analyst
16 68 (3.24%) Java Engineer
16 68 (3.24%) Test Leader
17 60 (2.85%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 336 (15.98%) REST
2 320 (15.22%) Terraform
3 237 (11.27%) Playwright
4 230 (10.94%) Kafka
5 219 (10.42%) RESTful
6 204 (9.71%) Spring
7 193 (9.18%) React
8 169 (8.04%) Spring Boot
9 151 (7.18%) .NET
10 138 (6.57%) HTML
11 115 (5.47%) CSS
12 110 (5.23%) Node.js
13 94 (4.47%) AngularJS
14 85 (4.04%) OAuth
15 66 (3.14%) JSON
16 59 (2.81%) Middleware
17 58 (2.76%) SOAP
18 55 (2.62%) Web Services
18 55 (2.62%) XML
19 53 (2.52%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 341 (16.22%) Cloud Native
2 174 (8.28%) Product Ownership
3 155 (7.37%) Distributed Systems
4 91 (4.33%) Enterprise Software
5 77 (3.66%) Onboarding
6 69 (3.28%) AI Agents
7 48 (2.28%) Legacy Systems
7 48 (2.28%) Self-Motivation
8 45 (2.14%) Data Protection Act
8 45 (2.14%) Mobile App
9 32 (1.52%) Security Posture
10 31 (1.47%) Data Structures
11 27 (1.28%) Virtual Team
12 23 (1.09%) Management Information System
13 20 (0.95%) Data Centre
13 20 (0.95%) Embedded Systems
14 18 (0.86%) Private Cloud
15 17 (0.81%) Distributed Architecture
16 16 (0.76%) Greenfield Project
16 16 (0.76%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 148 (7.04%) Linux
2 100 (4.76%) Windows
3 80 (3.81%) Unix
4 45 (2.14%) Apple iOS
5 40 (1.90%) Android
6 30 (1.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 22 (1.05%) Windows Server
8 8 (0.38%) VMS
9 6 (0.29%) Mac OS X
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 3 (0.14%) AIX
11 3 (0.14%) CentOS
11 3 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
11 3 (0.14%) Solaris
11 3 (0.14%) zOS
12 2 (0.095%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.095%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,296 (61.66%) CI/CD
2 1,023 (48.67%) Agile
3 789 (37.54%) DevOps
4 426 (20.27%) Continuous Improvement
5 425 (20.22%) Microservices
6 423 (20.12%) Problem-Solving
7 416 (19.79%) Software Engineering
8 370 (17.60%) AI
9 369 (17.55%) Validation
10 368 (17.51%) Infrastructure as Code
11 366 (17.41%) Scrum
12 319 (15.18%) Test Strategy
13 309 (14.70%) Containerisation
14 280 (13.32%) Observability
15 273 (12.99%) Software Testing
16 271 (12.89%) TDD
17 270 (12.84%) SDLC
18 255 (12.13%) Stakeholder Management
19 229 (10.89%) End-to-End Testing
20 211 (10.04%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 594 (28.26%) Python
2 587 (27.93%) Java
3 539 (25.64%) SQL
4 326 (15.51%) JavaScript
5 245 (11.66%) TypeScript
6 177 (8.42%) C#
7 89 (4.23%) PowerShell
8 79 (3.76%) Bash
9 50 (2.38%) Bicep
10 49 (2.33%) Kotlin
11 38 (1.81%) Go
12 36 (1.71%) C++
12 36 (1.71%) Scala
13 24 (1.14%) Shell Script
14 23 (1.09%) PL/SQL
15 18 (0.86%) Swift
16 17 (0.81%) Apex Code
16 17 (0.81%) C
17 16 (0.76%) Groovy
18 11 (0.52%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 665 (31.64%) Security Cleared
2 553 (26.31%) SC Cleared
3 121 (5.76%) Degree
4 91 (4.33%) ISTQB
5 89 (4.23%) BPSS Clearance
6 82 (3.90%) DV Cleared
7 67 (3.19%) Computer Science Degree
8 46 (2.19%) AWS Certification
9 25 (1.19%) Azure Certification
9 25 (1.19%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 14 (0.67%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 14 (0.67%) CISSP
10 14 (0.67%) ISEB
10 14 (0.67%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 14 (0.67%) Master's Degree
11 12 (0.57%) Microsoft Certification
12 11 (0.52%) Cisco Certification
13 9 (0.43%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 8 (0.38%) SAFe Agilist
15 7 (0.33%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 575 (27.35%) QA
2 180 (8.56%) Accessibility
3 141 (6.71%) Data Quality
4 95 (4.52%) WCAG
5 38 (1.81%) GDPR
6 18 (0.86%) ISO 20022
7 17 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 16 (0.76%) NIST
9 13 (0.62%) SLA
10 12 (0.57%) GRC
10 12 (0.57%) NCSC
11 8 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
12 7 (0.33%) SOC 2
13 6 (0.29%) PCI DSS
13 6 (0.29%) Software Quality Assurance
14 5 (0.24%) FATCA
14 5 (0.24%) HL7
15 4 (0.19%) HIPAA
16 3 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 3 (0.14%) SEPA
System Software
1 424 (20.17%) Docker
2 39 (1.86%) Active Directory
3 29 (1.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.48%) Firmware
6 7 (0.33%) VMware NSX
7 3 (0.14%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.095%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.048%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.048%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.048%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 418 (19.89%) Kubernetes
2 123 (5.85%) Ansible
3 118 (5.61%) Grafana
4 85 (4.04%) Prometheus
5 35 (1.67%) Argo
6 26 (1.24%) Kibana
7 23 (1.09%) Puppet
8 22 (1.05%) Progress Chef
9 14 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
10 11 (0.52%) Control-M
11 10 (0.48%) HP ALM
12 8 (0.38%) Microsoft Intune
13 7 (0.33%) 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
1 218 (10.37%) Microsoft
2 149 (7.09%) Oracle
3 93 (4.42%) Databricks
4 78 (3.71%) Google
5 58 (2.76%) IBM
6 57 (2.71%) Salesforce
7 54 (2.57%) ServiceNow
8 50 (2.38%) Red Hat
8 50 (2.38%) Splunk
9 47 (2.24%) Talend
10 44 (2.09%) SAP
11 40 (1.90%) Dynatrace
11 40 (1.90%) Informatica
12 38 (1.81%) VMware
13 33 (1.57%) Denodo
14 32 (1.52%) Cisco
15 31 (1.47%) UiPath
16 18 (0.86%) Foundry
16 18 (0.86%) OpenAI
17 16 (0.76%) HP