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

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 44 58
Rank change year-on-year -4 +14 -16
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,483 1,245 1,383
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.68% 4.43% 3.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.28% 4.99% 4.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,015 837 995
10th Percentile £331 £325 £400
25th Percentile £400 £400 £432
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% -6.52%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £638
90th Percentile £700 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -5.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 2 46
10th Percentile £41.94 £51.00 £37.50
25th Percentile £48.75 £56.25 £52.19
Median hourly rate £64.25 £67.50 £77.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.81% -12.90% +29.17%
75th Percentile £67.00 £78.75 £90.00
90th Percentile £67.90 £84.00 -
UK median hourly rate £63.50 £47.50 £77.50
% change year-on-year +33.68% -38.71% +29.17%

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 28,064 24,952 32,014
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 88.52% 88.77% 88.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,908 15,353 21,703
10th Percentile £304 £310 £306
25th Percentile £408 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £645 £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 1,766 818 1,417
10th Percentile £15.18 £15.62 £14.39
25th Percentile £17.96 £20.30 £19.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -22.22% +26.76%
75th Percentile £56.69 £64.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -26.97% +27.14%

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 1 January 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 1 January 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 1 January 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 -5 727 £500 -2.44% 431
North of England 0 303 £488 +11.43% 253
Midlands +12 152 £495 -1.00% 99
Yorkshire -8 145 £513 +13.89% 95
South East -26 135 £500 -2.44% 208
North West -2 116 £425 +6.25% 127
West Midlands +12 115 £519 -5.73% 58
South West +2 75 £550 -3.51% 100
East of England +2 48 £560 +40.00% 103
North East +19 44 £488 +34.48% 31
East Midlands +4 37 £400 -13.51% 38
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 80 (5.39%) Confluence
2 54 (3.64%) SAS
3 25 (1.69%) Apache Spark
4 16 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.88%) SharePoint
6 11 (0.74%) Apache
7 6 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 6 (0.40%) CMS
7 6 (0.40%) OpenStack
7 6 (0.40%) Oracle Application Server
8 4 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.20%) Anypoint
9 3 (0.20%) WebLogic
10 2 (0.13%) Appian
10 2 (0.13%) JBoss
10 2 (0.13%) Magnolia
10 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
10 2 (0.13%) nginx
10 2 (0.13%) Sitecore CMS
10 2 (0.13%) WordPress
Applications
1 15 (1.01%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.54%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.20%) Simulink
5 3 (0.20%) Windchill
6 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.13%) Trello
Business Applications
1 18 (1.21%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.27%) SAP HR
3 3 (0.20%) SAP PLM
3 3 (0.20%) Workday HCM
4 2 (0.13%) Eagle PACE
4 2 (0.13%) Markit EDM
4 2 (0.13%) Maximo
4 2 (0.13%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.13%) SAP FI
4 2 (0.13%) Shopify
5 1 (0.067%) Algo Collateral
5 1 (0.067%) CODA-Financials
5 1 (0.067%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.067%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.067%) Oracle General Ledger
5 1 (0.067%) PORTIA
5 1 (0.067%) Summit
5 1 (0.067%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 410 (27.65%) Azure
2 348 (23.47%) AWS
3 208 (14.03%) GitHub
4 163 (10.99%) Azure DevOps
5 145 (9.78%) GCP
6 107 (7.22%) GitHub Actions
7 102 (6.88%) Serverless
8 51 (3.44%) OpenShift
9 46 (3.10%) Power Platform
10 41 (2.76%) Amazon S3
10 41 (2.76%) Azure AKS
11 40 (2.70%) AWS Lambda
12 35 (2.36%) SaaS
13 34 (2.29%) Snowflake
14 30 (2.02%) AWS CloudFormation
15 28 (1.89%) Amazon EKS
15 28 (1.89%) Azure Functions
16 27 (1.82%) Azure Data Factory
16 27 (1.82%) Power Automate
17 26 (1.75%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 39 (2.63%) Firewall
2 32 (2.16%) Wireshark
3 29 (1.96%) HTTP
4 21 (1.42%) HTTPS
5 20 (1.35%) SSL
5 20 (1.35%) TCP/IP
6 17 (1.15%) VPN
7 15 (1.01%) Network Security
7 15 (1.01%) SD-WAN
8 12 (0.81%) Ethernet
9 10 (0.67%) WAN
10 9 (0.61%) DNS
10 9 (0.61%) Multicast
11 8 (0.54%) AMQP
12 7 (0.47%) FTP
12 7 (0.47%) VLAN
13 5 (0.34%) Cisco IPT
13 5 (0.34%) Internet
13 5 (0.34%) MPLS
14 4 (0.27%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 101 (6.81%) PostgreSQL
2 74 (4.99%) NoSQL
3 65 (4.38%) Relational Database
4 63 (4.25%) MongoDB
5 62 (4.18%) SQL Server
6 33 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
7 29 (1.96%) Pentaho
8 24 (1.62%) BigQuery
9 23 (1.55%) Power BI
10 19 (1.28%) MySQL
10 19 (1.28%) Oracle Database
10 19 (1.28%) Redis
11 18 (1.21%) Big Data
12 17 (1.15%) Data Lake
13 15 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
13 15 (1.01%) SAS Enterprise Guide
14 12 (0.81%) DynamoDB
15 11 (0.74%) Apache Cassandra
15 11 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
15 11 (0.74%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 275 (18.54%) Git
2 265 (17.87%) Jenkins
3 263 (17.73%) JIRA
4 228 (15.37%) Selenium
5 197 (13.28%) GitLab
6 123 (8.29%) Cucumber
7 108 (7.28%) Postman
8 97 (6.54%) Cypress.io
9 75 (5.06%) JUnit
10 67 (4.52%) REST Assured
11 55 (3.71%) JMeter
12 40 (2.70%) Bitbucket
13 36 (2.43%) SonarQube
14 29 (1.96%) Maven
15 28 (1.89%) TestRail
16 27 (1.82%) SpecFlow
17 25 (1.69%) Gradle
18 23 (1.55%) Gatling
19 21 (1.42%) Mockito
20 20 (1.35%) WebDriver
General
1 412 (27.78%) Social Skills
2 250 (16.86%) Finance
3 196 (13.22%) Public Sector
4 160 (10.79%) Analytical Skills
5 111 (7.48%) Banking
6 31 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
7 27 (1.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 23 (1.55%) Pharmaceutical
9 22 (1.48%) Telecoms
10 21 (1.42%) Investment Banking
10 21 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
11 20 (1.35%) Front Office
12 17 (1.15%) Financial Institution
13 13 (0.88%) Military
14 12 (0.81%) Manufacturing
14 12 (0.81%) Organisational Skills
15 10 (0.67%) Aerospace
16 9 (0.61%) Influencing Skills
16 9 (0.61%) Marketing
16 9 (0.61%) Retail
Job Titles
1 330 (22.25%) Developer
2 247 (16.66%) Senior
3 163 (10.99%) Tester
4 161 (10.86%) Test Engineer
5 129 (8.70%) Lead
6 91 (6.14%) Java Developer
7 86 (5.80%) Automation Tester
8 79 (5.33%) Software Engineer
9 68 (4.59%) Test Automation Engineer
10 64 (4.32%) Analyst
11 63 (4.25%) QA Engineer
11 63 (4.25%) Senior Developer
12 62 (4.18%) Data Engineer
13 51 (3.44%) DevOps Engineer
14 49 (3.30%) Automation Engineer
15 47 (3.17%) Test Analyst
15 47 (3.17%) Test Leader
16 44 (2.97%) Test Manager
17 37 (2.49%) Full-Stack Developer
18 36 (2.43%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 190 (12.81%) REST
2 149 (10.05%) Playwright
3 129 (8.70%) React
4 123 (8.29%) .NET
5 109 (7.35%) RESTful
6 104 (7.01%) Node.js
7 103 (6.95%) Kafka
8 96 (6.47%) Spring
9 89 (6.00%) Spring Boot
10 68 (4.59%) pytest
11 57 (3.84%) HTML
12 56 (3.78%) AngularJS
13 55 (3.71%) CSS
13 55 (3.71%) JSON
14 54 (3.64%) SOAP
14 54 (3.64%) XML
15 40 (2.70%) JMS
16 39 (2.63%) Jest
16 39 (2.63%) Web Services
17 36 (2.43%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 153 (10.32%) Cloud Native
2 99 (6.68%) Product Ownership
3 49 (3.30%) Distributed Systems
4 45 (3.03%) Mobile App
5 40 (2.70%) Security Posture
6 31 (2.09%) Algorithms
7 25 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
8 23 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
9 20 (1.35%) Data Structures
9 20 (1.35%) Management Information System
9 20 (1.35%) Onboarding
9 20 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
10 18 (1.21%) Greenfield Project
10 18 (1.21%) Legacy Systems
10 18 (1.21%) Public Cloud
11 16 (1.08%) Genomics
11 16 (1.08%) Life Science
11 16 (1.08%) Virtual Team
12 15 (1.01%) Equities
13 14 (0.94%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 152 (10.25%) Linux
2 72 (4.86%) Windows
3 48 (3.24%) Unix
4 38 (2.56%) Android
5 30 (2.02%) Apple iOS
6 19 (1.28%) Mac OS X
7 18 (1.21%) Windows Server
8 10 (0.67%) Kali Linux
9 8 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 6 (0.40%) CentOS
11 3 (0.20%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.20%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.13%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.13%) VMS
13 1 (0.067%) FreeRTOS
13 1 (0.067%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.067%) Windows Embedded Compact
13 1 (0.067%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 730 (49.22%) Agile
1 730 (49.22%) CI/CD
2 563 (37.96%) DevOps
3 396 (26.70%) Problem-Solving
4 232 (15.64%) Microservices
5 218 (14.70%) Containerisation
6 215 (14.50%) Continuous Improvement
6 215 (14.50%) Test Strategy
7 214 (14.43%) Scrum
8 193 (13.01%) TDD
9 190 (12.81%) Test Scripting
10 185 (12.47%) Infrastructure as Code
11 184 (12.41%) Software Engineering
12 159 (10.72%) AI
13 155 (10.45%) Validation
14 153 (10.32%) Software Testing
15 149 (10.05%) SDLC
16 145 (9.78%) BDD
17 140 (9.44%) Analytics
18 130 (8.77%) API Testing
Programming Languages
1 451 (30.41%) Python
2 341 (22.99%) Java
3 300 (20.23%) SQL
4 210 (14.16%) JavaScript
5 177 (11.94%) TypeScript
6 147 (9.91%) C#
7 82 (5.53%) Bash
8 61 (4.11%) PowerShell
9 36 (2.43%) C++
10 31 (2.09%) Go
11 24 (1.62%) Kotlin
12 23 (1.55%) Bicep
13 20 (1.35%) PL/SQL
14 14 (0.94%) PHP
15 12 (0.81%) Perl
16 11 (0.74%) Apex Code
16 11 (0.74%) Groovy
16 11 (0.74%) Ruby
16 11 (0.74%) Swift
17 8 (0.54%) C
Qualifications
1 387 (26.10%) Security Cleared
2 299 (20.16%) SC Cleared
3 91 (6.14%) Degree
4 60 (4.05%) ISTQB
5 51 (3.44%) Computer Science Degree
6 45 (3.03%) DV Cleared
7 43 (2.90%) BPSS Clearance
8 22 (1.48%) Master's Degree
9 19 (1.28%) AWS Certification
10 18 (1.21%) OSCP
11 17 (1.15%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 15 (1.01%) Azure Certification
12 15 (1.01%) CISSP
12 15 (1.01%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 14 (0.94%) Cisco Certification
13 14 (0.94%) MCP
14 13 (0.88%) CEH
15 12 (0.81%) GPEN
16 11 (0.74%) Oracle Certification
17 10 (0.67%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 332 (22.39%) QA
2 110 (7.42%) Accessibility
3 67 (4.52%) Data Quality
4 34 (2.29%) WCAG
5 33 (2.23%) GDPR
5 33 (2.23%) NIST
6 18 (1.21%) EU AI Act
6 18 (1.21%) NCSC
7 17 (1.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 14 (0.94%) PSD2
9 12 (0.81%) ISO 20022
10 10 (0.67%) PCI DSS
11 9 (0.61%) SEPA
12 8 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 8 (0.54%) SLA
13 6 (0.40%) NIST 800
14 5 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
14 5 (0.34%) MiFID
14 5 (0.34%) PERC
14 5 (0.34%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 314 (21.17%) Docker
2 29 (1.96%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.40%) Firmware
4 5 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.20%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
5 3 (0.20%) ISA Server
5 3 (0.20%) QEMU
5 3 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
5 3 (0.20%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.20%) zsh
6 1 (0.067%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.067%) KVM
6 1 (0.067%) Squid
6 1 (0.067%) Time Sharing Option
6 1 (0.067%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.067%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 280 (18.88%) Kubernetes
2 179 (12.07%) Terraform
3 112 (7.55%) Ansible
4 72 (4.86%) Grafana
5 45 (3.03%) Prometheus
6 16 (1.08%) Nmap
7 15 (1.01%) Progress Chef
8 14 (0.94%) CSIRT
9 13 (0.88%) NetBackup
10 12 (0.81%) HP ALM
10 12 (0.81%) Puppet
11 10 (0.67%) Argo
11 10 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
12 7 (0.47%) Kibana
12 7 (0.47%) Nessus
13 6 (0.40%) Podman
14 4 (0.27%) Forefront Identity Manager
14 4 (0.27%) NetIQ Identity Manager
14 4 (0.27%) Rancher
14 4 (0.27%) SCCM
Vendors
1 152 (10.25%) Microsoft
1 152 (10.25%) Oracle
2 63 (4.25%) Splunk
3 59 (3.98%) Databricks
4 56 (3.78%) ServiceNow
5 47 (3.17%) Salesforce
6 43 (2.90%) SAP
7 39 (2.63%) Google
8 29 (1.96%) Denodo
8 29 (1.96%) Talend
9 23 (1.55%) VMware
10 22 (1.48%) Cisco
10 22 (1.48%) F5
11 21 (1.42%) Red Hat
12 18 (1.21%) webMethods
13 17 (1.15%) IBM
13 17 (1.15%) MuleSoft
14 15 (1.01%) Atlassian
15 14 (0.94%) Dynatrace
15 14 (0.94%) Workday