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

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 49 52
Rank change year-on-year +2 +3 +1
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,950 1,238 1,294
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.27% 4.49% 3.88%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.02% 4.94% 4.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,245 858 872
10th Percentile £329 £313 £360
25th Percentile £406 £380 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £498 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.52% -5.24% -2.78%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £626
90th Percentile £663 £718 £738
UK median daily rate £475 £490 £513
% change year-on-year -3.06% -4.39% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 107 31 24
10th Percentile £38.90 £40.84 £44.00
25th Percentile £60.17 £44.76 £50.94
Median hourly rate £67.50 £50.00 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year +35.00% -11.11% -13.79%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £71.88
90th Percentile £74.00 £75.00 £81.85
UK median hourly rate £67.50 £50.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +35.00% -9.09% -16.35%

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 38,882 25,041 28,684
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.21% 90.76% 85.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,206 16,026 18,694
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 £626 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,519 1,388 1,683
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £20.01 £17.88 £18.15
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £68.75 £50.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.27 £70.16 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.68 £25.15 £40.33
% change year-on-year +69.69% -37.63% -5.12%

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 7 August 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 7 August 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 7 August 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 +6 874 £500 -2.20% 602
North of England +13 387 £465 +3.39% 179
Midlands +4 268 £450 +4.35% 109
West Midlands +25 251 £450 -10.00% 65
South East -32 212 £459 -8.20% 203
Yorkshire -2 155 £496 +4.47% 49
North West -3 141 £490 +16.11% 97
South West +1 112 £469 +8.70% 107
North East +16 99 £425 +1.19% 33
East of England +12 82 £450 -1.91% 68
East Midlands -45 17 £425 +25.00% 44
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
1 172 (8.82%) Confluence
2 48 (2.46%) Apache Airflow
3 43 (2.21%) Apache Spark
3 43 (2.21%) SAS
4 26 (1.33%) SharePoint
5 21 (1.08%) Apache
6 13 (0.67%) CMS
7 11 (0.56%) WebLogic
8 6 (0.31%) Microsoft Exchange
9 5 (0.26%) Camunda
9 5 (0.26%) nginx
9 5 (0.26%) Tomcat
10 4 (0.21%) Jupyter
10 4 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.15%) Kentico
11 3 (0.15%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.10%) Anypoint
12 2 (0.10%) Apache Pulsar
12 2 (0.10%) Appian
12 2 (0.10%) Mule
Applications
1 19 (0.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (0.67%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.36%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.31%) Chatbot
4 6 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.21%) Simulink
7 3 (0.15%) Trello
8 2 (0.10%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.051%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 25 (1.28%) Dynamics CRM
2 16 (0.82%) Aladdin
3 12 (0.62%) Payment Gateway
4 11 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
5 8 (0.41%) Findur
6 7 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
7 6 (0.31%) SAP ERP
7 6 (0.31%) Shopify
8 5 (0.26%) BambooHR
9 3 (0.15%) Distributed Ledger
10 2 (0.10%) Infor CloudSuite
10 2 (0.10%) Infor LN
10 2 (0.10%) Infor M3
10 2 (0.10%) Loan IQ
10 2 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
10 2 (0.10%) SAP MDG
11 1 (0.051%) Maximo
11 1 (0.051%) Summit
11 1 (0.051%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 579 (29.69%) Azure
2 578 (29.64%) AWS
3 351 (18.00%) GitHub
4 263 (13.49%) Azure DevOps
5 219 (11.23%) GitHub Actions
6 152 (7.79%) Serverless
7 148 (7.59%) GCP
8 106 (5.44%) AWS Lambda
9 88 (4.51%) Power Platform
10 87 (4.46%) Amazon S3
11 68 (3.49%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 67 (3.44%) Amazon ECS
13 60 (3.08%) OpenShift
14 52 (2.67%) dbt
15 49 (2.51%) Amazon EKS
16 46 (2.36%) GitHub Copilot
17 45 (2.31%) Amazon EC2
17 45 (2.31%) Snowflake
18 41 (2.10%) Azure Data Factory
19 40 (2.05%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.13%) Firewall
2 18 (0.92%) HTTP
3 16 (0.82%) 4G
3 16 (0.82%) Network Security
4 15 (0.77%) 5G
5 14 (0.72%) 2G
5 14 (0.72%) 3G
5 14 (0.72%) Diameter Protocol
5 14 (0.72%) SIGTRAN
5 14 (0.72%) SS7
6 13 (0.67%) WAN
7 12 (0.62%) DNS
7 12 (0.62%) SAN
7 12 (0.62%) TCP/IP
8 10 (0.51%) LAN
9 9 (0.46%) Wi-Fi
10 6 (0.31%) HTTPS
11 5 (0.26%) BGP
11 5 (0.26%) Broadband
11 5 (0.26%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 120 (6.15%) PostgreSQL
2 117 (6.00%) Data Warehouse
3 101 (5.18%) NoSQL
4 94 (4.82%) MongoDB
5 81 (4.15%) SQL Server
6 74 (3.79%) Power BI
7 57 (2.92%) Relational Database
8 48 (2.46%) DynamoDB
9 40 (2.05%) Oracle Reports
10 38 (1.95%) Pentaho
11 35 (1.79%) Data Lake
12 31 (1.59%) Metadata
13 30 (1.54%) Amazon Athena
14 28 (1.44%) Big Data
15 26 (1.33%) Amazon RDS
15 26 (1.33%) MySQL
16 25 (1.28%) Redis
17 24 (1.23%) Amazon Redshift
18 18 (0.92%) Oracle Database
19 17 (0.87%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 390 (20.00%) Git
2 360 (18.46%) JIRA
3 320 (16.41%) Jenkins
4 261 (13.38%) GitLab
5 237 (12.15%) Selenium
6 135 (6.92%) Cucumber
7 129 (6.62%) Postman
8 100 (5.13%) JUnit
9 96 (4.92%) Cypress.io
10 86 (4.41%) REST Assured
11 74 (3.79%) JMeter
12 67 (3.44%) Zephyr
13 59 (3.03%) SonarQube
14 55 (2.82%) WebDriver
15 47 (2.41%) Gatling
16 43 (2.21%) Gradle
17 41 (2.10%) Bitbucket
18 36 (1.85%) Mockito
19 34 (1.74%) Maven
20 25 (1.28%) SpecFlow
General
1 534 (27.38%) Social Skills
2 369 (18.92%) Finance
3 264 (13.54%) Analytical Skills
4 252 (12.92%) Public Sector
5 162 (8.31%) Banking
6 62 (3.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 39 (2.00%) Documentation Skills
8 36 (1.85%) Telecoms
9 32 (1.64%) Influencing Skills
9 32 (1.64%) Retail
10 28 (1.44%) Investment Banking
11 26 (1.33%) Front Office
12 23 (1.18%) Financial Institution
13 21 (1.08%) Military
14 19 (0.97%) Aerospace
15 15 (0.77%) Back Office
15 15 (0.77%) Organisational Skills
16 14 (0.72%) Automotive
16 14 (0.72%) Legal
17 13 (0.67%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 395 (20.26%) Developer
2 321 (16.46%) Senior
3 208 (10.67%) Lead
4 189 (9.69%) Test Engineer
5 169 (8.67%) Tester
6 139 (7.13%) Data Engineer
7 127 (6.51%) Java Developer
8 113 (5.79%) Software Engineer
9 100 (5.13%) Analyst
10 91 (4.67%) DevOps Engineer
10 91 (4.67%) Senior Developer
11 88 (4.51%) Architect
12 86 (4.41%) QA Engineer
13 82 (4.21%) Test Automation Engineer
14 71 (3.64%) Test Leader
15 67 (3.44%) Full-Stack Developer
16 62 (3.18%) Test Analyst
17 61 (3.13%) Automation Tester
18 58 (2.97%) Automation Engineer
19 53 (2.72%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 254 (13.03%) REST
2 216 (11.08%) Playwright
3 181 (9.28%) RESTful
4 178 (9.13%) React
5 170 (8.72%) Kafka
6 159 (8.15%) Spring
7 139 (7.13%) .NET
8 122 (6.26%) Spring Boot
9 105 (5.38%) Node.js
10 88 (4.51%) AngularJS
11 82 (4.21%) HTML
12 79 (4.05%) CSS
13 57 (2.92%) OAuth
14 47 (2.41%) Jest
14 47 (2.41%) pytest
15 46 (2.36%) .NET Framework
15 46 (2.36%) JSON
16 44 (2.26%) Quarkus
17 43 (2.21%) HTML5
18 42 (2.15%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 287 (14.72%) Cloud Native
2 143 (7.33%) Product Ownership
3 141 (7.23%) Distributed Systems
4 65 (3.33%) Enterprise Software
5 52 (2.67%) Legacy Systems
6 50 (2.56%) Data Protection Act
6 50 (2.56%) Onboarding
7 48 (2.46%) Self-Motivation
8 38 (1.95%) Mobile App
9 33 (1.69%) AI Agents
10 32 (1.64%) Virtual Team
11 29 (1.49%) Distributed Architecture
12 28 (1.44%) Embedded Systems
13 25 (1.28%) Security Posture
14 21 (1.08%) Management Information System
15 19 (0.97%) Fixed Income
16 17 (0.87%) Data Structures
16 17 (0.87%) NHS
17 16 (0.82%) Algorithms
17 16 (0.82%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 130 (6.67%) Linux
2 81 (4.15%) Windows
3 69 (3.54%) Unix
4 38 (1.95%) Apple iOS
5 35 (1.79%) Android
6 26 (1.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 18 (0.92%) Windows Server
8 13 (0.67%) Mac OS X
9 7 (0.36%) Solaris
10 6 (0.31%) Embedded Linux
10 6 (0.31%) Mac OS
11 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
12 4 (0.21%) Ubuntu
12 4 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.15%) AIX
13 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.10%) CentOS
15 1 (0.051%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,144 (58.67%) CI/CD
2 921 (47.23%) Agile
3 748 (38.36%) DevOps
4 379 (19.44%) Problem-Solving
5 378 (19.38%) Microservices
6 375 (19.23%) Continuous Improvement
7 342 (17.54%) Software Engineering
8 324 (16.62%) Scrum
9 318 (16.31%) Infrastructure as Code
10 303 (15.54%) Validation
11 291 (14.92%) Test Strategy
12 284 (14.56%) AI
13 266 (13.64%) Containerisation
14 255 (13.08%) TDD
15 254 (13.03%) Observability
16 224 (11.49%) ETL
17 217 (11.13%) SDLC
18 210 (10.77%) Data Pipeline
19 207 (10.62%) Software Testing
20 200 (10.26%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 503 (25.79%) Python
2 486 (24.92%) Java
3 466 (23.90%) SQL
4 245 (12.56%) JavaScript
5 207 (10.62%) TypeScript
6 183 (9.38%) C#
7 83 (4.26%) PowerShell
8 70 (3.59%) Bash
9 49 (2.51%) Kotlin
10 45 (2.31%) Bicep
11 43 (2.21%) C++
12 32 (1.64%) C
13 26 (1.33%) Go
13 26 (1.33%) Scala
14 25 (1.28%) PL/SQL
15 23 (1.18%) Apex Code
16 21 (1.08%) Swift
17 18 (0.92%) Ruby
18 17 (0.87%) Groovy
19 16 (0.82%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 622 (31.90%) Security Cleared
2 517 (26.51%) SC Cleared
3 91 (4.67%) Degree
4 89 (4.56%) ISTQB
5 58 (2.97%) BPSS Clearance
5 58 (2.97%) DV Cleared
6 47 (2.41%) Computer Science Degree
7 32 (1.64%) AWS Certification
8 22 (1.13%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 18 (0.92%) Azure Certification
10 15 (0.77%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 11 (0.56%) Cisco Certification
11 11 (0.56%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 11 (0.56%) SAFe Agilist
12 10 (0.51%) CISSP
13 9 (0.46%) Master's Degree
13 9 (0.46%) Microsoft Certification
14 8 (0.41%) CCNP
15 7 (0.36%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
15 7 (0.36%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 496 (25.44%) QA
2 148 (7.59%) Accessibility
3 138 (7.08%) Data Quality
4 78 (4.00%) WCAG
5 40 (2.05%) GDPR
6 14 (0.72%) NCSC
7 12 (0.62%) ISO 20022
8 11 (0.56%) SLA
9 10 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 9 (0.46%) NIST
11 7 (0.36%) Def Stans
12 6 (0.31%) Software Quality Assurance
13 5 (0.26%) FATCA
13 5 (0.26%) PCI DSS
13 5 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 4 (0.21%) GRC
15 3 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
15 3 (0.15%) EU AI Act
15 3 (0.15%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 3 (0.15%) MiFID
System Software
1 376 (19.28%) Docker
2 27 (1.38%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (1.23%) Active Directory
4 16 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
5 14 (0.72%) Firmware
6 5 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.10%) SRDF
8 2 (0.10%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.051%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.051%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.051%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 383 (19.64%) Kubernetes
2 280 (14.36%) Terraform
3 108 (5.54%) Ansible
4 102 (5.23%) Grafana
5 89 (4.56%) Prometheus
6 41 (2.10%) Argo
7 21 (1.08%) Puppet
8 17 (0.87%) Progress Chef
9 12 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
10 11 (0.56%) HP ALM
11 10 (0.51%) Dell DRAC
12 9 (0.46%) Kibana
13 7 (0.36%) Kustomize
14 6 (0.31%) NetBackup
14 6 (0.31%) Packer
15 5 (0.26%) Forefront Identity Manager
15 5 (0.26%) HP Quality Center
15 5 (0.26%) Istio
15 5 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
15 5 (0.26%) NetIQ Identity Manager
Vendors
1 190 (9.74%) Microsoft
2 155 (7.95%) Oracle
3 75 (3.85%) Salesforce
4 74 (3.79%) Databricks
5 61 (3.13%) Red Hat
6 57 (2.92%) Google
7 56 (2.87%) Talend
8 50 (2.56%) Splunk
9 41 (2.10%) Denodo
10 38 (1.95%) ServiceNow
11 33 (1.69%) IBM
11 33 (1.69%) Informatica
11 33 (1.69%) VMware
12 31 (1.59%) Dynatrace
13 27 (1.38%) SAP
14 25 (1.28%) UiPath
15 24 (1.23%) Cisco
16 18 (0.92%) HP
17 11 (0.56%) Fortinet
17 11 (0.56%) OpenAI