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 20 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 46 46 56
Rank change year-on-year 0 +10 -14
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,491 1,269 1,429
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.74% 4.39% 3.84%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.33% 4.96% 4.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,014 864 1,027
10th Percentile £327 £325 £400
25th Percentile £400 £400 £434
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% -6.52%
75th Percentile £588 £612 £638
90th Percentile £688 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 2 50
10th Percentile £41.94 £51.00 £34.40
25th Percentile £50.00 £56.25 £45.88
Median hourly rate £65.00 £67.50 £75.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.70% -10.00% +25.00%
75th Percentile £67.00 £78.75 £90.00
90th Percentile £67.30 £84.00 -
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £47.50 £75.00
% change year-on-year +36.84% -36.67% +25.00%

All Process and 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 27,948 25,588 32,999
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 88.76% 88.59% 88.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,756 15,817 22,467
10th Percentile £300 £310 £313
25th Percentile £406 £414 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £545
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -3.67% -0.91%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,828 844 1,393
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £14.80
25th Percentile £17.88 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +23.61%
75th Percentile £53.81 £64.79 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.75 £74.66 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £43.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -25.29% +24.29%

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 20 December 2025.

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 20 December 2025.

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 20 December 2025. 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 -2 720 £500 -4.53% 149
North of England +3 303 £488 +11.43% 122
Midlands +9 155 £495 - 44
Yorkshire -9 144 £513 +13.89% 38
South East -27 137 £500 - 150
West Midlands +8 119 £515 -2.60% 22
North West +4 118 £425 +6.25% 59
South West +3 78 £550 - 59
East of England -4 48 £550 +37.50% 54
North East +16 43 £488 +23.81% 25
East Midlands +3 36 £400 -13.51% 22
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 83 (5.57%) Confluence
2 53 (3.55%) SAS
3 24 (1.61%) Apache Spark
4 17 (1.14%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.87%) SharePoint
6 9 (0.60%) Apache
7 7 (0.47%) Oracle Application Server
8 6 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 6 (0.40%) CMS
8 6 (0.40%) OpenStack
9 4 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.20%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.20%) WebLogic
11 2 (0.13%) JBoss
11 2 (0.13%) Magnolia
11 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.13%) nginx
11 2 (0.13%) Sitecore CMS
11 2 (0.13%) WordPress
12 1 (0.067%) WebSphere
Applications
1 19 (1.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.74%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.54%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.27%) Simulink
5 4 (0.27%) Windchill
6 3 (0.20%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.13%) Trello
Business Applications
1 17 (1.14%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.27%) SAP HR
3 4 (0.27%) SAP PLM
4 3 (0.20%) Workday HCM
5 2 (0.13%) Eagle PACE
5 2 (0.13%) Markit EDM
5 2 (0.13%) Maximo
5 2 (0.13%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.13%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.13%) Shopify
6 1 (0.067%) Algo Collateral
6 1 (0.067%) CODA-Financials
6 1 (0.067%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.067%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.067%) Oracle General Ledger
6 1 (0.067%) PORTIA
6 1 (0.067%) Summit
6 1 (0.067%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 413 (27.70%) Azure
2 353 (23.68%) AWS
3 209 (14.02%) GitHub
4 166 (11.13%) Azure DevOps
5 149 (9.99%) GCP
6 104 (6.98%) GitHub Actions
7 97 (6.51%) Serverless
8 50 (3.35%) OpenShift
8 50 (3.35%) Power Platform
9 39 (2.62%) Amazon S3
9 39 (2.62%) AWS Lambda
9 39 (2.62%) Azure AKS
10 38 (2.55%) SaaS
11 34 (2.28%) Snowflake
12 31 (2.08%) AWS CloudFormation
13 27 (1.81%) Amazon EKS
14 26 (1.74%) Azure Data Factory
14 26 (1.74%) Azure Monitor
14 26 (1.74%) Entra ID
14 26 (1.74%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 38 (2.55%) Firewall
2 32 (2.15%) Wireshark
3 29 (1.95%) HTTP
4 22 (1.48%) HTTPS
4 22 (1.48%) SSL
5 18 (1.21%) TCP/IP
6 16 (1.07%) VPN
7 15 (1.01%) SD-WAN
8 14 (0.94%) Network Security
9 12 (0.80%) Ethernet
10 10 (0.67%) DNS
10 10 (0.67%) Multicast
10 10 (0.67%) WAN
11 9 (0.60%) AMQP
12 7 (0.47%) FTP
13 6 (0.40%) Internet
13 6 (0.40%) VLAN
14 5 (0.34%) Broadband
14 5 (0.34%) Cisco IPT
14 5 (0.34%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 99 (6.64%) PostgreSQL
2 76 (5.10%) NoSQL
3 66 (4.43%) Relational Database
4 65 (4.36%) MongoDB
5 62 (4.16%) SQL Server
6 38 (2.55%) Data Warehouse
7 28 (1.88%) Pentaho
8 27 (1.81%) Power BI
9 22 (1.48%) BigQuery
10 19 (1.27%) Big Data
10 19 (1.27%) Data Lake
10 19 (1.27%) Oracle Database
11 18 (1.21%) MySQL
12 16 (1.07%) Redis
13 15 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
13 15 (1.01%) SAS Enterprise Guide
14 12 (0.80%) Azure SQL Database
15 11 (0.74%) Apache Cassandra
15 11 (0.74%) Delta Lake
15 11 (0.74%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 279 (18.71%) Git
2 269 (18.04%) Jenkins
3 265 (17.77%) JIRA
4 233 (15.63%) Selenium
5 198 (13.28%) GitLab
6 127 (8.52%) Cucumber
7 109 (7.31%) Postman
8 94 (6.30%) Cypress.io
9 75 (5.03%) JUnit
10 66 (4.43%) REST Assured
11 53 (3.55%) JMeter
12 44 (2.95%) Bitbucket
13 35 (2.35%) SonarQube
14 31 (2.08%) Maven
15 28 (1.88%) SpecFlow
16 27 (1.81%) TestRail
17 23 (1.54%) Gatling
17 23 (1.54%) Gradle
18 22 (1.48%) Mockito
19 21 (1.41%) WebDriver
General
1 418 (28.03%) Social Skills
2 255 (17.10%) Finance
3 181 (12.14%) Public Sector
4 160 (10.73%) Analytical Skills
5 114 (7.65%) Banking
6 31 (2.08%) Documentation Skills
7 27 (1.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 25 (1.68%) Telecoms
9 23 (1.54%) Front Office
9 23 (1.54%) Pharmaceutical
9 23 (1.54%) Presentation Skills
10 22 (1.48%) Investment Banking
11 17 (1.14%) Financial Institution
12 15 (1.01%) Manufacturing
13 13 (0.87%) Organisational Skills
14 11 (0.74%) Aerospace
14 11 (0.74%) Marketing
14 11 (0.74%) Military
15 10 (0.67%) Electronics
15 10 (0.67%) Retail
Job Titles
1 324 (21.73%) Developer
2 246 (16.50%) Senior
3 167 (11.20%) Tester
4 157 (10.53%) Test Engineer
5 124 (8.32%) Lead
6 92 (6.17%) Java Developer
7 87 (5.84%) Automation Tester
8 78 (5.23%) Software Engineer
9 68 (4.56%) Analyst
10 65 (4.36%) Data Engineer
11 64 (4.29%) Test Automation Engineer
12 63 (4.23%) QA Engineer
13 61 (4.09%) Senior Developer
14 52 (3.49%) DevOps Engineer
15 51 (3.42%) Automation Engineer
16 50 (3.35%) Test Analyst
17 45 (3.02%) Test Leader
18 44 (2.95%) Test Manager
19 36 (2.41%) Full-Stack Developer
20 33 (2.21%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 184 (12.34%) REST
2 147 (9.86%) Playwright
3 124 (8.32%) .NET
3 124 (8.32%) React
4 105 (7.04%) Node.js
4 105 (7.04%) RESTful
5 100 (6.71%) Kafka
6 97 (6.51%) Spring
7 91 (6.10%) Spring Boot
8 66 (4.43%) pytest
9 60 (4.02%) HTML
10 57 (3.82%) CSS
10 57 (3.82%) XML
11 56 (3.76%) SOAP
12 55 (3.69%) JSON
13 53 (3.55%) AngularJS
14 40 (2.68%) Jest
14 40 (2.68%) JMS
15 33 (2.21%) Gherkin
15 33 (2.21%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 156 (10.46%) Cloud Native
2 96 (6.44%) Product Ownership
3 47 (3.15%) Mobile App
4 46 (3.09%) Distributed Systems
5 40 (2.68%) Security Posture
6 29 (1.95%) Algorithms
7 23 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
7 23 (1.54%) Self-Motivation
8 21 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
8 21 (1.41%) Onboarding
8 21 (1.41%) Public Cloud
9 20 (1.34%) Data Structures
10 19 (1.27%) Management Information System
11 16 (1.07%) Genomics
11 16 (1.07%) Greenfield Project
11 16 (1.07%) Legacy Systems
11 16 (1.07%) Life Science
12 14 (0.94%) Data Centre
12 14 (0.94%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 14 (0.94%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 157 (10.53%) Linux
2 71 (4.76%) Windows
3 51 (3.42%) Unix
4 39 (2.62%) Android
5 30 (2.01%) Apple iOS
6 19 (1.27%) Mac OS X
7 16 (1.07%) Windows Server
8 10 (0.67%) Kali Linux
8 10 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 7 (0.47%) CentOS
10 3 (0.20%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.20%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.13%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.13%) VMS
12 1 (0.067%) FreeRTOS
12 1 (0.067%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.067%) Windows Embedded Compact
12 1 (0.067%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 737 (49.43%) CI/CD
2 734 (49.23%) Agile
3 567 (38.03%) DevOps
4 390 (26.16%) Problem-Solving
5 234 (15.69%) Microservices
6 224 (15.02%) Scrum
7 223 (14.96%) Containerisation
8 216 (14.49%) Test Strategy
9 215 (14.42%) Continuous Improvement
10 204 (13.68%) TDD
11 186 (12.47%) Test Scripting
12 184 (12.34%) Software Engineering
13 180 (12.07%) Infrastructure as Code
14 158 (10.60%) AI
15 156 (10.46%) Software Testing
15 156 (10.46%) Validation
16 148 (9.93%) BDD
17 146 (9.79%) SDLC
18 144 (9.66%) Analytics
19 131 (8.79%) API Testing
Programming Languages
1 451 (30.25%) Python
2 350 (23.47%) Java
3 301 (20.19%) SQL
4 201 (13.48%) JavaScript
5 167 (11.20%) TypeScript
6 151 (10.13%) C#
7 87 (5.84%) Bash
8 61 (4.09%) PowerShell
9 38 (2.55%) C++
10 36 (2.41%) Go
11 24 (1.61%) Kotlin
12 21 (1.41%) Bicep
13 20 (1.34%) PL/SQL
14 14 (0.94%) PHP
15 12 (0.80%) Perl
16 11 (0.74%) Groovy
16 11 (0.74%) Swift
17 10 (0.67%) Apex Code
17 10 (0.67%) C
17 10 (0.67%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 375 (25.15%) Security Cleared
2 293 (19.65%) SC Cleared
3 95 (6.37%) Degree
4 57 (3.82%) ISTQB
5 50 (3.35%) Computer Science Degree
6 45 (3.02%) DV Cleared
7 44 (2.95%) BPSS Clearance
8 22 (1.48%) Master's Degree
9 20 (1.34%) AWS Certification
10 19 (1.27%) CISSP
11 18 (1.21%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 18 (1.21%) OSCP
12 15 (1.01%) Azure Certification
13 14 (0.94%) MCP
14 13 (0.87%) CEH
14 13 (0.87%) Cisco Certification
15 12 (0.80%) GPEN
15 12 (0.80%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
16 11 (0.74%) Oracle Certification
17 10 (0.67%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 333 (22.33%) QA
2 108 (7.24%) Accessibility
3 66 (4.43%) Data Quality
4 36 (2.41%) NIST
5 33 (2.21%) GDPR
6 30 (2.01%) WCAG
7 23 (1.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 18 (1.21%) EU AI Act
9 17 (1.14%) NCSC
10 14 (0.94%) PSD2
11 11 (0.74%) NIST 800
11 11 (0.74%) PCI DSS
12 10 (0.67%) ISO 20022
13 9 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 9 (0.60%) SEPA
14 8 (0.54%) SLA
15 7 (0.47%) COBIT
16 6 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
16 6 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
17 5 (0.34%) MiFID
System Software
1 317 (21.26%) Docker
2 28 (1.88%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.47%) 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
1 284 (19.05%) Kubernetes
2 181 (12.14%) Terraform
3 117 (7.85%) Ansible
4 73 (4.90%) Grafana
5 44 (2.95%) Prometheus
6 16 (1.07%) Nmap
7 15 (1.01%) Progress Chef
8 14 (0.94%) CSIRT
9 13 (0.87%) NetBackup
10 12 (0.80%) Puppet
11 11 (0.74%) Argo
11 11 (0.74%) HP ALM
11 11 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
12 7 (0.47%) Kibana
12 7 (0.47%) Nessus
13 6 (0.40%) Podman
14 5 (0.34%) RSA Archer
15 4 (0.27%) Rancher
15 4 (0.27%) SCCM
16 3 (0.20%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 155 (10.40%) Microsoft
2 152 (10.19%) Oracle
3 64 (4.29%) Splunk
4 62 (4.16%) ServiceNow
5 60 (4.02%) Databricks
6 48 (3.22%) Salesforce
7 47 (3.15%) SAP
8 39 (2.62%) Google
9 30 (2.01%) Talend
10 28 (1.88%) Denodo
11 22 (1.48%) VMware
12 21 (1.41%) Cisco
12 21 (1.41%) F5
13 19 (1.27%) Red Hat
13 19 (1.27%) webMethods
14 17 (1.14%) IBM
15 16 (1.07%) MuleSoft
16 15 (1.01%) Atlassian
17 14 (0.94%) Workday
18 13 (0.87%) Dynatrace