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 28 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 51 52
Rank change year-on-year +4 +1 -1
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,913 1,220 1,336
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.24% 4.45% 3.89%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.98% 4.90% 4.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,220 834 900
10th Percentile £325 £313 £363
25th Percentile £406 £378 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -9.52% -2.78%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £625
90th Percentile £663 £712 £738
UK median daily rate £475 £475 £515
% change year-on-year - -7.77% -1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 104 31 34
10th Percentile £38.08 £40.84 £47.65
25th Percentile £60.25 £44.76 £51.56
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 £71.87
90th Percentile £74.00 £75.00 £76.60
UK median hourly rate £67.50 £50.00 £56.25
% change year-on-year +35.00% -11.11% -14.12%

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 38,425 24,898 29,471
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.24% 90.75% 85.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,067 15,953 19,300
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £424 £405 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £521 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.10% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,400 1,362 1,833
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.21 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.87 £17.69
Median hourly rate £46.90 £25.15 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +86.48% -37.63% -5.12%
75th Percentile £69.46 £51.65 £65.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £70.16 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%

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 28 July 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 28 July 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 28 July 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 +6 867 £500 - 330
North of England +14 381 £465 +4.03% 146
Midlands +10 256 £449 +9.39% 62
West Midlands +32 238 £450 -2.44% 38
South East -37 201 £459 -8.20% 152
Yorkshire +8 152 £500 +5.26% 40
North West -13 142 £489 +18.63% 79
South West +5 113 £463 +7.25% 77
North East +12 97 £425 +6.25% 29
East of England +16 81 £450 - 54
East Midlands -40 18 £425 +30.37% 24
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
1 176 (9.20%) Confluence
2 43 (2.25%) Apache Airflow
2 43 (2.25%) Apache Spark
3 40 (2.09%) SAS
4 27 (1.41%) SharePoint
5 20 (1.05%) Apache
6 13 (0.68%) CMS
7 11 (0.58%) 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 (0.16%) Appian
11 3 (0.16%) Kentico
12 2 (0.10%) Anypoint
12 2 (0.10%) Apache Pulsar
12 2 (0.10%) Mule
13 1 (0.052%) Apache Solr
Applications
1 22 (1.15%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (0.89%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.42%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.21%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.21%) Simulink
5 4 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.16%) Trello
7 1 (0.052%) Mingle
7 1 (0.052%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 25 (1.31%) Dynamics CRM
2 16 (0.84%) Aladdin
3 12 (0.63%) Payment Gateway
4 11 (0.58%) SAP S/4HANA
5 9 (0.47%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.42%) Findur
7 6 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
7 6 (0.31%) SAP ERP
7 6 (0.31%) Shopify
8 5 (0.26%) BambooHR
9 3 (0.16%) Distributed Ledger
9 3 (0.16%) Loan IQ
10 2 (0.10%) Infor CloudSuite
10 2 (0.10%) Infor LN
10 2 (0.10%) Infor M3
10 2 (0.10%) Oracle EBS R12
10 2 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
10 2 (0.10%) SAP MDG
10 2 (0.10%) Summit
11 1 (0.052%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 552 (28.86%) AWS
2 549 (28.70%) Azure
3 330 (17.25%) GitHub
4 248 (12.96%) Azure DevOps
5 209 (10.93%) GitHub Actions
6 143 (7.48%) Serverless
7 136 (7.11%) GCP
8 98 (5.12%) AWS Lambda
9 82 (4.29%) Amazon S3
10 81 (4.23%) Power Platform
11 65 (3.40%) OpenShift
12 60 (3.14%) Amazon ECS
13 58 (3.03%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 46 (2.40%) dbt
15 41 (2.14%) Amazon EC2
15 41 (2.14%) Amazon EKS
15 41 (2.14%) Azure Data Factory
16 38 (1.99%) GitHub Copilot
16 38 (1.99%) Snowflake
17 36 (1.88%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.15%) Firewall
2 16 (0.84%) HTTP
2 16 (0.84%) Network Security
3 14 (0.73%) SAN
4 13 (0.68%) WAN
5 12 (0.63%) 2G
5 12 (0.63%) 3G
5 12 (0.63%) 4G
5 12 (0.63%) Diameter Protocol
5 12 (0.63%) SIGTRAN
5 12 (0.63%) SS7
6 11 (0.58%) 5G
7 10 (0.52%) LAN
8 9 (0.47%) TCP/IP
8 9 (0.47%) Wi-Fi
9 8 (0.42%) DNS
10 7 (0.37%) VPN
11 6 (0.31%) BGP
11 6 (0.31%) HTTPS
11 6 (0.31%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (5.85%) PostgreSQL
2 108 (5.65%) Data Warehouse
3 93 (4.86%) NoSQL
4 91 (4.76%) MongoDB
5 80 (4.18%) SQL Server
6 66 (3.45%) Power BI
7 58 (3.03%) Relational Database
8 47 (2.46%) DynamoDB
9 37 (1.93%) Oracle Reports
10 34 (1.78%) Pentaho
11 29 (1.52%) Amazon Athena
12 28 (1.46%) Big Data
12 28 (1.46%) Data Lake
13 27 (1.41%) Metadata
14 25 (1.31%) Amazon RDS
15 23 (1.20%) Amazon Redshift
15 23 (1.20%) MySQL
15 23 (1.20%) Redis
16 20 (1.05%) Oracle Database
17 16 (0.84%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 363 (18.98%) JIRA
2 353 (18.45%) Git
3 307 (16.05%) Jenkins
4 248 (12.96%) GitLab
5 236 (12.34%) Selenium
6 134 (7.00%) Cucumber
7 130 (6.80%) Postman
8 95 (4.97%) Cypress.io
8 95 (4.97%) JUnit
9 93 (4.86%) REST Assured
10 77 (4.03%) JMeter
11 64 (3.35%) Zephyr
12 56 (2.93%) SonarQube
13 52 (2.72%) WebDriver
14 44 (2.30%) Gatling
15 42 (2.20%) Bitbucket
16 41 (2.14%) Gradle
17 34 (1.78%) Mockito
18 32 (1.67%) Maven
19 26 (1.36%) SpecFlow
General
1 530 (27.71%) Social Skills
2 370 (19.34%) Finance
3 253 (13.23%) Analytical Skills
4 246 (12.86%) Public Sector
5 164 (8.57%) Banking
6 56 (2.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 39 (2.04%) Documentation Skills
8 31 (1.62%) Influencing Skills
9 30 (1.57%) Telecoms
10 29 (1.52%) Retail
11 28 (1.46%) Front Office
11 28 (1.46%) Investment Banking
12 22 (1.15%) Military
13 21 (1.10%) Financial Institution
14 17 (0.89%) Aerospace
15 16 (0.84%) Organisational Skills
16 14 (0.73%) Automotive
16 14 (0.73%) Back Office
16 14 (0.73%) Legal
17 12 (0.63%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 392 (20.49%) Developer
2 313 (16.36%) Senior
3 205 (10.72%) Lead
4 189 (9.88%) Test Engineer
5 181 (9.46%) Tester
6 134 (7.00%) Data Engineer
7 127 (6.64%) Java Developer
8 110 (5.75%) Software Engineer
9 102 (5.33%) Analyst
10 90 (4.70%) DevOps Engineer
11 89 (4.65%) Senior Developer
12 87 (4.55%) Architect
13 81 (4.23%) Test Automation Engineer
14 80 (4.18%) QA Engineer
15 70 (3.66%) Test Leader
16 66 (3.45%) Automation Tester
17 65 (3.40%) Full-Stack Developer
18 64 (3.35%) Test Analyst
19 53 (2.77%) Automation Engineer
20 49 (2.56%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 238 (12.44%) REST
2 207 (10.82%) Playwright
3 170 (8.89%) React
4 160 (8.36%) RESTful
5 155 (8.10%) Kafka
6 153 (8.00%) Spring
7 134 (7.00%) .NET
8 122 (6.38%) Spring Boot
9 100 (5.23%) Node.js
10 85 (4.44%) AngularJS
11 78 (4.08%) HTML
12 75 (3.92%) CSS
13 55 (2.88%) OAuth
14 45 (2.35%) .NET Framework
15 44 (2.30%) Quarkus
16 43 (2.25%) Jest
17 42 (2.20%) pytest
18 41 (2.14%) HTML5
19 40 (2.09%) .NET Core
19 40 (2.09%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 270 (14.11%) Cloud Native
2 137 (7.16%) Distributed Systems
3 136 (7.11%) Product Ownership
4 64 (3.35%) Enterprise Software
5 55 (2.88%) Legacy Systems
6 50 (2.61%) Data Protection Act
7 46 (2.40%) Onboarding
7 46 (2.40%) Self-Motivation
8 37 (1.93%) Mobile App
9 31 (1.62%) AI Agents
10 30 (1.57%) Distributed Architecture
10 30 (1.57%) Virtual Team
11 27 (1.41%) Embedded Systems
11 27 (1.41%) Security Posture
12 22 (1.15%) Management Information System
13 21 (1.10%) Fixed Income
14 19 (0.99%) Greenfield Project
15 18 (0.94%) Algorithms
15 18 (0.94%) Data Structures
16 17 (0.89%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 119 (6.22%) Linux
2 77 (4.03%) Windows
3 61 (3.19%) Unix
4 38 (1.99%) Android
4 38 (1.99%) Apple iOS
5 23 (1.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 18 (0.94%) Windows Server
7 14 (0.73%) Mac OS X
8 7 (0.37%) Mac OS
8 7 (0.37%) Solaris
9 6 (0.31%) Embedded Linux
10 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.21%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.16%) AIX
12 3 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.10%) CentOS
14 1 (0.052%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,101 (57.55%) CI/CD
2 909 (47.52%) Agile
3 706 (36.91%) DevOps
4 369 (19.29%) Problem-Solving
5 363 (18.98%) Microservices
6 353 (18.45%) Continuous Improvement
7 324 (16.94%) Software Engineering
8 316 (16.52%) Scrum
9 293 (15.32%) Validation
10 292 (15.26%) Infrastructure as Code
11 291 (15.21%) Test Strategy
12 271 (14.17%) AI
13 253 (13.23%) Containerisation
14 247 (12.91%) Observability
14 247 (12.91%) TDD
15 210 (10.98%) ETL
16 204 (10.66%) SDLC
17 197 (10.30%) Data Pipeline
18 196 (10.25%) Software Testing
19 192 (10.04%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 477 (24.93%) Java
2 476 (24.88%) Python
3 460 (24.05%) SQL
4 232 (12.13%) JavaScript
5 204 (10.66%) TypeScript
6 175 (9.15%) C#
7 73 (3.82%) PowerShell
8 64 (3.35%) Bash
9 50 (2.61%) Kotlin
10 40 (2.09%) Bicep
11 38 (1.99%) C++
12 28 (1.46%) C
13 27 (1.41%) PL/SQL
14 26 (1.36%) Go
15 25 (1.31%) Scala
16 23 (1.20%) Apex Code
17 22 (1.15%) Swift
18 18 (0.94%) Ruby
19 15 (0.78%) Groovy
20 13 (0.68%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 599 (31.31%) Security Cleared
2 496 (25.93%) SC Cleared
3 89 (4.65%) Degree
4 84 (4.39%) ISTQB
5 60 (3.14%) BPSS Clearance
6 59 (3.08%) DV Cleared
7 42 (2.20%) Computer Science Degree
8 26 (1.36%) AWS Certification
9 22 (1.15%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 16 (0.84%) Azure Certification
11 15 (0.78%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 12 (0.63%) Cisco Certification
13 11 (0.58%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 11 (0.58%) SAFe Agilist
14 10 (0.52%) CCNP
14 10 (0.52%) Master's Degree
15 8 (0.42%) CISSP
15 8 (0.42%) Microsoft Certification
16 7 (0.37%) DBS Check
17 6 (0.31%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 478 (24.99%) QA
2 144 (7.53%) Accessibility
3 131 (6.85%) Data Quality
4 71 (3.71%) WCAG
5 37 (1.93%) GDPR
6 12 (0.63%) NCSC
7 10 (0.52%) NIST
7 10 (0.52%) SLA
8 9 (0.47%) ISO 20022
8 9 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 6 (0.31%) Def Stans
9 6 (0.31%) Software Quality Assurance
10 5 (0.26%) FATCA
10 5 (0.26%) PCI DSS
11 4 (0.21%) GRC
12 3 (0.16%) EU AI Act
12 3 (0.16%) HL7
12 3 (0.16%) MiFID
12 3 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.16%) SEPA
System Software
1 347 (18.14%) Docker
2 27 (1.41%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (1.20%) Active Directory
4 15 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
5 12 (0.63%) 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 (0.052%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.052%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 358 (18.71%) Kubernetes
2 257 (13.43%) Terraform
3 102 (5.33%) Ansible
4 100 (5.23%) Grafana
5 87 (4.55%) Prometheus
6 41 (2.14%) Argo
7 17 (0.89%) Puppet
8 13 (0.68%) HP ALM
9 12 (0.63%) Kibana
10 11 (0.58%) Progress Chef
11 10 (0.52%) Dell DRAC
11 10 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
12 7 (0.37%) HP Quality Center
12 7 (0.37%) Kustomize
13 6 (0.31%) Istio
13 6 (0.31%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.26%) Forefront Identity Manager
14 5 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
14 5 (0.26%) NetIQ Identity Manager
15 4 (0.21%) Packer
Vendors
1 186 (9.72%) Microsoft
2 153 (8.00%) Oracle
3 76 (3.97%) Salesforce
4 68 (3.55%) Databricks
5 59 (3.08%) Red Hat
6 55 (2.88%) Talend
7 53 (2.77%) Google
8 51 (2.67%) Splunk
9 38 (1.99%) ServiceNow
10 37 (1.93%) Denodo
11 33 (1.73%) VMware
12 32 (1.67%) Informatica
13 31 (1.62%) IBM
14 29 (1.52%) Dynatrace
15 28 (1.46%) SAP
16 26 (1.36%) UiPath
17 24 (1.25%) Cisco
18 20 (1.05%) HP
19 12 (0.63%) Fortinet
20 11 (0.58%) OpenAI