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

6 months to
5 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 50 46
Rank change year-on-year +5 -4 +5
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,077 1,305 1,355
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.50% 4.67% 4.18%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.32% 5.14% 4.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,323 894 918
10th Percentile £320 £313 £350
25th Percentile £406 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £511
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -2.20% -7.05%
75th Percentile £581 £588 £602
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -5.21%
Number of hourly rates quoted 96 35 15
10th Percentile £40.00 £41.28 £44.50
25th Percentile £55.00 £48.13 £50.63
Median hourly rate £69.25 £57.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.43% -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 39,045 25,398 28,013
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.68% 90.94% 86.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,601 16,100 17,122
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £643
90th Percentile £738 £730 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,948 1,574 1,187
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.42 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.50 £17.87 £20.30
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.47 £45.75 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £38.25 £25.15 £41.50
% change year-on-year +52.09% -39.40% -2.35%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 +4 936 £500 -1.72% 1,529
North of England -2 422 £453 -4.63% 502
Midlands +15 264 £450 -2.70% 247
West Midlands +21 249 £450 -13.21% 168
South East -19 224 £449 -5.53% 467
Yorkshire -6 174 £463 -7.50% 164
North West -9 154 £492 +23.06% 254
South West -4 112 £450 -17.43% 260
North East +4 101 £425 -11.69% 85
East of England +15 95 £367 -8.25% 218
East Midlands -41 15 £418 +17.61% 79
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 (8.62%) Confluence
2 59 (2.84%) Apache Airflow
3 43 (2.07%) Apache Spark
4 40 (1.93%) SharePoint
5 34 (1.64%) Apache
6 23 (1.11%) SAS
7 16 (0.77%) CMS
8 13 (0.63%) Camunda
9 10 (0.48%) WebLogic
10 7 (0.34%) 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 (0.096%) Anypoint
15 2 (0.096%) Apache Pulsar
15 2 (0.096%) Mule
15 2 (0.096%) Tomcat
Applications
1 20 (0.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (0.82%) 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 (0.096%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.048%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.048%) Simulink
7 1 (0.048%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 29 (1.40%) Dynamics CRM
2 19 (0.91%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.58%) Payment Gateway
4 10 (0.48%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.34%) 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 (0.096%) BambooHR
9 2 (0.096%) Oracle ERP
10 1 (0.048%) FLEXCUBE
10 1 (0.048%) Maximo
10 1 (0.048%) SAP HCM
10 1 (0.048%) SAP LE
10 1 (0.048%) SAP QM
10 1 (0.048%) SAP SD
10 1 (0.048%) Summit
10 1 (0.048%) Teamcenter
10 1 (0.048%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 653 (31.44%) AWS
2 626 (30.14%) Azure
3 354 (17.04%) GitHub
4 289 (13.91%) Azure DevOps
5 212 (10.21%) GitHub Actions
6 171 (8.23%) GCP
7 165 (7.94%) Serverless
8 123 (5.92%) AWS Lambda
9 106 (5.10%) Power Platform
10 103 (4.96%) Amazon S3
11 83 (4.00%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 71 (3.42%) OpenShift
13 67 (3.23%) Amazon ECS
14 66 (3.18%) Amazon EKS
14 66 (3.18%) GitHub Copilot
15 55 (2.65%) dbt
16 53 (2.55%) Snowflake
17 50 (2.41%) AWS CloudFormation
18 48 (2.31%) Amazon EC2
19 43 (2.07%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.30%) DNS
2 24 (1.16%) 4G
2 24 (1.16%) Firewall
3 23 (1.11%) TCP/IP
4 22 (1.06%) HTTP
5 21 (1.01%) 5G
5 21 (1.01%) Broadband
5 21 (1.01%) Wi-Fi
6 19 (0.91%) Network Security
7 14 (0.67%) 2G
7 14 (0.67%) 3G
7 14 (0.67%) BGP
7 14 (0.67%) Diameter Protocol
7 14 (0.67%) SIGTRAN
7 14 (0.67%) SS7
7 14 (0.67%) WAN
8 12 (0.58%) Ethernet VPN
8 12 (0.58%) LAN
8 12 (0.58%) VXLAN
9 11 (0.53%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 122 (5.87%) PostgreSQL
2 109 (5.25%) Data Warehouse
3 93 (4.48%) NoSQL
4 92 (4.43%) MongoDB
5 88 (4.24%) Relational Database
6 86 (4.14%) SQL Server
7 84 (4.04%) Power BI
8 41 (1.97%) Data Lake
8 41 (1.97%) Metadata
9 36 (1.73%) DynamoDB
10 32 (1.54%) Big Data
10 32 (1.54%) MySQL
10 32 (1.54%) Oracle Reports
11 31 (1.49%) Pentaho
12 30 (1.44%) Amazon RDS
13 29 (1.40%) Amazon Redshift
14 28 (1.35%) Amazon Athena
14 28 (1.35%) Redis
15 27 (1.30%) Oracle Database
16 20 (0.96%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 464 (22.34%) Git
2 347 (16.71%) JIRA
3 332 (15.98%) Jenkins
4 298 (14.35%) GitLab
5 272 (13.10%) Selenium
6 166 (7.99%) Cucumber
7 140 (6.74%) Postman
8 130 (6.26%) JUnit
9 98 (4.72%) Cypress.io
10 97 (4.67%) REST Assured
11 84 (4.04%) SonarQube
12 83 (4.00%) JMeter
13 66 (3.18%) Gatling
14 61 (2.94%) Zephyr
15 53 (2.55%) Maven
16 48 (2.31%) Gradle
17 45 (2.17%) Mockito
18 42 (2.02%) WebDriver
19 37 (1.78%) Bitbucket
20 27 (1.30%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 587 (28.26%) Social Skills
2 404 (19.45%) Finance
3 316 (15.21%) Analytical Skills
4 256 (12.33%) Public Sector
5 200 (9.63%) Banking
6 68 (3.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 57 (2.74%) Telecoms
8 34 (1.64%) Retail
9 31 (1.49%) Front Office
9 31 (1.49%) Investment Banking
10 30 (1.44%) Military
11 27 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
12 25 (1.20%) Documentation Skills
13 20 (0.96%) Financial Institution
13 20 (0.96%) Manufacturing
14 19 (0.91%) Law
14 19 (0.91%) Marketing
15 18 (0.87%) Aerospace
16 14 (0.67%) Automotive
16 14 (0.67%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 442 (21.28%) Developer
2 328 (15.79%) Senior
3 207 (9.97%) Lead
4 202 (9.73%) Test Engineer
5 143 (6.88%) Tester
6 139 (6.69%) Data Engineer
7 130 (6.26%) Java Developer
8 120 (5.78%) Software Engineer
9 105 (5.06%) Analyst
10 99 (4.77%) Architect
11 94 (4.53%) QA Engineer
12 89 (4.29%) DevOps Engineer
13 87 (4.19%) Test Automation Engineer
14 85 (4.09%) Senior Developer
15 73 (3.51%) Automation Engineer
15 73 (3.51%) Full-Stack Developer
16 68 (3.27%) Java Engineer
16 68 (3.27%) Test Analyst
16 68 (3.27%) Test Leader
17 60 (2.89%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 329 (15.84%) REST
2 320 (15.41%) Terraform
3 233 (11.22%) Playwright
4 226 (10.88%) Kafka
5 218 (10.50%) RESTful
6 203 (9.77%) Spring
7 190 (9.15%) React
8 168 (8.09%) Spring Boot
9 150 (7.22%) .NET
10 138 (6.64%) HTML
11 115 (5.54%) CSS
12 108 (5.20%) Node.js
13 94 (4.53%) AngularJS
14 85 (4.09%) OAuth
15 64 (3.08%) JSON
16 59 (2.84%) Middleware
17 55 (2.65%) SOAP
17 55 (2.65%) Web Services
17 55 (2.65%) XML
18 53 (2.55%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 336 (16.18%) Cloud Native
2 173 (8.33%) Product Ownership
3 154 (7.41%) Distributed Systems
4 91 (4.38%) Enterprise Software
5 76 (3.66%) Onboarding
6 69 (3.32%) AI Agents
7 48 (2.31%) Legacy Systems
8 47 (2.26%) Self-Motivation
9 44 (2.12%) Data Protection Act
10 42 (2.02%) Mobile App
11 31 (1.49%) Data Structures
12 30 (1.44%) Security Posture
13 26 (1.25%) Virtual Team
14 23 (1.11%) Management Information System
15 20 (0.96%) Data Centre
15 20 (0.96%) Embedded Systems
16 18 (0.87%) Private Cloud
17 17 (0.82%) Distributed Architecture
18 16 (0.77%) Greenfield Project
18 16 (0.77%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 145 (6.98%) Linux
2 99 (4.77%) Windows
3 77 (3.71%) Unix
4 42 (2.02%) Apple iOS
5 38 (1.83%) Android
6 30 (1.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 22 (1.06%) Windows Server
8 8 (0.39%) VMS
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 4 (0.19%) Mac OS X
12 3 (0.14%) AIX
12 3 (0.14%) CentOS
12 3 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (0.14%) Solaris
12 3 (0.14%) zOS
13 2 (0.096%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.096%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,284 (61.82%) CI/CD
2 1,013 (48.77%) Agile
3 782 (37.65%) DevOps
4 424 (20.41%) Continuous Improvement
5 421 (20.27%) Microservices
6 420 (20.22%) Problem-Solving
7 415 (19.98%) Software Engineering
8 368 (17.72%) AI
9 367 (17.67%) Infrastructure as Code
10 364 (17.53%) Scrum
11 362 (17.43%) Validation
12 317 (15.26%) Test Strategy
13 308 (14.83%) Containerisation
14 275 (13.24%) Observability
15 271 (13.05%) Software Testing
16 268 (12.90%) SDLC
16 268 (12.90%) TDD
17 255 (12.28%) Stakeholder Management
18 229 (11.03%) End-to-End Testing
19 210 (10.11%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 591 (28.45%) Python
2 580 (27.92%) Java
3 534 (25.71%) SQL
4 325 (15.65%) JavaScript
5 242 (11.65%) TypeScript
6 176 (8.47%) C#
7 88 (4.24%) PowerShell
8 77 (3.71%) Bash
9 50 (2.41%) Bicep
10 48 (2.31%) Kotlin
11 38 (1.83%) Go
12 36 (1.73%) C++
12 36 (1.73%) Scala
13 24 (1.16%) Shell Script
14 23 (1.11%) PL/SQL
15 17 (0.82%) Apex Code
15 17 (0.82%) Swift
16 16 (0.77%) C
16 16 (0.77%) Groovy
17 11 (0.53%) Perl
Qualifications
1 658 (31.68%) Security Cleared
2 548 (26.38%) SC Cleared
3 120 (5.78%) Degree
4 90 (4.33%) BPSS Clearance
4 90 (4.33%) ISTQB
5 82 (3.95%) DV Cleared
6 66 (3.18%) Computer Science Degree
7 46 (2.21%) AWS Certification
8 25 (1.20%) Azure Certification
8 25 (1.20%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 14 (0.67%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 14 (0.67%) CISSP
9 14 (0.67%) ISEB
9 14 (0.67%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 14 (0.67%) Master's Degree
10 12 (0.58%) Microsoft Certification
11 11 (0.53%) Cisco Certification
12 9 (0.43%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 8 (0.39%) SAFe Agilist
14 7 (0.34%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 572 (27.54%) QA
2 180 (8.67%) Accessibility
3 141 (6.79%) Data Quality
4 95 (4.57%) WCAG
5 35 (1.69%) GDPR
6 17 (0.82%) ISO 20022
6 17 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 16 (0.77%) NIST
8 13 (0.63%) SLA
9 12 (0.58%) GRC
9 12 (0.58%) NCSC
10 8 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
11 7 (0.34%) SOC 2
12 6 (0.29%) PCI DSS
13 5 (0.24%) FATCA
13 5 (0.24%) HL7
13 5 (0.24%) Software Quality Assurance
14 4 (0.19%) HIPAA
15 3 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 3 (0.14%) SEPA
System Software
1 423 (20.37%) Docker
2 39 (1.88%) Active Directory
3 30 (1.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.48%) Firmware
6 7 (0.34%) VMware NSX
7 3 (0.14%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.096%) 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 (20.13%) Kubernetes
2 123 (5.92%) Ansible
3 117 (5.63%) Grafana
4 84 (4.04%) Prometheus
5 35 (1.69%) Argo
6 26 (1.25%) Kibana
7 23 (1.11%) Puppet
8 22 (1.06%) Progress Chef
9 12 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
10 11 (0.53%) Control-M
11 10 (0.48%) HP ALM
12 8 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
13 7 (0.34%) 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%) Rancher
16 4 (0.19%) WMI
Vendors
1 216 (10.40%) Microsoft
2 145 (6.98%) Oracle
3 93 (4.48%) Databricks
4 78 (3.76%) Google
5 58 (2.79%) IBM
6 57 (2.74%) Salesforce
7 53 (2.55%) ServiceNow
8 50 (2.41%) Red Hat
9 49 (2.36%) Splunk
10 46 (2.21%) Talend
11 44 (2.12%) SAP
12 40 (1.93%) Dynatrace
13 39 (1.88%) Informatica
13 39 (1.88%) VMware
14 32 (1.54%) Cisco
14 32 (1.54%) Denodo
15 31 (1.49%) UiPath
16 18 (0.87%) Foundry
16 18 (0.87%) OpenAI
17 16 (0.77%) HP