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

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 51 47
Rank change year-on-year +4 -4 +6
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,041 1,275 1,349
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.42% 4.60% 4.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.23% 5.05% 4.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,301 869 917
10th Percentile £320 £313 £350
25th Percentile £406 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £673 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 89 35 15
10th Percentile £39.45 £41.28 £44.50
25th Percentile £55.00 £48.13 £50.63
Median hourly rate £67.50 £57.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +17.39% -4.17% -21.31%
75th Percentile £72.66 £67.00 £79.75
90th Percentile £77.00 £71.80 £85.00
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £55.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year +27.27% -4.35% -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 39,007 25,232 28,124
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.55% 90.97% 86.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,733 16,031 17,231
10th Percentile £325 £295 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £645
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,853 1,544 1,222
10th Percentile £13.90 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.60 £17.85 £20.26
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.00 £67.02
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £39.00 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +55.07% -40.82% -1.16%

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 September 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 September 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 September 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 +6 931 £500 - 1,199
North of England -1 404 £453 -4.63% 430
Midlands +12 261 £450 -2.70% 204
West Midlands +25 246 £450 -13.21% 142
South East -15 216 £448 -5.79% 348
Yorkshire -5 171 £463 -7.50% 132
North West -19 141 £492 +15.82% 233
South West -11 110 £469 -13.19% 238
North East +4 99 £425 -10.53% 65
East of England +16 92 £375 +17.19% 169
East Midlands -44 15 £418 +15.97% 62
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
1 173 (8.48%) Confluence
2 59 (2.89%) Apache Airflow
3 40 (1.96%) SharePoint
4 39 (1.91%) Apache Spark
5 29 (1.42%) Apache
6 26 (1.27%) SAS
7 16 (0.78%) CMS
8 14 (0.69%) Camunda
9 9 (0.44%) 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 (0.20%) nginx
13 4 (0.20%) Palantir Foundry
14 3 (0.15%) Kentico
14 3 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.15%) Tomcat
15 2 (0.098%) Anypoint
15 2 (0.098%) Mule
Applications
1 21 (1.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (0.83%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.29%) Chatbot
3 6 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.20%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.15%) Trello
6 2 (0.098%) Mingle
6 2 (0.098%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.049%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.049%) Simulink
7 1 (0.049%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 28 (1.37%) Dynamics CRM
2 19 (0.93%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (0.64%) Payment Gateway
4 10 (0.49%) 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 (0.20%) SAP MDG
9 2 (0.098%) BambooHR
9 2 (0.098%) Findur
9 2 (0.098%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.098%) Shopify
10 1 (0.049%) FLEXCUBE
10 1 (0.049%) SAP HCM
10 1 (0.049%) SAP LE
10 1 (0.049%) SAP QM
10 1 (0.049%) Summit
10 1 (0.049%) Teamcenter
10 1 (0.049%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 644 (31.55%) AWS
2 612 (29.99%) Azure
3 349 (17.10%) GitHub
4 284 (13.91%) Azure DevOps
5 208 (10.19%) GitHub Actions
6 165 (8.08%) GCP
7 158 (7.74%) Serverless
8 116 (5.68%) AWS Lambda
9 100 (4.90%) Power Platform
10 93 (4.56%) Amazon S3
11 81 (3.97%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 67 (3.28%) GitHub Copilot
13 66 (3.23%) OpenShift
14 62 (3.04%) Amazon ECS
15 60 (2.94%) Amazon EKS
16 56 (2.74%) dbt
17 51 (2.50%) Snowflake
18 48 (2.35%) AWS CloudFormation
19 43 (2.11%) Amazon EC2
20 41 (2.01%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.18%) 4G
2 23 (1.13%) DNS
3 22 (1.08%) Firewall
3 22 (1.08%) HTTP
4 21 (1.03%) 5G
4 21 (1.03%) TCP/IP
4 21 (1.03%) Wi-Fi
5 19 (0.93%) Broadband
6 15 (0.73%) Network Security
7 14 (0.69%) 2G
7 14 (0.69%) 3G
7 14 (0.69%) Diameter Protocol
7 14 (0.69%) SIGTRAN
7 14 (0.69%) SS7
8 13 (0.64%) BGP
8 13 (0.64%) WAN
9 12 (0.59%) Ethernet VPN
9 12 (0.59%) LAN
9 12 (0.59%) VXLAN
10 11 (0.54%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 119 (5.83%) PostgreSQL
2 109 (5.34%) Data Warehouse
3 95 (4.65%) NoSQL
4 93 (4.56%) MongoDB
5 87 (4.26%) Relational Database
6 85 (4.16%) SQL Server
7 80 (3.92%) Power BI
8 40 (1.96%) Data Lake
9 36 (1.76%) DynamoDB
9 36 (1.76%) Metadata
10 34 (1.67%) Oracle Reports
11 29 (1.42%) Big Data
11 29 (1.42%) MySQL
12 28 (1.37%) Amazon Redshift
12 28 (1.37%) Pentaho
12 28 (1.37%) Redis
13 27 (1.32%) Amazon Athena
14 26 (1.27%) Oracle Database
15 25 (1.22%) Amazon RDS
16 20 (0.98%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 460 (22.54%) Git
2 338 (16.56%) JIRA
3 326 (15.97%) Jenkins
4 291 (14.26%) GitLab
5 266 (13.03%) Selenium
6 152 (7.45%) Cucumber
7 138 (6.76%) Postman
8 126 (6.17%) JUnit
9 101 (4.95%) Cypress.io
10 95 (4.65%) REST Assured
11 83 (4.07%) JMeter
12 80 (3.92%) SonarQube
13 66 (3.23%) Gatling
14 61 (2.99%) Zephyr
15 55 (2.69%) Maven
16 51 (2.50%) Gradle
17 47 (2.30%) Mockito
18 42 (2.06%) WebDriver
19 34 (1.67%) Bitbucket
20 26 (1.27%) LoadRunner
General
1 571 (27.98%) Social Skills
2 399 (19.55%) Finance
3 300 (14.70%) Analytical Skills
4 251 (12.30%) Public Sector
5 196 (9.60%) Banking
6 68 (3.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 54 (2.65%) Telecoms
8 34 (1.67%) Retail
9 32 (1.57%) Front Office
10 29 (1.42%) Military
11 28 (1.37%) Investment Banking
12 27 (1.32%) Influencing Skills
13 25 (1.22%) Documentation Skills
14 21 (1.03%) Financial Institution
15 20 (0.98%) Manufacturing
16 18 (0.88%) Law
17 17 (0.83%) Aerospace
17 17 (0.83%) Marketing
18 14 (0.69%) Automotive
19 12 (0.59%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 429 (21.02%) Developer
2 326 (15.97%) Senior
3 204 (10.00%) Lead
4 194 (9.51%) Test Engineer
5 147 (7.20%) Tester
6 132 (6.47%) Data Engineer
7 127 (6.22%) Java Developer
8 112 (5.49%) Software Engineer
9 107 (5.24%) Analyst
10 96 (4.70%) Architect
11 91 (4.46%) DevOps Engineer
11 91 (4.46%) QA Engineer
12 90 (4.41%) Senior Developer
13 86 (4.21%) Test Automation Engineer
14 73 (3.58%) Automation Engineer
15 71 (3.48%) Full-Stack Developer
16 67 (3.28%) Test Analyst
17 66 (3.23%) Java Engineer
18 65 (3.18%) Test Leader
19 63 (3.09%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 324 (15.87%) REST
2 311 (15.24%) Terraform
3 235 (11.51%) Playwright
4 220 (10.78%) Kafka
5 211 (10.34%) RESTful
6 201 (9.85%) Spring
7 192 (9.41%) React
8 168 (8.23%) Spring Boot
9 152 (7.45%) .NET
10 133 (6.52%) HTML
11 114 (5.59%) CSS
12 110 (5.39%) Node.js
13 89 (4.36%) AngularJS
14 81 (3.97%) OAuth
15 62 (3.04%) JSON
16 58 (2.84%) Middleware
16 58 (2.84%) SOAP
17 54 (2.65%) pytest
18 53 (2.60%) Web Services
18 53 (2.60%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 338 (16.56%) Cloud Native
2 168 (8.23%) Product Ownership
3 151 (7.40%) Distributed Systems
4 88 (4.31%) Enterprise Software
5 72 (3.53%) Onboarding
6 62 (3.04%) AI Agents
7 49 (2.40%) Legacy Systems
8 45 (2.20%) Self-Motivation
9 44 (2.16%) Data Protection Act
10 40 (1.96%) Mobile App
11 30 (1.47%) Virtual Team
12 28 (1.37%) Data Structures
13 27 (1.32%) Security Posture
14 23 (1.13%) Management Information System
15 21 (1.03%) Embedded Systems
16 20 (0.98%) Data Centre
17 17 (0.83%) Distributed Architecture
17 17 (0.83%) Private Cloud
18 16 (0.78%) Greenfield Project
18 16 (0.78%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 143 (7.01%) Linux
2 96 (4.70%) Windows
3 80 (3.92%) Unix
4 39 (1.91%) Apple iOS
5 35 (1.71%) Android
6 28 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 21 (1.03%) Windows Server
8 8 (0.39%) VMS
9 6 (0.29%) Mac OS X
10 5 (0.24%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.24%) Windows 7
10 5 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
11 4 (0.20%) Solaris
11 4 (0.20%) Ubuntu
12 3 (0.15%) AIX
12 3 (0.15%) CentOS
12 3 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
12 3 (0.15%) zOS
13 2 (0.098%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,262 (61.83%) CI/CD
2 990 (48.51%) Agile
3 770 (37.73%) DevOps
4 417 (20.43%) Continuous Improvement
5 412 (20.19%) Microservices
6 408 (19.99%) Problem-Solving
7 398 (19.50%) Software Engineering
8 362 (17.74%) Validation
9 361 (17.69%) Infrastructure as Code
10 355 (17.39%) AI
11 354 (17.34%) Scrum
12 320 (15.68%) Test Strategy
13 305 (14.94%) Containerisation
14 277 (13.57%) Observability
15 265 (12.98%) SDLC
16 261 (12.79%) TDD
17 260 (12.74%) Software Testing
18 249 (12.20%) Stakeholder Management
19 225 (11.02%) End-to-End Testing
20 211 (10.34%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 575 (28.17%) Python
2 560 (27.44%) Java
3 511 (25.04%) SQL
4 314 (15.38%) JavaScript
5 238 (11.66%) TypeScript
6 173 (8.48%) C#
7 88 (4.31%) PowerShell
8 75 (3.67%) Bash
9 47 (2.30%) Bicep
10 45 (2.20%) Kotlin
11 38 (1.86%) Go
12 35 (1.71%) Scala
13 34 (1.67%) C++
14 24 (1.18%) PL/SQL
14 24 (1.18%) Shell Script
15 18 (0.88%) Apex Code
15 18 (0.88%) C
16 16 (0.78%) Groovy
17 15 (0.73%) Swift
18 11 (0.54%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 640 (31.36%) Security Cleared
2 535 (26.21%) SC Cleared
3 118 (5.78%) Degree
4 92 (4.51%) ISTQB
5 81 (3.97%) DV Cleared
6 79 (3.87%) BPSS Clearance
7 68 (3.33%) Computer Science Degree
8 43 (2.11%) AWS Certification
9 24 (1.18%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 23 (1.13%) Azure Certification
11 14 (0.69%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 14 (0.69%) CISSP
11 14 (0.69%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 14 (0.69%) Master's Degree
12 13 (0.64%) ISEB
13 12 (0.59%) Cisco Certification
13 12 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
14 8 (0.39%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 8 (0.39%) SAFe Agilist
15 7 (0.34%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 568 (27.83%) QA
2 171 (8.38%) Accessibility
3 139 (6.81%) Data Quality
4 91 (4.46%) WCAG
5 38 (1.86%) GDPR
6 19 (0.93%) ISO 20022
7 16 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 15 (0.73%) NIST
9 13 (0.64%) SLA
10 12 (0.59%) GRC
10 12 (0.59%) NCSC
11 8 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
12 6 (0.29%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.29%) SOC 2
12 6 (0.29%) Software Quality Assurance
13 5 (0.24%) FATCA
13 5 (0.24%) HL7
14 4 (0.20%) HIPAA
14 4 (0.20%) SEPA
15 3 (0.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 419 (20.53%) Docker
2 36 (1.76%) Active Directory
3 30 (1.47%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.49%) Firmware
6 8 (0.39%) VMware NSX
7 3 (0.15%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.098%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.049%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.049%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 402 (19.70%) Kubernetes
2 119 (5.83%) Ansible
3 112 (5.49%) Grafana
4 81 (3.97%) Prometheus
5 32 (1.57%) Argo
6 23 (1.13%) Kibana
7 21 (1.03%) Progress Chef
8 20 (0.98%) Puppet
9 14 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
10 12 (0.59%) HP ALM
11 11 (0.54%) Control-M
12 8 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
13 7 (0.34%) Kustomize
14 6 (0.29%) HP Fortify
15 5 (0.24%) Dell DRAC
15 5 (0.24%) Istio
15 5 (0.24%) Packer
15 5 (0.24%) SCCM
16 4 (0.20%) Rancher
16 4 (0.20%) WMI
Vendors
1 213 (10.44%) Microsoft
2 146 (7.15%) Oracle
3 89 (4.36%) Databricks
4 76 (3.72%) Google
5 59 (2.89%) IBM
6 58 (2.84%) Salesforce
7 54 (2.65%) ServiceNow
8 51 (2.50%) Splunk
9 50 (2.45%) Red Hat
10 44 (2.16%) Talend
11 43 (2.11%) SAP
12 40 (1.96%) Dynatrace
13 38 (1.86%) VMware
14 36 (1.76%) Denodo
15 34 (1.67%) Cisco
16 32 (1.57%) Informatica
17 30 (1.47%) UiPath
18 18 (0.88%) HP
19 17 (0.83%) Foundry
19 17 (0.83%) OpenAI