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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 50 45
Rank change year-on-year +6 -5 +7
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,137 1,313 1,366
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.62% 4.67% 4.22%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.45% 5.14% 4.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,373 905 923
10th Percentile £320 £313 £350
25th Percentile £407 £400 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -0.99% -8.18%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £698
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 95 33 15
10th Percentile £40.00 £41.06 £44.50
25th Percentile £55.00 £46.25 £50.63
Median hourly rate £69.50 £57.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.87% -4.17% -20.00%
75th Percentile £74.00 £67.00 £79.75
90th Percentile £77.00 £73.40 £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 39,199 25,531 28,009
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.82% 90.87% 86.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,678 16,181 17,100
10th Percentile £325 £294 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,975 1,587 1,157
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.36 £17.79 £20.19
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -4.49%
75th Percentile £67.47 £45.00 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.25 £74.92
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -8.31%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 +9 971 £500 -2.44% 1,654
North of England -2 433 £452 -4.95% 446
Midlands +14 271 £450 -2.70% 209
West Midlands +22 256 £450 -13.46% 137
South East -9 231 £450 -5.26% 416
Yorkshire -5 181 £463 -9.76% 143
North West -10 158 £492 +23.03% 220
South West -4 110 £456 -17.05% 219
North East +2 99 £425 -11.69% 83
East of England +8 92 £367 -11.03% 206
East Midlands -48 15 £418 +19.29% 71
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
1 180 (8.42%) Confluence
2 59 (2.76%) Apache Airflow
3 45 (2.11%) Apache Spark
4 40 (1.87%) SharePoint
5 35 (1.64%) Apache
6 23 (1.08%) SAS
7 16 (0.75%) CMS
8 14 (0.66%) Camunda
9 10 (0.47%) WebLogic
10 7 (0.33%) Microsoft Exchange
10 7 (0.33%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (0.28%) Jupyter
12 5 (0.23%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.19%) Palantir Foundry
14 3 (0.14%) Kentico
14 3 (0.14%) nginx
15 2 (0.094%) Anypoint
15 2 (0.094%) Mule
15 2 (0.094%) Oracle Workflow
15 2 (0.094%) Tomcat
Applications
1 20 (0.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (0.75%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.28%) Chatbot
3 6 (0.28%) 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 (0.094%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.047%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.047%) Simulink
7 1 (0.047%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 27 (1.26%) Dynamics CRM
2 21 (0.98%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.56%) Payment Gateway
4 10 (0.47%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.28%) SAP ERP
7 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
7 5 (0.23%) SAP GRC
8 4 (0.19%) SAP MDG
9 2 (0.094%) Oracle ERP
10 1 (0.047%) Findur
10 1 (0.047%) FLEXCUBE
10 1 (0.047%) Maximo
10 1 (0.047%) Oracle EBS R12
10 1 (0.047%) SAP FI
10 1 (0.047%) SAP MM
10 1 (0.047%) SAP PP
10 1 (0.047%) SAP QM
10 1 (0.047%) SAP SD
10 1 (0.047%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 672 (31.45%) AWS
2 644 (30.14%) Azure
3 371 (17.36%) GitHub
4 298 (13.94%) Azure DevOps
5 224 (10.48%) GitHub Actions
6 181 (8.47%) GCP
7 168 (7.86%) Serverless
8 125 (5.85%) AWS Lambda
9 109 (5.10%) Power Platform
10 106 (4.96%) Amazon S3
11 84 (3.93%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 72 (3.37%) OpenShift
13 70 (3.28%) Amazon ECS
14 67 (3.14%) GitHub Copilot
15 66 (3.09%) Amazon EKS
16 54 (2.53%) AWS CloudFormation
16 54 (2.53%) dbt
17 51 (2.39%) Snowflake
18 49 (2.29%) Amazon EC2
19 46 (2.15%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 28 (1.31%) DNS
1 28 (1.31%) TCP/IP
2 25 (1.17%) 4G
2 25 (1.17%) Firewall
3 23 (1.08%) Broadband
3 23 (1.08%) HTTP
3 23 (1.08%) Wi-Fi
4 22 (1.03%) 5G
5 19 (0.89%) Network Security
6 17 (0.80%) BGP
7 15 (0.70%) WAN
8 14 (0.66%) 2G
8 14 (0.66%) 3G
8 14 (0.66%) Diameter Protocol
8 14 (0.66%) SIGTRAN
8 14 (0.66%) SS7
9 12 (0.56%) DHCP
9 12 (0.56%) Ethernet VPN
9 12 (0.56%) LAN
9 12 (0.56%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 127 (5.94%) PostgreSQL
2 108 (5.05%) Data Warehouse
3 97 (4.54%) NoSQL
4 96 (4.49%) Relational Database
5 95 (4.45%) SQL Server
6 94 (4.40%) MongoDB
7 84 (3.93%) Power BI
8 47 (2.20%) Metadata
9 43 (2.01%) Data Lake
10 37 (1.73%) DynamoDB
11 34 (1.59%) MySQL
11 34 (1.59%) Pentaho
12 32 (1.50%) Big Data
12 32 (1.50%) Oracle Reports
13 31 (1.45%) Amazon RDS
13 31 (1.45%) Oracle Database
13 31 (1.45%) Redis
14 28 (1.31%) Amazon Athena
14 28 (1.31%) Amazon Redshift
15 24 (1.12%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 490 (22.93%) Git
2 350 (16.38%) JIRA
3 342 (16.00%) Jenkins
4 305 (14.27%) GitLab
5 284 (13.29%) Selenium
6 173 (8.10%) Cucumber
7 147 (6.88%) Postman
8 137 (6.41%) JUnit
9 105 (4.91%) Cypress.io
10 98 (4.59%) REST Assured
11 86 (4.02%) JMeter
11 86 (4.02%) SonarQube
12 69 (3.23%) Gatling
13 62 (2.90%) Zephyr
14 55 (2.57%) Maven
15 50 (2.34%) Gradle
16 48 (2.25%) Mockito
17 42 (1.97%) WebDriver
18 38 (1.78%) Bitbucket
19 28 (1.31%) TestNG
General
1 616 (28.83%) Social Skills
2 418 (19.56%) Finance
3 330 (15.44%) Analytical Skills
4 261 (12.21%) Public Sector
5 208 (9.73%) Banking
6 69 (3.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 57 (2.67%) Telecoms
8 36 (1.68%) Retail
9 34 (1.59%) Front Office
9 34 (1.59%) Investment Banking
10 31 (1.45%) Military
11 30 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
12 24 (1.12%) Documentation Skills
13 21 (0.98%) Marketing
14 20 (0.94%) Financial Institution
14 20 (0.94%) Manufacturing
15 19 (0.89%) Law
16 18 (0.84%) Aerospace
17 17 (0.80%) Back Office
18 14 (0.66%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 455 (21.29%) Developer
2 341 (15.96%) Senior
3 218 (10.20%) Lead
4 207 (9.69%) Test Engineer
5 145 (6.79%) Data Engineer
6 143 (6.69%) Tester
7 133 (6.22%) Java Developer
8 121 (5.66%) Software Engineer
9 106 (4.96%) Analyst
10 105 (4.91%) Architect
11 100 (4.68%) QA Engineer
12 91 (4.26%) DevOps Engineer
12 91 (4.26%) Senior Developer
13 89 (4.16%) Test Automation Engineer
14 81 (3.79%) Automation Engineer
15 75 (3.51%) Full-Stack Developer
16 72 (3.37%) Java Engineer
17 70 (3.28%) Test Leader
18 69 (3.23%) Test Analyst
19 58 (2.71%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 353 (16.52%) REST
2 322 (15.07%) Terraform
3 252 (11.79%) Playwright
4 233 (10.90%) Kafka
4 233 (10.90%) RESTful
5 210 (9.83%) Spring
6 201 (9.41%) React
7 176 (8.24%) Spring Boot
8 155 (7.25%) .NET
9 143 (6.69%) HTML
10 118 (5.52%) CSS
11 116 (5.43%) Node.js
12 103 (4.82%) AngularJS
13 90 (4.21%) OAuth
14 70 (3.28%) JSON
15 61 (2.85%) Middleware
16 60 (2.81%) SOAP
17 58 (2.71%) Web Services
18 56 (2.62%) OpenID
18 56 (2.62%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 340 (15.91%) Cloud Native
2 185 (8.66%) Product Ownership
3 157 (7.35%) Distributed Systems
4 99 (4.63%) Enterprise Software
5 77 (3.60%) Onboarding
6 71 (3.32%) AI Agents
7 51 (2.39%) Self-Motivation
8 49 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
9 47 (2.20%) Data Protection Act
10 43 (2.01%) Mobile App
11 35 (1.64%) Data Structures
12 31 (1.45%) Security Posture
13 26 (1.22%) Management Information System
14 25 (1.17%) Virtual Team
15 21 (0.98%) Data Centre
16 20 (0.94%) Embedded Systems
17 19 (0.89%) Algorithms
17 19 (0.89%) Distributed Architecture
17 19 (0.89%) Private Cloud
18 17 (0.80%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 145 (6.79%) Linux
2 97 (4.54%) Windows
3 77 (3.60%) Unix
4 43 (2.01%) Apple iOS
5 39 (1.82%) Android
6 28 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 22 (1.03%) Windows Server
8 9 (0.42%) VMS
9 6 (0.28%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.28%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.23%) Mac OS X
10 5 (0.23%) Windows 7
10 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
11 4 (0.19%) zOS
12 3 (0.14%) AIX
12 3 (0.14%) CentOS
12 3 (0.14%) Solaris
13 2 (0.094%) Embedded Linux
13 2 (0.094%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.094%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,338 (62.61%) CI/CD
2 1,048 (49.04%) Agile
3 808 (37.81%) DevOps
4 447 (20.92%) Continuous Improvement
5 440 (20.59%) Microservices
6 438 (20.50%) Problem-Solving
7 426 (19.93%) Software Engineering
8 377 (17.64%) AI
9 372 (17.41%) Validation
10 371 (17.36%) Scrum
11 369 (17.27%) Infrastructure as Code
12 321 (15.02%) Test Strategy
13 319 (14.93%) Containerisation
14 286 (13.38%) Observability
15 280 (13.10%) SDLC
16 279 (13.06%) Stakeholder Management
17 274 (12.82%) Software Testing
18 273 (12.77%) TDD
19 231 (10.81%) End-to-End Testing
20 222 (10.39%) Deployment Automation
Programming Languages
1 613 (28.69%) Python
2 594 (27.80%) Java
3 558 (26.11%) SQL
4 336 (15.72%) JavaScript
5 260 (12.17%) TypeScript
6 185 (8.66%) C#
7 90 (4.21%) PowerShell
8 77 (3.60%) Bash
9 51 (2.39%) Bicep
9 51 (2.39%) Kotlin
10 39 (1.82%) Go
11 37 (1.73%) Scala
12 36 (1.68%) C++
13 24 (1.12%) Shell Script
14 23 (1.08%) PL/SQL
15 18 (0.84%) Swift
16 17 (0.80%) Apex Code
17 16 (0.75%) Groovy
18 15 (0.70%) C
19 12 (0.56%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 674 (31.54%) Security Cleared
2 563 (26.35%) SC Cleared
3 127 (5.94%) Degree
4 96 (4.49%) ISTQB
5 94 (4.40%) BPSS Clearance
6 83 (3.88%) DV Cleared
7 69 (3.23%) Computer Science Degree
8 48 (2.25%) AWS Certification
9 28 (1.31%) Azure Certification
10 27 (1.26%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 14 (0.66%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 14 (0.66%) CISSP
11 14 (0.66%) ISEB
11 14 (0.66%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 13 (0.61%) Master's Degree
13 12 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
14 11 (0.51%) Cisco Certification
15 10 (0.47%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
16 8 (0.37%) SAFe Agilist
17 6 (0.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 595 (27.84%) QA
2 186 (8.70%) Accessibility
3 148 (6.93%) Data Quality
4 96 (4.49%) WCAG
5 33 (1.54%) GDPR
6 17 (0.80%) ISO 20022
6 17 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 16 (0.75%) NIST
8 13 (0.61%) SLA
9 12 (0.56%) GRC
9 12 (0.56%) NCSC
10 8 (0.37%) Actionable Recommendations
11 7 (0.33%) SOC 2
12 6 (0.28%) HL7
12 6 (0.28%) PCI DSS
13 5 (0.23%) FATCA
13 5 (0.23%) Software Quality Assurance
14 4 (0.19%) HIPAA
15 3 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 3 (0.14%) SEPA
System Software
1 438 (20.50%) Docker
2 39 (1.82%) Active Directory
3 32 (1.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.47%) Firmware
6 7 (0.33%) VMware NSX
7 3 (0.14%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.094%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.047%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.047%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.047%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 433 (20.26%) Kubernetes
2 127 (5.94%) Ansible
3 118 (5.52%) Grafana
4 83 (3.88%) Prometheus
5 35 (1.64%) Argo
6 25 (1.17%) Kibana
7 24 (1.12%) Puppet
8 23 (1.08%) Progress Chef
9 12 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
10 11 (0.51%) Control-M
11 9 (0.42%) HP ALM
12 8 (0.37%) Microsoft Intune
13 7 (0.33%) Kustomize
14 6 (0.28%) HP Fortify
14 6 (0.28%) SCCM
15 5 (0.23%) Istio
15 5 (0.23%) Packer
16 4 (0.19%) Dell DRAC
16 4 (0.19%) Podman
16 4 (0.19%) Rancher
Vendors
1 222 (10.39%) Microsoft
2 159 (7.44%) Oracle
3 97 (4.54%) Databricks
4 85 (3.98%) Google
5 59 (2.76%) IBM
6 58 (2.71%) Salesforce
7 53 (2.48%) ServiceNow
7 53 (2.48%) Splunk
8 50 (2.34%) Red Hat
9 49 (2.29%) Talend
10 46 (2.15%) SAP
11 43 (2.01%) Dynatrace
12 42 (1.97%) Informatica
13 41 (1.92%) VMware
14 35 (1.64%) Cisco
15 33 (1.54%) Denodo
15 33 (1.54%) UiPath
16 22 (1.03%) Foundry
17 18 (0.84%) OpenAI
18 16 (0.75%) MuleSoft