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

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 48 54
Rank change year-on-year +1 +6 -5
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,675 1,102 1,254
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.12% 4.57% 3.43%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.87% 5.01% 3.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,097 761 827
10th Percentile £331 £333 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £575 £638 £638
90th Percentile £663 £738 £738
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -5.00% -2.44% -6.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 85 20 49
10th Percentile £36.69 £40.26 -
25th Percentile £55.00 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £66.00 £52.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +25.71% -16.00% -15.54%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.52 £82.50
90th Percentile - £75.67 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £66.00 £50.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +32.00% -20.00% -9.91%

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 34,393 22,003 31,618
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.67% 91.23% 86.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,924 14,379 20,694
10th Percentile £319 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £505 £516 £525
% change year-on-year -2.13% -1.71% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,131 924 2,243
10th Percentile £15.34 £14.42 £12.88
25th Percentile £20.36 £18.47 £16.00
Median hourly rate £47.00 £29.02 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +61.96% -20.49% -2.25%
75th Percentile £67.84 £63.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £28.60 £36.50
% change year-on-year +48.60% -21.64% +1.39%

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 14 May 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 14 May 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 14 May 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 -1 813 £491 -1.80% 219
North of England +11 333 £465 +3.33% 141
Midlands +4 193 £450 - 64
West Midlands +22 168 £461 -6.92% 39
South East -42 166 £500 -0.10% 128
North West +10 146 £465 +3.73% 67
Yorkshire -6 140 £478 -5.35% 37
South West +2 88 £463 -11.90% 67
East of England +7 62 £522 +8.24% 56
North East +9 52 £425 +7.59% 37
East Midlands -37 25 £400 +13.15% 25
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
1 135 (8.06%) Confluence
2 40 (2.39%) SAS
3 32 (1.91%) Apache Spark
4 30 (1.79%) Apache Airflow
5 12 (0.72%) Apache
6 11 (0.66%) SharePoint
7 8 (0.48%) Appian
8 6 (0.36%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 6 (0.36%) Camunda
9 4 (0.24%) CMS
9 4 (0.24%) nginx
9 4 (0.24%) Tomcat
10 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.18%) WebLogic
11 2 (0.12%) Anypoint
12 1 (0.060%) Ethereum
12 1 (0.060%) Jupyter
12 1 (0.060%) Mendix
12 1 (0.060%) OpenStack
Applications
1 25 (1.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.72%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.66%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.18%) Simulink
7 1 (0.060%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.060%) Mingle
7 1 (0.060%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 20 (1.19%) Aladdin
2 11 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.42%) Findur
3 7 (0.42%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.42%) Shopify
4 6 (0.36%) Loan IQ
5 5 (0.30%) BambooHR
5 5 (0.30%) Maximo
5 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
5 5 (0.30%) SAP ERP
6 3 (0.18%) Distributed Ledger
6 3 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
7 2 (0.12%) iTrent
7 2 (0.12%) SAP MDG
7 2 (0.12%) Summit
7 2 (0.12%) Workday HCM
8 1 (0.060%) Cloudability
8 1 (0.060%) IntelliMatch
8 1 (0.060%) Oracle Payables
8 1 (0.060%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 451 (26.93%) Azure
2 449 (26.81%) AWS
3 266 (15.88%) GitHub
4 200 (11.94%) Azure DevOps
5 155 (9.25%) GitHub Actions
6 115 (6.87%) GCP
7 109 (6.51%) Serverless
8 70 (4.18%) AWS Lambda
9 68 (4.06%) Amazon S3
10 53 (3.16%) OpenShift
10 53 (3.16%) Power Platform
11 50 (2.99%) Amazon ECS
12 41 (2.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 36 (2.15%) AWS CloudFormation
14 35 (2.09%) Amazon EKS
14 35 (2.09%) Azure Data Factory
15 34 (2.03%) Snowflake
16 33 (1.97%) Azure AKS
17 26 (1.55%) Amazon EC2
18 25 (1.49%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 20 (1.19%) Firewall
2 13 (0.78%) HTTP
2 13 (0.78%) SAN
3 11 (0.66%) TCP/IP
4 9 (0.54%) Ethernet
4 9 (0.54%) VPN
5 8 (0.48%) FTP
5 8 (0.48%) WAN
6 7 (0.42%) MPLS
6 7 (0.42%) SD-WAN
6 7 (0.42%) SSL
6 7 (0.42%) Wireshark
7 6 (0.36%) VLAN
7 6 (0.36%) Wi-Fi
8 5 (0.30%) Multicast
8 5 (0.30%) Network Security
9 4 (0.24%) 5G
9 4 (0.24%) RS-232
9 4 (0.24%) RS-485
9 4 (0.24%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 95 (5.67%) PostgreSQL
2 81 (4.84%) SQL Server
3 78 (4.66%) NoSQL
4 70 (4.18%) MongoDB
5 69 (4.12%) Data Warehouse
6 52 (3.10%) Relational Database
7 41 (2.45%) DynamoDB
8 38 (2.27%) Power BI
9 34 (2.03%) Pentaho
10 25 (1.49%) Oracle Reports
10 25 (1.49%) Tableau
11 23 (1.37%) Redis
12 22 (1.31%) Big Data
12 22 (1.31%) MySQL
13 20 (1.19%) Amazon Athena
14 19 (1.13%) Data Lake
14 19 (1.13%) Metadata
15 18 (1.07%) Amazon RDS
15 18 (1.07%) BigQuery
16 17 (1.01%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 330 (19.70%) JIRA
2 304 (18.15%) Git
3 279 (16.66%) Jenkins
4 232 (13.85%) GitLab
5 225 (13.43%) Selenium
6 131 (7.82%) Postman
7 119 (7.10%) Cucumber
8 90 (5.37%) JUnit
9 78 (4.66%) Cypress.io
10 72 (4.30%) REST Assured
11 71 (4.24%) JMeter
12 44 (2.63%) WebDriver
13 43 (2.57%) SonarQube
14 42 (2.51%) Zephyr
15 32 (1.91%) Gradle
16 30 (1.79%) Maven
16 30 (1.79%) SpecFlow
17 29 (1.73%) Bitbucket
18 27 (1.61%) Mockito
19 25 (1.49%) Gatling
General
1 443 (26.45%) Social Skills
2 305 (18.21%) Finance
3 228 (13.61%) Public Sector
4 207 (12.36%) Analytical Skills
5 146 (8.72%) Banking
6 38 (2.27%) Documentation Skills
7 34 (2.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 29 (1.73%) Investment Banking
9 26 (1.55%) Front Office
10 22 (1.31%) Telecoms
11 19 (1.13%) Influencing Skills
11 19 (1.13%) Presentation Skills
12 17 (1.01%) Organisational Skills
13 15 (0.90%) Legal
13 15 (0.90%) Retail
14 14 (0.84%) Aerospace
15 12 (0.72%) Financial Institution
16 10 (0.60%) Back Office
16 10 (0.60%) Military
17 8 (0.48%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 343 (20.48%) Developer
2 256 (15.28%) Senior
3 184 (10.99%) Tester
4 173 (10.33%) Test Engineer
5 171 (10.21%) Lead
6 103 (6.15%) Data Engineer
7 99 (5.91%) Java Developer
8 93 (5.55%) Analyst
9 87 (5.19%) Test Automation Engineer
10 85 (5.07%) Software Engineer
11 81 (4.84%) Automation Tester
12 72 (4.30%) Architect
13 71 (4.24%) QA Engineer
14 67 (4.00%) Senior Developer
15 65 (3.88%) DevOps Engineer
16 64 (3.82%) Test Leader
17 54 (3.22%) Full-Stack Developer
18 52 (3.10%) Test Analyst
19 49 (2.93%) Automation Engineer
20 48 (2.87%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 186 (11.10%) REST
2 182 (10.87%) Playwright
3 150 (8.96%) React
4 129 (7.70%) Spring
5 123 (7.34%) RESTful
6 122 (7.28%) Kafka
7 117 (6.99%) .NET
8 109 (6.51%) Node.js
9 106 (6.33%) Spring Boot
10 72 (4.30%) AngularJS
11 61 (3.64%) HTML
12 54 (3.22%) CSS
13 53 (3.16%) pytest
14 48 (2.87%) OAuth
15 46 (2.75%) Jest
16 33 (1.97%) OpenID
17 32 (1.91%) Swagger
18 31 (1.85%) Gherkin
18 31 (1.85%) OAuth2
18 31 (1.85%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 182 (10.87%) Cloud Native
2 114 (6.81%) Product Ownership
3 90 (5.37%) Distributed Systems
4 46 (2.75%) Data Protection Act
5 43 (2.57%) Mobile App
6 41 (2.45%) Legacy Systems
7 33 (1.97%) Virtual Team
8 29 (1.73%) Self-Motivation
9 25 (1.49%) Algorithms
9 25 (1.49%) Onboarding
10 24 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
11 23 (1.37%) Management Information System
12 21 (1.25%) Distributed Architecture
13 19 (1.13%) Fixed Income
13 19 (1.13%) Greenfield Project
14 18 (1.07%) Data Centre
14 18 (1.07%) NHS
15 17 (1.01%) Data Structures
15 17 (1.01%) Security Posture
16 16 (0.96%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 112 (6.69%) Linux
2 75 (4.48%) Windows
3 45 (2.69%) Unix
4 39 (2.33%) Android
5 33 (1.97%) Apple iOS
6 18 (1.07%) Windows Server
7 16 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.78%) Mac OS X
9 7 (0.42%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.30%) Solaris
11 4 (0.24%) Embedded Linux
11 4 (0.24%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.18%) AIX
12 3 (0.18%) CentOS
12 3 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.12%) Kali Linux
14 1 (0.060%) FreeRTOS
14 1 (0.060%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 874 (52.18%) CI/CD
2 775 (46.27%) Agile
3 590 (35.22%) DevOps
4 355 (21.19%) Problem-Solving
5 278 (16.60%) Microservices
6 269 (16.06%) Continuous Improvement
7 245 (14.63%) Scrum
8 240 (14.33%) Test Strategy
9 224 (13.37%) Software Engineering
10 221 (13.19%) Infrastructure as Code
11 218 (13.01%) Validation
12 217 (12.96%) Containerisation
13 199 (11.88%) Observability
14 191 (11.40%) AI
14 191 (11.40%) TDD
15 179 (10.69%) Test Scripting
16 170 (10.15%) ETL
17 167 (9.97%) Software Testing
18 164 (9.79%) Regression Testing
19 163 (9.73%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 437 (26.09%) Python
2 416 (24.84%) Java
3 396 (23.64%) SQL
4 226 (13.49%) JavaScript
5 213 (12.72%) TypeScript
6 173 (10.33%) C#
7 68 (4.06%) PowerShell
8 53 (3.16%) Bash
9 43 (2.57%) C++
10 39 (2.33%) Kotlin
11 32 (1.91%) C
12 31 (1.85%) PL/SQL
13 26 (1.55%) Scala
14 24 (1.43%) Apex Code
15 23 (1.37%) Go
16 22 (1.31%) Bicep
17 18 (1.07%) Ruby
18 16 (0.96%) Swift
19 13 (0.78%) Groovy
20 11 (0.66%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 525 (31.34%) Security Cleared
2 405 (24.18%) SC Cleared
3 76 (4.54%) ISTQB
4 71 (4.24%) Degree
5 65 (3.88%) DV Cleared
6 58 (3.46%) BPSS Clearance
7 41 (2.45%) Computer Science Degree
8 15 (0.90%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 13 (0.78%) Master's Degree
10 12 (0.72%) Cisco Certification
11 10 (0.60%) CCNP
11 10 (0.60%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 10 (0.60%) SAFe Agilist
12 8 (0.48%) Azure Certification
12 8 (0.48%) DBS Check
13 7 (0.42%) AWS Certification
13 7 (0.42%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 7 (0.42%) CISSP
14 6 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
15 5 (0.30%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 364 (21.73%) QA
2 114 (6.81%) Accessibility
3 99 (5.91%) Data Quality
4 51 (3.04%) WCAG
5 29 (1.73%) GDPR
6 14 (0.84%) ISO 20022
7 10 (0.60%) Def Stans
7 10 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 10 (0.60%) NCSC
8 8 (0.48%) NIST
8 8 (0.48%) SLA
9 7 (0.42%) SEPA
10 6 (0.36%) PSD2
10 6 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 5 (0.30%) FATCA
12 4 (0.24%) HL7
12 4 (0.24%) MiFID
12 4 (0.24%) PCI DSS
12 4 (0.24%) Software Quality Assurance
13 3 (0.18%) HIPAA
System Software
1 291 (17.37%) Docker
2 19 (1.13%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (1.07%) Active Directory
4 13 (0.78%) Firmware
5 11 (0.66%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.42%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
7 6 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
10 3 (0.18%) ISA Server
11 2 (0.12%) SRDF
12 1 (0.060%) Embedded Firmware
12 1 (0.060%) Hyper-V
12 1 (0.060%) KVM
12 1 (0.060%) Squid
12 1 (0.060%) Virtual Servers
12 1 (0.060%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 292 (17.43%) Kubernetes
2 200 (11.94%) Terraform
3 95 (5.67%) Grafana
4 80 (4.78%) Prometheus
5 78 (4.66%) Ansible
6 26 (1.55%) Argo
7 16 (0.96%) HP ALM
8 15 (0.90%) Puppet
9 11 (0.66%) Kibana
9 11 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
10 10 (0.60%) Forefront Identity Manager
10 10 (0.60%) HP Quality Center
10 10 (0.60%) NetIQ Identity Manager
11 8 (0.48%) Dell DRAC
12 7 (0.42%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.36%) NetBackup
14 5 (0.30%) Rancher
15 4 (0.24%) Istio
15 4 (0.24%) Nmap
15 4 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 149 (8.90%) Oracle
2 139 (8.30%) Microsoft
3 58 (3.46%) Databricks
4 57 (3.40%) Salesforce
5 54 (3.22%) ServiceNow
6 52 (3.10%) Splunk
7 49 (2.93%) Talend
8 45 (2.69%) Red Hat
9 41 (2.45%) Google
10 33 (1.97%) Denodo
11 28 (1.67%) SAP
12 25 (1.49%) VMware
13 21 (1.25%) Cisco
14 20 (1.19%) Informatica
15 19 (1.13%) Dynatrace
15 19 (1.13%) HP
15 19 (1.13%) IBM
16 17 (1.01%) UiPath
17 15 (0.90%) MuleSoft
18 14 (0.84%) Blue Prism