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

6 months to
4 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 50 53
Rank change year-on-year +3 +3 -2
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,898 1,164 1,362
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.32% 4.42% 3.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.05% 4.86% 4.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,219 811 910
10th Percentile £329 £313 £363
25th Percentile £405 £390 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £483 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.66% -8.00% -4.55%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £625
90th Percentile £663 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £475 £484 £513
% change year-on-year -1.86% -5.56% -5.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 107 29 47
10th Percentile £36.19 £42.17 £50.75
25th Percentile £60.17 £46.25 £52.50
Median hourly rate £67.50 £55.00 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +22.73% -4.35% -15.75%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £71.87
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.25 £85.00
UK median hourly rate £67.50 £52.50 £57.50
% change year-on-year +28.57% -8.70% -12.88%

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 37,549 23,970 31,947
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.39% 91.01% 85.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,634 15,421 20,733
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.46% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £730 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £515 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +1.98% -3.81% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,360 1,193 2,304
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £20.85 £17.87 £16.06
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% +1.65%
75th Percentile £68.55 £55.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £82.25 £72.50 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% -

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 +7 858 £500 - 309
North of England +17 386 £455 +1.11% 136
Midlands +10 238 £450 +8.11% 79
West Midlands +27 222 £450 -8.44% 39
South East -36 199 £465 -7.00% 169
Yorkshire +5 160 £500 - 42
North West +3 152 £475 +12.56% 70
South West +13 111 £450 - 72
East of England +16 87 £475 +3.54% 57
North East +9 84 £425 +6.25% 24
East Midlands -42 16 £425 +54.55% 40
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
1 167 (8.80%) Confluence
2 43 (2.27%) Apache Airflow
3 41 (2.16%) SAS
4 37 (1.95%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.84%) Apache
5 16 (0.84%) SharePoint
6 12 (0.63%) CMS
7 6 (0.32%) Appian
7 6 (0.32%) Camunda
8 5 (0.26%) nginx
8 5 (0.26%) Tomcat
8 5 (0.26%) WebLogic
9 4 (0.21%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.16%) Kentico
10 3 (0.16%) Microsoft Exchange
10 3 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
11 2 (0.11%) Anypoint
11 2 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
11 2 (0.11%) Mule
12 1 (0.053%) Mendix
Applications
1 29 (1.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (0.84%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
4 8 (0.42%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.16%) Simulink
8 1 (0.053%) Mingle
8 1 (0.053%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 21 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
2 16 (0.84%) Aladdin
3 12 (0.63%) Payment Gateway
4 10 (0.53%) SAP S/4HANA
5 8 (0.42%) Findur
6 7 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
7 6 (0.32%) SAP ERP
7 6 (0.32%) Shopify
8 5 (0.26%) BambooHR
8 5 (0.26%) Loan IQ
9 3 (0.16%) Distributed Ledger
9 3 (0.16%) Maximo
10 2 (0.11%) Infor CloudSuite
10 2 (0.11%) Infor LN
10 2 (0.11%) iTrent
10 2 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
10 2 (0.11%) SAP MDG
10 2 (0.11%) Summit
10 2 (0.11%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 525 (27.66%) AWS
2 520 (27.40%) Azure
3 309 (16.28%) GitHub
4 230 (12.12%) Azure DevOps
5 188 (9.91%) GitHub Actions
6 134 (7.06%) Serverless
7 129 (6.80%) GCP
8 93 (4.90%) AWS Lambda
9 81 (4.27%) Amazon S3
10 72 (3.79%) Power Platform
11 62 (3.27%) OpenShift
12 53 (2.79%) Amazon ECS
13 51 (2.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 44 (2.32%) dbt
15 41 (2.16%) Azure Data Factory
16 40 (2.11%) Amazon EC2
17 36 (1.90%) Snowflake
18 31 (1.63%) Amazon EKS
19 30 (1.58%) Azure AKS
20 29 (1.53%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 19 (1.00%) Firewall
2 15 (0.79%) HTTP
2 15 (0.79%) SAN
3 11 (0.58%) Network Security
3 11 (0.58%) WAN
4 9 (0.47%) MPLS
5 8 (0.42%) VPN
6 7 (0.37%) 4G
6 7 (0.37%) 5G
7 6 (0.32%) 2G
7 6 (0.32%) 3G
7 6 (0.32%) BGP
7 6 (0.32%) Diameter Protocol
7 6 (0.32%) Ethernet
7 6 (0.32%) LAN
7 6 (0.32%) SD-WAN
7 6 (0.32%) SIGTRAN
7 6 (0.32%) SS7
7 6 (0.32%) Wi-Fi
7 6 (0.32%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 102 (5.37%) PostgreSQL
2 97 (5.11%) Data Warehouse
3 89 (4.69%) MongoDB
4 83 (4.37%) NoSQL
5 76 (4.00%) SQL Server
6 61 (3.21%) Relational Database
7 56 (2.95%) Power BI
8 45 (2.37%) DynamoDB
9 35 (1.84%) Oracle Reports
10 33 (1.74%) Pentaho
11 31 (1.63%) Amazon Athena
12 26 (1.37%) Amazon RDS
13 25 (1.32%) Big Data
13 25 (1.32%) Data Lake
14 24 (1.26%) Amazon Redshift
14 24 (1.26%) Metadata
15 22 (1.16%) Redis
16 21 (1.11%) Tableau
17 20 (1.05%) Oracle Database
18 18 (0.95%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 364 (19.18%) JIRA
2 335 (17.65%) Git
3 309 (16.28%) Jenkins
4 262 (13.80%) GitLab
5 244 (12.86%) Selenium
6 145 (7.64%) Postman
7 136 (7.17%) Cucumber
8 101 (5.32%) REST Assured
9 98 (5.16%) JUnit
10 87 (4.58%) Cypress.io
11 83 (4.37%) JMeter
12 59 (3.11%) Zephyr
13 53 (2.79%) WebDriver
14 52 (2.74%) SonarQube
15 45 (2.37%) Gatling
16 42 (2.21%) Gradle
17 37 (1.95%) Bitbucket
18 35 (1.84%) Mockito
19 31 (1.63%) Maven
20 29 (1.53%) SpecFlow
General
1 517 (27.24%) Social Skills
2 365 (19.23%) Finance
3 246 (12.96%) Analytical Skills
4 232 (12.22%) Public Sector
5 163 (8.59%) Banking
6 51 (2.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 41 (2.16%) Documentation Skills
8 32 (1.69%) Investment Banking
9 26 (1.37%) Front Office
9 26 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
10 25 (1.32%) Telecoms
11 22 (1.16%) Financial Institution
11 22 (1.16%) Retail
12 19 (1.00%) Military
13 17 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
14 16 (0.84%) Aerospace
15 15 (0.79%) Legal
16 13 (0.68%) Back Office
16 13 (0.68%) Presentation Skills
17 12 (0.63%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 378 (19.92%) Developer
2 297 (15.65%) Senior
3 203 (10.70%) Lead
4 195 (10.27%) Test Engineer
4 195 (10.27%) Tester
5 129 (6.80%) Data Engineer
6 119 (6.27%) Java Developer
7 107 (5.64%) Software Engineer
8 98 (5.16%) Analyst
9 87 (4.58%) Architect
10 83 (4.37%) DevOps Engineer
10 83 (4.37%) Test Automation Engineer
11 79 (4.16%) Senior Developer
12 78 (4.11%) QA Engineer
13 74 (3.90%) Test Leader
14 65 (3.42%) Automation Tester
15 57 (3.00%) Automation Engineer
15 57 (3.00%) Test Analyst
16 52 (2.74%) Full-Stack Developer
17 47 (2.48%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 214 (11.28%) REST
2 212 (11.17%) Playwright
3 172 (9.06%) React
4 152 (8.01%) Spring
5 141 (7.43%) RESTful
6 140 (7.38%) Kafka
7 122 (6.43%) .NET
8 121 (6.38%) Spring Boot
9 94 (4.95%) Node.js
10 80 (4.21%) AngularJS
11 68 (3.58%) HTML
12 64 (3.37%) CSS
13 47 (2.48%) pytest
14 45 (2.37%) OAuth
15 40 (2.11%) Jest
15 40 (2.11%) Quarkus
16 39 (2.05%) .NET Framework
17 37 (1.95%) Swagger
18 36 (1.90%) Gherkin
18 36 (1.90%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 238 (12.54%) Cloud Native
2 131 (6.90%) Product Ownership
3 119 (6.27%) Distributed Systems
4 57 (3.00%) Enterprise Software
5 54 (2.85%) Legacy Systems
6 47 (2.48%) Data Protection Act
7 41 (2.16%) Mobile App
7 41 (2.16%) Self-Motivation
8 38 (2.00%) Onboarding
9 36 (1.90%) Virtual Team
10 31 (1.63%) Distributed Architecture
11 28 (1.48%) Security Posture
12 26 (1.37%) Management Information System
13 25 (1.32%) Embedded Systems
14 21 (1.11%) Greenfield Project
15 20 (1.05%) AI Agents
16 19 (1.00%) Fixed Income
17 18 (0.95%) Algorithms
18 15 (0.79%) Data Centre
18 15 (0.79%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 114 (6.01%) Linux
2 73 (3.85%) Windows
3 56 (2.95%) Unix
4 38 (2.00%) Android
5 36 (1.90%) Apple iOS
6 21 (1.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (0.74%) Mac OS X
7 14 (0.74%) Windows Server
8 7 (0.37%) Mac OS
8 7 (0.37%) Solaris
9 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
10 4 (0.21%) Embedded Linux
10 4 (0.21%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.16%) AIX
11 3 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.11%) CentOS
12 2 (0.11%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,044 (55.01%) CI/CD
2 877 (46.21%) Agile
3 669 (35.25%) DevOps
4 349 (18.39%) Problem-Solving
5 327 (17.23%) Continuous Improvement
6 325 (17.12%) Microservices
7 295 (15.54%) Software Engineering
8 294 (15.49%) Scrum
9 292 (15.38%) Test Strategy
10 290 (15.28%) Validation
11 261 (13.75%) Infrastructure as Code
12 249 (13.12%) AI
13 232 (12.22%) TDD
14 230 (12.12%) Containerisation
15 226 (11.91%) Observability
16 199 (10.48%) ETL
17 195 (10.27%) End-to-End Testing
18 193 (10.17%) Software Testing
19 186 (9.80%) User Acceptance Testing
20 182 (9.59%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 475 (25.03%) Python
2 474 (24.97%) Java
3 453 (23.87%) SQL
4 236 (12.43%) JavaScript
5 217 (11.43%) TypeScript
6 177 (9.33%) C#
7 68 (3.58%) PowerShell
8 59 (3.11%) Bash
9 46 (2.42%) Kotlin
10 41 (2.16%) C++
11 32 (1.69%) Bicep
11 32 (1.69%) C
11 32 (1.69%) Scala
12 29 (1.53%) Apex Code
12 29 (1.53%) Go
13 28 (1.48%) PL/SQL
14 22 (1.16%) Swift
15 16 (0.84%) Groovy
15 16 (0.84%) Ruby
16 13 (0.68%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 587 (30.93%) Security Cleared
2 480 (25.29%) SC Cleared
3 88 (4.64%) Degree
4 85 (4.48%) ISTQB
5 64 (3.37%) DV Cleared
6 63 (3.32%) BPSS Clearance
7 44 (2.32%) Computer Science Degree
8 20 (1.05%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 19 (1.00%) AWS Certification
10 15 (0.79%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 14 (0.74%) Master's Degree
12 12 (0.63%) Cisco Certification
13 11 (0.58%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 11 (0.58%) SAFe Agilist
14 10 (0.53%) CCNP
15 8 (0.42%) Azure Certification
15 8 (0.42%) CISSP
16 7 (0.37%) DBS Check
17 5 (0.26%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 5 (0.26%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 433 (22.81%) QA
2 137 (7.22%) Accessibility
3 126 (6.64%) Data Quality
4 64 (3.37%) WCAG
5 34 (1.79%) GDPR
6 12 (0.63%) ISO 20022
6 12 (0.63%) NCSC
7 11 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 10 (0.53%) Def Stans
9 9 (0.47%) NIST
9 9 (0.47%) SLA
10 5 (0.26%) FATCA
10 5 (0.26%) SEPA
11 4 (0.21%) GRC
11 4 (0.21%) HL7
11 4 (0.21%) PCI DSS
11 4 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 4 (0.21%) Software Quality Assurance
12 3 (0.16%) HIPAA
12 3 (0.16%) MiFID
System Software
1 316 (16.65%) Docker
2 26 (1.37%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (0.84%) Active Directory
4 14 (0.74%) Firmware
5 13 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
6 5 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.21%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
7 4 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.11%) SRDF
9 1 (0.053%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.053%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.053%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 332 (17.49%) Kubernetes
2 236 (12.43%) Terraform
3 100 (5.27%) Ansible
4 97 (5.11%) Grafana
5 82 (4.32%) Prometheus
6 36 (1.90%) Argo
7 14 (0.74%) HP ALM
8 12 (0.63%) Puppet
9 11 (0.58%) HP Quality Center
9 11 (0.58%) Kibana
10 10 (0.53%) Dell DRAC
10 10 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
11 8 (0.42%) Kustomize
12 6 (0.32%) Forefront Identity Manager
12 6 (0.32%) NetBackup
12 6 (0.32%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 5 (0.26%) Istio
13 5 (0.26%) Progress Chef
14 4 (0.21%) Packer
14 4 (0.21%) Rancher
Vendors
1 167 (8.80%) Microsoft
2 143 (7.53%) Oracle
3 84 (4.43%) Salesforce
4 60 (3.16%) Databricks
5 54 (2.85%) Red Hat
5 54 (2.85%) Talend
6 51 (2.69%) Splunk
7 50 (2.63%) ServiceNow
8 49 (2.58%) Google
9 37 (1.95%) Denodo
10 33 (1.74%) Informatica
11 28 (1.48%) SAP
11 28 (1.48%) UiPath
11 28 (1.48%) VMware
12 26 (1.37%) Dynatrace
12 26 (1.37%) IBM
13 21 (1.11%) Cisco
14 17 (0.90%) HP
15 14 (0.74%) Blue Prism
16 13 (0.68%) Fortinet