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

6 months to
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 46 59
Rank change year-on-year -2 +13 -12
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,694 1,135 1,258
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.33% 4.66% 3.36%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.05% 5.12% 3.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,125 780 842
10th Percentile £331 £341 £363
25th Percentile £400 £401 £435
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.80% -4.76% -5.91%
75th Percentile £575 £638 £639
90th Percentile £675 £725 £737
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -5.00% -2.44% -6.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 11 52
10th Percentile £34.57 £44.51 £38.25
25th Percentile £55.00 £46.75 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.54% +3.18% -12.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.51 £78.75
90th Percentile - £75.50 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £55.88 £55.00
% change year-on-year +16.33% +1.59% -12.00%

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 33,539 22,147 32,451
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.75% 90.94% 86.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,506 14,596 21,405
10th Percentile £313 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,075 867 2,189
10th Percentile £15.43 £14.99 £12.92
25th Percentile £19.91 £19.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £32.50 £34.00
Median % change year-on-year +23.08% -4.41% -9.33%
75th Percentile £65.74 £65.00 £58.70
90th Percentile £77.80 £76.25 £70.78
UK median hourly rate £36.70 £31.64 £33.07
% change year-on-year +15.99% -4.31% -8.15%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 -1 830 £500 - 183
North of England +9 327 £475 +5.56% 162
Midlands +6 191 £470 -1.53% 83
South East -31 178 £500 -2.72% 145
West Midlands +13 163 £475 -6.40% 57
North West +13 144 £465 +1.92% 82
Yorkshire -12 137 £500 +5.26% 41
South West +3 87 £475 -9.52% 72
East of England -2 59 £608 +23.98% 65
North East +10 51 £425 +8.97% 39
East Midlands -27 28 £400 -0.93% 26
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
1 107 (6.32%) Confluence
2 66 (3.90%) SAS
3 23 (1.36%) Apache Spark
4 21 (1.24%) Apache Airflow
5 15 (0.89%) SharePoint
6 9 (0.53%) Apache
7 8 (0.47%) Appian
8 6 (0.35%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 6 (0.35%) Camunda
8 6 (0.35%) CMS
8 6 (0.35%) WebLogic
9 5 (0.30%) nginx
10 4 (0.24%) Tomcat
11 3 (0.18%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 2 (0.12%) Magnolia
12 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
12 2 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 26 (1.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.71%) Microsoft Office
4 11 (0.65%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.18%) Simulink
8 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.059%) Mingle
9 1 (0.059%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 22 (1.30%) Aladdin
2 8 (0.47%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.41%) Findur
4 6 (0.35%) Loan IQ
4 6 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
4 6 (0.35%) Shopify
5 5 (0.30%) BambooHR
5 5 (0.30%) Maximo
6 3 (0.18%) Distributed Ledger
6 3 (0.18%) Workday HCM
7 2 (0.12%) iTrent
7 2 (0.12%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.12%) SAP HR
7 2 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
7 2 (0.12%) Summit
8 1 (0.059%) Infor CloudSuite
8 1 (0.059%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.059%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.059%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 461 (27.21%) Azure
2 417 (24.62%) AWS
3 275 (16.23%) GitHub
4 210 (12.40%) Azure DevOps
5 154 (9.09%) GitHub Actions
6 130 (7.67%) GCP
7 109 (6.43%) Serverless
8 76 (4.49%) OpenShift
9 58 (3.42%) AWS Lambda
10 53 (3.13%) Amazon S3
11 52 (3.07%) Power Platform
12 38 (2.24%) Azure AKS
13 37 (2.18%) Snowflake
14 34 (2.01%) Azure Data Factory
15 33 (1.95%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 33 (1.95%) Amazon ECS
16 31 (1.83%) AWS CloudFormation
17 27 (1.59%) Azure Monitor
18 26 (1.53%) Amazon EKS
18 26 (1.53%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.36%) Firewall
2 15 (0.89%) HTTP
3 12 (0.71%) TCP/IP
4 11 (0.65%) VPN
5 10 (0.59%) Network Security
5 10 (0.59%) SAN
6 9 (0.53%) Ethernet
6 9 (0.53%) FTP
6 9 (0.53%) SSL
7 8 (0.47%) MPLS
7 8 (0.47%) SD-WAN
7 8 (0.47%) WAN
8 7 (0.41%) Multicast
8 7 (0.41%) Wireshark
9 6 (0.35%) 5G
9 6 (0.35%) DNS
9 6 (0.35%) HTTPS
10 5 (0.30%) AMQP
10 5 (0.30%) Cisco IPT
10 5 (0.30%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 90 (5.31%) PostgreSQL
2 74 (4.37%) SQL Server
3 68 (4.01%) NoSQL
4 60 (3.54%) MongoDB
5 52 (3.07%) Data Warehouse
5 52 (3.07%) Relational Database
6 35 (2.07%) DynamoDB
7 32 (1.89%) Pentaho
8 28 (1.65%) Power BI
9 26 (1.53%) BigQuery
10 25 (1.48%) Tableau
11 23 (1.36%) MySQL
11 23 (1.36%) Oracle Database
12 21 (1.24%) Redis
13 19 (1.12%) Oracle Reports
14 17 (1.00%) Amazon RDS
15 15 (0.89%) Metadata
16 14 (0.83%) SAS Enterprise Guide
17 13 (0.77%) Amazon Athena
17 13 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 331 (19.54%) Git
2 322 (19.01%) JIRA
3 294 (17.36%) Jenkins
4 250 (14.76%) Selenium
5 229 (13.52%) GitLab
6 134 (7.91%) Postman
7 132 (7.79%) Cucumber
8 109 (6.43%) JUnit
9 87 (5.14%) Cypress.io
10 85 (5.02%) REST Assured
11 73 (4.31%) JMeter
12 42 (2.48%) WebDriver
13 41 (2.42%) SonarQube
14 35 (2.07%) Maven
14 35 (2.07%) Zephyr
15 34 (2.01%) SpecFlow
16 32 (1.89%) Gradle
17 30 (1.77%) TestRail
18 29 (1.71%) Mockito
19 26 (1.53%) Gatling
General
1 464 (27.39%) Social Skills
2 303 (17.89%) Finance
3 240 (14.17%) Public Sector
4 178 (10.51%) Analytical Skills
5 142 (8.38%) Banking
6 36 (2.13%) Documentation Skills
7 28 (1.65%) Front Office
7 28 (1.65%) Investment Banking
8 25 (1.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 25 (1.48%) Telecoms
9 20 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
10 18 (1.06%) Legal
11 17 (1.00%) Organisational Skills
12 16 (0.94%) Aerospace
12 16 (0.94%) Influencing Skills
13 12 (0.71%) Financial Institution
14 11 (0.65%) Electronics
14 11 (0.65%) Military
14 11 (0.65%) Pharmaceutical
15 10 (0.59%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 357 (21.07%) Developer
2 269 (15.88%) Senior
3 187 (11.04%) Lead
4 184 (10.86%) Tester
5 174 (10.27%) Test Engineer
6 97 (5.73%) Java Developer
7 91 (5.37%) Analyst
8 86 (5.08%) Data Engineer
9 85 (5.02%) Automation Tester
10 79 (4.66%) Test Automation Engineer
11 73 (4.31%) QA Engineer
11 73 (4.31%) Software Engineer
12 67 (3.96%) Senior Developer
13 66 (3.90%) Test Leader
14 64 (3.78%) Architect
15 62 (3.66%) DevOps Engineer
16 55 (3.25%) Test Analyst
17 51 (3.01%) Automation Engineer
18 50 (2.95%) Test Manager
19 47 (2.77%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 211 (12.46%) REST
2 185 (10.92%) Playwright
3 148 (8.74%) React
4 136 (8.03%) Spring
5 122 (7.20%) RESTful
6 118 (6.97%) .NET
6 118 (6.97%) Node.js
7 116 (6.85%) Kafka
8 108 (6.38%) Spring Boot
9 77 (4.55%) pytest
10 71 (4.19%) AngularJS
11 50 (2.95%) HTML
12 49 (2.89%) Jest
13 48 (2.83%) OAuth
14 46 (2.72%) CSS
15 37 (2.18%) Web Services
16 35 (2.07%) GraphQL
17 34 (2.01%) WireMock
18 32 (1.89%) OpenID
18 32 (1.89%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 177 (10.45%) Cloud Native
2 108 (6.38%) Product Ownership
3 83 (4.90%) Distributed Systems
4 47 (2.77%) Mobile App
5 39 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
6 38 (2.24%) Data Protection Act
7 35 (2.07%) Algorithms
8 31 (1.83%) Self-Motivation
9 30 (1.77%) Virtual Team
10 29 (1.71%) Onboarding
11 28 (1.65%) Security Posture
12 26 (1.53%) Enterprise Software
13 22 (1.30%) Data Structures
13 22 (1.30%) Management Information System
14 21 (1.24%) Equities
15 20 (1.18%) NHS
16 19 (1.12%) Distributed Architecture
17 18 (1.06%) Greenfield Project
18 17 (1.00%) Fixed Income
19 16 (0.94%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 123 (7.26%) Linux
2 86 (5.08%) Windows
3 47 (2.77%) Android
4 39 (2.30%) Apple iOS
5 35 (2.07%) Unix
6 19 (1.12%) Windows Server
7 17 (1.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.77%) Mac OS X
9 7 (0.41%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.30%) Solaris
11 4 (0.24%) CentOS
11 4 (0.24%) Embedded Linux
11 4 (0.24%) Kali Linux
11 4 (0.24%) Windows Server 2008
12 3 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.059%) FreeRTOS
13 1 (0.059%) Robot Operating System
13 1 (0.059%) VMS
13 1 (0.059%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 882 (52.07%) CI/CD
2 796 (46.99%) Agile
3 614 (36.25%) DevOps
4 398 (23.49%) Problem-Solving
5 275 (16.23%) Continuous Improvement
6 266 (15.70%) Microservices
7 256 (15.11%) Test Strategy
8 242 (14.29%) Scrum
9 230 (13.58%) Containerisation
10 224 (13.22%) Validation
11 211 (12.46%) AI
11 211 (12.46%) Infrastructure as Code
12 204 (12.04%) Test Scripting
13 202 (11.92%) Software Engineering
14 200 (11.81%) TDD
15 197 (11.63%) Observability
16 196 (11.57%) Analytics
17 178 (10.51%) Software Testing
18 177 (10.45%) Regression Testing
19 174 (10.27%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 490 (28.93%) Python
2 419 (24.73%) Java
3 377 (22.26%) SQL
4 234 (13.81%) JavaScript
5 226 (13.34%) TypeScript
6 174 (10.27%) C#
7 72 (4.25%) PowerShell
8 57 (3.36%) Bash
9 47 (2.77%) C++
10 33 (1.95%) C
11 29 (1.71%) Kotlin
12 26 (1.53%) Apex Code
13 25 (1.48%) Bicep
14 23 (1.36%) PL/SQL
15 20 (1.18%) Ruby
16 19 (1.12%) Go
17 18 (1.06%) Swift
18 17 (1.00%) Scala
19 13 (0.77%) Groovy
20 12 (0.71%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 526 (31.05%) Security Cleared
2 407 (24.03%) SC Cleared
3 84 (4.96%) ISTQB
4 80 (4.72%) Degree
5 62 (3.66%) BPSS Clearance
6 60 (3.54%) DV Cleared
7 46 (2.72%) Computer Science Degree
8 25 (1.48%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 18 (1.06%) Master's Degree
10 15 (0.89%) Cisco Certification
11 12 (0.71%) Azure Certification
12 9 (0.53%) AWS Certification
12 9 (0.53%) CCNP
12 9 (0.53%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 8 (0.47%) CISSP
13 8 (0.47%) ISEB
13 8 (0.47%) Microsoft Certification
14 7 (0.41%) DBS Check
14 7 (0.41%) Oracle Certification
14 7 (0.41%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 378 (22.31%) QA
2 102 (6.02%) Accessibility
2 102 (6.02%) Data Quality
3 43 (2.54%) WCAG
4 35 (2.07%) GDPR
5 16 (0.94%) NIST
6 15 (0.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 13 (0.77%) NCSC
8 12 (0.71%) ISO 20022
9 10 (0.59%) Def Stans
9 10 (0.59%) SLA
10 9 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 8 (0.47%) PSD2
12 7 (0.41%) SEPA
13 6 (0.35%) SOC 2
14 5 (0.30%) EU AI Act
14 5 (0.30%) HL7
14 5 (0.30%) PCI DSS
14 5 (0.30%) PERC
14 5 (0.30%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 326 (19.24%) Docker
2 25 (1.48%) Active Directory
3 12 (0.71%) Firmware
4 11 (0.65%) VMware Infrastructure
5 7 (0.41%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
5 7 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
9 3 (0.18%) ISA Server
10 2 (0.12%) SRDF
11 1 (0.059%) Embedded Firmware
11 1 (0.059%) Hyper-V
11 1 (0.059%) KVM
11 1 (0.059%) Squid
11 1 (0.059%) Time Sharing Option
11 1 (0.059%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.059%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 326 (19.24%) Kubernetes
2 197 (11.63%) Terraform
3 92 (5.43%) Grafana
4 73 (4.31%) Prometheus
5 71 (4.19%) Ansible
6 26 (1.53%) Argo
7 19 (1.12%) HP ALM
8 15 (0.89%) Puppet
9 13 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
10 12 (0.71%) Progress Chef
11 10 (0.59%) Forefront Identity Manager
11 10 (0.59%) HP Quality Center
11 10 (0.59%) NetIQ Identity Manager
12 7 (0.41%) Kibana
12 7 (0.41%) NetBackup
12 7 (0.41%) Nmap
13 6 (0.35%) Dell DRAC
13 6 (0.35%) Rancher
14 4 (0.24%) Istio
14 4 (0.24%) Podman
Vendors
1 149 (8.80%) Microsoft
1 149 (8.80%) Oracle
2 64 (3.78%) Databricks
3 62 (3.66%) Salesforce
4 55 (3.25%) ServiceNow
5 48 (2.83%) Splunk
6 47 (2.77%) Google
7 44 (2.60%) Red Hat
8 38 (2.24%) SAP
8 38 (2.24%) Talend
9 32 (1.89%) Denodo
10 24 (1.42%) VMware
11 23 (1.36%) IBM
12 22 (1.30%) HP
13 18 (1.06%) Dynatrace
14 17 (1.00%) Cisco
15 15 (0.89%) MuleSoft
15 15 (0.89%) OpenAI
16 14 (0.83%) Workday
17 13 (0.77%) Blue Prism