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

6 months to
27 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 51 47
Rank change year-on-year +4 -4 +5
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,054 1,280 1,352
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.43% 4.58% 4.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.24% 5.04% 4.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,311 871 921
10th Percentile £320 £313 £350
25th Percentile £406 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £603
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 36 15
10th Percentile £39.45 £41.39 £44.50
25th Percentile £55.00 £49.06 £50.63
Median hourly rate £67.50 £56.25 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% -6.25% -20.00%
75th Percentile £72.66 £67.00 £79.75
90th Percentile £77.00 £71.00 £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 39,218 25,382 28,205
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.59% 90.90% 86.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,880 16,110 17,293
10th Percentile £325 £300 £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 2,852 1,550 1,234
10th Percentile £13.90 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.60 £17.87 £20.26
Median hourly rate £41.03 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +63.14% -41.51% -2.27%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.41 £66.61
90th Percentile £79.00 £67.28 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +57.06% -40.82% -

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 +6 934 £500 - 1,258
North of England 0 409 £450 -5.26% 461
Midlands +17 263 £450 -2.70% 215
West Midlands +26 248 £450 -13.18% 147
South East -18 217 £448 -5.79% 417
Yorkshire -6 175 £460 -8.00% 142
North West -15 142 £492 +15.82% 250
South West -6 111 £463 -14.35% 265
North East +4 99 £425 -10.53% 69
East of England +18 92 £375 +17.19% 183
East Midlands -43 15 £418 +15.97% 67
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 (8.42%) Confluence
2 60 (2.92%) Apache Airflow
3 40 (1.95%) SharePoint
4 39 (1.90%) Apache Spark
5 29 (1.41%) Apache
6 28 (1.36%) SAS
7 16 (0.78%) CMS
8 14 (0.68%) Camunda
9 10 (0.49%) WebLogic
10 7 (0.34%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (0.29%) Jupyter
11 6 (0.29%) Microsoft Exchange
12 5 (0.24%) nginx
12 5 (0.24%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.19%) Palantir Foundry
13 4 (0.19%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.15%) Kentico
15 2 (0.097%) Anypoint
15 2 (0.097%) Mule
Applications
1 21 (1.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (0.83%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.29%) Chatbot
3 6 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.19%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.15%) Trello
6 2 (0.097%) Mingle
6 2 (0.097%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.049%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.049%) Simulink
7 1 (0.049%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 28 (1.36%) Dynamics CRM
2 19 (0.93%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (0.63%) 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 (0.19%) SAP MDG
9 2 (0.097%) BambooHR
9 2 (0.097%) Findur
9 2 (0.097%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.097%) Shopify
10 1 (0.049%) Infor M3
10 1 (0.049%) Oracle EBS R12
10 1 (0.049%) Sage 50
10 1 (0.049%) SAP EWM
10 1 (0.049%) SAP HCM
10 1 (0.049%) SAP LE
10 1 (0.049%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 649 (31.60%) AWS
2 616 (29.99%) Azure
3 353 (17.19%) GitHub
4 284 (13.83%) Azure DevOps
5 208 (10.13%) GitHub Actions
6 165 (8.03%) GCP
7 160 (7.79%) Serverless
8 118 (5.74%) AWS Lambda
9 100 (4.87%) Power Platform
10 93 (4.53%) Amazon S3
11 81 (3.94%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 67 (3.26%) GitHub Copilot
13 66 (3.21%) OpenShift
14 62 (3.02%) Amazon ECS
15 60 (2.92%) Amazon EKS
16 56 (2.73%) dbt
17 51 (2.48%) Snowflake
18 48 (2.34%) AWS CloudFormation
19 43 (2.09%) Amazon EC2
20 41 (2.00%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.17%) 4G
2 23 (1.12%) DNS
2 23 (1.12%) HTTP
3 22 (1.07%) Firewall
4 21 (1.02%) 5G
4 21 (1.02%) TCP/IP
4 21 (1.02%) Wi-Fi
5 19 (0.93%) Broadband
6 15 (0.73%) Network Security
7 14 (0.68%) 2G
7 14 (0.68%) 3G
7 14 (0.68%) Diameter Protocol
7 14 (0.68%) SIGTRAN
7 14 (0.68%) SS7
8 13 (0.63%) BGP
8 13 (0.63%) WAN
9 12 (0.58%) Ethernet VPN
9 12 (0.58%) LAN
9 12 (0.58%) VXLAN
10 11 (0.54%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 119 (5.79%) PostgreSQL
2 109 (5.31%) Data Warehouse
3 95 (4.63%) NoSQL
4 94 (4.58%) MongoDB
5 87 (4.24%) Relational Database
5 87 (4.24%) SQL Server
6 80 (3.89%) Power BI
7 40 (1.95%) Data Lake
8 38 (1.85%) DynamoDB
9 37 (1.80%) Metadata
10 34 (1.66%) Oracle Reports
11 29 (1.41%) Big Data
11 29 (1.41%) MySQL
11 29 (1.41%) Pentaho
12 28 (1.36%) Amazon Redshift
12 28 (1.36%) Redis
13 27 (1.31%) Amazon Athena
14 26 (1.27%) Oracle Database
15 25 (1.22%) Amazon RDS
16 20 (0.97%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 466 (22.69%) Git
2 340 (16.55%) JIRA
3 329 (16.02%) Jenkins
4 296 (14.41%) GitLab
5 267 (13.00%) Selenium
6 152 (7.40%) Cucumber
7 138 (6.72%) Postman
8 128 (6.23%) JUnit
9 101 (4.92%) Cypress.io
10 95 (4.63%) REST Assured
11 82 (3.99%) JMeter
12 80 (3.89%) SonarQube
13 66 (3.21%) Gatling
14 61 (2.97%) Zephyr
15 55 (2.68%) Maven
16 51 (2.48%) Gradle
17 48 (2.34%) Mockito
18 42 (2.04%) WebDriver
19 35 (1.70%) Bitbucket
20 26 (1.27%) LoadRunner
General
1 572 (27.85%) Social Skills
2 400 (19.47%) Finance
3 301 (14.65%) Analytical Skills
4 255 (12.41%) Public Sector
5 197 (9.59%) Banking
6 68 (3.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 54 (2.63%) Telecoms
8 34 (1.66%) Retail
9 32 (1.56%) Front Office
10 29 (1.41%) Military
11 28 (1.36%) Investment Banking
12 27 (1.31%) Influencing Skills
13 26 (1.27%) Documentation Skills
14 21 (1.02%) Financial Institution
15 20 (0.97%) Manufacturing
16 18 (0.88%) Law
17 17 (0.83%) Aerospace
17 17 (0.83%) Marketing
18 14 (0.68%) Automotive
19 12 (0.58%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 434 (21.13%) Developer
2 330 (16.07%) Senior
3 203 (9.88%) Lead
4 194 (9.44%) Test Engineer
5 149 (7.25%) Tester
6 133 (6.48%) Data Engineer
7 128 (6.23%) Java Developer
8 115 (5.60%) Software Engineer
9 108 (5.26%) Analyst
10 96 (4.67%) Architect
11 92 (4.48%) Senior Developer
12 91 (4.43%) DevOps Engineer
12 91 (4.43%) QA Engineer
13 86 (4.19%) Test Automation Engineer
14 73 (3.55%) Automation Engineer
15 71 (3.46%) Full-Stack Developer
16 68 (3.31%) Test Analyst
17 67 (3.26%) Java Engineer
18 64 (3.12%) Test Leader
19 63 (3.07%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 326 (15.87%) REST
2 315 (15.34%) Terraform
3 238 (11.59%) Playwright
4 223 (10.86%) Kafka
5 212 (10.32%) RESTful
6 201 (9.79%) Spring
7 194 (9.44%) React
8 168 (8.18%) Spring Boot
9 154 (7.50%) .NET
10 133 (6.48%) HTML
11 114 (5.55%) CSS
12 110 (5.36%) Node.js
13 89 (4.33%) AngularJS
14 81 (3.94%) OAuth
15 64 (3.12%) JSON
16 59 (2.87%) SOAP
17 58 (2.82%) Middleware
18 56 (2.73%) pytest
19 53 (2.58%) Web Services
19 53 (2.58%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 339 (16.50%) Cloud Native
2 168 (8.18%) Product Ownership
3 151 (7.35%) Distributed Systems
4 88 (4.28%) Enterprise Software
5 72 (3.51%) Onboarding
6 62 (3.02%) AI Agents
7 49 (2.39%) Legacy Systems
8 45 (2.19%) Self-Motivation
9 44 (2.14%) Data Protection Act
10 40 (1.95%) Mobile App
11 30 (1.46%) Virtual Team
12 28 (1.36%) Data Structures
13 27 (1.31%) Security Posture
14 23 (1.12%) Management Information System
15 21 (1.02%) Embedded Systems
16 20 (0.97%) Data Centre
17 17 (0.83%) Distributed Architecture
17 17 (0.83%) Legacy Applications
17 17 (0.83%) Private Cloud
18 16 (0.78%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 145 (7.06%) Linux
2 97 (4.72%) Windows
3 81 (3.94%) Unix
4 39 (1.90%) Apple iOS
5 35 (1.70%) Android
6 29 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 22 (1.07%) Windows Server
8 8 (0.39%) VMS
9 6 (0.29%) Mac OS X
10 5 (0.24%) Solaris
10 5 (0.24%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.24%) Windows 7
10 5 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
11 4 (0.19%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
12 3 (0.15%) AIX
12 3 (0.15%) CentOS
12 3 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
12 3 (0.15%) Mac OS
12 3 (0.15%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,271 (61.88%) CI/CD
2 999 (48.64%) Agile
3 775 (37.73%) DevOps
4 421 (20.50%) Continuous Improvement
5 415 (20.20%) Microservices
6 411 (20.01%) Problem-Solving
7 402 (19.57%) Software Engineering
8 363 (17.67%) Validation
9 362 (17.62%) Infrastructure as Code
10 356 (17.33%) AI
11 355 (17.28%) Scrum
12 321 (15.63%) Test Strategy
13 308 (15.00%) Containerisation
14 278 (13.53%) Observability
15 265 (12.90%) SDLC
16 262 (12.76%) TDD
17 261 (12.71%) Software Testing
18 249 (12.12%) Stakeholder Management
19 226 (11.00%) End-to-End Testing
20 212 (10.32%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 579 (28.19%) Python
2 562 (27.36%) Java
3 513 (24.98%) SQL
4 315 (15.34%) JavaScript
5 241 (11.73%) TypeScript
6 175 (8.52%) C#
7 88 (4.28%) PowerShell
8 75 (3.65%) Bash
9 47 (2.29%) Bicep
10 45 (2.19%) Kotlin
11 38 (1.85%) Go
12 35 (1.70%) Scala
13 34 (1.66%) C++
14 25 (1.22%) PL/SQL
15 24 (1.17%) Shell Script
16 19 (0.93%) Apex Code
17 18 (0.88%) C
18 16 (0.78%) Groovy
19 15 (0.73%) Swift
20 11 (0.54%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 648 (31.55%) Security Cleared
2 543 (26.44%) SC Cleared
3 118 (5.74%) Degree
4 94 (4.58%) ISTQB
5 82 (3.99%) DV Cleared
6 79 (3.85%) BPSS Clearance
7 68 (3.31%) Computer Science Degree
8 43 (2.09%) AWS Certification
9 26 (1.27%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 23 (1.12%) Azure Certification
11 14 (0.68%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 14 (0.68%) CISSP
11 14 (0.68%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 14 (0.68%) Master's Degree
12 13 (0.63%) ISEB
13 12 (0.58%) Cisco Certification
13 12 (0.58%) 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
1 569 (27.70%) QA
2 171 (8.33%) Accessibility
3 140 (6.82%) Data Quality
4 91 (4.43%) WCAG
5 38 (1.85%) GDPR
6 19 (0.93%) ISO 20022
7 16 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 15 (0.73%) NIST
9 13 (0.63%) SLA
10 12 (0.58%) GRC
10 12 (0.58%) 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 (0.19%) HIPAA
14 4 (0.19%) SEPA
15 3 (0.15%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 426 (20.74%) Docker
2 36 (1.75%) Active Directory
3 31 (1.51%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.49%) Firmware
6 8 (0.39%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.15%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.049%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.049%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 407 (19.81%) Kubernetes
2 119 (5.79%) Ansible
3 113 (5.50%) Grafana
4 81 (3.94%) Prometheus
5 32 (1.56%) Argo
6 23 (1.12%) Kibana
7 21 (1.02%) Progress Chef
8 20 (0.97%) Puppet
9 14 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
10 12 (0.58%) 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 (0.19%) HP Quality Center
16 4 (0.19%) WMI
Vendors
1 215 (10.47%) Microsoft
2 150 (7.30%) Oracle
3 89 (4.33%) Databricks
4 76 (3.70%) Google
5 60 (2.92%) IBM
6 59 (2.87%) Salesforce
7 54 (2.63%) ServiceNow
8 51 (2.48%) Red Hat
8 51 (2.48%) Splunk
9 45 (2.19%) Talend
10 43 (2.09%) SAP
11 40 (1.95%) Dynatrace
12 39 (1.90%) VMware
13 37 (1.80%) Denodo
14 34 (1.66%) Cisco
15 32 (1.56%) Informatica
16 30 (1.46%) UiPath
17 18 (0.88%) HP
18 17 (0.83%) Foundry
18 17 (0.83%) OpenAI