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

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 50 55
Rank change year-on-year +4 +5 -5
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,878 1,130 1,334
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.29% 4.43% 3.59%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.03% 4.86% 4.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,205 785 886
10th Percentile £333 £313 £363
25th Percentile £405 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £488 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% -7.14% -4.55%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £625
90th Percentile £667 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £475 £490 £513
% change year-on-year -3.06% -4.39% -5.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 107 28 47
10th Percentile £36.19 £42.00 £50.75
25th Percentile £60.00 £45.82 £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 £67.38 £71.87
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.28 £85.00
UK median hourly rate £67.50 £55.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year +22.73% -4.35% -12.55%

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 37,351 23,260 31,773
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.35% 91.20% 85.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,546 14,980 20,587
10th Percentile £325 £300 £305
25th Percentile £418 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.97% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £730 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £515 £504 £525
% change year-on-year +2.18% -4.00% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,338 1,158 2,330
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.87 £16.06
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.23 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +86.32% -33.83% +1.65%
75th Percentile £68.38 £55.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £82.25 £72.50 £72.93
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +4.17%

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 30 June 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 30 June 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 30 June 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 +4 852 £500 - 182
North of England +14 383 £454 +0.89% 95
Midlands +8 236 £450 +7.14% 61
West Midlands +32 219 £450 -10.00% 33
South East -35 194 £475 -5.00% 142
Yorkshire +5 159 £496 +1.79% 31
North West +4 151 £475 +6.26% 42
South West +13 107 £450 - 48
East of England +19 86 £495 +5.88% 45
North East +9 82 £425 +6.25% 22
East Midlands -44 17 £425 +54.55% 28
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
1 162 (8.63%) Confluence
2 44 (2.34%) Apache Airflow
3 41 (2.18%) SAS
4 38 (2.02%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.85%) Apache
6 15 (0.80%) SharePoint
7 12 (0.64%) CMS
8 7 (0.37%) Appian
8 7 (0.37%) Camunda
9 5 (0.27%) nginx
9 5 (0.27%) Tomcat
9 5 (0.27%) WebLogic
10 4 (0.21%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.16%) Kentico
11 3 (0.16%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
12 2 (0.11%) Anypoint
12 2 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
12 2 (0.11%) Mule
13 1 (0.053%) Mendix
Applications
1 29 (1.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (0.85%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
4 8 (0.43%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.27%) 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 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
2 16 (0.85%) Aladdin
3 11 (0.59%) Payment Gateway
4 8 (0.43%) Findur
4 8 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
5 7 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.32%) SAP ERP
6 6 (0.32%) Shopify
7 5 (0.27%) BambooHR
7 5 (0.27%) Loan IQ
8 3 (0.16%) Distributed Ledger
8 3 (0.16%) Maximo
8 3 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
9 2 (0.11%) Infor LN
9 2 (0.11%) Infor M3
9 2 (0.11%) IntelliMatch
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.11%) SAP MDG
9 2 (0.11%) Summit
9 2 (0.11%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 525 (27.96%) AWS
2 511 (27.21%) Azure
3 303 (16.13%) GitHub
4 224 (11.93%) Azure DevOps
5 183 (9.74%) GitHub Actions
6 135 (7.19%) Serverless
7 128 (6.82%) GCP
8 92 (4.90%) AWS Lambda
9 79 (4.21%) Amazon S3
10 71 (3.78%) Power Platform
11 62 (3.30%) OpenShift
12 53 (2.82%) Amazon ECS
13 52 (2.77%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 44 (2.34%) dbt
15 41 (2.18%) Azure Data Factory
16 39 (2.08%) Amazon EC2
17 36 (1.92%) Snowflake
18 32 (1.70%) Amazon EKS
19 31 (1.65%) Azure AKS
20 28 (1.49%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 20 (1.06%) Firewall
2 15 (0.80%) HTTP
2 15 (0.80%) SAN
3 11 (0.59%) Network Security
3 11 (0.59%) WAN
4 9 (0.48%) MPLS
5 8 (0.43%) VPN
6 7 (0.37%) 4G
6 7 (0.37%) 5G
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%) TCP/IP
7 6 (0.32%) Wi-Fi
7 6 (0.32%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 106 (5.64%) PostgreSQL
2 96 (5.11%) Data Warehouse
3 87 (4.63%) MongoDB
4 84 (4.47%) NoSQL
5 77 (4.10%) SQL Server
6 62 (3.30%) Relational Database
7 55 (2.93%) Power BI
8 45 (2.40%) DynamoDB
9 35 (1.86%) Oracle Reports
10 33 (1.76%) Pentaho
11 31 (1.65%) Amazon Athena
12 26 (1.38%) Amazon RDS
13 25 (1.33%) Amazon Redshift
13 25 (1.33%) Big Data
13 25 (1.33%) Data Lake
14 24 (1.28%) Redis
15 22 (1.17%) Metadata
15 22 (1.17%) Tableau
16 20 (1.06%) Oracle Database
17 19 (1.01%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 357 (19.01%) JIRA
2 331 (17.63%) Git
3 306 (16.29%) Jenkins
4 262 (13.95%) GitLab
5 239 (12.73%) Selenium
6 145 (7.72%) Postman
7 133 (7.08%) Cucumber
8 101 (5.38%) REST Assured
9 99 (5.27%) JUnit
10 87 (4.63%) Cypress.io
11 82 (4.37%) JMeter
12 58 (3.09%) Zephyr
13 53 (2.82%) WebDriver
14 52 (2.77%) SonarQube
15 43 (2.29%) Gatling
15 43 (2.29%) Gradle
16 36 (1.92%) Bitbucket
17 34 (1.81%) Mockito
18 32 (1.70%) Maven
19 25 (1.33%) SpecFlow
General
1 516 (27.48%) Social Skills
2 361 (19.22%) Finance
3 243 (12.94%) Analytical Skills
4 232 (12.35%) Public Sector
5 166 (8.84%) Banking
6 52 (2.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 41 (2.18%) Documentation Skills
8 33 (1.76%) Investment Banking
9 26 (1.38%) Front Office
9 26 (1.38%) Influencing Skills
10 25 (1.33%) Telecoms
11 22 (1.17%) Financial Institution
12 21 (1.12%) Retail
13 18 (0.96%) Military
14 17 (0.91%) Organisational Skills
15 16 (0.85%) Aerospace
16 15 (0.80%) Legal
17 13 (0.69%) Presentation Skills
18 12 (0.64%) Law
18 12 (0.64%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 374 (19.91%) Developer
2 293 (15.60%) Senior
3 200 (10.65%) Lead
4 195 (10.38%) Tester
5 192 (10.22%) Test Engineer
6 124 (6.60%) Data Engineer
7 115 (6.12%) Java Developer
8 105 (5.59%) Software Engineer
9 98 (5.22%) Analyst
10 87 (4.63%) Architect
11 81 (4.31%) DevOps Engineer
12 80 (4.26%) Test Automation Engineer
13 79 (4.21%) QA Engineer
14 76 (4.05%) Senior Developer
15 71 (3.78%) Test Leader
16 67 (3.57%) Automation Tester
17 57 (3.04%) Test Analyst
18 56 (2.98%) Automation Engineer
19 52 (2.77%) Full-Stack Developer
20 47 (2.50%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 207 (11.02%) REST
2 203 (10.81%) Playwright
3 172 (9.16%) React
4 151 (8.04%) Spring
5 141 (7.51%) Kafka
6 136 (7.24%) RESTful
7 121 (6.44%) .NET
7 121 (6.44%) Spring Boot
8 93 (4.95%) Node.js
9 80 (4.26%) AngularJS
10 66 (3.51%) HTML
11 62 (3.30%) CSS
12 48 (2.56%) pytest
13 47 (2.50%) OAuth
14 38 (2.02%) Jest
14 38 (2.02%) Quarkus
15 37 (1.97%) .NET Framework
16 36 (1.92%) Gherkin
17 35 (1.86%) GraphQL
17 35 (1.86%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 232 (12.35%) Cloud Native
2 131 (6.98%) Product Ownership
3 119 (6.34%) Distributed Systems
4 55 (2.93%) Enterprise Software
5 53 (2.82%) Legacy Systems
6 47 (2.50%) Data Protection Act
7 42 (2.24%) Self-Motivation
8 40 (2.13%) Mobile App
9 37 (1.97%) Virtual Team
10 34 (1.81%) Onboarding
11 31 (1.65%) Distributed Architecture
12 27 (1.44%) Security Posture
13 26 (1.38%) Management Information System
14 24 (1.28%) Embedded Systems
15 21 (1.12%) AI Agents
15 21 (1.12%) Greenfield Project
16 19 (1.01%) Algorithms
16 19 (1.01%) Fixed Income
17 16 (0.85%) Data Structures
18 15 (0.80%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 114 (6.07%) Linux
2 72 (3.83%) Windows
3 54 (2.88%) Unix
4 39 (2.08%) Android
5 38 (2.02%) Apple iOS
6 21 (1.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (0.75%) Windows Server
8 12 (0.64%) Mac OS X
9 7 (0.37%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.37%) Solaris
10 5 (0.27%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.21%) Embedded Linux
11 4 (0.21%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.16%) AIX
12 3 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.11%) CentOS
13 2 (0.11%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,024 (54.53%) CI/CD
2 866 (46.11%) Agile
3 660 (35.14%) DevOps
4 346 (18.42%) Problem-Solving
5 320 (17.04%) Microservices
6 316 (16.83%) Continuous Improvement
7 291 (15.50%) Scrum
8 290 (15.44%) Software Engineering
9 286 (15.23%) Test Strategy
10 278 (14.80%) Validation
11 257 (13.68%) Infrastructure as Code
12 244 (12.99%) AI
13 229 (12.19%) Observability
14 226 (12.03%) TDD
15 224 (11.93%) Containerisation
16 194 (10.33%) ETL
17 191 (10.17%) Software Testing
18 184 (9.80%) End-to-End Testing
19 182 (9.69%) User Acceptance Testing
20 179 (9.53%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 468 (24.92%) Java
2 467 (24.87%) Python
3 449 (23.91%) SQL
4 228 (12.14%) JavaScript
5 210 (11.18%) TypeScript
6 174 (9.27%) C#
7 66 (3.51%) PowerShell
8 57 (3.04%) Bash
9 46 (2.45%) Kotlin
10 41 (2.18%) C++
11 32 (1.70%) Scala
12 31 (1.65%) C
13 30 (1.60%) Go
14 29 (1.54%) Bicep
15 28 (1.49%) Apex Code
15 28 (1.49%) PL/SQL
16 22 (1.17%) Swift
17 16 (0.85%) Groovy
17 16 (0.85%) Ruby
18 13 (0.69%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 583 (31.04%) Security Cleared
2 474 (25.24%) SC Cleared
3 87 (4.63%) Degree
3 87 (4.63%) ISTQB
4 64 (3.41%) DV Cleared
5 63 (3.35%) BPSS Clearance
6 44 (2.34%) Computer Science Degree
7 20 (1.06%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 18 (0.96%) AWS Certification
9 15 (0.80%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 14 (0.75%) Master's Degree
11 13 (0.69%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 12 (0.64%) Cisco Certification
13 11 (0.59%) SAFe Agilist
14 10 (0.53%) CCNP
15 7 (0.37%) Azure Certification
15 7 (0.37%) CISSP
15 7 (0.37%) DBS Check
16 5 (0.27%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 5 (0.27%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 424 (22.58%) QA
2 134 (7.14%) Accessibility
3 123 (6.55%) Data Quality
4 61 (3.25%) WCAG
5 34 (1.81%) GDPR
6 13 (0.69%) ISO 20022
7 11 (0.59%) NCSC
8 10 (0.53%) Def Stans
8 10 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 9 (0.48%) NIST
9 9 (0.48%) SLA
10 5 (0.27%) FATCA
10 5 (0.27%) 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%) EU AI Act
12 3 (0.16%) SOC 2
System Software
1 312 (16.61%) Docker
2 26 (1.38%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (0.85%) Active Directory
4 14 (0.75%) Firmware
5 13 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
6 5 (0.27%) 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
1 326 (17.36%) Kubernetes
2 231 (12.30%) Terraform
3 98 (5.22%) Ansible
4 95 (5.06%) Grafana
5 82 (4.37%) Prometheus
6 35 (1.86%) Argo
7 14 (0.75%) HP ALM
8 12 (0.64%) Puppet
9 11 (0.59%) HP Quality Center
9 11 (0.59%) Kibana
10 10 (0.53%) Dell DRAC
10 10 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
11 8 (0.43%) Kustomize
12 6 (0.32%) Forefront Identity Manager
12 6 (0.32%) NetBackup
12 6 (0.32%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 5 (0.27%) Istio
13 5 (0.27%) Progress Chef
14 4 (0.21%) Oracle RMAN
14 4 (0.21%) Rancher
Vendors
1 162 (8.63%) Microsoft
2 142 (7.56%) Oracle
3 78 (4.15%) Salesforce
4 59 (3.14%) Databricks
5 54 (2.88%) Red Hat
5 54 (2.88%) Talend
6 51 (2.72%) Splunk
7 49 (2.61%) Google
7 49 (2.61%) ServiceNow
8 37 (1.97%) Denodo
9 33 (1.76%) Informatica
10 28 (1.49%) UiPath
10 28 (1.49%) VMware
11 26 (1.38%) Dynatrace
11 26 (1.38%) IBM
11 26 (1.38%) SAP
12 21 (1.12%) Cisco
13 17 (0.91%) HP
14 14 (0.75%) Blue Prism
15 13 (0.69%) OpenAI