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

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 50 49
Rank change year-on-year +2 -1 +4
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,026 1,233 1,350
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.37% 4.43% 4.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.15% 4.88% 4.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,276 834 913
10th Percentile £320 £312 £350
25th Percentile £408 £383 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -3.85% -3.70%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £604
90th Percentile £670 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £503
% change year-on-year -5.00% -0.50% -4.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 101 36 16
10th Percentile £40.00 £41.67 £41.25
25th Percentile £56.25 £49.75 £49.38
Median hourly rate £67.50 £57.13 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +18.16% -0.65% -23.33%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £72.53
90th Percentile £75.00 £71.75 £85.00
UK median hourly rate £69.75 £55.88 £57.50
% change year-on-year +24.83% -2.83% -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 39,332 25,280 28,365
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.86% 90.86% 86.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,139 16,057 17,805
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
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 2,708 1,495 1,348
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.36 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.85 £17.79 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +0.58%
75th Percentile £68.00 £49.88 £66.53
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.65 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.92%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 +10 925 £500 - 900
North of England +2 405 £455 -0.98% 219
Midlands +6 248 £450 -2.70% 105
West Midlands +17 233 £459 -11.48% 67
South East -14 232 £450 -10.00% 237
Yorkshire -9 163 £470 -6.00% 68
North West -10 142 £492 +16.59% 118
South West -3 114 £475 -5.00% 156
North East +11 107 £425 -4.49% 33
East of England +20 83 £450 +31.39% 102
East Midlands -45 15 £418 +19.29% 38
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
1 177 (8.74%) Confluence
2 52 (2.57%) Apache Airflow
3 42 (2.07%) SharePoint
4 39 (1.92%) Apache Spark
5 30 (1.48%) SAS
6 23 (1.14%) Apache
7 14 (0.69%) CMS
8 12 (0.59%) Camunda
9 10 (0.49%) WebLogic
10 7 (0.35%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (0.30%) Microsoft Exchange
12 4 (0.20%) Jupyter
12 4 (0.20%) nginx
12 4 (0.20%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.20%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.15%) Kentico
14 2 (0.099%) Anypoint
14 2 (0.099%) Apache Pulsar
14 2 (0.099%) Mule
Applications
1 24 (1.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (0.79%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.30%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.20%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.15%) Simulink
6 3 (0.15%) Trello
7 2 (0.099%) Mingle
7 2 (0.099%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 27 (1.33%) Dynamics CRM
2 17 (0.84%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (0.64%) Payment Gateway
4 11 (0.54%) Aladdin
5 8 (0.39%) Findur
6 7 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
7 6 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.30%) SAP ERP
8 5 (0.25%) SAP GRC
9 3 (0.15%) Distributed Ledger
9 3 (0.15%) Shopify
10 2 (0.099%) BambooHR
10 2 (0.099%) Oracle ERP
10 2 (0.099%) SAP MDG
11 1 (0.049%) FLEXCUBE
11 1 (0.049%) SAP MM
11 1 (0.049%) SAP QM
11 1 (0.049%) SAP SD
11 1 (0.049%) Summit
11 1 (0.049%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 618 (30.50%) AWS
2 599 (29.57%) Azure
3 345 (17.03%) GitHub
4 279 (13.77%) Azure DevOps
5 218 (10.76%) GitHub Actions
6 165 (8.14%) Serverless
7 153 (7.55%) GCP
8 122 (6.02%) AWS Lambda
9 96 (4.74%) Power Platform
10 92 (4.54%) Amazon S3
11 80 (3.95%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 69 (3.41%) Amazon ECS
12 69 (3.41%) OpenShift
13 60 (2.96%) Amazon EKS
14 57 (2.81%) GitHub Copilot
15 55 (2.71%) dbt
16 49 (2.42%) Snowflake
17 47 (2.32%) AWS CloudFormation
18 46 (2.27%) Amazon EC2
19 41 (2.02%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.14%) HTTP
2 21 (1.04%) 4G
3 20 (0.99%) DNS
3 20 (0.99%) Firewall
4 19 (0.94%) 5G
5 18 (0.89%) TCP/IP
6 16 (0.79%) 2G
6 16 (0.79%) 3G
6 16 (0.79%) Diameter Protocol
6 16 (0.79%) Network Security
6 16 (0.79%) SIGTRAN
6 16 (0.79%) SS7
7 15 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
8 14 (0.69%) WAN
9 12 (0.59%) LAN
10 10 (0.49%) BGP
10 10 (0.49%) Broadband
10 10 (0.49%) DHCP
11 9 (0.44%) SAN
12 8 (0.39%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (5.77%) PostgreSQL
2 111 (5.48%) Data Warehouse
3 99 (4.89%) NoSQL
4 92 (4.54%) MongoDB
4 92 (4.54%) Relational Database
5 86 (4.24%) SQL Server
6 78 (3.85%) Power BI
7 41 (2.02%) DynamoDB
8 36 (1.78%) Data Lake
9 35 (1.73%) Metadata
10 34 (1.68%) Oracle Reports
11 31 (1.53%) Big Data
12 30 (1.48%) Amazon Athena
13 29 (1.43%) Pentaho
14 28 (1.38%) MySQL
15 27 (1.33%) Amazon RDS
15 27 (1.33%) Amazon Redshift
16 26 (1.28%) Redis
17 23 (1.14%) Oracle Database
18 19 (0.94%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 436 (21.52%) Git
2 348 (17.18%) JIRA
3 325 (16.04%) Jenkins
4 276 (13.62%) GitLab
5 251 (12.39%) Selenium
6 137 (6.76%) Postman
7 131 (6.47%) Cucumber
8 112 (5.53%) JUnit
9 102 (5.03%) Cypress.io
10 93 (4.59%) REST Assured
11 82 (4.05%) SonarQube
12 77 (3.80%) JMeter
13 61 (3.01%) Zephyr
14 55 (2.71%) Gatling
15 51 (2.52%) Gradle
15 51 (2.52%) Maven
16 44 (2.17%) Mockito
16 44 (2.17%) WebDriver
17 39 (1.92%) Bitbucket
18 24 (1.18%) LoadRunner
General
1 567 (27.99%) Social Skills
2 389 (19.20%) Finance
3 303 (14.96%) Analytical Skills
4 260 (12.83%) Public Sector
5 183 (9.03%) Banking
6 70 (3.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 42 (2.07%) Telecoms
8 36 (1.78%) Front Office
9 35 (1.73%) Retail
10 29 (1.43%) Documentation Skills
11 28 (1.38%) Influencing Skills
12 26 (1.28%) Investment Banking
12 26 (1.28%) Military
13 20 (0.99%) Financial Institution
14 19 (0.94%) Aerospace
15 18 (0.89%) Law
16 17 (0.84%) Back Office
16 17 (0.84%) Marketing
17 16 (0.79%) Manufacturing
18 14 (0.69%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 436 (21.52%) Developer
2 326 (16.09%) Senior
3 197 (9.72%) Lead
4 195 (9.62%) Test Engineer
5 150 (7.40%) Tester
6 136 (6.71%) Java Developer
7 123 (6.07%) Data Engineer
8 121 (5.97%) Software Engineer
9 112 (5.53%) Analyst
10 99 (4.89%) Senior Developer
11 98 (4.84%) DevOps Engineer
12 92 (4.54%) QA Engineer
13 87 (4.29%) Test Automation Engineer
14 86 (4.24%) Architect
15 73 (3.60%) Full-Stack Developer
16 69 (3.41%) Automation Engineer
16 69 (3.41%) Test Analyst
17 65 (3.21%) Test Leader
18 64 (3.16%) Java Engineer
19 63 (3.11%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 313 (15.45%) REST
2 296 (14.61%) Terraform
3 227 (11.20%) Playwright
4 210 (10.37%) RESTful
5 207 (10.22%) Kafka
6 192 (9.48%) Spring
7 189 (9.33%) React
8 165 (8.14%) Spring Boot
9 142 (7.01%) .NET
10 123 (6.07%) HTML
11 108 (5.33%) Node.js
12 105 (5.18%) CSS
13 103 (5.08%) AngularJS
14 63 (3.11%) OAuth
15 56 (2.76%) JSON
16 53 (2.62%) SOAP
17 52 (2.57%) XML
18 49 (2.42%) PySpark
19 47 (2.32%) pytest
20 46 (2.27%) Next.js
Miscellaneous
1 322 (15.89%) Cloud Native
2 170 (8.39%) Product Ownership
3 148 (7.31%) Distributed Systems
4 83 (4.10%) Enterprise Software
5 58 (2.86%) Onboarding
6 53 (2.62%) AI Agents
7 51 (2.52%) Data Protection Act
7 51 (2.52%) Legacy Systems
8 49 (2.42%) Self-Motivation
9 42 (2.07%) Mobile App
10 36 (1.78%) Virtual Team
11 26 (1.28%) Security Posture
12 24 (1.18%) Data Structures
13 21 (1.04%) Embedded Systems
13 21 (1.04%) Management Information System
14 17 (0.84%) Data Centre
15 16 (0.79%) Distributed Architecture
15 16 (0.79%) Fixed Income
16 15 (0.74%) Life Science
17 14 (0.69%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 143 (7.06%) Linux
2 85 (4.20%) Windows
3 81 (4.00%) Unix
4 39 (1.92%) Apple iOS
5 37 (1.83%) Android
6 31 (1.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 21 (1.04%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.30%) VMS
9 5 (0.25%) Embedded Linux
9 5 (0.25%) Mac OS X
9 5 (0.25%) Solaris
9 5 (0.25%) Windows 10
9 5 (0.25%) Windows 7
9 5 (0.25%) Windows Server 2003
10 4 (0.20%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
11 3 (0.15%) AIX
11 3 (0.15%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.099%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,214 (59.92%) CI/CD
2 974 (48.08%) Agile
3 760 (37.51%) DevOps
4 407 (20.09%) Continuous Improvement
5 403 (19.89%) Problem-Solving
6 397 (19.60%) Microservices
6 397 (19.60%) Software Engineering
7 348 (17.18%) Infrastructure as Code
8 347 (17.13%) Scrum
9 338 (16.68%) Validation
10 328 (16.19%) AI
11 311 (15.35%) Test Strategy
12 300 (14.81%) Containerisation
13 273 (13.47%) Observability
14 265 (13.08%) SDLC
15 253 (12.49%) TDD
16 245 (12.09%) Software Testing
17 229 (11.30%) Stakeholder Management
18 219 (10.81%) End-to-End Testing
19 199 (9.82%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 560 (27.64%) Python
2 551 (27.20%) Java
3 499 (24.63%) SQL
4 294 (14.51%) JavaScript
5 233 (11.50%) TypeScript
6 167 (8.24%) C#
7 92 (4.54%) PowerShell
8 78 (3.85%) Bash
9 47 (2.32%) Bicep
9 47 (2.32%) Kotlin
10 33 (1.63%) C++
11 29 (1.43%) Scala
12 26 (1.28%) Go
13 25 (1.23%) PL/SQL
14 23 (1.14%) C
15 22 (1.09%) Apex Code
16 18 (0.89%) Shell Script
17 17 (0.84%) Groovy
18 16 (0.79%) Ruby
18 16 (0.79%) Swift
Qualifications
1 658 (32.48%) Security Cleared
2 547 (27.00%) SC Cleared
3 113 (5.58%) Degree
4 93 (4.59%) ISTQB
5 82 (4.05%) DV Cleared
6 66 (3.26%) BPSS Clearance
7 60 (2.96%) Computer Science Degree
8 37 (1.83%) AWS Certification
9 27 (1.33%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 23 (1.14%) Azure Certification
11 17 (0.84%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 14 (0.69%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 13 (0.64%) Master's Degree
14 12 (0.59%) ISEB
15 11 (0.54%) SAFe Agilist
16 10 (0.49%) Microsoft Certification
17 9 (0.44%) Cisco Certification
17 9 (0.44%) CISSP
18 8 (0.39%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
19 7 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 547 (27.00%) QA
2 163 (8.05%) Accessibility
3 135 (6.66%) Data Quality
4 90 (4.44%) WCAG
5 39 (1.92%) GDPR
6 16 (0.79%) ISO 20022
7 14 (0.69%) NCSC
8 13 (0.64%) SLA
9 11 (0.54%) GRC
9 11 (0.54%) NIST
10 10 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 7 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
11 7 (0.35%) Software Quality Assurance
12 5 (0.25%) FATCA
12 5 (0.25%) PCI DSS
13 4 (0.20%) Def Stans
13 4 (0.20%) HL7
13 4 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 3 (0.15%) EU AI Act
15 2 (0.099%) SOC 2
System Software
1 404 (19.94%) Docker
2 34 (1.68%) Active Directory
3 28 (1.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.89%) Virtual Machines
5 11 (0.54%) Firmware
6 5 (0.25%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.20%) 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
1 397 (19.60%) Kubernetes
2 112 (5.53%) Ansible
3 106 (5.23%) Grafana
4 83 (4.10%) Prometheus
5 39 (1.92%) Argo
6 21 (1.04%) Progress Chef
6 21 (1.04%) Puppet
7 13 (0.64%) HP ALM
7 13 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
8 12 (0.59%) Kibana
9 11 (0.54%) Control-M
10 7 (0.35%) Kustomize
10 7 (0.35%) Microsoft Intune
11 6 (0.30%) Dell DRAC
12 5 (0.25%) HP Fortify
12 5 (0.25%) Istio
12 5 (0.25%) Packer
12 5 (0.25%) SCCM
13 4 (0.20%) HP Quality Center
13 4 (0.20%) WMI
Vendors
1 206 (10.17%) Microsoft
2 154 (7.60%) Oracle
3 83 (4.10%) Databricks
4 69 (3.41%) Salesforce
5 65 (3.21%) Google
6 59 (2.91%) Red Hat
7 51 (2.52%) IBM
8 48 (2.37%) Splunk
9 47 (2.32%) Talend
10 45 (2.22%) ServiceNow
11 40 (1.97%) Dynatrace
11 40 (1.97%) SAP
12 35 (1.73%) Denodo
12 35 (1.73%) VMware
13 33 (1.63%) Informatica
14 30 (1.48%) Cisco
15 28 (1.38%) UiPath
16 17 (0.84%) HP
17 13 (0.64%) OpenAI
18 12 (0.59%) Foundry