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

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 51 54
Rank change year-on-year +4 +3 -3
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,935 1,214 1,361
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.32% 4.45% 3.71%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.05% 4.90% 4.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,239 839 906
10th Percentile £329 £313 £363
25th Percentile £406 £389 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £485 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.06% -7.62% -4.55%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £625
90th Percentile £663 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £475 £483 £513
% change year-on-year -1.66% -5.76% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 109 31 44
10th Percentile £36.26 £40.84 £50.38
25th Percentile £60.00 £44.76 £52.50
Median hourly rate £67.50 £50.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +35.00% -9.09% -24.66%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £71.87
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.19 £82.75
UK median hourly rate £67.50 £50.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +35.00% -9.09% -20.00%

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 38,320 24,760 31,431
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.46% 90.73% 85.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,128 15,919 20,389
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £419 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £514 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.14% -2.10% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £645
90th Percentile £735 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £501 £525
% change year-on-year +3.81% -4.67% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,389 1,284 2,227
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.33 £13.00
25th Percentile £21.00 £18.08 £16.25
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% -5.96%
75th Percentile £68.75 £54.81 £62.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £72.20 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -4.70%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 +5 872 £500 - 396
North of England +18 393 £460 +2.91% 146
Midlands +6 248 £450 +8.11% 72
West Midlands +29 231 £450 -6.83% 36
South East -38 200 £459 -8.20% 167
Yorkshire +6 159 £490 -2.00% 43
North West 0 155 £478 +19.20% 75
South West +10 116 £450 +2.86% 129
North East +11 89 £425 +6.25% 28
East of England +20 87 £450 -1.91% 42
East Midlands -42 17 £425 +40.26% 36
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
1 169 (8.73%) Confluence
2 42 (2.17%) Apache Airflow
3 41 (2.12%) Apache Spark
3 41 (2.12%) SAS
4 17 (0.88%) Apache
5 16 (0.83%) SharePoint
6 12 (0.62%) CMS
7 7 (0.36%) WebLogic
8 6 (0.31%) Camunda
9 5 (0.26%) Appian
9 5 (0.26%) nginx
9 5 (0.26%) Tomcat
10 4 (0.21%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.16%) Kentico
11 3 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
12 2 (0.10%) Anypoint
12 2 (0.10%) Apache Pulsar
12 2 (0.10%) Microsoft Exchange
12 2 (0.10%) Mule
13 1 (0.052%) Solana
Applications
1 28 (1.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (0.83%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (0.41%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.36%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.21%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.21%) Simulink
6 4 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.052%) Mingle
7 1 (0.052%) SOLIDWORKS
7 1 (0.052%) Trello
Business Applications
1 22 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
2 17 (0.88%) Aladdin
3 12 (0.62%) Payment Gateway
4 11 (0.57%) SAP S/4HANA
5 8 (0.41%) Findur
5 8 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
6 7 (0.36%) SAP ERP
7 6 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
7 6 (0.31%) 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 (0.10%) Infor CloudSuite
10 2 (0.10%) Infor LN
10 2 (0.10%) Infor M3
10 2 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
10 2 (0.10%) SAP MDG
10 2 (0.10%) Summit
10 2 (0.10%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 547 (28.27%) AWS
2 532 (27.49%) Azure
3 319 (16.49%) GitHub
4 232 (11.99%) Azure DevOps
5 195 (10.08%) GitHub Actions
6 138 (7.13%) Serverless
7 134 (6.93%) GCP
8 96 (4.96%) AWS Lambda
9 84 (4.34%) Amazon S3
10 76 (3.93%) Power Platform
11 63 (3.26%) OpenShift
12 56 (2.89%) Amazon ECS
13 54 (2.79%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 43 (2.22%) dbt
15 42 (2.17%) Amazon EC2
16 41 (2.12%) Azure Data Factory
17 36 (1.86%) Snowflake
18 34 (1.76%) Amazon EKS
19 30 (1.55%) AWS CloudFormation
19 30 (1.55%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 18 (0.93%) Firewall
2 16 (0.83%) HTTP
3 15 (0.78%) SAN
4 11 (0.57%) WAN
5 10 (0.52%) Network Security
6 9 (0.47%) MPLS
7 8 (0.41%) 4G
7 8 (0.41%) 5G
8 7 (0.36%) 2G
8 7 (0.36%) 3G
8 7 (0.36%) Diameter Protocol
8 7 (0.36%) SIGTRAN
8 7 (0.36%) SS7
8 7 (0.36%) VPN
9 6 (0.31%) BGP
9 6 (0.31%) Ethernet
9 6 (0.31%) LAN
9 6 (0.31%) SD-WAN
9 6 (0.31%) Wi-Fi
10 5 (0.26%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 104 (5.37%) PostgreSQL
2 100 (5.17%) Data Warehouse
3 89 (4.60%) MongoDB
4 80 (4.13%) NoSQL
5 75 (3.88%) SQL Server
6 60 (3.10%) Power BI
6 60 (3.10%) Relational Database
7 45 (2.33%) DynamoDB
8 35 (1.81%) Oracle Reports
9 34 (1.76%) Pentaho
10 30 (1.55%) Amazon Athena
11 28 (1.45%) Amazon RDS
11 28 (1.45%) Big Data
12 27 (1.40%) Metadata
13 24 (1.24%) Data Lake
14 23 (1.19%) Amazon Redshift
14 23 (1.19%) Redis
15 21 (1.09%) Oracle Database
16 20 (1.03%) Tableau
17 18 (0.93%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 365 (18.86%) JIRA
2 346 (17.88%) Git
3 309 (15.97%) Jenkins
4 263 (13.59%) GitLab
5 244 (12.61%) Selenium
6 144 (7.44%) Postman
7 137 (7.08%) Cucumber
8 101 (5.22%) REST Assured
9 100 (5.17%) JUnit
10 92 (4.75%) Cypress.io
11 84 (4.34%) JMeter
12 58 (3.00%) Zephyr
13 54 (2.79%) WebDriver
14 52 (2.69%) SonarQube
15 47 (2.43%) Gatling
16 43 (2.22%) Gradle
17 38 (1.96%) Bitbucket
18 35 (1.81%) Mockito
19 32 (1.65%) Maven
20 28 (1.45%) SpecFlow
General
1 527 (27.24%) Social Skills
2 367 (18.97%) Finance
3 255 (13.18%) Analytical Skills
4 235 (12.14%) Public Sector
5 161 (8.32%) Banking
6 53 (2.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 42 (2.17%) Documentation Skills
8 30 (1.55%) Investment Banking
9 27 (1.40%) Front Office
10 26 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
10 26 (1.34%) Telecoms
11 25 (1.29%) Retail
12 22 (1.14%) Financial Institution
13 20 (1.03%) Military
14 18 (0.93%) Aerospace
15 17 (0.88%) Organisational Skills
16 15 (0.78%) Legal
17 14 (0.72%) Automotive
18 13 (0.67%) Back Office
18 13 (0.67%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 385 (19.90%) Developer
2 308 (15.92%) Senior
3 212 (10.96%) Lead
4 198 (10.23%) Test Engineer
5 197 (10.18%) Tester
6 135 (6.98%) Data Engineer
7 124 (6.41%) Java Developer
8 108 (5.58%) Software Engineer
9 100 (5.17%) Analyst
10 88 (4.55%) Architect
11 85 (4.39%) Test Automation Engineer
12 84 (4.34%) DevOps Engineer
13 82 (4.24%) QA Engineer
14 81 (4.19%) Senior Developer
15 75 (3.88%) Test Leader
16 66 (3.41%) Automation Tester
17 58 (3.00%) Test Analyst
18 57 (2.95%) Automation Engineer
19 55 (2.84%) Full-Stack Developer
20 48 (2.48%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 218 (11.27%) REST
2 217 (11.21%) Playwright
3 180 (9.30%) React
4 156 (8.06%) Spring
5 152 (7.86%) RESTful
6 143 (7.39%) Kafka
7 125 (6.46%) .NET
8 123 (6.36%) Spring Boot
9 99 (5.12%) Node.js
10 83 (4.29%) AngularJS
11 74 (3.82%) HTML
12 69 (3.57%) CSS
13 50 (2.58%) OAuth
14 45 (2.33%) pytest
15 42 (2.17%) Jest
16 41 (2.12%) Quarkus
17 39 (2.02%) .NET Framework
18 37 (1.91%) Gherkin
18 37 (1.91%) GraphQL
19 36 (1.86%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 260 (13.44%) Cloud Native
2 130 (6.72%) Product Ownership
3 123 (6.36%) Distributed Systems
4 59 (3.05%) Enterprise Software
5 56 (2.89%) Legacy Systems
6 46 (2.38%) Data Protection Act
7 43 (2.22%) Onboarding
8 42 (2.17%) Self-Motivation
9 41 (2.12%) Mobile App
10 37 (1.91%) Virtual Team
11 31 (1.60%) Distributed Architecture
12 28 (1.45%) Security Posture
13 27 (1.40%) Embedded Systems
14 26 (1.34%) Management Information System
15 25 (1.29%) AI Agents
16 22 (1.14%) Greenfield Project
17 20 (1.03%) Fixed Income
18 18 (0.93%) Algorithms
19 16 (0.83%) Data Structures
20 15 (0.78%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 116 (5.99%) Linux
2 72 (3.72%) Windows
3 56 (2.89%) Unix
4 39 (2.02%) Android
5 38 (1.96%) Apple iOS
6 22 (1.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (0.72%) Mac OS X
8 13 (0.67%) Windows Server
9 7 (0.36%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.36%) Solaris
10 6 (0.31%) Embedded Linux
11 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
12 4 (0.21%) Ubuntu
12 4 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.16%) AIX
13 3 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.10%) CentOS
15 1 (0.052%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,081 (55.87%) CI/CD
2 893 (46.15%) Agile
3 690 (35.66%) DevOps
4 361 (18.66%) Problem-Solving
5 339 (17.52%) Continuous Improvement
5 339 (17.52%) Microservices
6 311 (16.07%) Software Engineering
7 305 (15.76%) Scrum
8 299 (15.45%) Test Strategy
8 299 (15.45%) Validation
9 275 (14.21%) Infrastructure as Code
10 260 (13.44%) AI
11 246 (12.71%) Containerisation
12 238 (12.30%) TDD
13 236 (12.20%) Observability
14 208 (10.75%) ETL
15 202 (10.44%) Software Testing
16 198 (10.23%) End-to-End Testing
17 195 (10.08%) Data Pipeline
18 190 (9.82%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 485 (25.06%) Java
1 485 (25.06%) Python
2 454 (23.46%) SQL
3 241 (12.45%) JavaScript
4 224 (11.58%) TypeScript
5 176 (9.10%) C#
6 67 (3.46%) PowerShell
7 61 (3.15%) Bash
8 48 (2.48%) Kotlin
9 43 (2.22%) C++
10 33 (1.71%) Bicep
10 33 (1.71%) C
11 32 (1.65%) Scala
12 31 (1.60%) Go
13 29 (1.50%) Apex Code
14 27 (1.40%) PL/SQL
15 23 (1.19%) Swift
16 18 (0.93%) Ruby
17 15 (0.78%) Groovy
18 12 (0.62%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 599 (30.96%) Security Cleared
2 491 (25.37%) SC Cleared
3 89 (4.60%) Degree
4 85 (4.39%) ISTQB
5 69 (3.57%) BPSS Clearance
6 63 (3.26%) DV Cleared
7 45 (2.33%) Computer Science Degree
8 21 (1.09%) AWS Certification
9 20 (1.03%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 15 (0.78%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 14 (0.72%) Master's Degree
12 12 (0.62%) Cisco Certification
13 11 (0.57%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 11 (0.57%) SAFe Agilist
14 10 (0.52%) CCNP
15 8 (0.41%) Azure Certification
15 8 (0.41%) CISSP
16 7 (0.36%) DBS Check
17 5 (0.26%) CCIE
17 5 (0.26%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 458 (23.67%) QA
2 145 (7.49%) Accessibility
3 130 (6.72%) Data Quality
4 68 (3.51%) WCAG
5 34 (1.76%) GDPR
6 13 (0.67%) NCSC
7 11 (0.57%) ISO 20022
7 11 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 10 (0.52%) Def Stans
9 9 (0.47%) NIST
10 8 (0.41%) SLA
11 5 (0.26%) FATCA
11 5 (0.26%) SEPA
11 5 (0.26%) Software Quality Assurance
12 4 (0.21%) GRC
12 4 (0.21%) HL7
12 4 (0.21%) PCI DSS
13 3 (0.16%) EU AI Act
13 3 (0.16%) MiFID
13 3 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 333 (17.21%) Docker
2 26 (1.34%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (0.78%) Active Directory
4 14 (0.72%) Firmware
5 13 (0.67%) 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 (0.10%) SRDF
9 1 (0.052%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.052%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.052%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 349 (18.04%) Kubernetes
2 242 (12.51%) Terraform
3 102 (5.27%) Ansible
4 98 (5.06%) Grafana
5 84 (4.34%) Prometheus
6 37 (1.91%) Argo
7 16 (0.83%) HP ALM
8 12 (0.62%) HP Quality Center
8 12 (0.62%) Puppet
9 11 (0.57%) Kibana
10 10 (0.52%) Dell DRAC
10 10 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
11 8 (0.41%) Kustomize
12 6 (0.31%) NetBackup
12 6 (0.31%) Progress Chef
13 5 (0.26%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 5 (0.26%) Istio
13 5 (0.26%) NetIQ Identity Manager
14 4 (0.21%) Packer
14 4 (0.21%) Rancher
Vendors
1 171 (8.84%) Microsoft
2 147 (7.60%) Oracle
3 85 (4.39%) Salesforce
4 66 (3.41%) Databricks
5 56 (2.89%) Red Hat
5 56 (2.89%) Talend
6 51 (2.64%) Google
6 51 (2.64%) Splunk
7 46 (2.38%) ServiceNow
8 37 (1.91%) Denodo
9 33 (1.71%) Informatica
10 29 (1.50%) SAP
11 28 (1.45%) UiPath
12 27 (1.40%) VMware
13 26 (1.34%) Dynatrace
13 26 (1.34%) IBM
14 21 (1.09%) Cisco
15 19 (0.98%) HP
16 14 (0.72%) Blue Prism
17 13 (0.67%) Fortinet