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

6 months to
19 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 48 57
Rank change year-on-year -1 +9 -8
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,691 1,102 1,250
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.12% 4.53% 3.43%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.87% 4.97% 3.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,098 765 830
10th Percentile £336 £325 £363
25th Percentile £402 £400 £426
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £575 £625 £638
90th Percentile £663 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -5.00% -2.44% -6.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 86 21 49
10th Percentile £36.79 £40.84 -
25th Percentile £56.00 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £66.75 £55.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +21.36% -8.33% -22.08%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.52 £77.50
90th Percentile - £75.50 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £66.75 £52.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +27.14% -12.50% -14.89%

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 34,728 22,194 31,472
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.62% 91.24% 86.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,149 14,504 20,626
10th Percentile £322 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £507 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -1.65% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,129 949 2,251
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.38 £12.92
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.22 £15.97
Median hourly rate £45.78 £29.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.86% -20.55% +0.29%
75th Percentile £67.84 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.40 £28.18 £36.02
% change year-on-year +50.46% -21.77% +0.06%

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 19 May 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 19 May 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 19 May 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 -1 813 £500 -0.50% 222
North of England +10 341 £465 +4.26% 131
Midlands +6 193 £450 - 59
West Midlands +26 169 £463 -7.73% 45
South East -45 165 £500 -0.10% 128
North West +9 149 £468 +4.59% 76
Yorkshire -5 145 £487 +2.53% 22
South West +14 97 £469 -8.54% 71
East of England +11 64 £507 +5.08% 56
North East +7 54 £425 +8.97% 33
East Midlands -41 24 £400 +22.70% 14
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
1 132 (7.81%) Confluence
2 37 (2.19%) SAS
3 31 (1.83%) Apache Spark
4 30 (1.77%) Apache Airflow
5 11 (0.65%) Apache
5 11 (0.65%) SharePoint
6 8 (0.47%) Appian
7 7 (0.41%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 6 (0.35%) Camunda
8 6 (0.35%) CMS
9 4 (0.24%) nginx
9 4 (0.24%) Tomcat
10 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.18%) WebLogic
11 2 (0.12%) Anypoint
12 1 (0.059%) Ethereum
12 1 (0.059%) Jupyter
12 1 (0.059%) Mendix
12 1 (0.059%) Solana
Applications
1 25 (1.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.71%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (0.59%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.41%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.18%) Simulink
8 1 (0.059%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.059%) Mingle
8 1 (0.059%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 20 (1.18%) Aladdin
2 12 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.53%) Payment Gateway
4 8 (0.47%) Findur
5 7 (0.41%) SAP S/4HANA
6 6 (0.35%) Loan IQ
6 6 (0.35%) Shopify
7 5 (0.30%) BambooHR
7 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
7 5 (0.30%) SAP ERP
8 3 (0.18%) Distributed Ledger
8 3 (0.18%) Maximo
9 2 (0.12%) iTrent
9 2 (0.12%) SAP MDG
9 2 (0.12%) Summit
9 2 (0.12%) Workday HCM
10 1 (0.059%) Cloudability
10 1 (0.059%) Infor CloudSuite
10 1 (0.059%) Infor LN
10 1 (0.059%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 454 (26.85%) AWS
2 451 (26.67%) Azure
3 272 (16.09%) GitHub
4 199 (11.77%) Azure DevOps
5 157 (9.28%) GitHub Actions
6 115 (6.80%) GCP
7 108 (6.39%) Serverless
8 69 (4.08%) AWS Lambda
9 68 (4.02%) Amazon S3
10 54 (3.19%) Power Platform
11 52 (3.08%) OpenShift
12 47 (2.78%) Amazon ECS
13 41 (2.42%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 36 (2.13%) Azure Data Factory
15 34 (2.01%) Amazon EKS
16 33 (1.95%) Azure AKS
17 32 (1.89%) AWS CloudFormation
17 32 (1.89%) Snowflake
18 28 (1.66%) Amazon EC2
19 26 (1.54%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.24%) Firewall
2 13 (0.77%) HTTP
2 13 (0.77%) SAN
3 11 (0.65%) TCP/IP
4 10 (0.59%) VPN
5 9 (0.53%) WAN
6 8 (0.47%) Ethernet
6 8 (0.47%) MPLS
6 8 (0.47%) Wireshark
7 7 (0.41%) FTP
7 7 (0.41%) SD-WAN
7 7 (0.41%) SSL
7 7 (0.41%) Wi-Fi
8 6 (0.35%) Network Security
8 6 (0.35%) VLAN
9 5 (0.30%) Multicast
10 4 (0.24%) Cisco IOS
10 4 (0.24%) NAS
10 4 (0.24%) Reverse Proxy
10 4 (0.24%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 93 (5.50%) PostgreSQL
2 80 (4.73%) SQL Server
3 79 (4.67%) NoSQL
4 77 (4.55%) MongoDB
5 69 (4.08%) Data Warehouse
6 56 (3.31%) Relational Database
7 41 (2.42%) DynamoDB
8 38 (2.25%) Power BI
9 31 (1.83%) Pentaho
10 25 (1.48%) Oracle Reports
10 25 (1.48%) Tableau
11 22 (1.30%) Redis
12 21 (1.24%) Big Data
13 20 (1.18%) Amazon Athena
13 20 (1.18%) Amazon RDS
13 20 (1.18%) Data Lake
13 20 (1.18%) MySQL
14 19 (1.12%) Metadata
15 17 (1.01%) BigQuery
15 17 (1.01%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 318 (18.81%) JIRA
2 298 (17.62%) Git
3 286 (16.91%) Jenkins
4 234 (13.84%) Selenium
5 232 (13.72%) GitLab
6 138 (8.16%) Postman
7 124 (7.33%) Cucumber
8 91 (5.38%) JUnit
9 86 (5.09%) REST Assured
10 79 (4.67%) Cypress.io
11 74 (4.38%) JMeter
12 44 (2.60%) WebDriver
13 43 (2.54%) SonarQube
14 41 (2.42%) Zephyr
15 34 (2.01%) Gradle
16 31 (1.83%) Gatling
16 31 (1.83%) Maven
17 30 (1.77%) Bitbucket
18 29 (1.71%) SpecFlow
19 27 (1.60%) Mockito
General
1 452 (26.73%) Social Skills
2 301 (17.80%) Finance
3 232 (13.72%) Public Sector
4 208 (12.30%) Analytical Skills
5 147 (8.69%) Banking
6 38 (2.25%) Documentation Skills
7 34 (2.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 30 (1.77%) Investment Banking
9 27 (1.60%) Front Office
10 22 (1.30%) Telecoms
11 20 (1.18%) Influencing Skills
12 17 (1.01%) Organisational Skills
12 17 (1.01%) Presentation Skills
13 15 (0.89%) Legal
13 15 (0.89%) Retail
14 14 (0.83%) Aerospace
15 13 (0.77%) Financial Institution
16 12 (0.71%) Military
17 11 (0.65%) Back Office
18 8 (0.47%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 348 (20.58%) Developer
2 261 (15.43%) Senior
3 187 (11.06%) Test Engineer
4 183 (10.82%) Tester
5 175 (10.35%) Lead
6 101 (5.97%) Java Developer
7 99 (5.85%) Data Engineer
8 93 (5.50%) Analyst
9 88 (5.20%) Software Engineer
10 86 (5.09%) Test Automation Engineer
11 81 (4.79%) Automation Tester
12 72 (4.26%) Architect
13 70 (4.14%) Senior Developer
14 69 (4.08%) QA Engineer
15 67 (3.96%) DevOps Engineer
16 64 (3.78%) Test Leader
17 55 (3.25%) Full-Stack Developer
18 51 (3.02%) Test Analyst
19 49 (2.90%) Automation Engineer
20 47 (2.78%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 195 (11.53%) Playwright
2 188 (11.12%) REST
3 154 (9.11%) React
4 130 (7.69%) Spring
5 127 (7.51%) Kafka
6 126 (7.45%) RESTful
7 119 (7.04%) .NET
8 108 (6.39%) Spring Boot
9 104 (6.15%) Node.js
10 72 (4.26%) AngularJS
11 61 (3.61%) HTML
12 54 (3.19%) CSS
13 52 (3.08%) pytest
14 47 (2.78%) OAuth
15 45 (2.66%) Jest
16 34 (2.01%) OpenID
16 34 (2.01%) Swagger
17 32 (1.89%) OAuth2
18 31 (1.83%) Gherkin
18 31 (1.83%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 182 (10.76%) Cloud Native
2 119 (7.04%) Product Ownership
3 92 (5.44%) Distributed Systems
4 46 (2.72%) Data Protection Act
5 43 (2.54%) Mobile App
6 42 (2.48%) Legacy Systems
7 33 (1.95%) Self-Motivation
7 33 (1.95%) Virtual Team
8 29 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
9 26 (1.54%) Onboarding
10 25 (1.48%) Algorithms
11 23 (1.36%) Management Information System
12 21 (1.24%) Distributed Architecture
13 20 (1.18%) NHS
14 19 (1.12%) Greenfield Project
15 18 (1.06%) Data Centre
15 18 (1.06%) Fixed Income
16 17 (1.01%) Data Structures
17 16 (0.95%) Security Posture
18 15 (0.89%) Embedded Systems
Operating Systems
1 112 (6.62%) Linux
2 73 (4.32%) Windows
3 46 (2.72%) Unix
4 38 (2.25%) Android
5 33 (1.95%) Apple iOS
6 18 (1.06%) Windows Server
7 16 (0.95%) 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%) Embedded Linux
11 4 (0.24%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.18%) AIX
12 3 (0.18%) CentOS
12 3 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.12%) Kali Linux
14 1 (0.059%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 888 (52.51%) CI/CD
2 773 (45.71%) Agile
3 599 (35.42%) DevOps
4 346 (20.46%) Problem-Solving
5 285 (16.85%) Microservices
6 280 (16.56%) Continuous Improvement
7 250 (14.78%) Test Strategy
8 246 (14.55%) Scrum
9 230 (13.60%) Software Engineering
10 220 (13.01%) Validation
11 218 (12.89%) Infrastructure as Code
12 211 (12.48%) Containerisation
13 205 (12.12%) Observability
14 203 (12.00%) TDD
15 188 (11.12%) AI
16 181 (10.70%) Test Scripting
17 173 (10.23%) Software Testing
18 170 (10.05%) ETL
19 168 (9.93%) User Acceptance Testing
20 162 (9.58%) Regression Testing
Programming Languages
1 434 (25.67%) Python
2 430 (25.43%) Java
3 395 (23.36%) SQL
4 230 (13.60%) JavaScript
5 211 (12.48%) TypeScript
6 172 (10.17%) C#
7 69 (4.08%) PowerShell
8 53 (3.13%) Bash
9 42 (2.48%) C++
10 41 (2.42%) Kotlin
11 31 (1.83%) C
12 29 (1.71%) Apex Code
12 29 (1.71%) PL/SQL
13 26 (1.54%) Scala
14 24 (1.42%) Bicep
15 22 (1.30%) Go
16 18 (1.06%) Swift
17 16 (0.95%) Ruby
18 12 (0.71%) Groovy
19 11 (0.65%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 526 (31.11%) Security Cleared
2 407 (24.07%) SC Cleared
3 80 (4.73%) ISTQB
4 71 (4.20%) Degree
5 64 (3.78%) DV Cleared
6 59 (3.49%) BPSS Clearance
7 36 (2.13%) Computer Science Degree
8 19 (1.12%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 12 (0.71%) Cisco Certification
10 11 (0.65%) CCNP
10 11 (0.65%) Master's Degree
11 10 (0.59%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 10 (0.59%) SAFe Agilist
12 8 (0.47%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 8 (0.47%) Azure Certification
13 7 (0.41%) AWS Certification
13 7 (0.41%) DBS Check
14 6 (0.35%) CISSP
14 6 (0.35%) Microsoft Certification
15 5 (0.30%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 358 (21.17%) QA
2 121 (7.16%) Accessibility
3 97 (5.74%) Data Quality
4 54 (3.19%) WCAG
5 28 (1.66%) GDPR
6 12 (0.71%) ISO 20022
7 10 (0.59%) Def Stans
8 9 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 8 (0.47%) NCSC
9 8 (0.47%) SLA
10 7 (0.41%) NIST
11 6 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 5 (0.30%) FATCA
12 5 (0.30%) SEPA
13 4 (0.24%) HL7
13 4 (0.24%) MiFID
13 4 (0.24%) PCI DSS
13 4 (0.24%) PSD2
13 4 (0.24%) Software Quality Assurance
14 3 (0.18%) HIPAA
System Software
1 284 (16.79%) Docker
2 19 (1.12%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (1.06%) Active Directory
4 12 (0.71%) Firmware
5 11 (0.65%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.41%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
7 6 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
10 3 (0.18%) ISA Server
11 2 (0.12%) SRDF
12 1 (0.059%) Hyper-V
12 1 (0.059%) KVM
12 1 (0.059%) Squid
12 1 (0.059%) Virtual Servers
12 1 (0.059%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 283 (16.74%) Kubernetes
2 195 (11.53%) Terraform
3 100 (5.91%) Grafana
4 85 (5.03%) Prometheus
5 79 (4.67%) Ansible
6 26 (1.54%) Argo
7 16 (0.95%) HP ALM
8 15 (0.89%) Puppet
9 11 (0.65%) Kibana
9 11 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
10 10 (0.59%) Forefront Identity Manager
10 10 (0.59%) HP Quality Center
10 10 (0.59%) NetIQ Identity Manager
11 8 (0.47%) Dell DRAC
12 7 (0.41%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.35%) NetBackup
14 4 (0.24%) Istio
14 4 (0.24%) Kustomize
14 4 (0.24%) Nmap
14 4 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 140 (8.28%) Oracle
2 138 (8.16%) Microsoft
3 66 (3.90%) Salesforce
4 58 (3.43%) Databricks
5 56 (3.31%) Splunk
6 53 (3.13%) ServiceNow
7 47 (2.78%) Talend
8 45 (2.66%) Red Hat
9 41 (2.42%) Google
10 30 (1.77%) Denodo
11 27 (1.60%) SAP
12 25 (1.48%) VMware
13 22 (1.30%) Cisco
14 20 (1.18%) Informatica
15 19 (1.12%) Dynatrace
15 19 (1.12%) HP
16 18 (1.06%) UiPath
17 17 (1.01%) IBM
18 15 (0.89%) MuleSoft
19 14 (0.83%) Blue Prism