Automation Test Lead Contract Job Trends in London

Test Automation Leader
England > London

The median Test Automation Leader daily rate in London is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 19 January 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 372 343 386
Rank change year-on-year -29 +43 +116
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Test Lead 5 13 4
As % of all contract jobs in London 0.035% 0.094% 0.022%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.038% 0.10% 0.024%
Number of daily rates quoted 5 6 2
10th Percentile £325 £456 £387
25th Percentile £363 - £414
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £469
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% +1.33% -21.88%
75th Percentile £630 £500 £514
90th Percentile - £506 £536
England median daily rate £525 £475 £484
% change year-on-year +10.53% -1.76% -19.42%

All Contract IT Job Roles
London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in London. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in London with a recognized job title 13,211 12,987 16,934
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.48% 93.56% 93.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,751 8,344 12,206
10th Percentile £350 £338 £325
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -5.98%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £788
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 221 140 268
10th Percentile £18.25 £20.00 £16.18
25th Percentile £23.55 £23.80 £18.93
Median hourly rate £32.45 £35.00 £30.33
Median % change year-on-year -7.29% +15.40% -10.56%
75th Percentile £63.00 £53.75 £52.69
90th Percentile £76.58 £80.75 £68.60
England median hourly rate £28.50 £35.00 £40.33
% change year-on-year -18.57% -13.21% +15.21%

Automation Test Lead
Job Vacancy Trend in London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Automation Test Lead' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in London.

Automation Test Lead job vacancy trend in London

Automation Test Lead
Daily Rate Trend in London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Automation Test Lead job vacancies in London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Automation Test Lead job vacancies in London

Automation Test Lead
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Automation Test Lead in London over the 6 months to 19 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Automation Test Lead in London

Automation Test Lead
Contract Job Locations in London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Automation Test Lead within the London region over the 6 months to 19 January 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
Central London +1 2 £600 -
Automation Test Lead
England

Automation Test Lead Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London

For the 6 months to 19 January 2026, Automation Test Lead contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the London region featuring Automation Test Lead in the job title.

1 5 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 3 (60.00%) Agile
2 3 (60.00%) QA
2 3 (60.00%) Security Cleared
3 2 (40.00%) CI/CD
3 2 (40.00%) Java
3 2 (40.00%) Jenkins
3 2 (40.00%) Playwright
3 2 (40.00%) Problem-Solving
3 2 (40.00%) Regression Testing
3 2 (40.00%) SC Cleared
3 2 (40.00%) Selenium
3 2 (40.00%) Stakeholder Management
3 2 (40.00%) Test Scripting
4 1 (20.00%) Anti-Money Laundering
4 1 (20.00%) Atlassian Bamboo
4 1 (20.00%) BigQuery
4 1 (20.00%) Bitbucket
4 1 (20.00%) Case Management
4 1 (20.00%) Confluence
4 1 (20.00%) DevOps
4 1 (20.00%) Docker
4 1 (20.00%) DSL
4 1 (20.00%) End-to-End Testing
4 1 (20.00%) ETL
4 1 (20.00%) Event-Driven
4 1 (20.00%) GDPR
4 1 (20.00%) Git
4 1 (20.00%) GitLab
4 1 (20.00%) HP UFT

Automation Test Lead Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London 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 1 (20.00%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 1 (20.00%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 1 (20.00%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 1 (20.00%) DSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (20.00%) BigQuery
1 1 (20.00%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 2 (40.00%) Jenkins
1 2 (40.00%) Selenium
2 1 (20.00%) Atlassian Bamboo
2 1 (20.00%) Bitbucket
2 1 (20.00%) Git
2 1 (20.00%) GitLab
2 1 (20.00%) HP UFT
2 1 (20.00%) JIRA
2 1 (20.00%) Postman
2 1 (20.00%) REST Assured
2 1 (20.00%) TestComplete
General
1 3 (60.00%) Public Sector
2 2 (40.00%) Finance
2 2 (40.00%) Social Skills
3 1 (20.00%) Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (40.00%) Playwright
2 1 (20.00%) Kafka
2 1 (20.00%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 1 (20.00%) Distributed Systems
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 3 (60.00%) Agile
3 2 (40.00%) CI/CD
3 2 (40.00%) Problem-Solving
3 2 (40.00%) Regression Testing
3 2 (40.00%) Stakeholder Management
3 2 (40.00%) Test Scripting
4 1 (20.00%) DevOps
4 1 (20.00%) End-to-End Testing
4 1 (20.00%) ETL
4 1 (20.00%) Event-Driven
4 1 (20.00%) Integration Testing
4 1 (20.00%) Mentoring
4 1 (20.00%) OSINT
4 1 (20.00%) Software Delivery
4 1 (20.00%) System Integration Testing
4 1 (20.00%) Test Strategy
4 1 (20.00%) User Acceptance Testing
4 1 (20.00%) Validation
4 1 (20.00%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 2 (40.00%) Java
2 1 (20.00%) SQL
2 1 (20.00%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 3 (60.00%) Security Cleared
2 2 (40.00%) SC Cleared
3 1 (20.00%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (60.00%) QA
2 1 (20.00%) GDPR
2 1 (20.00%) MiFID
System Software
1 1 (20.00%) Docker
Vendors
1 1 (20.00%) Oracle
1 1 (20.00%) ServiceNow