Test Automation Contract Job Trends in London

Automated Testing
England > London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in London requiring Test Automation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 53 46
Rank change year-on-year +9 -7 +2
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 971 615 755
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.81% 4.58% 4.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.40% 4.95% 5.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 665 420 494
10th Percentile £350 £350 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -8.70%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £629
90th Percentile £725 £768 £750
England median daily rate £475 £500 £505
% change year-on-year -5.00% -0.99% -8.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 4 3
10th Percentile £36.78 £37.25 £53.13
25th Percentile £43.61 £40.63 £57.81
Median hourly rate £49.50 £45.00 £68.75
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -34.55% -23.61%
75th Percentile £86.25 £55.63 £71.88
90th Percentile £97.50 £70.25 -
England median hourly rate £69.50 £57.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +20.87% -4.17% -20.00%

All Process & Methodology Skills
London

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 London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 17,972 12,434 14,457
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 88.94% 92.55% 89.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,766 8,197 9,428
10th Percentile £360 £332 £350
25th Percentile £450 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.85% -1.82% -4.35%
75th Percentile £663 £664 £675
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 333 243 184
10th Percentile £16.00 £18.03 £17.25
25th Percentile £19.00 £25.01 £24.06
Median hourly rate £33.60 £30.00 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.00% -16.67% -9.62%
75th Percentile £60.75 £47.25 £56.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £64.55 £78.65
England median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -4.49%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in London

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

Test Automation job vacancy trend in London

Test Automation
Daily Rate Trend in London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing Test Automation.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in London over the 6 months to 9 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in London

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Trend in London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing Test Automation.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Histogram in London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Automation in London over the 6 months to 9 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Automation in London

Test Automation
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 Test Automation within the London region over the 6 months to 9 October 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 +14 122 £550 +15.79% 133
South London -4 15 £593 +18.50% 14
East London +5 8 £663 +27.40% 12
West London -19 3 £600 +50.94% 31
North London +1 2 £463 - 1
Test Automation
England

Test Automation
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 70 (7.21%) Confluence
2 46 (4.74%) Apache Airflow
3 28 (2.88%) Apache Spark
4 23 (2.37%) SharePoint
5 19 (1.96%) Apache
6 16 (1.65%) CMS
7 8 (0.82%) Camunda
8 7 (0.72%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.51%) Microsoft Exchange
10 3 (0.31%) Kentico
11 2 (0.21%) Anypoint
11 2 (0.21%) Mule
11 2 (0.21%) nginx
11 2 (0.21%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
11 2 (0.21%) SAS
11 2 (0.21%) WebLogic
12 1 (0.10%) Apache Pulsar
12 1 (0.10%) Headless CMS
12 1 (0.10%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 18 (1.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.44%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.51%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.31%) Mingle
5 3 (0.31%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.31%) Trello
6 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.10%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.10%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.10%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 14 (1.44%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (0.93%) Aladdin
2 9 (0.93%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.51%) SAP GRC
4 4 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
4 4 (0.41%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.21%) SAP MDG
7 1 (0.10%) Findur
7 1 (0.10%) FLEXCUBE
7 1 (0.10%) Infor M3
7 1 (0.10%) IntelliMatch
7 1 (0.10%) Maximo
7 1 (0.10%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.10%) Misys Midas
7 1 (0.10%) NEC Housing
7 1 (0.10%) Shopify
7 1 (0.10%) Summit
7 1 (0.10%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 348 (35.84%) Azure
2 310 (31.93%) AWS
3 195 (20.08%) GitHub
4 164 (16.89%) Azure DevOps
5 127 (13.08%) GitHub Actions
6 91 (9.37%) GCP
7 88 (9.06%) Serverless
8 74 (7.62%) Power Platform
9 68 (7.00%) AWS Lambda
10 64 (6.59%) Amazon S3
11 49 (5.05%) dbt
12 41 (4.22%) Snowflake
13 40 (4.12%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 34 (3.50%) AWS CloudFormation
14 34 (3.50%) GitHub Copilot
15 33 (3.40%) Amazon ECS
16 31 (3.19%) Amazon EKS
17 30 (3.09%) Amazon EC2
18 28 (2.88%) Microsoft Copilot
19 25 (2.57%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 12 (1.24%) DNS
2 11 (1.13%) TCP/IP
3 9 (0.93%) Firewall
4 8 (0.82%) BGP
4 8 (0.82%) HTTP
5 7 (0.72%) DHCP
5 7 (0.72%) Network Security
5 7 (0.72%) WAN
5 7 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
6 6 (0.62%) LAN
7 5 (0.51%) Internet
8 4 (0.41%) Ethernet VPN
8 4 (0.41%) NX-OS
8 4 (0.41%) SSL
8 4 (0.41%) TACACS
8 4 (0.41%) VPN
8 4 (0.41%) VXLAN
9 3 (0.31%) OpenLDAP
9 3 (0.31%) SD-WAN
9 3 (0.31%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 74 (7.62%) PostgreSQL
2 58 (5.97%) Power BI
2 58 (5.97%) SQL Server
3 51 (5.25%) Data Warehouse
4 48 (4.94%) NoSQL
5 43 (4.43%) Relational Database
6 40 (4.12%) MongoDB
7 25 (2.57%) Amazon RDS
8 24 (2.47%) Amazon Redshift
9 23 (2.37%) Data Lake
10 21 (2.16%) Amazon Athena
11 20 (2.06%) Metadata
12 19 (1.96%) DynamoDB
12 19 (1.96%) MySQL
12 19 (1.96%) Oracle Database
12 19 (1.96%) Redis
13 15 (1.54%) Amazon Aurora
13 15 (1.54%) Big Data
14 14 (1.44%) Data Vault
14 14 (1.44%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 203 (20.91%) Git
2 190 (19.57%) Jenkins
3 132 (13.59%) Selenium
4 131 (13.49%) JIRA
5 116 (11.95%) GitLab
6 65 (6.69%) Cypress.io
7 62 (6.39%) Cucumber
7 62 (6.39%) JUnit
8 61 (6.28%) Postman
9 56 (5.77%) JMeter
10 46 (4.74%) REST Assured
11 25 (2.57%) Gradle
12 24 (2.47%) Gatling
12 24 (2.47%) Maven
13 22 (2.27%) LoadRunner
14 21 (2.16%) Mockito
14 21 (2.16%) SonarQube
15 19 (1.96%) TestNG
16 18 (1.85%) Appium
17 16 (1.65%) SoapUI
General
1 288 (29.66%) Finance
2 273 (28.12%) Social Skills
3 163 (16.79%) Analytical Skills
4 154 (15.86%) Banking
5 85 (8.75%) Public Sector
6 33 (3.40%) Front Office
7 28 (2.88%) Investment Banking
8 21 (2.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 18 (1.85%) Financial Institution
10 17 (1.75%) Back Office
10 17 (1.75%) Marketing
11 14 (1.44%) Local Government
12 13 (1.34%) Telecoms
13 12 (1.24%) Influencing Skills
14 11 (1.13%) Documentation Skills
14 11 (1.13%) Law
15 10 (1.03%) Retail
16 7 (0.72%) Military
17 6 (0.62%) Games
17 6 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 210 (21.63%) Developer
2 177 (18.23%) Senior
3 107 (11.02%) Lead
4 70 (7.21%) Data Engineer
5 66 (6.80%) Test Engineer
6 61 (6.28%) Tester
7 56 (5.77%) Automation Engineer
7 56 (5.77%) QA Engineer
8 55 (5.66%) Java Developer
9 53 (5.46%) Software Engineer
10 52 (5.36%) DevOps Engineer
11 46 (4.74%) Architect
12 42 (4.33%) Senior Developer
13 40 (4.12%) Analyst
13 40 (4.12%) Full-Stack Developer
14 37 (3.81%) Test Leader
15 33 (3.40%) Test Automation Engineer
16 32 (3.30%) Test Manager
17 30 (3.09%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
18 28 (2.88%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 170 (17.51%) Terraform
2 167 (17.20%) REST
3 135 (13.90%) Kafka
4 122 (12.56%) Playwright
5 109 (11.23%) RESTful
6 90 (9.27%) Spring
7 87 (8.96%) React
8 80 (8.24%) .NET
9 79 (8.14%) Spring Boot
10 67 (6.90%) HTML
11 57 (5.87%) CSS
12 44 (4.53%) Node.js
13 39 (4.02%) PySpark
14 38 (3.91%) Middleware
15 36 (3.71%) OAuth
16 35 (3.60%) SOAP
17 33 (3.40%) AngularJS
18 29 (2.99%) JSON
18 29 (2.99%) pytest
18 29 (2.99%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 166 (17.10%) Cloud Native
2 95 (9.78%) Product Ownership
3 90 (9.27%) Distributed Systems
4 42 (4.33%) AI Agents
5 37 (3.81%) Enterprise Software
5 37 (3.81%) Onboarding
6 26 (2.68%) Data Structures
7 24 (2.47%) Self-Motivation
8 21 (2.16%) Legacy Systems
9 18 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
10 17 (1.75%) Mobile App
11 15 (1.54%) Algorithms
11 15 (1.54%) Virtual Team
12 14 (1.44%) Fixed Income
12 14 (1.44%) Security Posture
13 12 (1.24%) Private Cloud
14 11 (1.13%) Management Information System
14 11 (1.13%) Market Risk
15 10 (1.03%) Distributed Architecture
15 10 (1.03%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 75 (7.72%) Linux
2 49 (5.05%) Unix
3 34 (3.50%) Windows
4 20 (2.06%) Android
5 19 (1.96%) Apple iOS
6 16 (1.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 7 (0.72%) Windows Server
8 4 (0.41%) Ubuntu
8 4 (0.41%) VMS
9 3 (0.31%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.10%) CentOS
10 1 (0.10%) Solaris
10 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 643 (66.22%) CI/CD
2 451 (46.45%) Agile
3 409 (42.12%) DevOps
4 223 (22.97%) AI
5 200 (20.60%) Problem-Solving
6 195 (20.08%) Infrastructure as Code
7 192 (19.77%) Continuous Improvement
8 189 (19.46%) Software Engineering
9 183 (18.85%) Microservices
10 177 (18.23%) Validation
11 163 (16.79%) Containerisation
12 155 (15.96%) Test Strategy
13 153 (15.76%) Observability
14 147 (15.14%) Stakeholder Management
15 143 (14.73%) Scrum
16 123 (12.67%) TDD
17 115 (11.84%) Event-Driven
18 114 (11.74%) SDLC
19 107 (11.02%) Data Pipeline
20 103 (10.61%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 351 (36.15%) Python
2 284 (29.25%) SQL
3 276 (28.42%) Java
4 160 (16.48%) JavaScript
5 132 (13.59%) TypeScript
6 96 (9.89%) C#
7 42 (4.33%) PowerShell
8 40 (4.12%) Bash
9 30 (3.09%) Bicep
10 25 (2.57%) Scala
11 24 (2.47%) Kotlin
12 17 (1.75%) C++
13 16 (1.65%) Go
14 13 (1.34%) Shell Script
15 11 (1.13%) Ruby
16 10 (1.03%) C
16 10 (1.03%) Groovy
16 10 (1.03%) PL/SQL
17 9 (0.93%) VB.NET
18 8 (0.82%) Perl
Qualifications
1 268 (27.60%) Security Cleared
2 239 (24.61%) SC Cleared
3 72 (7.42%) Degree
4 42 (4.33%) Computer Science Degree
5 36 (3.71%) ISTQB
6 34 (3.50%) DV Cleared
7 31 (3.19%) AWS Certification
8 24 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
9 17 (1.75%) Azure Certification
10 10 (1.03%) ISEB
11 9 (0.93%) CISSP
12 8 (0.82%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 8 (0.82%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 8 (0.82%) Master's Degree
13 7 (0.72%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
14 6 (0.62%) DBS Check
15 5 (0.51%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 5 (0.51%) Cisco Certification
16 4 (0.41%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
16 4 (0.41%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 274 (28.22%) QA
2 85 (8.75%) Data Quality
3 52 (5.36%) Accessibility
4 18 (1.85%) GDPR
5 14 (1.44%) WCAG
6 13 (1.34%) ISO 20022
7 12 (1.24%) NIST
8 11 (1.13%) SLA
9 10 (1.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 9 (0.93%) GRC
11 3 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.31%) EU AI Act
11 3 (0.31%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.21%) ISO 9001
12 2 (0.21%) MiFID
12 2 (0.21%) NCSC
12 2 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.21%) Software Quality Assurance
13 1 (0.10%) COBIT
13 1 (0.10%) WAI
System Software
1 207 (21.32%) Docker
2 9 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
3 7 (0.72%) Active Directory
4 4 (0.41%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.31%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.10%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.10%) Firmware
6 1 (0.10%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.10%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 191 (19.67%) Kubernetes
2 68 (7.00%) Grafana
3 53 (5.46%) Ansible
4 49 (5.05%) Prometheus
5 22 (2.27%) Puppet
6 18 (1.85%) Kibana
6 18 (1.85%) Progress Chef
7 10 (1.03%) Control-M
8 6 (0.62%) Argo
8 6 (0.62%) HP Fortify
9 5 (0.51%) Microsoft Intune
10 4 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (0.31%) HP ALM
11 3 (0.31%) Kustomize
11 3 (0.31%) Packer
11 3 (0.31%) Rancher
12 2 (0.21%) Istio
12 2 (0.21%) Podman
12 2 (0.21%) systemd
13 1 (0.10%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 121 (12.46%) Microsoft
2 56 (5.77%) Oracle
3 50 (5.15%) Databricks
4 47 (4.84%) Google
5 32 (3.30%) IBM
5 32 (3.30%) ServiceNow
6 31 (3.19%) Salesforce
7 26 (2.68%) Splunk
8 25 (2.57%) SAP
8 25 (2.57%) UiPath
9 19 (1.96%) Foundry
10 18 (1.85%) Dynatrace
10 18 (1.85%) Informatica
10 18 (1.85%) OpenAI
11 15 (1.54%) Cisco
12 13 (1.34%) Red Hat
13 11 (1.13%) SaltStack
13 11 (1.13%) VMware
14 10 (1.03%) MuleSoft
15 9 (0.93%) HP