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 25 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 46 50
Rank change year-on-year +1 +4 -2
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 832 611 718
As % of all contract jobs in London 5.00% 4.82% 3.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.57% 5.28% 4.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 538 423 516
10th Percentile £325 £341 £378
25th Percentile £406 £406 £453
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £594 £656 £688
90th Percentile £700 £773 £763
England median daily rate £486 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -2.90% -4.76% -7.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 7
10th Percentile £55.99 - -
25th Percentile £58.15 - £52.50
Median hourly rate £63.50 - £55.00
75th Percentile £65.88 - £61.25
90th Percentile £66.25 - £65.40
England median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £61.25
% change year-on-year +14.54% -7.35% +2.08%

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 14,942 11,579 15,985
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 89.72% 91.43% 88.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,023 7,821 11,436
10th Percentile £355 £350 £338
25th Percentile £425 £440 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -7.17%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £788
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 165 337
10th Percentile £18.07 £19.08 £15.98
25th Percentile £22.00 £24.66 £19.57
Median hourly rate £35.50 £35.00 £30.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.43% +14.75% -21.79%
75th Percentile £57.00 £51.25 £50.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £67.50 £70.50
England median hourly rate £35.25 £32.81 £33.00
% change year-on-year +7.44% -0.58% -12.00%

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 25 March 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
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 25 March 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 +5 109 £525 - 61
South London -6 21 £513 +4.59% 7
West London -15 21 £450 +19.05% 5
East London +3 11 £445 +11.25% 8
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 59 (7.09%) Confluence
2 15 (1.80%) Apache Airflow
2 15 (1.80%) Apache Spark
3 8 (0.96%) Appian
4 5 (0.60%) Apache
5 4 (0.48%) Camunda
5 4 (0.48%) CMS
5 4 (0.48%) SharePoint
6 3 (0.36%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
6 3 (0.36%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.24%) Magnolia
7 2 (0.24%) nginx
7 2 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
7 2 (0.24%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.24%) WordPress
8 1 (0.12%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.12%) Ethereum
8 1 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
8 1 (0.12%) SAS
Applications
1 18 (2.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.72%) Microsoft Project
3 6 (0.72%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.48%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.12%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 24 (2.88%) Aladdin
2 6 (0.72%) Findur
2 6 (0.72%) Loan IQ
2 6 (0.72%) Oracle EBS
3 5 (0.60%) Shopify
4 4 (0.48%) SAP HR
5 3 (0.36%) BambooHR
5 3 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.24%) iTrent
6 2 (0.24%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.24%) Summit
7 1 (0.12%) Algo Collateral
7 1 (0.12%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.12%) CODA-Financials
7 1 (0.12%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.12%) Infor M3
7 1 (0.12%) IntelliMatch
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle EBS R12
7 1 (0.12%) PORTIA
7 1 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 261 (31.37%) Azure
2 204 (24.52%) AWS
3 135 (16.23%) GitHub
4 127 (15.26%) Azure DevOps
5 77 (9.25%) GCP
6 61 (7.33%) GitHub Actions
7 58 (6.97%) Serverless
8 34 (4.09%) AWS Lambda
9 33 (3.97%) Snowflake
10 32 (3.85%) Amazon S3
10 32 (3.85%) Power Platform
11 27 (3.25%) Azure Data Factory
12 26 (3.13%) Azure AKS
13 20 (2.40%) Dynamics 365
13 20 (2.40%) SaaS
14 19 (2.28%) Amazon ECS
15 17 (2.04%) Apigee
15 17 (2.04%) Power Automate
16 16 (1.92%) Amazon EKS
16 16 (1.92%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.32%) Firewall
2 10 (1.20%) HTTP
3 9 (1.08%) WAN
4 7 (0.84%) DNS
4 7 (0.84%) SD-WAN
4 7 (0.84%) TCP/IP
5 6 (0.72%) SSL
5 6 (0.72%) VPN
6 5 (0.60%) Cisco IPT
6 5 (0.60%) Multicast
7 4 (0.48%) Ethernet
7 4 (0.48%) FTP
7 4 (0.48%) WebEx
8 3 (0.36%) DHCP
8 3 (0.36%) HTTPS
9 2 (0.24%) Cisco IOS
9 2 (0.24%) DSL
9 2 (0.24%) Network Security
9 2 (0.24%) SNMP
9 2 (0.24%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (5.53%) SQL Server
2 44 (5.29%) PostgreSQL
3 32 (3.85%) NoSQL
4 26 (3.13%) Relational Database
5 25 (3.00%) Data Warehouse
6 24 (2.88%) MongoDB
7 23 (2.76%) BigQuery
8 18 (2.16%) Power BI
8 18 (2.16%) Tableau
9 16 (1.92%) DynamoDB
10 12 (1.44%) Amazon Athena
10 12 (1.44%) Big Data
11 11 (1.32%) Amazon RDS
11 11 (1.32%) Metadata
11 11 (1.32%) Oracle Database
11 11 (1.32%) Redis
12 10 (1.20%) Data Lake
13 9 (1.08%) Pinecone
14 8 (0.96%) Amazon Aurora
14 8 (0.96%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 150 (18.03%) JIRA
2 139 (16.71%) Git
3 112 (13.46%) Selenium
4 106 (12.74%) Jenkins
5 86 (10.34%) GitLab
6 61 (7.33%) Cucumber
7 51 (6.13%) Cypress.io
7 51 (6.13%) Postman
8 37 (4.45%) REST Assured
9 33 (3.97%) SpecFlow
10 31 (3.73%) JMeter
11 28 (3.37%) JUnit
12 21 (2.52%) MLflow
13 19 (2.28%) Bitbucket
14 15 (1.80%) Appium
15 14 (1.68%) TestRail
16 13 (1.56%) Maven
16 13 (1.56%) WebDriver
16 13 (1.56%) Zephyr
17 11 (1.32%) Mockito
General
1 227 (27.28%) Social Skills
2 205 (24.64%) Finance
3 109 (13.10%) Banking
4 106 (12.74%) Public Sector
5 91 (10.94%) Analytical Skills
6 30 (3.61%) Investment Banking
7 28 (3.37%) Front Office
8 14 (1.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 14 (1.68%) Legal
9 12 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
10 11 (1.32%) Documentation Skills
10 11 (1.32%) Pharmaceutical
11 10 (1.20%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
12 9 (1.08%) Telecoms
13 7 (0.84%) Back Office
13 7 (0.84%) Billing
13 7 (0.84%) Financial Institution
14 5 (0.60%) Marketing
14 5 (0.60%) Retail
Job Titles
1 187 (22.48%) Developer
2 164 (19.71%) Senior
3 91 (10.94%) Tester
4 90 (10.82%) Lead
5 71 (8.53%) Test Engineer
6 59 (7.09%) Automation Tester
7 56 (6.73%) Analyst
8 49 (5.89%) QA Engineer
9 45 (5.41%) Senior Developer
10 42 (5.05%) Architect
11 38 (4.57%) Automation Engineer
11 38 (4.57%) Test Automation Engineer
12 33 (3.97%) Data Engineer
12 33 (3.97%) Java Developer
13 31 (3.73%) DevOps Engineer
14 30 (3.61%) Test Analyst
15 26 (3.13%) Python Developer
15 26 (3.13%) Software Engineer
15 26 (3.13%) Test Manager
16 24 (2.88%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 119 (14.30%) Playwright
2 91 (10.94%) REST
3 87 (10.46%) React
4 73 (8.77%) Node.js
5 69 (8.29%) RESTful
6 68 (8.17%) .NET
7 64 (7.69%) Kafka
8 40 (4.81%) Spring
9 38 (4.57%) Spring Boot
10 35 (4.21%) HTML
11 34 (4.09%) pytest
11 34 (4.09%) Web Services
12 33 (3.97%) CSS
13 28 (3.37%) OAuth
14 25 (3.00%) AngularJS
15 23 (2.76%) GraphQL
16 22 (2.64%) FastAPI
17 21 (2.52%) Middleware
18 20 (2.40%) Gherkin
18 20 (2.40%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 95 (11.42%) Cloud Native
2 54 (6.49%) Product Ownership
3 46 (5.53%) Distributed Systems
4 33 (3.97%) Legacy Systems
5 28 (3.37%) Algorithms
6 24 (2.88%) Data Protection Act
6 24 (2.88%) Equities
7 21 (2.52%) Data Structures
7 21 (2.52%) Virtual Team
8 18 (2.16%) Greenfield Project
9 17 (2.04%) Fixed Income
10 16 (1.92%) Management Information System
10 16 (1.92%) Mobile App
10 16 (1.92%) Onboarding
11 14 (1.68%) Derivative
12 13 (1.56%) Self-Motivation
13 11 (1.32%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 10 (1.20%) Life Science
14 10 (1.20%) Public Cloud
15 9 (1.08%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 45 (5.41%) Linux
2 33 (3.97%) Windows
3 20 (2.40%) Android
4 18 (2.16%) Apple iOS
5 8 (0.96%) Unix
6 5 (0.60%) Mac OS
6 5 (0.60%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.24%) Solaris
7 2 (0.24%) Windows Server 2008
7 2 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.12%) FreeRTOS
8 1 (0.12%) Kali Linux
8 1 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 452 (54.33%) CI/CD
2 357 (42.91%) Agile
3 306 (36.78%) DevOps
4 173 (20.79%) Problem-Solving
5 134 (16.11%) AI
6 118 (14.18%) Containerisation
7 115 (13.82%) Observability
8 112 (13.46%) Infrastructure as Code
8 112 (13.46%) Microservices
9 111 (13.34%) Continuous Improvement
10 109 (13.10%) Test Strategy
11 103 (12.38%) Test Scripting
12 102 (12.26%) Validation
13 101 (12.14%) Software Engineering
14 100 (12.02%) Software Testing
15 96 (11.54%) Regression Testing
16 84 (10.10%) Analytics
17 83 (9.98%) Data Modelling
17 83 (9.98%) User Acceptance Testing
18 82 (9.86%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 289 (34.74%) Python
2 204 (24.52%) SQL
3 168 (20.19%) Java
4 153 (18.39%) TypeScript
5 136 (16.35%) JavaScript
6 120 (14.42%) C#
7 26 (3.13%) PowerShell
8 20 (2.40%) C++
9 18 (2.16%) Bash
10 17 (2.04%) Apex Code
11 16 (1.92%) Ruby
12 13 (1.56%) Bicep
12 13 (1.56%) Kotlin
13 11 (1.32%) PL/SQL
14 9 (1.08%) Go
15 8 (0.96%) T-SQL
16 7 (0.84%) Rust
16 7 (0.84%) Swift
17 6 (0.72%) Shell Script
18 4 (0.48%) C
Qualifications
1 176 (21.15%) Security Cleared
2 150 (18.03%) SC Cleared
3 52 (6.25%) Degree
4 38 (4.57%) ISTQB
5 27 (3.25%) Computer Science Degree
6 26 (3.13%) BPSS Clearance
7 12 (1.44%) Master's Degree
8 9 (1.08%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 6 (0.72%) DBS Check
10 5 (0.60%) DV Cleared
10 5 (0.60%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 5 (0.60%) OSCP
11 4 (0.48%) Azure Certification
11 4 (0.48%) CEH
11 4 (0.48%) ISEB
11 4 (0.48%) Microsoft Certification
11 4 (0.48%) SANS
12 3 (0.36%) AWS Certification
12 3 (0.36%) CREST Certified
13 2 (0.24%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 204 (24.52%) QA
2 48 (5.77%) Accessibility
2 48 (5.77%) Data Quality
3 19 (2.28%) GDPR
4 18 (2.16%) WCAG
5 9 (1.08%) NIST
6 8 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 8 (0.96%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 6 (0.72%) NCSC
8 5 (0.60%) MiFID
8 5 (0.60%) PERC
8 5 (0.60%) SLA
9 4 (0.48%) HL7
9 4 (0.48%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 4 (0.48%) ISO 20022
9 4 (0.48%) Software Quality Assurance
10 3 (0.36%) NIST 800
10 3 (0.36%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.12%) GMP
11 1 (0.12%) HIPAA
System Software
1 156 (18.75%) Docker
2 6 (0.72%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
3 4 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
4 3 (0.36%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
5 2 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.12%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.12%) Firmware
6 1 (0.12%) Squid
6 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 134 (16.11%) Kubernetes
2 94 (11.30%) Terraform
3 32 (3.85%) Grafana
4 28 (3.37%) Prometheus
5 22 (2.64%) Ansible
6 10 (1.20%) HP ALM
7 6 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (0.48%) Puppet
9 3 (0.36%) Kibana
9 3 (0.36%) Rancher
10 2 (0.24%) Amdocs OSS
10 2 (0.24%) Istio
10 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (0.24%) Nmap
10 2 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
10 2 (0.24%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.24%) SCCM
11 1 (0.12%) Control-M
11 1 (0.12%) linkerd
11 1 (0.12%) Nessus
Vendors
1 75 (9.01%) Microsoft
2 53 (6.37%) Oracle
3 50 (6.01%) Salesforce
4 45 (5.41%) Databricks
5 31 (3.73%) Google
6 23 (2.76%) ServiceNow
7 16 (1.92%) SAP
8 13 (1.56%) OpenAI
9 12 (1.44%) MuleSoft
9 12 (1.44%) Splunk
10 11 (1.32%) Dynatrace
10 11 (1.32%) UiPath
11 10 (1.20%) Guidewire
11 10 (1.20%) HP
12 9 (1.08%) Apple
12 9 (1.08%) Charles River
12 9 (1.08%) Workday
13 8 (0.96%) Automation Anywhere
13 8 (0.96%) Citrix
13 8 (0.96%) IBM