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 2 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 48 47 55
Rank change year-on-year -1 +8 -13
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 689 701 797
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.87% 4.51% 4.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.30% 5.02% 4.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 464 460 599
10th Percentile £325 £340 £400
25th Percentile £400 £410 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -8.70% -4.17%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £675
90th Percentile £738 £750 £800
England median daily rate £500 £500 £538
% change year-on-year - -6.98% -6.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 0 1
10th Percentile £43.50 - -
25th Percentile £45.00 - -
Median hourly rate £58.94 - £75.00
75th Percentile £66.50 - -
90th Percentile £74.60 - -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £50.00 £75.00
% change year-on-year +30.00% -33.33% +25.00%

All Process and 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 12,998 13,962 17,534
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 91.90% 89.74% 89.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,565 9,018 12,564
10th Percentile £338 £350 £356
25th Percentile £425 £450 £458
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £568
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -3.08% -3.81%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £688
90th Percentile £763 £800 £800
England median daily rate £500 £525 £545
% change year-on-year -4.76% -3.67% -0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 246 164 235
10th Percentile £18.25 £17.25 £18.65
25th Percentile £24.53 £23.80 £21.63
Median hourly rate £29.50 £37.25 £36.28
Median % change year-on-year -20.81% +2.67% -9.30%
75th Percentile £47.50 £53.75 £60.63
90th Percentile £66.50 £80.53 £76.25
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +19.14%

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 2 December 2025.

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 2 December 2025.

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 2 December 2025. 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 -18 82 £525 -2.33% 25
South London -4 13 £500 +2.04% 4
West London -11 12 £509 +45.43% 4
East London -6 7 £520 +20.23% 10
North London - 1 - - 3
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 40 (5.81%) Confluence
2 20 (2.90%) Apache Spark
3 11 (1.60%) Apache Airflow
4 7 (1.02%) Apache
5 5 (0.73%) CMS
5 5 (0.73%) SharePoint
6 2 (0.29%) Magnolia
6 2 (0.29%) Sitecore CMS
6 2 (0.29%) WordPress
7 1 (0.15%) Anypoint
7 1 (0.15%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.15%) JBoss
7 1 (0.15%) nginx
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle Application Server
7 1 (0.15%) WebLogic
Applications
1 14 (2.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (1.02%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.87%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.29%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.15%) Trello
Business Applications
1 18 (2.61%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.58%) SAP HR
3 2 (0.29%) Eagle PACE
3 2 (0.29%) Markit EDM
3 2 (0.29%) Shopify
4 1 (0.15%) Algo Collateral
4 1 (0.15%) CODA-Financials
4 1 (0.15%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.15%) ION Anvil
4 1 (0.15%) Loan IQ
4 1 (0.15%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.15%) PORTIA
4 1 (0.15%) Sage X3
4 1 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.15%) Temenos T24
4 1 (0.15%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 213 (30.91%) Azure
2 156 (22.64%) AWS
3 95 (13.79%) Azure DevOps
4 93 (13.50%) GitHub
5 76 (11.03%) GCP
6 48 (6.97%) Serverless
7 43 (6.24%) GitHub Actions
8 26 (3.77%) SaaS
9 24 (3.48%) Snowflake
10 23 (3.34%) AWS Lambda
11 21 (3.05%) Amazon S3
11 21 (3.05%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 19 (2.76%) Azure AKS
13 18 (2.61%) Azure Data Factory
13 18 (2.61%) Azure Monitor
13 18 (2.61%) Power Platform
14 16 (2.32%) Azure Logic Apps
15 15 (2.18%) Cloud Run
16 14 (2.03%) Amazon EKS
17 13 (1.89%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 16 (2.32%) HTTP
2 14 (2.03%) Firewall
2 14 (2.03%) SSL
3 11 (1.60%) HTTPS
3 11 (1.60%) TCP/IP
4 9 (1.31%) DNS
4 9 (1.31%) Multicast
4 9 (1.31%) VPN
5 8 (1.16%) Network Security
6 6 (0.87%) SD-WAN
6 6 (0.87%) WAN
7 5 (0.73%) Cisco IPT
8 3 (0.44%) Bluetooth
8 3 (0.44%) DHCP
8 3 (0.44%) FTP
8 3 (0.44%) Wireshark
9 2 (0.29%) DSL
9 2 (0.29%) Ethernet
9 2 (0.29%) Internet
9 2 (0.29%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (7.40%) PostgreSQL
2 45 (6.53%) NoSQL
3 34 (4.93%) SQL Server
4 25 (3.63%) Data Warehouse
4 25 (3.63%) Relational Database
5 24 (3.48%) MongoDB
6 19 (2.76%) BigQuery
7 13 (1.89%) Data Lake
8 12 (1.74%) Amazon RDS
8 12 (1.74%) Big Data
8 12 (1.74%) Redis
9 10 (1.45%) Power BI
10 9 (1.31%) Azure SQL Database
11 7 (1.02%) Amazon Redshift
11 7 (1.02%) Delta Lake
12 5 (0.73%) Amazon Aurora
12 5 (0.73%) DB2
12 5 (0.73%) DynamoDB
12 5 (0.73%) Metadata
13 4 (0.58%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 113 (16.40%) Git
2 107 (15.53%) JIRA
3 103 (14.95%) Selenium
4 94 (13.64%) Jenkins
5 64 (9.29%) GitLab
6 55 (7.98%) Cucumber
7 50 (7.26%) Postman
8 46 (6.68%) Cypress.io
9 35 (5.08%) JMeter
10 27 (3.92%) Bitbucket
10 27 (3.92%) JUnit
11 22 (3.19%) REST Assured
11 22 (3.19%) SpecFlow
12 17 (2.47%) Appium
13 14 (2.03%) TestRail
14 12 (1.74%) Zephyr
15 11 (1.60%) Gatling
16 10 (1.45%) WebDriver
16 10 (1.45%) webpack
17 9 (1.31%) Maven
General
1 187 (27.14%) Social Skills
2 155 (22.50%) Finance
3 77 (11.18%) Banking
4 60 (8.71%) Analytical Skills
5 49 (7.11%) Public Sector
6 23 (3.34%) Front Office
7 19 (2.76%) Investment Banking
8 18 (2.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 18 (2.61%) Pharmaceutical
9 13 (1.89%) Presentation Skills
10 11 (1.60%) Financial Institution
11 10 (1.45%) Documentation Skills
12 9 (1.31%) International Banking
12 9 (1.31%) Legal
13 7 (1.02%) Back Office
14 6 (0.87%) Telecoms
15 5 (0.73%) Marketing
15 5 (0.73%) Publishing
16 4 (0.58%) Electronics
16 4 (0.58%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 150 (21.77%) Developer
2 118 (17.13%) Senior
3 96 (13.93%) Tester
4 54 (7.84%) Test Engineer
5 50 (7.26%) Automation Tester
6 49 (7.11%) Analyst
7 48 (6.97%) Lead
8 39 (5.66%) QA Engineer
9 36 (5.22%) Test Analyst
10 34 (4.93%) Java Developer
10 34 (4.93%) Software Engineer
11 31 (4.50%) Test Automation Engineer
12 29 (4.21%) Automation Engineer
13 26 (3.77%) Senior Developer
14 25 (3.63%) Consultant
15 23 (3.34%) Data Engineer
16 22 (3.19%) Architect
16 22 (3.19%) Python Developer
17 18 (2.61%) Python Engineer
17 18 (2.61%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 84 (12.19%) Playwright
2 80 (11.61%) React
3 67 (9.72%) Node.js
4 66 (9.58%) REST
5 58 (8.42%) .NET
6 55 (7.98%) RESTful
7 50 (7.26%) Kafka
8 34 (4.93%) Spring
8 34 (4.93%) Spring Boot
9 32 (4.64%) HTML
9 32 (4.64%) pytest
10 31 (4.50%) CSS
10 31 (4.50%) JSON
11 29 (4.21%) Web Services
12 28 (4.06%) XML
13 27 (3.92%) SOAP
14 23 (3.34%) AngularJS
15 22 (3.19%) Jest
16 20 (2.90%) FastAPI
17 18 (2.61%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 74 (10.74%) Cloud Native
2 44 (6.39%) Product Ownership
3 27 (3.92%) Distributed Systems
3 27 (3.92%) Mobile App
4 16 (2.32%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 16 (2.32%) Genomics
5 15 (2.18%) Life Science
5 15 (2.18%) Virtual Team
6 14 (2.03%) Data Structures
6 14 (2.03%) Reinsurance
7 12 (1.74%) Fixed Income
7 12 (1.74%) Onboarding
8 11 (1.60%) Algorithms
8 11 (1.60%) Equities
9 10 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
9 10 (1.45%) Management Information System
9 10 (1.45%) Security Posture
10 9 (1.31%) Data Protection Act
10 9 (1.31%) Derivative
10 9 (1.31%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 54 (7.84%) Linux
2 27 (3.92%) Android
2 27 (3.92%) Windows
3 25 (3.63%) Apple iOS
4 18 (2.61%) Unix
5 6 (0.87%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.29%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.15%) CentOS
7 1 (0.15%) FreeRTOS
7 1 (0.15%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.15%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 354 (51.38%) CI/CD
2 348 (50.51%) Agile
3 275 (39.91%) DevOps
4 155 (22.50%) Problem-Solving
5 110 (15.97%) Software Engineering
6 103 (14.95%) Microservices
7 97 (14.08%) Containerisation
7 97 (14.08%) Test Scripting
8 92 (13.35%) Scrum
9 89 (12.92%) Test Strategy
10 85 (12.34%) TDD
11 83 (12.05%) AI
12 81 (11.76%) Infrastructure as Code
13 75 (10.89%) SDLC
14 74 (10.74%) Validation
15 73 (10.60%) Continuous Improvement
16 69 (10.01%) Software Testing
17 63 (9.14%) Regression Testing
18 61 (8.85%) API Testing
19 60 (8.71%) BDD
Programming Languages
1 223 (32.37%) Python
2 150 (21.77%) SQL
3 143 (20.75%) Java
4 114 (16.55%) TypeScript
5 112 (16.26%) JavaScript
6 94 (13.64%) C#
7 29 (4.21%) Bash
8 23 (3.34%) PowerShell
9 21 (3.05%) Go
10 20 (2.90%) C++
11 14 (2.03%) Kotlin
12 13 (1.89%) Bicep
13 8 (1.16%) Perl
14 7 (1.02%) Swift
15 6 (0.87%) PL/SQL
15 6 (0.87%) Ruby
15 6 (0.87%) VB.NET
16 5 (0.73%) Korn
16 5 (0.73%) Shell Script
16 5 (0.73%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 109 (15.82%) Security Cleared
2 96 (13.93%) SC Cleared
3 60 (8.71%) Degree
4 34 (4.93%) ISTQB
5 25 (3.63%) Computer Science Degree
6 14 (2.03%) Master's Degree
7 12 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
8 10 (1.45%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 9 (1.31%) OSCP
10 6 (0.87%) SANS
11 5 (0.73%) Azure Certification
11 5 (0.73%) GPEN
11 5 (0.73%) Microsoft Certification
12 4 (0.58%) AWS Certification
12 4 (0.58%) CEH
12 4 (0.58%) DV Cleared
12 4 (0.58%) ISEB
12 4 (0.58%) MCP
13 3 (0.44%) CREST Certified
13 3 (0.44%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 165 (23.95%) QA
2 53 (7.69%) Accessibility
3 21 (3.05%) Data Quality
4 15 (2.18%) GDPR
5 13 (1.89%) WCAG
6 8 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 8 (1.16%) NIST
7 6 (0.87%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 5 (0.73%) PERC
9 4 (0.58%) MiFID
9 4 (0.58%) NCSC
9 4 (0.58%) NIST 800
9 4 (0.58%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.44%) Def Stans
10 3 (0.44%) EU AI Act
10 3 (0.44%) IEC 61508
10 3 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 3 (0.44%) ITGC
10 3 (0.44%) SLA
11 2 (0.29%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 137 (19.88%) Docker
2 10 (1.45%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (0.44%) Virtual Servers
4 3 (0.44%) zsh
5 2 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.15%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.15%) Firmware
6 1 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.15%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 108 (15.67%) Kubernetes
2 79 (11.47%) Terraform
3 31 (4.50%) Ansible
4 16 (2.32%) Grafana
5 12 (1.74%) Prometheus
6 11 (1.60%) HP ALM
7 5 (0.73%) Nmap
8 4 (0.58%) Nessus
8 4 (0.58%) Rancher
9 3 (0.44%) Argo
9 3 (0.44%) Functional Safety
9 3 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.29%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (0.29%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.29%) SCCM
10 2 (0.29%) vRealize
11 1 (0.15%) HP Quality Center
11 1 (0.15%) Kibana
11 1 (0.15%) logstash
11 1 (0.15%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 58 (8.42%) Microsoft
2 46 (6.68%) Oracle
3 40 (5.81%) Google
4 39 (5.66%) Databricks
5 32 (4.64%) Salesforce
6 22 (3.19%) ServiceNow
7 16 (2.32%) SAP
7 16 (2.32%) Splunk
8 12 (1.74%) UiPath
9 11 (1.60%) HP
10 9 (1.31%) MuleSoft
11 7 (1.02%) Charles River
11 7 (1.02%) Dynatrace
11 7 (1.02%) Solace
11 7 (1.02%) webMethods
12 6 (0.87%) Atlassian
12 6 (0.87%) Cisco
12 6 (0.87%) IBM
12 6 (0.87%) Murex
12 6 (0.87%) VMware