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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 49 52
Rank change year-on-year +1 +3 -8
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 815 569 729
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.45% 4.71% 4.18%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.04% 5.11% 4.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 530 389 507
10th Percentile £350 £350 £363
25th Percentile £413 £407 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £540
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -5.09% -7.30%
75th Percentile £593 £688 £688
90th Percentile £688 £800 £775
England median daily rate £475 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 10
10th Percentile £55.99 - £52.25
25th Percentile £58.15 - £52.50
Median hourly rate £63.50 £35.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +81.43% -36.36% -38.89%
75th Percentile £81.38 - £65.75
90th Percentile £91.05 - £71.88
England median hourly rate £66.25 £55.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +20.45% -8.33% -15.49%

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 16,181 11,140 15,429
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 88.43% 92.20% 88.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,808 7,503 11,081
10th Percentile £358 £350 £338
25th Percentile £435 £435 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -6.78%
75th Percentile £650 £688 £675
90th Percentile £762 £800 £800
England median daily rate £514 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.10% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 240 182 312
10th Percentile £18.75 £16.50 £15.95
25th Percentile £25.25 £23.76 £20.00
Median hourly rate £37.25 £30.90 £27.92
Median % change year-on-year +20.54% +10.68% -29.54%
75th Percentile £57.50 £49.50 £48.75
90th Percentile £76.68 £63.23 £66.98
England median hourly rate £45.00 £28.00 £36.50
% change year-on-year +60.71% -23.29% -2.67%

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 27 May 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 27 May 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 27 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
Central London +2 106 £550 +10.00% 43
South London -2 19 £513 +24.24% 4
West London -26 15 £450 +13.92% 5
East London +6 12 £450 +25.00% 9
North London - 1 £400 - 2
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 50 (6.13%) Confluence
2 27 (3.31%) Apache Airflow
3 20 (2.45%) Apache Spark
4 9 (1.10%) Apache
5 8 (0.98%) Appian
5 8 (0.98%) CMS
6 6 (0.74%) Camunda
7 4 (0.49%) nginx
7 4 (0.49%) Tomcat
8 3 (0.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.37%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.12%) Ethereum
9 1 (0.12%) Kentico
9 1 (0.12%) Palantir Foundry
9 1 (0.12%) SAS
9 1 (0.12%) SharePoint
9 1 (0.12%) Solana
Applications
1 18 (2.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (1.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.74%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.61%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.49%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.12%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 21 (2.58%) Aladdin
2 10 (1.23%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.98%) Findur
4 6 (0.74%) Shopify
5 5 (0.61%) BambooHR
5 5 (0.61%) Loan IQ
5 5 (0.61%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.37%) Distributed Ledger
7 2 (0.25%) iTrent
7 2 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.25%) Summit
8 1 (0.12%) Bloomberg TOMS
8 1 (0.12%) Infor CloudSuite
8 1 (0.12%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.12%) Infor M3
8 1 (0.12%) IntelliMatch
8 1 (0.12%) NetSuite
8 1 (0.12%) Oracle EBS R12
8 1 (0.12%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 239 (29.33%) Azure
2 216 (26.50%) AWS
3 137 (16.81%) GitHub
4 122 (14.97%) Azure DevOps
5 77 (9.45%) GitHub Actions
6 62 (7.61%) Serverless
7 47 (5.77%) GCP
8 42 (5.15%) AWS Lambda
8 42 (5.15%) Power Platform
9 41 (5.03%) Amazon S3
10 33 (4.05%) Snowflake
11 32 (3.93%) Azure Data Factory
12 26 (3.19%) dbt
13 24 (2.94%) Amazon ECS
14 22 (2.70%) Azure AKS
14 22 (2.70%) Dynamics 365
15 21 (2.58%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 18 (2.21%) Power Automate
17 17 (2.09%) Azure Cosmos DB
18 16 (1.96%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 9 (1.10%) HTTP
2 4 (0.49%) FTP
3 3 (0.37%) Firewall
3 3 (0.37%) OpenLDAP
3 3 (0.37%) SSL
3 3 (0.37%) WAN
4 2 (0.25%) DSL
4 2 (0.25%) Ethernet
4 2 (0.25%) Multicast
4 2 (0.25%) NaaS
4 2 (0.25%) SMS
4 2 (0.25%) WebEx
5 1 (0.12%) 5G
5 1 (0.12%) Cisco IOS
5 1 (0.12%) Cisco Nexus
5 1 (0.12%) MPLS
5 1 (0.12%) Network Security
5 1 (0.12%) NGFW
5 1 (0.12%) SNMP
5 1 (0.12%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (6.99%) SQL Server
2 55 (6.75%) PostgreSQL
3 43 (5.28%) NoSQL
4 34 (4.17%) Data Warehouse
4 34 (4.17%) MongoDB
5 30 (3.68%) Power BI
6 28 (3.44%) Relational Database
7 26 (3.19%) DynamoDB
8 22 (2.70%) Tableau
9 19 (2.33%) Amazon Athena
9 19 (2.33%) Big Data
10 17 (2.09%) BigQuery
10 17 (2.09%) Data Lake
11 15 (1.84%) Amazon Redshift
12 14 (1.72%) Amazon RDS
12 14 (1.72%) Metadata
13 11 (1.35%) Amazon Aurora
13 11 (1.35%) Oracle Database
13 11 (1.35%) Star Schema
14 9 (1.10%) Flink
Development Applications
1 127 (15.58%) JIRA
2 122 (14.97%) Git
3 106 (13.01%) Jenkins
4 105 (12.88%) Selenium
5 78 (9.57%) GitLab
6 53 (6.50%) Cucumber
7 51 (6.26%) Cypress.io
8 50 (6.13%) Postman
9 39 (4.79%) REST Assured
10 37 (4.54%) JMeter
11 29 (3.56%) JUnit
12 22 (2.70%) SpecFlow
13 18 (2.21%) MLflow
14 15 (1.84%) Mockito
15 13 (1.60%) Maven
15 13 (1.60%) WebDriver
16 12 (1.47%) Appium
16 12 (1.47%) Gradle
16 12 (1.47%) Zephyr
17 11 (1.35%) TestRail
General
1 226 (27.73%) Finance
2 210 (25.77%) Social Skills
3 109 (13.37%) Banking
4 104 (12.76%) Analytical Skills
4 104 (12.76%) Public Sector
5 27 (3.31%) Front Office
6 26 (3.19%) Investment Banking
7 21 (2.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 16 (1.96%) Legal
9 12 (1.47%) Documentation Skills
10 11 (1.35%) Financial Institution
10 11 (1.35%) Influencing Skills
11 9 (1.10%) Back Office
11 9 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
11 9 (1.10%) Telecoms
12 8 (0.98%) Retail
13 7 (0.86%) Billing
13 7 (0.86%) Presentation Skills
13 7 (0.86%) Publishing
14 4 (0.49%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 175 (21.47%) Developer
2 148 (18.16%) Senior
3 88 (10.80%) Tester
4 85 (10.43%) Lead
5 55 (6.75%) Test Engineer
6 50 (6.13%) QA Engineer
7 49 (6.01%) Analyst
8 47 (5.77%) Automation Tester
9 42 (5.15%) Data Engineer
10 41 (5.03%) DevOps Engineer
11 40 (4.91%) Architect
12 38 (4.66%) Automation Engineer
12 38 (4.66%) Senior Developer
13 31 (3.80%) Java Developer
14 29 (3.56%) Test Automation Engineer
15 28 (3.44%) Software Engineer
16 26 (3.19%) QA Automation Engineer
16 26 (3.19%) Test Leader
16 26 (3.19%) Test Manager
17 24 (2.94%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (12.39%) Playwright
2 94 (11.53%) REST
3 89 (10.92%) React
4 78 (9.57%) RESTful
5 69 (8.47%) .NET
6 65 (7.98%) Kafka
7 56 (6.87%) Node.js
8 42 (5.15%) Spring
9 39 (4.79%) CSS
9 39 (4.79%) Spring Boot
10 38 (4.66%) HTML
11 29 (3.56%) OAuth
12 25 (3.07%) Web Services
13 24 (2.94%) pytest
14 21 (2.58%) Gherkin
15 19 (2.33%) Swagger
16 18 (2.21%) .NET Core
16 18 (2.21%) Django
16 18 (2.21%) OAuth2
16 18 (2.21%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 100 (12.27%) Cloud Native
2 53 (6.50%) Distributed Systems
3 50 (6.13%) Product Ownership
4 37 (4.54%) Legacy Systems
5 29 (3.56%) Data Protection Act
6 22 (2.70%) Algorithms
7 19 (2.33%) Fixed Income
7 19 (2.33%) Greenfield Project
8 18 (2.21%) Onboarding
8 18 (2.21%) Virtual Team
9 17 (2.09%) Management Information System
9 17 (2.09%) Self-Motivation
10 15 (1.84%) Data Structures
10 15 (1.84%) Equities
11 13 (1.60%) Mobile App
11 13 (1.60%) NHS
12 11 (1.35%) Derivative
13 10 (1.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 9 (1.10%) Enterprise Software
14 9 (1.10%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 40 (4.91%) Linux
2 25 (3.07%) Windows
3 20 (2.45%) Android
4 15 (1.84%) Apple iOS
5 13 (1.60%) Unix
6 4 (0.49%) Solaris
6 4 (0.49%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
7 3 (0.37%) Mac OS
7 3 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.37%) Windows Server 2016
7 3 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 451 (55.34%) CI/CD
2 322 (39.51%) Agile
3 282 (34.60%) DevOps
4 138 (16.93%) Problem-Solving
5 135 (16.56%) AI
6 127 (15.58%) Infrastructure as Code
7 126 (15.46%) Validation
8 121 (14.85%) Observability
8 121 (14.85%) Test Strategy
9 117 (14.36%) Continuous Improvement
10 114 (13.99%) Containerisation
11 105 (12.88%) Microservices
12 104 (12.76%) Regression Testing
13 100 (12.27%) User Acceptance Testing
14 96 (11.78%) Software Engineering
15 90 (11.04%) Software Testing
16 89 (10.92%) Data Modelling
17 85 (10.43%) Analytics
18 84 (10.31%) Test Scripting
19 80 (9.82%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 260 (31.90%) Python
2 211 (25.89%) SQL
3 169 (20.74%) Java
4 124 (15.21%) TypeScript
5 121 (14.85%) JavaScript
6 105 (12.88%) C#
7 32 (3.93%) PowerShell
8 20 (2.45%) Bash
9 19 (2.33%) Apex Code
10 18 (2.21%) Kotlin
11 16 (1.96%) PL/SQL
11 16 (1.96%) Ruby
12 15 (1.84%) Bicep
13 12 (1.47%) Scala
14 11 (1.35%) C++
15 10 (1.23%) Go
16 6 (0.74%) Rust
16 6 (0.74%) Swift
16 6 (0.74%) T-SQL
17 5 (0.61%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 176 (21.60%) Security Cleared
2 151 (18.53%) SC Cleared
3 42 (5.15%) Degree
4 28 (3.44%) ISTQB
5 24 (2.94%) BPSS Clearance
6 23 (2.82%) Computer Science Degree
7 13 (1.60%) DV Cleared
8 9 (1.10%) DBS Check
9 8 (0.98%) Master's Degree
10 5 (0.61%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 4 (0.49%) AWS Certification
11 4 (0.49%) Azure Certification
12 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Certification
13 2 (0.25%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 2 (0.25%) CISSP
13 2 (0.25%) ISEB
13 2 (0.25%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 2 (0.25%) PhD
13 2 (0.25%) TOGAF Certification
14 1 (0.12%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 198 (24.29%) QA
2 59 (7.24%) Data Quality
3 47 (5.77%) Accessibility
4 25 (3.07%) GDPR
5 20 (2.45%) WCAG
6 9 (1.10%) NIST
7 6 (0.74%) ISO 20022
8 5 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.61%) SLA
9 4 (0.49%) HL7
9 4 (0.49%) MiFID
9 4 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.37%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 3 (0.37%) NCSC
10 3 (0.37%) Software Quality Assurance
11 2 (0.25%) EU AI Act
11 2 (0.25%) GRC
12 1 (0.12%) EMIR
12 1 (0.12%) HIPAA
12 1 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 136 (16.69%) Docker
2 6 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.61%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.49%) Oracle RAC
4 4 (0.49%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.37%) Active Directory
5 3 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.12%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.12%) Squid
6 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 136 (16.69%) Kubernetes
2 98 (12.02%) Terraform
3 40 (4.91%) Grafana
4 36 (4.42%) Prometheus
5 22 (2.70%) Ansible
6 9 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
7 8 (0.98%) HP ALM
7 8 (0.98%) Kibana
8 4 (0.49%) Oracle RMAN
8 4 (0.49%) Puppet
9 3 (0.37%) Kustomize
10 2 (0.25%) Amdocs OSS
10 2 (0.25%) Packer
10 2 (0.25%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.12%) Control-M
11 1 (0.12%) HP Quality Center
11 1 (0.12%) Istio
11 1 (0.12%) linkerd
Vendors
1 78 (9.57%) Microsoft
2 54 (6.63%) Oracle
3 52 (6.38%) Salesforce
4 40 (4.91%) Databricks
5 19 (2.33%) ServiceNow
6 17 (2.09%) UiPath
7 16 (1.96%) Google
8 15 (1.84%) Splunk
9 13 (1.60%) OpenAI
10 11 (1.35%) IBM
11 10 (1.23%) MuleSoft
12 9 (1.10%) Guidewire
12 9 (1.10%) SAP
13 8 (0.98%) Apple
13 8 (0.98%) Automation Anywhere
13 8 (0.98%) Dynatrace
13 8 (0.98%) HP
13 8 (0.98%) OpenLink
14 7 (0.86%) Workday
15 6 (0.74%) Red Hat