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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 54 45 48
Rank change year-on-year -9 +3 -7
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 592 769 985
As % of all contract jobs advertised in London 4.41% 4.76% 4.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.76% 5.34% 4.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 394 503 723
10th Percentile £350 £350 £400
25th Percentile £405 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -8.70% -5.35%
75th Percentile £647 £638 £675
90th Percentile £773 £750 £788
England median daily rate £500 £513 £540
% change year-on-year -2.44% -5.09% -6.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 3 4
10th Percentile £37.25 £53.13 £79.50
25th Percentile £40.63 £57.81 £86.25
Median hourly rate £45.00 £68.75 £90.00
Median % change year-on-year -34.55% -23.61% +63.64%
75th Percentile £55.63 £71.88 -
90th Percentile £70.25 - -
England median hourly rate £57.50 £57.50 £75.00
% change year-on-year - -23.33% +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 12,434 14,409 19,841
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 92.57% 89.23% 90.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,225 9,616 14,380
10th Percentile £325 £350 £363
25th Percentile £425 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% -4.35% -0.86%
75th Percentile £675 £675 £695
90th Percentile £775 £800 £800
England median daily rate £510 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 251 180 226
10th Percentile £17.00 £17.25 £18.08
25th Percentile £25.00 £23.80 £21.56
Median hourly rate £31.50 £35.00 £39.63
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -11.67% +7.82%
75th Percentile £48.13 £55.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £63.75 £72.19 £76.88
England median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £43.79
% change year-on-year -41.51% -1.81% +51.01%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in London

Job postings citing Test Automation as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in London.

Job vacancy trend for Test Automation 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 17 September 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 17 September 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 17 September 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 -27 69 £450 -14.29% 34
South London -6 10 £500 +9.59% 2
East London -2 7 £520 +18.18% 3
West London 0 6 £398 -30.26% 7
North London - 1 - - 1
Test Automation
England

Test Automation
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 23 (3.89%) Confluence
2 11 (1.86%) Apache Spark
3 8 (1.35%) Apache Airflow
4 7 (1.18%) Apache
5 3 (0.51%) CMS
6 1 (0.17%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.17%) IIS
6 1 (0.17%) JBoss
6 1 (0.17%) nginx
6 1 (0.17%) SharePoint
Applications
1 12 (2.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (1.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (1.01%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (0.51%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.17%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.17%) Trello
Business Applications
1 7 (1.18%) Aladdin
2 2 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.34%) Eagle PACE
2 2 (0.34%) Markit EDM
2 2 (0.34%) NEC Housing
2 2 (0.34%) SAP CRM
2 2 (0.34%) Temenos T24
3 1 (0.17%) ION Anvil
3 1 (0.17%) MoSes
3 1 (0.17%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.17%) Sage X3
3 1 (0.17%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.17%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 164 (27.70%) Azure
2 139 (23.48%) AWS
3 76 (12.84%) Azure DevOps
4 59 (9.97%) GitHub
5 44 (7.43%) GCP
6 42 (7.09%) Serverless
7 36 (6.08%) GitHub Actions
8 23 (3.89%) AWS Lambda
9 20 (3.38%) Amazon S3
10 19 (3.21%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 17 (2.87%) SaaS
12 16 (2.70%) Azure Monitor
13 14 (2.36%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 14 (2.36%) Azure Data Factory
13 14 (2.36%) Azure Logic Apps
13 14 (2.36%) Power Platform
14 13 (2.20%) Azure Service Bus
15 12 (2.03%) AWS CloudFormation
15 12 (2.03%) Azure AKS
16 11 (1.86%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 19 (3.21%) HTTP
2 14 (2.36%) SSL
3 10 (1.69%) Firewall
4 7 (1.18%) HTTPS
4 7 (1.18%) Multicast
4 7 (1.18%) Network Security
4 7 (1.18%) TCP/IP
5 4 (0.68%) DNS
5 4 (0.68%) VPN
6 3 (0.51%) Bluetooth
6 3 (0.51%) Internet
6 3 (0.51%) SSH
7 2 (0.34%) DSL
7 2 (0.34%) FTP
7 2 (0.34%) LAN
7 2 (0.34%) SMTP
7 2 (0.34%) VLAN
7 2 (0.34%) Wi-Fi
8 1 (0.17%) LTE
8 1 (0.17%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (8.28%) PostgreSQL
2 44 (7.43%) NoSQL
3 42 (7.09%) SQL Server
4 22 (3.72%) MongoDB
5 20 (3.38%) Relational Database
6 19 (3.21%) Data Warehouse
7 14 (2.36%) Amazon RDS
8 12 (2.03%) DynamoDB
9 10 (1.69%) Data Lake
10 9 (1.52%) Amazon Redshift
10 9 (1.52%) Redis
11 8 (1.35%) Big Data
12 7 (1.18%) BigQuery
13 5 (0.84%) Delta Lake
13 5 (0.84%) Oracle Database
13 5 (0.84%) Power BI
14 4 (0.68%) DB2
14 4 (0.68%) Metadata
14 4 (0.68%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 3 (0.51%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 100 (16.89%) Selenium
2 90 (15.20%) JIRA
3 78 (13.18%) Git
4 70 (11.82%) Jenkins
5 48 (8.11%) Cucumber
6 45 (7.60%) Postman
7 44 (7.43%) Cypress.io
8 38 (6.42%) GitLab
9 32 (5.41%) JUnit
10 27 (4.56%) JMeter
11 23 (3.89%) REST Assured
12 18 (3.04%) Bitbucket
13 17 (2.87%) Appium
14 14 (2.36%) Maven
15 12 (2.03%) Zephyr
16 11 (1.86%) SpecFlow
16 11 (1.86%) WebDriver
17 10 (1.69%) LoadRunner
17 10 (1.69%) TestRail
18 9 (1.52%) Gatling
General
1 185 (31.25%) Social Skills
2 155 (26.18%) Finance
3 79 (13.34%) Banking
4 73 (12.33%) Analytical Skills
5 37 (6.25%) Front Office
6 35 (5.91%) Public Sector
7 21 (3.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 19 (3.21%) Investment Banking
9 15 (2.53%) Documentation Skills
9 15 (2.53%) Presentation Skills
10 11 (1.86%) Financial Institution
11 9 (1.52%) Publishing
12 8 (1.35%) Retail
13 7 (1.18%) International Banking
14 5 (0.84%) Back Office
14 5 (0.84%) Law
14 5 (0.84%) Manufacturing
14 5 (0.84%) Organisational Skills
14 5 (0.84%) Pharmaceutical
14 5 (0.84%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 123 (20.78%) Developer
2 80 (13.51%) Tester
3 77 (13.01%) Senior
4 56 (9.46%) Analyst
5 45 (7.60%) Test Engineer
6 42 (7.09%) Automation Tester
7 41 (6.93%) Test Analyst
8 37 (6.25%) Lead
9 34 (5.74%) QA Engineer
10 29 (4.90%) Software Engineer
11 25 (4.22%) Java Developer
12 21 (3.55%) Test Manager
13 19 (3.21%) Consultant
13 19 (3.21%) Test Automation Engineer
14 17 (2.87%) Automation Engineer
14 17 (2.87%) Full-Stack Developer
14 17 (2.87%) Python Developer
14 17 (2.87%) QA Tester
15 16 (2.70%) Python Engineer
15 16 (2.70%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (9.12%) React
1 54 (9.12%) REST
2 52 (8.78%) .NET
3 50 (8.45%) Playwright
4 43 (7.26%) Kafka
5 40 (6.76%) Node.js
6 36 (6.08%) RESTful
7 31 (5.24%) HTML
8 29 (4.90%) CSS
9 25 (4.22%) Spring
10 23 (3.89%) JSON
11 21 (3.55%) SOAP
11 21 (3.55%) Spring Boot
11 21 (3.55%) XML
12 20 (3.38%) pytest
12 20 (3.38%) Web Services
13 19 (3.21%) Jest
14 15 (2.53%) Swagger
15 14 (2.36%) GraphQL
15 14 (2.36%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 43 (7.26%) Cloud Native
2 31 (5.24%) Product Ownership
3 26 (4.39%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 25 (4.22%) Mobile App
5 22 (3.72%) Distributed Systems
6 15 (2.53%) Fixed Income
6 15 (2.53%) Greenfield Project
7 12 (2.03%) Reinsurance
8 11 (1.86%) Algorithms
8 11 (1.86%) Linux Command Line
8 11 (1.86%) Management Information System
9 10 (1.69%) Data Structures
9 10 (1.69%) Virtual Team
10 8 (1.35%) Onboarding
10 8 (1.35%) Security Posture
11 7 (1.18%) Data Protection Act
11 7 (1.18%) Derivative
11 7 (1.18%) Equities
11 7 (1.18%) Self-Motivation
12 6 (1.01%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 44 (7.43%) Linux
2 28 (4.73%) Windows
3 27 (4.56%) Android
4 19 (3.21%) Apple iOS
5 17 (2.87%) Unix
6 4 (0.68%) Windows Server
7 1 (0.17%) CentOS
7 1 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.17%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 287 (48.48%) Agile
2 281 (47.47%) CI/CD
3 223 (37.67%) DevOps
4 128 (21.62%) Problem-Solving
5 84 (14.19%) Test Strategy
6 82 (13.85%) Microservices
6 82 (13.85%) Software Engineering
7 80 (13.51%) Test Scripting
8 79 (13.34%) Scrum
9 71 (11.99%) TDD
10 68 (11.49%) Containerisation
10 68 (11.49%) Infrastructure as Code
11 66 (11.15%) SDLC
12 65 (10.98%) Validation
13 59 (9.97%) Software Testing
14 58 (9.80%) Regression Testing
15 52 (8.78%) Continuous Improvement
15 52 (8.78%) User Acceptance Testing
16 50 (8.45%) Performance Testing
17 49 (8.28%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 173 (29.22%) Python
2 140 (23.65%) Java
3 122 (20.61%) SQL
4 86 (14.53%) C#
4 86 (14.53%) JavaScript
5 53 (8.95%) TypeScript
6 27 (4.56%) Go
7 25 (4.22%) Bash
7 25 (4.22%) PowerShell
8 14 (2.36%) Kotlin
9 11 (1.86%) C++
10 9 (1.52%) Bicep
11 8 (1.35%) F#
11 8 (1.35%) Shell Script
12 6 (1.01%) Perl
12 6 (1.01%) PL/SQL
13 4 (0.68%) Korn
13 4 (0.68%) Swift
14 3 (0.51%) Ruby
14 3 (0.51%) Scala
Qualifications
1 69 (11.66%) Security Cleared
2 60 (10.14%) SC Cleared
3 54 (9.12%) Degree
4 26 (4.39%) ISTQB
5 24 (4.05%) Computer Science Degree
6 11 (1.86%) BPSS Clearance
6 11 (1.86%) Master's Degree
7 7 (1.18%) AWS Certification
8 5 (0.84%) OSCP
9 4 (0.68%) Azure Certification
9 4 (0.68%) DV Cleared
9 4 (0.68%) GPEN
9 4 (0.68%) SANS
10 3 (0.51%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 3 (0.51%) CISA
10 3 (0.51%) CREST Certified
10 3 (0.51%) EMC Certification
10 3 (0.51%) HNC
10 3 (0.51%) HND
10 3 (0.51%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 139 (23.48%) QA
2 46 (7.77%) Accessibility
3 20 (3.38%) Data Quality
4 11 (1.86%) WCAG
5 8 (1.35%) GDPR
5 8 (1.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 5 (0.84%) ITGC
7 4 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.51%) Def Stans
8 3 (0.51%) EMIR
8 3 (0.51%) IEC 61508
8 3 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 3 (0.51%) MiFID
8 3 (0.51%) SLA
9 2 (0.34%) GRC
9 2 (0.34%) Software Quality Assurance
9 2 (0.34%) SOX 404
10 1 (0.17%) NIST
10 1 (0.17%) SOC 1
10 1 (0.17%) SOC 2
System Software
1 89 (15.03%) Docker
2 6 (1.01%) Active Directory
3 5 (0.84%) zsh
4 4 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 81 (13.68%) Kubernetes
2 56 (9.46%) Terraform
3 25 (4.22%) Ansible
4 11 (1.86%) HP ALM
5 7 (1.18%) Grafana
6 6 (1.01%) Prometheus
7 5 (0.84%) Argo
8 4 (0.68%) Nessus
9 3 (0.51%) Functional Safety
9 3 (0.51%) Nmap
10 2 (0.34%) Kibana
10 2 (0.34%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.17%) HP Quality Center
11 1 (0.17%) logstash
11 1 (0.17%) NetBackup
11 1 (0.17%) Puppet
11 1 (0.17%) Rancher
11 1 (0.17%) Salt
11 1 (0.17%) vRealize
Vendors
1 48 (8.11%) Microsoft
2 42 (7.09%) Oracle
3 26 (4.39%) Databricks
3 26 (4.39%) Salesforce
4 23 (3.89%) Google
5 17 (2.87%) ServiceNow
5 17 (2.87%) Splunk
6 14 (2.36%) UiPath
7 12 (2.03%) HP
7 12 (2.03%) SAP
8 6 (1.01%) F5
8 6 (1.01%) Guidewire
8 6 (1.01%) MuleSoft
8 6 (1.01%) Solace
9 5 (0.84%) Bloomberg
9 5 (0.84%) CA Agile Central
9 5 (0.84%) OpenAI
10 4 (0.68%) CyberArk
10 4 (0.68%) Reuters
11 3 (0.51%) Dynatrace