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

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 50 52
Rank change year-on-year +3 +2 -9
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 810 576 732
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.49% 4.66% 4.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.08% 5.06% 4.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 527 392 506
10th Percentile £338 £341 £363
25th Percentile £413 £406 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £503 £531
Median % change year-on-year -0.50% -5.41% -8.99%
75th Percentile £588 £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 4 1 10
10th Percentile £56.71 - £52.25
25th Percentile £59.95 - £52.50
Median hourly rate £64.75 £35.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +85.00% -36.36% -38.89%
75th Percentile £74.25 - £65.75
90th Percentile £88.20 - £71.88
England median hourly rate £66.75 £55.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +21.36% -8.33% -18.92%

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 15,948 11,394 15,486
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 88.35% 92.23% 88.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,673 7,685 11,109
10th Percentile £358 £350 £340
25th Percentile £431 £431 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -7.17%
75th Percentile £650 £688 £681
90th Percentile £760 £800 £800
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 236 187 308
10th Percentile £18.75 £16.24 £15.81
25th Percentile £25.25 £23.33 £20.00
Median hourly rate £37.25 £34.00 £27.92
Median % change year-on-year +9.56% +21.78% -25.23%
75th Percentile £57.86 £50.25 £48.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £63.75 £66.83
England median hourly rate £46.80 £28.75 £36.50
% change year-on-year +62.78% -21.23% -0.11%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 +6 105 £550 +10.00% 41
South London -4 20 £513 +24.24% 8
West London -23 17 £480 +22.32% 12
East London +4 11 £450 +25.00% 15
North London - 1 £400 - 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 51 (6.30%) Confluence
2 24 (2.96%) Apache Airflow
3 19 (2.35%) Apache Spark
4 9 (1.11%) Apache
5 8 (0.99%) Appian
6 6 (0.74%) CMS
7 5 (0.62%) Camunda
8 4 (0.49%) nginx
8 4 (0.49%) Tomcat
9 3 (0.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
9 3 (0.37%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.12%) Ethereum
10 1 (0.12%) Kentico
10 1 (0.12%) SAS
10 1 (0.12%) SharePoint
10 1 (0.12%) Solana
Applications
1 18 (2.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.62%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.49%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.12%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 20 (2.47%) Aladdin
2 9 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.99%) Findur
4 6 (0.74%) Loan IQ
4 6 (0.74%) Shopify
5 5 (0.62%) BambooHR
5 5 (0.62%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.37%) Distributed Ledger
7 2 (0.25%) iTrent
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
8 1 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 238 (29.38%) Azure
2 208 (25.68%) AWS
3 136 (16.79%) GitHub
4 121 (14.94%) Azure DevOps
5 76 (9.38%) GitHub Actions
6 60 (7.41%) Serverless
7 45 (5.56%) GCP
8 40 (4.94%) Amazon S3
8 40 (4.94%) Power Platform
9 39 (4.81%) AWS Lambda
10 30 (3.70%) Snowflake
11 29 (3.58%) Azure Data Factory
12 25 (3.09%) Amazon ECS
13 23 (2.84%) Azure AKS
13 23 (2.84%) dbt
14 21 (2.59%) Dynamics 365
15 18 (2.22%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 18 (2.22%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 18 (2.22%) Azure Monitor
15 18 (2.22%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 9 (1.11%) HTTP
2 5 (0.62%) FTP
3 4 (0.49%) SSL
3 4 (0.49%) WAN
4 3 (0.37%) Ethernet
4 3 (0.37%) Firewall
5 2 (0.25%) Cisco IOS
5 2 (0.25%) DSL
5 2 (0.25%) Multicast
5 2 (0.25%) NaaS
5 2 (0.25%) OpenLDAP
5 2 (0.25%) SD-WAN
5 2 (0.25%) SNMP
5 2 (0.25%) WebEx
6 1 (0.12%) 5G
6 1 (0.12%) Cisco Nexus
6 1 (0.12%) Network Security
6 1 (0.12%) NGFW
6 1 (0.12%) Spanning Tree
6 1 (0.12%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (6.91%) SQL Server
2 54 (6.67%) PostgreSQL
3 45 (5.56%) NoSQL
4 35 (4.32%) MongoDB
5 31 (3.83%) Data Warehouse
6 29 (3.58%) Power BI
7 28 (3.46%) Relational Database
8 22 (2.72%) DynamoDB
8 22 (2.72%) Tableau
9 19 (2.35%) Big Data
10 18 (2.22%) Amazon Athena
11 17 (2.10%) BigQuery
12 16 (1.98%) Data Lake
13 14 (1.73%) Amazon Redshift
13 14 (1.73%) Metadata
14 13 (1.60%) Amazon RDS
15 11 (1.36%) Amazon Aurora
15 11 (1.36%) Oracle Database
15 11 (1.36%) Star Schema
16 9 (1.11%) Flink
Development Applications
1 132 (16.30%) JIRA
2 123 (15.19%) Git
3 108 (13.33%) Selenium
4 104 (12.84%) Jenkins
5 78 (9.63%) GitLab
6 52 (6.42%) Cypress.io
7 49 (6.05%) Cucumber
7 49 (6.05%) Postman
8 36 (4.44%) JMeter
9 34 (4.20%) REST Assured
10 27 (3.33%) JUnit
11 24 (2.96%) SpecFlow
12 19 (2.35%) MLflow
13 14 (1.73%) Appium
14 13 (1.60%) WebDriver
15 12 (1.48%) Maven
15 12 (1.48%) Mockito
15 12 (1.48%) Zephyr
16 11 (1.36%) Gradle
16 11 (1.36%) TestRail
General
1 219 (27.04%) Finance
2 206 (25.43%) Social Skills
3 108 (13.33%) Banking
4 107 (13.21%) Analytical Skills
5 106 (13.09%) Public Sector
6 27 (3.33%) Front Office
7 25 (3.09%) Investment Banking
8 18 (2.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 15 (1.85%) Legal
10 13 (1.60%) Documentation Skills
11 11 (1.36%) Financial Institution
11 11 (1.36%) Influencing Skills
11 11 (1.36%) Telecoms
12 10 (1.23%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (1.11%) Back Office
14 8 (0.99%) Presentation Skills
15 7 (0.86%) Billing
15 7 (0.86%) Publishing
15 7 (0.86%) Retail
16 4 (0.49%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 173 (21.36%) Developer
2 151 (18.64%) Senior
3 91 (11.23%) Tester
4 84 (10.37%) Lead
5 55 (6.79%) Test Engineer
6 52 (6.42%) Analyst
7 50 (6.17%) Automation Tester
8 48 (5.93%) QA Engineer
9 40 (4.94%) Architect
9 40 (4.94%) Data Engineer
9 40 (4.94%) DevOps Engineer
10 39 (4.81%) Senior Developer
11 35 (4.32%) Automation Engineer
12 30 (3.70%) Java Developer
13 29 (3.58%) Test Automation Engineer
14 28 (3.46%) Software Engineer
15 26 (3.21%) Full-Stack Developer
15 26 (3.21%) Test Manager
16 25 (3.09%) Test Leader
17 24 (2.96%) QA Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (12.47%) Playwright
2 95 (11.73%) REST
3 88 (10.86%) React
4 77 (9.51%) RESTful
5 70 (8.64%) .NET
6 65 (8.02%) Kafka
7 58 (7.16%) Node.js
8 41 (5.06%) Spring
9 39 (4.81%) HTML
10 38 (4.69%) CSS
10 38 (4.69%) Spring Boot
11 29 (3.58%) OAuth
12 25 (3.09%) pytest
12 25 (3.09%) Web Services
13 20 (2.47%) Gherkin
14 19 (2.35%) .NET Core
15 18 (2.22%) ASP.NET
15 18 (2.22%) Django
15 18 (2.22%) OAuth2
15 18 (2.22%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 101 (12.47%) Cloud Native
2 55 (6.79%) Product Ownership
3 54 (6.67%) Distributed Systems
4 37 (4.57%) Legacy Systems
5 29 (3.58%) Data Protection Act
6 22 (2.72%) Algorithms
7 19 (2.35%) Greenfield Project
8 18 (2.22%) Fixed Income
8 18 (2.22%) Virtual Team
9 17 (2.10%) Management Information System
9 17 (2.10%) Onboarding
9 17 (2.10%) Self-Motivation
10 15 (1.85%) Mobile App
11 14 (1.73%) Equities
12 13 (1.60%) Data Structures
12 13 (1.60%) NHS
13 11 (1.36%) Derivative
14 10 (1.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 9 (1.11%) Low-Code
16 8 (0.99%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 40 (4.94%) Linux
2 25 (3.09%) Windows
3 21 (2.59%) Android
4 16 (1.98%) 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
1 448 (55.31%) CI/CD
2 322 (39.75%) Agile
3 281 (34.69%) DevOps
4 146 (18.02%) Problem-Solving
5 131 (16.17%) AI
6 125 (15.43%) Infrastructure as Code
7 123 (15.19%) Validation
8 122 (15.06%) Observability
9 118 (14.57%) Containerisation
9 118 (14.57%) Test Strategy
10 115 (14.20%) Continuous Improvement
11 109 (13.46%) Regression Testing
12 105 (12.96%) Microservices
13 104 (12.84%) User Acceptance Testing
14 94 (11.60%) Software Engineering
15 92 (11.36%) Test Scripting
16 90 (11.11%) Software Testing
17 88 (10.86%) Data Modelling
18 82 (10.12%) Analytics
18 82 (10.12%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 256 (31.60%) Python
2 210 (25.93%) SQL
3 162 (20.00%) Java
4 126 (15.56%) TypeScript
5 123 (15.19%) JavaScript
6 108 (13.33%) C#
7 34 (4.20%) PowerShell
8 21 (2.59%) Bash
9 19 (2.35%) Apex Code
10 17 (2.10%) Kotlin
10 17 (2.10%) PL/SQL
11 16 (1.98%) Ruby
12 15 (1.85%) Bicep
13 11 (1.36%) C++
14 9 (1.11%) Scala
15 8 (0.99%) Go
16 7 (0.86%) Rust
16 7 (0.86%) T-SQL
17 6 (0.74%) Swift
18 5 (0.62%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 180 (22.22%) Security Cleared
2 154 (19.01%) SC Cleared
3 43 (5.31%) Degree
4 30 (3.70%) ISTQB
5 25 (3.09%) BPSS Clearance
6 23 (2.84%) Computer Science Degree
7 11 (1.36%) DV Cleared
8 8 (0.99%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.86%) DBS Check
10 5 (0.62%) 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
1 194 (23.95%) QA
2 56 (6.91%) Data Quality
3 48 (5.93%) Accessibility
4 23 (2.84%) GDPR
5 20 (2.47%) WCAG
6 7 (0.86%) NIST
7 6 (0.74%) ISO 20022
8 5 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.62%) 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 1 (0.12%) EMIR
11 1 (0.12%) GMP
11 1 (0.12%) GRC
11 1 (0.12%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 139 (17.16%) Docker
2 6 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.62%) 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
1 135 (16.67%) Kubernetes
2 97 (11.98%) Terraform
3 40 (4.94%) Grafana
4 36 (4.44%) Prometheus
5 22 (2.72%) Ansible
6 10 (1.23%) HP ALM
7 9 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (0.99%) Kibana
9 4 (0.49%) Oracle RMAN
9 4 (0.49%) Puppet
10 2 (0.25%) Amdocs OSS
10 2 (0.25%) Kustomize
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 79 (9.75%) Microsoft
2 55 (6.79%) Oracle
3 51 (6.30%) Salesforce
4 40 (4.94%) Databricks
5 19 (2.35%) ServiceNow
6 17 (2.10%) UiPath
7 15 (1.85%) Google
7 15 (1.85%) Splunk
8 13 (1.60%) OpenAI
9 11 (1.36%) IBM
10 10 (1.23%) HP
10 10 (1.23%) MuleSoft
11 9 (1.11%) Guidewire
11 9 (1.11%) SAP
12 8 (0.99%) Apple
12 8 (0.99%) Automation Anywhere
12 8 (0.99%) Dynatrace
12 8 (0.99%) OpenLink
13 7 (0.86%) Workday
14 6 (0.74%) Red Hat