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 1 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 54 46
Rank change year-on-year +3 -8 +6
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 870 620 745
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.32% 4.55% 4.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.85% 4.93% 5.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 591 421 510
10th Percentile £350 £338 £363
25th Percentile £425 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -8.70%
75th Percentile £619 £675 £675
90th Percentile £711 £775 £775
England median daily rate £475 £488 £525
% change year-on-year -2.56% -7.14% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 4 5
10th Percentile £52.35 £37.25 £51.00
25th Percentile £67.41 £40.63 £52.50
Median hourly rate £95.00 £45.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +111.11% -18.18% -38.89%
75th Percentile £97.50 £55.63 £71.88
90th Percentile - £70.25 -
England median hourly rate £67.50 £50.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year +35.00% -13.04% -11.88%

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 17,949 12,571 14,518
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 89.06% 92.19% 88.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,845 8,422 10,287
10th Percentile £363 £325 £350
25th Percentile £450 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £544 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.12% -1.11% -4.35%
75th Percentile £656 £675 £688
90th Percentile £775 £788 £800
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 299 246 207
10th Percentile £17.60 £16.50 £16.24
25th Percentile £19.94 £24.66 £22.00
Median hourly rate £35.50 £29.75 £34.00
Median % change year-on-year +19.33% -12.50% -17.62%
75th Percentile £56.63 £49.31 £54.38
90th Percentile £81.25 £63.25 £71.50
England median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £42.03
% change year-on-year +78.93% -40.16% -1.11%

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 1 August 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 1 August 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 1 August 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 +16 115 £550 +15.79% 45
South London -6 18 £535 +7.00% 5
East London +5 8 £545 +36.25% 13
West London -16 7 £525 +32.91% 9
North London -2 1 £400 -
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 61 (7.01%) Confluence
2 35 (4.02%) Apache Airflow
3 24 (2.76%) Apache Spark
4 13 (1.49%) Apache
4 13 (1.49%) CMS
5 10 (1.15%) SharePoint
6 6 (0.69%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.46%) nginx
7 4 (0.46%) Tomcat
7 4 (0.46%) WebLogic
8 3 (0.34%) Appian
8 3 (0.34%) Camunda
8 3 (0.34%) Kentico
9 2 (0.23%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.23%) Mule
9 2 (0.23%) SAS
10 1 (0.11%) Apache Solr
10 1 (0.11%) Ethereum
10 1 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
10 1 (0.11%) Solana
Applications
1 17 (1.95%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (1.15%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.69%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.34%) Trello
7 2 (0.23%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.11%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 14 (1.61%) Aladdin
2 13 (1.49%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.92%) Findur
4 7 (0.80%) Oracle EBS
5 6 (0.69%) Shopify
6 5 (0.57%) BambooHR
7 4 (0.46%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.34%) Distributed Ledger
9 2 (0.23%) Infor CloudSuite
9 2 (0.23%) Infor LN
9 2 (0.23%) Infor M3
9 2 (0.23%) Loan IQ
9 2 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
10 1 (0.11%) IntelliMatch
10 1 (0.11%) Misys Equation
10 1 (0.11%) Misys Midas
10 1 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
10 1 (0.11%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 305 (35.06%) Azure
2 272 (31.26%) AWS
3 186 (21.38%) GitHub
4 145 (16.67%) Azure DevOps
5 120 (13.79%) GitHub Actions
6 76 (8.74%) Serverless
7 68 (7.82%) GCP
7 68 (7.82%) Power Platform
8 56 (6.44%) AWS Lambda
9 53 (6.09%) Amazon S3
10 45 (5.17%) dbt
11 36 (4.14%) Snowflake
12 31 (3.56%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 31 (3.56%) Amazon ECS
13 27 (3.10%) GitHub Copilot
14 25 (2.87%) Amazon EC2
15 23 (2.64%) Azure Data Factory
16 22 (2.53%) Azure AKS
17 19 (2.18%) Dynamics 365
18 18 (2.07%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 7 (0.80%) HTTP
1 7 (0.80%) Network Security
2 6 (0.69%) Firewall
2 6 (0.69%) WAN
3 4 (0.46%) DHCP
3 4 (0.46%) DNS
3 4 (0.46%) LAN
3 4 (0.46%) TCP/IP
3 4 (0.46%) Wi-Fi
4 3 (0.34%) FTP
4 3 (0.34%) OpenLDAP
4 3 (0.34%) SMS
5 2 (0.23%) Multicast
5 2 (0.23%) NaaS
6 1 (0.11%) 5G
6 1 (0.11%) Bluetooth
6 1 (0.11%) Cisco Nexus
6 1 (0.11%) Ethernet
6 1 (0.11%) NGFW
6 1 (0.11%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (6.90%) PostgreSQL
2 56 (6.44%) Power BI
3 52 (5.98%) Data Warehouse
4 50 (5.75%) NoSQL
5 49 (5.63%) SQL Server
6 42 (4.83%) MongoDB
7 32 (3.68%) DynamoDB
7 32 (3.68%) Relational Database
8 24 (2.76%) Amazon Athena
9 23 (2.64%) Amazon Redshift
10 20 (2.30%) Data Lake
11 19 (2.18%) Amazon RDS
11 19 (2.18%) Big Data
12 16 (1.84%) BigQuery
13 15 (1.72%) Metadata
13 15 (1.72%) Tableau
14 13 (1.49%) MySQL
15 12 (1.38%) Redis
16 11 (1.26%) Elasticsearch
17 8 (0.92%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 145 (16.67%) Git
2 134 (15.40%) Jenkins
3 130 (14.94%) JIRA
4 102 (11.72%) GitLab
5 97 (11.15%) Selenium
6 55 (6.32%) Cypress.io
7 47 (5.40%) Cucumber
8 43 (4.94%) REST Assured
9 40 (4.60%) JMeter
9 40 (4.60%) JUnit
10 38 (4.37%) Postman
11 19 (2.18%) Maven
12 18 (2.07%) Bitbucket
12 18 (2.07%) Gatling
12 18 (2.07%) Gradle
13 17 (1.95%) Appium
13 17 (1.95%) Zephyr
14 15 (1.72%) Mockito
15 14 (1.61%) SpecFlow
16 11 (1.26%) TestNG
General
1 258 (29.66%) Finance
2 227 (26.09%) Social Skills
3 120 (13.79%) Banking
4 118 (13.56%) Analytical Skills
5 94 (10.80%) Public Sector
6 26 (2.99%) Front Office
7 24 (2.76%) Investment Banking
8 20 (2.30%) Financial Institution
8 20 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 17 (1.95%) Influencing Skills
10 15 (1.72%) Legal
11 13 (1.49%) Telecoms
12 12 (1.38%) Back Office
12 12 (1.38%) Documentation Skills
13 9 (1.03%) Retail
14 8 (0.92%) Marketing
15 6 (0.69%) Law
15 6 (0.69%) Local Government
15 6 (0.69%) Organisational Skills
16 5 (0.57%) Games
Job Titles
1 192 (22.07%) Developer
2 151 (17.36%) Senior
3 90 (10.34%) Lead
4 70 (8.05%) Tester
5 57 (6.55%) Test Engineer
6 56 (6.44%) Data Engineer
7 51 (5.86%) DevOps Engineer
8 49 (5.63%) QA Engineer
9 48 (5.52%) Analyst
9 48 (5.52%) Java Developer
10 45 (5.17%) Architect
11 42 (4.83%) Software Engineer
12 39 (4.48%) Full-Stack Developer
13 38 (4.37%) Senior Developer
14 35 (4.02%) Automation Engineer
15 32 (3.68%) Test Automation Engineer
16 28 (3.22%) Automation Tester
17 27 (3.10%) Test Leader
18 26 (2.99%) Test Manager
19 24 (2.76%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 118 (13.56%) REST
2 111 (12.76%) Playwright
3 100 (11.49%) React
4 89 (10.23%) RESTful
5 83 (9.54%) Kafka
6 68 (7.82%) .NET
7 65 (7.47%) Spring
8 58 (6.67%) Node.js
9 56 (6.44%) Spring Boot
10 47 (5.40%) CSS
11 44 (5.06%) HTML
12 28 (3.22%) PySpark
13 26 (2.99%) AngularJS
13 26 (2.99%) HTML5
14 25 (2.87%) OAuth
15 23 (2.64%) CSS3
16 22 (2.53%) Jest
16 22 (2.53%) Redux
17 19 (2.18%) JSON
17 19 (2.18%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 142 (16.32%) Cloud Native
2 85 (9.77%) Distributed Systems
3 59 (6.78%) Product Ownership
4 28 (3.22%) Data Protection Act
5 27 (3.10%) Legacy Systems
5 27 (3.10%) Onboarding
6 22 (2.53%) AI Agents
7 21 (2.41%) Self-Motivation
8 19 (2.18%) Fixed Income
9 18 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
10 17 (1.95%) Virtual Team
11 16 (1.84%) Algorithms
12 14 (1.61%) Data Structures
12 14 (1.61%) Greenfield Project
13 13 (1.49%) Mobile App
14 12 (1.38%) Management Information System
15 11 (1.26%) Distributed Architecture
15 11 (1.26%) Equities
15 11 (1.26%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 11 (1.26%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 37 (4.25%) Linux
2 30 (3.45%) Windows
3 21 (2.41%) Unix
4 19 (2.18%) Android
5 17 (1.95%) Apple iOS
6 9 (1.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 8 (0.92%) Windows Server
8 4 (0.46%) Solaris
8 4 (0.46%) Windows Server 2008
9 3 (0.34%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
9 3 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.11%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 556 (63.91%) CI/CD
2 371 (42.64%) Agile
3 346 (39.77%) DevOps
4 180 (20.69%) AI
5 171 (19.66%) Infrastructure as Code
6 159 (18.28%) Microservices
7 151 (17.36%) Problem-Solving
8 144 (16.55%) Continuous Improvement
9 139 (15.98%) Validation
10 138 (15.86%) Software Engineering
11 137 (15.75%) Containerisation
12 136 (15.63%) Observability
13 133 (15.29%) Test Strategy
14 110 (12.64%) Regression Testing
15 104 (11.95%) TDD
16 103 (11.84%) Scrum
17 102 (11.72%) Full-Stack Development
17 102 (11.72%) User Acceptance Testing
18 94 (10.80%) Analytics
19 91 (10.46%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 269 (30.92%) Python
2 222 (25.52%) SQL
3 212 (24.37%) Java
4 127 (14.60%) TypeScript
5 124 (14.25%) JavaScript
6 90 (10.34%) C#
7 37 (4.25%) PowerShell
8 26 (2.99%) Bash
9 25 (2.87%) Kotlin
10 22 (2.53%) Bicep
11 18 (2.07%) Ruby
12 15 (1.72%) Scala
13 14 (1.61%) Apex Code
14 13 (1.49%) PL/SQL
15 12 (1.38%) Go
16 8 (0.92%) C++
17 7 (0.80%) Swift
17 7 (0.80%) T-SQL
18 6 (0.69%) Shell Script
18 6 (0.69%) VBA
Qualifications
1 203 (23.33%) Security Cleared
2 177 (20.34%) SC Cleared
3 55 (6.32%) Degree
4 32 (3.68%) Computer Science Degree
5 19 (2.18%) ISTQB
6 18 (2.07%) BPSS Clearance
7 17 (1.95%) AWS Certification
7 17 (1.95%) DV Cleared
8 10 (1.15%) Azure Certification
9 8 (0.92%) Master's Degree
10 7 (0.80%) DBS Check
11 6 (0.69%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 5 (0.57%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 5 (0.57%) PhD
13 4 (0.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 4 (0.46%) CISSP
14 3 (0.34%) TOGAF Certification
15 2 (0.23%) Cisco Certification
15 2 (0.23%) ISEB
15 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 230 (26.44%) QA
2 71 (8.16%) Data Quality
3 53 (6.09%) Accessibility
4 23 (2.64%) WCAG
5 22 (2.53%) GDPR
6 9 (1.03%) NIST
7 7 (0.80%) SLA
8 6 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 5 (0.57%) ISO 20022
10 3 (0.34%) EU AI Act
10 3 (0.34%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 3 (0.34%) MiFID
10 3 (0.34%) Software Quality Assurance
11 2 (0.23%) GRC
11 2 (0.23%) HL7
11 2 (0.23%) NCSC
12 1 (0.11%) GxP
12 1 (0.11%) ISO 8583
12 1 (0.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.11%) SEPA
System Software
1 151 (17.36%) Docker
2 10 (1.15%) Virtual Machines
3 7 (0.80%) Active Directory
4 5 (0.57%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (0.46%) Oracle RAC
5 4 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.11%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 156 (17.93%) Kubernetes
2 134 (15.40%) Terraform
3 46 (5.29%) Grafana
4 41 (4.71%) Prometheus
5 32 (3.68%) Ansible
6 9 (1.03%) Kibana
6 9 (1.03%) Progress Chef
6 9 (1.03%) Puppet
7 8 (0.92%) HP ALM
7 8 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (0.46%) Oracle RMAN
9 3 (0.34%) Control-M
9 3 (0.34%) Kustomize
9 3 (0.34%) Packer
10 2 (0.23%) Amdocs OSS
10 2 (0.23%) Istio
11 1 (0.11%) Argo
11 1 (0.11%) linkerd
11 1 (0.11%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 91 (10.46%) Microsoft
2 53 (6.09%) Salesforce
3 48 (5.52%) Oracle
4 36 (4.14%) Databricks
5 24 (2.76%) Google
6 22 (2.53%) ServiceNow
7 17 (1.95%) UiPath
8 16 (1.84%) Splunk
9 15 (1.72%) IBM
9 15 (1.72%) Informatica
10 12 (1.38%) HP
11 11 (1.26%) Dynatrace
12 10 (1.15%) OpenAI
12 10 (1.15%) VMware
13 8 (0.92%) OpenLink
13 8 (0.92%) SAP
14 7 (0.80%) Guidewire
14 7 (0.80%) Red Hat
15 6 (0.69%) Charles River
15 6 (0.69%) MuleSoft