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 13 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 54 47
Rank change year-on-year +5 -7 +4
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 872 627 774
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.41% 4.61% 4.45%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.96% 5.00% 5.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 587 420 533
10th Percentile £350 £338 £363
25th Percentile £425 £403 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £600 £675 £675
90th Percentile £708 £776 £769
England median daily rate £475 £485 £525
% change year-on-year -2.06% -7.62% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 4 10
10th Percentile - £37.25 £52.25
25th Percentile £92.50 £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 £65.75
90th Percentile - £70.25 £71.88
England median hourly rate £67.50 £50.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +35.00% -9.09% -24.66%

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 17,596 12,550 15,432
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 88.97% 92.20% 88.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,685 8,395 10,963
10th Percentile £360 £331 £350
25th Percentile £441 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £769 £790 £800
England median daily rate £525 £514 £525
% change year-on-year +2.14% -2.10% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 276 234 284
10th Percentile £17.60 £16.50 £16.24
25th Percentile £22.36 £24.66 £20.22
Median hourly rate £36.00 £32.25 £30.16
Median % change year-on-year +11.63% +6.93% -27.33%
75th Percentile £58.75 £50.38 £50.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £63.60 £68.75
England median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% -5.96%

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 13 July 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
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 13 July 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 +17 117 £550 +10.00% 69
South London -13 13 £513 +2.50% 2
West London -13 11 £523 +30.63% 44
East London +6 8 £545 +18.48% 12
North London -2 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 60 (6.88%) Confluence
2 31 (3.56%) Apache Airflow
3 23 (2.64%) Apache Spark
4 12 (1.38%) CMS
5 11 (1.26%) Apache
6 5 (0.57%) Appian
7 4 (0.46%) Camunda
7 4 (0.46%) nginx
7 4 (0.46%) Tomcat
7 4 (0.46%) WebLogic
8 3 (0.34%) Kentico
8 3 (0.34%) SharePoint
9 2 (0.23%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.23%) Mule
9 2 (0.23%) SAS
10 1 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
10 1 (0.11%) Ethereum
10 1 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
10 1 (0.11%) Solana
Applications
1 21 (2.41%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.80%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.80%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.57%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.23%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.11%) Mingle
7 1 (0.11%) Trello
Business Applications
1 16 (1.83%) Aladdin
2 13 (1.49%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.92%) Findur
3 8 (0.92%) Oracle EBS
4 6 (0.69%) Shopify
5 5 (0.57%) BambooHR
5 5 (0.57%) Loan IQ
6 4 (0.46%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.34%) Distributed Ledger
8 2 (0.23%) Infor CloudSuite
8 2 (0.23%) Infor LN
8 2 (0.23%) Infor M3
8 2 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
8 2 (0.23%) Summit
9 1 (0.11%) IntelliMatch
9 1 (0.11%) Misys Equation
9 1 (0.11%) Misys Midas
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle EBS R12
9 1 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 271 (31.08%) Azure
2 258 (29.59%) AWS
3 165 (18.92%) GitHub
4 127 (14.56%) Azure DevOps
5 101 (11.58%) GitHub Actions
6 75 (8.60%) Serverless
7 59 (6.77%) Power Platform
8 57 (6.54%) AWS Lambda
9 55 (6.31%) Amazon S3
9 55 (6.31%) GCP
10 38 (4.36%) dbt
11 31 (3.56%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 31 (3.56%) Amazon ECS
12 30 (3.44%) Snowflake
13 25 (2.87%) Amazon EC2
14 22 (2.52%) Azure AKS
14 22 (2.52%) Azure Data Factory
15 20 (2.29%) Dynamics 365
16 19 (2.18%) Azure AI
17 18 (2.06%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.92%) HTTP
2 3 (0.34%) FTP
2 3 (0.34%) Network Security
2 3 (0.34%) OpenLDAP
2 3 (0.34%) SMS
2 3 (0.34%) WAN
3 2 (0.23%) Ethernet
3 2 (0.23%) Firewall
3 2 (0.23%) Multicast
3 2 (0.23%) NaaS
4 1 (0.11%) Cisco IOS
4 1 (0.11%) DSL
4 1 (0.11%) MPLS
4 1 (0.11%) NFC
4 1 (0.11%) NGFW
4 1 (0.11%) SD-WAN
4 1 (0.11%) SNMP
4 1 (0.11%) SSL
4 1 (0.11%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.11%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (6.08%) PostgreSQL
2 47 (5.39%) Power BI
3 46 (5.28%) SQL Server
4 45 (5.16%) NoSQL
5 44 (5.05%) Data Warehouse
6 38 (4.36%) MongoDB
7 31 (3.56%) DynamoDB
8 29 (3.33%) Relational Database
9 24 (2.75%) Amazon Athena
10 22 (2.52%) Amazon Redshift
11 20 (2.29%) Amazon RDS
12 19 (2.18%) Big Data
13 17 (1.95%) Data Lake
13 17 (1.95%) Tableau
14 16 (1.83%) Metadata
15 15 (1.72%) BigQuery
16 11 (1.26%) Redis
17 10 (1.15%) Oracle Database
18 9 (1.03%) Elasticsearch
19 8 (0.92%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 137 (15.71%) Git
2 136 (15.60%) JIRA
3 119 (13.65%) Jenkins
4 103 (11.81%) Selenium
5 95 (10.89%) GitLab
6 55 (6.31%) Cypress.io
7 53 (6.08%) Cucumber
8 49 (5.62%) REST Assured
9 44 (5.05%) Postman
10 39 (4.47%) JUnit
11 38 (4.36%) JMeter
12 17 (1.95%) Maven
12 17 (1.95%) Mockito
13 16 (1.83%) Gatling
13 16 (1.83%) Gradle
13 16 (1.83%) SpecFlow
14 15 (1.72%) Bitbucket
15 14 (1.61%) Appium
15 14 (1.61%) WebDriver
15 14 (1.61%) Zephyr
General
1 255 (29.24%) Finance
2 235 (26.95%) Social Skills
3 119 (13.65%) Analytical Skills
4 117 (13.42%) Banking
5 96 (11.01%) Public Sector
6 26 (2.98%) Front Office
7 25 (2.87%) Investment Banking
8 22 (2.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 20 (2.29%) Financial Institution
10 15 (1.72%) Legal
11 14 (1.61%) Influencing Skills
12 13 (1.49%) Documentation Skills
13 11 (1.26%) Back Office
14 9 (1.03%) Organisational Skills
14 9 (1.03%) Retail
14 9 (1.03%) Telecoms
15 8 (0.92%) Presentation Skills
16 7 (0.80%) Marketing
17 6 (0.69%) Local Government
18 5 (0.57%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 187 (21.44%) Developer
2 150 (17.20%) Senior
3 93 (10.67%) Lead
4 82 (9.40%) Tester
5 56 (6.42%) Test Engineer
6 53 (6.08%) Data Engineer
7 52 (5.96%) Analyst
7 52 (5.96%) QA Engineer
8 47 (5.39%) Architect
8 47 (5.39%) Java Developer
9 46 (5.28%) DevOps Engineer
10 41 (4.70%) Automation Engineer
11 36 (4.13%) Software Engineer
12 34 (3.90%) Automation Tester
12 34 (3.90%) Senior Developer
13 32 (3.67%) Full-Stack Developer
14 31 (3.56%) Test Automation Engineer
14 31 (3.56%) Test Leader
15 25 (2.87%) QA Automation Engineer
16 24 (2.75%) React Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (13.19%) Playwright
2 104 (11.93%) React
2 104 (11.93%) REST
3 82 (9.40%) RESTful
4 71 (8.14%) Kafka
5 65 (7.45%) .NET
6 63 (7.22%) Spring
7 58 (6.65%) Node.js
8 55 (6.31%) Spring Boot
9 45 (5.16%) CSS
10 43 (4.93%) HTML
11 28 (3.21%) OAuth
12 24 (2.75%) PySpark
13 23 (2.64%) HTML5
14 22 (2.52%) Redux
15 21 (2.41%) AngularJS
16 19 (2.18%) CSS3
16 19 (2.18%) OAuth2
16 19 (2.18%) pytest
16 19 (2.18%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 131 (15.02%) Cloud Native
2 73 (8.37%) Distributed Systems
3 53 (6.08%) Product Ownership
4 34 (3.90%) Legacy Systems
5 26 (2.98%) Data Protection Act
6 25 (2.87%) Onboarding
7 21 (2.41%) Self-Motivation
8 20 (2.29%) Greenfield Project
9 19 (2.18%) Fixed Income
9 19 (2.18%) Virtual Team
10 17 (1.95%) AI Agents
11 16 (1.83%) Algorithms
11 16 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
12 15 (1.72%) Management Information System
12 15 (1.72%) Mobile App
13 12 (1.38%) Data Structures
13 12 (1.38%) Equities
14 10 (1.15%) Distributed Architecture
14 10 (1.15%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 10 (1.15%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 33 (3.78%) Linux
2 24 (2.75%) Windows
3 18 (2.06%) Android
4 16 (1.83%) Apple iOS
5 14 (1.61%) Unix
6 6 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (0.46%) Solaris
7 4 (0.46%) Windows Server
7 4 (0.46%) Windows Server 2008
8 3 (0.34%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 530 (60.78%) CI/CD
2 357 (40.94%) Agile
3 316 (36.24%) DevOps
4 167 (19.15%) AI
5 153 (17.55%) Infrastructure as Code
6 144 (16.51%) Problem-Solving
7 141 (16.17%) Continuous Improvement
8 137 (15.71%) Microservices
8 137 (15.71%) Validation
9 134 (15.37%) Test Strategy
10 128 (14.68%) Containerisation
11 126 (14.45%) Software Engineering
12 125 (14.33%) Observability
13 117 (13.42%) Regression Testing
14 110 (12.61%) User Acceptance Testing
15 99 (11.35%) Scrum
16 93 (10.67%) Full-Stack Development
16 93 (10.67%) TDD
17 87 (9.98%) Analytics
18 84 (9.63%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 261 (29.93%) Python
2 217 (24.89%) SQL
3 205 (23.51%) Java
4 138 (15.83%) TypeScript
5 127 (14.56%) JavaScript
6 95 (10.89%) C#
7 32 (3.67%) PowerShell
8 23 (2.64%) Kotlin
9 22 (2.52%) Bash
10 18 (2.06%) Ruby
11 16 (1.83%) Apex Code
11 16 (1.83%) Bicep
12 15 (1.72%) Scala
13 14 (1.61%) Go
14 13 (1.49%) PL/SQL
15 8 (0.92%) Swift
16 7 (0.80%) T-SQL
17 6 (0.69%) C++
17 6 (0.69%) Groovy
17 6 (0.69%) VBA
Qualifications
1 202 (23.17%) Security Cleared
2 178 (20.41%) SC Cleared
3 53 (6.08%) Degree
4 33 (3.78%) Computer Science Degree
5 24 (2.75%) BPSS Clearance
6 20 (2.29%) ISTQB
7 16 (1.83%) DV Cleared
8 14 (1.61%) AWS Certification
9 11 (1.26%) Master's Degree
10 7 (0.80%) DBS Check
11 6 (0.69%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 5 (0.57%) Azure Certification
13 4 (0.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 4 (0.46%) CISSP
14 3 (0.34%) TOGAF Certification
15 2 (0.23%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
15 2 (0.23%) Cisco Certification
15 2 (0.23%) CompTIA Security+
15 2 (0.23%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 2 (0.23%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 217 (24.89%) QA
2 69 (7.91%) Data Quality
3 54 (6.19%) Accessibility
4 24 (2.75%) GDPR
5 20 (2.29%) WCAG
6 9 (1.03%) NIST
7 6 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.46%) HL7
8 4 (0.46%) ISO 20022
8 4 (0.46%) SLA
9 3 (0.34%) EU AI Act
9 3 (0.34%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 3 (0.34%) MiFID
9 3 (0.34%) Software Quality Assurance
10 2 (0.23%) GRC
10 2 (0.23%) NCSC
11 1 (0.11%) ISO 8583
11 1 (0.11%) PMO
11 1 (0.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.11%) SEPA
System Software
1 142 (16.28%) Docker
2 7 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.46%) Active Directory
4 4 (0.46%) Oracle RAC
4 4 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.11%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 148 (16.97%) Kubernetes
2 120 (13.76%) Terraform
3 40 (4.59%) Grafana
4 35 (4.01%) Prometheus
5 30 (3.44%) Ansible
6 8 (0.92%) HP ALM
6 8 (0.92%) Kibana
6 8 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.46%) Oracle RMAN
8 3 (0.34%) Control-M
8 3 (0.34%) Kustomize
8 3 (0.34%) Packer
8 3 (0.34%) Progress Chef
8 3 (0.34%) Puppet
9 2 (0.23%) Amdocs OSS
10 1 (0.11%) HP Quality Center
10 1 (0.11%) Istio
10 1 (0.11%) linkerd
10 1 (0.11%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 85 (9.75%) Microsoft
2 57 (6.54%) Salesforce
3 50 (5.73%) Oracle
4 29 (3.33%) Databricks
5 21 (2.41%) ServiceNow
6 19 (2.18%) UiPath
7 16 (1.83%) Google
8 15 (1.72%) Splunk
9 14 (1.61%) Informatica
10 12 (1.38%) IBM
11 9 (1.03%) Dynatrace
11 9 (1.03%) SAP
12 8 (0.92%) HP
12 8 (0.92%) OpenAI
12 8 (0.92%) OpenLink
13 7 (0.80%) MuleSoft
14 6 (0.69%) Charles River
14 6 (0.69%) Foundry
14 6 (0.69%) Workday
15 5 (0.57%) OpenText