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 25 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 52 46 57
Rank change year-on-year -6 +11 -17
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 690 702 793
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.89% 4.47% 4.00%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.31% 4.99% 4.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 470 459 592
10th Percentile £337 £340 £400
25th Percentile £408 £410 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -8.70% -4.17%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £675
90th Percentile £748 £738 £800
England median daily rate £500 £500 £535
% change year-on-year - -6.54% -6.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 1
10th Percentile £43.25 - -
25th Percentile £44.38 - -
Median hourly rate £55.50 - £75.00
75th Percentile £69.88 - -
90th Percentile £75.95 - -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £53.75 £72.50
% change year-on-year +20.93% -25.86% +20.83%

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 13,004 14,059 17,800
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 92.24% 89.51% 89.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,538 9,063 12,765
10th Percentile £335 £350 £355
25th Percentile £425 £450 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £550 £569
Median % change year-on-year -3.18% -3.34% -3.56%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £688
90th Percentile £775 £800 £800
England median daily rate £505 £525 £545
% change year-on-year -3.81% -3.67% -0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 255 170 240
10th Percentile £18.09 £17.25 £18.56
25th Percentile £24.50 £23.98 £21.50
Median hourly rate £29.00 £37.50 £35.96
Median % change year-on-year -22.67% +4.30% -8.97%
75th Percentile £47.50 £55.56 £60.00
90th Percentile £68.62 £80.75 £75.13
England median hourly rate £25.15 £36.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -30.14% -20.00% +25.00%

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 25 November 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 25 November 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 25 November 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 -12 86 £525 -1.64% 24
South London -5 13 £506 +4.92% 5
West London -10 10 £485 +38.43% 6
East London -2 8 £483 +11.56% 13
North London - 1 - - 5
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 37 (5.36%) Confluence
2 20 (2.90%) Apache Spark
3 11 (1.59%) Apache Airflow
4 7 (1.01%) Apache
5 5 (0.72%) CMS
5 5 (0.72%) SharePoint
6 2 (0.29%) Magnolia
6 2 (0.29%) Sitecore CMS
6 2 (0.29%) WordPress
7 1 (0.14%) Anypoint
7 1 (0.14%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.14%) JBoss
7 1 (0.14%) nginx
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
7 1 (0.14%) WebLogic
Applications
1 17 (2.46%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (1.01%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.87%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.29%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 15 (2.17%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.58%) SAP HR
3 2 (0.29%) Eagle PACE
3 2 (0.29%) Markit EDM
3 2 (0.29%) Shopify
4 1 (0.14%) Algo Collateral
4 1 (0.14%) CODA-Financials
4 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.14%) ION Anvil
4 1 (0.14%) Loan IQ
4 1 (0.14%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.14%) PORTIA
4 1 (0.14%) Sage X3
4 1 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.14%) Temenos T24
4 1 (0.14%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 208 (30.14%) Azure
2 160 (23.19%) AWS
3 90 (13.04%) GitHub
4 89 (12.90%) Azure DevOps
5 79 (11.45%) GCP
6 51 (7.39%) Serverless
7 41 (5.94%) GitHub Actions
8 27 (3.91%) AWS Lambda
9 25 (3.62%) SaaS
10 24 (3.48%) Amazon S3
11 22 (3.19%) Snowflake
12 19 (2.75%) Power Platform
13 18 (2.61%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 18 (2.61%) Azure Data Factory
14 17 (2.46%) Azure AKS
15 16 (2.32%) Azure Monitor
16 15 (2.17%) Cloud Run
17 14 (2.03%) Amazon ECS
17 14 (2.03%) Azure Logic Apps
18 13 (1.88%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 15 (2.17%) HTTP
2 14 (2.03%) Firewall
2 14 (2.03%) SSL
3 11 (1.59%) HTTPS
3 11 (1.59%) TCP/IP
4 10 (1.45%) Multicast
5 9 (1.30%) DNS
5 9 (1.30%) VPN
6 8 (1.16%) Network Security
7 6 (0.87%) SD-WAN
7 6 (0.87%) WAN
8 5 (0.72%) Cisco IPT
9 3 (0.43%) Bluetooth
9 3 (0.43%) DHCP
9 3 (0.43%) FTP
9 3 (0.43%) Wireshark
10 2 (0.29%) Ethernet
10 2 (0.29%) Internet
10 2 (0.29%) VLAN
10 2 (0.29%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (8.26%) PostgreSQL
2 40 (5.80%) NoSQL
3 38 (5.51%) SQL Server
4 26 (3.77%) Data Warehouse
5 25 (3.62%) Relational Database
6 22 (3.19%) MongoDB
7 18 (2.61%) BigQuery
8 15 (2.17%) Amazon RDS
9 13 (1.88%) Data Lake
10 12 (1.74%) Big Data
10 12 (1.74%) Redis
11 10 (1.45%) Power BI
12 9 (1.30%) Azure SQL Database
12 9 (1.30%) DynamoDB
13 8 (1.16%) Amazon Redshift
14 7 (1.01%) Delta Lake
15 5 (0.72%) Amazon Aurora
15 5 (0.72%) DB2
15 5 (0.72%) Metadata
15 5 (0.72%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 110 (15.94%) Git
2 102 (14.78%) JIRA
3 100 (14.49%) Selenium
4 91 (13.19%) Jenkins
5 62 (8.99%) GitLab
6 58 (8.41%) Cucumber
7 48 (6.96%) Postman
8 44 (6.38%) Cypress.io
9 32 (4.64%) JMeter
10 31 (4.49%) JUnit
11 26 (3.77%) Bitbucket
12 21 (3.04%) REST Assured
13 19 (2.75%) SpecFlow
14 15 (2.17%) Appium
15 13 (1.88%) Maven
16 12 (1.74%) Gatling
16 12 (1.74%) TestRail
17 11 (1.59%) Zephyr
18 10 (1.45%) WebDriver
18 10 (1.45%) webpack
General
1 194 (28.12%) Social Skills
2 156 (22.61%) Finance
3 84 (12.17%) Banking
4 63 (9.13%) Analytical Skills
5 49 (7.10%) Public Sector
6 23 (3.33%) Front Office
7 21 (3.04%) Investment Banking
8 18 (2.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 18 (2.61%) Pharmaceutical
9 14 (2.03%) Presentation Skills
10 11 (1.59%) Documentation Skills
10 11 (1.59%) Financial Institution
11 10 (1.45%) International Banking
12 9 (1.30%) Legal
13 7 (1.01%) Back Office
13 7 (1.01%) Publishing
14 6 (0.87%) Law
15 5 (0.72%) Marketing
15 5 (0.72%) Telecoms
16 4 (0.58%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 156 (22.61%) Developer
2 115 (16.67%) Senior
3 91 (13.19%) Tester
4 54 (7.83%) Test Engineer
5 52 (7.54%) Lead
6 48 (6.96%) Analyst
7 46 (6.67%) Automation Tester
8 35 (5.07%) QA Engineer
9 34 (4.93%) Software Engineer
9 34 (4.93%) Test Analyst
10 33 (4.78%) Java Developer
11 31 (4.49%) Test Automation Engineer
12 27 (3.91%) Automation Engineer
12 27 (3.91%) Senior Developer
13 26 (3.77%) Consultant
14 22 (3.19%) Data Engineer
14 22 (3.19%) Python Developer
15 21 (3.04%) Architect
15 21 (3.04%) Test Leader
16 17 (2.46%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (11.59%) Playwright
2 79 (11.45%) React
3 61 (8.84%) REST
4 60 (8.70%) .NET
4 60 (8.70%) Node.js
5 52 (7.54%) RESTful
6 48 (6.96%) Kafka
7 37 (5.36%) Spring
8 32 (4.64%) pytest
8 32 (4.64%) Spring Boot
9 31 (4.49%) HTML
10 30 (4.35%) CSS
10 30 (4.35%) JSON
11 29 (4.20%) Web Services
12 27 (3.91%) XML
13 26 (3.77%) SOAP
14 25 (3.62%) Jest
15 24 (3.48%) AngularJS
16 20 (2.90%) FastAPI
17 17 (2.46%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 69 (10.00%) Cloud Native
2 38 (5.51%) Product Ownership
3 25 (3.62%) Mobile App
4 23 (3.33%) Distributed Systems
5 17 (2.46%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 16 (2.32%) Genomics
7 15 (2.17%) Life Science
7 15 (2.17%) Virtual Team
8 14 (2.03%) Data Structures
8 14 (2.03%) Reinsurance
9 12 (1.74%) Algorithms
9 12 (1.74%) Onboarding
10 11 (1.59%) Equities
10 11 (1.59%) Fixed Income
10 11 (1.59%) Management Information System
11 10 (1.45%) Greenfield Project
11 10 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
11 10 (1.45%) Linux Command Line
11 10 (1.45%) Security Posture
12 9 (1.30%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 55 (7.97%) Linux
2 29 (4.20%) Windows
3 26 (3.77%) Android
4 23 (3.33%) Apple iOS
5 18 (2.61%) Unix
6 6 (0.87%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.29%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.14%) CentOS
8 1 (0.14%) FreeRTOS
8 1 (0.14%) Kali Linux
8 1 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.14%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 350 (50.72%) CI/CD
2 347 (50.29%) Agile
3 271 (39.28%) DevOps
4 152 (22.03%) Problem-Solving
5 110 (15.94%) Software Engineering
6 99 (14.35%) Microservices
7 95 (13.77%) Containerisation
8 93 (13.48%) Test Scripting
9 90 (13.04%) Scrum
10 88 (12.75%) Test Strategy
11 84 (12.17%) Infrastructure as Code
12 83 (12.03%) TDD
13 82 (11.88%) AI
14 73 (10.58%) SDLC
15 72 (10.43%) Continuous Improvement
15 72 (10.43%) Validation
16 68 (9.86%) Software Testing
17 60 (8.70%) BDD
18 59 (8.55%) Machine Learning
19 58 (8.41%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 223 (32.32%) Python
2 151 (21.88%) SQL
3 146 (21.16%) Java
4 109 (15.80%) TypeScript
5 105 (15.22%) JavaScript
6 94 (13.62%) C#
7 30 (4.35%) Bash
8 27 (3.91%) PowerShell
9 21 (3.04%) C++
9 21 (3.04%) Go
10 15 (2.17%) Kotlin
11 13 (1.88%) Bicep
12 8 (1.16%) Perl
13 7 (1.01%) Swift
14 6 (0.87%) PL/SQL
14 6 (0.87%) VB.NET
15 5 (0.72%) Korn
15 5 (0.72%) Ruby
15 5 (0.72%) Shell Script
15 5 (0.72%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 106 (15.36%) Security Cleared
2 94 (13.62%) SC Cleared
3 57 (8.26%) Degree
4 32 (4.64%) ISTQB
5 22 (3.19%) Computer Science Degree
6 15 (2.17%) BPSS Clearance
7 14 (2.03%) Master's Degree
8 10 (1.45%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 9 (1.30%) OSCP
10 7 (1.01%) SANS
11 5 (0.72%) Azure Certification
11 5 (0.72%) GPEN
12 4 (0.58%) AWS Certification
12 4 (0.58%) CEH
12 4 (0.58%) CREST Certified
12 4 (0.58%) DV Cleared
12 4 (0.58%) MCP
12 4 (0.58%) Microsoft Certification
13 3 (0.43%) HNC
13 3 (0.43%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 160 (23.19%) QA
2 52 (7.54%) Accessibility
3 23 (3.33%) Data Quality
4 14 (2.03%) GDPR
5 13 (1.88%) WCAG
6 8 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 8 (1.16%) NIST
7 6 (0.87%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 5 (0.72%) PERC
9 4 (0.58%) NIST 800
9 4 (0.58%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.43%) Def Stans
10 3 (0.43%) EU AI Act
10 3 (0.43%) IEC 61508
10 3 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 3 (0.43%) ITGC
10 3 (0.43%) MiFID
10 3 (0.43%) NCSC
10 3 (0.43%) SLA
11 2 (0.29%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 137 (19.86%) Docker
2 10 (1.45%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
3 4 (0.58%) zsh
4 3 (0.43%) Virtual Servers
5 2 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.14%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.14%) Firmware
6 1 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.14%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 108 (15.65%) Kubernetes
2 79 (11.45%) Terraform
3 31 (4.49%) Ansible
4 16 (2.32%) Grafana
5 12 (1.74%) Prometheus
6 10 (1.45%) HP ALM
7 5 (0.72%) Argo
7 5 (0.72%) Nmap
8 4 (0.58%) Nessus
8 4 (0.58%) Rancher
9 3 (0.43%) Functional Safety
10 2 (0.29%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (0.29%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.29%) SCCM
10 2 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.29%) vRealize
11 1 (0.14%) HP Quality Center
11 1 (0.14%) Kibana
11 1 (0.14%) logstash
11 1 (0.14%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 58 (8.41%) Microsoft
2 47 (6.81%) Oracle
3 43 (6.23%) Google
4 37 (5.36%) Databricks
5 32 (4.64%) Salesforce
6 23 (3.33%) ServiceNow
7 16 (2.32%) SAP
7 16 (2.32%) UiPath
8 15 (2.17%) Splunk
9 10 (1.45%) HP
10 9 (1.30%) MuleSoft
11 8 (1.16%) Solace
12 7 (1.01%) Charles River
12 7 (1.01%) Dynatrace
12 7 (1.01%) webMethods
13 6 (0.87%) Cisco
13 6 (0.87%) F5
13 6 (0.87%) Guidewire
13 6 (0.87%) Murex
13 6 (0.87%) VMware