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 8 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 45 53
Rank change year-on-year -1 +8 -7
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 755 641 727
As % of all contract jobs in London 5.06% 4.70% 3.89%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.58% 5.19% 4.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 497 416 545
10th Percentile £325 £341 £376
25th Percentile £400 £412 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £511 £563
Median % change year-on-year -2.20% -9.11% -6.25%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £663
90th Percentile £688 £750 £750
England median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 5
10th Percentile £55.99 - -
25th Percentile £58.15 - £52.50
Median hourly rate £63.50 - £55.00
75th Percentile £65.88 - £65.00
90th Percentile £66.25 - £65.60
England median hourly rate £63.00 £77.19 £71.87
% change year-on-year -18.38% +7.40% +22.85%

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 13,533 12,355 16,544
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 90.77% 90.53% 88.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,013 7,845 11,870
10th Percentile £350 £350 £338
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £788
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 208 153 346
10th Percentile £18.25 £20.80 £16.01
25th Percentile £24.90 £25.00 £19.28
Median hourly rate £34.00 £37.00 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.11% +23.33% -14.29%
75th Percentile £56.13 £55.25 £51.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £79.75 £72.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -28.14% - -

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 8 February 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 8 February 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 -8 94 £525 - 69
West London -9 21 £442 +27.93% 14
South London -10 14 £513 +7.89% 3
East London -2 9 £450 +5.88% 12
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 47 (6.23%) Confluence
2 15 (1.99%) Apache Spark
3 8 (1.06%) Apache Airflow
4 7 (0.93%) Appian
5 5 (0.66%) Apache
5 5 (0.66%) SharePoint
6 4 (0.53%) Camunda
6 4 (0.53%) CMS
7 3 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 2 (0.26%) Magnolia
8 2 (0.26%) Sitecore CMS
8 2 (0.26%) WordPress
9 1 (0.13%) Anypoint
9 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
9 1 (0.13%) nginx
9 1 (0.13%) Oracle Application Server
9 1 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 17 (2.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.79%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.66%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.53%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.13%) Trello
Business Applications
1 19 (2.52%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.53%) Loan IQ
2 4 (0.53%) SAP HR
3 3 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.26%) Eagle PACE
4 2 (0.26%) iTrent
4 2 (0.26%) Markit EDM
4 2 (0.26%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.26%) Shopify
4 2 (0.26%) Summit
5 1 (0.13%) Algo Collateral
5 1 (0.13%) Bloomberg TOMS
5 1 (0.13%) CODA-Financials
5 1 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.13%) IntelliMatch
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.13%) PORTIA
5 1 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.13%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 232 (30.73%) Azure
2 168 (22.25%) AWS
3 105 (13.91%) GitHub
4 103 (13.64%) Azure DevOps
5 77 (10.20%) GCP
6 53 (7.02%) Serverless
7 48 (6.36%) GitHub Actions
8 28 (3.71%) Snowflake
9 26 (3.44%) Azure Data Factory
9 26 (3.44%) SaaS
10 25 (3.31%) AWS Lambda
11 23 (3.05%) Azure AKS
11 23 (3.05%) Power Platform
12 22 (2.91%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 21 (2.78%) Amazon S3
14 20 (2.65%) Dynamics 365
15 18 (2.38%) Amazon EKS
16 17 (2.25%) Azure Functions
17 16 (2.12%) Azure Monitor
18 15 (1.99%) Apigee
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.46%) Firewall
1 11 (1.46%) HTTP
2 10 (1.32%) HTTPS
2 10 (1.32%) SSL
3 8 (1.06%) VPN
4 7 (0.93%) DNS
4 7 (0.93%) SD-WAN
4 7 (0.93%) TCP/IP
4 7 (0.93%) WAN
5 5 (0.66%) Cisco IPT
5 5 (0.66%) Network Security
6 4 (0.53%) FTP
6 4 (0.53%) Multicast
7 3 (0.40%) DHCP
7 3 (0.40%) Ethernet
7 3 (0.40%) WebEx
7 3 (0.40%) Wireshark
8 2 (0.26%) VLAN
9 1 (0.13%) Cisco IOS
9 1 (0.13%) Spanning Tree
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (6.23%) PostgreSQL
2 43 (5.70%) SQL Server
3 37 (4.90%) NoSQL
4 24 (3.18%) Relational Database
5 22 (2.91%) MongoDB
6 19 (2.52%) BigQuery
7 17 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
8 12 (1.59%) Power BI
8 12 (1.59%) Tableau
9 10 (1.32%) Big Data
9 10 (1.32%) Data Lake
9 10 (1.32%) Redis
10 9 (1.19%) Amazon Aurora
11 8 (1.06%) Amazon RDS
11 8 (1.06%) Azure SQL Database
11 8 (1.06%) Pinecone
11 8 (1.06%) Star Schema
12 7 (0.93%) Metadata
12 7 (0.93%) Oracle Database
13 6 (0.79%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 125 (16.56%) JIRA
2 120 (15.89%) Git
3 99 (13.11%) Selenium
4 98 (12.98%) Jenkins
5 78 (10.33%) GitLab
6 56 (7.42%) Postman
7 52 (6.89%) Cucumber
8 48 (6.36%) Cypress.io
9 31 (4.11%) JMeter
10 29 (3.84%) REST Assured
11 25 (3.31%) JUnit
12 23 (3.05%) SpecFlow
13 18 (2.38%) Bitbucket
14 17 (2.25%) MLflow
15 16 (2.12%) TestRail
16 14 (1.85%) Appium
16 14 (1.85%) WebDriver
17 11 (1.46%) Gradle
18 10 (1.32%) Maven
19 9 (1.19%) Zephyr
General
1 191 (25.30%) Social Skills
2 168 (22.25%) Finance
3 88 (11.66%) Banking
4 79 (10.46%) Analytical Skills
4 79 (10.46%) Public Sector
5 23 (3.05%) Investment Banking
6 22 (2.91%) Front Office
7 17 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 17 (2.25%) Pharmaceutical
8 12 (1.59%) Documentation Skills
9 9 (1.19%) Legal
10 8 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
11 7 (0.93%) Financial Institution
12 5 (0.66%) Marketing
12 5 (0.66%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (0.66%) Publishing
12 5 (0.66%) Retail
12 5 (0.66%) Telecoms
13 4 (0.53%) International Banking
13 4 (0.53%) Military
Job Titles
1 180 (23.84%) Developer
2 140 (18.54%) Senior
3 92 (12.19%) Tester
4 72 (9.54%) Lead
5 55 (7.28%) Automation Tester
6 54 (7.15%) Test Engineer
7 51 (6.75%) Analyst
8 40 (5.30%) QA Engineer
9 37 (4.90%) Senior Developer
10 34 (4.50%) Java Developer
11 33 (4.37%) Automation Engineer
12 32 (4.24%) Test Analyst
13 30 (3.97%) Software Engineer
14 29 (3.84%) Architect
14 29 (3.84%) Test Automation Engineer
15 27 (3.58%) Python Developer
16 24 (3.18%) Consultant
16 24 (3.18%) Data Engineer
16 24 (3.18%) DevOps Engineer
17 23 (3.05%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 105 (13.91%) Playwright
2 81 (10.73%) REST
3 80 (10.60%) React
4 71 (9.40%) Node.js
5 67 (8.87%) .NET
6 62 (8.21%) RESTful
7 57 (7.55%) Kafka
8 39 (5.17%) Spring
8 39 (5.17%) Web Services
9 38 (5.03%) Spring Boot
10 36 (4.77%) pytest
11 29 (3.84%) HTML
12 27 (3.58%) JSON
13 25 (3.31%) CSS
13 25 (3.31%) FastAPI
13 25 (3.31%) OAuth
14 24 (3.18%) XML
15 23 (3.05%) GraphQL
15 23 (3.05%) SOAP
16 21 (2.78%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 87 (11.52%) Cloud Native
2 44 (5.83%) Product Ownership
3 33 (4.37%) Distributed Systems
4 26 (3.44%) Legacy Systems
5 22 (2.91%) Algorithms
6 21 (2.78%) Mobile App
7 20 (2.65%) Data Structures
8 18 (2.38%) Equities
9 17 (2.25%) Greenfield Project
9 17 (2.25%) Virtual Team
10 15 (1.99%) Data Protection Act
11 14 (1.85%) Genomics
11 14 (1.85%) Life Science
12 13 (1.72%) Management Information System
12 13 (1.72%) Onboarding
13 11 (1.46%) Derivative
13 11 (1.46%) Fixed Income
13 11 (1.46%) Security Posture
14 9 (1.19%) Public Cloud
15 8 (1.06%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 52 (6.89%) Linux
2 28 (3.71%) Windows
3 22 (2.91%) Android
3 22 (2.91%) Apple iOS
4 9 (1.19%) Unix
5 6 (0.79%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.40%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.13%) FreeRTOS
7 1 (0.13%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.13%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 392 (51.92%) CI/CD
2 352 (46.62%) Agile
3 283 (37.48%) DevOps
4 164 (21.72%) Problem-Solving
5 117 (15.50%) AI
6 105 (13.91%) Containerisation
6 105 (13.91%) Test Scripting
7 98 (12.98%) Software Engineering
8 97 (12.85%) Microservices
8 97 (12.85%) Test Strategy
9 92 (12.19%) Observability
10 91 (12.05%) Validation
11 88 (11.66%) Software Testing
12 87 (11.52%) Infrastructure as Code
13 86 (11.39%) Continuous Improvement
14 78 (10.33%) API Testing
15 77 (10.20%) Scrum
15 77 (10.20%) TDD
16 70 (9.27%) Regression Testing
17 69 (9.14%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 251 (33.25%) Python
2 178 (23.58%) SQL
3 147 (19.47%) Java
4 141 (18.68%) TypeScript
5 129 (17.09%) JavaScript
6 97 (12.85%) C#
7 21 (2.78%) Bash
7 21 (2.78%) PowerShell
8 18 (2.38%) C++
9 17 (2.25%) Go
10 14 (1.85%) Kotlin
11 13 (1.72%) Bicep
12 10 (1.32%) Apex Code
12 10 (1.32%) PL/SQL
13 9 (1.19%) Swift
14 7 (0.93%) Ruby
14 7 (0.93%) Rust
14 7 (0.93%) T-SQL
15 5 (0.66%) Groovy
15 5 (0.66%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 146 (19.34%) Security Cleared
2 125 (16.56%) SC Cleared
3 55 (7.28%) Degree
4 38 (5.03%) ISTQB
5 23 (3.05%) Computer Science Degree
6 21 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
7 18 (2.38%) Master's Degree
8 12 (1.59%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 9 (1.19%) OSCP
10 7 (0.93%) Microsoft Certification
11 6 (0.79%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 6 (0.79%) SANS
12 5 (0.66%) GPEN
12 5 (0.66%) ISEB
13 4 (0.53%) Azure Certification
13 4 (0.53%) CEH
13 4 (0.53%) DBS Check
13 4 (0.53%) DV Cleared
14 3 (0.40%) CREST Certified
14 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 164 (21.72%) QA
2 44 (5.83%) Accessibility
3 33 (4.37%) Data Quality
4 19 (2.52%) GDPR
5 12 (1.59%) NIST
5 12 (1.59%) WCAG
6 8 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 6 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (0.79%) NCSC
8 5 (0.66%) PERC
9 4 (0.53%) ISO 20022
9 4 (0.53%) MiFID
9 4 (0.53%) SLA
9 4 (0.53%) Software Quality Assurance
10 3 (0.40%) EU AI Act
10 3 (0.40%) GMP
10 3 (0.40%) NIST 800
10 3 (0.40%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.26%) HL7
12 1 (0.13%) HIPAA
System Software
1 159 (21.06%) Docker
2 10 (1.32%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
4 2 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.13%) Embedded Firmware
5 1 (0.13%) Firmware
5 1 (0.13%) Squid
5 1 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.13%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.13%) zsh
Systems Management
1 128 (16.95%) Kubernetes
2 76 (10.07%) Terraform
3 25 (3.31%) Ansible
3 25 (3.31%) Grafana
4 22 (2.91%) Prometheus
5 10 (1.32%) HP ALM
6 5 (0.66%) Nmap
7 4 (0.53%) Nessus
7 4 (0.53%) Rancher
7 4 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.40%) Kibana
8 3 (0.40%) Progress Chef
8 3 (0.40%) Puppet
9 2 (0.26%) Argo
9 2 (0.26%) HP Quality Center
9 2 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (0.26%) SCCM
9 2 (0.26%) vRealize
10 1 (0.13%) CloudHub
10 1 (0.13%) Istio
Vendors
1 68 (9.01%) Microsoft
2 49 (6.49%) Oracle
3 40 (5.30%) Databricks
4 38 (5.03%) Salesforce
5 35 (4.64%) Google
6 25 (3.31%) ServiceNow
7 17 (2.25%) SAP
8 16 (2.12%) Splunk
9 15 (1.99%) OpenAI
10 13 (1.72%) MuleSoft
11 11 (1.46%) Guidewire
12 10 (1.32%) Apple
12 10 (1.32%) HP
12 10 (1.32%) UiPath
13 8 (1.06%) Dynatrace
14 7 (0.93%) Automation Anywhere
14 7 (0.93%) webMethods
15 6 (0.79%) Charles River
15 6 (0.79%) Cisco
15 6 (0.79%) VMware