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

6 months to
4 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 47 50
Rank change year-on-year 0 +3 -4
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 817 614 727
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.62% 4.89% 4.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.23% 5.30% 4.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 528 420 501
10th Percentile £331 £341 £363
25th Percentile £410 £407 £444
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £496 £514 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.45% -6.59% -4.35%
75th Percentile £588 £675 £688
90th Percentile £691 £800 £775
England median daily rate £475 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 10
10th Percentile £55.99 - £52.25
25th Percentile £58.15 - £52.50
Median hourly rate £63.50 £35.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +81.43% -36.36% -38.89%
75th Percentile £65.88 - £65.75
90th Percentile £66.25 - £71.88
England median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £61.25
% change year-on-year +18.18% -10.20% -9.59%

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 15,622 11,589 15,691
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 88.42% 92.20% 88.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,456 7,858 11,248
10th Percentile £356 £350 £338
25th Percentile £430 £438 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -6.78%
75th Percentile £650 £688 £675
90th Percentile £760 £813 £800
England median daily rate £510 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.86% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 253 172 322
10th Percentile £18.75 £16.50 £16.00
25th Percentile £23.16 £22.73 £20.00
Median hourly rate £35.50 £34.25 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year +3.65% +20.18% -26.92%
75th Percentile £57.50 £50.56 £47.34
90th Percentile £73.75 £63.75 £65.68
England median hourly rate £45.46 £30.00 £36.05
% change year-on-year +51.53% -16.77% -2.97%

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 4 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
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 4 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 +3 106 £525 +3.96% 60
West London -17 21 £450 +14.80% 5
South London -5 19 £513 +24.24% 4
East London +4 10 £445 +17.11% 7
North London - 1 £400 - 2
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 50 (6.12%) Confluence
2 22 (2.69%) Apache Airflow
3 20 (2.45%) Apache Spark
4 8 (0.98%) Appian
5 7 (0.86%) Apache
6 5 (0.61%) Camunda
7 4 (0.49%) nginx
7 4 (0.49%) Tomcat
8 3 (0.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.37%) CMS
8 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.37%) WebLogic
9 2 (0.24%) SharePoint
9 2 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
10 1 (0.12%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.12%) Ethereum
10 1 (0.12%) SAS
10 1 (0.12%) Solana
Applications
1 16 (1.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.61%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.49%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.12%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 19 (2.33%) Aladdin
2 7 (0.86%) Findur
2 7 (0.86%) Shopify
3 6 (0.73%) Loan IQ
4 5 (0.61%) BambooHR
4 5 (0.61%) Oracle EBS
5 4 (0.49%) Dynamics CRM
6 3 (0.37%) Distributed Ledger
7 2 (0.24%) iTrent
7 2 (0.24%) Summit
8 1 (0.12%) Algo Collateral
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%) PORTIA
Cloud Services
1 250 (30.60%) Azure
2 209 (25.58%) AWS
3 133 (16.28%) GitHub
4 124 (15.18%) Azure DevOps
5 68 (8.32%) GitHub Actions
6 59 (7.22%) Serverless
7 52 (6.36%) GCP
8 37 (4.53%) Amazon S3
9 36 (4.41%) AWS Lambda
9 36 (4.41%) Power Platform
10 32 (3.92%) Snowflake
11 29 (3.55%) Azure AKS
12 28 (3.43%) Azure Data Factory
13 26 (3.18%) Amazon ECS
14 21 (2.57%) dbt
15 19 (2.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 18 (2.20%) Apigee
16 18 (2.20%) AWS CloudFormation
16 18 (2.20%) Azure Monitor
16 18 (2.20%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 10 (1.22%) HTTP
2 6 (0.73%) FTP
3 4 (0.49%) Ethernet
3 4 (0.49%) Firewall
3 4 (0.49%) SSL
3 4 (0.49%) WAN
3 4 (0.49%) WebEx
4 3 (0.37%) Multicast
5 2 (0.24%) Cisco IOS
5 2 (0.24%) Cisco IPT
5 2 (0.24%) DSL
5 2 (0.24%) HTTPS
5 2 (0.24%) NaaS
5 2 (0.24%) OpenLDAP
5 2 (0.24%) SD-WAN
5 2 (0.24%) SNMP
5 2 (0.24%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.12%) NGFW
6 1 (0.12%) SSH
6 1 (0.12%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (6.73%) SQL Server
2 49 (6.00%) PostgreSQL
3 44 (5.39%) NoSQL
4 33 (4.04%) MongoDB
5 29 (3.55%) Data Warehouse
6 26 (3.18%) Power BI
6 26 (3.18%) Relational Database
7 21 (2.57%) DynamoDB
7 21 (2.57%) Tableau
8 19 (2.33%) Big Data
8 19 (2.33%) BigQuery
9 17 (2.08%) Amazon Athena
10 14 (1.71%) Amazon Redshift
10 14 (1.71%) Data Lake
11 13 (1.59%) Metadata
12 11 (1.35%) Amazon Aurora
13 10 (1.22%) Amazon RDS
13 10 (1.22%) Oracle Database
13 10 (1.22%) Redis
13 10 (1.22%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 140 (17.14%) JIRA
2 132 (16.16%) Git
3 112 (13.71%) Selenium
4 103 (12.61%) Jenkins
5 79 (9.67%) GitLab
6 54 (6.61%) Cucumber
7 52 (6.36%) Cypress.io
8 50 (6.12%) Postman
9 34 (4.16%) REST Assured
10 28 (3.43%) JMeter
10 28 (3.43%) JUnit
11 27 (3.30%) SpecFlow
12 20 (2.45%) MLflow
13 16 (1.96%) Appium
14 15 (1.84%) WebDriver
15 13 (1.59%) Maven
15 13 (1.59%) TestRail
15 13 (1.59%) Zephyr
16 12 (1.47%) Mockito
17 11 (1.35%) SonarQube
General
1 216 (26.44%) Finance
1 216 (26.44%) Social Skills
2 107 (13.10%) Public Sector
3 105 (12.85%) Banking
4 103 (12.61%) Analytical Skills
5 25 (3.06%) Front Office
5 25 (3.06%) Investment Banking
6 18 (2.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 16 (1.96%) Legal
8 14 (1.71%) Documentation Skills
9 12 (1.47%) Telecoms
10 11 (1.35%) Influencing Skills
11 10 (1.22%) Financial Institution
11 10 (1.22%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
13 8 (0.98%) Back Office
14 7 (0.86%) Billing
14 7 (0.86%) Publishing
15 6 (0.73%) Pharmaceutical
15 6 (0.73%) Retail
Job Titles
1 179 (21.91%) Developer
2 152 (18.60%) Senior
3 95 (11.63%) Tester
4 84 (10.28%) Lead
5 59 (7.22%) Test Engineer
6 54 (6.61%) QA Engineer
7 53 (6.49%) Automation Tester
8 49 (6.00%) Analyst
9 44 (5.39%) Architect
10 43 (5.26%) Senior Developer
11 40 (4.90%) Data Engineer
12 37 (4.53%) DevOps Engineer
13 36 (4.41%) Automation Engineer
14 32 (3.92%) Java Developer
15 30 (3.67%) Test Automation Engineer
16 26 (3.18%) QA Automation Engineer
16 26 (3.18%) Test Manager
17 24 (2.94%) Full-Stack Developer
18 23 (2.82%) Test Analyst
18 23 (2.82%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (13.22%) Playwright
2 92 (11.26%) REST
3 89 (10.89%) React
4 73 (8.94%) RESTful
5 68 (8.32%) Node.js
6 67 (8.20%) .NET
7 65 (7.96%) Kafka
8 46 (5.63%) Spring
9 42 (5.14%) Spring Boot
10 40 (4.90%) HTML
11 38 (4.65%) CSS
12 27 (3.30%) OAuth
13 26 (3.18%) pytest
13 26 (3.18%) Web Services
14 21 (2.57%) AngularJS
14 21 (2.57%) Gherkin
15 19 (2.33%) GraphQL
15 19 (2.33%) JSON
15 19 (2.33%) SOAP
16 18 (2.20%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 96 (11.75%) Cloud Native
2 55 (6.73%) Product Ownership
3 49 (6.00%) Distributed Systems
4 37 (4.53%) Legacy Systems
5 26 (3.18%) Data Protection Act
6 22 (2.69%) Algorithms
7 19 (2.33%) Onboarding
8 18 (2.20%) Greenfield Project
8 18 (2.20%) Management Information System
9 17 (2.08%) Fixed Income
10 16 (1.96%) Data Structures
10 16 (1.96%) Equities
10 16 (1.96%) Mobile App
10 16 (1.96%) Virtual Team
11 15 (1.84%) Self-Motivation
12 11 (1.35%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 10 (1.22%) Derivative
13 10 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
14 9 (1.10%) Low-Code
14 9 (1.10%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 41 (5.02%) Linux
2 31 (3.79%) Windows
3 19 (2.33%) Android
4 16 (1.96%) Apple iOS
5 10 (1.22%) Unix
6 5 (0.61%) Mac OS
6 5 (0.61%) Windows Server
7 4 (0.49%) Solaris
7 4 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
8 3 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.37%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.12%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 452 (55.32%) CI/CD
2 328 (40.15%) Agile
3 298 (36.47%) DevOps
4 159 (19.46%) Problem-Solving
5 131 (16.03%) AI
6 127 (15.54%) Infrastructure as Code
7 123 (15.06%) Containerisation
8 119 (14.57%) Observability
9 115 (14.08%) Validation
10 112 (13.71%) Continuous Improvement
10 112 (13.71%) Microservices
11 111 (13.59%) Regression Testing
12 108 (13.22%) Test Strategy
13 101 (12.36%) User Acceptance Testing
14 98 (12.00%) Test Scripting
15 93 (11.38%) Software Testing
16 89 (10.89%) Software Engineering
17 88 (10.77%) Analytics
18 87 (10.65%) Data Modelling
19 82 (10.04%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 268 (32.80%) Python
2 207 (25.34%) SQL
3 168 (20.56%) Java
4 144 (17.63%) TypeScript
5 134 (16.40%) JavaScript
6 112 (13.71%) C#
7 30 (3.67%) PowerShell
8 20 (2.45%) Bash
9 19 (2.33%) Apex Code
10 16 (1.96%) Ruby
11 15 (1.84%) PL/SQL
12 13 (1.59%) C++
12 13 (1.59%) Kotlin
13 12 (1.47%) Bicep
14 9 (1.10%) Go
14 9 (1.10%) Scala
15 6 (0.73%) Rust
15 6 (0.73%) T-SQL
16 5 (0.61%) Shell Script
17 4 (0.49%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 181 (22.15%) Security Cleared
2 155 (18.97%) SC Cleared
3 46 (5.63%) Degree
4 32 (3.92%) ISTQB
5 27 (3.30%) BPSS Clearance
6 25 (3.06%) Computer Science Degree
7 10 (1.22%) Master's Degree
8 7 (0.86%) DBS Check
8 7 (0.86%) DV Cleared
9 5 (0.61%) Azure Certification
9 5 (0.61%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 4 (0.49%) AWS Certification
11 3 (0.37%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Certification
12 2 (0.24%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (0.24%) Cisco Certification
12 2 (0.24%) ISEB
12 2 (0.24%) OSCP
12 2 (0.24%) PhD
12 2 (0.24%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 203 (24.85%) QA
2 56 (6.85%) Data Quality
3 45 (5.51%) Accessibility
4 22 (2.69%) GDPR
5 19 (2.33%) WCAG
6 7 (0.86%) NIST
7 6 (0.73%) ISO 20022
7 6 (0.73%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 5 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.61%) SLA
9 4 (0.49%) HL7
9 4 (0.49%) NCSC
10 3 (0.37%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 3 (0.37%) MiFID
10 3 (0.37%) Software Quality Assurance
11 2 (0.24%) GRC
11 2 (0.24%) PERC
12 1 (0.12%) EMIR
12 1 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 1 (0.12%) NIST 800
System Software
1 145 (17.75%) Docker
2 6 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.61%) Active Directory
3 5 (0.61%) VMware ESXi
3 5 (0.61%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.49%) Oracle RAC
4 4 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.12%) Embedded Firmware
5 1 (0.12%) Firmware
5 1 (0.12%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.12%) Squid
5 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 134 (16.40%) Kubernetes
2 104 (12.73%) Terraform
3 38 (4.65%) Grafana
4 34 (4.16%) Prometheus
5 18 (2.20%) Ansible
6 11 (1.35%) HP ALM
7 9 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (0.98%) Kibana
9 4 (0.49%) Oracle RMAN
9 4 (0.49%) Puppet
10 2 (0.24%) Amdocs OSS
10 2 (0.24%) Istio
10 2 (0.24%) Kustomize
10 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (0.24%) Packer
10 2 (0.24%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.24%) SCCM
11 1 (0.12%) CloudHub
11 1 (0.12%) linkerd
11 1 (0.12%) Rancher
Vendors
1 79 (9.67%) Microsoft
2 54 (6.61%) Oracle
3 51 (6.24%) Salesforce
4 42 (5.14%) Databricks
5 21 (2.57%) Google
5 21 (2.57%) ServiceNow
6 17 (2.08%) Splunk
7 14 (1.71%) UiPath
8 13 (1.59%) OpenAI
8 13 (1.59%) SAP
9 11 (1.35%) HP
9 11 (1.35%) IBM
9 11 (1.35%) MuleSoft
10 10 (1.22%) Dynatrace
11 9 (1.10%) Guidewire
12 8 (0.98%) Apple
12 8 (0.98%) Automation Anywhere
12 8 (0.98%) Citrix
13 7 (0.86%) OpenLink
13 7 (0.86%) Workday