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

6 months to
4 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 51 49
Rank change year-on-year +3 -2 -5
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 825 562 727
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.49% 4.65% 4.17%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.06% 5.04% 4.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 541 386 505
10th Percentile £350 £353 £361
25th Percentile £413 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -8.70%
75th Percentile £590 £688 £688
90th Percentile £688 £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 £67.90 - £52.25
25th Percentile £77.13 - £52.50
Median hourly rate £95.00 £35.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +171.43% -36.36% -38.89%
75th Percentile £97.50 - £65.75
90th Percentile - - £71.88
England median hourly rate £67.50 £55.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +22.73% -8.33% -15.49%

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 16,309 11,148 15,377
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 88.69% 92.30% 88.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,878 7,454 11,015
10th Percentile £358 £350 £338
25th Percentile £435 £430 £446
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -6.78%
75th Percentile £650 £688 £675
90th Percentile £763 £800 £800
England median daily rate £515 £523 £525
% change year-on-year -1.55% -0.36% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 242 194 318
10th Percentile £18.14 £16.50 £15.50
25th Percentile £25.16 £24.66 £20.00
Median hourly rate £36.75 £32.25 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +13.95% +15.18% -28.59%
75th Percentile £58.98 £49.69 £48.75
90th Percentile £78.73 £63.18 £68.23
England median hourly rate £47.00 £28.53 £37.50
% change year-on-year +64.77% -23.93% +0.54%

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 June 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 4 June 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 4 June 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 +13 109 £550 +10.00% 62
South London -4 17 £513 +13.57% 4
West London -19 13 £413 +3.13% 7
East London +5 12 £450 +18.42% 11
North London - 1 £400 - 3
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 54 (6.55%) Confluence
2 30 (3.64%) Apache Airflow
3 22 (2.67%) Apache Spark
4 12 (1.45%) CMS
5 10 (1.21%) Apache
6 9 (1.09%) Appian
7 6 (0.73%) Camunda
8 4 (0.48%) nginx
8 4 (0.48%) Tomcat
9 3 (0.36%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.36%) Kentico
9 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
9 3 (0.36%) WebLogic
10 2 (0.24%) SAS
11 1 (0.12%) Ethereum
11 1 (0.12%) Palantir Foundry
11 1 (0.12%) SharePoint
11 1 (0.12%) Solana
Applications
1 19 (2.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (1.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.73%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.61%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.48%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.12%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 19 (2.30%) Aladdin
2 13 (1.58%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.97%) Findur
4 6 (0.73%) Oracle EBS
4 6 (0.73%) Shopify
5 5 (0.61%) BambooHR
5 5 (0.61%) Loan IQ
6 3 (0.36%) Distributed Ledger
6 3 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.24%) iTrent
7 2 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.24%) Summit
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%) Oracle EBS R12
8 1 (0.12%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 243 (29.45%) Azure
2 225 (27.27%) AWS
3 139 (16.85%) GitHub
4 123 (14.91%) Azure DevOps
5 78 (9.45%) GitHub Actions
6 68 (8.24%) Serverless
7 50 (6.06%) Power Platform
8 49 (5.94%) AWS Lambda
9 48 (5.82%) GCP
10 46 (5.58%) Amazon S3
11 34 (4.12%) Snowflake
12 32 (3.88%) dbt
13 31 (3.76%) Azure Data Factory
14 27 (3.27%) Amazon ECS
15 25 (3.03%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 22 (2.67%) Dynamics 365
17 20 (2.42%) Azure AKS
18 18 (2.18%) Power Automate
19 17 (2.06%) Amazon SQS
19 17 (2.06%) Apigee
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.97%) HTTP
2 4 (0.48%) FTP
3 3 (0.36%) OpenLDAP
3 3 (0.36%) SMS
3 3 (0.36%) SSL
3 3 (0.36%) WAN
4 2 (0.24%) Ethernet
4 2 (0.24%) Firewall
4 2 (0.24%) Multicast
4 2 (0.24%) NaaS
5 1 (0.12%) 5G
5 1 (0.12%) Cisco IOS
5 1 (0.12%) Cisco Nexus
5 1 (0.12%) DSL
5 1 (0.12%) MPLS
5 1 (0.12%) Network Security
5 1 (0.12%) SD-WAN
5 1 (0.12%) SNMP
5 1 (0.12%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.12%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (7.03%) SQL Server
2 56 (6.79%) PostgreSQL
3 40 (4.85%) NoSQL
4 39 (4.73%) Data Warehouse
5 37 (4.48%) Power BI
6 34 (4.12%) MongoDB
7 28 (3.39%) DynamoDB
7 28 (3.39%) Relational Database
8 23 (2.79%) Tableau
9 22 (2.67%) Amazon Athena
10 20 (2.42%) Big Data
11 19 (2.30%) Amazon Redshift
12 18 (2.18%) Data Lake
13 17 (2.06%) BigQuery
14 16 (1.94%) Amazon RDS
15 14 (1.70%) Metadata
16 13 (1.58%) Star Schema
17 11 (1.33%) Amazon Aurora
18 10 (1.21%) Redis
19 9 (1.09%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 127 (15.39%) JIRA
2 121 (14.67%) Git
3 102 (12.36%) Selenium
4 101 (12.24%) Jenkins
5 86 (10.42%) GitLab
6 50 (6.06%) Cucumber
6 50 (6.06%) Cypress.io
7 47 (5.70%) Postman
8 39 (4.73%) REST Assured
9 36 (4.36%) JMeter
10 30 (3.64%) JUnit
11 19 (2.30%) SpecFlow
12 17 (2.06%) MLflow
13 16 (1.94%) Mockito
14 14 (1.70%) WebDriver
15 13 (1.58%) Appium
15 13 (1.58%) Gradle
16 12 (1.45%) Maven
16 12 (1.45%) Zephyr
17 10 (1.21%) Robot Framework
General
1 229 (27.76%) Finance
2 215 (26.06%) Social Skills
3 111 (13.45%) Banking
4 108 (13.09%) Public Sector
5 106 (12.85%) Analytical Skills
6 27 (3.27%) Front Office
6 27 (3.27%) Investment Banking
7 22 (2.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 16 (1.94%) Legal
9 14 (1.70%) Financial Institution
10 13 (1.58%) Documentation Skills
11 11 (1.33%) Influencing Skills
12 9 (1.09%) Back Office
12 9 (1.09%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (1.09%) Telecoms
13 8 (0.97%) Retail
14 7 (0.85%) Billing
14 7 (0.85%) Marketing
14 7 (0.85%) Presentation Skills
14 7 (0.85%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 178 (21.58%) Developer
2 148 (17.94%) Senior
3 87 (10.55%) Lead
4 86 (10.42%) Tester
5 54 (6.55%) Test Engineer
6 51 (6.18%) Analyst
7 49 (5.94%) QA Engineer
8 44 (5.33%) Automation Tester
8 44 (5.33%) Data Engineer
9 43 (5.21%) Architect
10 41 (4.97%) DevOps Engineer
11 37 (4.48%) Automation Engineer
11 37 (4.48%) Senior Developer
12 31 (3.76%) Java Developer
13 29 (3.52%) Test Automation Engineer
14 28 (3.39%) Software Engineer
15 27 (3.27%) Test Leader
16 26 (3.15%) Test Manager
17 25 (3.03%) Full-Stack Developer
17 25 (3.03%) QA Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (11.88%) Playwright
2 94 (11.39%) REST
3 90 (10.91%) React
4 78 (9.45%) RESTful
5 66 (8.00%) Kafka
6 65 (7.88%) .NET
7 53 (6.42%) Node.js
8 46 (5.58%) Spring
9 43 (5.21%) Spring Boot
10 38 (4.61%) CSS
10 38 (4.61%) HTML
11 29 (3.52%) OAuth
12 25 (3.03%) pytest
12 25 (3.03%) Web Services
13 20 (2.42%) AngularJS
13 20 (2.42%) Swagger
14 18 (2.18%) .NET Core
14 18 (2.18%) Gherkin
14 18 (2.18%) Pandas
14 18 (2.18%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 106 (12.85%) Cloud Native
2 54 (6.55%) Distributed Systems
3 48 (5.82%) Product Ownership
4 38 (4.61%) Legacy Systems
5 29 (3.52%) Data Protection Act
6 21 (2.55%) Algorithms
7 19 (2.30%) Fixed Income
7 19 (2.30%) Greenfield Project
8 18 (2.18%) Onboarding
8 18 (2.18%) Virtual Team
9 17 (2.06%) Self-Motivation
10 16 (1.94%) Management Information System
11 14 (1.70%) Data Structures
11 14 (1.70%) Equities
11 14 (1.70%) Mobile App
12 13 (1.58%) NHS
13 10 (1.21%) AI Agents
13 10 (1.21%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 10 (1.21%) Low-Code
14 9 (1.09%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 39 (4.73%) Linux
2 25 (3.03%) Windows
3 21 (2.55%) Android
4 16 (1.94%) Apple iOS
5 14 (1.70%) Unix
6 4 (0.48%) Solaris
6 4 (0.48%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.48%) Windows Server 2008
7 3 (0.36%) Mac OS
7 3 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
7 3 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 461 (55.88%) CI/CD
2 325 (39.39%) Agile
3 284 (34.42%) DevOps
4 138 (16.73%) AI
5 135 (16.36%) Problem-Solving
6 132 (16.00%) Infrastructure as Code
7 128 (15.52%) Validation
8 125 (15.15%) Observability
9 124 (15.03%) Test Strategy
10 121 (14.67%) Continuous Improvement
11 114 (13.82%) Containerisation
12 110 (13.33%) Microservices
13 105 (12.73%) Regression Testing
14 100 (12.12%) User Acceptance Testing
15 99 (12.00%) Software Engineering
16 95 (11.52%) Data Modelling
17 91 (11.03%) Analytics
18 89 (10.79%) Software Testing
19 83 (10.06%) Test Scripting
20 81 (9.82%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 259 (31.39%) Python
2 217 (26.30%) SQL
3 171 (20.73%) Java
4 121 (14.67%) TypeScript
5 120 (14.55%) JavaScript
6 100 (12.12%) C#
7 34 (4.12%) PowerShell
8 21 (2.55%) Bash
9 19 (2.30%) Apex Code
10 18 (2.18%) Kotlin
11 17 (2.06%) PL/SQL
12 15 (1.82%) Ruby
13 14 (1.70%) Bicep
14 13 (1.58%) Scala
15 10 (1.21%) C++
15 10 (1.21%) Go
16 7 (0.85%) T-SQL
17 6 (0.73%) Groovy
17 6 (0.73%) Rust
17 6 (0.73%) Swift
Qualifications
1 182 (22.06%) Security Cleared
2 158 (19.15%) SC Cleared
3 41 (4.97%) Degree
4 29 (3.52%) ISTQB
5 26 (3.15%) BPSS Clearance
6 22 (2.67%) Computer Science Degree
7 16 (1.94%) DV Cleared
8 9 (1.09%) DBS Check
8 9 (1.09%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.85%) AWS Certification
10 6 (0.73%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 4 (0.48%) Azure Certification
12 3 (0.36%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 3 (0.36%) TOGAF Certification
13 2 (0.24%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 2 (0.24%) CISSP
13 2 (0.24%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 2 (0.24%) PhD
14 1 (0.12%) Cisco Certification
14 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 198 (24.00%) QA
2 65 (7.88%) Data Quality
3 46 (5.58%) Accessibility
4 26 (3.15%) GDPR
5 19 (2.30%) WCAG
6 9 (1.09%) NIST
7 6 (0.73%) ISO 20022
7 6 (0.73%) SLA
8 5 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 4 (0.48%) HL7
9 4 (0.48%) NCSC
9 4 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 3 (0.36%) MiFID
10 3 (0.36%) Software Quality Assurance
11 2 (0.24%) EU AI Act
11 2 (0.24%) GRC
12 1 (0.12%) EMIR
12 1 (0.12%) HIPAA
12 1 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 136 (16.48%) Docker
2 6 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.61%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.48%) Oracle RAC
4 4 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.36%) Active Directory
5 3 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.12%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.12%) Squid
6 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 137 (16.61%) Kubernetes
2 103 (12.48%) Terraform
3 38 (4.61%) Grafana
4 35 (4.24%) Prometheus
5 23 (2.79%) Ansible
6 8 (0.97%) HP ALM
6 8 (0.97%) Kibana
6 8 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.48%) Oracle RMAN
7 4 (0.48%) Puppet
8 3 (0.36%) Control-M
8 3 (0.36%) Kustomize
9 2 (0.24%) Amdocs OSS
9 2 (0.24%) Packer
9 2 (0.24%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.12%) HP Quality Center
10 1 (0.12%) Istio
10 1 (0.12%) linkerd
Vendors
1 81 (9.82%) Microsoft
2 55 (6.67%) Salesforce
3 54 (6.55%) Oracle
4 38 (4.61%) Databricks
5 21 (2.55%) ServiceNow
6 18 (2.18%) UiPath
7 16 (1.94%) Google
8 14 (1.70%) Splunk
9 12 (1.45%) OpenAI
10 11 (1.33%) IBM
11 10 (1.21%) MuleSoft
12 9 (1.09%) Dynatrace
12 9 (1.09%) Guidewire
13 8 (0.97%) Apple
13 8 (0.97%) Automation Anywhere
13 8 (0.97%) HP
13 8 (0.97%) OpenLink
13 8 (0.97%) SAP
14 7 (0.85%) Informatica
15 6 (0.73%) Red Hat