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

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 56 48
Rank change year-on-year +6 -8 +2
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 888 608 742
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.40% 4.48% 4.57%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.94% 4.85% 5.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 602 415 502
10th Percentile £350 £341 £358
25th Percentile £425 £400 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -7.08%
75th Percentile £600 £675 £675
90th Percentile £709 £783 £775
England median daily rate £475 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 4 5
10th Percentile £52.35 £37.25 £51.00
25th Percentile £67.41 £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 £71.88
90th Percentile - £70.25 -
England median hourly rate £67.86 £50.00 £56.25
% change year-on-year +35.72% -11.11% -13.79%

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 17,959 12,532 14,428
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 89.08% 92.33% 88.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,817 8,377 10,112
10th Percentile £363 £325 £350
25th Percentile £450 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.85% -1.82% -4.35%
75th Percentile £663 £675 £688
90th Percentile £775 £788 £800
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 296 248 200
10th Percentile £17.60 £16.50 £17.05
25th Percentile £19.50 £24.66 £22.00
Median hourly rate £35.50 £29.50 £35.61
Median % change year-on-year +20.34% -17.15% -13.73%
75th Percentile £56.25 £47.81 £54.06
90th Percentile £81.25 £63.08 £71.31
England median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +4.78%

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 11 August 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 11 August 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 11 August 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 +14 119 £550 +15.79% 60
South London -1 20 £535 +7.00% 7
East London +8 9 £545 +36.25% 8
West London -17 7 £525 +32.91% 8
North London -2 1 £400 -
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 61 (6.87%) Confluence
2 38 (4.28%) Apache Airflow
3 26 (2.93%) Apache Spark
4 15 (1.69%) Apache
5 13 (1.46%) CMS
5 13 (1.46%) SharePoint
6 5 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.45%) nginx
7 4 (0.45%) Tomcat
7 4 (0.45%) WebLogic
8 3 (0.34%) Camunda
8 3 (0.34%) Kentico
9 2 (0.23%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.23%) Mule
9 2 (0.23%) SAS
10 1 (0.11%) Apache Solr
10 1 (0.11%) ColdFusion
10 1 (0.11%) Ethereum
10 1 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 1 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 16 (1.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (1.13%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.56%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.45%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.34%) Trello
7 2 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.11%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 15 (1.69%) Aladdin
2 12 (1.35%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.90%) Findur
4 6 (0.68%) Oracle EBS
4 6 (0.68%) Shopify
5 5 (0.56%) BambooHR
6 4 (0.45%) 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%) Loan IQ
8 2 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
9 1 (0.11%) IntelliMatch
9 1 (0.11%) Misys Equation
9 1 (0.11%) Misys Midas
9 1 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
9 1 (0.11%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 315 (35.47%) Azure
2 274 (30.86%) AWS
3 195 (21.96%) GitHub
4 150 (16.89%) Azure DevOps
5 122 (13.74%) GitHub Actions
6 77 (8.67%) Serverless
7 70 (7.88%) GCP
8 69 (7.77%) Power Platform
9 58 (6.53%) AWS Lambda
10 53 (5.97%) Amazon S3
11 48 (5.41%) dbt
12 39 (4.39%) Snowflake
13 33 (3.72%) Amazon ECS
14 32 (3.60%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 28 (3.15%) GitHub Copilot
16 26 (2.93%) Amazon EC2
17 24 (2.70%) Azure AKS
17 24 (2.70%) Azure Data Factory
18 21 (2.36%) Azure Monitor
19 20 (2.25%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.90%) HTTP
2 7 (0.79%) Network Security
3 6 (0.68%) Firewall
3 6 (0.68%) TCP/IP
3 6 (0.68%) WAN
4 5 (0.56%) Wi-Fi
5 4 (0.45%) DHCP
5 4 (0.45%) DNS
5 4 (0.45%) LAN
6 3 (0.34%) BGP
6 3 (0.34%) FTP
6 3 (0.34%) OpenLDAP
6 3 (0.34%) SMS
7 2 (0.23%) Bluetooth
7 2 (0.23%) Multicast
7 2 (0.23%) NaaS
7 2 (0.23%) NX-OS
7 2 (0.23%) SSL
7 2 (0.23%) TACACS
7 2 (0.23%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (6.53%) PostgreSQL
1 58 (6.53%) Power BI
2 55 (6.19%) Data Warehouse
3 49 (5.52%) NoSQL
4 45 (5.07%) SQL Server
5 41 (4.62%) MongoDB
6 30 (3.38%) Relational Database
7 29 (3.27%) DynamoDB
8 24 (2.70%) Data Lake
9 23 (2.59%) Amazon Athena
9 23 (2.59%) Amazon Redshift
10 20 (2.25%) Big Data
11 18 (2.03%) Amazon RDS
11 18 (2.03%) Tableau
12 16 (1.80%) BigQuery
13 14 (1.58%) Metadata
14 12 (1.35%) Redis
15 11 (1.24%) Elasticsearch
15 11 (1.24%) MySQL
16 9 (1.01%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 157 (17.68%) Git
2 143 (16.10%) Jenkins
3 130 (14.64%) JIRA
4 103 (11.60%) GitLab
4 103 (11.60%) Selenium
5 57 (6.42%) Cypress.io
6 47 (5.29%) Cucumber
7 42 (4.73%) JMeter
8 41 (4.62%) JUnit
9 40 (4.50%) Postman
9 40 (4.50%) REST Assured
10 20 (2.25%) Maven
11 19 (2.14%) Appium
11 19 (2.14%) Gradle
12 18 (2.03%) Gatling
13 17 (1.91%) Bitbucket
13 17 (1.91%) Zephyr
14 15 (1.69%) Mockito
15 14 (1.58%) LoadRunner
15 14 (1.58%) SpecFlow
General
1 257 (28.94%) Finance
2 235 (26.46%) Social Skills
3 122 (13.74%) Analytical Skills
3 122 (13.74%) Banking
4 95 (10.70%) Public Sector
5 25 (2.82%) Front Office
6 24 (2.70%) Investment Banking
7 20 (2.25%) Financial Institution
7 20 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 16 (1.80%) Influencing Skills
9 15 (1.69%) Back Office
9 15 (1.69%) Legal
9 15 (1.69%) Telecoms
10 13 (1.46%) Documentation Skills
11 9 (1.01%) Marketing
11 9 (1.01%) Retail
12 7 (0.79%) Law
12 7 (0.79%) Local Government
12 7 (0.79%) Organisational Skills
13 5 (0.56%) Games
Job Titles
1 190 (21.40%) Developer
2 152 (17.12%) Senior
3 95 (10.70%) Lead
4 72 (8.11%) Tester
5 58 (6.53%) Data Engineer
6 57 (6.42%) Test Engineer
7 51 (5.74%) QA Engineer
8 50 (5.63%) DevOps Engineer
9 48 (5.41%) Architect
10 47 (5.29%) Java Developer
11 46 (5.18%) Analyst
12 44 (4.95%) Software Engineer
13 37 (4.17%) Automation Engineer
13 37 (4.17%) Full-Stack Developer
13 37 (4.17%) Senior Developer
14 32 (3.60%) Test Automation Engineer
14 32 (3.60%) Test Leader
15 30 (3.38%) Automation Tester
16 27 (3.04%) Test Manager
17 25 (2.82%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 125 (14.08%) REST
2 110 (12.39%) Playwright
3 99 (11.15%) React
4 94 (10.59%) Kafka
5 91 (10.25%) RESTful
6 69 (7.77%) Spring
7 68 (7.66%) .NET
8 58 (6.53%) Spring Boot
9 54 (6.08%) Node.js
10 50 (5.63%) CSS
11 49 (5.52%) HTML
12 30 (3.38%) PySpark
13 26 (2.93%) AngularJS
13 26 (2.93%) HTML5
14 24 (2.70%) CSS3
15 23 (2.59%) JSON
15 23 (2.59%) OAuth
16 22 (2.48%) Jest
16 22 (2.48%) Redux
17 20 (2.25%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 145 (16.33%) Cloud Native
2 81 (9.12%) Distributed Systems
3 63 (7.09%) Product Ownership
4 30 (3.38%) Onboarding
5 29 (3.27%) Data Protection Act
6 23 (2.59%) AI Agents
6 23 (2.59%) Legacy Systems
6 23 (2.59%) Self-Motivation
7 20 (2.25%) Enterprise Software
8 18 (2.03%) Fixed Income
9 17 (1.91%) Virtual Team
10 13 (1.46%) Algorithms
10 13 (1.46%) Data Structures
10 13 (1.46%) Greenfield Project
10 13 (1.46%) Mobile App
11 12 (1.35%) Management Information System
12 11 (1.24%) Equities
12 11 (1.24%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 9 (1.01%) NHS
13 9 (1.01%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 50 (5.63%) Linux
2 31 (3.49%) Windows
3 30 (3.38%) Unix
4 17 (1.91%) Android
5 16 (1.80%) Apple iOS
6 12 (1.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 8 (0.90%) Windows Server
8 4 (0.45%) Solaris
8 4 (0.45%) Windows Server 2008
9 3 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
9 3 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.11%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.11%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 565 (63.63%) CI/CD
2 374 (42.12%) Agile
3 359 (40.43%) DevOps
4 180 (20.27%) AI
5 175 (19.71%) Infrastructure as Code
6 161 (18.13%) Microservices
7 158 (17.79%) Problem-Solving
8 150 (16.89%) Continuous Improvement
9 146 (16.44%) Software Engineering
9 146 (16.44%) Validation
10 140 (15.77%) Containerisation
11 139 (15.65%) Observability
12 137 (15.43%) Test Strategy
13 108 (12.16%) Regression Testing
14 106 (11.94%) Scrum
14 106 (11.94%) TDD
15 98 (11.04%) Full-Stack Development
16 96 (10.81%) User Acceptance Testing
17 95 (10.70%) Stakeholder Management
18 94 (10.59%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 289 (32.55%) Python
2 227 (25.56%) SQL
3 223 (25.11%) Java
4 135 (15.20%) JavaScript
5 124 (13.96%) TypeScript
6 92 (10.36%) C#
7 43 (4.84%) PowerShell
8 28 (3.15%) Bash
9 23 (2.59%) Kotlin
10 22 (2.48%) Bicep
11 18 (2.03%) Ruby
12 16 (1.80%) Scala
13 14 (1.58%) Apex Code
13 14 (1.58%) PL/SQL
14 12 (1.35%) C++
15 11 (1.24%) Go
16 7 (0.79%) C
16 7 (0.79%) Shell Script
17 6 (0.68%) Perl
17 6 (0.68%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 221 (24.89%) Security Cleared
2 193 (21.73%) SC Cleared
3 55 (6.19%) Degree
4 35 (3.94%) Computer Science Degree
5 23 (2.59%) ISTQB
6 19 (2.14%) DV Cleared
7 18 (2.03%) AWS Certification
7 18 (2.03%) BPSS Clearance
8 10 (1.13%) Azure Certification
9 7 (0.79%) DBS Check
10 6 (0.68%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 6 (0.68%) Master's Degree
11 5 (0.56%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 4 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 4 (0.45%) CISSP
13 3 (0.34%) ISEB
13 3 (0.34%) PhD
13 3 (0.34%) TOGAF Certification
14 2 (0.23%) Cisco Certification
14 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 237 (26.69%) QA
2 73 (8.22%) Data Quality
3 53 (5.97%) Accessibility
4 24 (2.70%) GDPR
5 23 (2.59%) WCAG
6 10 (1.13%) SLA
7 8 (0.90%) ISO 20022
8 7 (0.79%) NIST
9 6 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 3 (0.34%) EU AI Act
10 3 (0.34%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 3 (0.34%) MiFID
10 3 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.34%) Software Quality Assurance
11 2 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.23%) GRC
11 2 (0.23%) HL7
11 2 (0.23%) ISO 9001
11 2 (0.23%) NCSC
12 1 (0.11%) GxP
System Software
1 157 (17.68%) Docker
2 11 (1.24%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (0.68%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.68%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.45%) Oracle RAC
4 4 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.11%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.11%) Firmware
6 1 (0.11%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.11%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 156 (17.57%) Kubernetes
2 140 (15.77%) Terraform
3 48 (5.41%) Grafana
4 41 (4.62%) Prometheus
5 37 (4.17%) Ansible
6 13 (1.46%) Puppet
7 12 (1.35%) Progress Chef
8 8 (0.90%) Kibana
9 7 (0.79%) HP ALM
9 7 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
10 5 (0.56%) Control-M
11 4 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
11 4 (0.45%) Oracle RMAN
11 4 (0.45%) Packer
12 3 (0.34%) Kustomize
13 2 (0.23%) Amdocs OSS
13 2 (0.23%) HP Fortify
13 2 (0.23%) Istio
14 1 (0.11%) HP Quality Center
14 1 (0.11%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 94 (10.59%) Microsoft
2 52 (5.86%) Salesforce
3 50 (5.63%) Oracle
4 39 (4.39%) Databricks
5 27 (3.04%) Google
5 27 (3.04%) ServiceNow
6 21 (2.36%) IBM
7 17 (1.91%) Splunk
8 16 (1.80%) Informatica
9 15 (1.69%) UiPath
10 12 (1.35%) Red Hat
11 11 (1.24%) Dynatrace
11 11 (1.24%) HP
11 11 (1.24%) VMware
12 10 (1.13%) SAP
13 9 (1.01%) OpenAI
14 8 (0.90%) Cisco
14 8 (0.90%) OpenLink
15 7 (0.79%) Charles River
15 7 (0.79%) SaltStack