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

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 56 44
Rank change year-on-year +6 -12 +2
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 928 592 784
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.56% 4.38% 4.82%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.13% 4.74% 5.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 626 396 517
10th Percentile £350 £347 £357
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -7.08%
75th Percentile £602 £650 £645
90th Percentile £712 £775 £763
England median daily rate £475 £500 £520
% change year-on-year -5.00% -3.85% -3.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 4 3
10th Percentile £44.32 £37.25 £53.13
25th Percentile £47.33 £40.63 £57.81
Median hourly rate £72.00 £45.00 £68.75
Median % change year-on-year +60.00% -34.55% -23.61%
75th Percentile £97.50 £55.63 £71.88
90th Percentile - £70.25 -
England median hourly rate £67.50 £57.13 £57.50
% change year-on-year +18.16% -0.65% -23.33%

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 18,096 12,500 14,495
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 88.98% 92.57% 89.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,817 8,259 9,770
10th Percentile £358 £325 £350
25th Percentile £450 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.33% -2.27% -4.35%
75th Percentile £660 £675 £675
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
England median daily rate £525 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 305 257 182
10th Percentile £16.70 £17.00 £17.25
25th Percentile £19.50 £25.00 £23.29
Median hourly rate £35.00 £32.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.38% -8.57% -12.50%
75th Percentile £57.00 £49.50 £55.00
90th Percentile £85.84 £63.75 £71.88
England median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.19% -41.51% +1.18%

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 September 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 September 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 September 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 +14 120 £550 +22.22% 64
South London +2 16 £593 +18.50% 8
East London +5 10 £590 +13.46% 18
West London -19 6 £600 +50.00% 43
North London -1 2 £463 - 1
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 70 (7.54%) Confluence
2 37 (3.99%) Apache Airflow
3 26 (2.80%) Apache Spark
4 23 (2.48%) SharePoint
5 14 (1.51%) Apache
5 14 (1.51%) CMS
6 7 (0.75%) Camunda
6 7 (0.75%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 4 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.32%) Kentico
8 3 (0.32%) nginx
8 3 (0.32%) SAS
8 3 (0.32%) Tomcat
8 3 (0.32%) WebLogic
9 2 (0.22%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.22%) Mule
10 1 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
10 1 (0.11%) Appian
10 1 (0.11%) Ethereum
10 1 (0.11%) Solana
Applications
1 19 (2.05%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.40%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.54%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.32%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.32%) Trello
6 2 (0.22%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.22%) Mingle
7 1 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 13 (1.40%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (1.08%) Aladdin
3 8 (0.86%) Findur
4 7 (0.75%) SAP S/4HANA
5 6 (0.65%) Oracle EBS
6 5 (0.54%) SAP GRC
7 4 (0.43%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.32%) Distributed Ledger
8 3 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
8 3 (0.32%) Shopify
9 2 (0.22%) BambooHR
9 2 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
10 1 (0.11%) FLEXCUBE
10 1 (0.11%) Infor CloudSuite
10 1 (0.11%) Infor LN
10 1 (0.11%) Infor M3
10 1 (0.11%) IntelliMatch
10 1 (0.11%) Misys Equation
10 1 (0.11%) Misys Midas
10 1 (0.11%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 320 (34.48%) Azure
2 282 (30.39%) AWS
3 198 (21.34%) GitHub
4 161 (17.35%) Azure DevOps
5 127 (13.69%) GitHub Actions
6 82 (8.84%) Serverless
7 79 (8.51%) GCP
8 68 (7.33%) Power Platform
9 66 (7.11%) AWS Lambda
10 54 (5.82%) Amazon S3
11 49 (5.28%) dbt
12 39 (4.20%) Snowflake
13 38 (4.09%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 33 (3.56%) Amazon ECS
15 31 (3.34%) GitHub Copilot
16 28 (3.02%) AWS CloudFormation
17 26 (2.80%) Amazon EC2
18 25 (2.69%) Azure Monitor
19 24 (2.59%) Amazon EKS
20 22 (2.37%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 9 (0.97%) HTTP
2 7 (0.75%) DNS
2 7 (0.75%) Network Security
2 7 (0.75%) TCP/IP
2 7 (0.75%) WAN
2 7 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
3 6 (0.65%) BGP
3 6 (0.65%) DHCP
3 6 (0.65%) Firewall
3 6 (0.65%) LAN
4 4 (0.43%) Ethernet VPN
4 4 (0.43%) NX-OS
4 4 (0.43%) TACACS
4 4 (0.43%) VXLAN
5 3 (0.32%) FTP
5 3 (0.32%) OpenLDAP
5 3 (0.32%) SMS
6 2 (0.22%) Bluetooth
6 2 (0.22%) SSH
6 2 (0.22%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (6.57%) PostgreSQL
2 56 (6.03%) Data Warehouse
2 56 (6.03%) Power BI
3 51 (5.50%) NoSQL
4 50 (5.39%) SQL Server
5 39 (4.20%) MongoDB
6 36 (3.88%) Relational Database
7 25 (2.69%) DynamoDB
8 24 (2.59%) Amazon Redshift
9 23 (2.48%) Amazon Athena
10 22 (2.37%) Data Lake
11 21 (2.26%) Amazon RDS
12 19 (2.05%) Big Data
13 16 (1.72%) BigQuery
13 16 (1.72%) Tableau
14 14 (1.51%) Metadata
15 13 (1.40%) MySQL
15 13 (1.40%) Oracle Database
15 13 (1.40%) Redis
16 12 (1.29%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 182 (19.61%) Git
2 165 (17.78%) Jenkins
3 134 (14.44%) JIRA
4 119 (12.82%) Selenium
5 111 (11.96%) GitLab
6 62 (6.68%) Cypress.io
7 54 (5.82%) JMeter
8 51 (5.50%) JUnit
9 48 (5.17%) Postman
10 45 (4.85%) REST Assured
11 44 (4.74%) Cucumber
12 22 (2.37%) Gatling
12 22 (2.37%) Gradle
13 21 (2.26%) Maven
13 21 (2.26%) Mockito
13 21 (2.26%) SonarQube
14 20 (2.16%) LoadRunner
15 18 (1.94%) Appium
16 16 (1.72%) Bitbucket
17 15 (1.62%) WebDriver
General
1 282 (30.39%) Finance
2 250 (26.94%) Social Skills
3 147 (15.84%) Analytical Skills
4 137 (14.76%) Banking
5 89 (9.59%) Public Sector
6 34 (3.66%) Front Office
7 24 (2.59%) Investment Banking
8 21 (2.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 20 (2.16%) Financial Institution
10 15 (1.62%) Back Office
10 15 (1.62%) Telecoms
11 13 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
12 12 (1.29%) Legal
12 12 (1.29%) Marketing
13 11 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
14 10 (1.08%) Law
14 10 (1.08%) Retail
15 8 (0.86%) Local Government
16 5 (0.54%) Publishing
16 5 (0.54%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 213 (22.95%) Developer
2 163 (17.56%) Senior
3 93 (10.02%) Lead
4 67 (7.22%) Tester
5 59 (6.36%) Test Engineer
6 58 (6.25%) Java Developer
7 57 (6.14%) Data Engineer
8 56 (6.03%) DevOps Engineer
9 54 (5.82%) QA Engineer
10 47 (5.06%) Analyst
10 47 (5.06%) Software Engineer
11 46 (4.96%) Architect
11 46 (4.96%) Automation Engineer
12 44 (4.74%) Senior Developer
13 43 (4.63%) Full-Stack Developer
14 36 (3.88%) Test Manager
15 35 (3.77%) Test Automation Engineer
16 33 (3.56%) Test Leader
17 26 (2.80%) Automation Tester
18 25 (2.69%) QA Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 145 (15.63%) Terraform
2 141 (15.19%) REST
3 115 (12.39%) Playwright
4 109 (11.75%) Kafka
5 105 (11.31%) RESTful
6 95 (10.24%) React
7 86 (9.27%) Spring
8 75 (8.08%) Spring Boot
9 72 (7.76%) .NET
10 61 (6.57%) HTML
11 53 (5.71%) CSS
12 49 (5.28%) Node.js
13 35 (3.77%) PySpark
14 32 (3.45%) AngularJS
15 29 (3.13%) Middleware
15 29 (3.13%) XML
16 28 (3.02%) JSON
16 28 (3.02%) SOAP
17 23 (2.48%) HTML5
18 22 (2.37%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 154 (16.59%) Cloud Native
2 90 (9.70%) Distributed Systems
3 77 (8.30%) Product Ownership
4 34 (3.66%) Onboarding
5 32 (3.45%) AI Agents
6 26 (2.80%) Enterprise Software
7 25 (2.69%) Data Protection Act
8 21 (2.26%) Legacy Systems
9 19 (2.05%) Self-Motivation
10 18 (1.94%) Data Structures
10 18 (1.94%) Virtual Team
11 16 (1.72%) Mobile App
12 14 (1.51%) Fixed Income
13 12 (1.29%) Algorithms
14 11 (1.19%) Greenfield Project
14 11 (1.19%) Security Posture
15 10 (1.08%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 10 (1.08%) Private Cloud
16 9 (0.97%) Market Risk
16 9 (0.97%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 62 (6.68%) Linux
2 45 (4.85%) Unix
3 32 (3.45%) Windows
4 19 (2.05%) Android
5 18 (1.94%) Apple iOS
6 14 (1.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 7 (0.75%) Windows Server
8 4 (0.43%) VMS
9 3 (0.32%) Solaris
9 3 (0.32%) Windows Server 2008
10 2 (0.22%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.11%) CentOS
11 1 (0.11%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 590 (63.58%) CI/CD
2 406 (43.75%) Agile
3 375 (40.41%) DevOps
4 200 (21.55%) AI
5 179 (19.29%) Infrastructure as Code
5 179 (19.29%) Problem-Solving
6 177 (19.07%) Microservices
7 170 (18.32%) Software Engineering
8 164 (17.67%) Validation
9 162 (17.46%) Continuous Improvement
10 150 (16.16%) Containerisation
11 149 (16.06%) Test Strategy
12 146 (15.73%) Observability
13 129 (13.90%) Scrum
14 121 (13.04%) TDD
15 117 (12.61%) Stakeholder Management
16 109 (11.75%) Regression Testing
17 107 (11.53%) User Acceptance Testing
18 106 (11.42%) Event-Driven
19 100 (10.78%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 317 (34.16%) Python
2 256 (27.59%) Java
3 251 (27.05%) SQL
4 143 (15.41%) JavaScript
5 125 (13.47%) TypeScript
6 83 (8.94%) C#
7 41 (4.42%) PowerShell
8 38 (4.09%) Bash
9 26 (2.80%) Bicep
10 23 (2.48%) Kotlin
11 16 (1.72%) Ruby
11 16 (1.72%) Scala
12 13 (1.40%) C++
13 12 (1.29%) PL/SQL
14 11 (1.19%) Apex Code
14 11 (1.19%) Go
15 9 (0.97%) C
15 9 (0.97%) Shell Script
15 9 (0.97%) VB.NET
16 8 (0.86%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 250 (26.94%) Security Cleared
2 223 (24.03%) SC Cleared
3 63 (6.79%) Degree
4 38 (4.09%) Computer Science Degree
5 33 (3.56%) ISTQB
6 27 (2.91%) DV Cleared
7 23 (2.48%) AWS Certification
8 19 (2.05%) BPSS Clearance
9 13 (1.40%) Azure Certification
10 9 (0.97%) ISEB
11 8 (0.86%) Master's Degree
12 7 (0.75%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 7 (0.75%) DBS Check
12 7 (0.75%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 6 (0.65%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 4 (0.43%) CISSP
14 4 (0.43%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 3 (0.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 3 (0.32%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 3 (0.32%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 261 (28.13%) QA
2 74 (7.97%) Data Quality
3 48 (5.17%) Accessibility
4 22 (2.37%) GDPR
5 18 (1.94%) WCAG
6 12 (1.29%) ISO 20022
7 11 (1.19%) SLA
8 9 (0.97%) GRC
8 9 (0.97%) NIST
9 8 (0.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 3 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.32%) EU AI Act
10 3 (0.32%) Software Quality Assurance
11 2 (0.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 2 (0.22%) ISO 9001
11 2 (0.22%) MiFID
11 2 (0.22%) NCSC
11 2 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.22%) SOC 2
12 1 (0.11%) GxP
System Software
1 177 (19.07%) Docker
2 11 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
3 7 (0.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.65%) Active Directory
5 3 (0.32%) Oracle RAC
5 3 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.32%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.11%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.11%) Firmware
6 1 (0.11%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 174 (18.75%) Kubernetes
2 54 (5.82%) Grafana
3 45 (4.85%) Prometheus
4 44 (4.74%) Ansible
5 17 (1.83%) Puppet
6 15 (1.62%) Progress Chef
7 10 (1.08%) Control-M
7 10 (1.08%) Kibana
8 7 (0.75%) HP ALM
9 5 (0.54%) HP Fortify
9 5 (0.54%) Single Sign-On
10 4 (0.43%) Microsoft Intune
11 3 (0.32%) Argo
11 3 (0.32%) Kustomize
11 3 (0.32%) Oracle RMAN
11 3 (0.32%) Packer
12 2 (0.22%) Istio
12 2 (0.22%) Rancher
13 1 (0.11%) Amdocs OSS
13 1 (0.11%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 107 (11.53%) Microsoft
2 60 (6.47%) Oracle
3 42 (4.53%) Databricks
3 42 (4.53%) Salesforce
4 35 (3.77%) Google
5 30 (3.23%) ServiceNow
6 28 (3.02%) IBM
7 22 (2.37%) SAP
8 19 (2.05%) Splunk
8 19 (2.05%) UiPath
9 17 (1.83%) Informatica
10 15 (1.62%) Red Hat
11 14 (1.51%) Cisco
12 13 (1.40%) Dynatrace
12 13 (1.40%) VMware
13 12 (1.29%) OpenAI
14 11 (1.19%) Foundry
14 11 (1.19%) HP
15 10 (1.08%) SaltStack
16 8 (0.86%) OpenLink