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

6 months to
7 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 50 46
Rank change year-on-year +4 -4 +4
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 963 624 748
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.73% 4.66% 4.67%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.32% 5.03% 5.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 660 424 489
10th Percentile £350 £350 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -8.70%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £630
90th Percentile £725 £762 £750
England median daily rate £475 £500 £510
% change year-on-year -5.00% -1.96% -7.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 4 3
10th Percentile £36.78 £37.25 £53.13
25th Percentile £43.61 £40.63 £57.81
Median hourly rate £49.50 £45.00 £68.75
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -34.55% -23.61%
75th Percentile £86.25 £55.63 £71.88
90th Percentile £97.50 £70.25 -
England median hourly rate £69.25 £57.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +20.43% -4.17% -20.00%

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 18,094 12,405 14,308
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 88.88% 92.57% 89.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,846 8,173 9,340
10th Percentile £359 £331 £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 £663 £675
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 338 241 182
10th Percentile £16.01 £17.98 £17.28
25th Percentile £19.03 £25.01 £24.18
Median hourly rate £32.75 £30.00 £36.65
Median % change year-on-year +9.17% -18.14% -7.51%
75th Percentile £58.44 £47.50 £56.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £64.75 £78.72
England median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -3.37%

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 7 October 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 7 October 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 7 October 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 +4 121 £550 +15.79% 118
South London -3 15 £593 +18.50% 11
East London +2 8 £663 +27.40% 10
West London -20 3 £600 +50.94% 29
North London +1 2 £463 - 5
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 71 (7.37%) Confluence
2 46 (4.78%) Apache Airflow
3 27 (2.80%) Apache Spark
4 23 (2.39%) SharePoint
5 19 (1.97%) Apache
6 17 (1.77%) CMS
7 8 (0.83%) Camunda
8 7 (0.73%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
10 3 (0.31%) Kentico
11 2 (0.21%) Anypoint
11 2 (0.21%) Mule
11 2 (0.21%) nginx
11 2 (0.21%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
11 2 (0.21%) SAS
11 2 (0.21%) WebLogic
12 1 (0.10%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.10%) ColdFusion
12 1 (0.10%) Tomcat
Applications
1 18 (1.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.45%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.52%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.31%) Mingle
5 3 (0.31%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.31%) Trello
6 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.10%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.10%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.10%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 13 (1.35%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (0.93%) Aladdin
2 9 (0.93%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.52%) SAP GRC
4 4 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
4 4 (0.42%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.21%) SAP MDG
7 1 (0.10%) BambooHR
7 1 (0.10%) Findur
7 1 (0.10%) FLEXCUBE
7 1 (0.10%) Infor CloudSuite
7 1 (0.10%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.10%) Maximo
7 1 (0.10%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.10%) Misys Midas
7 1 (0.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.10%) Summit
7 1 (0.10%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 346 (35.93%) Azure
2 308 (31.98%) AWS
3 196 (20.35%) GitHub
4 165 (17.13%) Azure DevOps
5 126 (13.08%) GitHub Actions
6 91 (9.45%) GCP
7 90 (9.35%) Serverless
8 75 (7.79%) Power Platform
9 68 (7.06%) AWS Lambda
10 63 (6.54%) Amazon S3
11 50 (5.19%) dbt
12 42 (4.36%) Snowflake
13 40 (4.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 35 (3.63%) GitHub Copilot
15 33 (3.43%) Amazon ECS
15 33 (3.43%) AWS CloudFormation
16 31 (3.22%) Amazon EKS
17 30 (3.12%) Amazon EC2
18 28 (2.91%) Microsoft Copilot
19 25 (2.60%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 12 (1.25%) DNS
2 10 (1.04%) TCP/IP
3 9 (0.93%) Firewall
4 8 (0.83%) HTTP
5 7 (0.73%) BGP
5 7 (0.73%) DHCP
5 7 (0.73%) Network Security
5 7 (0.73%) WAN
5 7 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
6 6 (0.62%) LAN
7 5 (0.52%) Internet
8 4 (0.42%) Ethernet VPN
8 4 (0.42%) NX-OS
8 4 (0.42%) SSL
8 4 (0.42%) TACACS
8 4 (0.42%) VXLAN
9 3 (0.31%) OpenLDAP
9 3 (0.31%) SD-WAN
9 3 (0.31%) SSH
9 3 (0.31%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 74 (7.68%) PostgreSQL
2 59 (6.13%) Power BI
3 54 (5.61%) SQL Server
4 52 (5.40%) Data Warehouse
5 47 (4.88%) NoSQL
6 41 (4.26%) Relational Database
7 40 (4.15%) MongoDB
8 25 (2.60%) Amazon RDS
8 25 (2.60%) Amazon Redshift
9 23 (2.39%) Data Lake
10 21 (2.18%) Amazon Athena
11 19 (1.97%) DynamoDB
11 19 (1.97%) MySQL
12 18 (1.87%) Redis
13 17 (1.77%) Metadata
13 17 (1.77%) Oracle Database
14 15 (1.56%) Amazon Aurora
14 15 (1.56%) Big Data
14 15 (1.56%) Tableau
15 14 (1.45%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 199 (20.66%) Git
2 191 (19.83%) Jenkins
3 132 (13.71%) JIRA
4 129 (13.40%) Selenium
5 116 (12.05%) GitLab
6 61 (6.33%) Cucumber
6 61 (6.33%) Cypress.io
6 61 (6.33%) JUnit
7 58 (6.02%) Postman
8 56 (5.82%) JMeter
9 46 (4.78%) REST Assured
10 24 (2.49%) Gatling
11 23 (2.39%) Gradle
11 23 (2.39%) Maven
12 22 (2.28%) LoadRunner
13 21 (2.18%) SonarQube
14 20 (2.08%) Mockito
15 19 (1.97%) TestNG
16 17 (1.77%) Appium
17 16 (1.66%) SoapUI
General
1 288 (29.91%) Finance
2 265 (27.52%) Social Skills
3 157 (16.30%) Analytical Skills
4 152 (15.78%) Banking
5 85 (8.83%) Public Sector
6 33 (3.43%) Front Office
7 27 (2.80%) Investment Banking
8 21 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 19 (1.97%) Financial Institution
10 16 (1.66%) Back Office
10 16 (1.66%) Marketing
11 14 (1.45%) Telecoms
12 13 (1.35%) Local Government
13 11 (1.14%) Documentation Skills
13 11 (1.14%) Influencing Skills
13 11 (1.14%) Law
14 10 (1.04%) Retail
15 7 (0.73%) Military
16 6 (0.62%) Games
16 6 (0.62%) Legal
Job Titles
1 206 (21.39%) Developer
2 176 (18.28%) Senior
3 105 (10.90%) Lead
4 68 (7.06%) Data Engineer
5 66 (6.85%) Test Engineer
6 62 (6.44%) Tester
7 55 (5.71%) Software Engineer
8 54 (5.61%) Java Developer
8 54 (5.61%) QA Engineer
9 53 (5.50%) Automation Engineer
10 52 (5.40%) DevOps Engineer
11 46 (4.78%) Architect
12 41 (4.26%) Analyst
12 41 (4.26%) Senior Developer
13 39 (4.05%) Full-Stack Developer
14 37 (3.84%) Test Leader
15 33 (3.43%) Test Automation Engineer
15 33 (3.43%) Test Manager
16 29 (3.01%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
17 27 (2.80%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 169 (17.55%) Terraform
2 161 (16.72%) REST
3 134 (13.91%) Kafka
4 121 (12.56%) Playwright
5 107 (11.11%) RESTful
6 89 (9.24%) Spring
7 86 (8.93%) React
8 79 (8.20%) .NET
9 77 (8.00%) Spring Boot
10 66 (6.85%) HTML
11 56 (5.82%) CSS
12 46 (4.78%) Node.js
13 39 (4.05%) Middleware
14 36 (3.74%) PySpark
15 35 (3.63%) OAuth
15 35 (3.63%) SOAP
16 32 (3.32%) AngularJS
17 29 (3.01%) XML
18 28 (2.91%) JSON
18 28 (2.91%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 166 (17.24%) Cloud Native
2 93 (9.66%) Product Ownership
3 89 (9.24%) Distributed Systems
4 41 (4.26%) AI Agents
5 38 (3.95%) Onboarding
6 34 (3.53%) Enterprise Software
7 25 (2.60%) Data Structures
8 21 (2.18%) Self-Motivation
9 20 (2.08%) Legacy Systems
10 18 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
11 16 (1.66%) Mobile App
12 15 (1.56%) Virtual Team
13 14 (1.45%) Algorithms
13 14 (1.45%) Security Posture
14 13 (1.35%) Fixed Income
15 12 (1.25%) Private Cloud
16 11 (1.14%) Market Risk
17 10 (1.04%) Distributed Architecture
17 10 (1.04%) Legacy Applications
17 10 (1.04%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 77 (8.00%) Linux
2 50 (5.19%) Unix
3 35 (3.63%) Windows
4 19 (1.97%) Android
5 18 (1.87%) Apple iOS
6 16 (1.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 7 (0.73%) Windows Server
8 4 (0.42%) Ubuntu
8 4 (0.42%) VMS
9 3 (0.31%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.10%) CentOS
10 1 (0.10%) Solaris
10 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 634 (65.84%) CI/CD
2 445 (46.21%) Agile
3 402 (41.74%) DevOps
4 223 (23.16%) AI
5 193 (20.04%) Infrastructure as Code
5 193 (20.04%) Problem-Solving
6 189 (19.63%) Software Engineering
7 184 (19.11%) Continuous Improvement
8 183 (19.00%) Microservices
9 175 (18.17%) Validation
10 163 (16.93%) Containerisation
11 155 (16.10%) Test Strategy
12 149 (15.47%) Observability
13 139 (14.43%) Scrum
13 139 (14.43%) Stakeholder Management
14 125 (12.98%) TDD
15 116 (12.05%) Event-Driven
16 109 (11.32%) SDLC
17 106 (11.01%) Data Pipeline
18 103 (10.70%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 347 (36.03%) Python
2 277 (28.76%) SQL
3 275 (28.56%) Java
4 158 (16.41%) JavaScript
5 129 (13.40%) TypeScript
6 95 (9.87%) C#
7 43 (4.47%) PowerShell
8 42 (4.36%) Bash
9 30 (3.12%) Bicep
10 24 (2.49%) Scala
11 22 (2.28%) Kotlin
12 17 (1.77%) C++
13 16 (1.66%) Go
14 13 (1.35%) Shell Script
15 12 (1.25%) Ruby
16 10 (1.04%) C
16 10 (1.04%) Groovy
16 10 (1.04%) PL/SQL
17 9 (0.93%) VB.NET
18 8 (0.83%) Perl
Qualifications
1 269 (27.93%) Security Cleared
2 240 (24.92%) SC Cleared
3 69 (7.17%) Degree
4 41 (4.26%) Computer Science Degree
5 35 (3.63%) DV Cleared
6 33 (3.43%) ISTQB
7 31 (3.22%) AWS Certification
8 24 (2.49%) BPSS Clearance
9 16 (1.66%) Azure Certification
10 10 (1.04%) ISEB
11 9 (0.93%) CISSP
11 9 (0.93%) Master's Degree
12 8 (0.83%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 8 (0.83%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 7 (0.73%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 7 (0.73%) DBS Check
14 5 (0.52%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 5 (0.52%) Cisco Certification
15 4 (0.42%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 4 (0.42%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 271 (28.14%) QA
2 83 (8.62%) Data Quality
3 52 (5.40%) Accessibility
4 19 (1.97%) GDPR
5 14 (1.45%) WCAG
6 13 (1.35%) ISO 20022
7 12 (1.25%) NIST
8 11 (1.14%) SLA
9 10 (1.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 9 (0.93%) GRC
11 3 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.31%) EU AI Act
11 3 (0.31%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.21%) ISO 9001
12 2 (0.21%) MiFID
12 2 (0.21%) NCSC
12 2 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.21%) Software Quality Assurance
13 1 (0.10%) COBIT
13 1 (0.10%) WAI
System Software
1 207 (21.50%) Docker
2 9 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
3 7 (0.73%) Active Directory
4 5 (0.52%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.31%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.10%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.10%) Firmware
6 1 (0.10%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.10%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.10%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 191 (19.83%) Kubernetes
2 69 (7.17%) Grafana
3 53 (5.50%) Ansible
4 50 (5.19%) Prometheus
5 22 (2.28%) Puppet
6 19 (1.97%) Kibana
7 18 (1.87%) Progress Chef
8 10 (1.04%) Control-M
9 6 (0.62%) Argo
9 6 (0.62%) HP Fortify
10 5 (0.52%) Microsoft Intune
11 4 (0.42%) HP ALM
11 4 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
12 3 (0.31%) Kustomize
12 3 (0.31%) Packer
12 3 (0.31%) Rancher
13 2 (0.21%) Istio
13 2 (0.21%) Podman
13 2 (0.21%) systemd
14 1 (0.10%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 120 (12.46%) Microsoft
2 51 (5.30%) Oracle
3 48 (4.98%) Databricks
4 47 (4.88%) Google
5 32 (3.32%) IBM
5 32 (3.32%) Salesforce
6 31 (3.22%) ServiceNow
7 25 (2.60%) SAP
8 24 (2.49%) Splunk
9 23 (2.39%) UiPath
10 17 (1.77%) Dynatrace
10 17 (1.77%) Foundry
10 17 (1.77%) Informatica
10 17 (1.77%) OpenAI
11 14 (1.45%) Cisco
12 13 (1.35%) Red Hat
13 12 (1.25%) VMware
14 11 (1.14%) SaltStack
15 10 (1.04%) HP
15 10 (1.04%) MuleSoft