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

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 54 48
Rank change year-on-year +3 -6 -2
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 835 566 763
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.37% 4.51% 4.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.92% 4.88% 4.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 551 380 527
10th Percentile £356 £344 £363
25th Percentile £425 £405 £428
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £600 £688 £675
90th Percentile £708 £800 £766
England median daily rate £475 £490 £525
% change year-on-year -3.06% -6.67% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 3 10
10th Percentile - £36.50 £52.25
25th Percentile £92.50 £38.75 £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 £63.75 £65.75
90th Percentile - £73.50 £71.88
England median hourly rate £67.50 £52.50 £57.50
% change year-on-year +28.57% -8.70% -19.01%

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 16,970 11,588 15,541
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 88.88% 92.38% 88.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,314 7,764 11,086
10th Percentile £360 £338 £343
25th Percentile £437 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.64% - -6.38%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £763 £800 £800
England median daily rate £520 £515 £525
% change year-on-year +0.97% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 260 214 312
10th Percentile £17.96 £16.50 £15.50
25th Percentile £25.24 £24.66 £20.00
Median hourly rate £37.50 £33.45 £29.25
Median % change year-on-year +12.12% +14.34% -26.88%
75th Percentile £59.85 £49.94 £48.75
90th Percentile £81.25 £63.75 £67.90
England median hourly rate £47.00 £27.06 £37.63
% change year-on-year +73.67% -28.07% +7.07%

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 23 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
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 23 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 +15 110 £550 +10.00% 24
South London +1 12 £513 +13.57% 2
East London +7 10 £450 +18.42% 9
West London -25 10 £450 +12.50% 4
North London - 1 £400 - 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 60 (7.19%) Confluence
2 32 (3.83%) Apache Airflow
3 22 (2.63%) Apache Spark
4 12 (1.44%) CMS
5 11 (1.32%) Apache
6 8 (0.96%) Appian
7 6 (0.72%) Camunda
8 4 (0.48%) nginx
8 4 (0.48%) Tomcat
8 4 (0.48%) WebLogic
9 3 (0.36%) Kentico
9 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
10 2 (0.24%) Anypoint
10 2 (0.24%) Mule
10 2 (0.24%) SAS
10 2 (0.24%) SharePoint
11 1 (0.12%) Apache Pulsar
11 1 (0.12%) Ethereum
11 1 (0.12%) Palantir Foundry
11 1 (0.12%) Solana
Applications
1 22 (2.63%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.84%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.84%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.60%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.12%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 17 (2.04%) Aladdin
2 13 (1.56%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.96%) Findur
4 6 (0.72%) Oracle EBS
4 6 (0.72%) Shopify
5 5 (0.60%) BambooHR
5 5 (0.60%) Loan IQ
6 3 (0.36%) Distributed Ledger
6 3 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.24%) Infor CloudSuite
7 2 (0.24%) Infor LN
7 2 (0.24%) Infor M3
7 2 (0.24%) IntelliMatch
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%) Misys Equation
8 1 (0.12%) Misys Midas
8 1 (0.12%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 252 (30.18%) Azure
2 241 (28.86%) AWS
3 144 (17.25%) GitHub
4 122 (14.61%) Azure DevOps
5 89 (10.66%) GitHub Actions
6 75 (8.98%) Serverless
7 56 (6.71%) AWS Lambda
8 54 (6.47%) Power Platform
9 52 (6.23%) Amazon S3
10 50 (5.99%) GCP
11 37 (4.43%) dbt
12 31 (3.71%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 31 (3.71%) Snowflake
13 29 (3.47%) Amazon ECS
14 27 (3.23%) Azure Data Factory
15 23 (2.75%) Amazon EC2
15 23 (2.75%) Azure AKS
16 21 (2.51%) Azure AI
17 17 (2.04%) Amazon SQS
18 15 (1.80%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.96%) HTTP
2 3 (0.36%) FTP
2 3 (0.36%) Network Security
2 3 (0.36%) OpenLDAP
2 3 (0.36%) SMS
2 3 (0.36%) WAN
3 2 (0.24%) Ethernet
3 2 (0.24%) Firewall
3 2 (0.24%) Multicast
3 2 (0.24%) NaaS
4 1 (0.12%) 5G
4 1 (0.12%) Cisco IOS
4 1 (0.12%) DSL
4 1 (0.12%) MPLS
4 1 (0.12%) NGFW
4 1 (0.12%) SD-WAN
4 1 (0.12%) SNMP
4 1 (0.12%) SSL
4 1 (0.12%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.12%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (6.59%) PostgreSQL
2 50 (5.99%) SQL Server
3 45 (5.39%) NoSQL
4 42 (5.03%) Data Warehouse
4 42 (5.03%) Power BI
5 37 (4.43%) MongoDB
6 31 (3.71%) Relational Database
7 30 (3.59%) DynamoDB
8 25 (2.99%) Amazon Athena
9 23 (2.75%) Amazon Redshift
10 19 (2.28%) Amazon RDS
10 19 (2.28%) Big Data
10 19 (2.28%) Data Lake
10 19 (2.28%) Tableau
11 16 (1.92%) BigQuery
12 14 (1.68%) Metadata
13 12 (1.44%) Redis
14 11 (1.32%) Star Schema
15 10 (1.20%) Amazon Aurora
15 10 (1.20%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 133 (15.93%) JIRA
2 130 (15.57%) Git
3 107 (12.81%) Jenkins
4 95 (11.38%) GitLab
4 95 (11.38%) Selenium
5 52 (6.23%) Cucumber
6 49 (5.87%) Cypress.io
7 45 (5.39%) Postman
8 43 (5.15%) REST Assured
9 38 (4.55%) JMeter
10 35 (4.19%) JUnit
11 19 (2.28%) Mockito
12 17 (2.04%) Gradle
12 17 (2.04%) Maven
12 17 (2.04%) SpecFlow
13 14 (1.68%) MLflow
14 13 (1.56%) Bitbucket
14 13 (1.56%) WebDriver
15 12 (1.44%) Gatling
15 12 (1.44%) Zephyr
General
1 243 (29.10%) Finance
2 220 (26.35%) Social Skills
3 117 (14.01%) Banking
4 109 (13.05%) Analytical Skills
5 99 (11.86%) Public Sector
6 26 (3.11%) Front Office
6 26 (3.11%) Investment Banking
7 22 (2.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 19 (2.28%) Financial Institution
9 15 (1.80%) Legal
10 12 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
11 10 (1.20%) Back Office
11 10 (1.20%) Documentation Skills
12 9 (1.08%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
12 9 (1.08%) Retail
12 9 (1.08%) Telecoms
13 7 (0.84%) Billing
13 7 (0.84%) Marketing
13 7 (0.84%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 174 (20.84%) Developer
2 150 (17.96%) Senior
3 88 (10.54%) Lead
4 83 (9.94%) Tester
5 55 (6.59%) Test Engineer
6 51 (6.11%) Analyst
7 48 (5.75%) Data Engineer
8 47 (5.63%) QA Engineer
9 45 (5.39%) DevOps Engineer
10 44 (5.27%) Architect
11 39 (4.67%) Automation Tester
12 38 (4.55%) Java Developer
13 37 (4.43%) Automation Engineer
14 36 (4.31%) Senior Developer
15 32 (3.83%) Software Engineer
15 32 (3.83%) Test Automation Engineer
16 27 (3.23%) Test Leader
17 26 (3.11%) Full-Stack Developer
18 24 (2.87%) QA Automation Engineer
19 23 (2.75%) React Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (12.22%) REST
2 101 (12.10%) React
3 94 (11.26%) Playwright
4 77 (9.22%) RESTful
5 70 (8.38%) Kafka
6 58 (6.95%) .NET
7 57 (6.83%) Spring
8 53 (6.35%) Spring Boot
9 51 (6.11%) Node.js
10 38 (4.55%) CSS
11 37 (4.43%) HTML
12 30 (3.59%) OAuth
13 24 (2.87%) PySpark
14 22 (2.63%) pytest
15 21 (2.51%) AngularJS
15 21 (2.51%) Redux
16 20 (2.40%) Web Services
17 19 (2.28%) Django
17 19 (2.28%) Gherkin
17 19 (2.28%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 111 (13.29%) Cloud Native
2 64 (7.66%) Distributed Systems
3 51 (6.11%) Product Ownership
4 39 (4.67%) Legacy Systems
5 28 (3.35%) Data Protection Act
6 20 (2.40%) Greenfield Project
6 20 (2.40%) Onboarding
7 19 (2.28%) Fixed Income
7 19 (2.28%) Self-Motivation
7 19 (2.28%) Virtual Team
8 18 (2.16%) Algorithms
9 17 (2.04%) Management Information System
10 15 (1.80%) AI Agents
11 14 (1.68%) Mobile App
12 13 (1.56%) Equities
13 12 (1.44%) Data Structures
13 12 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
14 10 (1.20%) Distributed Architecture
14 10 (1.20%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 10 (1.20%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 33 (3.95%) Linux
2 25 (2.99%) Windows
3 19 (2.28%) Android
4 17 (2.04%) Apple iOS
5 13 (1.56%) Unix
6 5 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (0.48%) Solaris
7 4 (0.48%) Windows Server
7 4 (0.48%) Windows Server 2008
8 3 (0.36%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.24%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 483 (57.84%) CI/CD
2 337 (40.36%) Agile
3 290 (34.73%) DevOps
4 149 (17.84%) AI
5 144 (17.25%) Infrastructure as Code
6 135 (16.17%) Problem-Solving
7 130 (15.57%) Validation
8 129 (15.45%) Observability
9 127 (15.21%) Continuous Improvement
10 122 (14.61%) Microservices
11 119 (14.25%) Test Strategy
12 115 (13.77%) Containerisation
13 113 (13.53%) Software Engineering
14 109 (13.05%) Regression Testing
15 107 (12.81%) User Acceptance Testing
16 93 (11.14%) Data Modelling
17 88 (10.54%) Analytics
17 88 (10.54%) Scrum
18 84 (10.06%) Stakeholder Management
19 83 (9.94%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 256 (30.66%) Python
2 214 (25.63%) SQL
3 181 (21.68%) Java
4 126 (15.09%) TypeScript
5 119 (14.25%) JavaScript
6 96 (11.50%) C#
7 30 (3.59%) PowerShell
8 20 (2.40%) Bash
8 20 (2.40%) Kotlin
9 17 (2.04%) Bicep
10 16 (1.92%) Apex Code
11 15 (1.80%) Ruby
12 14 (1.68%) Go
12 14 (1.68%) PL/SQL
13 13 (1.56%) Scala
14 8 (0.96%) C++
14 8 (0.96%) T-SQL
15 7 (0.84%) Swift
16 6 (0.72%) Groovy
16 6 (0.72%) VBA
Qualifications
1 179 (21.44%) Security Cleared
2 156 (18.68%) SC Cleared
3 46 (5.51%) Degree
4 27 (3.23%) ISTQB
5 26 (3.11%) Computer Science Degree
6 20 (2.40%) BPSS Clearance
7 16 (1.92%) DV Cleared
8 13 (1.56%) AWS Certification
9 10 (1.20%) Master's Degree
10 7 (0.84%) DBS Check
11 6 (0.72%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 6 (0.72%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 5 (0.60%) Azure Certification
13 4 (0.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 3 (0.36%) CISSP
14 3 (0.36%) TOGAF Certification
15 2 (0.24%) Cisco Certification
15 2 (0.24%) PhD
15 2 (0.24%) PMI Certification
15 2 (0.24%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 200 (23.95%) QA
2 72 (8.62%) Data Quality
3 49 (5.87%) Accessibility
4 24 (2.87%) GDPR
5 18 (2.16%) WCAG
6 11 (1.32%) NIST
7 5 (0.60%) ISO 20022
7 5 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (0.60%) SLA
8 4 (0.48%) HL7
8 4 (0.48%) NCSC
9 3 (0.36%) EU AI Act
9 3 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 3 (0.36%) MiFID
9 3 (0.36%) Software Quality Assurance
10 2 (0.24%) GRC
10 2 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.12%) GMP
11 1 (0.12%) GxP
11 1 (0.12%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 131 (15.69%) Docker
2 6 (0.72%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.60%) 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%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 136 (16.29%) Kubernetes
2 115 (13.77%) Terraform
3 38 (4.55%) Grafana
4 35 (4.19%) Prometheus
5 28 (3.35%) Ansible
6 8 (0.96%) HP ALM
6 8 (0.96%) Kibana
7 7 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (0.48%) Oracle RMAN
9 3 (0.36%) Control-M
9 3 (0.36%) Kustomize
9 3 (0.36%) Puppet
10 2 (0.24%) Amdocs OSS
10 2 (0.24%) Packer
10 2 (0.24%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.12%) HP Quality Center
11 1 (0.12%) Istio
11 1 (0.12%) linkerd
11 1 (0.12%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 78 (9.34%) Microsoft
2 54 (6.47%) Salesforce
3 48 (5.75%) Oracle
4 31 (3.71%) Databricks
5 25 (2.99%) ServiceNow
6 18 (2.16%) UiPath
7 16 (1.92%) Google
8 15 (1.80%) Splunk
9 14 (1.68%) Informatica
9 14 (1.68%) OpenAI
10 12 (1.44%) IBM
11 10 (1.20%) Dynatrace
12 9 (1.08%) Guidewire
13 8 (0.96%) Apple
13 8 (0.96%) HP
13 8 (0.96%) MuleSoft
13 8 (0.96%) OpenLink
13 8 (0.96%) SAP
14 7 (0.84%) Automation Anywhere
15 6 (0.72%) Workday