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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 56 46
Rank change year-on-year +6 -10 +5
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 902 596 742
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.49% 4.43% 4.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.04% 4.80% 5.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 614 403 502
10th Percentile £350 £341 £358
25th Percentile £425 £400 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% -3.33% -6.67%
75th Percentile £619 £675 £650
90th Percentile £712 £775 £775
England median daily rate £479 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -4.20% -4.76% -2.78%
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 £69.50 £50.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +39.00% -9.09% -13.73%

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 17,902 12,422 14,415
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 89.17% 92.40% 88.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,758 8,269 10,048
10th Percentile £361 £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 £775 £800
England median daily rate £525 £511 £525
% change year-on-year +2.68% -2.61% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 288 254 197
10th Percentile £17.18 £16.50 £16.99
25th Percentile £19.50 £24.66 £22.00
Median hourly rate £35.50 £29.29 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +21.22% -16.33% -12.50%
75th Percentile £56.44 £48.44 £53.75
90th Percentile £81.25 £63.75 £71.50
England median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +5.81%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +21 125 £550 +22.22% 18
South London -2 15 £535 +7.00% 5
East London +2 9 £545 +18.48% 14
West London -24 7 £600 +51.90% 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 64 (7.10%) Confluence
2 39 (4.32%) Apache Airflow
3 28 (3.10%) Apache Spark
4 22 (2.44%) SharePoint
5 14 (1.55%) Apache
6 13 (1.44%) CMS
7 6 (0.67%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 5 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
9 4 (0.44%) Camunda
9 4 (0.44%) nginx
9 4 (0.44%) Tomcat
9 4 (0.44%) WebLogic
10 3 (0.33%) Kentico
11 2 (0.22%) Anypoint
11 2 (0.22%) Mule
11 2 (0.22%) SAS
12 1 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
12 1 (0.11%) Appian
12 1 (0.11%) Ethereum
12 1 (0.11%) Solana
Applications
1 22 (2.44%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.44%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.55%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.44%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.33%) Trello
7 1 (0.11%) Mingle
7 1 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 14 (1.55%) Aladdin
2 12 (1.33%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.89%) Findur
4 6 (0.67%) Oracle EBS
5 5 (0.55%) BambooHR
6 4 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
6 4 (0.44%) Shopify
7 3 (0.33%) Distributed Ledger
7 3 (0.33%) Payment Gateway
7 3 (0.33%) SAP S/4HANA
8 2 (0.22%) Infor CloudSuite
8 2 (0.22%) Infor LN
8 2 (0.22%) Infor M3
8 2 (0.22%) Loan IQ
8 2 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.22%) SAP GRC
9 1 (0.11%) IntelliMatch
9 1 (0.11%) Misys Equation
9 1 (0.11%) Misys Midas
9 1 (0.11%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 315 (34.92%) Azure
2 279 (30.93%) AWS
3 196 (21.73%) GitHub
4 156 (17.29%) Azure DevOps
5 121 (13.41%) GitHub Actions
6 78 (8.65%) Serverless
7 69 (7.65%) GCP
8 67 (7.43%) Power Platform
9 60 (6.65%) AWS Lambda
10 53 (5.88%) Amazon S3
11 48 (5.32%) dbt
12 38 (4.21%) Snowflake
13 33 (3.66%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 32 (3.55%) Amazon ECS
15 30 (3.33%) GitHub Copilot
16 27 (2.99%) Amazon EC2
17 24 (2.66%) Azure Data Factory
18 23 (2.55%) AWS CloudFormation
18 23 (2.55%) Azure AKS
18 23 (2.55%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.89%) HTTP
1 8 (0.89%) WAN
2 7 (0.78%) Firewall
2 7 (0.78%) Network Security
2 7 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
3 6 (0.67%) LAN
3 6 (0.67%) TCP/IP
4 5 (0.55%) BGP
5 4 (0.44%) DHCP
5 4 (0.44%) DNS
5 4 (0.44%) Ethernet VPN
5 4 (0.44%) NX-OS
5 4 (0.44%) TACACS
5 4 (0.44%) VXLAN
6 3 (0.33%) FTP
6 3 (0.33%) OpenLDAP
6 3 (0.33%) SMS
7 2 (0.22%) Bluetooth
7 2 (0.22%) Multicast
7 2 (0.22%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (6.43%) PostgreSQL
1 58 (6.43%) Power BI
2 55 (6.10%) Data Warehouse
3 52 (5.76%) NoSQL
4 47 (5.21%) SQL Server
5 41 (4.55%) MongoDB
6 33 (3.66%) Relational Database
7 28 (3.10%) DynamoDB
8 25 (2.77%) Amazon Redshift
9 24 (2.66%) Amazon Athena
10 23 (2.55%) Data Lake
11 21 (2.33%) Tableau
12 20 (2.22%) Amazon RDS
13 19 (2.11%) Big Data
14 18 (2.00%) BigQuery
15 15 (1.66%) Metadata
16 12 (1.33%) Elasticsearch
17 11 (1.22%) MySQL
17 11 (1.22%) Redis
18 10 (1.11%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 162 (17.96%) Git
2 142 (15.74%) Jenkins
3 126 (13.97%) JIRA
4 112 (12.42%) Selenium
5 105 (11.64%) GitLab
6 59 (6.54%) Cypress.io
7 47 (5.21%) JMeter
8 46 (5.10%) JUnit
9 44 (4.88%) Cucumber
10 42 (4.66%) Postman
11 39 (4.32%) REST Assured
12 20 (2.22%) Gatling
13 19 (2.11%) Appium
13 19 (2.11%) Gradle
14 18 (2.00%) LoadRunner
14 18 (2.00%) Maven
15 17 (1.88%) Bitbucket
16 16 (1.77%) Mockito
16 16 (1.77%) Zephyr
17 14 (1.55%) WebDriver
General
1 268 (29.71%) Finance
2 240 (26.61%) Social Skills
3 134 (14.86%) Analytical Skills
4 126 (13.97%) Banking
5 89 (9.87%) Public Sector
6 27 (2.99%) Front Office
7 23 (2.55%) Investment Banking
8 20 (2.22%) Financial Institution
8 20 (2.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 17 (1.88%) Telecoms
10 15 (1.66%) Back Office
10 15 (1.66%) Legal
11 14 (1.55%) Influencing Skills
12 13 (1.44%) Documentation Skills
13 9 (1.00%) Marketing
13 9 (1.00%) Retail
14 7 (0.78%) Law
14 7 (0.78%) Local Government
15 6 (0.67%) Organisational Skills
16 5 (0.55%) Games
Job Titles
1 196 (21.73%) Developer
2 155 (17.18%) Senior
3 96 (10.64%) Lead
4 70 (7.76%) Tester
5 59 (6.54%) Test Engineer
6 58 (6.43%) Data Engineer
7 53 (5.88%) Java Developer
8 52 (5.76%) DevOps Engineer
9 48 (5.32%) Analyst
9 48 (5.32%) QA Engineer
10 44 (4.88%) Architect
11 43 (4.77%) Automation Engineer
12 40 (4.43%) Software Engineer
13 39 (4.32%) Full-Stack Developer
14 38 (4.21%) Senior Developer
15 34 (3.77%) Test Automation Engineer
16 33 (3.66%) Test Leader
17 32 (3.55%) Test Manager
18 30 (3.33%) Automation Tester
19 24 (2.66%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 133 (14.75%) REST
2 112 (12.42%) Playwright
3 102 (11.31%) Kafka
4 97 (10.75%) RESTful
5 95 (10.53%) React
6 76 (8.43%) Spring
7 68 (7.54%) .NET
8 65 (7.21%) Spring Boot
9 53 (5.88%) HTML
10 50 (5.54%) Node.js
11 48 (5.32%) CSS
12 31 (3.44%) PySpark
13 28 (3.10%) AngularJS
14 26 (2.88%) JSON
14 26 (2.88%) XML
15 24 (2.66%) HTML5
15 24 (2.66%) Middleware
15 24 (2.66%) SOAP
16 23 (2.55%) OAuth
17 22 (2.44%) CSS3
Miscellaneous
1 144 (15.96%) Cloud Native
2 84 (9.31%) Distributed Systems
3 66 (7.32%) Product Ownership
4 31 (3.44%) Onboarding
5 25 (2.77%) Data Protection Act
6 24 (2.66%) AI Agents
7 23 (2.55%) Enterprise Software
8 21 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
8 21 (2.33%) Self-Motivation
9 17 (1.88%) Fixed Income
9 17 (1.88%) Virtual Team
10 15 (1.66%) Data Structures
11 13 (1.44%) Algorithms
11 13 (1.44%) Mobile App
12 11 (1.22%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 11 (1.22%) Greenfield Project
12 11 (1.22%) Management Information System
13 10 (1.11%) Equities
14 9 (1.00%) Security Posture
15 8 (0.89%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 61 (6.76%) Linux
2 43 (4.77%) Unix
3 37 (4.10%) Windows
4 17 (1.88%) Android
5 16 (1.77%) Apple iOS
6 13 (1.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 8 (0.89%) Windows Server
8 4 (0.44%) Solaris
8 4 (0.44%) Windows Server 2008
9 3 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
9 3 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.22%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.22%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 568 (62.97%) CI/CD
2 380 (42.13%) Agile
3 364 (40.35%) DevOps
4 181 (20.07%) AI
5 174 (19.29%) Infrastructure as Code
6 169 (18.74%) Problem-Solving
7 163 (18.07%) Continuous Improvement
8 160 (17.74%) Microservices
9 153 (16.96%) Validation
10 146 (16.19%) Software Engineering
11 144 (15.96%) Test Strategy
12 139 (15.41%) Containerisation
13 135 (14.97%) Observability
14 108 (11.97%) Regression Testing
15 107 (11.86%) Scrum
16 106 (11.75%) TDD
17 105 (11.64%) User Acceptance Testing
18 103 (11.42%) Stakeholder Management
19 97 (10.75%) Full-Stack Development
20 96 (10.64%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 294 (32.59%) Python
2 249 (27.61%) SQL
3 239 (26.50%) Java
4 135 (14.97%) JavaScript
5 123 (13.64%) TypeScript
6 88 (9.76%) C#
7 47 (5.21%) PowerShell
8 30 (3.33%) Bash
9 23 (2.55%) Bicep
10 22 (2.44%) Kotlin
11 17 (1.88%) Ruby
12 16 (1.77%) Scala
13 15 (1.66%) PL/SQL
14 14 (1.55%) Apex Code
15 11 (1.22%) C++
15 11 (1.22%) Go
16 9 (1.00%) VB.NET
17 7 (0.78%) Shell Script
17 7 (0.78%) T-SQL
18 6 (0.67%) Perl
Qualifications
1 234 (25.94%) Security Cleared
2 207 (22.95%) SC Cleared
3 57 (6.32%) Degree
4 35 (3.88%) Computer Science Degree
5 33 (3.66%) ISTQB
6 22 (2.44%) DV Cleared
7 18 (2.00%) AWS Certification
8 16 (1.77%) BPSS Clearance
9 9 (1.00%) Azure Certification
9 9 (1.00%) ISEB
10 7 (0.78%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 6 (0.67%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 6 (0.67%) DBS Check
12 5 (0.55%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 5 (0.55%) Master's Degree
13 4 (0.44%) CISSP
14 3 (0.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 3 (0.33%) Cisco Certification
14 3 (0.33%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 3 (0.33%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 244 (27.05%) QA
2 74 (8.20%) Data Quality
3 49 (5.43%) Accessibility
4 23 (2.55%) GDPR
5 21 (2.33%) WCAG
6 11 (1.22%) ISO 20022
6 11 (1.22%) SLA
7 8 (0.89%) NIST
8 7 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 4 (0.44%) GRC
10 3 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.33%) EU AI Act
10 3 (0.33%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 3 (0.33%) MiFID
10 3 (0.33%) Software Quality Assurance
11 2 (0.22%) ISO 9001
11 2 (0.22%) NCSC
11 2 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.11%) ISO 8583
12 1 (0.11%) PMO
System Software
1 160 (17.74%) Docker
2 12 (1.33%) Virtual Machines
3 8 (0.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.67%) Active Directory
5 4 (0.44%) Oracle RAC
5 4 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.33%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.11%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.11%) Firmware
7 1 (0.11%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 159 (17.63%) Kubernetes
2 142 (15.74%) Terraform
3 50 (5.54%) Grafana
4 43 (4.77%) Ansible
4 43 (4.77%) Prometheus
5 14 (1.55%) Puppet
6 13 (1.44%) Progress Chef
7 9 (1.00%) Control-M
7 9 (1.00%) Kibana
8 7 (0.78%) HP ALM
9 6 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
10 5 (0.55%) HP Fortify
11 4 (0.44%) Microsoft Intune
11 4 (0.44%) Oracle RMAN
11 4 (0.44%) Packer
12 3 (0.33%) Istio
12 3 (0.33%) Kustomize
13 2 (0.22%) Amdocs OSS
13 2 (0.22%) Argo
14 1 (0.11%) linkerd
Vendors
1 103 (11.42%) Microsoft
2 58 (6.43%) Oracle
3 50 (5.54%) Salesforce
4 40 (4.43%) Databricks
5 29 (3.22%) ServiceNow
6 28 (3.10%) Google
7 24 (2.66%) IBM
8 18 (2.00%) Splunk
9 16 (1.77%) Informatica
9 16 (1.77%) SAP
10 15 (1.66%) Red Hat
10 15 (1.66%) UiPath
11 13 (1.44%) Cisco
11 13 (1.44%) VMware
12 11 (1.22%) HP
13 10 (1.11%) Dynatrace
14 9 (1.00%) OpenAI
15 8 (0.89%) OpenLink
15 8 (0.89%) SaltStack
16 7 (0.78%) Charles River