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

6 months to
1 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 44 51
Rank change year-on-year -1 +7 -6
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 743 638 740
As % of all contract jobs in London 5.05% 4.62% 3.98%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.55% 5.11% 4.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 492 415 555
10th Percentile £325 £341 £378
25th Percentile £400 £410 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £563
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% -10.22% -6.25%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £665
90th Percentile £688 £750 £750
England median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 5
10th Percentile £55.99 - -
25th Percentile £58.15 - £52.50
Median hourly rate £63.50 - £55.00
75th Percentile £65.88 - £65.00
90th Percentile £66.25 - £65.60
England median hourly rate £62.50 £77.19 £68.50
% change year-on-year -19.03% +12.69% +14.17%

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 13,393 12,486 16,517
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 90.95% 90.46% 88.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,878 7,905 11,829
10th Percentile £350 £350 £342
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £788
England median daily rate £500 £525 £528
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.47% -4.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 207 153 339
10th Percentile £18.25 £21.05 £16.23
25th Percentile £25.08 £25.23 £19.53
Median hourly rate £34.27 £35.50 £30.50
Median % change year-on-year -3.46% +16.39% -18.67%
75th Percentile £56.00 £53.75 £52.50
90th Percentile £71.00 £79.75 £72.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £34.75 £36.00
% change year-on-year -27.63% -3.47% +2.86%

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 1 February 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 1 February 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 -9 93 £525 - 55
West London -15 21 £442 +27.93% 14
South London -6 14 £513 +7.89% 1
East London -3 9 £450 +5.88% 13
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 45 (6.06%) Confluence
2 16 (2.15%) Apache Spark
3 8 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (0.81%) Appian
5 5 (0.67%) Apache
5 5 (0.67%) SharePoint
6 4 (0.54%) Camunda
6 4 (0.54%) CMS
7 3 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 2 (0.27%) Magnolia
8 2 (0.27%) Sitecore CMS
8 2 (0.27%) WordPress
9 1 (0.13%) Anypoint
9 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
9 1 (0.13%) nginx
9 1 (0.13%) Oracle Application Server
9 1 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 16 (2.15%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (0.67%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (0.67%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.27%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.13%) Trello
Business Applications
1 20 (2.69%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.54%) Loan IQ
2 4 (0.54%) SAP HR
3 2 (0.27%) Eagle PACE
3 2 (0.27%) iTrent
3 2 (0.27%) Markit EDM
3 2 (0.27%) NetSuite
3 2 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.27%) Shopify
3 2 (0.27%) Summit
4 1 (0.13%) Algo Collateral
4 1 (0.13%) Bloomberg TOMS
4 1 (0.13%) CODA-Financials
4 1 (0.13%) IntelliMatch
4 1 (0.13%) ION Anvil
4 1 (0.13%) Oracle EBS R12
4 1 (0.13%) PORTIA
4 1 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.13%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 229 (30.82%) Azure
2 166 (22.34%) AWS
3 105 (14.13%) GitHub
4 102 (13.73%) Azure DevOps
5 77 (10.36%) GCP
6 54 (7.27%) Serverless
7 47 (6.33%) GitHub Actions
8 27 (3.63%) Snowflake
9 26 (3.50%) AWS Lambda
9 26 (3.50%) SaaS
10 24 (3.23%) Azure Data Factory
11 23 (3.10%) Azure AKS
11 23 (3.10%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 22 (2.96%) Power Platform
13 21 (2.83%) Amazon S3
14 19 (2.56%) Dynamics 365
15 18 (2.42%) Amazon EKS
16 17 (2.29%) Azure Functions
17 16 (2.15%) Azure Monitor
18 15 (2.02%) Apigee
Communications & Networking
1 12 (1.62%) HTTP
2 11 (1.48%) Firewall
2 11 (1.48%) SSL
3 10 (1.35%) HTTPS
4 8 (1.08%) TCP/IP
4 8 (1.08%) VPN
5 7 (0.94%) DNS
5 7 (0.94%) SD-WAN
5 7 (0.94%) WAN
6 5 (0.67%) Cisco IPT
6 5 (0.67%) Network Security
7 4 (0.54%) FTP
7 4 (0.54%) Multicast
8 3 (0.40%) DHCP
8 3 (0.40%) Ethernet
8 3 (0.40%) WebEx
8 3 (0.40%) Wireshark
9 2 (0.27%) VLAN
10 1 (0.13%) Cisco IOS
10 1 (0.13%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (6.06%) PostgreSQL
2 41 (5.52%) SQL Server
3 36 (4.85%) NoSQL
4 24 (3.23%) Relational Database
5 22 (2.96%) MongoDB
6 19 (2.56%) BigQuery
7 18 (2.42%) Data Warehouse
8 12 (1.62%) Big Data
8 12 (1.62%) Power BI
8 12 (1.62%) Tableau
9 11 (1.48%) Data Lake
10 10 (1.35%) Redis
11 9 (1.21%) Amazon Aurora
12 8 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
12 8 (1.08%) Azure SQL Database
12 8 (1.08%) Star Schema
13 7 (0.94%) Metadata
13 7 (0.94%) Oracle Database
13 7 (0.94%) Pinecone
14 6 (0.81%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 124 (16.69%) JIRA
2 121 (16.29%) Git
3 102 (13.73%) Selenium
4 98 (13.19%) Jenkins
5 75 (10.09%) GitLab
6 54 (7.27%) Postman
7 53 (7.13%) Cucumber
8 47 (6.33%) Cypress.io
9 32 (4.31%) JMeter
10 28 (3.77%) JUnit
10 28 (3.77%) REST Assured
11 23 (3.10%) SpecFlow
12 20 (2.69%) Bitbucket
13 15 (2.02%) Appium
13 15 (2.02%) TestRail
13 15 (2.02%) WebDriver
14 14 (1.88%) MLflow
15 11 (1.48%) Gradle
16 10 (1.35%) Gatling
16 10 (1.35%) Maven
General
1 190 (25.57%) Social Skills
2 162 (21.80%) Finance
3 83 (11.17%) Banking
4 77 (10.36%) Public Sector
5 76 (10.23%) Analytical Skills
6 22 (2.96%) Investment Banking
7 21 (2.83%) Front Office
8 18 (2.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 18 (2.42%) Pharmaceutical
9 13 (1.75%) Documentation Skills
10 9 (1.21%) Financial Institution
10 9 (1.21%) Presentation Skills
11 8 (1.08%) Legal
12 5 (0.67%) Marketing
12 5 (0.67%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (0.67%) Publishing
12 5 (0.67%) Retail
12 5 (0.67%) Telecoms
13 4 (0.54%) International Banking
13 4 (0.54%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 175 (23.55%) Developer
2 137 (18.44%) Senior
3 95 (12.79%) Tester
4 69 (9.29%) Lead
5 55 (7.40%) Automation Tester
6 54 (7.27%) Test Engineer
7 48 (6.46%) Analyst
8 41 (5.52%) QA Engineer
9 36 (4.85%) Senior Developer
10 34 (4.58%) Java Developer
11 32 (4.31%) Automation Engineer
12 30 (4.04%) Test Automation Engineer
13 29 (3.90%) Architect
13 29 (3.90%) Software Engineer
13 29 (3.90%) Test Analyst
14 27 (3.63%) Python Developer
15 24 (3.23%) Consultant
16 23 (3.10%) Data Engineer
16 23 (3.10%) Python Engineer
16 23 (3.10%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (13.86%) Playwright
2 82 (11.04%) REST
3 79 (10.63%) React
4 69 (9.29%) Node.js
5 68 (9.15%) .NET
6 62 (8.34%) RESTful
7 54 (7.27%) Kafka
8 39 (5.25%) Spring Boot
9 38 (5.11%) Spring
9 38 (5.11%) Web Services
10 35 (4.71%) pytest
11 28 (3.77%) HTML
11 28 (3.77%) JSON
12 25 (3.36%) CSS
12 25 (3.36%) FastAPI
12 25 (3.36%) XML
13 23 (3.10%) GraphQL
13 23 (3.10%) OAuth
13 23 (3.10%) SOAP
14 21 (2.83%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 84 (11.31%) Cloud Native
2 43 (5.79%) Product Ownership
3 28 (3.77%) Distributed Systems
4 23 (3.10%) Legacy Systems
4 23 (3.10%) Mobile App
5 20 (2.69%) Algorithms
6 19 (2.56%) Data Structures
7 18 (2.42%) Virtual Team
8 17 (2.29%) Greenfield Project
9 16 (2.15%) Equities
10 15 (2.02%) Genomics
10 15 (2.02%) Life Science
11 14 (1.88%) Data Protection Act
11 14 (1.88%) Management Information System
12 12 (1.62%) Onboarding
13 11 (1.48%) Derivative
13 11 (1.48%) Fixed Income
14 9 (1.21%) Public Cloud
14 9 (1.21%) Security Posture
15 8 (1.08%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 54 (7.27%) Linux
2 27 (3.63%) Windows
3 22 (2.96%) Apple iOS
4 21 (2.83%) Android
5 10 (1.35%) Unix
6 6 (0.81%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.27%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.13%) FreeRTOS
8 1 (0.13%) Kali Linux
8 1 (0.13%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 381 (51.28%) CI/CD
2 352 (47.38%) Agile
3 284 (38.22%) DevOps
4 163 (21.94%) Problem-Solving
5 112 (15.07%) AI
6 108 (14.54%) Containerisation
7 107 (14.40%) Test Scripting
8 98 (13.19%) Software Engineering
9 95 (12.79%) Microservices
9 95 (12.79%) Test Strategy
10 87 (11.71%) Software Testing
11 86 (11.57%) Observability
12 85 (11.44%) Validation
13 84 (11.31%) Continuous Improvement
14 82 (11.04%) Infrastructure as Code
15 80 (10.77%) TDD
16 77 (10.36%) API Testing
16 77 (10.36%) Scrum
17 70 (9.42%) Regression Testing
18 67 (9.02%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 245 (32.97%) Python
2 168 (22.61%) SQL
3 142 (19.11%) Java
4 140 (18.84%) TypeScript
5 126 (16.96%) JavaScript
6 101 (13.59%) C#
7 21 (2.83%) Bash
7 21 (2.83%) PowerShell
8 18 (2.42%) C++
9 17 (2.29%) Go
10 13 (1.75%) Bicep
11 12 (1.62%) Kotlin
12 10 (1.35%) Apex Code
13 9 (1.21%) PL/SQL
14 8 (1.08%) Swift
15 7 (0.94%) Ruby
15 7 (0.94%) Rust
16 6 (0.81%) T-SQL
17 5 (0.67%) Groovy
17 5 (0.67%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 143 (19.25%) Security Cleared
2 123 (16.55%) SC Cleared
3 53 (7.13%) Degree
4 37 (4.98%) ISTQB
5 24 (3.23%) Computer Science Degree
6 21 (2.83%) BPSS Clearance
7 16 (2.15%) Master's Degree
8 12 (1.62%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 9 (1.21%) OSCP
10 7 (0.94%) Microsoft Certification
11 6 (0.81%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 6 (0.81%) SANS
12 5 (0.67%) GPEN
12 5 (0.67%) ISEB
13 4 (0.54%) Azure Certification
13 4 (0.54%) CEH
13 4 (0.54%) DBS Check
14 3 (0.40%) CREST Certified
14 3 (0.40%) DV Cleared
14 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 164 (22.07%) QA
2 44 (5.92%) Accessibility
3 31 (4.17%) Data Quality
4 19 (2.56%) GDPR
5 12 (1.62%) WCAG
6 10 (1.35%) NIST
7 8 (1.08%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 6 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 6 (0.81%) NCSC
9 5 (0.67%) PERC
10 4 (0.54%) ISO 20022
10 4 (0.54%) MiFID
10 4 (0.54%) SLA
10 4 (0.54%) Software Quality Assurance
11 3 (0.40%) EU AI Act
11 3 (0.40%) GMP
11 3 (0.40%) NIST 800
11 3 (0.40%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.27%) HL7
13 1 (0.13%) HIPAA
System Software
1 159 (21.40%) Docker
2 10 (1.35%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
4 2 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.13%) Embedded Firmware
5 1 (0.13%) Firmware
5 1 (0.13%) Squid
5 1 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.13%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.13%) zsh
Systems Management
1 124 (16.69%) Kubernetes
2 75 (10.09%) Terraform
3 27 (3.63%) Ansible
4 23 (3.10%) Grafana
5 19 (2.56%) Prometheus
6 9 (1.21%) HP ALM
7 5 (0.67%) Nmap
8 4 (0.54%) Nessus
8 4 (0.54%) Rancher
9 3 (0.40%) Progress Chef
9 3 (0.40%) Puppet
9 3 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.27%) Argo
10 2 (0.27%) HP Quality Center
10 2 (0.27%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (0.27%) SCCM
10 2 (0.27%) vRealize
11 1 (0.13%) CloudHub
11 1 (0.13%) Istio
Vendors
1 68 (9.15%) Microsoft
2 49 (6.59%) Oracle
3 38 (5.11%) Databricks
3 38 (5.11%) Salesforce
4 36 (4.85%) Google
5 24 (3.23%) ServiceNow
6 18 (2.42%) Splunk
7 17 (2.29%) SAP
8 16 (2.15%) OpenAI
9 13 (1.75%) MuleSoft
10 11 (1.48%) Guidewire
11 10 (1.35%) Apple
12 9 (1.21%) Dynatrace
12 9 (1.21%) HP
12 9 (1.21%) UiPath
13 7 (0.94%) webMethods
14 6 (0.81%) Charles River
14 6 (0.81%) Cisco
14 6 (0.81%) IBM
14 6 (0.81%) VMware