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

6 months to
3 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 46 51
Rank change year-on-year 0 +5 -6
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 829 615 731
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.67% 4.89% 4.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.27% 5.31% 4.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 534 421 504
10th Percentile £330 £341 £363
25th Percentile £410 £407 £443
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -6.82% -4.35%
75th Percentile £588 £675 £688
90th Percentile £696 £800 £775
England median daily rate £475 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 10
10th Percentile £55.99 - £52.25
25th Percentile £58.15 - £52.50
Median hourly rate £63.50 £35.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +81.43% -36.36% -35.29%
75th Percentile £65.88 - £65.75
90th Percentile £66.25 - £71.88
England median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +18.18% -8.33% -4.00%

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 15,718 11,590 15,773
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 88.49% 92.20% 88.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,522 7,861 11,306
10th Percentile £356 £350 £338
25th Percentile £430 £438 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -6.38%
75th Percentile £650 £688 £675
90th Percentile £760 £813 £800
England median daily rate £510 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.95% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 256 171 326
10th Percentile £18.75 £16.50 £16.00
25th Percentile £24.54 £22.71 £20.00
Median hourly rate £35.50 £34.00 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.41% +19.30% -26.45%
75th Percentile £57.50 £50.50 £47.34
90th Percentile £73.75 £63.75 £66.25
England median hourly rate £45.00 £30.00 £36.00
% change year-on-year +50.00% -16.67% -3.59%

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 3 May 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 3 May 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 +7 109 £525 +3.96% 64
West London -21 21 £450 +14.80% 6
South London -5 19 £513 +24.24% 4
East London +5 11 £445 +11.25% 7
North London - 1 £400 - 2
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 50 (6.03%) Confluence
2 23 (2.77%) Apache Airflow
3 21 (2.53%) Apache Spark
4 8 (0.97%) Appian
5 7 (0.84%) Apache
6 5 (0.60%) Camunda
7 4 (0.48%) nginx
7 4 (0.48%) Tomcat
8 3 (0.36%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.36%) CMS
8 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.36%) WebLogic
9 2 (0.24%) SharePoint
9 2 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
10 1 (0.12%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.12%) Ethereum
10 1 (0.12%) SAS
10 1 (0.12%) Solana
Applications
1 16 (1.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.84%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.60%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.48%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.12%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 19 (2.29%) Aladdin
2 7 (0.84%) Findur
2 7 (0.84%) Shopify
3 6 (0.72%) Loan IQ
4 5 (0.60%) BambooHR
4 5 (0.60%) Oracle EBS
5 4 (0.48%) Dynamics CRM
6 3 (0.36%) Distributed Ledger
7 2 (0.24%) iTrent
7 2 (0.24%) Summit
8 1 (0.12%) Algo Collateral
8 1 (0.12%) Bloomberg TOMS
8 1 (0.12%) Infor CloudSuite
8 1 (0.12%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.12%) Infor M3
8 1 (0.12%) IntelliMatch
8 1 (0.12%) NetSuite
8 1 (0.12%) Oracle EBS R12
8 1 (0.12%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.12%) PORTIA
Cloud Services
1 253 (30.52%) Azure
2 210 (25.33%) AWS
3 135 (16.28%) GitHub
4 127 (15.32%) Azure DevOps
5 68 (8.20%) GitHub Actions
6 59 (7.12%) Serverless
7 53 (6.39%) GCP
8 37 (4.46%) Amazon S3
9 36 (4.34%) AWS Lambda
9 36 (4.34%) Power Platform
10 32 (3.86%) Snowflake
11 29 (3.50%) Azure AKS
12 28 (3.38%) Azure Data Factory
13 26 (3.14%) Amazon ECS
14 21 (2.53%) dbt
15 20 (2.41%) Azure Monitor
16 19 (2.29%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 18 (2.17%) Apigee
17 18 (2.17%) AWS CloudFormation
17 18 (2.17%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 10 (1.21%) HTTP
2 6 (0.72%) Firewall
2 6 (0.72%) FTP
3 5 (0.60%) Cisco IPT
4 4 (0.48%) Ethernet
4 4 (0.48%) SSL
4 4 (0.48%) WAN
4 4 (0.48%) WebEx
5 3 (0.36%) DNS
5 3 (0.36%) Multicast
6 2 (0.24%) Cisco IOS
6 2 (0.24%) DSL
6 2 (0.24%) HTTPS
6 2 (0.24%) NaaS
6 2 (0.24%) OpenLDAP
6 2 (0.24%) SD-WAN
6 2 (0.24%) SNMP
6 2 (0.24%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.12%) 5G
7 1 (0.12%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (6.63%) SQL Server
2 49 (5.91%) PostgreSQL
3 44 (5.31%) NoSQL
4 33 (3.98%) MongoDB
5 29 (3.50%) Data Warehouse
6 26 (3.14%) Power BI
6 26 (3.14%) Relational Database
7 21 (2.53%) DynamoDB
7 21 (2.53%) Tableau
8 20 (2.41%) BigQuery
9 19 (2.29%) Big Data
10 17 (2.05%) Amazon Athena
11 14 (1.69%) Amazon Redshift
11 14 (1.69%) Data Lake
12 13 (1.57%) Metadata
13 11 (1.33%) Amazon Aurora
14 10 (1.21%) Amazon RDS
14 10 (1.21%) Oracle Database
14 10 (1.21%) Redis
14 10 (1.21%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 140 (16.89%) JIRA
2 135 (16.28%) Git
3 113 (13.63%) Selenium
4 104 (12.55%) Jenkins
5 79 (9.53%) GitLab
6 56 (6.76%) Cucumber
7 53 (6.39%) Cypress.io
8 51 (6.15%) Postman
9 35 (4.22%) REST Assured
10 28 (3.38%) JMeter
10 28 (3.38%) JUnit
11 27 (3.26%) SpecFlow
12 20 (2.41%) MLflow
13 16 (1.93%) Appium
14 15 (1.81%) WebDriver
15 13 (1.57%) Maven
15 13 (1.57%) TestRail
15 13 (1.57%) Zephyr
16 12 (1.45%) Bitbucket
16 12 (1.45%) Mockito
General
1 219 (26.42%) Social Skills
2 218 (26.30%) Finance
3 108 (13.03%) Banking
4 107 (12.91%) Public Sector
5 103 (12.42%) Analytical Skills
6 26 (3.14%) Front Office
6 26 (3.14%) Investment Banking
7 19 (2.29%) Legal
8 18 (2.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 14 (1.69%) Documentation Skills
10 12 (1.45%) Telecoms
11 11 (1.33%) Influencing Skills
12 10 (1.21%) Financial Institution
12 10 (1.21%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (1.09%) Back Office
13 9 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
14 7 (0.84%) Billing
14 7 (0.84%) Pharmaceutical
14 7 (0.84%) Publishing
15 6 (0.72%) Retail
Job Titles
1 182 (21.95%) Developer
2 156 (18.82%) Senior
3 96 (11.58%) Tester
4 86 (10.37%) Lead
5 60 (7.24%) Test Engineer
6 54 (6.51%) Automation Tester
6 54 (6.51%) QA Engineer
7 49 (5.91%) Analyst
8 44 (5.31%) Architect
8 44 (5.31%) Senior Developer
9 41 (4.95%) Data Engineer
10 37 (4.46%) Automation Engineer
10 37 (4.46%) DevOps Engineer
11 33 (3.98%) Java Developer
12 31 (3.74%) Test Automation Engineer
13 26 (3.14%) QA Automation Engineer
13 26 (3.14%) Test Manager
14 24 (2.90%) Full-Stack Developer
15 23 (2.77%) Test Analyst
15 23 (2.77%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (13.27%) Playwright
2 94 (11.34%) REST
3 90 (10.86%) React
4 73 (8.81%) RESTful
5 69 (8.32%) Node.js
6 68 (8.20%) .NET
7 65 (7.84%) Kafka
8 46 (5.55%) Spring
9 43 (5.19%) Spring Boot
10 40 (4.83%) HTML
11 38 (4.58%) CSS
12 27 (3.26%) OAuth
12 27 (3.26%) pytest
13 26 (3.14%) Web Services
14 22 (2.65%) AngularJS
15 21 (2.53%) Gherkin
16 20 (2.41%) GraphQL
16 20 (2.41%) SOAP
17 19 (2.29%) JSON
18 18 (2.17%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 97 (11.70%) Cloud Native
2 58 (7.00%) Product Ownership
3 49 (5.91%) Distributed Systems
4 37 (4.46%) Legacy Systems
5 26 (3.14%) Data Protection Act
6 23 (2.77%) Algorithms
7 19 (2.29%) Onboarding
8 18 (2.17%) Greenfield Project
8 18 (2.17%) Management Information System
9 17 (2.05%) Data Structures
9 17 (2.05%) Equities
9 17 (2.05%) Fixed Income
10 16 (1.93%) Mobile App
10 16 (1.93%) Virtual Team
11 15 (1.81%) Self-Motivation
12 11 (1.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 10 (1.21%) Derivative
13 10 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
14 9 (1.09%) Low-Code
14 9 (1.09%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 42 (5.07%) Linux
2 31 (3.74%) Windows
3 19 (2.29%) Android
4 16 (1.93%) Apple iOS
5 10 (1.21%) Unix
6 5 (0.60%) Mac OS
6 5 (0.60%) Windows Server
7 4 (0.48%) Solaris
7 4 (0.48%) Windows Server 2008
8 3 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.12%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 459 (55.37%) CI/CD
2 335 (40.41%) Agile
3 303 (36.55%) DevOps
4 161 (19.42%) Problem-Solving
5 132 (15.92%) AI
6 130 (15.68%) Infrastructure as Code
7 126 (15.20%) Containerisation
8 120 (14.48%) Observability
9 116 (13.99%) Validation
10 115 (13.87%) Continuous Improvement
11 113 (13.63%) Microservices
12 111 (13.39%) Regression Testing
13 109 (13.15%) Test Strategy
14 101 (12.18%) User Acceptance Testing
15 99 (11.94%) Test Scripting
16 94 (11.34%) Software Testing
17 90 (10.86%) Analytics
18 89 (10.74%) Software Engineering
19 87 (10.49%) Data Modelling
20 84 (10.13%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 271 (32.69%) Python
2 209 (25.21%) SQL
3 171 (20.63%) Java
4 146 (17.61%) TypeScript
5 135 (16.28%) JavaScript
6 113 (13.63%) C#
7 30 (3.62%) PowerShell
8 20 (2.41%) Bash
9 19 (2.29%) Apex Code
10 16 (1.93%) Ruby
11 15 (1.81%) PL/SQL
12 14 (1.69%) Bicep
12 14 (1.69%) C++
13 13 (1.57%) Kotlin
14 9 (1.09%) Go
14 9 (1.09%) Scala
15 6 (0.72%) Rust
15 6 (0.72%) T-SQL
16 5 (0.60%) Shell Script
17 4 (0.48%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 181 (21.83%) Security Cleared
2 155 (18.70%) SC Cleared
3 48 (5.79%) Degree
4 33 (3.98%) ISTQB
5 27 (3.26%) BPSS Clearance
6 26 (3.14%) Computer Science Degree
7 10 (1.21%) Master's Degree
8 7 (0.84%) DBS Check
8 7 (0.84%) DV Cleared
9 5 (0.60%) Azure Certification
9 5 (0.60%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 4 (0.48%) AWS Certification
10 4 (0.48%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
12 2 (0.24%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (0.24%) Cisco Certification
12 2 (0.24%) ISEB
12 2 (0.24%) OSCP
12 2 (0.24%) PhD
12 2 (0.24%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 206 (24.85%) QA
2 56 (6.76%) Data Quality
3 45 (5.43%) Accessibility
4 25 (3.02%) GDPR
5 19 (2.29%) WCAG
6 7 (0.84%) NIST
7 6 (0.72%) ISO 20022
7 6 (0.72%) NCSC
7 6 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 5 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.60%) PERC
8 5 (0.60%) SLA
9 4 (0.48%) HL7
10 3 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 3 (0.36%) MiFID
10 3 (0.36%) Software Quality Assurance
11 2 (0.24%) GRC
12 1 (0.12%) EMIR
12 1 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 1 (0.12%) NIST 800
System Software
1 148 (17.85%) Docker
2 6 (0.72%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.60%) Active Directory
3 5 (0.60%) VMware ESXi
3 5 (0.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.48%) Oracle RAC
4 4 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.12%) Embedded Firmware
5 1 (0.12%) Firmware
5 1 (0.12%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.12%) Squid
5 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 136 (16.41%) Kubernetes
2 106 (12.79%) Terraform
3 38 (4.58%) Grafana
4 34 (4.10%) Prometheus
5 18 (2.17%) Ansible
6 11 (1.33%) HP ALM
7 9 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (0.97%) Kibana
9 4 (0.48%) Oracle RMAN
9 4 (0.48%) Puppet
10 2 (0.24%) Amdocs OSS
10 2 (0.24%) Istio
10 2 (0.24%) Kustomize
10 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (0.24%) Packer
10 2 (0.24%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.24%) SCCM
11 1 (0.12%) CloudHub
11 1 (0.12%) linkerd
11 1 (0.12%) Rancher
Vendors
1 81 (9.77%) Microsoft
2 54 (6.51%) Oracle
3 51 (6.15%) Salesforce
4 42 (5.07%) Databricks
5 22 (2.65%) Google
6 21 (2.53%) ServiceNow
7 17 (2.05%) Splunk
8 15 (1.81%) UiPath
9 13 (1.57%) OpenAI
9 13 (1.57%) SAP
10 11 (1.33%) HP
10 11 (1.33%) IBM
10 11 (1.33%) MuleSoft
11 10 (1.21%) Dynatrace
12 9 (1.09%) Guidewire
13 8 (0.97%) Apple
13 8 (0.97%) Automation Anywhere
13 8 (0.97%) Citrix
14 7 (0.84%) OpenLink
14 7 (0.84%) Workday