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 11 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 54 45
Rank change year-on-year +5 -9 +2
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 880 625 784
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.43% 4.62% 4.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.98% 5.01% 5.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 591 420 539
10th Percentile £350 £338 £363
25th Percentile £425 £403 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £600 £675 £675
90th Percentile £709 £776 £770
England median daily rate £475 £485 £525
% change year-on-year -2.06% -7.62% -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 £56.25
% change year-on-year +28.57% -6.67% -22.95%

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 17,684 12,469 15,548
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 89.06% 92.20% 88.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,749 8,337 11,045
10th Percentile £360 £331 £341
25th Percentile £440 £425 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £769 £790 £800
England median daily rate £525 £514 £525
% change year-on-year +2.14% -2.10% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 273 233 283
10th Percentile £17.60 £16.50 £16.24
25th Percentile £22.73 £24.66 £20.03
Median hourly rate £36.50 £32.00 £30.12
Median % change year-on-year +14.06% +6.24% -27.42%
75th Percentile £58.92 £50.50 £48.75
90th Percentile £81.25 £63.65 £68.60
England median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% -6.09%

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 11 July 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 11 July 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 +16 117 £550 +10.00% 42
South London -7 13 £513 +2.50% 1
West London -13 12 £486 +21.56% 5
East London +5 8 £545 +18.48% 11
North London - 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 60 (6.82%) Confluence
2 32 (3.64%) Apache Airflow
3 24 (2.73%) Apache Spark
4 12 (1.36%) CMS
5 11 (1.25%) Apache
6 5 (0.57%) Appian
7 4 (0.45%) Camunda
7 4 (0.45%) nginx
7 4 (0.45%) Tomcat
7 4 (0.45%) WebLogic
8 3 (0.34%) Kentico
8 3 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.34%) SharePoint
9 2 (0.23%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.23%) Mule
9 2 (0.23%) SAS
10 1 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
10 1 (0.11%) Ethereum
10 1 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
10 1 (0.11%) Solana
Applications
1 21 (2.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.80%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.80%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.57%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.23%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.11%) Mingle
7 1 (0.11%) Trello
Business Applications
1 17 (1.93%) Aladdin
2 13 (1.48%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.91%) Findur
3 8 (0.91%) Oracle EBS
4 6 (0.68%) Shopify
5 5 (0.57%) BambooHR
5 5 (0.57%) Loan IQ
6 4 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.34%) Distributed Ledger
8 2 (0.23%) Infor CloudSuite
8 2 (0.23%) Infor LN
8 2 (0.23%) Infor M3
8 2 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
8 2 (0.23%) Summit
9 1 (0.11%) IntelliMatch
9 1 (0.11%) iTrent
9 1 (0.11%) Misys Equation
9 1 (0.11%) Misys Midas
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 275 (31.25%) Azure
2 260 (29.55%) AWS
3 165 (18.75%) GitHub
4 130 (14.77%) Azure DevOps
5 101 (11.48%) GitHub Actions
6 76 (8.64%) Serverless
7 59 (6.70%) Power Platform
8 58 (6.59%) AWS Lambda
9 56 (6.36%) Amazon S3
9 56 (6.36%) GCP
10 39 (4.43%) dbt
11 32 (3.64%) Snowflake
12 31 (3.52%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 31 (3.52%) Amazon ECS
13 25 (2.84%) Amazon EC2
14 22 (2.50%) Azure AKS
14 22 (2.50%) Azure Data Factory
15 20 (2.27%) Dynamics 365
16 19 (2.16%) Azure AI
17 18 (2.05%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.91%) HTTP
2 3 (0.34%) FTP
2 3 (0.34%) Network Security
2 3 (0.34%) OpenLDAP
2 3 (0.34%) SMS
2 3 (0.34%) WAN
3 2 (0.23%) Ethernet
3 2 (0.23%) Firewall
3 2 (0.23%) Multicast
3 2 (0.23%) NaaS
4 1 (0.11%) Bluetooth
4 1 (0.11%) Cisco IOS
4 1 (0.11%) DSL
4 1 (0.11%) MPLS
4 1 (0.11%) NFC
4 1 (0.11%) NGFW
4 1 (0.11%) SD-WAN
4 1 (0.11%) SNMP
4 1 (0.11%) SSL
4 1 (0.11%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (6.25%) PostgreSQL
2 47 (5.34%) NoSQL
2 47 (5.34%) Power BI
2 47 (5.34%) SQL Server
3 45 (5.11%) Data Warehouse
4 39 (4.43%) MongoDB
5 31 (3.52%) DynamoDB
5 31 (3.52%) Relational Database
6 25 (2.84%) Amazon Athena
7 23 (2.61%) Amazon Redshift
8 20 (2.27%) Amazon RDS
8 20 (2.27%) Big Data
9 18 (2.05%) Data Lake
9 18 (2.05%) Tableau
10 16 (1.82%) Metadata
11 14 (1.59%) BigQuery
12 11 (1.25%) Redis
13 10 (1.14%) Oracle Database
14 9 (1.02%) Amazon Aurora
14 9 (1.02%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 138 (15.68%) Git
1 138 (15.68%) JIRA
2 120 (13.64%) Jenkins
3 105 (11.93%) Selenium
4 96 (10.91%) GitLab
5 56 (6.36%) Cypress.io
6 53 (6.02%) Cucumber
7 50 (5.68%) REST Assured
8 46 (5.23%) Postman
9 39 (4.43%) JUnit
10 38 (4.32%) JMeter
11 17 (1.93%) Maven
11 17 (1.93%) Mockito
11 17 (1.93%) SpecFlow
12 16 (1.82%) Gatling
12 16 (1.82%) Gradle
13 15 (1.70%) Bitbucket
13 15 (1.70%) WebDriver
14 14 (1.59%) Appium
14 14 (1.59%) Zephyr
General
1 258 (29.32%) Finance
2 237 (26.93%) Social Skills
3 120 (13.64%) Analytical Skills
3 120 (13.64%) Banking
4 96 (10.91%) Public Sector
5 26 (2.95%) Front Office
5 26 (2.95%) Investment Banking
6 22 (2.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 20 (2.27%) Financial Institution
8 15 (1.70%) Legal
9 14 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
10 13 (1.48%) Documentation Skills
11 11 (1.25%) Back Office
12 9 (1.02%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (1.02%) Retail
12 9 (1.02%) Telecoms
13 8 (0.91%) Presentation Skills
14 7 (0.80%) Marketing
15 6 (0.68%) Local Government
16 5 (0.57%) Law
Job Titles
1 189 (21.48%) Developer
2 152 (17.27%) Senior
3 92 (10.45%) Lead
4 84 (9.55%) Tester
5 56 (6.36%) Test Engineer
6 54 (6.14%) Data Engineer
7 53 (6.02%) QA Engineer
8 52 (5.91%) Analyst
9 48 (5.45%) Architect
10 47 (5.34%) Java Developer
11 46 (5.23%) DevOps Engineer
12 42 (4.77%) Automation Engineer
13 36 (4.09%) Automation Tester
13 36 (4.09%) Software Engineer
14 35 (3.98%) Senior Developer
15 32 (3.64%) Full-Stack Developer
16 31 (3.52%) Test Automation Engineer
16 31 (3.52%) Test Leader
17 26 (2.95%) QA Automation Engineer
18 25 (2.84%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 117 (13.30%) Playwright
2 107 (12.16%) REST
3 103 (11.70%) React
4 82 (9.32%) RESTful
5 73 (8.30%) Kafka
6 65 (7.39%) .NET
7 64 (7.27%) Spring
8 58 (6.59%) Node.js
9 56 (6.36%) Spring Boot
10 46 (5.23%) CSS
11 44 (5.00%) HTML
12 28 (3.18%) OAuth
13 24 (2.73%) PySpark
14 23 (2.61%) HTML5
15 22 (2.50%) Redux
16 21 (2.39%) AngularJS
17 20 (2.27%) pytest
18 19 (2.16%) CSS3
18 19 (2.16%) GraphQL
18 19 (2.16%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 130 (14.77%) Cloud Native
2 73 (8.30%) Distributed Systems
3 54 (6.14%) Product Ownership
4 35 (3.98%) Legacy Systems
5 27 (3.07%) Data Protection Act
6 25 (2.84%) Onboarding
7 21 (2.39%) Self-Motivation
8 20 (2.27%) Greenfield Project
8 20 (2.27%) Virtual Team
9 19 (2.16%) Fixed Income
10 17 (1.93%) AI Agents
11 16 (1.82%) Algorithms
11 16 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
11 16 (1.82%) Mobile App
12 15 (1.70%) Management Information System
13 13 (1.48%) Data Structures
14 12 (1.36%) Equities
15 10 (1.14%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 10 (1.14%) NHS
15 10 (1.14%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 33 (3.75%) Linux
2 24 (2.73%) Windows
3 18 (2.05%) Android
4 16 (1.82%) Apple iOS
5 15 (1.70%) Unix
6 6 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (0.45%) Solaris
7 4 (0.45%) Windows Server
7 4 (0.45%) Windows Server 2008
8 3 (0.34%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 534 (60.68%) CI/CD
2 361 (41.02%) Agile
3 319 (36.25%) DevOps
4 167 (18.98%) AI
5 154 (17.50%) Infrastructure as Code
6 146 (16.59%) Problem-Solving
7 141 (16.02%) Continuous Improvement
8 139 (15.80%) Validation
9 138 (15.68%) Microservices
10 134 (15.23%) Test Strategy
11 129 (14.66%) Containerisation
12 127 (14.43%) Observability
13 125 (14.20%) Software Engineering
14 117 (13.30%) Regression Testing
15 111 (12.61%) User Acceptance Testing
16 101 (11.48%) Scrum
17 96 (10.91%) TDD
18 92 (10.45%) Full-Stack Development
19 91 (10.34%) Analytics
20 86 (9.77%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 264 (30.00%) Python
2 221 (25.11%) SQL
3 205 (23.30%) Java
4 140 (15.91%) TypeScript
5 129 (14.66%) JavaScript
6 97 (11.02%) C#
7 32 (3.64%) PowerShell
8 23 (2.61%) Kotlin
9 22 (2.50%) Bash
10 18 (2.05%) Ruby
11 16 (1.82%) Apex Code
11 16 (1.82%) Bicep
11 16 (1.82%) Scala
12 14 (1.59%) Go
12 14 (1.59%) PL/SQL
13 8 (0.91%) Swift
13 8 (0.91%) T-SQL
14 6 (0.68%) C++
14 6 (0.68%) Groovy
14 6 (0.68%) VBA
Qualifications
1 202 (22.95%) Security Cleared
2 178 (20.23%) SC Cleared
3 53 (6.02%) Degree
4 33 (3.75%) Computer Science Degree
5 24 (2.73%) BPSS Clearance
6 22 (2.50%) ISTQB
7 16 (1.82%) DV Cleared
8 14 (1.59%) AWS Certification
9 11 (1.25%) Master's Degree
10 7 (0.80%) DBS Check
11 6 (0.68%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 5 (0.57%) Azure Certification
13 4 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 4 (0.45%) CISSP
14 3 (0.34%) TOGAF Certification
15 2 (0.23%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
15 2 (0.23%) Cisco Certification
15 2 (0.23%) CompTIA Security+
15 2 (0.23%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 2 (0.23%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 219 (24.89%) QA
2 72 (8.18%) Data Quality
3 54 (6.14%) Accessibility
4 25 (2.84%) GDPR
5 20 (2.27%) WCAG
6 9 (1.02%) NIST
7 6 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.57%) ISO 20022
8 5 (0.57%) SLA
9 4 (0.45%) HL7
10 3 (0.34%) EU AI Act
10 3 (0.34%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 3 (0.34%) MiFID
10 3 (0.34%) Software Quality Assurance
11 2 (0.23%) GRC
11 2 (0.23%) NCSC
11 2 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.11%) GMP
12 1 (0.11%) GxP
12 1 (0.11%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 144 (16.36%) Docker
2 7 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.45%) Active Directory
4 4 (0.45%) Oracle RAC
4 4 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.11%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 150 (17.05%) Kubernetes
2 121 (13.75%) Terraform
3 40 (4.55%) Grafana
4 35 (3.98%) Prometheus
5 30 (3.41%) Ansible
6 8 (0.91%) HP ALM
6 8 (0.91%) Kibana
6 8 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.45%) Oracle RMAN
7 4 (0.45%) Puppet
8 3 (0.34%) Control-M
8 3 (0.34%) Kustomize
8 3 (0.34%) Packer
8 3 (0.34%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.23%) Amdocs OSS
10 1 (0.11%) HP Quality Center
10 1 (0.11%) Istio
10 1 (0.11%) linkerd
10 1 (0.11%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 87 (9.89%) Microsoft
2 57 (6.48%) Salesforce
3 50 (5.68%) Oracle
4 30 (3.41%) Databricks
5 21 (2.39%) ServiceNow
6 19 (2.16%) UiPath
7 15 (1.70%) Google
7 15 (1.70%) Informatica
7 15 (1.70%) Splunk
8 12 (1.36%) IBM
9 9 (1.02%) Dynatrace
9 9 (1.02%) SAP
10 8 (0.91%) HP
10 8 (0.91%) OpenAI
10 8 (0.91%) OpenLink
11 7 (0.80%) MuleSoft
12 6 (0.68%) Charles River
12 6 (0.68%) Foundry
12 6 (0.68%) Workday
13 5 (0.57%) Red Hat