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 13 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 47 53
Rank change year-on-year -3 +6 -8
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 700 632 722
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.94% 4.56% 3.98%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.41% 5.05% 4.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 466 416 541
10th Percentile £325 £340 £380
25th Percentile £400 £408 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £516 £568
Median % change year-on-year -3.15% -9.03% -5.42%
75th Percentile £618 £625 £668
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
England median daily rate £500 £500 £540
% change year-on-year - -7.41% -6.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 0
10th Percentile £55.99 - -
25th Percentile £58.15 - -
Median hourly rate £63.50 - -
75th Percentile £65.88 - -
90th Percentile £66.25 - -
England median hourly rate £64.25 £67.50 £77.50
% change year-on-year -4.81% -12.90% +36.30%

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 12,937 12,504 16,120
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 91.29% 90.26% 88.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,531 7,979 11,519
10th Percentile £350 £350 £350
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £563
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -2.22% -6.25%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £788
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 222 152 259
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.44 £16.25
25th Percentile £24.61 £23.80 £19.99
Median hourly rate £32.50 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% +7.69% -13.33%
75th Percentile £53.75 £53.75 £53.75
90th Percentile £69.30 £80.68 £73.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £34.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -26.03% -20.00% +21.43%

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 13 January 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 13 January 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 92 £525 - 44
West London -10 17 £375 +9.97% 4
South London -2 15 £513 +4.59% 10
East London -4 10 £448 +5.29% 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 (6.43%) Confluence
2 16 (2.29%) Apache Spark
3 7 (1.00%) Apache Airflow
4 5 (0.71%) Apache
4 5 (0.71%) SharePoint
5 4 (0.57%) Appian
5 4 (0.57%) CMS
6 3 (0.43%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 2 (0.29%) Camunda
7 2 (0.29%) Magnolia
7 2 (0.29%) Sitecore CMS
7 2 (0.29%) WordPress
8 1 (0.14%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.14%) nginx
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
8 1 (0.14%) WebLogic
Applications
1 13 (1.86%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (1.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.86%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.71%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.29%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 18 (2.57%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.57%) SAP HR
3 2 (0.29%) Eagle PACE
3 2 (0.29%) Markit EDM
3 2 (0.29%) NetSuite
3 2 (0.29%) Shopify
4 1 (0.14%) Algo Collateral
4 1 (0.14%) Bloomberg TOMS
4 1 (0.14%) CODA-Financials
4 1 (0.14%) IntelliMatch
4 1 (0.14%) ION Anvil
4 1 (0.14%) iTrent
4 1 (0.14%) Loan IQ
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.14%) PORTIA
4 1 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.14%) Summit
4 1 (0.14%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 221 (31.57%) Azure
2 161 (23.00%) AWS
3 100 (14.29%) GitHub
4 95 (13.57%) Azure DevOps
5 78 (11.14%) GCP
6 52 (7.43%) Serverless
7 42 (6.00%) GitHub Actions
8 26 (3.71%) Snowflake
9 23 (3.29%) AWS Lambda
9 23 (3.29%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 23 (3.29%) SaaS
10 22 (3.14%) Azure AKS
11 21 (3.00%) Azure Data Factory
11 21 (3.00%) Power Platform
12 19 (2.71%) Amazon S3
13 17 (2.43%) Dynamics 365
14 16 (2.29%) Amazon EKS
14 16 (2.29%) Azure Functions
14 16 (2.29%) Azure Monitor
15 14 (2.00%) Cloud Run
Communications & Networking
1 14 (2.00%) HTTP
2 13 (1.86%) Firewall
2 13 (1.86%) SSL
3 10 (1.43%) HTTPS
3 10 (1.43%) TCP/IP
4 8 (1.14%) VPN
5 7 (1.00%) DNS
6 6 (0.86%) SD-WAN
6 6 (0.86%) WAN
7 5 (0.71%) Cisco IPT
7 5 (0.71%) Network Security
8 4 (0.57%) FTP
8 4 (0.57%) Multicast
9 3 (0.43%) DHCP
9 3 (0.43%) WebEx
9 3 (0.43%) Wireshark
10 2 (0.29%) DSL
10 2 (0.29%) Ethernet
10 2 (0.29%) VLAN
11 1 (0.14%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (8.14%) PostgreSQL
2 43 (6.14%) SQL Server
3 39 (5.57%) NoSQL
4 28 (4.00%) Relational Database
5 22 (3.14%) MongoDB
6 19 (2.71%) BigQuery
6 19 (2.71%) Data Warehouse
7 13 (1.86%) Big Data
8 12 (1.71%) Data Lake
8 12 (1.71%) Redis
9 11 (1.57%) Power BI
10 9 (1.29%) Amazon Aurora
11 8 (1.14%) Amazon RDS
11 8 (1.14%) Star Schema
11 8 (1.14%) Tableau
12 7 (1.00%) Azure SQL Database
13 6 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
13 6 (0.86%) Data Vault
14 5 (0.71%) Apache Iceberg
14 5 (0.71%) Pinecone
Development Applications
1 116 (16.57%) JIRA
2 115 (16.43%) Git
3 96 (13.71%) Jenkins
3 96 (13.71%) Selenium
4 69 (9.86%) GitLab
5 53 (7.57%) Cucumber
5 53 (7.57%) Postman
6 47 (6.71%) Cypress.io
7 33 (4.71%) JMeter
8 26 (3.71%) JUnit
9 23 (3.29%) Bitbucket
10 22 (3.14%) SpecFlow
11 21 (3.00%) REST Assured
12 15 (2.14%) TestRail
13 14 (2.00%) Appium
14 11 (1.57%) Gatling
14 11 (1.57%) MLflow
15 10 (1.43%) Gradle
15 10 (1.43%) Maven
15 10 (1.43%) WebDriver
General
1 179 (25.57%) Social Skills
2 160 (22.86%) Finance
3 80 (11.43%) Banking
4 69 (9.86%) Analytical Skills
4 69 (9.86%) Public Sector
5 21 (3.00%) Investment Banking
6 19 (2.71%) Front Office
6 19 (2.71%) Pharmaceutical
7 16 (2.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 12 (1.71%) Documentation Skills
9 10 (1.43%) Financial Institution
10 9 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
11 7 (1.00%) Legal
12 6 (0.86%) Telecoms
13 5 (0.71%) Marketing
14 4 (0.57%) Back Office
14 4 (0.57%) Electronics
14 4 (0.57%) International Banking
14 4 (0.57%) Retail
14 4 (0.57%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 162 (23.14%) Developer
2 133 (19.00%) Senior
3 90 (12.86%) Tester
4 55 (7.86%) Lead
5 53 (7.57%) Automation Tester
6 52 (7.43%) Test Engineer
7 40 (5.71%) Analyst
7 40 (5.71%) QA Engineer
8 35 (5.00%) Senior Developer
9 33 (4.71%) Software Engineer
10 32 (4.57%) Java Developer
11 31 (4.43%) Test Automation Engineer
12 29 (4.14%) Automation Engineer
13 28 (4.00%) Python Developer
14 27 (3.86%) Consultant
14 27 (3.86%) Test Analyst
15 25 (3.57%) Architect
16 24 (3.43%) Data Engineer
16 24 (3.43%) Python Engineer
17 20 (2.86%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (13.29%) Playwright
2 76 (10.86%) REST
3 74 (10.57%) React
4 67 (9.57%) Node.js
5 65 (9.29%) .NET
6 59 (8.43%) RESTful
7 55 (7.86%) Kafka
8 35 (5.00%) pytest
8 35 (5.00%) Spring Boot
8 35 (5.00%) Web Services
9 33 (4.71%) Spring
10 29 (4.14%) JSON
11 28 (4.00%) HTML
12 26 (3.71%) CSS
12 26 (3.71%) FastAPI
13 25 (3.57%) XML
14 23 (3.29%) AngularJS
15 22 (3.14%) SOAP
16 21 (3.00%) GraphQL
17 17 (2.43%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 79 (11.29%) Cloud Native
2 45 (6.43%) Product Ownership
3 29 (4.14%) Distributed Systems
4 20 (2.86%) Mobile App
5 18 (2.57%) Data Structures
6 16 (2.29%) Algorithms
6 16 (2.29%) Genomics
6 16 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
6 16 (2.29%) Life Science
7 15 (2.14%) Equities
8 13 (1.86%) Derivative
8 13 (1.86%) Management Information System
8 13 (1.86%) Virtual Team
9 12 (1.71%) Data Protection Act
10 11 (1.57%) Greenfield Project
10 11 (1.57%) Onboarding
11 10 (1.43%) Fixed Income
12 9 (1.29%) Linux Command Line
12 9 (1.29%) Reinsurance
12 9 (1.29%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 56 (8.00%) Linux
2 27 (3.86%) Windows
3 20 (2.86%) Android
3 20 (2.86%) Apple iOS
4 16 (2.29%) Unix
5 6 (0.86%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.29%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.14%) FreeRTOS
7 1 (0.14%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.14%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 358 (51.14%) CI/CD
2 348 (49.71%) Agile
3 279 (39.86%) DevOps
4 158 (22.57%) Problem-Solving
5 103 (14.71%) Software Engineering
6 102 (14.57%) Containerisation
7 99 (14.14%) Microservices
8 98 (14.00%) AI
8 98 (14.00%) Test Scripting
9 85 (12.14%) Infrastructure as Code
10 81 (11.57%) Test Strategy
10 81 (11.57%) Validation
11 80 (11.43%) TDD
12 78 (11.14%) Software Testing
13 77 (11.00%) Observability
13 77 (11.00%) Scrum
14 74 (10.57%) Continuous Improvement
15 71 (10.14%) SDLC
16 67 (9.57%) Machine Learning
17 66 (9.43%) API Testing
Programming Languages
1 243 (34.71%) Python
2 164 (23.43%) SQL
3 138 (19.71%) Java
4 122 (17.43%) TypeScript
5 119 (17.00%) JavaScript
6 93 (13.29%) C#
7 23 (3.29%) PowerShell
8 22 (3.14%) Bash
9 19 (2.71%) C++
10 16 (2.29%) Go
11 13 (1.86%) Bicep
12 11 (1.57%) Kotlin
13 9 (1.29%) Apex Code
13 9 (1.29%) PL/SQL
14 7 (1.00%) Perl
14 7 (1.00%) Ruby
14 7 (1.00%) Rust
14 7 (1.00%) Swift
15 6 (0.86%) Shell Script
15 6 (0.86%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 125 (17.86%) Security Cleared
2 107 (15.29%) SC Cleared
3 54 (7.71%) Degree
4 36 (5.14%) ISTQB
5 24 (3.43%) Computer Science Degree
6 14 (2.00%) BPSS Clearance
7 13 (1.86%) Master's Degree
8 12 (1.71%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 9 (1.29%) OSCP
10 7 (1.00%) Microsoft Certification
11 6 (0.86%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 6 (0.86%) SANS
12 5 (0.71%) GPEN
12 5 (0.71%) ISEB
13 4 (0.57%) Azure Certification
13 4 (0.57%) CEH
13 4 (0.57%) DBS Check
13 4 (0.57%) MCP
14 3 (0.43%) CREST Certified
15 2 (0.29%) GXPN
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 161 (23.00%) QA
2 46 (6.57%) Accessibility
3 27 (3.86%) Data Quality
4 18 (2.57%) GDPR
5 15 (2.14%) WCAG
6 10 (1.43%) NIST
7 8 (1.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 6 (0.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 6 (0.86%) NCSC
9 5 (0.71%) MiFID
9 5 (0.71%) PERC
10 4 (0.57%) ISO 20022
10 4 (0.57%) Software Quality Assurance
11 3 (0.43%) EU AI Act
11 3 (0.43%) NIST 800
11 3 (0.43%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.29%) EMIR
12 2 (0.29%) GMP
12 2 (0.29%) ITGC
12 2 (0.29%) SLA
System Software
1 146 (20.86%) Docker
2 9 (1.29%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.43%) Virtual Servers
3 3 (0.43%) zsh
4 2 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.14%) Embedded Firmware
5 1 (0.14%) Firmware
5 1 (0.14%) Squid
5 1 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.14%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 117 (16.71%) Kubernetes
2 78 (11.14%) Terraform
3 28 (4.00%) Ansible
4 22 (3.14%) Grafana
5 17 (2.43%) Prometheus
6 9 (1.29%) HP ALM
7 5 (0.71%) Nmap
8 4 (0.57%) Nessus
8 4 (0.57%) Rancher
9 3 (0.43%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.29%) Argo
10 2 (0.29%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (0.29%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.29%) Puppet
10 2 (0.29%) SCCM
10 2 (0.29%) vRealize
11 1 (0.14%) CloudHub
11 1 (0.14%) Functional Safety
11 1 (0.14%) HP Quality Center
11 1 (0.14%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 59 (8.43%) Microsoft
2 49 (7.00%) Oracle
3 40 (5.71%) Databricks
4 35 (5.00%) Google
5 34 (4.86%) Salesforce
6 23 (3.29%) ServiceNow
7 17 (2.43%) Splunk
8 15 (2.14%) SAP
9 14 (2.00%) MuleSoft
9 14 (2.00%) OpenAI
10 11 (1.57%) Guidewire
11 9 (1.29%) Apple
11 9 (1.29%) Dynatrace
11 9 (1.29%) HP
12 8 (1.14%) UiPath
13 7 (1.00%) webMethods
14 6 (0.86%) Charles River
14 6 (0.86%) Cisco
14 6 (0.86%) IBM
14 6 (0.86%) VMware