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

6 months to
11 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 42 52
Rank change year-on-year -4 +10 -6
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 764 643 715
As % of all contract jobs in London 5.05% 4.76% 3.88%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.56% 5.26% 4.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 503 421 536
10th Percentile £325 £350 £378
25th Percentile £400 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £551
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.63% -8.25%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £653
90th Percentile £688 £750 £744
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 £64.25 £77.19 £70.19
% change year-on-year -16.76% +9.98% +19.97%

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 13,733 12,232 16,310
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 90.75% 90.57% 88.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,140 7,798 11,691
10th Percentile £350 £350 £338
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 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 212 153 343
10th Percentile £18.25 £21.05 £16.00
25th Percentile £25.11 £25.40 £19.42
Median hourly rate £34.38 £37.50 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.31% +25.00% -14.89%
75th Percentile £56.97 £55.25 £50.50
90th Percentile £69.94 £79.75 £72.50
England median hourly rate £25.77 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -26.37% - -

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 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 11 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 -11 96 £525 - 50
West London -9 21 £442 +27.93% 14
South London -10 13 £513 +7.89% 4
East London -1 9 £450 +5.88% 9
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 48 (6.28%) Confluence
2 15 (1.96%) Apache Spark
3 8 (1.05%) Apache Airflow
3 8 (1.05%) Appian
4 5 (0.65%) Apache
4 5 (0.65%) SharePoint
5 4 (0.52%) Camunda
5 4 (0.52%) CMS
6 3 (0.39%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 2 (0.26%) Magnolia
7 2 (0.26%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.26%) Sitecore CMS
7 2 (0.26%) WordPress
8 1 (0.13%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.13%) nginx
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle Application Server
8 1 (0.13%) WebLogic
Applications
1 17 (2.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.79%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.65%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.13%) Trello
Business Applications
1 19 (2.49%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.52%) Loan IQ
2 4 (0.52%) SAP HR
3 3 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.26%) Eagle PACE
4 2 (0.26%) iTrent
4 2 (0.26%) Markit EDM
4 2 (0.26%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.26%) Shopify
4 2 (0.26%) Summit
5 1 (0.13%) Algo Collateral
5 1 (0.13%) Bloomberg TOMS
5 1 (0.13%) CODA-Financials
5 1 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.13%) IntelliMatch
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.13%) PORTIA
5 1 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.13%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 236 (30.89%) Azure
2 172 (22.51%) AWS
3 107 (14.01%) GitHub
4 104 (13.61%) Azure DevOps
5 78 (10.21%) GCP
6 53 (6.94%) Serverless
7 49 (6.41%) GitHub Actions
8 28 (3.66%) Snowflake
9 27 (3.53%) Azure Data Factory
10 26 (3.40%) SaaS
11 25 (3.27%) AWS Lambda
12 23 (3.01%) Azure AKS
12 23 (3.01%) Power Platform
13 22 (2.88%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 21 (2.75%) Amazon S3
15 20 (2.62%) Dynamics 365
16 18 (2.36%) Amazon EKS
17 17 (2.23%) Azure Functions
18 16 (2.09%) Azure Monitor
19 15 (1.96%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.44%) Firewall
1 11 (1.44%) HTTP
2 10 (1.31%) HTTPS
2 10 (1.31%) SSL
3 8 (1.05%) VPN
4 7 (0.92%) DNS
4 7 (0.92%) SD-WAN
4 7 (0.92%) TCP/IP
4 7 (0.92%) WAN
5 5 (0.65%) Cisco IPT
5 5 (0.65%) Network Security
6 4 (0.52%) FTP
6 4 (0.52%) Multicast
7 3 (0.39%) DHCP
7 3 (0.39%) Ethernet
7 3 (0.39%) WebEx
7 3 (0.39%) Wireshark
8 2 (0.26%) VLAN
9 1 (0.13%) RS-232
9 1 (0.13%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (6.41%) PostgreSQL
2 45 (5.89%) SQL Server
3 38 (4.97%) NoSQL
4 25 (3.27%) Relational Database
5 22 (2.88%) MongoDB
6 19 (2.49%) BigQuery
7 17 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
8 12 (1.57%) Power BI
8 12 (1.57%) Tableau
9 10 (1.31%) Big Data
9 10 (1.31%) Data Lake
9 10 (1.31%) Redis
10 9 (1.18%) Amazon Aurora
10 9 (1.18%) Amazon RDS
10 9 (1.18%) Pinecone
11 8 (1.05%) Azure SQL Database
11 8 (1.05%) Star Schema
12 7 (0.92%) Amazon Athena
12 7 (0.92%) Metadata
12 7 (0.92%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 128 (16.75%) JIRA
2 122 (15.97%) Git
3 101 (13.22%) Selenium
4 100 (13.09%) Jenkins
5 81 (10.60%) GitLab
6 57 (7.46%) Postman
7 53 (6.94%) Cucumber
8 49 (6.41%) Cypress.io
9 32 (4.19%) JMeter
10 30 (3.93%) REST Assured
11 25 (3.27%) JUnit
12 23 (3.01%) SpecFlow
13 18 (2.36%) Bitbucket
13 18 (2.36%) MLflow
14 17 (2.23%) TestRail
15 15 (1.96%) WebDriver
16 14 (1.83%) Appium
17 11 (1.44%) Gradle
18 10 (1.31%) Gatling
18 10 (1.31%) Zephyr
General
1 193 (25.26%) Social Skills
2 171 (22.38%) Finance
3 91 (11.91%) Banking
4 81 (10.60%) Analytical Skills
5 77 (10.08%) Public Sector
6 24 (3.14%) Investment Banking
7 23 (3.01%) Front Office
8 17 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 17 (2.23%) Pharmaceutical
9 10 (1.31%) Documentation Skills
10 9 (1.18%) Legal
11 8 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
12 7 (0.92%) Financial Institution
13 5 (0.65%) Marketing
13 5 (0.65%) Organisational Skills
13 5 (0.65%) Publishing
13 5 (0.65%) Retail
13 5 (0.65%) Telecoms
14 4 (0.52%) International Banking
14 4 (0.52%) Military
Job Titles
1 182 (23.82%) Developer
2 141 (18.46%) Senior
3 90 (11.78%) Tester
4 73 (9.55%) Lead
5 55 (7.20%) Test Engineer
6 54 (7.07%) Automation Tester
7 51 (6.68%) Analyst
8 39 (5.10%) QA Engineer
9 37 (4.84%) Senior Developer
10 35 (4.58%) Java Developer
11 34 (4.45%) Automation Engineer
12 32 (4.19%) Test Analyst
13 30 (3.93%) Software Engineer
14 29 (3.80%) Architect
14 29 (3.80%) Test Automation Engineer
15 27 (3.53%) Python Developer
16 25 (3.27%) DevOps Engineer
17 24 (3.14%) Consultant
17 24 (3.14%) Data Engineer
18 23 (3.01%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (14.40%) Playwright
2 84 (10.99%) REST
3 82 (10.73%) React
4 72 (9.42%) Node.js
5 69 (9.03%) .NET
6 64 (8.38%) RESTful
7 57 (7.46%) Kafka
8 40 (5.24%) Web Services
9 39 (5.10%) Spring
10 38 (4.97%) Spring Boot
11 37 (4.84%) pytest
12 30 (3.93%) HTML
13 27 (3.53%) JSON
13 27 (3.53%) OAuth
14 26 (3.40%) CSS
14 26 (3.40%) FastAPI
15 24 (3.14%) GraphQL
15 24 (3.14%) XML
16 23 (3.01%) SOAP
17 21 (2.75%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 88 (11.52%) Cloud Native
2 45 (5.89%) Product Ownership
3 33 (4.32%) Distributed Systems
4 27 (3.53%) Legacy Systems
5 23 (3.01%) Algorithms
6 21 (2.75%) Data Structures
6 21 (2.75%) Mobile App
7 18 (2.36%) Equities
8 17 (2.23%) Greenfield Project
8 17 (2.23%) Virtual Team
9 15 (1.96%) Data Protection Act
10 14 (1.83%) Genomics
10 14 (1.83%) Life Science
11 13 (1.70%) Management Information System
11 13 (1.70%) Onboarding
12 12 (1.57%) Derivative
13 11 (1.44%) Fixed Income
13 11 (1.44%) Security Posture
14 10 (1.31%) Public Cloud
15 8 (1.05%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 52 (6.81%) Linux
2 29 (3.80%) Windows
3 22 (2.88%) Android
3 22 (2.88%) Apple iOS
4 9 (1.18%) Unix
5 6 (0.79%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.52%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.13%) FreeRTOS
7 1 (0.13%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.13%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 399 (52.23%) CI/CD
2 357 (46.73%) Agile
3 286 (37.43%) DevOps
4 166 (21.73%) Problem-Solving
5 119 (15.58%) AI
6 108 (14.14%) Containerisation
7 106 (13.87%) Test Scripting
8 100 (13.09%) Microservices
8 100 (13.09%) Software Engineering
8 100 (13.09%) Test Strategy
9 92 (12.04%) Observability
10 91 (11.91%) Software Testing
11 90 (11.78%) Validation
12 88 (11.52%) Continuous Improvement
13 87 (11.39%) Infrastructure as Code
14 81 (10.60%) Scrum
15 78 (10.21%) TDD
16 77 (10.08%) API Testing
17 71 (9.29%) Regression Testing
18 69 (9.03%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 254 (33.25%) Python
2 178 (23.30%) SQL
3 150 (19.63%) Java
4 144 (18.85%) TypeScript
5 133 (17.41%) JavaScript
6 101 (13.22%) C#
7 21 (2.75%) Bash
7 21 (2.75%) PowerShell
8 18 (2.36%) C++
9 17 (2.23%) Go
10 14 (1.83%) Kotlin
11 13 (1.70%) Bicep
12 10 (1.31%) Apex Code
12 10 (1.31%) PL/SQL
13 9 (1.18%) Swift
14 7 (0.92%) Ruby
14 7 (0.92%) Rust
14 7 (0.92%) T-SQL
15 5 (0.65%) Groovy
15 5 (0.65%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 147 (19.24%) Security Cleared
2 126 (16.49%) SC Cleared
3 56 (7.33%) Degree
4 40 (5.24%) ISTQB
5 23 (3.01%) Computer Science Degree
6 21 (2.75%) BPSS Clearance
7 18 (2.36%) Master's Degree
8 12 (1.57%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 9 (1.18%) OSCP
10 7 (0.92%) Microsoft Certification
11 6 (0.79%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 6 (0.79%) SANS
12 5 (0.65%) GPEN
12 5 (0.65%) ISEB
13 4 (0.52%) Azure Certification
13 4 (0.52%) CEH
13 4 (0.52%) DBS Check
13 4 (0.52%) DV Cleared
14 3 (0.39%) CREST Certified
14 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 169 (22.12%) QA
2 44 (5.76%) Accessibility
3 33 (4.32%) Data Quality
4 18 (2.36%) GDPR
5 12 (1.57%) NIST
5 12 (1.57%) WCAG
6 8 (1.05%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 6 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (0.79%) NCSC
8 5 (0.65%) PERC
9 4 (0.52%) ISO 20022
9 4 (0.52%) MiFID
9 4 (0.52%) SLA
9 4 (0.52%) Software Quality Assurance
10 3 (0.39%) EU AI Act
10 3 (0.39%) GMP
10 3 (0.39%) NIST 800
10 3 (0.39%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.26%) HL7
12 1 (0.13%) GRC
System Software
1 163 (21.34%) Docker
2 11 (1.44%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.39%) Virtual Servers
4 2 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.26%) 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%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.13%) zsh
Systems Management
1 132 (17.28%) Kubernetes
2 76 (9.95%) Terraform
3 25 (3.27%) Ansible
4 24 (3.14%) Grafana
5 21 (2.75%) Prometheus
6 10 (1.31%) HP ALM
7 5 (0.65%) Nmap
8 4 (0.52%) Nessus
8 4 (0.52%) Rancher
8 4 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
9 3 (0.39%) Kibana
9 3 (0.39%) Progress Chef
9 3 (0.39%) Puppet
10 2 (0.26%) HP Quality Center
10 2 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (0.26%) SCCM
10 2 (0.26%) vRealize
11 1 (0.13%) Argo
11 1 (0.13%) CloudHub
11 1 (0.13%) Istio
Vendors
1 69 (9.03%) Microsoft
2 48 (6.28%) Oracle
3 40 (5.24%) Databricks
4 37 (4.84%) Salesforce
5 35 (4.58%) Google
6 25 (3.27%) ServiceNow
7 17 (2.23%) SAP
8 16 (2.09%) OpenAI
8 16 (2.09%) Splunk
9 13 (1.70%) MuleSoft
10 11 (1.44%) Guidewire
10 11 (1.44%) UiPath
11 10 (1.31%) Apple
11 10 (1.31%) HP
12 8 (1.05%) Automation Anywhere
12 8 (1.05%) Dynatrace
13 7 (0.92%) webMethods
14 6 (0.79%) Charles River
14 6 (0.79%) Cisco
14 6 (0.79%) VMware