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 22 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 52 45 55
Rank change year-on-year -7 +10 -15
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 693 704 804
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.90% 4.45% 4.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.31% 4.98% 4.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 475 464 601
10th Percentile £339 £338 £400
25th Percentile £413 £409 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -8.70% -4.17%
75th Percentile £630 £630 £675
90th Percentile £750 £746 £800
England median daily rate £500 £500 £533
% change year-on-year - -6.19% -7.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 2
10th Percentile £43.00 - £76.50
25th Percentile £43.75 - £78.75
Median hourly rate £45.00 - £82.50
75th Percentile £63.75 - £86.25
90th Percentile £73.50 - £88.50
England median hourly rate £65.00 £53.75 £75.00
% change year-on-year +20.93% -28.33% +25.00%

All Process and 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 13,057 14,136 18,004
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 92.24% 89.39% 89.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,585 9,131 12,920
10th Percentile £334 £350 £351
25th Percentile £425 £450 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £550 £570
Median % change year-on-year -2.73% -3.51% -3.39%
75th Percentile £653 £675 £688
90th Percentile £775 £800 £800
England median daily rate £505 £525 £545
% change year-on-year -3.81% -3.67% -0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 258 170 250
10th Percentile £17.98 £17.25 £18.76
25th Percentile £24.50 £23.80 £21.75
Median hourly rate £28.31 £37.50 £37.17
Median % change year-on-year -24.50% +0.89% -4.39%
75th Percentile £47.00 £55.94 £61.75
90th Percentile £68.06 £80.75 £76.25
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.36 £45.00
% change year-on-year -28.87% -21.42% +26.76%

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 22 November 2025.

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
Hourly Rate Histogram in London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Automation in London over the 6 months to 22 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Automation in London

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 22 November 2025. 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 -15 86 £525 -0.94% 172
South London -7 12 £506 +4.92% 5
West London -11 10 £485 +38.43% 12
East London -2 8 £483 +11.56% 15
North London - 1 - - 6
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 37 (5.34%) Confluence
2 20 (2.89%) Apache Spark
3 11 (1.59%) Apache Airflow
4 7 (1.01%) Apache
5 6 (0.87%) CMS
6 5 (0.72%) SharePoint
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%) Headless CMS
8 1 (0.14%) JBoss
8 1 (0.14%) nginx
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
8 1 (0.14%) WebLogic
Applications
1 17 (2.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (1.01%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.87%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.29%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 15 (2.16%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.58%) SAP HR
3 2 (0.29%) Eagle PACE
3 2 (0.29%) Markit EDM
3 2 (0.29%) Shopify
4 1 (0.14%) Algo Collateral
4 1 (0.14%) CODA-Financials
4 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.14%) ION Anvil
4 1 (0.14%) Loan IQ
4 1 (0.14%) MoSes
4 1 (0.14%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.14%) PORTIA
4 1 (0.14%) Sage X3
4 1 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.14%) Temenos T24
4 1 (0.14%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 209 (30.16%) Azure
2 159 (22.94%) AWS
3 90 (12.99%) Azure DevOps
4 89 (12.84%) GitHub
5 79 (11.40%) GCP
6 51 (7.36%) Serverless
7 40 (5.77%) GitHub Actions
8 27 (3.90%) AWS Lambda
9 25 (3.61%) SaaS
10 24 (3.46%) Amazon S3
11 22 (3.17%) Snowflake
12 19 (2.74%) Power Platform
13 18 (2.60%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 18 (2.60%) Azure Data Factory
14 17 (2.45%) Azure AKS
15 16 (2.31%) Azure Monitor
16 15 (2.16%) Cloud Run
17 14 (2.02%) Amazon ECS
17 14 (2.02%) Azure Logic Apps
18 13 (1.88%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 15 (2.16%) HTTP
2 14 (2.02%) Firewall
2 14 (2.02%) SSL
3 11 (1.59%) HTTPS
3 11 (1.59%) TCP/IP
4 10 (1.44%) Multicast
5 9 (1.30%) DNS
5 9 (1.30%) VPN
6 8 (1.15%) Network Security
7 6 (0.87%) SD-WAN
7 6 (0.87%) WAN
8 5 (0.72%) Cisco IPT
9 3 (0.43%) Bluetooth
9 3 (0.43%) DHCP
9 3 (0.43%) FTP
9 3 (0.43%) Wireshark
10 2 (0.29%) Ethernet
10 2 (0.29%) Internet
10 2 (0.29%) VLAN
10 2 (0.29%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (8.08%) PostgreSQL
2 40 (5.77%) NoSQL
3 38 (5.48%) SQL Server
4 25 (3.61%) Data Warehouse
4 25 (3.61%) Relational Database
5 22 (3.17%) MongoDB
6 18 (2.60%) BigQuery
7 15 (2.16%) Amazon RDS
8 13 (1.88%) Data Lake
9 12 (1.73%) Redis
10 11 (1.59%) Big Data
11 10 (1.44%) Power BI
12 9 (1.30%) Azure SQL Database
12 9 (1.30%) DynamoDB
13 8 (1.15%) Amazon Redshift
14 7 (1.01%) Delta Lake
15 5 (0.72%) Amazon Aurora
15 5 (0.72%) DB2
15 5 (0.72%) Metadata
15 5 (0.72%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 112 (16.16%) Git
2 106 (15.30%) JIRA
3 100 (14.43%) Selenium
4 91 (13.13%) Jenkins
5 61 (8.80%) GitLab
6 57 (8.23%) Cucumber
7 48 (6.93%) Postman
8 44 (6.35%) Cypress.io
9 33 (4.76%) JUnit
10 32 (4.62%) JMeter
11 26 (3.75%) Bitbucket
12 21 (3.03%) REST Assured
13 18 (2.60%) SpecFlow
14 15 (2.16%) Appium
15 14 (2.02%) Maven
15 14 (2.02%) TestRail
16 13 (1.88%) Gatling
16 13 (1.88%) Zephyr
17 12 (1.73%) WebDriver
18 10 (1.44%) webpack
General
1 192 (27.71%) Social Skills
2 159 (22.94%) Finance
3 85 (12.27%) Banking
4 65 (9.38%) Analytical Skills
5 48 (6.93%) Public Sector
6 24 (3.46%) Front Office
7 22 (3.17%) Investment Banking
8 18 (2.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 18 (2.60%) Pharmaceutical
9 14 (2.02%) Presentation Skills
10 13 (1.88%) Documentation Skills
11 11 (1.59%) Financial Institution
12 10 (1.44%) International Banking
13 9 (1.30%) Legal
14 7 (1.01%) Back Office
14 7 (1.01%) Publishing
15 6 (0.87%) Law
15 6 (0.87%) Marketing
16 5 (0.72%) Retail
16 5 (0.72%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 156 (22.51%) Developer
2 114 (16.45%) Senior
3 92 (13.28%) Tester
4 54 (7.79%) Test Engineer
5 52 (7.50%) Lead
6 48 (6.93%) Analyst
7 47 (6.78%) Automation Tester
8 35 (5.05%) QA Engineer
9 34 (4.91%) Test Analyst
10 33 (4.76%) Java Developer
10 33 (4.76%) Software Engineer
11 31 (4.47%) Test Automation Engineer
12 27 (3.90%) Consultant
12 27 (3.90%) Senior Developer
13 26 (3.75%) Automation Engineer
14 22 (3.17%) Data Engineer
14 22 (3.17%) Python Developer
15 21 (3.03%) Architect
16 20 (2.89%) Test Leader
17 17 (2.45%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (11.40%) Playwright
1 79 (11.40%) React
2 63 (9.09%) REST
3 60 (8.66%) .NET
3 60 (8.66%) Node.js
4 51 (7.36%) RESTful
5 48 (6.93%) Kafka
6 37 (5.34%) Spring
7 32 (4.62%) pytest
7 32 (4.62%) Spring Boot
8 31 (4.47%) HTML
8 31 (4.47%) JSON
8 31 (4.47%) Web Services
9 30 (4.33%) CSS
10 28 (4.04%) SOAP
10 28 (4.04%) XML
11 25 (3.61%) Jest
12 24 (3.46%) AngularJS
13 20 (2.89%) FastAPI
14 17 (2.45%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 69 (9.96%) Cloud Native
2 40 (5.77%) Product Ownership
3 25 (3.61%) Mobile App
4 23 (3.32%) Distributed Systems
5 18 (2.60%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 16 (2.31%) Genomics
7 15 (2.16%) Data Structures
7 15 (2.16%) Life Science
7 15 (2.16%) Virtual Team
8 14 (2.02%) Algorithms
8 14 (2.02%) Reinsurance
9 12 (1.73%) Onboarding
10 11 (1.59%) Equities
10 11 (1.59%) Fixed Income
10 11 (1.59%) Greenfield Project
10 11 (1.59%) Management Information System
11 10 (1.44%) Legacy Systems
11 10 (1.44%) Linux Command Line
11 10 (1.44%) Security Posture
12 9 (1.30%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 55 (7.94%) Linux
2 29 (4.18%) Windows
3 26 (3.75%) Android
4 23 (3.32%) Apple iOS
5 18 (2.60%) Unix
6 6 (0.87%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.29%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.14%) CentOS
8 1 (0.14%) FreeRTOS
8 1 (0.14%) Kali Linux
8 1 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.14%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 349 (50.36%) CI/CD
2 344 (49.64%) Agile
3 274 (39.54%) DevOps
4 150 (21.65%) Problem-Solving
5 109 (15.73%) Software Engineering
6 99 (14.29%) Microservices
7 95 (13.71%) Containerisation
8 93 (13.42%) Test Scripting
9 88 (12.70%) Scrum
9 88 (12.70%) Test Strategy
10 85 (12.27%) Infrastructure as Code
11 83 (11.98%) TDD
12 81 (11.69%) AI
13 73 (10.53%) SDLC
14 71 (10.25%) Continuous Improvement
14 71 (10.25%) Validation
15 68 (9.81%) Software Testing
16 59 (8.51%) BDD
16 59 (8.51%) Machine Learning
17 58 (8.37%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 228 (32.90%) Python
2 149 (21.50%) SQL
3 148 (21.36%) Java
4 110 (15.87%) TypeScript
5 106 (15.30%) JavaScript
6 92 (13.28%) C#
7 30 (4.33%) Bash
8 26 (3.75%) PowerShell
9 21 (3.03%) C++
9 21 (3.03%) Go
10 15 (2.16%) Kotlin
11 13 (1.88%) Bicep
12 8 (1.15%) Perl
13 7 (1.01%) Swift
14 6 (0.87%) VB.NET
15 5 (0.72%) Korn
15 5 (0.72%) PL/SQL
15 5 (0.72%) Ruby
15 5 (0.72%) Shell Script
16 4 (0.58%) F#
Qualifications
1 104 (15.01%) Security Cleared
2 93 (13.42%) SC Cleared
3 56 (8.08%) Degree
4 34 (4.91%) ISTQB
5 22 (3.17%) Computer Science Degree
6 16 (2.31%) BPSS Clearance
7 14 (2.02%) Master's Degree
8 10 (1.44%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 9 (1.30%) OSCP
10 7 (1.01%) SANS
11 5 (0.72%) Azure Certification
11 5 (0.72%) GPEN
12 4 (0.58%) AWS Certification
12 4 (0.58%) CEH
12 4 (0.58%) CREST Certified
12 4 (0.58%) DV Cleared
12 4 (0.58%) MCP
12 4 (0.58%) Microsoft Certification
13 3 (0.43%) HNC
13 3 (0.43%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 162 (23.38%) QA
2 53 (7.65%) Accessibility
3 23 (3.32%) Data Quality
4 14 (2.02%) GDPR
4 14 (2.02%) WCAG
5 8 (1.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (1.15%) NIST
6 6 (0.87%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 5 (0.72%) PERC
8 4 (0.58%) NIST 800
8 4 (0.58%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.43%) Def Stans
9 3 (0.43%) EU AI Act
9 3 (0.43%) IEC 61508
9 3 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 15288
9 3 (0.43%) ITGC
9 3 (0.43%) MiFID
9 3 (0.43%) NCSC
9 3 (0.43%) SLA
10 2 (0.29%) GMP
System Software
1 137 (19.77%) Docker
2 10 (1.44%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
3 4 (0.58%) zsh
4 3 (0.43%) Virtual Servers
5 2 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.14%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.14%) Firmware
6 1 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.14%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 108 (15.58%) Kubernetes
2 79 (11.40%) Terraform
3 32 (4.62%) Ansible
4 16 (2.31%) Grafana
5 12 (1.73%) Prometheus
6 9 (1.30%) HP ALM
7 5 (0.72%) Argo
7 5 (0.72%) Nmap
8 4 (0.58%) Nessus
8 4 (0.58%) Rancher
9 3 (0.43%) Functional Safety
10 2 (0.29%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (0.29%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.29%) SCCM
10 2 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.29%) vRealize
11 1 (0.14%) HP Quality Center
11 1 (0.14%) Kibana
11 1 (0.14%) logstash
11 1 (0.14%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 57 (8.23%) Microsoft
2 47 (6.78%) Oracle
3 43 (6.20%) Google
4 37 (5.34%) Databricks
5 32 (4.62%) Salesforce
6 23 (3.32%) ServiceNow
7 16 (2.31%) SAP
7 16 (2.31%) UiPath
8 15 (2.16%) Splunk
9 9 (1.30%) HP
9 9 (1.30%) MuleSoft
10 8 (1.15%) Guidewire
10 8 (1.15%) Solace
11 7 (1.01%) Charles River
11 7 (1.01%) Dynatrace
11 7 (1.01%) webMethods
12 6 (0.87%) Cisco
12 6 (0.87%) Murex
12 6 (0.87%) OpenAI
12 6 (0.87%) VMware