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

6 months to
28 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 47 50
Rank change year-on-year +2 +3 -3
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 832 614 705
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.94% 4.86% 3.91%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.51% 5.32% 4.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 538 424 502
10th Percentile £325 £341 £375
25th Percentile £406 £406 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £599 £657 £688
90th Percentile £700 £775 £773
England median daily rate £487 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -2.55% -4.76% -6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 7
10th Percentile £55.99 - -
25th Percentile £58.15 - £52.50
Median hourly rate £63.50 - £55.00
75th Percentile £65.88 - £61.25
90th Percentile £66.25 - £65.40
England median hourly rate £65.50 £56.75 £60.00
% change year-on-year +15.42% -5.42% -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 15,109 11,547 15,936
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 89.66% 91.42% 88.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,127 7,832 11,395
10th Percentile £356 £350 £338
25th Percentile £425 £440 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -6.78%
75th Percentile £650 £680 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £788
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 235 169 335
10th Percentile £18.14 £19.16 £15.97
25th Percentile £22.00 £24.66 £19.57
Median hourly rate £35.50 £35.00 £30.16
Median % change year-on-year +1.43% +16.05% -22.67%
75th Percentile £57.25 £51.18 £50.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £65.50 £68.75
England median hourly rate £36.00 £32.66 £33.00
% change year-on-year +10.24% -1.05% -12.00%

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 28 March 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 28 March 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 +2 109 £525 - 65
South London -6 21 £513 +4.59% 7
West London -12 21 £450 +19.05% 5
East London +5 11 £445 +11.25% 8
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 59 (7.09%) Confluence
2 15 (1.80%) Apache Airflow
3 14 (1.68%) Apache Spark
4 8 (0.96%) Appian
5 5 (0.60%) Apache
6 4 (0.48%) Camunda
6 4 (0.48%) CMS
6 4 (0.48%) SharePoint
6 4 (0.48%) WebLogic
7 3 (0.36%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
7 3 (0.36%) nginx
7 3 (0.36%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.24%) Magnolia
8 2 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
8 2 (0.24%) WordPress
9 1 (0.12%) Anypoint
9 1 (0.12%) Ethereum
9 1 (0.12%) SAS
9 1 (0.12%) Solana
Applications
1 18 (2.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.72%) Microsoft Project
3 6 (0.72%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.48%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.12%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 22 (2.64%) Aladdin
2 6 (0.72%) Findur
2 6 (0.72%) Loan IQ
2 6 (0.72%) Oracle EBS
3 5 (0.60%) Shopify
4 4 (0.48%) SAP HR
5 3 (0.36%) BambooHR
5 3 (0.36%) Distributed Ledger
5 3 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.24%) iTrent
6 2 (0.24%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.24%) Summit
7 1 (0.12%) Algo Collateral
7 1 (0.12%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.12%) CODA-Financials
7 1 (0.12%) Infor M3
7 1 (0.12%) IntelliMatch
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle EBS R12
7 1 (0.12%) PORTIA
7 1 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 261 (31.37%) Azure
2 199 (23.92%) AWS
3 136 (16.35%) GitHub
4 127 (15.26%) Azure DevOps
5 76 (9.13%) GCP
6 61 (7.33%) GitHub Actions
7 56 (6.73%) Serverless
8 32 (3.85%) AWS Lambda
9 31 (3.73%) Power Platform
9 31 (3.73%) Snowflake
10 30 (3.61%) Amazon S3
11 28 (3.37%) Azure AKS
12 27 (3.25%) Azure Data Factory
13 20 (2.40%) SaaS
14 19 (2.28%) Dynamics 365
15 18 (2.16%) Amazon ECS
16 17 (2.04%) Apigee
16 17 (2.04%) Power Automate
17 16 (1.92%) Azure Monitor
18 15 (1.80%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.32%) Firewall
1 11 (1.32%) HTTP
2 9 (1.08%) WAN
3 7 (0.84%) DNS
3 7 (0.84%) SD-WAN
3 7 (0.84%) TCP/IP
4 6 (0.72%) SSL
4 6 (0.72%) VPN
5 5 (0.60%) Cisco IPT
5 5 (0.60%) Multicast
6 4 (0.48%) Ethernet
6 4 (0.48%) FTP
6 4 (0.48%) WebEx
7 3 (0.36%) DHCP
7 3 (0.36%) HTTPS
8 2 (0.24%) Cisco IOS
8 2 (0.24%) DSL
8 2 (0.24%) Network Security
8 2 (0.24%) SNMP
8 2 (0.24%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (5.65%) SQL Server
2 42 (5.05%) PostgreSQL
3 32 (3.85%) NoSQL
4 28 (3.37%) Relational Database
5 25 (3.00%) MongoDB
6 24 (2.88%) Data Warehouse
7 23 (2.76%) BigQuery
8 18 (2.16%) Tableau
9 17 (2.04%) Power BI
10 16 (1.92%) DynamoDB
11 12 (1.44%) Amazon Athena
11 12 (1.44%) Metadata
11 12 (1.44%) Redis
12 11 (1.32%) Big Data
12 11 (1.32%) Oracle Database
13 10 (1.20%) Amazon RDS
13 10 (1.20%) Data Lake
14 9 (1.08%) Pinecone
15 8 (0.96%) Amazon Aurora
15 8 (0.96%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 150 (18.03%) JIRA
2 138 (16.59%) Git
3 111 (13.34%) Selenium
4 105 (12.62%) Jenkins
5 84 (10.10%) GitLab
6 60 (7.21%) Cucumber
7 50 (6.01%) Cypress.io
7 50 (6.01%) Postman
8 37 (4.45%) REST Assured
9 33 (3.97%) SpecFlow
10 31 (3.73%) JMeter
11 28 (3.37%) JUnit
12 21 (2.52%) MLflow
13 19 (2.28%) Bitbucket
14 15 (1.80%) Appium
15 14 (1.68%) TestRail
16 13 (1.56%) Maven
16 13 (1.56%) WebDriver
16 13 (1.56%) Zephyr
17 11 (1.32%) Mockito
General
1 221 (26.56%) Social Skills
2 205 (24.64%) Finance
3 111 (13.34%) Banking
4 107 (12.86%) Public Sector
5 90 (10.82%) Analytical Skills
6 30 (3.61%) Investment Banking
7 27 (3.25%) Front Office
8 15 (1.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 14 (1.68%) Legal
10 11 (1.32%) Documentation Skills
10 11 (1.32%) Influencing Skills
10 11 (1.32%) Pharmaceutical
11 10 (1.20%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
12 9 (1.08%) Telecoms
13 7 (0.84%) Back Office
13 7 (0.84%) Billing
13 7 (0.84%) Financial Institution
13 7 (0.84%) Publishing
14 5 (0.60%) Retail
Job Titles
1 187 (22.48%) Developer
2 161 (19.35%) Senior
3 91 (10.94%) Tester
4 88 (10.58%) Lead
5 71 (8.53%) Test Engineer
6 60 (7.21%) Automation Tester
7 56 (6.73%) Analyst
8 49 (5.89%) QA Engineer
9 42 (5.05%) Architect
9 42 (5.05%) Senior Developer
10 38 (4.57%) Automation Engineer
10 38 (4.57%) Test Automation Engineer
11 34 (4.09%) Java Developer
12 33 (3.97%) DevOps Engineer
13 31 (3.73%) Data Engineer
14 30 (3.61%) Test Analyst
15 26 (3.13%) Python Developer
16 25 (3.00%) Software Engineer
16 25 (3.00%) Test Manager
17 24 (2.88%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 119 (14.30%) Playwright
2 90 (10.82%) REST
3 85 (10.22%) React
4 73 (8.77%) Node.js
5 70 (8.41%) RESTful
6 68 (8.17%) .NET
7 62 (7.45%) Kafka
8 44 (5.29%) Spring
9 41 (4.93%) Spring Boot
10 35 (4.21%) HTML
11 33 (3.97%) CSS
11 33 (3.97%) pytest
11 33 (3.97%) Web Services
12 28 (3.37%) OAuth
13 26 (3.13%) AngularJS
14 23 (2.76%) GraphQL
15 22 (2.64%) FastAPI
16 21 (2.52%) Middleware
17 20 (2.40%) Gherkin
17 20 (2.40%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 94 (11.30%) Cloud Native
2 51 (6.13%) Product Ownership
3 45 (5.41%) Distributed Systems
4 33 (3.97%) Legacy Systems
5 28 (3.37%) Algorithms
6 26 (3.13%) Data Protection Act
7 22 (2.64%) Equities
8 21 (2.52%) Data Structures
8 21 (2.52%) Virtual Team
9 18 (2.16%) Greenfield Project
9 18 (2.16%) Onboarding
10 16 (1.92%) Management Information System
10 16 (1.92%) Mobile App
11 15 (1.80%) Fixed Income
12 13 (1.56%) Self-Motivation
13 12 (1.44%) Derivative
14 11 (1.32%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 10 (1.20%) Life Science
15 10 (1.20%) Public Cloud
16 9 (1.08%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 46 (5.53%) Linux
2 34 (4.09%) Windows
3 20 (2.40%) Android
4 18 (2.16%) Apple iOS
5 8 (0.96%) Unix
6 6 (0.72%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.60%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.36%) Solaris
8 3 (0.36%) Windows Server 2008
8 3 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.12%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.12%) Kali Linux
9 1 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 451 (54.21%) CI/CD
2 352 (42.31%) Agile
3 305 (36.66%) DevOps
4 172 (20.67%) Problem-Solving
5 134 (16.11%) AI
6 120 (14.42%) Containerisation
7 115 (13.82%) Observability
8 114 (13.70%) Infrastructure as Code
9 113 (13.58%) Microservices
10 110 (13.22%) Continuous Improvement
11 107 (12.86%) Test Strategy
12 104 (12.50%) Test Scripting
13 101 (12.14%) Validation
14 100 (12.02%) Software Testing
15 99 (11.90%) Software Engineering
16 95 (11.42%) Regression Testing
17 85 (10.22%) Analytics
18 84 (10.10%) User Acceptance Testing
19 81 (9.74%) Data Modelling
19 81 (9.74%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 284 (34.13%) Python
2 201 (24.16%) SQL
3 170 (20.43%) Java
4 152 (18.27%) TypeScript
5 135 (16.23%) JavaScript
6 120 (14.42%) C#
7 26 (3.13%) PowerShell
8 20 (2.40%) C++
9 18 (2.16%) Apex Code
9 18 (2.16%) Bash
10 16 (1.92%) Ruby
11 13 (1.56%) Bicep
11 13 (1.56%) Kotlin
12 12 (1.44%) PL/SQL
13 9 (1.08%) Go
14 8 (0.96%) T-SQL
15 7 (0.84%) Rust
15 7 (0.84%) Swift
16 6 (0.72%) Shell Script
17 4 (0.48%) C
Qualifications
1 178 (21.39%) Security Cleared
2 151 (18.15%) SC Cleared
3 51 (6.13%) Degree
4 38 (4.57%) ISTQB
5 26 (3.13%) BPSS Clearance
5 26 (3.13%) Computer Science Degree
6 11 (1.32%) Master's Degree
7 9 (1.08%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 6 (0.72%) DBS Check
9 5 (0.60%) DV Cleared
9 5 (0.60%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 5 (0.60%) OSCP
10 4 (0.48%) Azure Certification
10 4 (0.48%) CEH
10 4 (0.48%) ISEB
10 4 (0.48%) Microsoft Certification
10 4 (0.48%) SANS
11 3 (0.36%) AWS Certification
11 3 (0.36%) CREST Certified
12 2 (0.24%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 203 (24.40%) QA
2 46 (5.53%) Accessibility
2 46 (5.53%) Data Quality
3 19 (2.28%) GDPR
4 18 (2.16%) WCAG
5 9 (1.08%) NIST
6 8 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 8 (0.96%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 6 (0.72%) NCSC
8 5 (0.60%) MiFID
8 5 (0.60%) PERC
8 5 (0.60%) SLA
9 4 (0.48%) HL7
9 4 (0.48%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 4 (0.48%) ISO 20022
9 4 (0.48%) Software Quality Assurance
10 3 (0.36%) NIST 800
10 3 (0.36%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.12%) GMP
11 1 (0.12%) HIPAA
System Software
1 155 (18.63%) Docker
2 6 (0.72%) Active Directory
3 5 (0.60%) VMware ESXi
4 4 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
4 4 (0.48%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.36%) Oracle RAC
6 2 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.12%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.12%) Firmware
7 1 (0.12%) Squid
7 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 136 (16.35%) Kubernetes
2 94 (11.30%) Terraform
3 32 (3.85%) Grafana
4 29 (3.49%) Prometheus
5 22 (2.64%) Ansible
6 10 (1.20%) HP ALM
7 6 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (0.48%) Puppet
9 3 (0.36%) Kibana
9 3 (0.36%) Oracle RMAN
9 3 (0.36%) Rancher
10 2 (0.24%) Amdocs OSS
10 2 (0.24%) Istio
10 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (0.24%) Nmap
10 2 (0.24%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.24%) SCCM
11 1 (0.12%) CloudHub
11 1 (0.12%) HP Quality Center
11 1 (0.12%) linkerd
Vendors
1 75 (9.01%) Microsoft
2 55 (6.61%) Oracle
3 50 (6.01%) Salesforce
4 43 (5.17%) Databricks
5 31 (3.73%) Google
6 23 (2.76%) ServiceNow
7 16 (1.92%) SAP
8 13 (1.56%) OpenAI
9 12 (1.44%) Dynatrace
9 12 (1.44%) MuleSoft
9 12 (1.44%) Splunk
10 11 (1.32%) UiPath
11 10 (1.20%) HP
12 9 (1.08%) Apple
12 9 (1.08%) Guidewire
12 9 (1.08%) IBM
12 9 (1.08%) Workday
13 8 (0.96%) Automation Anywhere
13 8 (0.96%) Citrix
14 7 (0.84%) Cisco