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

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 56 45
Rank change year-on-year +8 -11 +5
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 950 614 756
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.67% 4.55% 4.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.25% 4.92% 5.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 654 413 498
10th Percentile £350 £350 £350
25th Percentile £425 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £624 £638 £629
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
England median daily rate £475 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -5.00% -2.44% -6.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 4 3
10th Percentile £36.78 £37.25 £53.13
25th Percentile £43.61 £40.63 £57.81
Median hourly rate £49.50 £45.00 £68.75
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -34.55% -23.61%
75th Percentile £86.25 £55.63 £71.88
90th Percentile £97.50 £70.25 -
England median hourly rate £69.00 £57.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +20.00% -4.17% -20.00%

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 18,082 12,492 14,475
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 88.85% 92.60% 89.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,829 8,233 9,474
10th Percentile £358 £331 £350
25th Percentile £450 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.85% -1.82% -4.35%
75th Percentile £663 £668 £675
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 336 246 181
10th Percentile £16.04 £17.98 £17.25
25th Percentile £19.03 £25.00 £24.18
Median hourly rate £32.50 £30.25 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.44% -17.12% -2.67%
75th Percentile £57.50 £47.50 £57.50
90th Percentile £81.25 £63.75 £78.75
England median hourly rate £40.08 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.36% -41.51% -3.37%

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 3 October 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Automation in London over the 6 months to 3 October 2026.

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 3 October 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 +7 121 £550 +22.22% 112
South London -2 15 £593 +18.50% 7
East London +4 7 £658 +26.44% 14
West London -28 3 £600 +50.94% 53
North London +1 2 £463 - 5
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 71 (7.47%) Confluence
2 46 (4.84%) Apache Airflow
3 26 (2.74%) Apache Spark
4 23 (2.42%) SharePoint
5 18 (1.89%) Apache
6 16 (1.68%) CMS
7 8 (0.84%) Camunda
8 7 (0.74%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 4 (0.42%) Microsoft Exchange
10 3 (0.32%) Kentico
11 2 (0.21%) Anypoint
11 2 (0.21%) Mule
11 2 (0.21%) nginx
11 2 (0.21%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.21%) SAS
11 2 (0.21%) WebLogic
12 1 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
12 1 (0.11%) Appian
12 1 (0.11%) Headless CMS
12 1 (0.11%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 18 (1.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.47%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.53%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.32%) Mingle
5 3 (0.32%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.32%) Trello
6 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.11%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.11%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 13 (1.37%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (0.95%) Aladdin
2 9 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.53%) SAP GRC
4 4 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
4 4 (0.42%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.21%) BambooHR
6 2 (0.21%) Findur
6 2 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.21%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.21%) Shopify
7 1 (0.11%) FLEXCUBE
7 1 (0.11%) Infor CloudSuite
7 1 (0.11%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.11%) Maximo
7 1 (0.11%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.11%) Misys Midas
7 1 (0.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.11%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 336 (35.37%) Azure
2 299 (31.47%) AWS
3 195 (20.53%) GitHub
4 159 (16.74%) Azure DevOps
5 125 (13.16%) GitHub Actions
6 89 (9.37%) Serverless
7 86 (9.05%) GCP
8 73 (7.68%) Power Platform
9 67 (7.05%) AWS Lambda
10 62 (6.53%) Amazon S3
11 51 (5.37%) dbt
12 43 (4.53%) Snowflake
13 40 (4.21%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 38 (4.00%) GitHub Copilot
15 31 (3.26%) Amazon ECS
15 31 (3.26%) AWS CloudFormation
16 29 (3.05%) Amazon EC2
16 29 (3.05%) Amazon EKS
17 27 (2.84%) Microsoft Copilot
18 24 (2.53%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 12 (1.26%) DNS
2 10 (1.05%) TCP/IP
3 9 (0.95%) Firewall
4 7 (0.74%) BGP
4 7 (0.74%) DHCP
4 7 (0.74%) HTTP
4 7 (0.74%) Network Security
4 7 (0.74%) WAN
4 7 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
5 6 (0.63%) LAN
6 5 (0.53%) Internet
7 4 (0.42%) Ethernet VPN
7 4 (0.42%) NX-OS
7 4 (0.42%) SSL
7 4 (0.42%) TACACS
7 4 (0.42%) VXLAN
8 3 (0.32%) OpenLDAP
8 3 (0.32%) SD-WAN
8 3 (0.32%) SMS
8 3 (0.32%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (7.47%) PostgreSQL
2 58 (6.11%) Power BI
3 53 (5.58%) Data Warehouse
4 51 (5.37%) SQL Server
5 48 (5.05%) NoSQL
6 40 (4.21%) MongoDB
7 37 (3.89%) Relational Database
8 25 (2.63%) Amazon Redshift
9 24 (2.53%) Amazon RDS
10 22 (2.32%) Data Lake
11 21 (2.21%) Amazon Athena
12 20 (2.11%) DynamoDB
13 18 (1.89%) MySQL
14 16 (1.68%) Redis
14 16 (1.68%) Tableau
15 15 (1.58%) Amazon Aurora
15 15 (1.58%) Big Data
15 15 (1.58%) BigQuery
15 15 (1.58%) Oracle Database
16 14 (1.47%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 197 (20.74%) Git
2 184 (19.37%) Jenkins
3 130 (13.68%) JIRA
4 124 (13.05%) Selenium
5 114 (12.00%) GitLab
6 59 (6.21%) Cypress.io
7 58 (6.11%) Cucumber
7 58 (6.11%) JUnit
8 55 (5.79%) Postman
9 54 (5.68%) JMeter
10 46 (4.84%) REST Assured
11 23 (2.42%) Gatling
11 23 (2.42%) Gradle
11 23 (2.42%) Maven
12 22 (2.32%) LoadRunner
13 20 (2.11%) SonarQube
14 19 (2.00%) Mockito
15 17 (1.79%) Appium
15 17 (1.79%) TestNG
16 16 (1.68%) SoapUI
General
1 287 (30.21%) Finance
2 259 (27.26%) Social Skills
3 153 (16.11%) Analytical Skills
4 149 (15.68%) Banking
5 79 (8.32%) Public Sector
6 32 (3.37%) Front Office
7 25 (2.63%) Investment Banking
8 20 (2.11%) Financial Institution
8 20 (2.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 15 (1.58%) Back Office
9 15 (1.58%) Marketing
9 15 (1.58%) Telecoms
10 11 (1.16%) Documentation Skills
10 11 (1.16%) Law
10 11 (1.16%) Local Government
11 10 (1.05%) Influencing Skills
11 10 (1.05%) Retail
12 9 (0.95%) Legal
13 6 (0.63%) Games
13 6 (0.63%) Military
Job Titles
1 205 (21.58%) Developer
2 168 (17.68%) Senior
3 100 (10.53%) Lead
4 66 (6.95%) Data Engineer
5 63 (6.63%) Test Engineer
6 62 (6.53%) Tester
7 53 (5.58%) Java Developer
7 53 (5.58%) QA Engineer
8 52 (5.47%) Automation Engineer
8 52 (5.47%) Software Engineer
9 51 (5.37%) DevOps Engineer
10 46 (4.84%) Architect
11 43 (4.53%) Analyst
12 41 (4.32%) Full-Stack Developer
13 40 (4.21%) Senior Developer
14 35 (3.68%) Test Leader
15 33 (3.47%) Test Automation Engineer
15 33 (3.47%) Test Manager
16 29 (3.05%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
17 26 (2.74%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 164 (17.26%) Terraform
2 160 (16.84%) REST
3 132 (13.89%) Kafka
4 115 (12.11%) Playwright
5 106 (11.16%) RESTful
6 89 (9.37%) React
7 85 (8.95%) Spring
8 77 (8.11%) .NET
9 73 (7.68%) Spring Boot
10 66 (6.95%) HTML
11 56 (5.89%) CSS
12 45 (4.74%) Node.js
13 36 (3.79%) Middleware
14 35 (3.68%) SOAP
15 34 (3.58%) OAuth
16 33 (3.47%) PySpark
17 30 (3.16%) AngularJS
18 29 (3.05%) JSON
19 28 (2.95%) pytest
19 28 (2.95%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 164 (17.26%) Cloud Native
2 89 (9.37%) Product Ownership
3 88 (9.26%) Distributed Systems
4 40 (4.21%) AI Agents
5 38 (4.00%) Onboarding
6 31 (3.26%) Enterprise Software
7 22 (2.32%) Data Structures
7 22 (2.32%) Self-Motivation
8 19 (2.00%) Data Protection Act
8 19 (2.00%) Legacy Systems
9 17 (1.79%) Mobile App
10 15 (1.58%) Fixed Income
10 15 (1.58%) Virtual Team
11 13 (1.37%) Security Posture
12 12 (1.26%) Private Cloud
13 11 (1.16%) Algorithms
14 10 (1.05%) Market Risk
15 9 (0.95%) Distributed Architecture
15 9 (0.95%) Greenfield Project
15 9 (0.95%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 74 (7.79%) Linux
2 49 (5.16%) Unix
3 34 (3.58%) Windows
4 20 (2.11%) Android
5 19 (2.00%) Apple iOS
6 16 (1.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 7 (0.74%) Windows Server
8 4 (0.42%) Ubuntu
8 4 (0.42%) VMS
9 2 (0.21%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.11%) CentOS
10 1 (0.11%) Solaris
10 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 618 (65.05%) CI/CD
2 435 (45.79%) Agile
3 393 (41.37%) DevOps
4 220 (23.16%) AI
5 188 (19.79%) Infrastructure as Code
6 187 (19.68%) Problem-Solving
7 182 (19.16%) Software Engineering
8 178 (18.74%) Microservices
9 174 (18.32%) Validation
10 172 (18.11%) Continuous Improvement
11 158 (16.63%) Containerisation
12 151 (15.89%) Test Strategy
13 147 (15.47%) Observability
14 139 (14.63%) Scrum
15 131 (13.79%) Stakeholder Management
16 123 (12.95%) TDD
17 113 (11.89%) Event-Driven
18 105 (11.05%) Data Pipeline
19 103 (10.84%) Regression Testing
20 102 (10.74%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 340 (35.79%) Python
2 273 (28.74%) SQL
3 267 (28.11%) Java
4 156 (16.42%) JavaScript
5 127 (13.37%) TypeScript
6 90 (9.47%) C#
7 43 (4.53%) Bash
8 42 (4.42%) PowerShell
9 28 (2.95%) Bicep
10 24 (2.53%) Scala
11 23 (2.42%) Kotlin
12 16 (1.68%) C++
12 16 (1.68%) Go
13 12 (1.26%) Shell Script
14 10 (1.05%) C
14 10 (1.05%) Groovy
14 10 (1.05%) PL/SQL
14 10 (1.05%) Ruby
15 9 (0.95%) VB.NET
16 8 (0.84%) Perl
Qualifications
1 259 (27.26%) Security Cleared
2 230 (24.21%) SC Cleared
3 65 (6.84%) Degree
4 39 (4.11%) Computer Science Degree
5 33 (3.47%) DV Cleared
6 31 (3.26%) ISTQB
7 30 (3.16%) AWS Certification
8 23 (2.42%) BPSS Clearance
9 14 (1.47%) Azure Certification
10 10 (1.05%) ISEB
11 9 (0.95%) CISSP
11 9 (0.95%) Master's Degree
12 7 (0.74%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 7 (0.74%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 7 (0.74%) DBS Check
12 7 (0.74%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 5 (0.53%) Cisco Certification
14 4 (0.42%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 4 (0.42%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 4 (0.42%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 265 (27.89%) QA
2 78 (8.21%) Data Quality
3 48 (5.05%) Accessibility
4 23 (2.42%) GDPR
5 15 (1.58%) WCAG
6 13 (1.37%) ISO 20022
7 12 (1.26%) NIST
8 11 (1.16%) SLA
9 10 (1.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 9 (0.95%) GRC
11 3 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.32%) EU AI Act
11 3 (0.32%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.21%) ISO 9001
12 2 (0.21%) MiFID
12 2 (0.21%) NCSC
12 2 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.21%) Software Quality Assurance
13 1 (0.11%) COBIT
13 1 (0.11%) WAI
System Software
1 201 (21.16%) Docker
2 11 (1.16%) Virtual Machines
3 7 (0.74%) Active Directory
4 5 (0.53%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.32%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.11%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.11%) Firmware
6 1 (0.11%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 185 (19.47%) Kubernetes
2 68 (7.16%) Grafana
3 52 (5.47%) Ansible
4 51 (5.37%) Prometheus
5 21 (2.21%) Puppet
6 19 (2.00%) Kibana
7 17 (1.79%) Progress Chef
8 10 (1.05%) Control-M
9 6 (0.63%) Argo
9 6 (0.63%) HP Fortify
9 6 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
10 5 (0.53%) Microsoft Intune
11 4 (0.42%) HP ALM
12 3 (0.32%) Kustomize
12 3 (0.32%) Packer
12 3 (0.32%) Rancher
13 2 (0.21%) Istio
13 2 (0.21%) systemd
14 1 (0.11%) HAProxy
14 1 (0.11%) Podman
Vendors
1 116 (12.21%) Microsoft
2 50 (5.26%) Oracle
3 47 (4.95%) Databricks
4 44 (4.63%) Google
5 32 (3.37%) IBM
6 31 (3.26%) ServiceNow
7 30 (3.16%) Salesforce
8 25 (2.63%) SAP
9 24 (2.53%) Splunk
10 23 (2.42%) UiPath
11 18 (1.89%) Informatica
12 17 (1.79%) OpenAI
13 15 (1.58%) Dynatrace
13 15 (1.58%) Foundry
14 14 (1.47%) Cisco
15 13 (1.37%) Red Hat
16 12 (1.26%) VMware
17 11 (1.16%) SaltStack
18 10 (1.05%) HP
19 7 (0.74%) MuleSoft