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

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 55 44
Rank change year-on-year +8 -11 +5
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 951 607 756
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.68% 4.51% 4.69%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.26% 4.87% 5.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 654 406 497
10th Percentile £350 £350 £350
25th Percentile £425 £411 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £620 £638 £625
90th Percentile £725 £759 £750
England median daily rate £475 £500 £510
% change year-on-year -5.00% -1.96% -7.27%
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 £68.22 £57.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +18.63% -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 18,072 12,468 14,370
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 88.85% 92.58% 89.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,839 8,220 9,409
10th Percentile £358 £325 £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 £669 £675
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
England median daily rate £525 £512 £525
% change year-on-year +2.64% -2.57% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 329 243 178
10th Percentile £16.04 £17.98 £17.25
25th Percentile £19.03 £25.01 £24.16
Median hourly rate £32.63 £30.00 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.75% -16.67% -4.00%
75th Percentile £57.50 £47.25 £56.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £63.75 £75.38
England median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +63.02% -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 1 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 1 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 1 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 +2 121 £550 +18.92% 111
South London 0 15 £593 +18.50% 7
East London +4 7 £658 +26.44% 11
West London -23 4 £600 +50.94% 58
North London +1 2 £463 - 3
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 47 (4.94%) Apache Airflow
3 26 (2.73%) 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%) Appian
12 1 (0.11%) Headless CMS
12 1 (0.11%) Jupyter
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 M3
7 1 (0.11%) IntelliMatch
7 1 (0.11%) Maximo
7 1 (0.11%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.11%) Misys Midas
7 1 (0.11%) Summit
7 1 (0.11%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 336 (35.33%) Azure
2 304 (31.97%) AWS
3 196 (20.61%) GitHub
4 160 (16.82%) Azure DevOps
5 125 (13.14%) GitHub Actions
6 87 (9.15%) GCP
6 87 (9.15%) Serverless
7 73 (7.68%) Power Platform
8 66 (6.94%) AWS Lambda
9 61 (6.41%) Amazon S3
10 52 (5.47%) dbt
11 42 (4.42%) Snowflake
12 41 (4.31%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 38 (4.00%) GitHub Copilot
14 31 (3.26%) AWS CloudFormation
15 30 (3.15%) Amazon ECS
16 29 (3.05%) Amazon EC2
16 29 (3.05%) Amazon EKS
17 27 (2.84%) Microsoft Copilot
18 25 (2.63%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.16%) DNS
2 9 (0.95%) TCP/IP
3 8 (0.84%) Firewall
4 7 (0.74%) DHCP
4 7 (0.74%) HTTP
4 7 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
5 6 (0.63%) BGP
5 6 (0.63%) LAN
5 6 (0.63%) Network Security
5 6 (0.63%) WAN
6 4 (0.42%) Ethernet VPN
6 4 (0.42%) Internet
6 4 (0.42%) NX-OS
6 4 (0.42%) SSL
6 4 (0.42%) TACACS
6 4 (0.42%) VXLAN
7 3 (0.32%) FTP
7 3 (0.32%) OpenLDAP
7 3 (0.32%) SMS
7 3 (0.32%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (7.36%) PostgreSQL
2 58 (6.10%) Power BI
3 53 (5.57%) Data Warehouse
4 50 (5.26%) NoSQL
4 50 (5.26%) SQL Server
5 41 (4.31%) MongoDB
6 37 (3.89%) Relational Database
7 25 (2.63%) Amazon Redshift
8 23 (2.42%) Amazon RDS
9 22 (2.31%) Data Lake
10 21 (2.21%) Amazon Athena
10 21 (2.21%) DynamoDB
11 18 (1.89%) MySQL
12 16 (1.68%) Big Data
12 16 (1.68%) Redis
12 16 (1.68%) Tableau
13 15 (1.58%) BigQuery
13 15 (1.58%) Metadata
14 14 (1.47%) Amazon Aurora
14 14 (1.47%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 197 (20.72%) Git
2 182 (19.14%) Jenkins
3 129 (13.56%) JIRA
4 123 (12.93%) Selenium
5 112 (11.78%) GitLab
6 60 (6.31%) Cypress.io
7 56 (5.89%) Cucumber
7 56 (5.89%) JUnit
8 55 (5.78%) JMeter
9 54 (5.68%) Postman
10 44 (4.63%) REST Assured
11 23 (2.42%) Gatling
11 23 (2.42%) Gradle
11 23 (2.42%) Maven
12 20 (2.10%) LoadRunner
12 20 (2.10%) Mockito
12 20 (2.10%) SonarQube
13 16 (1.68%) SoapUI
14 15 (1.58%) Appium
14 15 (1.58%) Bitbucket
General
1 288 (30.28%) Finance
2 257 (27.02%) Social Skills
3 151 (15.88%) Analytical Skills
4 147 (15.46%) Banking
5 78 (8.20%) Public Sector
6 32 (3.36%) Front Office
7 24 (2.52%) Investment Banking
8 20 (2.10%) Financial Institution
8 20 (2.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 15 (1.58%) Marketing
9 15 (1.58%) Telecoms
10 14 (1.47%) Back Office
11 11 (1.16%) Local Government
11 11 (1.16%) Retail
12 10 (1.05%) Documentation Skills
12 10 (1.05%) Influencing Skills
12 10 (1.05%) Law
13 9 (0.95%) Legal
14 6 (0.63%) Games
14 6 (0.63%) Military
Job Titles
1 202 (21.24%) Developer
2 168 (17.67%) Senior
3 99 (10.41%) Lead
4 68 (7.15%) Data Engineer
5 63 (6.62%) Tester
6 61 (6.41%) Test Engineer
7 53 (5.57%) Java Developer
7 53 (5.57%) QA Engineer
8 52 (5.47%) Automation Engineer
8 52 (5.47%) DevOps Engineer
9 50 (5.26%) Software Engineer
10 46 (4.84%) Architect
11 43 (4.52%) Analyst
12 40 (4.21%) Full-Stack Developer
12 40 (4.21%) Senior Developer
13 35 (3.68%) Test Manager
14 33 (3.47%) Test Automation Engineer
14 33 (3.47%) Test Leader
15 30 (3.15%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
16 25 (2.63%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 164 (17.25%) Terraform
2 157 (16.51%) REST
3 132 (13.88%) Kafka
4 114 (11.99%) Playwright
5 106 (11.15%) RESTful
6 89 (9.36%) React
7 85 (8.94%) Spring
8 77 (8.10%) .NET
9 73 (7.68%) Spring Boot
10 65 (6.83%) HTML
11 55 (5.78%) CSS
12 44 (4.63%) Node.js
13 36 (3.79%) Middleware
14 35 (3.68%) SOAP
15 34 (3.58%) OAuth
15 34 (3.58%) PySpark
16 30 (3.15%) JSON
17 28 (2.94%) AngularJS
17 28 (2.94%) XML
18 27 (2.84%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 163 (17.14%) Cloud Native
2 89 (9.36%) Product Ownership
3 88 (9.25%) Distributed Systems
4 40 (4.21%) AI Agents
5 37 (3.89%) Onboarding
6 31 (3.26%) Enterprise Software
7 21 (2.21%) Data Structures
7 21 (2.21%) Legacy Systems
7 21 (2.21%) Self-Motivation
8 19 (2.00%) Data Protection Act
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 10 (1.05%) Algorithms
13 10 (1.05%) Market Risk
14 9 (0.95%) Distributed Architecture
14 9 (0.95%) Management Information System
14 9 (0.95%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 74 (7.78%) Linux
2 49 (5.15%) Unix
3 34 (3.58%) Windows
4 20 (2.10%) 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
1 616 (64.77%) CI/CD
2 430 (45.22%) Agile
3 392 (41.22%) DevOps
4 219 (23.03%) AI
5 189 (19.87%) Problem-Solving
6 188 (19.77%) Infrastructure as Code
7 180 (18.93%) Software Engineering
8 179 (18.82%) Microservices
9 174 (18.30%) Continuous Improvement
9 174 (18.30%) Validation
10 159 (16.72%) Containerisation
11 152 (15.98%) Test Strategy
12 149 (15.67%) Observability
13 136 (14.30%) Scrum
14 129 (13.56%) Stakeholder Management
15 122 (12.83%) TDD
16 113 (11.88%) Event-Driven
17 104 (10.94%) Data Pipeline
18 103 (10.83%) Regression Testing
19 102 (10.73%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 338 (35.54%) Python
2 271 (28.50%) SQL
3 264 (27.76%) Java
4 152 (15.98%) JavaScript
5 126 (13.25%) TypeScript
6 90 (9.46%) C#
7 42 (4.42%) Bash
7 42 (4.42%) PowerShell
8 28 (2.94%) Bicep
9 25 (2.63%) Scala
10 23 (2.42%) Kotlin
11 16 (1.68%) C++
11 16 (1.68%) Go
12 12 (1.26%) Shell Script
13 10 (1.05%) C
13 10 (1.05%) Groovy
13 10 (1.05%) PL/SQL
13 10 (1.05%) Ruby
14 9 (0.95%) VB.NET
15 8 (0.84%) Perl
Qualifications
1 260 (27.34%) Security Cleared
2 231 (24.29%) SC Cleared
3 67 (7.05%) Degree
4 40 (4.21%) Computer Science Degree
5 34 (3.58%) DV Cleared
6 32 (3.36%) ISTQB
7 30 (3.15%) 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
1 267 (28.08%) QA
2 81 (8.52%) Data Quality
3 46 (4.84%) Accessibility
4 23 (2.42%) GDPR
5 14 (1.47%) 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%) SEPA
System Software
1 204 (21.45%) 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
1 189 (19.87%) Kubernetes
2 69 (7.26%) Grafana
3 52 (5.47%) Ansible
3 52 (5.47%) Prometheus
4 21 (2.21%) Puppet
5 19 (2.00%) Kibana
6 17 (1.79%) Progress Chef
7 10 (1.05%) Control-M
8 6 (0.63%) Argo
8 6 (0.63%) HP Fortify
8 6 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
9 5 (0.53%) HP ALM
9 5 (0.53%) Microsoft Intune
10 3 (0.32%) Kustomize
10 3 (0.32%) Packer
10 3 (0.32%) Rancher
11 2 (0.21%) Istio
11 2 (0.21%) systemd
12 1 (0.11%) HAProxy
12 1 (0.11%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 115 (12.09%) Microsoft
2 51 (5.36%) Oracle
3 46 (4.84%) Databricks
4 43 (4.52%) Google
5 32 (3.36%) IBM
6 31 (3.26%) Salesforce
6 31 (3.26%) ServiceNow
7 26 (2.73%) SAP
8 24 (2.52%) Splunk
9 22 (2.31%) UiPath
10 18 (1.89%) Informatica
11 17 (1.79%) OpenAI
12 15 (1.58%) Dynatrace
12 15 (1.58%) Foundry
13 14 (1.47%) Cisco
14 13 (1.37%) Red Hat
15 12 (1.26%) VMware
16 11 (1.16%) HP
16 11 (1.16%) SaltStack
17 7 (0.74%) MuleSoft