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

6 months to
30 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 46 52
Rank change year-on-year -1 +6 -6
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 825 612 722
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.66% 4.88% 4.05%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.26% 5.29% 4.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 530 418 495
10th Percentile £326 £341 £363
25th Percentile £410 £406 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £503 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.50% -8.64% -5.38%
75th Percentile £588 £663 £688
90th Percentile £700 £791 £775
England median daily rate £475 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 9
10th Percentile £55.99 - £52.00
25th Percentile £58.15 - £52.50
Median hourly rate £63.50 £35.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +81.43% -36.36% -35.29%
75th Percentile £65.88 - £65.00
90th Percentile £66.25 - £67.18
England median hourly rate £66.00 £55.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +20.00% -8.33% -2.04%

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 15,684 11,567 15,790
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 88.64% 92.16% 88.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,506 7,851 11,317
10th Percentile £356 £350 £338
25th Percentile £430 £440 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -6.78%
75th Percentile £650 £688 £675
90th Percentile £760 £813 £800
England median daily rate £508 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.33% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 257 172 325
10th Percentile £18.75 £16.50 £16.00
25th Percentile £25.00 £22.75 £20.00
Median hourly rate £35.50 £34.25 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year +3.65% +20.18% -25.25%
75th Percentile £57.50 £50.75 £46.86
90th Percentile £73.75 £63.70 £66.30
England median hourly rate £45.00 £30.00 £35.68
% change year-on-year +50.00% -15.92% -4.85%

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 30 April 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 30 April 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 +6 107 £525 +3.96% 38
West London -18 21 £450 +14.80% 10
South London -6 19 £513 +24.24% 10
East London +4 11 £445 +11.25% 11
North London - 1 £400 - 2
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 51 (6.18%) Confluence
2 23 (2.79%) Apache Airflow
3 20 (2.42%) Apache Spark
4 8 (0.97%) Appian
5 7 (0.85%) Apache
6 5 (0.61%) Camunda
7 4 (0.48%) nginx
7 4 (0.48%) Tomcat
8 3 (0.36%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.36%) CMS
8 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.36%) WebLogic
9 2 (0.24%) SharePoint
9 2 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
10 1 (0.12%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.12%) Ethereum
10 1 (0.12%) SAS
10 1 (0.12%) Solana
Applications
1 16 (1.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.61%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.48%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.12%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 20 (2.42%) Aladdin
2 7 (0.85%) Findur
2 7 (0.85%) Shopify
3 6 (0.73%) Loan IQ
3 6 (0.73%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.61%) BambooHR
5 4 (0.48%) Dynamics CRM
6 3 (0.36%) Distributed Ledger
7 2 (0.24%) iTrent
7 2 (0.24%) Summit
8 1 (0.12%) Algo Collateral
8 1 (0.12%) Bloomberg TOMS
8 1 (0.12%) Infor CloudSuite
8 1 (0.12%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.12%) Infor M3
8 1 (0.12%) IntelliMatch
8 1 (0.12%) NetSuite
8 1 (0.12%) Oracle EBS R12
8 1 (0.12%) PORTIA
8 1 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 249 (30.18%) Azure
2 207 (25.09%) AWS
3 133 (16.12%) GitHub
4 123 (14.91%) Azure DevOps
5 65 (7.88%) GitHub Actions
6 60 (7.27%) Serverless
7 54 (6.55%) GCP
8 37 (4.48%) Amazon S3
8 37 (4.48%) AWS Lambda
9 34 (4.12%) Power Platform
10 32 (3.88%) Snowflake
11 29 (3.52%) Azure AKS
12 28 (3.39%) Azure Data Factory
13 26 (3.15%) Amazon ECS
14 21 (2.55%) dbt
15 20 (2.42%) Azure Monitor
16 18 (2.18%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 18 (2.18%) Azure Cosmos DB
16 18 (2.18%) Dynamics 365
16 18 (2.18%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 10 (1.21%) HTTP
2 7 (0.85%) FTP
3 6 (0.73%) Firewall
4 5 (0.61%) Cisco IPT
5 4 (0.48%) Ethernet
5 4 (0.48%) SSL
5 4 (0.48%) WAN
5 4 (0.48%) WebEx
6 3 (0.36%) DNS
6 3 (0.36%) Multicast
7 2 (0.24%) Cisco IOS
7 2 (0.24%) DSL
7 2 (0.24%) HTTPS
7 2 (0.24%) NaaS
7 2 (0.24%) OpenLDAP
7 2 (0.24%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.24%) SNMP
7 2 (0.24%) TCP/IP
8 1 (0.12%) 5G
8 1 (0.12%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (6.67%) SQL Server
2 49 (5.94%) PostgreSQL
3 43 (5.21%) NoSQL
4 33 (4.00%) MongoDB
5 29 (3.52%) Data Warehouse
6 26 (3.15%) Relational Database
7 24 (2.91%) Power BI
8 22 (2.67%) Tableau
9 21 (2.55%) DynamoDB
10 19 (2.30%) BigQuery
11 18 (2.18%) Big Data
12 17 (2.06%) Amazon Athena
13 13 (1.58%) Amazon Redshift
13 13 (1.58%) Data Lake
13 13 (1.58%) Metadata
14 11 (1.33%) Amazon Aurora
14 11 (1.33%) Amazon RDS
14 11 (1.33%) Oracle Database
15 10 (1.21%) Redis
15 10 (1.21%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 142 (17.21%) JIRA
2 134 (16.24%) Git
3 115 (13.94%) Selenium
4 103 (12.48%) Jenkins
5 76 (9.21%) GitLab
6 57 (6.91%) Cucumber
7 53 (6.42%) Cypress.io
8 49 (5.94%) Postman
9 35 (4.24%) REST Assured
10 28 (3.39%) JMeter
10 28 (3.39%) SpecFlow
11 27 (3.27%) JUnit
12 20 (2.42%) MLflow
13 15 (1.82%) Appium
13 15 (1.82%) WebDriver
14 14 (1.70%) TestRail
15 13 (1.58%) Bitbucket
15 13 (1.58%) Maven
15 13 (1.58%) Zephyr
16 11 (1.33%) Mockito
General
1 221 (26.79%) Social Skills
2 218 (26.42%) Finance
3 106 (12.85%) Banking
3 106 (12.85%) Public Sector
4 103 (12.48%) Analytical Skills
5 27 (3.27%) Front Office
6 25 (3.03%) Investment Banking
7 19 (2.30%) Legal
8 18 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 14 (1.70%) Documentation Skills
10 12 (1.45%) Telecoms
11 11 (1.33%) Financial Institution
11 11 (1.33%) Influencing Skills
12 10 (1.21%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (1.09%) Back Office
13 9 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
14 7 (0.85%) Billing
14 7 (0.85%) Pharmaceutical
14 7 (0.85%) Publishing
15 5 (0.61%) Retail
Job Titles
1 178 (21.58%) Developer
2 153 (18.55%) Senior
3 95 (11.52%) Tester
4 88 (10.67%) Lead
5 61 (7.39%) Test Engineer
6 54 (6.55%) Automation Tester
7 53 (6.42%) QA Engineer
8 48 (5.82%) Analyst
9 44 (5.33%) Architect
10 42 (5.09%) Senior Developer
11 41 (4.97%) Data Engineer
12 37 (4.48%) Automation Engineer
12 37 (4.48%) DevOps Engineer
13 32 (3.88%) Java Developer
14 31 (3.76%) Test Automation Engineer
15 27 (3.27%) Test Manager
16 25 (3.03%) QA Automation Engineer
16 25 (3.03%) Test Leader
17 23 (2.79%) Test Analyst
18 22 (2.67%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (13.21%) Playwright
2 91 (11.03%) REST
3 88 (10.67%) React
4 71 (8.61%) RESTful
5 70 (8.48%) Node.js
6 66 (8.00%) .NET
7 62 (7.52%) Kafka
8 45 (5.45%) Spring
9 42 (5.09%) Spring Boot
10 39 (4.73%) HTML
11 37 (4.48%) CSS
12 27 (3.27%) OAuth
12 27 (3.27%) pytest
13 26 (3.15%) Web Services
14 22 (2.67%) AngularJS
15 20 (2.42%) Gherkin
15 20 (2.42%) GraphQL
15 20 (2.42%) SOAP
16 18 (2.18%) JSON
17 17 (2.06%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 94 (11.39%) Cloud Native
2 59 (7.15%) Product Ownership
3 48 (5.82%) Distributed Systems
4 36 (4.36%) Legacy Systems
5 26 (3.15%) Data Protection Act
6 23 (2.79%) Algorithms
7 19 (2.30%) Onboarding
8 18 (2.18%) Fixed Income
8 18 (2.18%) Greenfield Project
8 18 (2.18%) Management Information System
9 17 (2.06%) Data Structures
9 17 (2.06%) Equities
10 16 (1.94%) Virtual Team
11 15 (1.82%) Mobile App
11 15 (1.82%) Self-Motivation
12 11 (1.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 10 (1.21%) Derivative
13 10 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
14 9 (1.09%) Low-Code
14 9 (1.09%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 42 (5.09%) Linux
2 31 (3.76%) Windows
3 18 (2.18%) Android
4 15 (1.82%) Apple iOS
5 10 (1.21%) Unix
6 5 (0.61%) Mac OS
6 5 (0.61%) Windows Server
7 4 (0.48%) Solaris
7 4 (0.48%) Windows Server 2008
8 3 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.12%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 453 (54.91%) CI/CD
2 333 (40.36%) Agile
3 298 (36.12%) DevOps
4 161 (19.52%) Problem-Solving
5 132 (16.00%) AI
6 129 (15.64%) Infrastructure as Code
7 126 (15.27%) Containerisation
8 118 (14.30%) Observability
9 117 (14.18%) Validation
10 115 (13.94%) Continuous Improvement
11 112 (13.58%) Regression Testing
12 109 (13.21%) Test Strategy
13 108 (13.09%) Microservices
14 102 (12.36%) User Acceptance Testing
15 98 (11.88%) Test Scripting
16 93 (11.27%) Software Testing
17 90 (10.91%) Analytics
18 88 (10.67%) Software Engineering
19 85 (10.30%) Data Modelling
20 83 (10.06%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 270 (32.73%) Python
2 209 (25.33%) SQL
3 166 (20.12%) Java
4 145 (17.58%) TypeScript
5 132 (16.00%) JavaScript
6 113 (13.70%) C#
7 30 (3.64%) PowerShell
8 20 (2.42%) Bash
9 19 (2.30%) Apex Code
10 16 (1.94%) Ruby
11 14 (1.70%) Bicep
11 14 (1.70%) C++
11 14 (1.70%) PL/SQL
12 12 (1.45%) Kotlin
13 9 (1.09%) Go
13 9 (1.09%) Scala
14 6 (0.73%) Rust
14 6 (0.73%) T-SQL
15 4 (0.48%) Groovy
15 4 (0.48%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 182 (22.06%) Security Cleared
2 157 (19.03%) SC Cleared
3 49 (5.94%) Degree
4 36 (4.36%) ISTQB
5 27 (3.27%) BPSS Clearance
6 26 (3.15%) Computer Science Degree
7 11 (1.33%) Master's Degree
8 7 (0.85%) DBS Check
8 7 (0.85%) DV Cleared
9 5 (0.61%) Azure Certification
9 5 (0.61%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 5 (0.61%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 4 (0.48%) AWS Certification
11 3 (0.36%) ISEB
11 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
12 2 (0.24%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (0.24%) Cisco Certification
12 2 (0.24%) OSCP
12 2 (0.24%) PhD
12 2 (0.24%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 204 (24.73%) QA
2 56 (6.79%) Data Quality
3 44 (5.33%) Accessibility
4 25 (3.03%) GDPR
5 19 (2.30%) WCAG
6 7 (0.85%) NIST
7 6 (0.73%) ISO 20022
7 6 (0.73%) NCSC
7 6 (0.73%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 5 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.61%) PERC
8 5 (0.61%) SLA
9 4 (0.48%) HL7
10 3 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 3 (0.36%) MiFID
10 3 (0.36%) Software Quality Assurance
11 2 (0.24%) GRC
12 1 (0.12%) EMIR
12 1 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 1 (0.12%) NIST 800
System Software
1 146 (17.70%) Docker
2 6 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.61%) Active Directory
3 5 (0.61%) VMware ESXi
3 5 (0.61%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.48%) Oracle RAC
4 4 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.12%) Embedded Firmware
5 1 (0.12%) Firmware
5 1 (0.12%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.12%) Squid
5 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 135 (16.36%) Kubernetes
2 105 (12.73%) Terraform
3 38 (4.61%) Grafana
4 34 (4.12%) Prometheus
5 18 (2.18%) Ansible
6 13 (1.58%) HP ALM
7 9 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (0.97%) Kibana
9 4 (0.48%) Oracle RMAN
9 4 (0.48%) Puppet
10 2 (0.24%) Amdocs OSS
10 2 (0.24%) Istio
10 2 (0.24%) Kustomize
10 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (0.24%) Packer
10 2 (0.24%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.24%) SCCM
11 1 (0.12%) CloudHub
11 1 (0.12%) linkerd
11 1 (0.12%) Rancher
Vendors
1 80 (9.70%) Microsoft
2 55 (6.67%) Oracle
3 49 (5.94%) Salesforce
4 43 (5.21%) Databricks
5 23 (2.79%) Google
6 21 (2.55%) ServiceNow
7 17 (2.06%) Splunk
8 15 (1.82%) UiPath
9 14 (1.70%) SAP
10 13 (1.58%) HP
10 13 (1.58%) OpenAI
11 11 (1.33%) IBM
11 11 (1.33%) MuleSoft
12 10 (1.21%) Dynatrace
13 9 (1.09%) Guidewire
14 8 (0.97%) Apple
14 8 (0.97%) Automation Anywhere
14 8 (0.97%) Citrix
14 8 (0.97%) Workday
15 7 (0.85%) OpenLink