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

6 months to
3 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 53 48
Rank change year-on-year +3 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 858 590 770
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.44% 4.50% 4.37%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.00% 4.88% 4.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 576 398 534
10th Percentile £350 £338 £363
25th Percentile £425 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £600 £675 £675
90th Percentile £709 £783 £773
England median daily rate £475 £475 £525
% change year-on-year - -9.52% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 3 10
10th Percentile - £36.50 £52.25
25th Percentile £92.50 £38.75 £52.50
Median hourly rate £95.00 £45.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +111.11% -18.18% -38.89%
75th Percentile £97.50 £63.75 £65.75
90th Percentile - £73.50 £71.88
England median hourly rate £67.50 £55.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year +22.73% -4.35% -15.75%

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 17,177 12,084 15,599
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 88.92% 92.22% 88.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,420 8,065 11,124
10th Percentile £360 £331 £341
25th Percentile £438 £425 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% - -6.38%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £763 £800 £800
England median daily rate £523 £515 £525
% change year-on-year +1.46% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 266 227 298
10th Percentile £17.60 £16.50 £15.98
25th Percentile £23.25 £24.66 £20.02
Median hourly rate £37.25 £32.50 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.62% +8.33% -26.90%
75th Percentile £59.00 £50.25 £48.75
90th Percentile £81.25 £63.45 £68.75
England median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% +1.65%

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 July 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 3 July 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 +15 113 £550 +10.00% 66
South London -4 12 £513 +3.54% 2
West London -18 12 £486 +21.56% 5
East London +6 9 £500 +31.58% 16
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 61 (7.11%) Confluence
2 32 (3.73%) Apache Airflow
3 22 (2.56%) Apache Spark
4 12 (1.40%) CMS
5 10 (1.17%) Apache
6 6 (0.70%) Appian
7 4 (0.47%) Camunda
7 4 (0.47%) nginx
7 4 (0.47%) Tomcat
7 4 (0.47%) WebLogic
8 3 (0.35%) Kentico
8 3 (0.35%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.23%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.23%) Mule
9 2 (0.23%) SAS
9 2 (0.23%) SharePoint
10 1 (0.12%) Apache Pulsar
10 1 (0.12%) Ethereum
10 1 (0.12%) Palantir Foundry
10 1 (0.12%) Solana
Applications
1 22 (2.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.82%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.82%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.58%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.23%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.12%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 16 (1.86%) Aladdin
2 13 (1.52%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.93%) Findur
4 7 (0.82%) Oracle EBS
5 6 (0.70%) Shopify
6 5 (0.58%) BambooHR
6 5 (0.58%) Loan IQ
7 4 (0.47%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.35%) Distributed Ledger
9 2 (0.23%) Infor CloudSuite
9 2 (0.23%) Infor LN
9 2 (0.23%) Infor M3
9 2 (0.23%) IntelliMatch
9 2 (0.23%) iTrent
9 2 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.23%) Summit
10 1 (0.12%) Bloomberg TOMS
10 1 (0.12%) Misys Equation
10 1 (0.12%) Misys Midas
10 1 (0.12%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 263 (30.65%) Azure
2 248 (28.90%) AWS
3 157 (18.30%) GitHub
4 125 (14.57%) Azure DevOps
5 95 (11.07%) GitHub Actions
6 75 (8.74%) Serverless
7 57 (6.64%) Power Platform
8 56 (6.53%) AWS Lambda
9 54 (6.29%) Amazon S3
10 51 (5.94%) GCP
11 39 (4.55%) dbt
12 31 (3.61%) Snowflake
13 30 (3.50%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 29 (3.38%) Amazon ECS
15 24 (2.80%) Amazon EC2
15 24 (2.80%) Azure Data Factory
16 22 (2.56%) Azure AKS
17 20 (2.33%) Azure AI
18 18 (2.10%) Amazon SQS
18 18 (2.10%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.93%) HTTP
2 3 (0.35%) FTP
2 3 (0.35%) Network Security
2 3 (0.35%) OpenLDAP
2 3 (0.35%) SMS
2 3 (0.35%) WAN
3 2 (0.23%) Ethernet
3 2 (0.23%) Firewall
3 2 (0.23%) Multicast
3 2 (0.23%) NaaS
4 1 (0.12%) Cisco IOS
4 1 (0.12%) Cisco Nexus
4 1 (0.12%) DSL
4 1 (0.12%) MPLS
4 1 (0.12%) NGFW
4 1 (0.12%) SD-WAN
4 1 (0.12%) SNMP
4 1 (0.12%) SSL
4 1 (0.12%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.12%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (6.18%) PostgreSQL
2 48 (5.59%) SQL Server
3 46 (5.36%) NoSQL
4 45 (5.24%) Data Warehouse
4 45 (5.24%) Power BI
5 38 (4.43%) MongoDB
6 31 (3.61%) DynamoDB
6 31 (3.61%) Relational Database
7 25 (2.91%) Amazon Athena
8 23 (2.68%) Amazon Redshift
9 19 (2.21%) Amazon RDS
9 19 (2.21%) Big Data
9 19 (2.21%) Data Lake
10 18 (2.10%) Tableau
11 15 (1.75%) Metadata
12 14 (1.63%) BigQuery
13 11 (1.28%) Redis
14 10 (1.17%) Oracle Database
15 9 (1.05%) Amazon Aurora
16 8 (0.93%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 138 (16.08%) JIRA
2 133 (15.50%) Git
3 116 (13.52%) Jenkins
4 103 (12.00%) Selenium
5 96 (11.19%) GitLab
6 53 (6.18%) Cucumber
7 50 (5.83%) Cypress.io
8 48 (5.59%) REST Assured
9 46 (5.36%) Postman
10 39 (4.55%) JMeter
11 38 (4.43%) JUnit
12 17 (1.98%) Maven
12 17 (1.98%) Mockito
12 17 (1.98%) SpecFlow
13 15 (1.75%) Gatling
13 15 (1.75%) Gradle
13 15 (1.75%) WebDriver
14 14 (1.63%) Bitbucket
14 14 (1.63%) Zephyr
15 13 (1.52%) Appium
General
1 252 (29.37%) Finance
2 230 (26.81%) Social Skills
3 117 (13.64%) Analytical Skills
3 117 (13.64%) Banking
4 97 (11.31%) Public Sector
5 27 (3.15%) Investment Banking
6 26 (3.03%) Front Office
7 22 (2.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 20 (2.33%) Financial Institution
9 15 (1.75%) Legal
10 13 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
11 12 (1.40%) Documentation Skills
12 10 (1.17%) Back Office
13 9 (1.05%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (1.05%) Retail
13 9 (1.05%) Telecoms
14 8 (0.93%) Presentation Skills
15 7 (0.82%) Marketing
16 5 (0.58%) Billing
16 5 (0.58%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 181 (21.10%) Developer
2 148 (17.25%) Senior
3 91 (10.61%) Lead
4 84 (9.79%) Tester
5 55 (6.41%) Test Engineer
6 53 (6.18%) Analyst
7 52 (6.06%) Data Engineer
8 50 (5.83%) QA Engineer
9 47 (5.48%) DevOps Engineer
10 45 (5.24%) Architect
10 45 (5.24%) Java Developer
11 40 (4.66%) Automation Engineer
12 36 (4.20%) Automation Tester
13 35 (4.08%) Senior Developer
13 35 (4.08%) Software Engineer
14 32 (3.73%) Test Automation Engineer
15 30 (3.50%) Test Leader
16 29 (3.38%) Full-Stack Developer
17 26 (3.03%) QA Automation Engineer
18 24 (2.80%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (12.59%) Playwright
2 101 (11.77%) React
2 101 (11.77%) REST
3 77 (8.97%) RESTful
4 70 (8.16%) Kafka
5 62 (7.23%) .NET
5 62 (7.23%) Spring
6 56 (6.53%) Node.js
7 55 (6.41%) Spring Boot
8 41 (4.78%) CSS
9 39 (4.55%) HTML
10 26 (3.03%) OAuth
11 24 (2.80%) PySpark
12 21 (2.45%) pytest
12 21 (2.45%) Redux
13 20 (2.33%) AngularJS
14 19 (2.21%) Gherkin
15 18 (2.10%) GraphQL
15 18 (2.10%) HTML5
15 18 (2.10%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 121 (14.10%) Cloud Native
2 69 (8.04%) Distributed Systems
3 51 (5.94%) Product Ownership
4 37 (4.31%) Legacy Systems
5 26 (3.03%) Data Protection Act
6 22 (2.56%) Onboarding
7 21 (2.45%) Self-Motivation
8 19 (2.21%) Fixed Income
8 19 (2.21%) Greenfield Project
9 18 (2.10%) Virtual Team
10 16 (1.86%) Algorithms
10 16 (1.86%) Management Information System
11 14 (1.63%) AI Agents
11 14 (1.63%) Enterprise Software
11 14 (1.63%) Mobile App
12 11 (1.28%) Data Structures
12 11 (1.28%) Equities
13 10 (1.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 10 (1.17%) NHS
13 10 (1.17%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 32 (3.73%) Linux
2 24 (2.80%) Windows
3 16 (1.86%) Android
4 14 (1.63%) Apple iOS
4 14 (1.63%) Unix
5 5 (0.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (0.47%) Solaris
6 4 (0.47%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.47%) Windows Server 2008
7 3 (0.35%) Mac OS
7 3 (0.35%) Windows Server 2016
7 3 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 511 (59.56%) CI/CD
2 350 (40.79%) Agile
3 306 (35.66%) DevOps
4 160 (18.65%) AI
5 149 (17.37%) Infrastructure as Code
6 142 (16.55%) Problem-Solving
7 139 (16.20%) Continuous Improvement
7 139 (16.20%) Validation
8 131 (15.27%) Test Strategy
9 130 (15.15%) Microservices
10 123 (14.34%) Observability
11 120 (13.99%) Containerisation
12 118 (13.75%) Software Engineering
13 115 (13.40%) Regression Testing
14 111 (12.94%) User Acceptance Testing
15 96 (11.19%) Scrum
16 92 (10.72%) TDD
17 90 (10.49%) Analytics
18 88 (10.26%) Full-Stack Development
19 86 (10.02%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 257 (29.95%) Python
2 219 (25.52%) SQL
3 196 (22.84%) Java
4 134 (15.62%) TypeScript
5 124 (14.45%) JavaScript
6 97 (11.31%) C#
7 32 (3.73%) PowerShell
8 22 (2.56%) Bash
9 20 (2.33%) Kotlin
10 17 (1.98%) Ruby
11 16 (1.86%) Apex Code
11 16 (1.86%) Bicep
12 14 (1.63%) PL/SQL
12 14 (1.63%) Scala
13 12 (1.40%) Go
14 8 (0.93%) T-SQL
15 7 (0.82%) Swift
16 6 (0.70%) C++
16 6 (0.70%) Groovy
16 6 (0.70%) VBA
Qualifications
1 193 (22.49%) Security Cleared
2 170 (19.81%) SC Cleared
3 51 (5.94%) Degree
4 30 (3.50%) Computer Science Degree
5 23 (2.68%) ISTQB
6 21 (2.45%) BPSS Clearance
7 16 (1.86%) DV Cleared
8 13 (1.52%) AWS Certification
9 10 (1.17%) Master's Degree
10 7 (0.82%) DBS Check
11 6 (0.70%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 5 (0.58%) Azure Certification
13 4 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 4 (0.47%) CISSP
14 3 (0.35%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 3 (0.35%) TOGAF Certification
15 2 (0.23%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
15 2 (0.23%) Cisco Certification
15 2 (0.23%) CompTIA Security+
15 2 (0.23%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 216 (25.17%) QA
2 74 (8.62%) Data Quality
3 52 (6.06%) Accessibility
4 25 (2.91%) GDPR
5 19 (2.21%) WCAG
6 10 (1.17%) NIST
7 6 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.58%) ISO 20022
8 5 (0.58%) SLA
9 4 (0.47%) HL7
10 3 (0.35%) EU AI Act
10 3 (0.35%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 3 (0.35%) MiFID
10 3 (0.35%) Software Quality Assurance
11 2 (0.23%) GRC
11 2 (0.23%) NCSC
11 2 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.12%) GMP
12 1 (0.12%) GxP
12 1 (0.12%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 136 (15.85%) Docker
2 7 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.58%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.47%) Oracle RAC
4 4 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.35%) Active Directory
5 3 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.12%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 143 (16.67%) Kubernetes
2 120 (13.99%) Terraform
3 40 (4.66%) Grafana
4 34 (3.96%) Prometheus
5 29 (3.38%) Ansible
6 8 (0.93%) HP ALM
6 8 (0.93%) Kibana
6 8 (0.93%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.47%) Oracle RMAN
8 3 (0.35%) Control-M
8 3 (0.35%) Kustomize
8 3 (0.35%) Packer
8 3 (0.35%) Puppet
9 2 (0.23%) Amdocs OSS
9 2 (0.23%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.12%) HP Quality Center
10 1 (0.12%) Istio
10 1 (0.12%) linkerd
10 1 (0.12%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 84 (9.79%) Microsoft
2 56 (6.53%) Salesforce
3 47 (5.48%) Oracle
4 30 (3.50%) Databricks
5 23 (2.68%) ServiceNow
6 18 (2.10%) UiPath
7 16 (1.86%) Splunk
8 15 (1.75%) Informatica
9 13 (1.52%) Google
10 12 (1.40%) IBM
11 10 (1.17%) Dynatrace
11 10 (1.17%) OpenAI
12 9 (1.05%) SAP
13 8 (0.93%) HP
13 8 (0.93%) OpenLink
14 7 (0.82%) MuleSoft
15 6 (0.70%) Foundry
15 6 (0.70%) Workday
16 5 (0.58%) Charles River
16 5 (0.58%) OpenText