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

6 months to
15 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 56 46
Rank change year-on-year +6 -10 +4
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 897 605 740
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.44% 4.48% 4.57%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.98% 4.85% 5.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 607 409 499
10th Percentile £350 £340 £357
25th Percentile £425 £400 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% -3.33% -6.67%
75th Percentile £616 £675 £666
90th Percentile £709 £775 £775
England median daily rate £475 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 4 5
10th Percentile £52.35 £37.25 £51.00
25th Percentile £67.41 £40.63 £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 £55.63 £71.88
90th Percentile - £70.25 -
England median hourly rate £68.22 £50.00 £56.25
% change year-on-year +36.43% -11.11% -13.79%

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 18,004 12,485 14,383
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 89.17% 92.37% 88.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,831 8,318 10,069
10th Percentile £363 £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 £661 £675 £688
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 284 253 197
10th Percentile £17.10 £16.50 £16.99
25th Percentile £19.50 £24.66 £22.00
Median hourly rate £35.50 £29.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.34% -15.71% -13.04%
75th Percentile £57.13 £48.75 £53.75
90th Percentile £81.25 £63.75 £71.50
England median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +3.61%

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 15 August 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 15 August 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 15 August 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 +18 124 £550 +15.79% 55
South London 0 17 £549 +9.75% 10
East London +3 9 £545 +18.48% 14
West London -18 7 £600 +51.90% 10
North London -2 1 £400 - 1
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 (6.80%) Confluence
2 38 (4.24%) Apache Airflow
3 28 (3.12%) Apache Spark
4 21 (2.34%) SharePoint
5 15 (1.67%) Apache
6 13 (1.45%) CMS
7 6 (0.67%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 5 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
9 3 (0.33%) Camunda
9 3 (0.33%) Kentico
9 3 (0.33%) nginx
9 3 (0.33%) Tomcat
9 3 (0.33%) WebLogic
10 2 (0.22%) Anypoint
10 2 (0.22%) Mule
10 2 (0.22%) SAS
11 1 (0.11%) Apache Solr
11 1 (0.11%) ColdFusion
11 1 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.11%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 20 (2.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.45%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.56%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.45%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.33%) Trello
7 1 (0.11%) Mingle
7 1 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 14 (1.56%) Aladdin
2 12 (1.34%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.89%) Findur
4 6 (0.67%) Oracle EBS
5 5 (0.56%) BambooHR
5 5 (0.56%) Shopify
6 4 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.33%) Distributed Ledger
7 3 (0.33%) SAP S/4HANA
8 2 (0.22%) Infor CloudSuite
8 2 (0.22%) Infor LN
8 2 (0.22%) Infor M3
8 2 (0.22%) Loan IQ
8 2 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
8 2 (0.22%) SAP GRC
9 1 (0.11%) IntelliMatch
9 1 (0.11%) Misys Equation
9 1 (0.11%) Misys Midas
9 1 (0.11%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 311 (34.67%) Azure
2 273 (30.43%) AWS
3 195 (21.74%) GitHub
4 151 (16.83%) Azure DevOps
5 119 (13.27%) GitHub Actions
6 76 (8.47%) Serverless
7 68 (7.58%) GCP
7 68 (7.58%) Power Platform
8 58 (6.47%) AWS Lambda
9 52 (5.80%) Amazon S3
10 47 (5.24%) dbt
11 38 (4.24%) Snowflake
12 32 (3.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 32 (3.57%) Amazon ECS
13 30 (3.34%) GitHub Copilot
14 26 (2.90%) Amazon EC2
15 24 (2.68%) Azure Data Factory
16 22 (2.45%) Azure AKS
17 21 (2.34%) Azure Monitor
18 20 (2.23%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.89%) Firewall
1 8 (0.89%) WAN
2 7 (0.78%) HTTP
2 7 (0.78%) Network Security
2 7 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
3 6 (0.67%) LAN
3 6 (0.67%) TCP/IP
4 4 (0.45%) BGP
4 4 (0.45%) DHCP
4 4 (0.45%) DNS
5 3 (0.33%) Ethernet VPN
5 3 (0.33%) FTP
5 3 (0.33%) NX-OS
5 3 (0.33%) OpenLDAP
5 3 (0.33%) SMS
5 3 (0.33%) TACACS
5 3 (0.33%) VXLAN
6 2 (0.22%) Multicast
6 2 (0.22%) NaaS
6 2 (0.22%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (6.58%) PostgreSQL
2 58 (6.47%) Power BI
3 54 (6.02%) Data Warehouse
4 49 (5.46%) NoSQL
5 45 (5.02%) SQL Server
6 40 (4.46%) MongoDB
7 31 (3.46%) Relational Database
8 28 (3.12%) DynamoDB
9 24 (2.68%) Amazon Athena
9 24 (2.68%) Amazon Redshift
10 23 (2.56%) Data Lake
11 21 (2.34%) Tableau
12 20 (2.23%) Big Data
13 18 (2.01%) Amazon RDS
14 17 (1.90%) BigQuery
15 15 (1.67%) Metadata
16 11 (1.23%) MySQL
16 11 (1.23%) Redis
17 10 (1.11%) Elasticsearch
17 10 (1.11%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 157 (17.50%) Git
2 141 (15.72%) Jenkins
3 126 (14.05%) JIRA
4 108 (12.04%) Selenium
5 102 (11.37%) GitLab
6 56 (6.24%) Cypress.io
7 46 (5.13%) Cucumber
8 45 (5.02%) JMeter
9 44 (4.91%) JUnit
10 43 (4.79%) Postman
11 38 (4.24%) REST Assured
12 20 (2.23%) Maven
13 19 (2.12%) Appium
13 19 (2.12%) Gradle
14 18 (2.01%) Gatling
15 17 (1.90%) LoadRunner
16 16 (1.78%) Bitbucket
16 16 (1.78%) Zephyr
17 15 (1.67%) Mockito
18 12 (1.34%) WebDriver
General
1 261 (29.10%) Finance
2 237 (26.42%) Social Skills
3 129 (14.38%) Analytical Skills
4 123 (13.71%) Banking
5 89 (9.92%) Public Sector
6 25 (2.79%) Front Office
7 23 (2.56%) Investment Banking
8 20 (2.23%) Financial Institution
8 20 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 17 (1.90%) Telecoms
10 15 (1.67%) Back Office
10 15 (1.67%) Legal
11 14 (1.56%) Influencing Skills
12 13 (1.45%) Documentation Skills
13 9 (1.00%) Marketing
13 9 (1.00%) Retail
14 7 (0.78%) Law
14 7 (0.78%) Local Government
14 7 (0.78%) Organisational Skills
15 5 (0.56%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 190 (21.18%) Developer
2 154 (17.17%) Senior
3 96 (10.70%) Lead
4 72 (8.03%) Tester
5 61 (6.80%) Test Engineer
6 57 (6.35%) Data Engineer
7 50 (5.57%) Java Developer
7 50 (5.57%) QA Engineer
8 49 (5.46%) DevOps Engineer
9 48 (5.35%) Analyst
10 46 (5.13%) Architect
11 43 (4.79%) Automation Engineer
12 41 (4.57%) Software Engineer
13 38 (4.24%) Full-Stack Developer
14 35 (3.90%) Senior Developer
15 34 (3.79%) Test Automation Engineer
16 33 (3.68%) Test Leader
17 31 (3.46%) Automation Tester
17 31 (3.46%) Test Manager
18 24 (2.68%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 129 (14.38%) REST
2 110 (12.26%) Playwright
3 101 (11.26%) Kafka
4 95 (10.59%) RESTful
5 94 (10.48%) React
6 74 (8.25%) Spring
7 66 (7.36%) .NET
8 62 (6.91%) Spring Boot
9 53 (5.91%) HTML
10 51 (5.69%) Node.js
11 49 (5.46%) CSS
12 30 (3.34%) PySpark
13 28 (3.12%) AngularJS
14 25 (2.79%) SOAP
14 25 (2.79%) XML
15 24 (2.68%) HTML5
15 24 (2.68%) JSON
16 23 (2.56%) Middleware
17 22 (2.45%) CSS3
17 22 (2.45%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 142 (15.83%) Cloud Native
2 82 (9.14%) Distributed Systems
3 63 (7.02%) Product Ownership
4 31 (3.46%) Onboarding
5 27 (3.01%) Data Protection Act
6 24 (2.68%) AI Agents
7 23 (2.56%) Enterprise Software
8 21 (2.34%) Self-Motivation
9 20 (2.23%) Legacy Systems
10 18 (2.01%) Virtual Team
11 17 (1.90%) Fixed Income
12 14 (1.56%) Data Structures
13 13 (1.45%) Algorithms
13 13 (1.45%) Mobile App
14 12 (1.34%) Greenfield Project
14 12 (1.34%) Management Information System
15 11 (1.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 10 (1.11%) Equities
17 9 (1.00%) Distributed Architecture
17 9 (1.00%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 58 (6.47%) Linux
2 41 (4.57%) Unix
3 36 (4.01%) Windows
4 18 (2.01%) Android
5 17 (1.90%) Apple iOS
6 12 (1.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 7 (0.78%) Windows Server
8 3 (0.33%) Solaris
8 3 (0.33%) Windows Server 2008
9 2 (0.22%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
9 2 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.11%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.11%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 555 (61.87%) CI/CD
2 372 (41.47%) Agile
3 355 (39.58%) DevOps
4 183 (20.40%) AI
5 169 (18.84%) Infrastructure as Code
6 160 (17.84%) Problem-Solving
7 157 (17.50%) Continuous Improvement
7 157 (17.50%) Microservices
8 156 (17.39%) Validation
9 145 (16.16%) Test Strategy
10 142 (15.83%) Software Engineering
11 135 (15.05%) Containerisation
11 135 (15.05%) Observability
12 111 (12.37%) Regression Testing
13 105 (11.71%) Scrum
14 104 (11.59%) TDD
15 101 (11.26%) User Acceptance Testing
16 99 (11.04%) Stakeholder Management
17 95 (10.59%) Full-Stack Development
18 92 (10.26%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 285 (31.77%) Python
2 238 (26.53%) SQL
3 233 (25.98%) Java
4 135 (15.05%) JavaScript
5 122 (13.60%) TypeScript
6 86 (9.59%) C#
7 45 (5.02%) PowerShell
8 29 (3.23%) Bash
9 23 (2.56%) Kotlin
10 22 (2.45%) Bicep
11 17 (1.90%) Ruby
12 16 (1.78%) Scala
13 14 (1.56%) Apex Code
13 14 (1.56%) PL/SQL
14 11 (1.23%) C++
14 11 (1.23%) Go
15 9 (1.00%) VB.NET
16 6 (0.67%) C
16 6 (0.67%) Perl
16 6 (0.67%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 227 (25.31%) Security Cleared
2 200 (22.30%) SC Cleared
3 54 (6.02%) Degree
4 33 (3.68%) Computer Science Degree
5 29 (3.23%) ISTQB
6 19 (2.12%) DV Cleared
7 17 (1.90%) AWS Certification
8 16 (1.78%) BPSS Clearance
9 9 (1.00%) Azure Certification
10 7 (0.78%) ISEB
11 6 (0.67%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 6 (0.67%) DBS Check
11 6 (0.67%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 5 (0.56%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 5 (0.56%) Master's Degree
13 4 (0.45%) CISSP
14 3 (0.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 3 (0.33%) Cisco Certification
14 3 (0.33%) PhD
15 2 (0.22%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 243 (27.09%) QA
2 74 (8.25%) Data Quality
3 50 (5.57%) Accessibility
4 25 (2.79%) GDPR
5 21 (2.34%) WCAG
6 10 (1.11%) SLA
7 9 (1.00%) ISO 20022
8 8 (0.89%) NIST
9 7 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 4 (0.45%) GRC
11 3 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.33%) EU AI Act
11 3 (0.33%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 3 (0.33%) MiFID
11 3 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.33%) Software Quality Assurance
12 2 (0.22%) ISO 9001
12 2 (0.22%) NCSC
13 1 (0.11%) GxP
13 1 (0.11%) PMO
System Software
1 152 (16.95%) Docker
2 12 (1.34%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (0.67%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
4 3 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
4 3 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.22%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.11%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.11%) Firmware
6 1 (0.11%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 154 (17.17%) Kubernetes
2 138 (15.38%) Terraform
3 50 (5.57%) Grafana
4 43 (4.79%) Prometheus
5 40 (4.46%) Ansible
6 14 (1.56%) Puppet
7 13 (1.45%) Progress Chef
8 9 (1.00%) Control-M
8 9 (1.00%) Kibana
9 7 (0.78%) HP ALM
10 6 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.56%) HP Fortify
12 4 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
12 4 (0.45%) Packer
13 3 (0.33%) Kustomize
13 3 (0.33%) Oracle RMAN
14 2 (0.22%) Amdocs OSS
14 2 (0.22%) Argo
14 2 (0.22%) Istio
15 1 (0.11%) linkerd
Vendors
1 98 (10.93%) Microsoft
2 56 (6.24%) Oracle
3 51 (5.69%) Salesforce
4 40 (4.46%) Databricks
5 29 (3.23%) ServiceNow
6 28 (3.12%) Google
7 23 (2.56%) IBM
8 17 (1.90%) Splunk
9 16 (1.78%) Informatica
9 16 (1.78%) SAP
10 15 (1.67%) UiPath
11 13 (1.45%) Cisco
11 13 (1.45%) Red Hat
12 11 (1.23%) Dynatrace
12 11 (1.23%) HP
12 11 (1.23%) VMware
13 9 (1.00%) OpenAI
14 8 (0.89%) OpenLink
14 8 (0.89%) SaltStack
15 7 (0.78%) Charles River