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

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 47 53
Rank change year-on-year -1 +6 -7
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 821 593 736
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.59% 4.78% 4.20%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.20% 5.19% 4.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 534 406 506
10th Percentile £331 £341 £363
25th Percentile £410 £406 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £548
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -8.68% -5.60%
75th Percentile £588 £688 £688
90th Percentile £688 £800 £775
England median daily rate £475 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 1 10
10th Percentile £56.71 - £52.25
25th Percentile £59.95 - £52.50
Median hourly rate £64.75 £35.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +85.00% -36.36% -38.89%
75th Percentile £74.25 - £65.75
90th Percentile £88.20 - £71.88
England median hourly rate £66.75 £55.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +21.36% -12.00% -18.83%

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 15,783 11,435 15,529
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 88.30% 92.26% 88.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,560 7,742 11,125
10th Percentile £356 £350 £346
25th Percentile £431 £435 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -6.78%
75th Percentile £650 £688 £688
90th Percentile £755 £813 £800
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 241 176 311
10th Percentile £18.75 £16.17 £15.95
25th Percentile £25.15 £22.86 £20.00
Median hourly rate £35.71 £34.00 £27.84
Median % change year-on-year +5.03% +22.13% -28.62%
75th Percentile £57.50 £50.75 £48.66
90th Percentile £75.00 £63.75 £66.50
England median hourly rate £47.00 £29.07 £36.50
% change year-on-year +61.68% -20.36% -2.67%

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 May 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 May 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 May 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 +8 106 £525 +5.00% 51
South London -1 19 £513 +13.57% 1
West London -18 19 £450 +14.80% 7
East London +6 12 £448 +24.31% 9
North London - 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 54 (6.58%) Confluence
2 24 (2.92%) Apache Airflow
3 20 (2.44%) Apache Spark
4 9 (1.10%) Apache
5 8 (0.97%) Appian
6 5 (0.61%) Camunda
7 4 (0.49%) CMS
7 4 (0.49%) nginx
7 4 (0.49%) Tomcat
8 3 (0.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.37%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.12%) Ethereum
9 1 (0.12%) SAS
9 1 (0.12%) SharePoint
9 1 (0.12%) Solana
Applications
1 18 (2.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
4 6 (0.73%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.49%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.12%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 20 (2.44%) Aladdin
2 7 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (0.85%) Findur
2 7 (0.85%) Shopify
3 6 (0.73%) Loan IQ
4 5 (0.61%) BambooHR
4 5 (0.61%) Oracle EBS
5 3 (0.37%) Distributed Ledger
6 2 (0.24%) iTrent
6 2 (0.24%) Summit
7 1 (0.12%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.12%) Infor CloudSuite
7 1 (0.12%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.12%) Infor M3
7 1 (0.12%) IntelliMatch
7 1 (0.12%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle EBS R12
7 1 (0.12%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.12%) PORTIA
7 1 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 242 (29.48%) Azure
2 212 (25.82%) AWS
3 135 (16.44%) GitHub
4 120 (14.62%) Azure DevOps
5 73 (8.89%) GitHub Actions
6 63 (7.67%) Serverless
7 47 (5.72%) GCP
8 41 (4.99%) Amazon S3
8 41 (4.99%) AWS Lambda
9 38 (4.63%) Power Platform
10 32 (3.90%) Snowflake
11 29 (3.53%) Azure Data Factory
12 28 (3.41%) Amazon ECS
13 27 (3.29%) Azure AKS
14 23 (2.80%) dbt
15 20 (2.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 20 (2.44%) Dynamics 365
16 18 (2.19%) AWS CloudFormation
16 18 (2.19%) Azure Monitor
16 18 (2.19%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 9 (1.10%) HTTP
2 6 (0.73%) FTP
3 4 (0.49%) Ethernet
3 4 (0.49%) SSL
3 4 (0.49%) WAN
3 4 (0.49%) WebEx
4 3 (0.37%) Firewall
5 2 (0.24%) Cisco IOS
5 2 (0.24%) DSL
5 2 (0.24%) Multicast
5 2 (0.24%) NaaS
5 2 (0.24%) OpenLDAP
5 2 (0.24%) SD-WAN
5 2 (0.24%) SNMP
5 2 (0.24%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.12%) 5G
6 1 (0.12%) Cisco Nexus
6 1 (0.12%) Modbus
6 1 (0.12%) NGFW
6 1 (0.12%) Spanning Tree
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (7.06%) SQL Server
2 55 (6.70%) PostgreSQL
3 44 (5.36%) NoSQL
4 34 (4.14%) MongoDB
5 32 (3.90%) Data Warehouse
6 28 (3.41%) Power BI
6 28 (3.41%) Relational Database
7 22 (2.68%) DynamoDB
7 22 (2.68%) Tableau
8 20 (2.44%) Big Data
9 18 (2.19%) Amazon Athena
9 18 (2.19%) BigQuery
10 15 (1.83%) Data Lake
11 14 (1.71%) Amazon RDS
11 14 (1.71%) Amazon Redshift
11 14 (1.71%) Metadata
12 12 (1.46%) Amazon Aurora
13 11 (1.34%) Star Schema
14 10 (1.22%) Oracle Database
14 10 (1.22%) Redis
Development Applications
1 140 (17.05%) JIRA
2 128 (15.59%) Git
3 106 (12.91%) Jenkins
3 106 (12.91%) Selenium
4 80 (9.74%) GitLab
5 50 (6.09%) Cucumber
5 50 (6.09%) Cypress.io
6 49 (5.97%) Postman
7 34 (4.14%) REST Assured
8 33 (4.02%) JMeter
9 29 (3.53%) JUnit
10 25 (3.05%) SpecFlow
11 20 (2.44%) MLflow
12 16 (1.95%) Appium
13 13 (1.58%) WebDriver
14 12 (1.46%) Maven
14 12 (1.46%) Mockito
14 12 (1.46%) Zephyr
15 11 (1.34%) Bitbucket
15 11 (1.34%) Gradle
General
1 219 (26.67%) Finance
2 211 (25.70%) Social Skills
3 109 (13.28%) Analytical Skills
4 108 (13.15%) Public Sector
5 106 (12.91%) Banking
6 27 (3.29%) Front Office
7 26 (3.17%) Investment Banking
8 19 (2.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 15 (1.83%) Legal
10 13 (1.58%) Documentation Skills
11 12 (1.46%) Telecoms
12 11 (1.34%) Financial Institution
12 11 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
13 10 (1.22%) Organisational Skills
14 9 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
15 8 (0.97%) Back Office
16 7 (0.85%) Billing
16 7 (0.85%) Publishing
16 7 (0.85%) Retail
17 4 (0.49%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 178 (21.68%) Developer
2 154 (18.76%) Senior
3 91 (11.08%) Tester
4 83 (10.11%) Lead
5 56 (6.82%) Test Engineer
6 51 (6.21%) Analyst
7 50 (6.09%) Automation Tester
7 50 (6.09%) QA Engineer
8 42 (5.12%) Data Engineer
8 42 (5.12%) Senior Developer
9 39 (4.75%) Architect
10 38 (4.63%) DevOps Engineer
11 34 (4.14%) Automation Engineer
11 34 (4.14%) Java Developer
12 29 (3.53%) Software Engineer
13 28 (3.41%) Test Automation Engineer
14 26 (3.17%) Full-Stack Developer
14 26 (3.17%) Test Manager
15 24 (2.92%) QA Automation Engineer
15 24 (2.92%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (12.67%) Playwright
2 95 (11.57%) REST
3 91 (11.08%) React
4 78 (9.50%) RESTful
5 71 (8.65%) .NET
6 68 (8.28%) Kafka
7 62 (7.55%) Node.js
8 45 (5.48%) Spring
9 41 (4.99%) Spring Boot
10 40 (4.87%) HTML
11 39 (4.75%) CSS
12 28 (3.41%) OAuth
13 26 (3.17%) Web Services
14 24 (2.92%) pytest
15 22 (2.68%) AngularJS
16 20 (2.44%) Gherkin
17 19 (2.31%) .NET Core
18 18 (2.19%) Django
18 18 (2.19%) GraphQL
18 18 (2.19%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 102 (12.42%) Cloud Native
2 56 (6.82%) Product Ownership
3 54 (6.58%) Distributed Systems
4 37 (4.51%) Legacy Systems
5 28 (3.41%) Data Protection Act
6 23 (2.80%) Algorithms
7 19 (2.31%) Fixed Income
7 19 (2.31%) Greenfield Project
8 18 (2.19%) Management Information System
8 18 (2.19%) Virtual Team
9 17 (2.07%) Mobile App
9 17 (2.07%) Onboarding
10 16 (1.95%) Equities
10 16 (1.95%) Self-Motivation
11 15 (1.83%) Data Structures
12 13 (1.58%) NHS
13 11 (1.34%) Derivative
14 10 (1.22%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 9 (1.10%) Enterprise Software
15 9 (1.10%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 41 (4.99%) Linux
2 29 (3.53%) Windows
3 22 (2.68%) Android
4 18 (2.19%) Apple iOS
5 12 (1.46%) Unix
6 5 (0.61%) Windows Server
7 4 (0.49%) Solaris
7 4 (0.49%) Windows Server 2008
8 3 (0.37%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.37%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.12%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 457 (55.66%) CI/CD
2 327 (39.83%) Agile
3 284 (34.59%) DevOps
4 157 (19.12%) Problem-Solving
5 134 (16.32%) AI
6 132 (16.08%) Infrastructure as Code
7 124 (15.10%) Containerisation
8 123 (14.98%) Observability
9 119 (14.49%) Validation
10 114 (13.89%) Test Strategy
11 113 (13.76%) Continuous Improvement
12 110 (13.40%) Microservices
13 109 (13.28%) Regression Testing
14 101 (12.30%) User Acceptance Testing
15 96 (11.69%) Software Engineering
16 91 (11.08%) Data Modelling
16 91 (11.08%) Test Scripting
17 90 (10.96%) Analytics
17 90 (10.96%) Software Testing
18 83 (10.11%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 262 (31.91%) Python
2 209 (25.46%) SQL
3 168 (20.46%) Java
4 137 (16.69%) TypeScript
5 128 (15.59%) JavaScript
6 110 (13.40%) C#
7 33 (4.02%) PowerShell
8 21 (2.56%) Bash
9 19 (2.31%) Apex Code
10 17 (2.07%) PL/SQL
11 16 (1.95%) Kotlin
11 16 (1.95%) Ruby
12 14 (1.71%) Bicep
12 14 (1.71%) C++
13 9 (1.10%) Go
13 9 (1.10%) Scala
14 8 (0.97%) T-SQL
15 7 (0.85%) Rust
16 6 (0.73%) Swift
17 5 (0.61%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 179 (21.80%) Security Cleared
2 153 (18.64%) SC Cleared
3 44 (5.36%) Degree
4 30 (3.65%) ISTQB
5 25 (3.05%) BPSS Clearance
5 25 (3.05%) Computer Science Degree
6 10 (1.22%) Master's Degree
7 9 (1.10%) DV Cleared
8 8 (0.97%) DBS Check
9 5 (0.61%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 4 (0.49%) AWS Certification
10 4 (0.49%) Azure Certification
11 3 (0.37%) CISSP
11 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Certification
12 2 (0.24%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (0.24%) Cisco Certification
12 2 (0.24%) ISEB
12 2 (0.24%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 2 (0.24%) PhD
12 2 (0.24%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 198 (24.12%) QA
2 58 (7.06%) Data Quality
3 48 (5.85%) Accessibility
4 23 (2.80%) GDPR
5 20 (2.44%) WCAG
6 8 (0.97%) NIST
7 6 (0.73%) ISO 20022
8 5 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.61%) SLA
9 4 (0.49%) HL7
9 4 (0.49%) MiFID
9 4 (0.49%) NCSC
9 4 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.37%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 3 (0.37%) Software Quality Assurance
11 2 (0.24%) GRC
12 1 (0.12%) EMIR
12 1 (0.12%) HIPAA
12 1 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 1 (0.12%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 143 (17.42%) Docker
2 6 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.61%) VMware ESXi
3 5 (0.61%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.49%) Active Directory
4 4 (0.49%) Oracle RAC
4 4 (0.49%) 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 (16.44%) Kubernetes
2 103 (12.55%) Terraform
3 40 (4.87%) Grafana
4 36 (4.38%) Prometheus
5 21 (2.56%) Ansible
6 11 (1.34%) HP ALM
7 9 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (0.97%) Kibana
9 4 (0.49%) Oracle RMAN
9 4 (0.49%) Puppet
10 2 (0.24%) Amdocs OSS
10 2 (0.24%) Kustomize
10 2 (0.24%) Packer
10 2 (0.24%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.12%) Control-M
11 1 (0.12%) HP Quality Center
11 1 (0.12%) Istio
11 1 (0.12%) linkerd
11 1 (0.12%) Rancher
Vendors
1 79 (9.62%) Microsoft
2 54 (6.58%) Oracle
3 51 (6.21%) Salesforce
4 43 (5.24%) Databricks
5 20 (2.44%) ServiceNow
6 17 (2.07%) Google
7 16 (1.95%) Splunk
8 15 (1.83%) UiPath
9 13 (1.58%) OpenAI
10 11 (1.34%) HP
11 10 (1.22%) Dynatrace
11 10 (1.22%) MuleSoft
11 10 (1.22%) SAP
12 9 (1.10%) Guidewire
12 9 (1.10%) IBM
13 8 (0.97%) Apple
13 8 (0.97%) Automation Anywhere
13 8 (0.97%) Citrix
14 7 (0.85%) OpenLink
14 7 (0.85%) Workday