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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 54 46
Rank change year-on-year +5 -8 +6
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 855 623 751
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.31% 4.58% 4.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.84% 4.97% 5.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 580 421 514
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 £621 £675 £675
90th Percentile £709 £775 £775
England median daily rate £475 £475 £525
% change year-on-year - -9.52% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 4 5
10th Percentile - £37.25 £51.00
25th Percentile £92.50 £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 £67.50 £50.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year +35.00% -13.04% -11.88%

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 17,663 12,532 14,574
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 88.96% 92.17% 88.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,664 8,387 10,335
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 £656 £675 £688
90th Percentile £775 £788 £800
England median daily rate £525 £512 £525
% change year-on-year +2.54% -2.48% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 289 242 212
10th Percentile £17.60 £16.50 £16.25
25th Percentile £19.85 £24.66 £22.00
Median hourly rate £35.50 £29.75 £34.00
Median % change year-on-year +19.33% -12.50% -18.07%
75th Percentile £57.00 £49.31 £54.06
90th Percentile £81.25 £63.23 £71.25
England median hourly rate £46.62 £25.15 £41.50
% change year-on-year +85.35% -39.40% -2.35%

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 29 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 29 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 +11 115 £550 +15.79% 37
South London -12 16 £535 +7.00% 2
East London +6 8 £545 +36.25% 13
West London -16 7 £525 +32.91% 15
North London -1 1 £400 -
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 (7.13%) Confluence
2 31 (3.63%) Apache Airflow
3 24 (2.81%) Apache Spark
4 13 (1.52%) CMS
5 12 (1.40%) Apache
6 10 (1.17%) SharePoint
7 6 (0.70%) Microsoft Exchange
8 4 (0.47%) nginx
8 4 (0.47%) Tomcat
8 4 (0.47%) WebLogic
9 3 (0.35%) Appian
9 3 (0.35%) Camunda
9 3 (0.35%) Kentico
10 2 (0.23%) Anypoint
10 2 (0.23%) Mule
10 2 (0.23%) SAS
11 1 (0.12%) Apache Solr
11 1 (0.12%) Ethereum
11 1 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.12%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 17 (1.99%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (1.17%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.70%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.35%) Trello
7 2 (0.23%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.12%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 15 (1.75%) Aladdin
2 13 (1.52%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.94%) Findur
3 8 (0.94%) Oracle EBS
4 6 (0.70%) Shopify
5 5 (0.58%) BambooHR
6 4 (0.47%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.35%) Distributed Ledger
8 2 (0.23%) Infor CloudSuite
8 2 (0.23%) Infor LN
8 2 (0.23%) Infor M3
8 2 (0.23%) Loan IQ
8 2 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
9 1 (0.12%) IntelliMatch
9 1 (0.12%) Misys Equation
9 1 (0.12%) Misys Midas
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle EBS R12
9 1 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
9 1 (0.12%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 294 (34.39%) Azure
2 264 (30.88%) AWS
3 177 (20.70%) GitHub
4 138 (16.14%) Azure DevOps
5 113 (13.22%) GitHub Actions
6 75 (8.77%) Serverless
7 67 (7.84%) GCP
8 64 (7.49%) Power Platform
9 56 (6.55%) AWS Lambda
10 53 (6.20%) Amazon S3
11 41 (4.80%) dbt
12 32 (3.74%) Snowflake
13 31 (3.63%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 31 (3.63%) Amazon ECS
14 25 (2.92%) Amazon EC2
14 25 (2.92%) GitHub Copilot
15 22 (2.57%) Azure AKS
16 21 (2.46%) Azure Data Factory
17 20 (2.34%) Dynamics 365
18 17 (1.99%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 7 (0.82%) HTTP
1 7 (0.82%) Network Security
2 6 (0.70%) Firewall
2 6 (0.70%) WAN
3 5 (0.58%) TCP/IP
4 4 (0.47%) DHCP
4 4 (0.47%) DNS
4 4 (0.47%) LAN
4 4 (0.47%) Wi-Fi
5 3 (0.35%) FTP
5 3 (0.35%) OpenLDAP
5 3 (0.35%) SMS
6 2 (0.23%) Multicast
6 2 (0.23%) NaaS
7 1 (0.12%) 5G
7 1 (0.12%) Bluetooth
7 1 (0.12%) Cisco Nexus
7 1 (0.12%) Ethernet
7 1 (0.12%) NGFW
7 1 (0.12%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (6.90%) PostgreSQL
2 52 (6.08%) Power BI
3 50 (5.85%) SQL Server
4 49 (5.73%) Data Warehouse
4 49 (5.73%) NoSQL
5 41 (4.80%) MongoDB
6 32 (3.74%) Relational Database
7 31 (3.63%) DynamoDB
8 23 (2.69%) Amazon Athena
9 22 (2.57%) Amazon Redshift
10 19 (2.22%) Amazon RDS
10 19 (2.22%) Big Data
11 18 (2.11%) Data Lake
12 15 (1.75%) BigQuery
13 14 (1.64%) Metadata
13 14 (1.64%) Tableau
14 12 (1.40%) MySQL
15 11 (1.29%) Elasticsearch
15 11 (1.29%) Redis
16 8 (0.94%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 140 (16.37%) Git
2 130 (15.20%) JIRA
3 127 (14.85%) Jenkins
4 96 (11.23%) GitLab
5 95 (11.11%) Selenium
6 55 (6.43%) Cypress.io
7 45 (5.26%) Cucumber
8 42 (4.91%) REST Assured
9 40 (4.68%) JMeter
10 38 (4.44%) JUnit
10 38 (4.44%) Postman
11 18 (2.11%) Bitbucket
11 18 (2.11%) Gatling
11 18 (2.11%) Maven
12 17 (1.99%) Gradle
12 17 (1.99%) Zephyr
13 16 (1.87%) Appium
14 15 (1.75%) Mockito
15 14 (1.64%) SpecFlow
16 11 (1.29%) LoadRunner
General
1 256 (29.94%) Finance
2 225 (26.32%) Social Skills
3 117 (13.68%) Banking
4 115 (13.45%) Analytical Skills
5 94 (10.99%) Public Sector
6 26 (3.04%) Front Office
7 23 (2.69%) Investment Banking
8 20 (2.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 19 (2.22%) Financial Institution
10 17 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
11 14 (1.64%) Legal
12 13 (1.52%) Telecoms
13 12 (1.40%) Back Office
13 12 (1.40%) Documentation Skills
14 8 (0.94%) Marketing
14 8 (0.94%) Retail
15 6 (0.70%) Law
15 6 (0.70%) Local Government
15 6 (0.70%) Organisational Skills
16 5 (0.58%) Games
Job Titles
1 192 (22.46%) Developer
2 150 (17.54%) Senior
3 87 (10.18%) Lead
4 71 (8.30%) Tester
5 55 (6.43%) Test Engineer
6 54 (6.32%) Data Engineer
7 51 (5.96%) DevOps Engineer
8 48 (5.61%) Java Developer
8 48 (5.61%) QA Engineer
9 46 (5.38%) Analyst
9 46 (5.38%) Architect
10 41 (4.80%) Software Engineer
11 38 (4.44%) Full-Stack Developer
11 38 (4.44%) Senior Developer
12 34 (3.98%) Automation Engineer
13 30 (3.51%) Test Automation Engineer
14 29 (3.39%) Automation Tester
14 29 (3.39%) Test Leader
15 26 (3.04%) Test Manager
16 24 (2.81%) React Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (13.10%) REST
2 109 (12.75%) Playwright
3 101 (11.81%) React
4 88 (10.29%) RESTful
5 80 (9.36%) Kafka
6 68 (7.95%) .NET
7 65 (7.60%) Spring
8 57 (6.67%) Node.js
9 56 (6.55%) Spring Boot
10 48 (5.61%) CSS
11 45 (5.26%) HTML
12 26 (3.04%) HTML5
12 26 (3.04%) PySpark
13 25 (2.92%) AngularJS
13 25 (2.92%) OAuth
14 23 (2.69%) CSS3
15 22 (2.57%) Redux
16 21 (2.46%) Jest
17 19 (2.22%) OAuth2
18 18 (2.11%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 139 (16.26%) Cloud Native
2 84 (9.82%) Distributed Systems
3 58 (6.78%) Product Ownership
4 28 (3.27%) Data Protection Act
4 28 (3.27%) Legacy Systems
5 26 (3.04%) Onboarding
6 22 (2.57%) AI Agents
7 21 (2.46%) Self-Motivation
8 19 (2.22%) Fixed Income
9 17 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
10 16 (1.87%) Algorithms
10 16 (1.87%) Virtual Team
11 15 (1.75%) Greenfield Project
12 14 (1.64%) Data Structures
13 12 (1.40%) Management Information System
13 12 (1.40%) Mobile App
14 11 (1.29%) Equities
14 11 (1.29%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 11 (1.29%) Security Posture
15 10 (1.17%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 35 (4.09%) Linux
2 30 (3.51%) Windows
3 20 (2.34%) Unix
4 19 (2.22%) Android
5 17 (1.99%) Apple iOS
6 8 (0.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 8 (0.94%) Windows Server
7 4 (0.47%) Solaris
7 4 (0.47%) Windows Server 2008
8 3 (0.35%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.35%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 541 (63.27%) CI/CD
2 366 (42.81%) Agile
3 334 (39.06%) DevOps
4 173 (20.23%) AI
5 165 (19.30%) Infrastructure as Code
6 157 (18.36%) Microservices
7 148 (17.31%) Problem-Solving
8 141 (16.49%) Continuous Improvement
9 135 (15.79%) Containerisation
9 135 (15.79%) Validation
10 134 (15.67%) Software Engineering
11 133 (15.56%) Test Strategy
12 130 (15.20%) Observability
13 109 (12.75%) Regression Testing
14 104 (12.16%) Scrum
15 103 (12.05%) User Acceptance Testing
16 101 (11.81%) Full-Stack Development
17 100 (11.70%) TDD
18 90 (10.53%) Analytics
19 89 (10.41%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 259 (30.29%) Python
2 215 (25.15%) SQL
3 207 (24.21%) Java
4 126 (14.74%) TypeScript
5 123 (14.39%) JavaScript
6 90 (10.53%) C#
7 35 (4.09%) PowerShell
8 26 (3.04%) Bash
9 24 (2.81%) Kotlin
10 20 (2.34%) Bicep
11 18 (2.11%) Ruby
12 15 (1.75%) Scala
13 14 (1.64%) Apex Code
14 13 (1.52%) PL/SQL
15 12 (1.40%) Go
16 8 (0.94%) C++
17 7 (0.82%) Swift
17 7 (0.82%) T-SQL
18 6 (0.70%) Shell Script
18 6 (0.70%) VBA
Qualifications
1 197 (23.04%) Security Cleared
2 173 (20.23%) SC Cleared
3 56 (6.55%) Degree
4 33 (3.86%) Computer Science Degree
5 18 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
5 18 (2.11%) ISTQB
6 17 (1.99%) AWS Certification
6 17 (1.99%) DV Cleared
7 10 (1.17%) Azure Certification
8 8 (0.94%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.82%) DBS Check
10 6 (0.70%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 5 (0.58%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 5 (0.58%) PhD
12 4 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 4 (0.47%) CISSP
13 3 (0.35%) TOGAF Certification
14 2 (0.23%) Cisco Certification
14 2 (0.23%) ISEB
14 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 225 (26.32%) QA
2 67 (7.84%) Data Quality
3 52 (6.08%) Accessibility
4 23 (2.69%) GDPR
5 22 (2.57%) WCAG
6 9 (1.05%) NIST
7 7 (0.82%) SLA
8 6 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 4 (0.47%) ISO 20022
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%) HL7
11 2 (0.23%) NCSC
12 1 (0.12%) GxP
12 1 (0.12%) ISO 8583
12 1 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.12%) SEPA
System Software
1 147 (17.19%) Docker
2 9 (1.05%) Virtual Machines
3 7 (0.82%) Active Directory
4 5 (0.58%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (0.47%) Oracle RAC
5 4 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.12%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 152 (17.78%) Kubernetes
2 129 (15.09%) Terraform
3 46 (5.38%) Grafana
4 41 (4.80%) Prometheus
5 31 (3.63%) Ansible
6 9 (1.05%) Kibana
7 8 (0.94%) HP ALM
7 8 (0.94%) Progress Chef
7 8 (0.94%) Puppet
7 8 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (0.47%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (0.47%) Oracle RMAN
9 3 (0.35%) Control-M
9 3 (0.35%) Kustomize
9 3 (0.35%) Packer
10 2 (0.23%) Amdocs OSS
10 2 (0.23%) Istio
11 1 (0.12%) Argo
11 1 (0.12%) linkerd
11 1 (0.12%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 91 (10.64%) Microsoft
2 53 (6.20%) Salesforce
3 49 (5.73%) Oracle
4 30 (3.51%) Databricks
5 23 (2.69%) Google
6 22 (2.57%) ServiceNow
7 17 (1.99%) UiPath
8 16 (1.87%) Splunk
9 15 (1.75%) IBM
10 14 (1.64%) Informatica
11 12 (1.40%) HP
12 11 (1.29%) Dynatrace
13 10 (1.17%) OpenAI
13 10 (1.17%) VMware
14 8 (0.94%) OpenLink
14 8 (0.94%) SAP
15 7 (0.82%) Guidewire
16 6 (0.70%) Charles River
16 6 (0.70%) MuleSoft
16 6 (0.70%) Red Hat