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

6 months to
9 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 50 52 47
Rank change year-on-year +2 -5 +2
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 873 619 786
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.43% 4.58% 4.45%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.98% 4.98% 5.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 587 417 541
10th Percentile £350 £338 £363
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £609 £675 £675
90th Percentile £709 £775 £769
England median daily rate £475 £484 £525
% change year-on-year -1.86% -7.81% -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 £56.25
% change year-on-year +22.73% -2.22% -22.95%

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 17,532 12,440 15,649
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 88.99% 92.14% 88.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,643 8,309 11,135
10th Percentile £360 £331 £340
25th Percentile £440 £425 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% - -5.58%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £680
90th Percentile £769 £798 £800
England median daily rate £525 £515 £525
% change year-on-year +1.94% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 274 234 293
10th Percentile £17.60 £16.50 £15.96
25th Percentile £22.87 £24.66 £20.02
Median hourly rate £36.75 £32.00 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.84% +6.67% -27.31%
75th Percentile £58.98 £50.38 £48.75
90th Percentile £81.25 £63.60 £68.75
England median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% -6.07%

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 9 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 9 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 +19 114 £550 +10.00% 37
South London -7 12 £513 +2.50% 1
West London -15 12 £486 +21.56% 6
East London +4 8 £545 +18.48% 11
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 60 (6.87%) Confluence
2 32 (3.67%) Apache Airflow
3 24 (2.75%) Apache Spark
4 12 (1.37%) CMS
5 11 (1.26%) Apache
6 5 (0.57%) Appian
7 4 (0.46%) Camunda
7 4 (0.46%) nginx
7 4 (0.46%) Tomcat
7 4 (0.46%) WebLogic
8 3 (0.34%) Kentico
8 3 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.34%) SharePoint
9 2 (0.23%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.23%) Mule
9 2 (0.23%) SAS
10 1 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
10 1 (0.11%) Ethereum
10 1 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
10 1 (0.11%) Solana
Applications
1 21 (2.41%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.80%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.80%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.57%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.23%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.11%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 17 (1.95%) Aladdin
2 13 (1.49%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.92%) Findur
3 8 (0.92%) Oracle EBS
4 6 (0.69%) Shopify
5 5 (0.57%) BambooHR
5 5 (0.57%) Loan IQ
6 4 (0.46%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.34%) Distributed Ledger
8 2 (0.23%) Infor CloudSuite
8 2 (0.23%) Infor LN
8 2 (0.23%) Infor M3
8 2 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
8 2 (0.23%) Summit
9 1 (0.11%) IntelliMatch
9 1 (0.11%) Misys Equation
9 1 (0.11%) Misys Midas
9 1 (0.11%) Oracle EBS R12
9 1 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 275 (31.50%) Azure
2 258 (29.55%) AWS
3 163 (18.67%) GitHub
4 130 (14.89%) Azure DevOps
5 99 (11.34%) GitHub Actions
6 75 (8.59%) Serverless
7 59 (6.76%) Power Platform
8 57 (6.53%) AWS Lambda
9 55 (6.30%) Amazon S3
9 55 (6.30%) GCP
10 39 (4.47%) dbt
11 32 (3.67%) Snowflake
12 29 (3.32%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 29 (3.32%) Amazon ECS
13 24 (2.75%) Amazon EC2
14 22 (2.52%) Azure AKS
14 22 (2.52%) Azure Data Factory
15 20 (2.29%) Dynamics 365
16 19 (2.18%) Azure AI
17 18 (2.06%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.92%) HTTP
2 3 (0.34%) FTP
2 3 (0.34%) Network Security
2 3 (0.34%) OpenLDAP
2 3 (0.34%) SMS
2 3 (0.34%) WAN
3 2 (0.23%) Ethernet
3 2 (0.23%) Firewall
3 2 (0.23%) Multicast
3 2 (0.23%) NaaS
4 1 (0.11%) Bluetooth
4 1 (0.11%) Cisco IOS
4 1 (0.11%) DSL
4 1 (0.11%) MPLS
4 1 (0.11%) NFC
4 1 (0.11%) NGFW
4 1 (0.11%) SD-WAN
4 1 (0.11%) SNMP
4 1 (0.11%) SSL
4 1 (0.11%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (6.07%) PostgreSQL
2 47 (5.38%) NoSQL
2 47 (5.38%) Power BI
2 47 (5.38%) SQL Server
3 45 (5.15%) Data Warehouse
4 38 (4.35%) MongoDB
5 31 (3.55%) DynamoDB
5 31 (3.55%) Relational Database
6 25 (2.86%) Amazon Athena
7 23 (2.63%) Amazon Redshift
8 20 (2.29%) Amazon RDS
8 20 (2.29%) Big Data
9 18 (2.06%) Data Lake
9 18 (2.06%) Tableau
10 16 (1.83%) Metadata
11 14 (1.60%) BigQuery
12 10 (1.15%) Oracle Database
12 10 (1.15%) Redis
13 9 (1.03%) Amazon Aurora
14 8 (0.92%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 138 (15.81%) JIRA
2 136 (15.58%) Git
3 119 (13.63%) Jenkins
4 105 (12.03%) Selenium
5 94 (10.77%) GitLab
6 55 (6.30%) Cypress.io
7 52 (5.96%) Cucumber
8 50 (5.73%) REST Assured
9 46 (5.27%) Postman
10 39 (4.47%) JUnit
11 38 (4.35%) JMeter
12 17 (1.95%) Maven
12 17 (1.95%) Mockito
12 17 (1.95%) SpecFlow
13 16 (1.83%) Gatling
13 16 (1.83%) Gradle
14 15 (1.72%) WebDriver
15 14 (1.60%) Appium
15 14 (1.60%) Bitbucket
15 14 (1.60%) Zephyr
General
1 254 (29.10%) Finance
2 236 (27.03%) Social Skills
3 120 (13.75%) Analytical Skills
4 117 (13.40%) Banking
5 96 (11.00%) Public Sector
6 26 (2.98%) Front Office
6 26 (2.98%) Investment Banking
7 22 (2.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 20 (2.29%) Financial Institution
9 15 (1.72%) Legal
10 14 (1.60%) Influencing Skills
11 13 (1.49%) Documentation Skills
12 11 (1.26%) Back Office
13 9 (1.03%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (1.03%) Retail
13 9 (1.03%) Telecoms
14 8 (0.92%) Presentation Skills
15 7 (0.80%) Marketing
16 6 (0.69%) Local Government
17 5 (0.57%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 188 (21.53%) Developer
2 153 (17.53%) Senior
3 92 (10.54%) Lead
4 83 (9.51%) Tester
5 55 (6.30%) Test Engineer
6 54 (6.19%) Data Engineer
7 52 (5.96%) Analyst
7 52 (5.96%) QA Engineer
8 48 (5.50%) Architect
9 47 (5.38%) Java Developer
10 46 (5.27%) DevOps Engineer
11 41 (4.70%) Automation Engineer
12 35 (4.01%) Automation Tester
12 35 (4.01%) Senior Developer
12 35 (4.01%) Software Engineer
13 31 (3.55%) Full-Stack Developer
13 31 (3.55%) Test Automation Engineer
13 31 (3.55%) Test Leader
14 26 (2.98%) QA Automation Engineer
15 24 (2.75%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (13.17%) Playwright
2 105 (12.03%) REST
3 104 (11.91%) React
4 80 (9.16%) RESTful
5 72 (8.25%) Kafka
6 65 (7.45%) .NET
7 62 (7.10%) Spring
8 58 (6.64%) Node.js
9 55 (6.30%) Spring Boot
10 46 (5.27%) CSS
11 44 (5.04%) HTML
12 28 (3.21%) OAuth
13 24 (2.75%) PySpark
14 23 (2.63%) HTML5
15 22 (2.52%) Redux
16 21 (2.41%) AngularJS
17 20 (2.29%) pytest
18 19 (2.18%) CSS3
18 19 (2.18%) OAuth2
18 19 (2.18%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 127 (14.55%) Cloud Native
2 72 (8.25%) Distributed Systems
3 51 (5.84%) Product Ownership
4 35 (4.01%) Legacy Systems
5 27 (3.09%) Data Protection Act
6 24 (2.75%) Onboarding
7 21 (2.41%) Self-Motivation
8 20 (2.29%) Virtual Team
9 19 (2.18%) Fixed Income
9 19 (2.18%) Greenfield Project
10 16 (1.83%) AI Agents
10 16 (1.83%) Algorithms
10 16 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
10 16 (1.83%) Mobile App
11 15 (1.72%) Management Information System
12 12 (1.37%) Data Structures
12 12 (1.37%) Equities
13 10 (1.15%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 10 (1.15%) NHS
13 10 (1.15%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 32 (3.67%) Linux
2 24 (2.75%) Windows
3 17 (1.95%) Android
4 15 (1.72%) Apple iOS
5 14 (1.60%) Unix
6 5 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (0.46%) Solaris
7 4 (0.46%) Windows Server
7 4 (0.46%) Windows Server 2008
8 3 (0.34%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 527 (60.37%) CI/CD
2 357 (40.89%) Agile
3 318 (36.43%) DevOps
4 165 (18.90%) AI
5 152 (17.41%) Infrastructure as Code
6 146 (16.72%) Problem-Solving
7 140 (16.04%) Continuous Improvement
8 137 (15.69%) Validation
9 135 (15.46%) Microservices
10 133 (15.23%) Test Strategy
11 127 (14.55%) Containerisation
12 124 (14.20%) Observability
13 121 (13.86%) Software Engineering
14 116 (13.29%) Regression Testing
15 111 (12.71%) User Acceptance Testing
16 100 (11.45%) Scrum
17 95 (10.88%) TDD
18 91 (10.42%) Analytics
18 91 (10.42%) Full-Stack Development
19 85 (9.74%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 263 (30.13%) Python
2 219 (25.09%) SQL
3 202 (23.14%) Java
4 139 (15.92%) TypeScript
5 129 (14.78%) JavaScript
6 98 (11.23%) C#
7 32 (3.67%) PowerShell
8 22 (2.52%) Bash
9 21 (2.41%) Kotlin
10 17 (1.95%) Ruby
11 16 (1.83%) Apex Code
11 16 (1.83%) Bicep
11 16 (1.83%) Scala
12 14 (1.60%) Go
12 14 (1.60%) PL/SQL
13 8 (0.92%) Swift
13 8 (0.92%) T-SQL
14 6 (0.69%) C++
14 6 (0.69%) Groovy
14 6 (0.69%) VBA
Qualifications
1 200 (22.91%) Security Cleared
2 177 (20.27%) SC Cleared
3 53 (6.07%) Degree
4 33 (3.78%) Computer Science Degree
5 24 (2.75%) BPSS Clearance
6 22 (2.52%) ISTQB
7 16 (1.83%) DV Cleared
8 13 (1.49%) AWS Certification
9 11 (1.26%) Master's Degree
10 7 (0.80%) DBS Check
11 6 (0.69%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 5 (0.57%) Azure Certification
13 4 (0.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 4 (0.46%) CISSP
14 3 (0.34%) 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%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 2 (0.23%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 216 (24.74%) QA
2 72 (8.25%) Data Quality
3 53 (6.07%) Accessibility
4 25 (2.86%) GDPR
5 20 (2.29%) WCAG
6 9 (1.03%) NIST
7 6 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.57%) ISO 20022
8 5 (0.57%) SLA
9 4 (0.46%) HL7
10 3 (0.34%) EU AI Act
10 3 (0.34%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 3 (0.34%) MiFID
10 3 (0.34%) Software Quality Assurance
11 2 (0.23%) GRC
11 2 (0.23%) NCSC
11 2 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.11%) GMP
12 1 (0.11%) GxP
12 1 (0.11%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 141 (16.15%) Docker
2 7 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.46%) Active Directory
4 4 (0.46%) Oracle RAC
4 4 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.11%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 148 (16.95%) Kubernetes
2 120 (13.75%) Terraform
3 40 (4.58%) Grafana
4 34 (3.89%) Prometheus
5 29 (3.32%) Ansible
6 8 (0.92%) HP ALM
6 8 (0.92%) Kibana
6 8 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.46%) Oracle RMAN
8 3 (0.34%) Control-M
8 3 (0.34%) Kustomize
8 3 (0.34%) Packer
8 3 (0.34%) Puppet
9 2 (0.23%) Amdocs OSS
9 2 (0.23%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.11%) HP Quality Center
10 1 (0.11%) Istio
10 1 (0.11%) linkerd
10 1 (0.11%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 87 (9.97%) Microsoft
2 57 (6.53%) Salesforce
3 50 (5.73%) Oracle
4 30 (3.44%) Databricks
5 22 (2.52%) ServiceNow
6 19 (2.18%) UiPath
7 15 (1.72%) Informatica
7 15 (1.72%) Splunk
8 14 (1.60%) Google
9 12 (1.37%) IBM
10 9 (1.03%) Dynatrace
10 9 (1.03%) OpenAI
10 9 (1.03%) SAP
11 8 (0.92%) HP
11 8 (0.92%) OpenLink
12 7 (0.80%) MuleSoft
13 6 (0.69%) Charles River
13 6 (0.69%) Foundry
13 6 (0.69%) Workday
14 5 (0.57%) OpenText