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

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 45 50
Rank change year-on-year 0 +5 -3
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 795 611 696
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.96% 4.68% 3.80%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.51% 5.14% 4.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 519 422 505
10th Percentile £325 £341 £376
25th Percentile £400 £410 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -8.33%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £675
90th Percentile £700 £775 £765
England median daily rate £488 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -2.50% -4.76% -7.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 7
10th Percentile £55.99 - -
25th Percentile £58.15 - £52.50
Median hourly rate £63.50 - £55.00
75th Percentile £65.88 - £61.25
90th Percentile £66.25 - £65.40
England median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year +14.54% -9.20% +4.17%

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 14,434 11,882 16,153
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 89.99% 91.01% 88.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,713 7,889 11,534
10th Percentile £350 £350 £338
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -7.17%
75th Percentile £650 £681 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £788
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 218 162 355
10th Percentile £18.05 £20.45 £16.01
25th Percentile £21.65 £24.66 £19.74
Median hourly rate £35.25 £35.00 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.71% +16.67% -17.81%
75th Percentile £56.38 £53.31 £50.00
90th Percentile £69.55 £77.25 £69.80
England median hourly rate £30.00 £34.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -13.04% +6.15% -7.22%

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 March 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 March 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 -3 102 £525 +1.45% 62
South London -7 21 £513 +6.22% 9
West London -13 21 £450 +26.05% 21
East London +4 7 £445 +11.25% 19
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 53 (6.67%) Confluence
2 16 (2.01%) Apache Spark
3 14 (1.76%) Apache Airflow
4 8 (1.01%) Appian
5 6 (0.75%) SharePoint
6 5 (0.63%) Apache
7 4 (0.50%) Camunda
7 4 (0.50%) CMS
8 3 (0.38%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.38%) WebLogic
9 2 (0.25%) Magnolia
9 2 (0.25%) nginx
9 2 (0.25%) Sitecore CMS
9 2 (0.25%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.25%) WordPress
10 1 (0.13%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.13%) Oracle Application Server
Applications
1 20 (2.52%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
3 6 (0.75%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.50%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 22 (2.77%) Aladdin
2 6 (0.75%) Loan IQ
3 4 (0.50%) SAP HR
3 4 (0.50%) Shopify
4 3 (0.38%) BambooHR
4 3 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.25%) iTrent
5 2 (0.25%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.25%) Summit
6 1 (0.13%) Algo Collateral
6 1 (0.13%) Bloomberg TOMS
6 1 (0.13%) CODA-Financials
6 1 (0.13%) Infor CloudSuite
6 1 (0.13%) Infor LN
6 1 (0.13%) Infor M3
6 1 (0.13%) IntelliMatch
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle EBS R12
6 1 (0.13%) PORTIA
6 1 (0.13%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 252 (31.70%) Azure
2 190 (23.90%) AWS
3 123 (15.47%) GitHub
4 114 (14.34%) Azure DevOps
5 80 (10.06%) GCP
6 57 (7.17%) GitHub Actions
7 54 (6.79%) Serverless
8 35 (4.40%) Power Platform
9 33 (4.15%) Snowflake
10 30 (3.77%) Azure Data Factory
11 28 (3.52%) Azure AKS
12 27 (3.40%) AWS Lambda
13 26 (3.27%) Amazon S3
14 22 (2.77%) Dynamics 365
15 21 (2.64%) SaaS
16 17 (2.14%) Amazon EKS
16 17 (2.14%) Azure Cosmos DB
16 17 (2.14%) Power Automate
17 16 (2.01%) Apigee
18 15 (1.89%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.38%) Firewall
2 10 (1.26%) HTTP
3 8 (1.01%) SSL
3 8 (1.01%) WAN
4 7 (0.88%) DNS
4 7 (0.88%) SD-WAN
4 7 (0.88%) TCP/IP
4 7 (0.88%) VPN
5 5 (0.63%) Cisco IPT
5 5 (0.63%) HTTPS
6 4 (0.50%) FTP
6 4 (0.50%) Multicast
7 3 (0.38%) DHCP
7 3 (0.38%) Ethernet
7 3 (0.38%) WebEx
8 2 (0.25%) Cisco IOS
8 2 (0.25%) DSL
8 2 (0.25%) SNMP
8 2 (0.25%) Wireshark
9 1 (0.13%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (6.29%) PostgreSQL
2 46 (5.79%) SQL Server
3 31 (3.90%) NoSQL
4 26 (3.27%) Relational Database
5 24 (3.02%) Data Warehouse
6 22 (2.77%) BigQuery
7 20 (2.52%) MongoDB
7 20 (2.52%) Power BI
8 18 (2.26%) Tableau
9 13 (1.64%) Data Lake
10 11 (1.38%) Redis
11 10 (1.26%) Big Data
11 10 (1.26%) Metadata
11 10 (1.26%) Oracle Database
12 9 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
12 9 (1.13%) Azure SQL Database
12 9 (1.13%) DynamoDB
12 9 (1.13%) Pinecone
13 8 (1.01%) Amazon Redshift
13 8 (1.01%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 137 (17.23%) JIRA
2 130 (16.35%) Git
3 107 (13.46%) Jenkins
4 105 (13.21%) Selenium
5 87 (10.94%) GitLab
6 61 (7.67%) Cucumber
7 50 (6.29%) Postman
8 49 (6.16%) Cypress.io
9 33 (4.15%) REST Assured
10 32 (4.03%) SpecFlow
11 30 (3.77%) JMeter
12 29 (3.65%) JUnit
13 19 (2.39%) MLflow
14 16 (2.01%) Bitbucket
15 14 (1.76%) WebDriver
16 13 (1.64%) TestRail
17 12 (1.51%) Appium
17 12 (1.51%) Maven
18 11 (1.38%) Zephyr
19 10 (1.26%) Gradle
General
1 208 (26.16%) Social Skills
2 186 (23.40%) Finance
3 100 (12.58%) Banking
4 88 (11.07%) Public Sector
5 77 (9.69%) Analytical Skills
6 26 (3.27%) Investment Banking
7 23 (2.89%) Front Office
8 16 (2.01%) Pharmaceutical
9 13 (1.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 11 (1.38%) Legal
11 10 (1.26%) Documentation Skills
12 9 (1.13%) Presentation Skills
13 7 (0.88%) Influencing Skills
13 7 (0.88%) Organisational Skills
13 7 (0.88%) Telecoms
14 6 (0.75%) Billing
14 6 (0.75%) Financial Institution
15 5 (0.63%) Retail
16 4 (0.50%) Electronics
16 4 (0.50%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 169 (21.26%) Developer
2 156 (19.62%) Senior
3 92 (11.57%) Tester
4 88 (11.07%) Lead
5 62 (7.80%) Test Engineer
6 57 (7.17%) Automation Tester
7 52 (6.54%) Analyst
8 43 (5.41%) QA Engineer
9 39 (4.91%) Senior Developer
10 38 (4.78%) Architect
11 34 (4.28%) Automation Engineer
11 34 (4.28%) Data Engineer
12 30 (3.77%) Java Developer
12 30 (3.77%) Software Engineer
12 30 (3.77%) Test Automation Engineer
13 28 (3.52%) DevOps Engineer
13 28 (3.52%) Test Analyst
14 24 (3.02%) Test Manager
15 23 (2.89%) Python Developer
15 23 (2.89%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 124 (15.60%) Playwright
2 85 (10.69%) React
3 82 (10.31%) REST
4 74 (9.31%) .NET
5 72 (9.06%) Node.js
6 69 (8.68%) RESTful
7 61 (7.67%) Kafka
8 39 (4.91%) Spring
9 38 (4.78%) pytest
10 36 (4.53%) Web Services
11 34 (4.28%) HTML
11 34 (4.28%) Spring Boot
12 33 (4.15%) CSS
13 27 (3.40%) OAuth
14 24 (3.02%) FastAPI
14 24 (3.02%) GraphQL
15 20 (2.52%) Middleware
16 19 (2.39%) AngularJS
16 19 (2.39%) JSON
16 19 (2.39%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 98 (12.33%) Cloud Native
2 49 (6.16%) Product Ownership
3 34 (4.28%) Legacy Systems
4 31 (3.90%) Distributed Systems
5 26 (3.27%) Algorithms
6 22 (2.77%) Data Structures
6 22 (2.77%) Equities
7 20 (2.52%) Data Protection Act
8 19 (2.39%) Mobile App
8 19 (2.39%) Virtual Team
9 16 (2.01%) Fixed Income
9 16 (2.01%) Greenfield Project
10 15 (1.89%) Management Information System
10 15 (1.89%) Onboarding
11 14 (1.76%) Derivative
11 14 (1.76%) Genomics
11 14 (1.76%) Life Science
12 10 (1.26%) Public Cloud
13 9 (1.13%) Low-Code
13 9 (1.13%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 50 (6.29%) Linux
2 33 (4.15%) Windows
3 20 (2.52%) Android
3 20 (2.52%) Apple iOS
4 9 (1.13%) Unix
5 5 (0.63%) Mac OS
5 5 (0.63%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.25%) Solaris
6 2 (0.25%) Windows Server 2008
6 2 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
6 2 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.13%) FreeRTOS
7 1 (0.13%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.13%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 435 (54.72%) CI/CD
2 347 (43.65%) Agile
3 306 (38.49%) DevOps
4 167 (21.01%) Problem-Solving
5 139 (17.48%) AI
6 117 (14.72%) Containerisation
7 110 (13.84%) Continuous Improvement
8 109 (13.71%) Test Strategy
9 107 (13.46%) Observability
10 106 (13.33%) Test Scripting
11 103 (12.96%) Microservices
12 101 (12.70%) Infrastructure as Code
13 99 (12.45%) Software Engineering
14 98 (12.33%) Validation
15 93 (11.70%) Software Testing
16 82 (10.31%) Analytics
17 81 (10.19%) Regression Testing
18 80 (10.06%) Scrum
19 78 (9.81%) API Testing
20 76 (9.56%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 283 (35.60%) Python
2 195 (24.53%) SQL
3 157 (19.75%) Java
4 154 (19.37%) TypeScript
5 137 (17.23%) JavaScript
6 112 (14.09%) C#
7 24 (3.02%) PowerShell
8 20 (2.52%) Bash
8 20 (2.52%) C++
9 14 (1.76%) Bicep
10 13 (1.64%) Apex Code
10 13 (1.64%) Kotlin
11 12 (1.51%) Go
11 12 (1.51%) PL/SQL
12 10 (1.26%) Ruby
13 8 (1.01%) Rust
14 7 (0.88%) Swift
14 7 (0.88%) T-SQL
15 6 (0.75%) Shell Script
16 4 (0.50%) C
Qualifications
1 155 (19.50%) Security Cleared
2 132 (16.60%) SC Cleared
3 56 (7.04%) Degree
4 34 (4.28%) ISTQB
5 26 (3.27%) Computer Science Degree
6 22 (2.77%) BPSS Clearance
7 15 (1.89%) Master's Degree
8 10 (1.26%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 8 (1.01%) OSCP
10 7 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
11 6 (0.75%) Azure Certification
12 5 (0.63%) DBS Check
12 5 (0.63%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 5 (0.63%) SANS
13 4 (0.50%) CEH
13 4 (0.50%) DV Cleared
13 4 (0.50%) GPEN
13 4 (0.50%) ISEB
14 3 (0.38%) CREST Certified
14 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 191 (24.03%) QA
2 47 (5.91%) Accessibility
3 45 (5.66%) Data Quality
4 19 (2.39%) GDPR
5 15 (1.89%) WCAG
6 12 (1.51%) NIST
7 8 (1.01%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 6 (0.75%) NCSC
9 5 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 5 (0.63%) MiFID
9 5 (0.63%) PERC
10 4 (0.50%) ISO 20022
10 4 (0.50%) SLA
11 3 (0.38%) EU AI Act
11 3 (0.38%) HL7
11 3 (0.38%) NIST 800
11 3 (0.38%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.38%) Software Quality Assurance
12 2 (0.25%) GMP
13 1 (0.13%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 167 (21.01%) Docker
2 8 (1.01%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
4 3 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
4 3 (0.38%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
5 2 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.13%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.13%) Firmware
6 1 (0.13%) Squid
6 1 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 140 (17.61%) Kubernetes
2 88 (11.07%) Terraform
3 29 (3.65%) Grafana
4 27 (3.40%) Ansible
5 25 (3.14%) Prometheus
6 9 (1.13%) HP ALM
7 6 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.38%) Kibana
8 3 (0.38%) Nmap
8 3 (0.38%) Progress Chef
8 3 (0.38%) Puppet
8 3 (0.38%) Rancher
9 2 (0.25%) HP Quality Center
9 2 (0.25%) Istio
9 2 (0.25%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (0.25%) Nessus
9 2 (0.25%) Oracle RMAN
9 2 (0.25%) SCCM
10 1 (0.13%) Argo
10 1 (0.13%) linkerd
Vendors
1 76 (9.56%) Microsoft
2 49 (6.16%) Databricks
2 49 (6.16%) Oracle
3 41 (5.16%) Salesforce
4 36 (4.53%) Google
5 26 (3.27%) ServiceNow
6 15 (1.89%) SAP
7 14 (1.76%) OpenAI
8 12 (1.51%) Splunk
9 11 (1.38%) Guidewire
9 11 (1.38%) MuleSoft
9 11 (1.38%) UiPath
10 10 (1.26%) Apple
10 10 (1.26%) Dynatrace
11 9 (1.13%) Charles River
11 9 (1.13%) HP
11 9 (1.13%) Workday
12 8 (1.01%) Automation Anywhere
12 8 (1.01%) VMware
13 7 (0.88%) Cisco