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 19 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 56 44 47
Rank change year-on-year -12 +3 -7
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 597 746 925
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.49% 4.67% 4.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.86% 5.24% 4.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 416 493 692
10th Percentile £353 £350 £400
25th Percentile £413 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £571
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -8.10% -6.73%
75th Percentile £638 £630 £675
90th Percentile £750 £750 £788
England median daily rate £500 £505 £540
% change year-on-year -0.99% -6.48% -6.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 3 3
10th Percentile £43.00 £53.13 £78.00
25th Percentile £43.75 £57.81 £82.50
Median hourly rate £45.00 £68.75 £90.00
Median % change year-on-year -34.55% -23.61% +63.64%
75th Percentile £63.75 £71.88 -
90th Percentile £73.50 - -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £75.00
% change year-on-year +13.04% -23.33% +20.00%

All Process and 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 12,287 14,247 18,843
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 92.44% 89.25% 89.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,085 9,211 13,622
10th Percentile £333 £350 £363
25th Percentile £425 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £543 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -1.36% -4.35% -2.13%
75th Percentile £664 £675 £688
90th Percentile £775 £800 £800
England median daily rate £510 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 243 176 231
10th Percentile £18.03 £17.75 £18.50
25th Percentile £25.00 £24.17 £21.63
Median hourly rate £30.50 £37.79 £39.42
Median % change year-on-year -19.28% -4.15% +5.12%
75th Percentile £47.75 £57.81 £62.75
90th Percentile £64.95 £78.75 £76.25
England median hourly rate £25.15 £41.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -39.40% -7.78% +28.77%

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 19 October 2025.

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 19 October 2025.

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 19 October 2025. 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 -22 72 £500 -4.76% 64
South London -5 10 £500 +6.38% 12
East London -6 6 £530 +19.10% 17
West London -6 4 - - 13
North London - 1 - - 2
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 29 (4.86%) Confluence
2 17 (2.85%) Apache Spark
3 10 (1.68%) Apache Airflow
4 7 (1.17%) Apache
5 3 (0.50%) CMS
5 3 (0.50%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.17%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.17%) JBoss
6 1 (0.17%) nginx
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Application Server
Applications
1 15 (2.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (1.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (1.17%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (0.50%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.34%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.17%) Trello
Business Applications
1 9 (1.51%) Aladdin
2 2 (0.34%) Eagle PACE
2 2 (0.34%) Markit EDM
2 2 (0.34%) SAP HR
2 2 (0.34%) Temenos T24
3 1 (0.17%) CODA-Financials
3 1 (0.17%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.17%) ION Anvil
3 1 (0.17%) MoSes
3 1 (0.17%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.17%) Sage X3
3 1 (0.17%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 178 (29.82%) Azure
2 153 (25.63%) AWS
3 76 (12.73%) Azure DevOps
4 67 (11.22%) GitHub
5 63 (10.55%) GCP
6 47 (7.87%) Serverless
7 33 (5.53%) GitHub Actions
8 23 (3.85%) AWS Lambda
9 19 (3.18%) Amazon S3
9 19 (3.18%) SaaS
10 18 (3.02%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 18 (3.02%) Power Platform
11 17 (2.85%) Azure Data Factory
12 14 (2.35%) Azure Logic Apps
12 14 (2.35%) Azure Monitor
13 13 (2.18%) Cloud Run
13 13 (2.18%) Snowflake
14 12 (2.01%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 11 (1.84%) Amazon ECS
15 11 (1.84%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 14 (2.35%) HTTP
1 14 (2.35%) SSL
2 12 (2.01%) Firewall
3 10 (1.68%) Multicast
4 9 (1.51%) HTTPS
4 9 (1.51%) TCP/IP
5 8 (1.34%) Network Security
5 8 (1.34%) VPN
6 5 (0.84%) DNS
6 5 (0.84%) SD-WAN
6 5 (0.84%) WAN
7 3 (0.50%) Bluetooth
8 2 (0.34%) Internet
8 2 (0.34%) VLAN
8 2 (0.34%) Wireshark
9 1 (0.17%) DHCP
9 1 (0.17%) DSL
9 1 (0.17%) LAN
9 1 (0.17%) LTE
9 1 (0.17%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (8.88%) PostgreSQL
2 43 (7.20%) NoSQL
3 37 (6.20%) SQL Server
4 23 (3.85%) Relational Database
5 22 (3.69%) Data Warehouse
6 20 (3.35%) MongoDB
7 14 (2.35%) Amazon RDS
8 13 (2.18%) Data Lake
9 10 (1.68%) Big Data
9 10 (1.68%) Redis
10 9 (1.51%) Amazon Redshift
10 9 (1.51%) BigQuery
10 9 (1.51%) DynamoDB
10 9 (1.51%) Power BI
11 7 (1.17%) Delta Lake
12 6 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
13 4 (0.67%) DB2
13 4 (0.67%) Qlik Sense
13 4 (0.67%) RDBMS
13 4 (0.67%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 89 (14.91%) Selenium
2 88 (14.74%) Git
3 85 (14.24%) JIRA
4 71 (11.89%) Jenkins
5 52 (8.71%) GitLab
6 50 (8.38%) Cucumber
7 41 (6.87%) Cypress.io
8 39 (6.53%) Postman
9 32 (5.36%) JUnit
10 30 (5.03%) JMeter
11 17 (2.85%) REST Assured
12 16 (2.68%) Bitbucket
13 14 (2.35%) Gatling
14 13 (2.18%) Appium
14 13 (2.18%) Maven
15 11 (1.84%) WebDriver
16 10 (1.68%) SpecFlow
16 10 (1.68%) TestRail
16 10 (1.68%) Zephyr
17 9 (1.51%) webpack
General
1 174 (29.15%) Social Skills
2 147 (24.62%) Finance
3 76 (12.73%) Banking
4 60 (10.05%) Analytical Skills
5 40 (6.70%) Public Sector
6 26 (4.36%) Front Office
7 19 (3.18%) Investment Banking
8 18 (3.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 14 (2.35%) Documentation Skills
9 14 (2.35%) Presentation Skills
10 13 (2.18%) Pharmaceutical
11 11 (1.84%) Financial Institution
12 10 (1.68%) International Banking
13 7 (1.17%) Publishing
14 6 (1.01%) Back Office
14 6 (1.01%) Law
15 4 (0.67%) Legal
15 4 (0.67%) Manufacturing
15 4 (0.67%) Retail
15 4 (0.67%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 125 (20.94%) Developer
2 94 (15.75%) Senior
3 80 (13.40%) Tester
4 46 (7.71%) Test Engineer
5 41 (6.87%) Analyst
5 41 (6.87%) Automation Tester
5 41 (6.87%) Lead
6 30 (5.03%) Software Engineer
7 28 (4.69%) Test Analyst
8 27 (4.52%) QA Engineer
9 26 (4.36%) Java Developer
10 24 (4.02%) Test Automation Engineer
11 21 (3.52%) Automation Engineer
12 19 (3.18%) Consultant
13 18 (3.02%) Data Engineer
13 18 (3.02%) Senior Developer
14 17 (2.85%) DevOps Engineer
14 17 (2.85%) Test Leader
14 17 (2.85%) Test Manager
15 16 (2.68%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (10.55%) React
2 59 (9.88%) Playwright
3 58 (9.72%) REST
4 52 (8.71%) .NET
5 44 (7.37%) Node.js
6 42 (7.04%) RESTful
7 41 (6.87%) Kafka
8 31 (5.19%) Spring
9 29 (4.86%) JSON
10 27 (4.52%) HTML
11 26 (4.36%) pytest
11 26 (4.36%) Web Services
12 25 (4.19%) CSS
12 25 (4.19%) SOAP
12 25 (4.19%) Spring Boot
13 24 (4.02%) XML
14 19 (3.18%) Jest
15 17 (2.85%) FastAPI
16 15 (2.51%) AngularJS
16 15 (2.51%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 64 (10.72%) Cloud Native
2 33 (5.53%) Product Ownership
3 24 (4.02%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 21 (3.52%) Distributed Systems
4 21 (3.52%) Mobile App
5 14 (2.35%) Greenfield Project
5 14 (2.35%) Reinsurance
6 13 (2.18%) Genomics
6 13 (2.18%) Virtual Team
7 11 (1.84%) Algorithms
7 11 (1.84%) Legacy Systems
7 11 (1.84%) Life Science
7 11 (1.84%) Linux Command Line
7 11 (1.84%) Management Information System
7 11 (1.84%) Onboarding
8 10 (1.68%) Public Cloud
9 9 (1.51%) Distributed Architecture
10 8 (1.34%) Data Structures
10 8 (1.34%) Fixed Income
11 7 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 53 (8.88%) Linux
2 22 (3.69%) Android
3 19 (3.18%) Unix
3 19 (3.18%) Windows
4 18 (3.02%) Apple iOS
5 4 (0.67%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.17%) CentOS
6 1 (0.17%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.17%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 302 (50.59%) CI/CD
2 299 (50.08%) Agile
3 239 (40.03%) DevOps
4 123 (20.60%) Problem-Solving
5 95 (15.91%) Software Engineering
6 89 (14.91%) Microservices
7 85 (14.24%) Test Strategy
8 81 (13.57%) Containerisation
9 78 (13.07%) Scrum
10 73 (12.23%) Test Scripting
11 72 (12.06%) Infrastructure as Code
12 67 (11.22%) SDLC
13 66 (11.06%) AI
13 66 (11.06%) TDD
14 64 (10.72%) Validation
15 58 (9.72%) Continuous Improvement
16 55 (9.21%) Software Testing
17 51 (8.54%) BDD
17 51 (8.54%) Machine Learning
18 50 (8.38%) Performance Testing
Programming Languages
1 196 (32.83%) Python
2 133 (22.28%) SQL
3 127 (21.27%) Java
4 85 (14.24%) JavaScript
5 74 (12.40%) C#
6 70 (11.73%) TypeScript
7 27 (4.52%) Bash
8 24 (4.02%) Go
9 23 (3.85%) PowerShell
10 14 (2.35%) C++
11 13 (2.18%) Kotlin
12 10 (1.68%) Bicep
13 8 (1.34%) Perl
14 6 (1.01%) PL/SQL
14 6 (1.01%) Shell Script
15 5 (0.84%) Korn
15 5 (0.84%) Scala
15 5 (0.84%) Swift
15 5 (0.84%) VB.NET
16 4 (0.67%) PHP
Qualifications
1 73 (12.23%) Security Cleared
2 63 (10.55%) SC Cleared
3 57 (9.55%) Degree
4 26 (4.36%) ISTQB
5 24 (4.02%) Computer Science Degree
6 13 (2.18%) Master's Degree
7 11 (1.84%) BPSS Clearance
8 6 (1.01%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 6 (1.01%) OSCP
9 5 (0.84%) GPEN
9 5 (0.84%) SANS
10 4 (0.67%) AWS Certification
10 4 (0.67%) Azure Certification
10 4 (0.67%) MCP
10 4 (0.67%) Microsoft Certification
11 3 (0.50%) CREST Certified
11 3 (0.50%) EMC Certification
11 3 (0.50%) HNC
11 3 (0.50%) HND
12 2 (0.34%) GXPN
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (22.61%) QA
2 50 (8.38%) Accessibility
3 24 (4.02%) Data Quality
4 12 (2.01%) WCAG
5 7 (1.17%) GDPR
6 5 (0.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (0.84%) MiFID
6 5 (0.84%) NIST
7 3 (0.50%) Def Stans
7 3 (0.50%) EMIR
7 3 (0.50%) EU AI Act
7 3 (0.50%) IEC 61508
7 3 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 15288
7 3 (0.50%) ITGC
7 3 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.50%) SLA
8 2 (0.34%) GMP
8 2 (0.34%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.17%) ISO 9001
9 1 (0.17%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 116 (19.43%) Docker
2 7 (1.17%) Active Directory
3 5 (0.84%) zsh
4 4 (0.67%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.50%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.17%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 94 (15.75%) Kubernetes
2 60 (10.05%) Terraform
3 36 (6.03%) Ansible
4 13 (2.18%) Grafana
5 9 (1.51%) HP ALM
5 9 (1.51%) Prometheus
6 5 (0.84%) Argo
7 4 (0.67%) Nmap
8 3 (0.50%) Functional Safety
8 3 (0.50%) Nessus
9 2 (0.34%) HP Quality Center
9 2 (0.34%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.34%) Rancher
9 2 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.34%) vRealize
10 1 (0.17%) Kibana
10 1 (0.17%) logstash
10 1 (0.17%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 49 (8.21%) Microsoft
2 42 (7.04%) Oracle
3 33 (5.53%) Databricks
3 33 (5.53%) Google
4 27 (4.52%) Salesforce
5 20 (3.35%) ServiceNow
6 16 (2.68%) UiPath
7 15 (2.51%) Splunk
8 9 (1.51%) Guidewire
8 9 (1.51%) HP
8 9 (1.51%) SAP
9 8 (1.34%) MuleSoft
9 8 (1.34%) Solace
10 6 (1.01%) Cisco
10 6 (1.01%) F5
10 6 (1.01%) OpenAI
11 5 (0.84%) Aruba
11 5 (0.84%) Axway
11 5 (0.84%) CA Agile Central
11 5 (0.84%) Murex