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

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 45 51
Rank change year-on-year 0 +6 -4
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 843 621 688
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.87% 4.90% 3.84%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.46% 5.34% 4.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 544 423 480
10th Percentile £325 £341 £363
25th Percentile £406 £406 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -9.09% -6.78%
75th Percentile £588 £663 £694
90th Percentile £706 £775 £775
England median daily rate £477 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -4.70% -4.76% -6.67%
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 £60.00
% change year-on-year +14.54% -5.42% -4.00%

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 15,428 11,636 15,825
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 89.09% 91.87% 88.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,331 7,886 11,336
10th Percentile £353 £350 £338
25th Percentile £428 £440 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -6.78%
75th Percentile £650 £688 £675
90th Percentile £755 £800 £799
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 253 168 334
10th Percentile £18.37 £16.48 £16.00
25th Percentile £23.00 £23.75 £19.65
Median hourly rate £35.50 £34.58 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.68% +15.25% -22.58%
75th Percentile £57.00 £50.56 £49.00
90th Percentile £72.90 £63.40 £66.93
England median hourly rate £41.56 £31.76 £34.21
% change year-on-year +30.84% -7.16% -8.77%

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 16 April 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 16 April 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 +7 112 £525 +3.96% 40
West London -17 22 £450 +26.05% 4
South London -8 20 £519 +5.87% 1
East London +4 11 £445 +11.25% 9
North London - 1 £400 - 3
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 57 (6.76%) Confluence
2 21 (2.49%) Apache Airflow
3 17 (2.02%) Apache Spark
4 8 (0.95%) Appian
5 5 (0.59%) Apache
5 5 (0.59%) Camunda
5 5 (0.59%) CMS
6 4 (0.47%) nginx
6 4 (0.47%) Tomcat
6 4 (0.47%) WebLogic
7 3 (0.36%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
7 3 (0.36%) SharePoint
8 2 (0.24%) Magnolia
8 2 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
8 2 (0.24%) WordPress
9 1 (0.12%) Anypoint
9 1 (0.12%) Ethereum
9 1 (0.12%) SAS
9 1 (0.12%) Solana
Applications
1 18 (2.14%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.71%) Microsoft Project
3 6 (0.71%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.47%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.12%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 22 (2.61%) Aladdin
2 7 (0.83%) Findur
2 7 (0.83%) Shopify
3 6 (0.71%) Loan IQ
3 6 (0.71%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.59%) BambooHR
5 4 (0.47%) Dynamics CRM
6 3 (0.36%) Distributed Ledger
7 2 (0.24%) iTrent
7 2 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.24%) SAP HR
7 2 (0.24%) Summit
8 1 (0.12%) Algo Collateral
8 1 (0.12%) Bloomberg TOMS
8 1 (0.12%) CODA-Financials
8 1 (0.12%) Infor M3
8 1 (0.12%) IntelliMatch
8 1 (0.12%) Oracle EBS R12
8 1 (0.12%) PORTIA
8 1 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 249 (29.54%) Azure
2 204 (24.20%) AWS
3 136 (16.13%) GitHub
4 122 (14.47%) Azure DevOps
5 63 (7.47%) GCP
6 62 (7.35%) GitHub Actions
7 60 (7.12%) Serverless
8 38 (4.51%) Amazon S3
8 38 (4.51%) AWS Lambda
9 34 (4.03%) Snowflake
10 33 (3.91%) Power Platform
11 28 (3.32%) Azure AKS
11 28 (3.32%) Azure Data Factory
12 25 (2.97%) Amazon ECS
13 21 (2.49%) Dynamics 365
14 19 (2.25%) dbt
15 18 (2.14%) Apigee
15 18 (2.14%) AWS CloudFormation
15 18 (2.14%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 18 (2.14%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 10 (1.19%) HTTP
2 6 (0.71%) Firewall
2 6 (0.71%) FTP
3 5 (0.59%) Cisco IPT
3 5 (0.59%) SSL
4 4 (0.47%) DNS
4 4 (0.47%) Ethernet
4 4 (0.47%) Multicast
4 4 (0.47%) WAN
4 4 (0.47%) WebEx
5 3 (0.36%) TCP/IP
6 2 (0.24%) Cisco IOS
6 2 (0.24%) DHCP
6 2 (0.24%) DSL
6 2 (0.24%) HTTPS
6 2 (0.24%) NaaS
6 2 (0.24%) SD-WAN
6 2 (0.24%) SNMP
7 1 (0.12%) 5G
7 1 (0.12%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (5.93%) SQL Server
2 48 (5.69%) PostgreSQL
3 42 (4.98%) NoSQL
4 31 (3.68%) MongoDB
5 27 (3.20%) Data Warehouse
6 26 (3.08%) Relational Database
7 24 (2.85%) BigQuery
8 22 (2.61%) Tableau
9 21 (2.49%) DynamoDB
10 20 (2.37%) Power BI
11 17 (2.02%) Amazon Athena
12 15 (1.78%) Big Data
13 14 (1.66%) Metadata
14 12 (1.42%) Amazon Aurora
14 12 (1.42%) Amazon RDS
14 12 (1.42%) Amazon Redshift
15 11 (1.30%) Oracle Database
15 11 (1.30%) Redis
16 10 (1.19%) Data Lake
16 10 (1.19%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 150 (17.79%) JIRA
2 139 (16.49%) Git
3 116 (13.76%) Selenium
4 102 (12.10%) Jenkins
5 76 (9.02%) GitLab
6 58 (6.88%) Cucumber
7 54 (6.41%) Cypress.io
8 51 (6.05%) Postman
9 38 (4.51%) REST Assured
10 30 (3.56%) SpecFlow
11 27 (3.20%) JMeter
11 27 (3.20%) JUnit
12 20 (2.37%) MLflow
13 17 (2.02%) Bitbucket
14 15 (1.78%) Appium
15 14 (1.66%) TestRail
15 14 (1.66%) Zephyr
16 13 (1.54%) Maven
16 13 (1.54%) WebDriver
17 12 (1.42%) Mockito
General
1 222 (26.33%) Social Skills
2 217 (25.74%) Finance
3 111 (13.17%) Banking
4 109 (12.93%) Public Sector
5 95 (11.27%) Analytical Skills
6 28 (3.32%) Front Office
7 27 (3.20%) Investment Banking
8 19 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 18 (2.14%) Legal
10 14 (1.66%) Documentation Skills
11 11 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
11 11 (1.30%) Telecoms
12 10 (1.19%) Financial Institution
12 10 (1.19%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (1.07%) Back Office
13 9 (1.07%) Pharmaceutical
13 9 (1.07%) Presentation Skills
14 7 (0.83%) Billing
14 7 (0.83%) Publishing
15 6 (0.71%) Retail
Job Titles
1 188 (22.30%) Developer
2 159 (18.86%) Senior
3 97 (11.51%) Tester
4 89 (10.56%) Lead
5 62 (7.35%) Test Engineer
6 59 (7.00%) Automation Tester
7 56 (6.64%) Analyst
8 52 (6.17%) QA Engineer
9 46 (5.46%) Architect
10 41 (4.86%) Senior Developer
11 38 (4.51%) Automation Engineer
11 38 (4.51%) Data Engineer
12 35 (4.15%) Java Developer
13 34 (4.03%) DevOps Engineer
14 32 (3.80%) Test Automation Engineer
15 29 (3.44%) Test Analyst
16 27 (3.20%) Test Manager
17 24 (2.85%) QA Automation Engineer
17 24 (2.85%) Software Engineer
18 23 (2.73%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (13.29%) Playwright
2 96 (11.39%) React
3 88 (10.44%) REST
4 75 (8.90%) RESTful
5 73 (8.66%) Node.js
6 68 (8.07%) .NET
7 59 (7.00%) Kafka
8 46 (5.46%) Spring
9 43 (5.10%) Spring Boot
10 39 (4.63%) HTML
11 37 (4.39%) CSS
12 30 (3.56%) Web Services
13 29 (3.44%) pytest
14 26 (3.08%) OAuth
15 25 (2.97%) AngularJS
16 21 (2.49%) Gherkin
16 21 (2.49%) GraphQL
17 19 (2.25%) FastAPI
17 19 (2.25%) Middleware
17 19 (2.25%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 92 (10.91%) Cloud Native
2 57 (6.76%) Product Ownership
3 44 (5.22%) Distributed Systems
4 35 (4.15%) Legacy Systems
5 25 (2.97%) Algorithms
5 25 (2.97%) Data Protection Act
6 20 (2.37%) Equities
6 20 (2.37%) Onboarding
7 19 (2.25%) Data Structures
8 18 (2.14%) Fixed Income
8 18 (2.14%) Greenfield Project
8 18 (2.14%) Management Information System
8 18 (2.14%) Virtual Team
9 16 (1.90%) Mobile App
10 14 (1.66%) Self-Motivation
11 11 (1.30%) Derivative
11 11 (1.30%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 10 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
13 9 (1.07%) Low-Code
13 9 (1.07%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 43 (5.10%) Linux
2 36 (4.27%) Windows
3 20 (2.37%) Android
4 18 (2.14%) Apple iOS
5 10 (1.19%) Unix
6 6 (0.71%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.59%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.47%) Solaris
8 4 (0.47%) Windows Server 2008
9 3 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
9 3 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.12%) FreeRTOS
10 1 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 450 (53.38%) CI/CD
2 346 (41.04%) Agile
3 291 (34.52%) DevOps
4 162 (19.22%) Problem-Solving
5 137 (16.25%) AI
6 123 (14.59%) Infrastructure as Code
7 119 (14.12%) Containerisation
8 116 (13.76%) Observability
9 114 (13.52%) Continuous Improvement
10 109 (12.93%) Microservices
10 109 (12.93%) Validation
11 108 (12.81%) Regression Testing
12 107 (12.69%) Test Strategy
13 106 (12.57%) Test Scripting
14 101 (11.98%) Software Testing
15 97 (11.51%) User Acceptance Testing
16 93 (11.03%) Analytics
17 91 (10.79%) Software Engineering
18 85 (10.08%) Data Modelling
19 82 (9.73%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 279 (33.10%) Python
2 214 (25.39%) SQL
3 170 (20.17%) Java
4 153 (18.15%) TypeScript
5 137 (16.25%) JavaScript
6 116 (13.76%) C#
7 27 (3.20%) PowerShell
8 19 (2.25%) Apex Code
8 19 (2.25%) Bash
9 17 (2.02%) C++
9 17 (2.02%) Ruby
10 13 (1.54%) Bicep
10 13 (1.54%) Kotlin
10 13 (1.54%) PL/SQL
11 9 (1.07%) Go
11 9 (1.07%) Scala
12 7 (0.83%) T-SQL
13 6 (0.71%) Rust
13 6 (0.71%) Swift
14 4 (0.47%) C
Qualifications
1 177 (21.00%) Security Cleared
2 151 (17.91%) SC Cleared
3 50 (5.93%) Degree
4 38 (4.51%) ISTQB
5 29 (3.44%) BPSS Clearance
6 26 (3.08%) Computer Science Degree
7 11 (1.30%) Master's Degree
8 9 (1.07%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 8 (0.95%) DV Cleared
10 7 (0.83%) DBS Check
11 4 (0.47%) Azure Certification
11 4 (0.47%) ISEB
11 4 (0.47%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 3 (0.36%) AWS Certification
12 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
12 3 (0.36%) OSCP
12 3 (0.36%) SANS
13 2 (0.24%) Cisco Certification
13 2 (0.24%) CREST Certified
13 2 (0.24%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 205 (24.32%) QA
2 52 (6.17%) Data Quality
3 47 (5.58%) Accessibility
4 24 (2.85%) GDPR
5 20 (2.37%) WCAG
6 8 (0.95%) NIST
7 7 (0.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 7 (0.83%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 6 (0.71%) ISO 20022
8 6 (0.71%) NCSC
9 5 (0.59%) PERC
9 5 (0.59%) SLA
10 4 (0.47%) HL7
10 4 (0.47%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 4 (0.47%) Software Quality Assurance
11 3 (0.36%) MiFID
11 3 (0.36%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.24%) GRC
12 2 (0.24%) NIST 800
13 1 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 151 (17.91%) Docker
2 6 (0.71%) Active Directory
2 6 (0.71%) VMware ESXi
2 6 (0.71%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (0.47%) Oracle RAC
3 4 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
3 4 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.12%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.12%) Firmware
4 1 (0.12%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.12%) Squid
4 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 130 (15.42%) Kubernetes
2 101 (11.98%) Terraform
3 37 (4.39%) Grafana
4 32 (3.80%) Prometheus
5 15 (1.78%) Ansible
6 13 (1.54%) HP ALM
7 8 (0.95%) Kibana
7 8 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (0.47%) Oracle RMAN
8 4 (0.47%) Puppet
9 2 (0.24%) Amdocs OSS
9 2 (0.24%) Istio
9 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (0.24%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.24%) Rancher
9 2 (0.24%) SCCM
10 1 (0.12%) CloudHub
10 1 (0.12%) HP Quality Center
10 1 (0.12%) linkerd
10 1 (0.12%) Packer
Vendors
1 79 (9.37%) Microsoft
2 58 (6.88%) Oracle
3 50 (5.93%) Salesforce
4 45 (5.34%) Databricks
5 26 (3.08%) Google
6 23 (2.73%) ServiceNow
7 17 (2.02%) SAP
7 17 (2.02%) Splunk
8 13 (1.54%) HP
8 13 (1.54%) OpenAI
9 11 (1.30%) Dynatrace
9 11 (1.30%) IBM
9 11 (1.30%) MuleSoft
10 10 (1.19%) Workday
11 9 (1.07%) Apple
11 9 (1.07%) Guidewire
11 9 (1.07%) UiPath
11 9 (1.07%) VMware
12 8 (0.95%) Automation Anywhere
12 8 (0.95%) Citrix