Automation Tester Contract Job Trends in Manchester

Automation Tester
North West > Manchester

The median Automation Tester daily rate in Manchester is £333, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 12 January 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 94 77 94
Rank change year-on-year -17 +17 +13
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Tester 2 10 7
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 0.17% 0.96% 0.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.19% 1.03% 0.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 2 9 7
10th Percentile £315 £380 £365
25th Percentile £319 £390 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £333 £400 £438
Median % change year-on-year -16.88% -8.57% +2.94%
75th Percentile £339 £500 £463
90th Percentile £340 - £513
North West median daily rate £333 £400 £438
% change year-on-year -16.88% -8.57% +2.94%

All Contract IT Job Roles
Manchester

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in Manchester. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in Manchester with a recognized job title 1,066 975 1,441
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.90% 93.66% 93.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 709 588 1,048
10th Percentile £310 £313 £306
25th Percentile £381 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.70% -7.50% -
75th Percentile £550 £565 £577
90th Percentile £640 £675 £675
North West median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 33 63
10th Percentile £17.59 £15.93 £12.90
25th Percentile £19.75 £21.25 £17.72
Median hourly rate £27.97 £32.50 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.95% +8.33% -23.08%
75th Percentile £57.50 £33.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £63.50 £60.00 £76.75
North West median hourly rate £41.37 £29.00 £37.18
% change year-on-year +42.66% -22.00% +51.26%

Automation Tester
Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Automation Tester' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester.

Automation Tester job vacancy trend in Manchester

Automation Tester
Daily Rate Trend in Manchester

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Automation Tester job vacancies in Manchester.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Automation Tester job vacancies in Manchester

Automation Tester Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester

For the 6 months to 12 January 2026, Automation Tester contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the Manchester region featuring Automation Tester in the job title.

1 2 (100.00%) Agile
1 2 (100.00%) CI/CD
1 2 (100.00%) Java
1 2 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 1 (50.00%) API Testing
2 1 (50.00%) AWS
2 1 (50.00%) Azure
2 1 (50.00%) Azure DevOps
2 1 (50.00%) C#
2 1 (50.00%) Continuous Delivery
2 1 (50.00%) Continuous Integration
2 1 (50.00%) CRM
2 1 (50.00%) Cucumber
2 1 (50.00%) DevOps
2 1 (50.00%) Digital Transformation Programme
2 1 (50.00%) Dynamics 365
2 1 (50.00%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (50.00%) Gatling
2 1 (50.00%) Jenkins
2 1 (50.00%) Load Testing
2 1 (50.00%) Node.js
2 1 (50.00%) Performance Testing
2 1 (50.00%) Playwright
2 1 (50.00%) Power Platform
2 1 (50.00%) Problem-Solving
2 1 (50.00%) Puppeteer
2 1 (50.00%) Python
2 1 (50.00%) RESTful
2 1 (50.00%) Scala
2 1 (50.00%) Selenium

Automation Tester Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester 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:

Business Applications
1 1 (50.00%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 1 (50.00%) AWS
1 1 (50.00%) Azure
1 1 (50.00%) Azure DevOps
1 1 (50.00%) Dynamics 365
1 1 (50.00%) Power Platform
Development Applications
1 1 (50.00%) Cucumber
1 1 (50.00%) Gatling
1 1 (50.00%) Jenkins
1 1 (50.00%) Selenium
General
1 1 (50.00%) Analytical Skills
1 1 (50.00%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (50.00%) Node.js
1 1 (50.00%) Playwright
1 1 (50.00%) Puppeteer
1 1 (50.00%) RESTful
1 1 (50.00%) WebdriverIO
Processes & Methodologies
1 2 (100.00%) Agile
1 2 (100.00%) CI/CD
1 2 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 1 (50.00%) API Testing
2 1 (50.00%) Continuous Delivery
2 1 (50.00%) Continuous Integration
2 1 (50.00%) CRM
2 1 (50.00%) DevOps
2 1 (50.00%) Digital Transformation Programme
2 1 (50.00%) Load Testing
2 1 (50.00%) Performance Testing
2 1 (50.00%) Problem-Solving
2 1 (50.00%) Test Scripting
2 1 (50.00%) Test Strategy
2 1 (50.00%) User Experience
2 1 (50.00%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
Programming Languages
1 2 (100.00%) Java
2 1 (50.00%) C#
2 1 (50.00%) Python
2 1 (50.00%) Scala