Test Automation Contract Job Trends in the North East

Automated Testing
England > North East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North East requiring Test Automation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 10 26 28
Rank change year-on-year +16 +2 -9
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 41 12 5
As % of all contract jobs in the North East 12.13% 4.18% 2.06%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.90% 4.53% 2.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 32 9 4
10th Percentile £400 £311 £415
25th Percentile £425 £325 £422
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £425 £461
Median % change year-on-year +13.24% -7.86% -19.78%
75th Percentile £575 £438 £547
90th Percentile £600 £510 £661
England median daily rate £500 £500 £529
% change year-on-year - -5.48% -8.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 0
10th Percentile £45.55 - -
25th Percentile £47.13 - -
Median hourly rate £51.50 - -
75th Percentile £54.13 - -
90th Percentile £54.65 - -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £72.50
% change year-on-year +13.04% -20.69% +20.83%

All Process and Methodology Skills
North East

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 the North East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 295 265 215
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North East 87.28% 92.33% 88.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 189 109 158
10th Percentile £170 £312 £229
25th Percentile £350 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £470 £450
Median % change year-on-year -4.26% +4.44% -15.09%
75th Percentile £550 £590 £573
90th Percentile £600 £704 £633
England median daily rate £510 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.86% -4.50% -0.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 33 14
10th Percentile £14.35 £14.75 £15.73
25th Percentile £17.30 £15.50 £17.25
Median hourly rate £19.25 £29.77 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -35.34% +14.50% +48.57%
75th Percentile £51.50 £46.18 £46.18
90th Percentile £54.00 £66.00 -
England median hourly rate £25.15 £36.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -31.10% -17.98% +27.14%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in the North East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Test Automation relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North East.

Test Automation job vacancy trend in the North East

Test Automation
Daily Rate Trend in the North East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North East citing Test Automation.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North East citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram in the North East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in the North East over the 6 months to 9 November 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in the North East

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Trend in the North East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North East citing Test Automation.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North East citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Contract Job Locations in the North East

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 North East region over the 6 months to 9 November 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
Tyne and Wear +12 38 £475 +11.76% 29
Durham +7 2 £500 - 3
Test Automation
England

Test Automation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North East 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 2 (4.88%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (2.44%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 14 (34.15%) AWS
2 7 (17.07%) Azure
3 5 (12.20%) GitHub
3 5 (12.20%) GitHub Actions
4 4 (9.76%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (9.76%) OpenShift
5 3 (7.32%) Amazon EKS
6 2 (4.88%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 2 (4.88%) AWS Lambda
6 2 (4.88%) GCP
6 2 (4.88%) Serverless
7 1 (2.44%) Amazon S3
7 1 (2.44%) Azure Data Factory
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (7.32%) MongoDB
2 1 (2.44%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (2.44%) Delta Lake
2 1 (2.44%) NoSQL
2 1 (2.44%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (2.44%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 16 (39.02%) Cucumber
2 15 (36.59%) GitLab
3 13 (31.71%) REST Assured
4 9 (21.95%) Selenium
5 6 (14.63%) Git
5 6 (14.63%) JIRA
5 6 (14.63%) Postman
6 4 (9.76%) Jenkins
7 3 (7.32%) JMeter
7 3 (7.32%) Mockito
7 3 (7.32%) TestRail
8 2 (4.88%) Cypress.io
8 2 (4.88%) Gatling
8 2 (4.88%) Mocha
8 2 (4.88%) SonarQube
9 1 (2.44%) Appium
9 1 (2.44%) Artifactory
9 1 (2.44%) SoapUI
9 1 (2.44%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 19 (46.34%) Public Sector
2 5 (12.20%) Social Skills
3 2 (4.88%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (2.44%) Finance
Job Titles
1 18 (43.90%) Test Engineer
2 10 (24.39%) Developer
3 7 (17.07%) Test Automation Engineer
4 6 (14.63%) Java Developer
5 4 (9.76%) Java Engineer
5 4 (9.76%) Java Software Engineer
5 4 (9.76%) Lead
5 4 (9.76%) Senior
5 4 (9.76%) Software Engineer
5 4 (9.76%) Tester
6 3 (7.32%) DevOps Automation Engineer
6 3 (7.32%) DevOps Engineer
6 3 (7.32%) QA Automation Engineer
6 3 (7.32%) QA Engineer
6 3 (7.32%) QA Test Engineer
6 3 (7.32%) QA Tester
6 3 (7.32%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
6 3 (7.32%) Senior Developer
6 3 (7.32%) Senior Java Developer
7 2 (4.88%) Node.js Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (34.15%) REST
2 11 (26.83%) Spring Boot
3 10 (24.39%) WireMock
4 5 (12.20%) Spring
5 4 (9.76%) Gherkin
5 4 (9.76%) Kafka
6 3 (7.32%) ActiveMQ
6 3 (7.32%) JAX-RS
7 2 (4.88%) AngularJS
7 2 (4.88%) GraphQL
7 2 (4.88%) Jest
7 2 (4.88%) Node.js
7 2 (4.88%) Quarkus
8 1 (2.44%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (2.44%) Lambda Expressions
8 1 (2.44%) Next.js
8 1 (2.44%) OpenAPI
8 1 (2.44%) Playwright
8 1 (2.44%) PySpark
8 1 (2.44%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 2 (4.88%) Cloud Native
1 2 (4.88%) Product Ownership
2 1 (2.44%) Data Protection Act
2 1 (2.44%) Distributed Architecture
2 1 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
2 1 (2.44%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 5 (12.20%) Linux
2 4 (9.76%) Unix
3 3 (7.32%) Mac OS X
4 1 (2.44%) Mac OS
4 1 (2.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 32 (78.05%) CI/CD
2 26 (63.41%) Agile
3 21 (51.22%) BDD
4 18 (43.90%) Microservices
4 18 (43.90%) TDD
5 17 (41.46%) Containerisation
6 16 (39.02%) Non-Functional Testing
7 15 (36.59%) DevOps
8 14 (34.15%) Functional Testing
9 11 (26.83%) API Testing
9 11 (26.83%) Infrastructure as Code
9 11 (26.83%) Software Engineering
10 8 (19.51%) Mentoring
10 8 (19.51%) Performance Testing
10 8 (19.51%) Technical Leadership
11 7 (17.07%) SDLC
12 6 (14.63%) Continuous Improvement
12 6 (14.63%) Integration Testing
12 6 (14.63%) Security Testing
12 6 (14.63%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 28 (68.29%) Java
2 8 (19.51%) JavaScript
3 7 (17.07%) Python
4 5 (12.20%) Bash
5 2 (4.88%) Groovy
5 2 (4.88%) SQL
5 2 (4.88%) TypeScript
6 1 (2.44%) Bicep
6 1 (2.44%) Go
6 1 (2.44%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 17 (41.46%) SC Cleared
1 17 (41.46%) Security Cleared
2 2 (4.88%) BPSS Clearance
2 2 (4.88%) ISTQB
2 2 (4.88%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (29.27%) QA
2 7 (17.07%) Accessibility
3 3 (7.32%) WCAG
4 1 (2.44%) Data Quality
System Software
1 20 (48.78%) Docker
Systems Management
1 12 (29.27%) Kubernetes
1 12 (29.27%) Terraform
2 7 (17.07%) Grafana
3 5 (12.20%) Prometheus
4 4 (9.76%) Ansible
4 4 (9.76%) Argo
5 1 (2.44%) Istio
5 1 (2.44%) Podman
Vendors
1 3 (7.32%) Red Hat
2 1 (2.44%) Databricks
2 1 (2.44%) Google
2 1 (2.44%) Microsoft
2 1 (2.44%) Splunk