Test Automation Contract Job Trends in the North of England

Automated Testing
England > North of England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North of England requiring Test Automation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 32 36
Rank change year-on-year -3 +4 +14
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 445 264 193
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 5.76% 6.32% 4.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.91% 7.10% 5.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 267 182 144
10th Percentile £350 £310 £324
25th Percentile £400 £385 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £460
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +3.26% -12.38%
75th Percentile £553 £547 £550
90th Percentile £633 £675 £576
England median daily rate £475 £500 £505
% change year-on-year -5.00% -0.99% -8.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 3 1
10th Percentile £39.73 £42.45 -
25th Percentile £60.13 £43.22 £69.50
Median hourly rate £70.00 £48.00 £72.00
Median % change year-on-year +45.83% -33.33% +15.20%
75th Percentile - £68.00 £74.50
90th Percentile £77.00 £77.90 -
England median hourly rate £69.00 £55.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year +25.45% -4.35% -23.33%

All Process & Methodology Skills
North of England

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 of England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 6,441 3,716 3,483
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 83.34% 88.90% 84.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,709 2,440 1,910
10th Percentile £313 £249 £299
25th Percentile £406 £369 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £470 £488
Median % change year-on-year +6.38% -3.59% -2.50%
75th Percentile £588 £563 £575
90th Percentile £675 £671 £650
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 578 210 179
10th Percentile £13.79 £14.20 £13.75
25th Percentile £18.49 £17.48 £17.88
Median hourly rate £43.96 £24.38 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +80.31% -30.34% +23.67%
75th Percentile £70.00 £41.46 £51.91
90th Percentile £77.88 £67.25 £70.00
England median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -5.56%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in the North of England

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

Test Automation job vacancy trend in the North of England

Test Automation
Daily Rate Trend in the North of England

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

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

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram in the North of England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in the North of England over the 6 months to 14 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in the North of England

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Trend in the North of England

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

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

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North of England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Automation in the North of England over the 6 months to 14 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Automation in the North of England

Test Automation
Contract Job Locations in the North of England

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 of England region over the 6 months to 14 October 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
Yorkshire -6 185 £463 -9.76% 118
North West -12 165 £492 +22.24% 197
North East +1 100 £425 -11.69% 61
Test Automation
England

Test Automation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North of England 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 35 (7.87%) Confluence
2 10 (2.25%) Apache
3 8 (1.80%) Apache Spark
4 7 (1.57%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (1.35%) Camunda
6 4 (0.90%) Jupyter
6 4 (0.90%) SAS
6 4 (0.90%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.45%) Palantir Foundry
7 2 (0.45%) SharePoint
8 1 (0.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
Applications
1 3 (0.67%) Spreadsheet
2 2 (0.45%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.45%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (0.45%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.22%) Sage 50
Cloud Services
1 149 (33.48%) AWS
2 117 (26.29%) Azure
3 82 (18.43%) GitHub
4 62 (13.93%) GCP
5 45 (10.11%) GitHub Actions
6 44 (9.89%) Azure DevOps
7 39 (8.76%) OpenShift
8 32 (7.19%) Serverless
9 26 (5.84%) AWS Lambda
10 22 (4.94%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 18 (4.04%) Amazon S3
12 17 (3.82%) Amazon ECS
12 17 (3.82%) Amazon EKS
13 16 (3.60%) Power Platform
14 14 (3.15%) Amazon SQS
15 12 (2.70%) GitHub Copilot
16 10 (2.25%) Firebase
16 10 (2.25%) Google Kubernetes Engine
16 10 (2.25%) Kong
16 10 (2.25%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 13 (2.92%) Firewall
2 10 (2.25%) HTTP
3 9 (2.02%) Network Security
4 8 (1.80%) DNS
5 7 (1.57%) TCP/IP
6 4 (0.90%) Reverse Proxy
6 4 (0.90%) SAN
7 3 (0.67%) BGP
7 3 (0.67%) MPLS
7 3 (0.67%) OSPF
7 3 (0.67%) VPN
8 2 (0.45%) DHCP
8 2 (0.45%) SD-WAN
8 2 (0.45%) SSL
8 2 (0.45%) VLAN
8 2 (0.45%) WAN
9 1 (0.22%) Cisco Nexus
9 1 (0.22%) Ethernet VPN
9 1 (0.22%) Software-Defined Networking
9 1 (0.22%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (7.64%) MongoDB
2 18 (4.04%) NoSQL
2 18 (4.04%) SQL Server
3 13 (2.92%) DynamoDB
3 13 (2.92%) PostgreSQL
4 12 (2.70%) Relational Database
5 11 (2.47%) Neo4j
5 11 (2.47%) Power BI
6 9 (2.02%) Big Data
7 7 (1.57%) Delta Lake
7 7 (1.57%) MySQL
8 6 (1.35%) Amazon Athena
8 6 (1.35%) Data Warehouse
8 6 (1.35%) Metadata
8 6 (1.35%) Oracle Database
9 5 (1.12%) Amazon RDS
9 5 (1.12%) DocumentDB
10 4 (0.90%) Data Lake
10 4 (0.90%) Looker
11 3 (0.67%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 89 (20.00%) Git
2 74 (16.63%) Jenkins
3 72 (16.18%) JIRA
4 60 (13.48%) Selenium
5 49 (11.01%) GitLab
6 46 (10.34%) Cucumber
7 36 (8.09%) REST Assured
8 35 (7.87%) SonarQube
9 29 (6.52%) Postman
10 22 (4.94%) Cypress.io
11 21 (4.72%) JUnit
12 17 (3.82%) Sonatype Nexus
13 16 (3.60%) Mockito
14 15 (3.37%) JMeter
15 14 (3.15%) Zephyr
16 12 (2.70%) Gatling
17 10 (2.25%) fastlane
18 9 (2.02%) Gradle
18 9 (2.02%) Maven
19 8 (1.80%) Bitbucket
General
1 126 (28.31%) Social Skills
2 77 (17.30%) Public Sector
3 63 (14.16%) Finance
4 58 (13.03%) Analytical Skills
5 38 (8.54%) Banking
6 26 (5.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 18 (4.04%) Retail
8 13 (2.92%) Military
9 8 (1.80%) Documentation Skills
10 6 (1.35%) Influencing Skills
11 4 (0.90%) Games
11 4 (0.90%) Law
11 4 (0.90%) Manufacturing
11 4 (0.90%) Police
12 3 (0.67%) Automotive
12 3 (0.67%) Digital Health
13 2 (0.45%) Aerospace
13 2 (0.45%) iGaming
13 2 (0.45%) Investment Banking
13 2 (0.45%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 136 (30.56%) Developer
2 75 (16.85%) Senior
3 58 (13.03%) Test Engineer
4 50 (11.24%) Lead
5 49 (11.01%) Java Developer
6 34 (7.64%) Software Engineer
7 30 (6.74%) Java Engineer
8 25 (5.62%) Senior Developer
9 24 (5.39%) DevOps Engineer
10 22 (4.94%) Analyst
11 18 (4.04%) Architect
11 18 (4.04%) Software Developer
11 18 (4.04%) Test Automation Engineer
12 17 (3.82%) AWS Engineer
12 17 (3.82%) Full-Stack Developer
13 16 (3.60%) Data Engineer
13 16 (3.60%) Tester
14 15 (3.37%) Automation Engineer
14 15 (3.37%) Lead Test Engineer
14 15 (3.37%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (21.80%) REST
2 75 (16.85%) Kafka
3 73 (16.40%) Terraform
4 58 (13.03%) RESTful
5 52 (11.69%) Playwright
5 52 (11.69%) Spring
5 52 (11.69%) Spring Boot
6 50 (11.24%) AngularJS
7 48 (10.79%) Node.js
8 45 (10.11%) React
9 29 (6.52%) HTML
10 27 (6.07%) .NET
11 25 (5.62%) Quarkus
12 20 (4.49%) Jest
13 18 (4.04%) OAuth
14 17 (3.82%) Middleware
15 16 (3.60%) CSS
16 15 (3.37%) OpenID
17 13 (2.92%) ASP.NET
17 13 (2.92%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 84 (18.88%) Cloud Native
2 40 (8.99%) Distributed Systems
3 36 (8.09%) Product Ownership
4 28 (6.29%) Enterprise Software
5 17 (3.82%) Onboarding
6 16 (3.60%) Data Protection Act
7 15 (3.37%) AI Agents
8 14 (3.15%) Mobile App
9 12 (2.70%) Legacy Systems
10 11 (2.47%) Self-Motivation
11 6 (1.35%) Data Centre
11 6 (1.35%) Public Cloud
12 5 (1.12%) Data Structures
13 4 (0.90%) Distributed Architecture
13 4 (0.90%) Distributed Computing
13 4 (0.90%) Enterprise Storage
13 4 (0.90%) NHS
14 3 (0.67%) Culture of Ownership
14 3 (0.67%) Mainframe
14 3 (0.67%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 25 (5.62%) Linux
2 14 (3.15%) Unix
3 13 (2.92%) Windows
4 11 (2.47%) Apple iOS
5 10 (2.25%) Android
6 5 (1.12%) Windows 10
6 5 (1.12%) Windows 7
6 5 (1.12%) Windows Server 2003
7 4 (0.90%) macOS
7 4 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.67%) AIX
9 2 (0.45%) zOS
10 1 (0.22%) Solaris
10 1 (0.22%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 288 (64.72%) CI/CD
2 235 (52.81%) Agile
3 167 (37.53%) DevOps
4 136 (30.56%) Microservices
5 119 (26.74%) Software Engineering
6 97 (21.80%) Continuous Improvement
7 81 (18.20%) Infrastructure as Code
8 80 (17.98%) Observability
9 77 (17.30%) Scrum
10 76 (17.08%) Problem-Solving
11 75 (16.85%) SDLC
12 73 (16.40%) TDD
13 64 (14.38%) Test Strategy
14 59 (13.26%) Validation
15 57 (12.81%) AI
15 57 (12.81%) Event-Driven
16 53 (11.91%) DevSecOps
17 52 (11.69%) Code Quality
18 49 (11.01%) BDD
18 49 (11.01%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 166 (37.30%) Java
2 100 (22.47%) Python
3 81 (18.20%) SQL
4 75 (16.85%) JavaScript
5 61 (13.71%) TypeScript
6 29 (6.52%) C#
7 28 (6.29%) Bash
8 22 (4.94%) Kotlin
9 19 (4.27%) PowerShell
10 14 (3.15%) Go
11 9 (2.02%) Scala
11 9 (2.02%) Swift
12 5 (1.12%) Objective-C
12 5 (1.12%) VB
13 4 (0.90%) Groovy
13 4 (0.90%) Shell Script
13 4 (0.90%) VB6
14 3 (0.67%) Apex Code
14 3 (0.67%) Bicep
14 3 (0.67%) Perl
Qualifications
1 116 (26.07%) Security Cleared
2 98 (22.02%) SC Cleared
3 25 (5.62%) BPSS Clearance
4 21 (4.72%) Degree
5 11 (2.47%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (1.57%) AWS Certification
7 3 (0.67%) Azure Certification
7 3 (0.67%) ISTQB
8 2 (0.45%) CISSP
8 2 (0.45%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 2 (0.45%) ITIL Certification
8 2 (0.45%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 1 (0.22%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 1 (0.22%) CCIE
9 1 (0.22%) CCNP
9 1 (0.22%) Cisco Certification
9 1 (0.22%) DV Cleared
9 1 (0.22%) HNC
9 1 (0.22%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 125 (28.09%) QA
2 52 (11.69%) Accessibility
3 20 (4.49%) WCAG
4 19 (4.27%) Data Quality
5 6 (1.35%) HL7
6 5 (1.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (0.90%) Actionable Recommendations
7 4 (0.90%) HIPAA
7 4 (0.90%) SOC 2
8 2 (0.45%) GRC
8 2 (0.45%) ISO 20022
9 1 (0.22%) CDISC
9 1 (0.22%) NIST
9 1 (0.22%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 90 (20.22%) Docker
2 11 (2.47%) Active Directory
3 5 (1.12%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.90%) Firmware
5 2 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.22%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 122 (27.42%) Kubernetes
2 27 (6.07%) Ansible
2 27 (6.07%) Argo
3 26 (5.84%) Grafana
4 16 (3.60%) Prometheus
5 6 (1.35%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (1.12%) SCCM
7 4 (0.90%) Dell DRAC
7 4 (0.90%) Kustomize
7 4 (0.90%) Progress Chef
8 3 (0.67%) HP ALM
8 3 (0.67%) Istio
9 2 (0.45%) Cisco Prime
9 2 (0.45%) Consul
9 2 (0.45%) Kubeflow
9 2 (0.45%) Packer
9 2 (0.45%) ZABBIX
10 1 (0.22%) Control-M
10 1 (0.22%) Puppet
10 1 (0.22%) Rancher
Vendors
1 33 (7.42%) Google
2 27 (6.07%) Red Hat
3 23 (5.17%) Databricks
3 23 (5.17%) Microsoft
4 20 (4.49%) Dynatrace
5 18 (4.04%) IBM
6 16 (3.60%) Splunk
7 15 (3.37%) Oracle
8 7 (1.57%) ServiceNow
9 6 (1.35%) CyberArk
9 6 (1.35%) Juniper
9 6 (1.35%) Okta
9 6 (1.35%) Salesforce
10 5 (1.12%) Centrify
10 5 (1.12%) Confluent
10 5 (1.12%) Ivanti
10 5 (1.12%) Ping Identity
10 5 (1.12%) SAP
10 5 (1.12%) Veracode
10 5 (1.12%) VMware