Test Automation Contract Job Trends in Reading

Automated Testing
Berkshire > Reading

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Reading requiring Test Automation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 3 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 39 32 41
Rank change year-on-year -7 +9 +10
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 25 74 52
As % of all contract jobs in Reading 4.15% 6.74% 4.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.54% 7.80% 5.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 54 37
10th Percentile £292 £428 £463
25th Percentile £380 £525 £501
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £625 £575
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +8.70% +4.55%
75th Percentile £544 £651 £615
90th Percentile £550 £696 £638
Berkshire median daily rate £500 £620 £550
% change year-on-year -19.35% +12.73% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
Median hourly rate £17.30 - -
Berkshire median hourly rate £17.30 - -

All Process and Methodology Skills
Reading

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 Reading.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 551 949 974
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Reading 91.38% 86.43% 88.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 351 517 653
10th Percentile £340 £350 £280
25th Percentile £450 £475 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £580 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.48% +5.45% +10.00%
75th Percentile £610 £650 £638
90th Percentile £650 £700 £700
Berkshire median daily rate £500 £550 £525
% change year-on-year -9.09% +4.76% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 25 17
10th Percentile - £14.50 £35.90
25th Percentile £14.75 £42.50 £57.50
Median hourly rate £28.50 £60.60 £66.00
Median % change year-on-year -52.97% -8.18% +24.53%
75th Percentile £58.00 £64.73 £74.00
90th Percentile £66.60 £87.46 £75.10
Berkshire median hourly rate £37.28 £61.06 £60.00
% change year-on-year -38.95% +1.77% +20.00%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in Reading

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

Test Automation job vacancy trend in Reading

Test Automation
Daily Rate Trend in Reading

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Reading citing Test Automation.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Reading citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram in Reading

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in Reading over the 6 months to 3 October 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in Reading

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Trend in Reading

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Reading citing Test Automation.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Reading citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Reading 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:

Applications
1 1 (4.00%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 15 (60.00%) AWS
2 13 (52.00%) Azure
3 7 (28.00%) Azure DevOps
4 2 (8.00%) Entra ID
4 2 (8.00%) GCP
5 1 (4.00%) Azure AKS
5 1 (4.00%) Azure App Service
5 1 (4.00%) Azure Key Vault
5 1 (4.00%) Twilio
5 1 (4.00%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 4 (16.00%) Firewall
2 2 (8.00%) LAN
2 2 (8.00%) Network Security
2 2 (8.00%) WAN
3 1 (4.00%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (36.00%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 14 (56.00%) JIRA
2 8 (32.00%) Selenium
3 6 (24.00%) Cucumber
4 4 (16.00%) GitLab
4 4 (16.00%) Jenkins
4 4 (16.00%) REST Assured
5 2 (8.00%) Git
5 2 (8.00%) SonarQube
5 2 (8.00%) SpecFlow
6 1 (4.00%) Cypress.io
6 1 (4.00%) NUnit
General
1 15 (60.00%) Analytical Skills
2 14 (56.00%) Social Skills
3 3 (12.00%) Billing
3 3 (12.00%) Finance
4 2 (8.00%) Law
4 2 (8.00%) Police
5 1 (4.00%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 9 (36.00%) Cloud Engineer
2 7 (28.00%) AWS Engineer
3 6 (24.00%) DevOps Engineer
4 4 (16.00%) AWS DevOps
4 4 (16.00%) AWS DevOps Engineer
4 4 (16.00%) Java Engineer
4 4 (16.00%) Java Software Engineer
4 4 (16.00%) Software Engineer
5 3 (12.00%) Lead
6 2 (8.00%) Architect
6 2 (8.00%) Network Engineer
6 2 (8.00%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
6 2 (8.00%) Security Architect
6 2 (8.00%) Test Engineer
6 2 (8.00%) Test Leader
7 1 (4.00%) Analyst
7 1 (4.00%) Developer
7 1 (4.00%) Network Analyst
7 1 (4.00%) Quality Engineer
7 1 (4.00%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (20.00%) REST
2 4 (16.00%) Java EE
2 4 (16.00%) Playwright
3 2 (8.00%) ARM Templates
3 2 (8.00%) CSS
3 2 (8.00%) HTML
3 2 (8.00%) RFC 2544
4 1 (4.00%) .NET
4 1 (4.00%) Express.js
4 1 (4.00%) FastAPI
4 1 (4.00%) FHIR
4 1 (4.00%) GraphQL
4 1 (4.00%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 2 (8.00%) Cloud Native
1 2 (8.00%) Cloud Security Posture
1 2 (8.00%) Data Centre
1 2 (8.00%) Enterprise Software
1 2 (8.00%) Fibre Optics
1 2 (8.00%) Hybrid Cloud
1 2 (8.00%) Public Cloud
1 2 (8.00%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 1 (4.00%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (80.00%) DevOps
2 15 (60.00%) CI/CD
3 13 (52.00%) Problem-Solving
3 13 (52.00%) Test Scripting
4 11 (44.00%) Load Testing
5 10 (40.00%) End-to-End Testing
5 10 (40.00%) Performance Testing
6 9 (36.00%) Analytical Thinking
6 9 (36.00%) High Availability
6 9 (36.00%) Risk Analysis
6 9 (36.00%) Scenario Testing
6 9 (36.00%) Validation
6 9 (36.00%) Verification and Validation
7 6 (24.00%) Configuration Management
8 5 (20.00%) Infrastructure as Code
9 4 (16.00%) Continuous Integration
9 4 (16.00%) Software Architecture
9 4 (16.00%) Software Engineering
9 4 (16.00%) Technical Leadership
10 3 (12.00%) Test Management
Programming Languages
1 11 (44.00%) SQL
2 10 (40.00%) Python
3 6 (24.00%) Java
4 3 (12.00%) C#
5 2 (8.00%) JavaScript
6 1 (4.00%) Bicep
6 1 (4.00%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 16 (64.00%) Security Cleared
2 15 (60.00%) SC Cleared
3 11 (44.00%) AWS Certification
4 4 (16.00%) Cisco Certification
5 2 (8.00%) (ISC)2 CCSP
5 2 (8.00%) Azure Certification
5 2 (8.00%) CCNA
5 2 (8.00%) CCNP
5 2 (8.00%) CCSP
5 2 (8.00%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (36.00%) QA
2 2 (8.00%) GDPR
2 2 (8.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (8.00%) NIST
2 2 (8.00%) PCI DSS
2 2 (8.00%) PSD2
3 1 (4.00%) HL7
3 1 (4.00%) SLA
System Software
1 5 (20.00%) Docker
2 1 (4.00%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 6 (24.00%) Kubernetes
2 3 (12.00%) Terraform
3 2 (8.00%) Ansible
3 2 (8.00%) Docker Swarm
3 2 (8.00%) Podman
Vendors
1 2 (8.00%) Cisco