Automation Test Lead Contract Job Trends in Sheffield

Test Automation Leader
South Yorkshire > Sheffield

The median Test Automation Leader daily rate in Sheffield is £540, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 19 January 2026.

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

 6 months to
19 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 - -
Rank change year-on-year - - -
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Test Lead 13 0 0
As % of all contract jobs in Sheffield 1.65% - -
As % of the Job Titles category 1.83% - -
Number of daily rates quoted 7 0 0
10th Percentile £463 - -
25th Percentile £469 - -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 - -
75th Percentile £564 - -
90th Percentile £596 - -
South Yorkshire median daily rate £540 - -

All Contract IT Job Roles
Sheffield

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in Sheffield. 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 Sheffield with a recognized job title 709 209 341
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.20% 84.62% 90.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 490 121 213
10th Percentile £335 £213 £365
25th Percentile £404 £409 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £510 £540
Median % change year-on-year -5.88% -5.56% -1.82%
75th Percentile £538 £600 £600
90th Percentile £633 £675 £720
South Yorkshire median daily rate £480 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -4.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 2 9
10th Percentile £14.98 £12.10 -
25th Percentile £16.68 £12.62 £10.90
Median hourly rate £19.50 £14.85 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +31.36% -34.02% +18.42%
75th Percentile £22.33 £16.68 £23.75
90th Percentile £24.02 £16.97 £25.25
South Yorkshire median hourly rate £19.50 £14.85 £13.23
% change year-on-year +31.36% +12.21% -30.37%

Automation Test Lead
Job Vacancy Trend in Sheffield

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

Automation Test Lead job vacancy trend in Sheffield

Automation Test Lead
Daily Rate Trend in Sheffield

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Automation Test Lead job vacancies in Sheffield.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Automation Test Lead job vacancies in Sheffield

Automation Test Lead
Daily Rate Histogram in Sheffield

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Automation Test Lead in Sheffield over the 6 months to 19 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Automation Test Lead in Sheffield

Automation Test Lead Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Sheffield

For the 6 months to 19 January 2026, Automation Test Lead 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 Sheffield region featuring Automation Test Lead in the job title.

1 13 (100.00%) Java
1 13 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 9 (69.23%) Identity Access Management
2 9 (69.23%) Postman
2 9 (69.23%) Python
3 8 (61.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 7 (53.85%) CI/CD
4 7 (53.85%) GCP
4 7 (53.85%) Manual Testing
4 7 (53.85%) SQL
5 6 (46.15%) API Testing
5 6 (46.15%) AWS
5 6 (46.15%) Azure
5 6 (46.15%) Jenkins
5 6 (46.15%) Playwright
5 6 (46.15%) Scala
5 6 (46.15%) Test Scripting
5 6 (46.15%) Test Strategy
5 6 (46.15%) TypeScript
6 5 (38.46%) Cucumber
6 5 (38.46%) Data Ingestion
6 5 (38.46%) DevOps
6 5 (38.46%) GitLab
6 5 (38.46%) JIRA
6 5 (38.46%) LDAP
6 5 (38.46%) OpenID
6 5 (38.46%) REST
6 5 (38.46%) REST Assured
6 5 (38.46%) SailPoint
6 5 (38.46%) Scenario Testing

Automation Test Lead Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Sheffield 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:

Cloud Services
1 7 (53.85%) GCP
2 6 (46.15%) AWS
2 6 (46.15%) Azure
3 2 (15.38%) Entra ID
3 2 (15.38%) SaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (23.08%) MySQL
1 3 (23.08%) SQL Server
2 2 (15.38%) Neo4j
Development Applications
1 9 (69.23%) Postman
2 6 (46.15%) Jenkins
3 5 (38.46%) Cucumber
3 5 (38.46%) GitLab
3 5 (38.46%) JIRA
3 5 (38.46%) REST Assured
3 5 (38.46%) Selenium
4 3 (23.08%) TestRail
5 2 (15.38%) Gatling
5 2 (15.38%) JMeter
5 2 (15.38%) LoadRunner
5 2 (15.38%) NeoLoad
General
1 1 (7.69%) Banking
1 1 (7.69%) Finance
1 1 (7.69%) Social Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (46.15%) Playwright
2 5 (38.46%) LDAP
2 5 (38.46%) OpenID
2 5 (38.46%) REST
2 5 (38.46%) SailPoint
3 3 (23.08%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 1 (7.69%) Cloud Native
1 1 (7.69%) Management Information System
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 9 (69.23%) Identity Access Management
3 8 (61.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 7 (53.85%) CI/CD
4 7 (53.85%) Manual Testing
5 6 (46.15%) API Testing
5 6 (46.15%) Test Scripting
5 6 (46.15%) Test Strategy
6 5 (38.46%) Data Ingestion
6 5 (38.46%) DevOps
6 5 (38.46%) Scenario Testing
7 4 (30.77%) Agile
7 4 (30.77%) ETL
7 4 (30.77%) GitOps
8 3 (23.08%) BDD
8 3 (23.08%) Event-Driven
8 3 (23.08%) Operational Acceptance Testing
8 3 (23.08%) TDD
8 3 (23.08%) User Acceptance Testing
8 3 (23.08%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 13 (100.00%) Java
2 9 (69.23%) Python
3 7 (53.85%) SQL
4 6 (46.15%) Scala
4 6 (46.15%) TypeScript
5 3 (23.08%) JavaScript
5 3 (23.08%) PHP
6 2 (15.38%) Cypher
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (23.08%) QA
System Software
1 2 (15.38%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
Vendors
1 5 (38.46%) ServiceNow
2 1 (7.69%) Google
Automation Test Lead jobs