Automation Engineer Contract Job Trends in the South East

Automation Engineer
England > South East

As of 13 March 2026, there is not enough information available from job vacancies posted within the last 6 months to determine the median Automation Engineer daily rate in the South East.

6 months to
13 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 208 149 206
Rank change year-on-year -59 +57 +5
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Engineer 1 6 3
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.019% 0.20% 0.053%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.021% 0.22% 0.058%
Number of daily rates quoted 0 4 2
10th Percentile - £351 £578
25th Percentile - £391 £590
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) - £425 £645
Median % change year-on-year - -34.11% +12.17%
75th Percentile - £438 £715
90th Percentile - - £736
England median daily rate £558 £550 £500
% change year-on-year +1.36% +10.00% -9.09%

All Contract IT Job Roles
South East

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the South East. 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 the South East with a recognized job title 4,753 2,763 5,216
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.04% 92.72% 92.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,007 1,786 3,187
10th Percentile £280 £237 £207
25th Percentile £406 £400 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £600 £613 £608
90th Percentile £700 £675 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 422 129 417
10th Percentile £15.00 £17.50 £12.80
25th Percentile £18.90 £24.18 £18.00
Median hourly rate £38.59 £45.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -14.24% +20.00% -16.67%
75th Percentile £80.80 £63.00 £62.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £72.38
England median hourly rate £36.86 £35.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +5.30% +7.69% -23.53%

Automation Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

Automation Engineer job vacancy trend in the South East

Automation Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Automation Engineer job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Automation Engineer job vacancies in the South East

Automation Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Automation Engineer job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Automation Engineer job vacancies in the South East

Automation Engineer
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Automation Engineer within the South East region over the 6 months to 13 March 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
Hampshire -26 1 - - 2
Automation Engineer
England

Automation Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East

For the 6 months to 13 March 2026, Automation Engineer 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 South East region featuring Automation Engineer in the job title.

1 1 (100.00%) Acceptance Criteria
1 1 (100.00%) Agile
1 1 (100.00%) API Testing
1 1 (100.00%) BDD
1 1 (100.00%) CI/CD
1 1 (100.00%) Continuous Delivery
1 1 (100.00%) Cucumber
1 1 (100.00%) Docker
1 1 (100.00%) Gherkin
1 1 (100.00%) Git
1 1 (100.00%) Gradle
1 1 (100.00%) Java
1 1 (100.00%) Jenkins
1 1 (100.00%) JIRA
1 1 (100.00%) JUnit
1 1 (100.00%) Maven
1 1 (100.00%) Postman
1 1 (100.00%) Problem-Solving
1 1 (100.00%) QA
1 1 (100.00%) QA Automation
1 1 (100.00%) Regression Testing
1 1 (100.00%) REST Assured
1 1 (100.00%) Security Testing
1 1 (100.00%) Smoke Testing
1 1 (100.00%) Software Delivery
1 1 (100.00%) Sprint Planning
1 1 (100.00%) Sprint Retrospective
1 1 (100.00%) Sprint Review
1 1 (100.00%) Test Automation
1 1 (100.00%) Test Scripting

Automation Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South 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:

Development Applications
1 1 (100.00%) Cucumber
1 1 (100.00%) Git
1 1 (100.00%) Gradle
1 1 (100.00%) Jenkins
1 1 (100.00%) JIRA
1 1 (100.00%) JUnit
1 1 (100.00%) Maven
1 1 (100.00%) Postman
1 1 (100.00%) REST Assured
1 1 (100.00%) TestNG
General
1 1 (100.00%) Social Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (100.00%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 1 (100.00%) Product Ownership
Processes & Methodologies
1 1 (100.00%) Acceptance Criteria
1 1 (100.00%) Agile
1 1 (100.00%) API Testing
1 1 (100.00%) BDD
1 1 (100.00%) CI/CD
1 1 (100.00%) Continuous Delivery
1 1 (100.00%) Problem-Solving
1 1 (100.00%) QA Automation
1 1 (100.00%) Regression Testing
1 1 (100.00%) Security Testing
1 1 (100.00%) Smoke Testing
1 1 (100.00%) Software Delivery
1 1 (100.00%) Sprint Planning
1 1 (100.00%) Sprint Retrospective
1 1 (100.00%) Sprint Review
1 1 (100.00%) Test Automation
1 1 (100.00%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 1 (100.00%) Java
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (100.00%) QA
System Software
1 1 (100.00%) Docker