Test Automation Contract Job Trends in the South East

Automated Testing
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring Test Automation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 3 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 62 43 38
Rank change year-on-year -19 -5 +13
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 223 167 216
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.39% 4.77% 4.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.21% 5.35% 5.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 128 115 147
10th Percentile £264 £325 £350
25th Percentile £361 £380 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £576 £600 £638
90th Percentile £654 £700 £675
England median daily rate £475 £500 £520
% change year-on-year -5.00% -3.85% -5.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 16 3
10th Percentile £56.25 £38.25 £38.90
25th Percentile £66.38 £49.75 £42.13
Median hourly rate £70.00 £50.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.00% - -11.11%
75th Percentile - £58.75 £57.50
90th Percentile - £66.51 £60.50
England median hourly rate £68.61 £55.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +24.74% - -24.66%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South 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 South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 5,297 3,122 3,860
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 80.61% 89.23% 82.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,218 1,945 2,321
10th Percentile £280 £236 £260
25th Percentile £419 £393 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.91% -0.66%
75th Percentile £619 £600 £638
90th Percentile £707 £663 £700
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 603 305 292
10th Percentile £13.48 £13.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £18.45 £15.50 £27.38
Median hourly rate £52.50 £22.07 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +137.88% -61.52% +10.08%
75th Percentile £70.00 £51.00 £70.40
90th Percentile £87.16 £69.65 £76.86
England median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +1.18%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

Test Automation job vacancy trend in the South East

Test Automation
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

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

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

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in the South East over the 6 months to 3 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in the South East

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

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

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

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Automation in the South East over the 6 months to 3 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Automation in the South East

Test Automation
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 Test Automation within the South East region over the 6 months to 3 September 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
Thames Valley -38 83 £475 -5.00% 104
Berkshire -29 51 £440 -14.19% 53
Surrey +17 50 £511 +18.90% 24
Hampshire -43 40 £519 +1.22% 59
West Sussex +6 39 £300 -35.90% 19
Buckinghamshire -31 24 £461 +41.92% 12
Oxfordshire -17 8 £847 +78.21% 40
Middlesex -16 6 - - 3
East Sussex - 2 £459 - 13
Sussex - 2 £438 - 1
Test Automation
England

Test Automation
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:

Application Platforms
1 13 (5.83%) Confluence
2 4 (1.79%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.90%) SAS
3 2 (0.90%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.45%) WebLogic
Applications
1 4 (1.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.45%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 2 (0.90%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.45%) Oracle EBS R12
2 1 (0.45%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.45%) SAP MDG
2 1 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 63 (28.25%) Azure
2 60 (26.91%) AWS
3 29 (13.00%) Azure DevOps
4 23 (10.31%) OpenShift
5 21 (9.42%) GitHub
6 18 (8.07%) GCP
7 14 (6.28%) GitHub Actions
8 8 (3.59%) Entra ID
9 7 (3.14%) Azure AKS
9 7 (3.14%) Azure Monitor
10 6 (2.69%) AWS Lambda
10 6 (2.69%) Azure Key Vault
10 6 (2.69%) Serverless
11 5 (2.24%) Azure App Service
11 5 (2.24%) Azure Data Factory
11 5 (2.24%) Snowflake
12 4 (1.79%) Amazon Bedrock
12 4 (1.79%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 4 (1.79%) Amazon EventBridge
12 4 (1.79%) AWS Step Functions
Communications & Networking
1 13 (5.83%) 2G
1 13 (5.83%) 3G
1 13 (5.83%) 4G
1 13 (5.83%) 5G
1 13 (5.83%) Diameter Protocol
1 13 (5.83%) SIGTRAN
1 13 (5.83%) SS7
2 6 (2.69%) Broadband
3 4 (1.79%) HTTPS
4 3 (1.35%) BGP
4 3 (1.35%) GPRS
4 3 (1.35%) GSM
4 3 (1.35%) LAN
4 3 (1.35%) LTE
4 3 (1.35%) MPLS
4 3 (1.35%) UMTS
4 3 (1.35%) VPN
4 3 (1.35%) VXLAN
4 3 (1.35%) WAN
4 3 (1.35%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (6.73%) Relational Database
2 11 (4.93%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (4.48%) NoSQL
4 9 (4.04%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (2.69%) Oracle Reports
6 5 (2.24%) Azure SQL Database
6 5 (2.24%) Metadata
7 4 (1.79%) Big Data
8 3 (1.35%) Spark SQL
8 3 (1.35%) SQL Server
9 2 (0.90%) Data Lake
9 2 (0.90%) DynamoDB
9 2 (0.90%) Redis
10 1 (0.45%) Amazon Redshift
10 1 (0.45%) BigQuery
10 1 (0.45%) Couchbase
10 1 (0.45%) MongoDB
10 1 (0.45%) Oracle BI Publisher
10 1 (0.45%) Parquet
10 1 (0.45%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 42 (18.83%) Git
2 29 (13.00%) JIRA
3 24 (10.76%) Selenium
4 20 (8.97%) SonarQube
5 18 (8.07%) Jenkins
6 13 (5.83%) GitLab
7 10 (4.48%) Postman
8 8 (3.59%) JUnit
8 8 (3.59%) SpecFlow
9 7 (3.14%) Cucumber
10 5 (2.24%) Bitbucket
10 5 (2.24%) Gradle
10 5 (2.24%) NUnit
10 5 (2.24%) REST Assured
11 4 (1.79%) Artifactory
11 4 (1.79%) Maven
11 4 (1.79%) WebDriver
12 3 (1.35%) TeamCity
12 3 (1.35%) Zephyr
13 2 (0.90%) tSQLt
General
1 59 (26.46%) Social Skills
2 36 (16.14%) Analytical Skills
3 26 (11.66%) Finance
4 18 (8.07%) Telecoms
5 13 (5.83%) Public Sector
6 11 (4.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 8 (3.59%) Aerospace
8 4 (1.79%) Banking
9 1 (0.45%) Advertising
9 1 (0.45%) Automotive
9 1 (0.45%) Electronics
9 1 (0.45%) Games
9 1 (0.45%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 36 (16.14%) Developer
2 29 (13.00%) Senior
3 24 (10.76%) Tester
4 23 (10.31%) Lead
5 22 (9.87%) Test Engineer
6 16 (7.17%) Java Developer
7 13 (5.83%) Java Engineer
8 12 (5.38%) Test Automation Engineer
9 11 (4.93%) Consultant
9 11 (4.93%) Software Engineer
10 10 (4.48%) Designer
11 9 (4.04%) Analyst
11 9 (4.04%) Mobile Designer
11 9 (4.04%) Technical Leader
11 9 (4.04%) Test Manager
12 8 (3.59%) Automation Tester
12 8 (3.59%) QA Engineer
13 6 (2.69%) Architect
13 6 (2.69%) Full-Stack Developer
13 6 (2.69%) Software Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (13.45%) RESTful
2 25 (11.21%) Terraform
3 24 (10.76%) REST
4 21 (9.42%) AngularJS
5 20 (8.97%) Quarkus
6 16 (7.17%) OAuth
6 16 (7.17%) React
7 12 (5.38%) CSS
7 12 (5.38%) HTML
7 12 (5.38%) OpenID
7 12 (5.38%) Playwright
8 10 (4.48%) .NET
8 10 (4.48%) OAuth2
8 10 (4.48%) Spring
9 8 (3.59%) Spring Boot
10 7 (3.14%) .NET Framework
10 7 (3.14%) Django
10 7 (3.14%) Entity Framework
10 7 (3.14%) Kafka
10 7 (3.14%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 23 (10.31%) Cloud Native
2 22 (9.87%) Product Ownership
3 15 (6.73%) Self-Motivation
4 14 (6.28%) Distributed Systems
5 8 (3.59%) Enterprise Software
6 7 (3.14%) AI Agents
6 7 (3.14%) Data Protection Act
6 7 (3.14%) Virtual Team
7 5 (2.24%) Security Posture
8 4 (1.79%) Mobile App
8 4 (1.79%) PKI
8 4 (1.79%) Social Media
9 3 (1.35%) Analytical Mindset
9 3 (1.35%) FPGA
9 3 (1.35%) Life Science
9 3 (1.35%) Linux Command Line
9 3 (1.35%) Verilog
9 3 (1.35%) VHDL
10 2 (0.90%) Low-Code
11 1 (0.45%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 9 (4.04%) Windows
2 8 (3.59%) Linux
3 7 (3.14%) Unix
4 5 (2.24%) Embedded Linux
5 4 (1.79%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.45%) Android
6 1 (0.45%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (54.71%) Agile
2 118 (52.91%) CI/CD
3 67 (30.04%) DevOps
4 58 (26.01%) SDLC
5 49 (21.97%) Software Engineering
6 45 (20.18%) Problem-Solving
7 44 (19.73%) Continuous Improvement
8 42 (18.83%) Scrum
9 40 (17.94%) Validation
10 34 (15.25%) Sprint Planning
10 34 (15.25%) Stakeholder Management
11 32 (14.35%) DevSecOps
12 31 (13.90%) Unit Testing
13 30 (13.45%) Software Testing
14 29 (13.00%) Technical Leadership
14 29 (13.00%) Test Strategy
15 27 (12.11%) Microservices
15 27 (12.11%) Regression Testing
16 26 (11.66%) Mentoring
17 25 (11.21%) Performance Testing
Programming Languages
1 64 (28.70%) SQL
2 63 (28.25%) Python
3 57 (25.56%) Java
4 25 (11.21%) C#
5 20 (8.97%) JavaScript
6 18 (8.07%) PowerShell
7 10 (4.48%) TypeScript
8 5 (2.24%) Bash
8 5 (2.24%) C++
9 4 (1.79%) Bicep
9 4 (1.79%) C
9 4 (1.79%) Kotlin
9 4 (1.79%) PL/SQL
10 3 (1.35%) Embedded C
10 3 (1.35%) Embedded C++
10 3 (1.35%) Go
11 2 (0.90%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.90%) Groovy
11 2 (0.90%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.90%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 86 (38.57%) Security Cleared
2 56 (25.11%) SC Cleared
3 28 (12.56%) DV Cleared
4 15 (6.73%) ISTQB
5 8 (3.59%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (3.59%) Degree
5 8 (3.59%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
6 5 (2.24%) BPSS Clearance
6 5 (2.24%) Cisco Certification
6 5 (2.24%) Master's Degree
7 4 (1.79%) CCNP
8 3 (1.35%) Azure Certification
8 3 (1.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 2 (0.90%) CISSP
10 1 (0.45%) AWS Certification
10 1 (0.45%) CCNA
10 1 (0.45%) CEH
10 1 (0.45%) CISA
10 1 (0.45%) ISEB
10 1 (0.45%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 83 (37.22%) QA
2 12 (5.38%) Accessibility
3 8 (3.59%) Data Quality
4 3 (1.35%) Software Quality Assurance
5 2 (0.90%) GDPR
5 2 (0.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.90%) NIST
5 2 (0.90%) WCAG
6 1 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 1 (0.45%) GRC
6 1 (0.45%) NCSC
6 1 (0.45%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.45%) PMO
System Software
1 21 (9.42%) Docker
2 11 (4.93%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (4.04%) Active Directory
4 5 (2.24%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 41 (18.39%) Kubernetes
2 20 (8.97%) Argo
3 14 (6.28%) Ansible
4 4 (1.79%) WMI
5 3 (1.35%) Forefront Identity Manager
5 3 (1.35%) NetIQ Identity Manager
6 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.45%) QRadar
Vendors
1 22 (9.87%) Microsoft
2 19 (8.52%) Red Hat
3 12 (5.38%) Oracle
3 12 (5.38%) VMware
4 11 (4.93%) Cisco
5 8 (3.59%) Databricks
6 7 (3.14%) Splunk
7 6 (2.69%) Arista
7 6 (2.69%) Tagetik
8 5 (2.24%) Salesforce
8 5 (2.24%) SAP
9 4 (1.79%) Denodo
9 4 (1.79%) Talend
10 3 (1.35%) Blue Prism
10 3 (1.35%) Dynatrace
10 3 (1.35%) F5
10 3 (1.35%) Intel
10 3 (1.35%) Juniper
10 3 (1.35%) NetIQ
10 3 (1.35%) ServiceNow