Test Automation Contracts in the South East

Automated Testing
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South East requiring Test Automation skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Test Automation over the 6 months leading up to 30 June 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 33 49 54
Rank change year-on-year +16 +5 -19
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 177 211 221
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 5.67% 3.72% 3.84%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.22% 4.50% 4.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 118 136 158
10th Percentile £325 £356 £380
25th Percentile £401 £425 £451
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% - +17.02%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £615
90th Percentile £700 £688 £675
England median daily rate £488 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -7.14% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 3 9
10th Percentile £44.51 £40.90 £44.30
25th Percentile £48.99 £47.13 £51.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £64.52 £70.00 £58.75
90th Percentile £76.01 £74.50 -
England median hourly rate £55.00 £57.50 £68.25
% change year-on-year -4.35% -15.75% +13.75%

All Process and 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 2,844 4,690 5,140
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 91.07% 82.64% 89.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,770 2,720 3,506
10th Percentile £250 £256 £250
25th Percentile £393 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -0.49% +3.00%
75th Percentile £600 £634 £619
90th Percentile £666 £700 £700
England median daily rate £515 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -1.90% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 228 460 235
10th Percentile £13.43 £13.00 £15.50
25th Percentile £15.12 £18.20 £21.45
Median hourly rate £24.33 £47.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -48.78% -5.00% +122.22%
75th Percentile £55.00 £67.14 £64.56
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.63 £75.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £38.12 £37.34
% change year-on-year -34.02% +2.09% +45.40%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Job postings citing Test Automation as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Job vacancy trend for Test Automation in the South East

Test Automation
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the South East

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Test Automation in the South East.

Daily rate trend for Test Automation in the South East

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 30 June 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in the South East

Test Automation
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Test Automation in the South East.

Hourly rate trend for Test Automation in the South East

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 30 June 2025.

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 30 June 2025. 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 +19 90 £501 -16.58% 288
Berkshire +15 75 £613 -2.00% 199
Hampshire +30 59 £513 -6.82% 137
Buckinghamshire +22 13 £325 -31.58% 54
Surrey -11 12 £475 -5.00% 72
West Sussex +4 8 £427 +6.75% 46
Oxfordshire 0 2 £475 +5.56% 35
Middlesex +9 1 - - 2
Kent +1 1 £625 - 28
East Sussex -4 1 £475 +58.33% 49
Test Automation
England

Test Automation
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 5 (2.82%) Apache
1 5 (2.82%) Confluence
2 2 (1.13%) JBoss
3 1 (0.56%) Anypoint
3 1 (0.56%) IIS
3 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.56%) WebLogic
Applications
1 5 (2.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.56%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.56%) Infor CloudSuite
Cloud Services
1 50 (28.25%) Azure
2 26 (14.69%) AWS
3 23 (12.99%) Azure DevOps
4 6 (3.39%) Tricentis Tosca
5 5 (2.82%) GCP
5 5 (2.82%) GitHub
5 5 (2.82%) SaaS
6 4 (2.26%) Azure Stack
7 3 (1.69%) Azure API Management
7 3 (1.69%) Azure Data Factory
8 2 (1.13%) Azure AKS
8 2 (1.13%) Azure App Service
8 2 (1.13%) Azure Cosmos DB
8 2 (1.13%) Azure Key Vault
8 2 (1.13%) Azure Service Bus
8 2 (1.13%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 2 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (1.13%) Serverless
9 1 (0.56%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.56%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.69%) Firewall
1 3 (1.69%) HTTP
1 3 (1.69%) SNMP
1 3 (1.69%) Software-Defined Radio
2 2 (1.13%) HTTPS
2 2 (1.13%) LAN
2 2 (1.13%) VLAN
2 2 (1.13%) WAN
3 1 (0.56%) Broadband
3 1 (0.56%) DNS
3 1 (0.56%) SMS
3 1 (0.56%) SMTP
3 1 (0.56%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (5.08%) NoSQL
1 9 (5.08%) SQL Server
2 6 (3.39%) Relational Database
3 4 (2.26%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (1.13%) Big Data
4 2 (1.13%) Data Lake
4 2 (1.13%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (1.13%) Elasticsearch
4 2 (1.13%) Metadata
4 2 (1.13%) MS Access
4 2 (1.13%) NewSQL
5 1 (0.56%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.56%) DynamoDB
5 1 (0.56%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.56%) ObjectStore
5 1 (0.56%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 54 (30.51%) JIRA
2 34 (19.21%) Jenkins
2 34 (19.21%) Selenium
3 33 (18.64%) Git
4 21 (11.86%) Cucumber
5 14 (7.91%) GitLab
6 13 (7.34%) REST Assured
7 12 (6.78%) SoapUI
8 9 (5.08%) SonarQube
9 7 (3.95%) Robot Framework
10 6 (3.39%) GoogleTest
10 6 (3.39%) Postman
10 6 (3.39%) TestRail
11 5 (2.82%) Bitbucket
11 5 (2.82%) WebDriver
12 4 (2.26%) Cypress.io
12 4 (2.26%) MSI
12 4 (2.26%) Sonatype Nexus
13 3 (1.69%) Rational DOORS
14 2 (1.13%) Moq
General
1 44 (24.86%) Social Skills
2 27 (15.25%) Finance
2 27 (15.25%) Public Sector
3 23 (12.99%) Telecoms
4 22 (12.43%) Electronics
4 22 (12.43%) Manufacturing
4 22 (12.43%) Marketing
5 19 (10.73%) Analytical Skills
6 8 (4.52%) Law
7 4 (2.26%) Billing
7 4 (2.26%) Police
8 3 (1.69%) Documentation Skills
9 2 (1.13%) Legal
9 2 (1.13%) Retail
10 1 (0.56%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.56%) Banking
10 1 (0.56%) Games
10 1 (0.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 31 (17.51%) Architect
1 31 (17.51%) Senior
2 26 (14.69%) Active Directory Architect
3 23 (12.99%) Analyst
3 23 (12.99%) Developer
4 22 (12.43%) Software Engineer
5 19 (10.73%) Test Analyst
6 15 (8.47%) Tester
7 12 (6.78%) Test Engineer
8 11 (6.21%) DevOps Engineer
9 9 (5.08%) Java Engineer
9 9 (5.08%) Java Software Engineer
10 8 (4.52%) Senior Tester
11 7 (3.95%) Consultant
11 7 (3.95%) Senior Developer
11 7 (3.95%) Software Test Engineer
12 6 (3.39%) Cloud Engineer
12 6 (3.39%) Lead
13 5 (2.82%) Rust Engineer
13 5 (2.82%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (12.99%) REST
2 15 (8.47%) .NET
3 13 (7.34%) Java EE
3 13 (7.34%) XML
4 11 (6.21%) CSS
5 10 (5.65%) ARM Templates
5 10 (5.65%) SOAP
6 9 (5.08%) RESTful
7 8 (4.52%) HTML
8 6 (3.39%) Web Services
9 5 (2.82%) Playwright
10 4 (2.26%) ADO
10 4 (2.26%) React
10 4 (2.26%) Spring
10 4 (2.26%) WebdriverIO
10 4 (2.26%) YAML
11 3 (1.69%) .NET Core
11 3 (1.69%) JSON
11 3 (1.69%) Next.js
11 3 (1.69%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 12 (6.78%) Self-Motivation
2 8 (4.52%) Product Ownership
3 6 (3.39%) Algorithms
4 5 (2.82%) Cloud Native
4 5 (2.82%) PKI
5 4 (2.26%) Distributed Systems
5 4 (2.26%) Linux Command Line
6 2 (1.13%) Data Centre
6 2 (1.13%) Fibre Optics
6 2 (1.13%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (1.13%) Onboarding
6 2 (1.13%) Renewable Energy
6 2 (1.13%) Replication
6 2 (1.13%) Virtual Team
7 1 (0.56%) EPoS
7 1 (0.56%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 48 (27.12%) Windows
2 14 (7.91%) Linux
3 6 (3.39%) Unix
4 5 (2.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (2.82%) Windows Server
5 4 (2.26%) CentOS
5 4 (2.26%) Windows Server 2019
6 3 (1.69%) Embedded Linux
7 2 (1.13%) Windows 10
7 2 (1.13%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 104 (58.76%) Agile
2 61 (34.46%) DevOps
3 46 (25.99%) CI/CD
4 38 (21.47%) Software Engineering
5 37 (20.90%) Software Testing
6 36 (20.34%) Problem-Solving
7 28 (15.82%) Identity Access Management
8 27 (15.25%) Test Scripting
9 24 (13.56%) Scrum
10 23 (12.99%) Continuous Integration
11 22 (12.43%) Business Intelligence
11 22 (12.43%) Digital Marketing
11 22 (12.43%) Programme Management
12 20 (11.30%) Validation
12 20 (11.30%) Waterfall
13 19 (10.73%) Scenario Testing
14 18 (10.17%) Containerisation
14 18 (10.17%) Manual Testing
14 18 (10.17%) Test Strategy
15 17 (9.60%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 40 (22.60%) PowerShell
1 40 (22.60%) Python
2 37 (20.90%) Java
3 28 (15.82%) SQL
4 27 (15.25%) C#
5 14 (7.91%) JavaScript
6 11 (6.21%) TypeScript
7 6 (3.39%) Bash
7 6 (3.39%) VB
8 5 (2.82%) C++
8 5 (2.82%) Rust
9 4 (2.26%) PHP
10 2 (1.13%) Bicep
10 2 (1.13%) Go
10 2 (1.13%) Scala
11 1 (0.56%) ActionScript
11 1 (0.56%) Ada
11 1 (0.56%) C
11 1 (0.56%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 95 (53.67%) Security Cleared
2 47 (26.55%) SC Cleared
3 46 (25.99%) DV Cleared
4 15 (8.47%) Degree
5 7 (3.95%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (2.82%) AWS Certification
7 4 (2.26%) ISTQB
8 3 (1.69%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 3 (1.69%) Master's Degree
9 2 (1.13%) CCNA
9 2 (1.13%) CCNP
9 2 (1.13%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.56%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (16.38%) QA
2 3 (1.69%) GDPR
2 3 (1.69%) HIPAA
3 2 (1.13%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (1.13%) GMP
3 2 (1.13%) Software Quality Assurance
4 1 (0.56%) HL7
4 1 (0.56%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.56%) SLA
System Software
1 32 (18.08%) Active Directory
2 17 (9.60%) Docker
3 6 (3.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.13%) Firmware
4 2 (1.13%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.56%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 18 (10.17%) Ansible
1 18 (10.17%) Terraform
2 17 (9.60%) Kubernetes
3 9 (5.08%) Docker Swarm
3 9 (5.08%) Podman
4 7 (3.95%) WMI
5 4 (2.26%) HP ALM
5 4 (2.26%) HP Quality Center
6 2 (1.13%) Proxmox
7 1 (0.56%) CloudHub
7 1 (0.56%) Grafana
7 1 (0.56%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.56%) Puppet
7 1 (0.56%) Rancher
Vendors
1 23 (12.99%) SAP
2 18 (10.17%) Microsoft
3 7 (3.95%) Google
4 6 (3.39%) VMware
5 5 (2.82%) Salesforce
6 4 (2.26%) Cisco
6 4 (2.26%) HP
7 3 (1.69%) Red Hat
8 2 (1.13%) Citrix
8 2 (1.13%) Splunk
9 1 (0.56%) Atlassian
9 1 (0.56%) CA Agile Central
9 1 (0.56%) CheckPoint
9 1 (0.56%) Conga
9 1 (0.56%) Databricks
9 1 (0.56%) Infor
9 1 (0.56%) MuleSoft
9 1 (0.56%) Oracle
9 1 (0.56%) ServiceNow
9 1 (0.56%) webMethods