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 10 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 61 41 54
Rank change year-on-year -20 +13 -17
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 164 165 189
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.19% 5.47% 3.35%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.85% 5.97% 3.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 125 103 115
10th Percentile £339 £391 £385
25th Percentile £381 £469 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% - -
75th Percentile £600 £675 £625
90th Percentile £725 £700 £656
England median daily rate £488 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -2.50% -4.76% -7.49%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 6 2
10th Percentile £52.00 £37.38 £35.38
25th Percentile £55.00 £44.51 £41.56
Median hourly rate £60.00 £52.28 £53.75
Median % change year-on-year +14.77% -2.74% -14.00%
75th Percentile £67.50 £72.75 £66.56
90th Percentile £69.00 £76.35 £73.13
England median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year +14.54% -9.20% +4.17%

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 4,259 2,766 4,904
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 82.72% 91.77% 86.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,792 1,752 2,927
10th Percentile £273 £250 £213
25th Percentile £405 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -1.48%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £613
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 365 133 383
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.32 £21.00 £18.26
Median hourly rate £29.61 £35.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -15.40% -6.67% -16.67%
75th Percentile £75.00 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £76.26
England median hourly rate £30.00 £34.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -13.04% +6.15% -8.84%

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 10 March 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 10 March 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 10 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
Thames Valley -40 64 £420 -32.80% 40
Berkshire -36 54 £423 -32.40% 16
Hampshire -7 45 £600 +20.00% 37
Surrey -15 27 £500 - 19
East Sussex +9 11 £558 +17.37% 8
Buckinghamshire -10 8 £350 -24.32% 12
West Sussex -14 8 £362 -30.38% 13
Kent - 6 £500 - 12
Oxfordshire -11 2 £301 -36.74% 12
Middlesex - 2 £552 - 13
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 10 (6.10%) Confluence
2 2 (1.22%) Apache
3 1 (0.61%) WebLogic
Applications
1 4 (2.44%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.83%) MS Visio
3 2 (1.22%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (1.22%) SAP FI
2 1 (0.61%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 30 (18.29%) Azure
2 19 (11.59%) GitHub
3 18 (10.98%) AWS
4 17 (10.37%) Azure DevOps
5 14 (8.54%) GitHub Actions
6 13 (7.93%) OpenShift
7 11 (6.71%) Tricentis Tosca
8 8 (4.88%) Entra ID
9 7 (4.27%) Serverless
10 6 (3.66%) GCP
11 3 (1.83%) Azure AKS
11 3 (1.83%) Azure Functions
11 3 (1.83%) Azure Monitor
11 3 (1.83%) OCI
12 2 (1.22%) Amazon EKS
12 2 (1.22%) AWS Lambda
12 2 (1.22%) Azure API Management
12 2 (1.22%) Azure Service Bus
12 2 (1.22%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 2 (1.22%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 10 (6.10%) Wireshark
2 8 (4.88%) VPN
3 7 (4.27%) MPLS
4 6 (3.66%) Firewall
5 5 (3.05%) TCP/IP
5 5 (3.05%) VLAN
6 4 (2.44%) Broadband
6 4 (2.44%) SD-WAN
6 4 (2.44%) WAN
7 3 (1.83%) BGP
7 3 (1.83%) IPv4
7 3 (1.83%) IPv6
7 3 (1.83%) Multicast
7 3 (1.83%) Network Security
7 3 (1.83%) OSPF
7 3 (1.83%) SSL
7 3 (1.83%) Wireless
8 2 (1.22%) 5G
8 2 (1.22%) Cisco ASA
8 2 (1.22%) NaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (7.93%) NoSQL
2 12 (7.32%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (3.05%) Apache Cassandra
3 5 (3.05%) Couchbase
4 3 (1.83%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (1.22%) BigQuery
5 2 (1.22%) Power BI
5 2 (1.22%) SQL Server
5 2 (1.22%) Tableau
6 1 (0.61%) Amazon Aurora
6 1 (0.61%) Big Data
6 1 (0.61%) DynamoDB
6 1 (0.61%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.61%) Oracle Database
6 1 (0.61%) Parquet
6 1 (0.61%) RDBMS
6 1 (0.61%) Redis
6 1 (0.61%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 33 (20.12%) JIRA
2 28 (17.07%) Jenkins
3 21 (12.80%) Git
4 16 (9.76%) GitLab
5 13 (7.93%) Cucumber
6 12 (7.32%) Selenium
7 11 (6.71%) Gradle
7 11 (6.71%) JUnit
7 11 (6.71%) Sonatype Nexus
8 10 (6.10%) Burp Suite
9 8 (4.88%) JMeter
9 8 (4.88%) Metasploit
9 8 (4.88%) SonarQube
10 7 (4.27%) HP UFT
11 6 (3.66%) Robot Framework
12 5 (3.05%) Cypress.io
12 5 (3.05%) Maven
13 4 (2.44%) Android Studio
13 4 (2.44%) Toad
14 3 (1.83%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 53 (32.32%) Social Skills
2 37 (22.56%) Analytical Skills
3 17 (10.37%) Finance
4 15 (9.15%) Public Sector
5 9 (5.49%) Telecoms
6 6 (3.66%) Documentation Skills
6 6 (3.66%) Influencing Skills
7 5 (3.05%) Presentation Skills
8 2 (1.22%) Aerospace
8 2 (1.22%) Aviation
8 2 (1.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.22%) Law
9 1 (0.61%) Automotive
9 1 (0.61%) Banking
9 1 (0.61%) Billing
9 1 (0.61%) Marketing
9 1 (0.61%) Retail
Job Titles
1 41 (25.00%) Developer
2 25 (15.24%) Senior
2 25 (15.24%) Tester
3 16 (9.76%) Java Developer
4 14 (8.54%) Test Manager
5 11 (6.71%) Analyst
5 11 (6.71%) Lead
5 11 (6.71%) Penetration Tester
5 11 (6.71%) Test Engineer
6 9 (5.49%) QA Engineer
6 9 (5.49%) Test Analyst
7 8 (4.88%) Java Engineer
8 7 (4.27%) Senior Developer
9 6 (3.66%) Software Engineer
10 4 (2.44%) Android Developer
10 4 (2.44%) Automation Tester
10 4 (2.44%) DevOps Engineer
10 4 (2.44%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
10 4 (2.44%) QA Leader
10 4 (2.44%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (9.76%) Spring
2 12 (7.32%) REST
3 11 (6.71%) Kafka
4 9 (5.49%) AngularJS
4 9 (5.49%) React
5 8 (4.88%) OAuth
6 7 (4.27%) .NET
6 7 (4.27%) Hibernate
6 7 (4.27%) Oracle Fusion
6 7 (4.27%) Quarkus
6 7 (4.27%) SailPoint
6 7 (4.27%) SAML
7 6 (3.66%) CSS
7 6 (3.66%) RabbitMQ
7 6 (3.66%) Spring Boot
8 5 (3.05%) GraphQL
8 5 (3.05%) HTML
8 5 (3.05%) JWT
9 4 (2.44%) Playwright
9 4 (2.44%) Vert.x
Miscellaneous
1 14 (8.54%) Distributed Systems
2 7 (4.27%) Enterprise Software
2 7 (4.27%) Synthetic Data
3 6 (3.66%) Cloud Native
3 6 (3.66%) PKI
4 4 (2.44%) Algorithms
4 4 (2.44%) Linux Command Line
4 4 (2.44%) Product Ownership
5 3 (1.83%) Data Centre
5 3 (1.83%) IoT
5 3 (1.83%) Security Posture
5 3 (1.83%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (1.83%) Virtual Team
6 2 (1.22%) Management Information System
6 2 (1.22%) Team-Oriented Environment
7 1 (0.61%) Augmented Reality
7 1 (0.61%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.61%) FPGA
7 1 (0.61%) Verilog
7 1 (0.61%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 22 (13.41%) Linux
2 18 (10.98%) Windows
3 10 (6.10%) Kali Linux
4 6 (3.66%) Windows Server
5 5 (3.05%) Unix
6 4 (2.44%) Android
7 2 (1.22%) CentOS
7 2 (1.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.61%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 70 (42.68%) Agile
2 51 (31.10%) CI/CD
3 50 (30.49%) DevOps
4 49 (29.88%) Problem-Solving
5 33 (20.12%) Software Testing
6 27 (16.46%) Test Strategy
7 24 (14.63%) AI
7 24 (14.63%) Microservices
7 24 (14.63%) Validation
8 23 (14.02%) Scenario Testing
9 22 (13.41%) Continuous Improvement
9 22 (13.41%) Regression Testing
9 22 (13.41%) SDLC
10 19 (11.59%) Software Engineering
11 15 (9.15%) OWASP
11 15 (9.15%) Penetration Testing
11 15 (9.15%) Scrum
11 15 (9.15%) Unit Testing
11 15 (9.15%) User Acceptance Testing
12 14 (8.54%) Test Management
Programming Languages
1 44 (26.83%) Python
2 43 (26.22%) Java
3 27 (16.46%) PowerShell
4 25 (15.24%) JavaScript
4 25 (15.24%) SQL
5 15 (9.15%) Bash
6 10 (6.10%) C#
7 7 (4.27%) Go
7 7 (4.27%) PL/SQL
7 7 (4.27%) TypeScript
7 7 (4.27%) VBScript
8 3 (1.83%) C++
8 3 (1.83%) T-SQL
9 2 (1.22%) PHP
9 2 (1.22%) R
10 1 (0.61%) Bicep
10 1 (0.61%) C
10 1 (0.61%) Embedded C
10 1 (0.61%) Embedded C++
10 1 (0.61%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 63 (38.41%) Security Cleared
2 38 (23.17%) SC Cleared
3 21 (12.80%) DV Cleared
4 13 (7.93%) ISTQB
5 10 (6.10%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (6.10%) Degree
6 9 (5.49%) OSCP
7 8 (4.88%) CEH
7 8 (4.88%) Cisco Certification
7 8 (4.88%) GPEN
7 8 (4.88%) Oracle Certification
8 7 (4.27%) OCA
9 6 (3.66%) CCNP
10 5 (3.05%) BPSS Clearance
10 5 (3.05%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 5 (3.05%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 3 (1.83%) CCIE
11 3 (1.83%) CCNA
11 3 (1.83%) JNCIS
12 2 (1.22%) BC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (26.22%) QA
2 7 (4.27%) GDPR
3 5 (3.05%) Data Quality
4 3 (1.83%) Accessibility
4 3 (1.83%) SLA
5 2 (1.22%) NCSC
6 1 (0.61%) GMP
6 1 (0.61%) GRC
System Software
1 13 (7.93%) Docker
2 9 (5.49%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 22 (13.41%) Kubernetes
2 15 (9.15%) Ansible
3 12 (7.32%) Nmap
4 11 (6.71%) Terraform
5 7 (4.27%) Argo
5 7 (4.27%) Forefront Identity Manager
5 7 (4.27%) NetIQ Identity Manager
6 6 (3.66%) Progress Chef
7 4 (2.44%) HP Quality Center
8 3 (1.83%) Nagios
8 3 (1.83%) Nessus
9 2 (1.22%) Cisco Prime
9 2 (1.22%) Grafana
9 2 (1.22%) Iperf
9 2 (1.22%) Prometheus
10 1 (0.61%) Puppet
10 1 (0.61%) Rancher
Vendors
1 12 (7.32%) Oracle
2 11 (6.71%) VMware
3 9 (5.49%) Microsoft
4 8 (4.88%) Cisco
4 8 (4.88%) SAP
5 7 (4.27%) CheckPoint
5 7 (4.27%) NetIQ
5 7 (4.27%) Red Hat
5 7 (4.27%) ServiceNow
6 6 (3.66%) Juniper
6 6 (3.66%) Splunk
7 5 (3.05%) Atlassian
7 5 (3.05%) Blue Prism
7 5 (3.05%) Fortinet
7 5 (3.05%) SolarWinds
7 5 (3.05%) Workday
8 3 (1.83%) F5
9 2 (1.22%) Google
9 2 (1.22%) Palo Alto
9 2 (1.22%) Tufin