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 15 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 58 52 42
Rank change year-on-year -6 -10 +14
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 247 135 207
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.75% 3.74% 4.83%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.62% 4.20% 5.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 148 101 149
10th Percentile £270 £325 £350
25th Percentile £349 £363 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £449 £475 £515
Median % change year-on-year -5.53% -7.77% -1.90%
75th Percentile £588 £550 £638
90th Percentile £740 £600 £672
England median daily rate £475 £500 £507
% change year-on-year -5.00% -1.43% -7.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 10 2
10th Percentile £55.00 £43.36 £48.50
25th Percentile £66.44 - £50.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £50.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.00% -9.09% -
75th Percentile - - £60.00
90th Percentile - £57.25 £61.50
England median hourly rate £69.25 £55.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year +25.91% -4.35% -23.33%

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 5,352 3,211 3,586
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 81.21% 88.87% 83.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,088 2,015 2,165
10th Percentile £275 £213 £259
25th Percentile £417 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £620 £588 £625
90th Percentile £713 £650 £688
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 703 330 181
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.50 £16.25
25th Percentile £16.33 £16.17 £30.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £20.79 £58.49
Median % change year-on-year +116.45% -64.46% +7.58%
75th Percentile £70.00 £41.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £69.65 £75.00
England median hourly rate £38.72 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +53.96% -40.82% -5.56%

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 15 October 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 15 October 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 15 October 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 -18 93 £475 +8.57% 26
Berkshire -14 59 £449 -10.25% 14
Hampshire -20 55 £575 +15.00% 16
West Sussex +13 48 £325 +12.07% 7
Surrey +11 38 £463 +17.83% 10
Buckinghamshire -17 26 £448 +37.69% 4
Oxfordshire -18 8 £868 - 9
Middlesex - 6 - - 2
Sussex - 3 £600 - 3
Kent -8 2 £475 -5.00% 4
East Sussex -2 1 £459 -18.76% 3
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 15 (6.07%) Confluence
2 5 (2.02%) Apache Spark
2 5 (2.02%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.81%) SAS
3 2 (0.81%) WebLogic
4 1 (0.40%) IIS
4 1 (0.40%) WebSphere
Applications
1 1 (0.40%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.40%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 2 (0.81%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.40%) Oracle EBS R12
2 1 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.40%) SAP MDG
2 1 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 71 (28.74%) AWS
2 68 (27.53%) Azure
3 32 (12.96%) Azure DevOps
4 30 (12.15%) GitHub
5 24 (9.72%) OpenShift
6 18 (7.29%) GCP
7 16 (6.48%) GitHub Actions
8 13 (5.26%) Serverless
9 10 (4.05%) AWS Lambda
9 10 (4.05%) Azure AKS
9 10 (4.05%) Entra ID
10 9 (3.64%) Azure Key Vault
10 9 (3.64%) Azure Monitor
11 8 (3.24%) Azure API Management
11 8 (3.24%) Azure App Service
11 8 (3.24%) Azure Data Factory
11 8 (3.24%) Azure Storage
12 7 (2.83%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 6 (2.43%) IaaS
13 6 (2.43%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 11 (4.45%) 2G
1 11 (4.45%) 3G
1 11 (4.45%) 4G
1 11 (4.45%) 5G
1 11 (4.45%) Diameter Protocol
1 11 (4.45%) SIGTRAN
1 11 (4.45%) SS7
2 6 (2.43%) Broadband
2 6 (2.43%) HTTPS
3 3 (1.21%) BGP
3 3 (1.21%) DNS
3 3 (1.21%) Ethernet VPN
3 3 (1.21%) GPRS
3 3 (1.21%) GSM
3 3 (1.21%) LAN
3 3 (1.21%) MPLS
3 3 (1.21%) UMTS
3 3 (1.21%) VPN
3 3 (1.21%) VXLAN
3 3 (1.21%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (8.50%) Relational Database
2 14 (5.67%) PostgreSQL
3 13 (5.26%) NoSQL
4 11 (4.45%) Azure SQL Database
5 9 (3.64%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (2.43%) Oracle Reports
7 5 (2.02%) Big Data
7 5 (2.02%) Data Lake
7 5 (2.02%) Metadata
8 4 (1.62%) Parquet
8 4 (1.62%) SQL Server
9 3 (1.21%) DynamoDB
9 3 (1.21%) Spark SQL
10 2 (0.81%) Redis
11 1 (0.40%) Amazon Redshift
11 1 (0.40%) BigQuery
11 1 (0.40%) Couchbase
11 1 (0.40%) MongoDB
11 1 (0.40%) Oracle BI Publisher
11 1 (0.40%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 57 (23.08%) Git
2 36 (14.57%) JIRA
3 25 (10.12%) Selenium
4 21 (8.50%) SonarQube
5 17 (6.88%) Jenkins
6 12 (4.86%) GitLab
7 7 (2.83%) Cucumber
7 7 (2.83%) SpecFlow
8 6 (2.43%) Gradle
8 6 (2.43%) JUnit
9 5 (2.02%) Postman
9 5 (2.02%) REST Assured
10 4 (1.62%) Artifactory
10 4 (1.62%) Bitbucket
10 4 (1.62%) HP UFT
10 4 (1.62%) Maven
10 4 (1.62%) Visual Studio Code
11 3 (1.21%) WebDriver
11 3 (1.21%) Zephyr
12 2 (0.81%) tSQLt
General
1 71 (28.74%) Social Skills
2 39 (15.79%) Analytical Skills
2 39 (15.79%) Finance
3 16 (6.48%) Telecoms
4 10 (4.05%) Aerospace
5 8 (3.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 8 (3.24%) Public Sector
6 6 (2.43%) Electronics
7 5 (2.02%) Banking
8 4 (1.62%) Manufacturing
9 3 (1.21%) Retail
10 2 (0.81%) Billing
10 2 (0.81%) General Ledger
11 1 (0.40%) Automotive
11 1 (0.40%) Games
11 1 (0.40%) German Language
11 1 (0.40%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.40%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 45 (18.22%) Developer
2 24 (9.72%) Lead
2 24 (9.72%) Senior
2 24 (9.72%) Tester
3 19 (7.69%) Java Developer
4 18 (7.29%) Test Engineer
5 12 (4.86%) Architect
6 11 (4.45%) DevSecOps Engineer
6 11 (4.45%) Java Engineer
6 11 (4.45%) Software Engineer
7 10 (4.05%) Consultant
7 10 (4.05%) Test Manager
8 9 (3.64%) Analyst
8 9 (3.64%) Full-Stack Developer
8 9 (3.64%) Technical Leader
9 8 (3.24%) Automation Tester
9 8 (3.24%) Designer
9 8 (3.24%) Mobile Designer
9 8 (3.24%) Test Analyst
9 8 (3.24%) Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (12.96%) RESTful
2 31 (12.55%) Terraform
3 26 (10.53%) REST
4 21 (8.50%) AngularJS
4 21 (8.50%) React
5 19 (7.69%) OAuth
6 18 (7.29%) Quarkus
7 17 (6.88%) CSS
7 17 (6.88%) HTML
8 15 (6.07%) .NET
9 14 (5.67%) OpenID
9 14 (5.67%) Spring
10 11 (4.45%) OAuth2
11 10 (4.05%) .NET Core
11 10 (4.05%) .NET Framework
11 10 (4.05%) Entity Framework
11 10 (4.05%) JSON
11 10 (4.05%) Spring Boot
12 9 (3.64%) Kafka
12 9 (3.64%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 26 (10.53%) Cloud Native
1 26 (10.53%) Product Ownership
2 18 (7.29%) Distributed Systems
3 11 (4.45%) AI Agents
3 11 (4.45%) Enterprise Software
4 9 (3.64%) Data Protection Act
4 9 (3.64%) Self-Motivation
5 6 (2.43%) Data Fabric
6 5 (2.02%) Mobile App
6 5 (2.02%) Security Posture
7 4 (1.62%) Life Science
7 4 (1.62%) Low-Code
7 4 (1.62%) PKI
7 4 (1.62%) Social Media
8 3 (1.21%) Analytical Mindset
8 3 (1.21%) AS400
8 3 (1.21%) Onboarding
8 3 (1.21%) SCADA
8 3 (1.21%) Wiki
9 2 (0.81%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 14 (5.67%) Windows
2 11 (4.45%) Linux
3 5 (2.02%) Windows Server
4 4 (1.62%) Unix
5 2 (0.81%) Embedded Linux
6 1 (0.40%) Android
6 1 (0.40%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 148 (59.92%) CI/CD
2 134 (54.25%) Agile
3 74 (29.96%) DevOps
4 62 (25.10%) Software Engineering
5 60 (24.29%) SDLC
6 53 (21.46%) Continuous Improvement
7 52 (21.05%) Scrum
8 49 (19.84%) Validation
9 47 (19.03%) Problem-Solving
10 41 (16.60%) Software Testing
11 39 (15.79%) Stakeholder Management
12 38 (15.38%) Containerisation
12 38 (15.38%) DevSecOps
13 37 (14.98%) Regression Testing
14 36 (14.57%) AI
15 35 (14.17%) Infrastructure as Code
15 35 (14.17%) Unit Testing
16 34 (13.77%) Defect Management
16 34 (13.77%) Mentoring
17 32 (12.96%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 76 (30.77%) SQL
2 69 (27.94%) Python
3 61 (24.70%) Java
4 27 (10.93%) JavaScript
5 24 (9.72%) C#
6 16 (6.48%) PowerShell
7 15 (6.07%) TypeScript
8 7 (2.83%) Bicep
9 6 (2.43%) Bash
10 5 (2.02%) Go
10 5 (2.02%) Kotlin
11 4 (1.62%) PL/SQL
12 3 (1.21%) VBScript
13 2 (0.81%) Apex Code
13 2 (0.81%) C++
13 2 (0.81%) Groovy
13 2 (0.81%) T-SQL
14 1 (0.40%) C
14 1 (0.40%) MATLAB
14 1 (0.40%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 98 (39.68%) Security Cleared
2 63 (25.51%) SC Cleared
3 32 (12.96%) DV Cleared
4 16 (6.48%) ISTQB
5 12 (4.86%) Degree
6 9 (3.64%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (3.24%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 6 (2.43%) BPSS Clearance
9 5 (2.02%) Azure Certification
9 5 (2.02%) Cisco Certification
9 5 (2.02%) Master's Degree
10 4 (1.62%) CCNP
11 3 (1.21%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 2 (0.81%) CISSP
12 2 (0.81%) ISEB
13 1 (0.40%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 1 (0.40%) AWS Certification
13 1 (0.40%) CREST Certified
13 1 (0.40%) Six Sigma Black Belt
13 1 (0.40%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (37.65%) QA
2 12 (4.86%) Accessibility
3 9 (3.64%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.81%) GDPR
4 2 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.81%) NIST
4 2 (0.81%) Software Quality Assurance
5 1 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.40%) GRC
5 1 (0.40%) NCSC
5 1 (0.40%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.40%) PMO
System Software
1 26 (10.53%) Docker
2 17 (6.88%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (4.45%) Active Directory
4 5 (2.02%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.81%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 55 (22.27%) Kubernetes
2 21 (8.50%) Argo
3 18 (7.29%) Ansible
4 4 (1.62%) WMI
5 1 (0.40%) Podman
5 1 (0.40%) QRadar
Vendors
1 27 (10.93%) Microsoft
2 20 (8.10%) Red Hat
3 19 (7.69%) VMware
4 13 (5.26%) Oracle
5 11 (4.45%) Cisco
5 11 (4.45%) Databricks
6 6 (2.43%) Arista
6 6 (2.43%) Splunk
6 6 (2.43%) Tagetik
7 5 (2.02%) Salesforce
8 4 (1.62%) Denodo
8 4 (1.62%) SAP
8 4 (1.62%) Talend
9 3 (1.21%) F5
9 3 (1.21%) Fortinet
9 3 (1.21%) Juniper
9 3 (1.21%) ServiceNow
10 2 (0.81%) Atlassian
10 2 (0.81%) Google
10 2 (0.81%) webMethods