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 22 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 34 52 51
Rank change year-on-year +18 -1 -10
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 167 195 231
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 5.70% 3.57% 4.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.22% 4.24% 4.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 101 126 171
10th Percentile £363 £381 £400
25th Percentile £438 £463 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% -4.35% +15.00%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £625
90th Percentile £700 £688 £675
England median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 3 6
10th Percentile £44.51 £40.90 -
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% -
75th Percentile £64.52 £70.00 £58.75
90th Percentile £72.70 £74.50 -
England median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £74.00
% change year-on-year -8.33% -18.92% +29.05%

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 2,683 4,602 4,979
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 91.54% 84.21% 89.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,719 2,674 3,447
10th Percentile £250 £250 £248
25th Percentile £387 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £508
Median % change year-on-year -0.05% -1.43% +1.50%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £615
90th Percentile £663 £700 £700
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 170 441 218
10th Percentile £13.48 £13.00 £16.25
25th Percentile £15.03 £18.20 £22.16
Median hourly rate £27.05 £47.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -43.06% -5.00% +132.56%
75th Percentile £62.06 £62.50 £64.63
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.86 £75.00
England median hourly rate £28.75 £36.50 £36.77
% change year-on-year -21.23% -0.73% +47.08%

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 22 May 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 22 May 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 22 May 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 +24 84 £613 +2.08% 435
Berkshire +18 76 £625 +4.17% 277
Hampshire +25 48 £500 -9.09% 221
Surrey -2 20 £500 -4.76% 113
Buckinghamshire +18 7 £375 -30.23% 102
West Sussex +11 7 £468 +17.00% 66
East Sussex -3 2 £475 +65.22% 55
Middlesex +10 1 - - 3
Oxfordshire -3 1 £475 -2.56% 64
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 (2.99%) Confluence
2 1 (0.60%) JBoss
2 1 (0.60%) WebLogic
Applications
1 3 (1.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.60%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.60%) Infor CloudSuite
Cloud Services
1 55 (32.93%) Azure
2 25 (14.97%) AWS
3 23 (13.77%) Azure DevOps
4 10 (5.99%) Azure Data Factory
5 7 (4.19%) GCP
6 6 (3.59%) Azure API Management
6 6 (3.59%) Azure Cosmos DB
6 6 (3.59%) Tricentis Tosca
7 5 (2.99%) Azure Service Bus
7 5 (2.99%) SaaS
8 4 (2.40%) Azure Stack
8 4 (2.40%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 2 (1.20%) Azure AKS
9 2 (1.20%) Azure App Service
9 2 (1.20%) Azure Key Vault
9 2 (1.20%) GitHub
9 2 (1.20%) Power Platform
10 1 (0.60%) IaaS
10 1 (0.60%) OpenShift
10 1 (0.60%) Twilio
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.40%) VLAN
2 3 (1.80%) HTTP
2 3 (1.80%) SNMP
2 3 (1.80%) Software-Defined Radio
3 2 (1.20%) BGP
3 2 (1.20%) HTTPS
3 2 (1.20%) MPLS
3 2 (1.20%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.60%) Firewall
4 1 (0.60%) LAN
4 1 (0.60%) SMS
4 1 (0.60%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (3.59%) NoSQL
2 5 (2.99%) PostgreSQL
2 5 (2.99%) Relational Database
3 4 (2.40%) SQL Server
4 3 (1.80%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (1.20%) Big Data
5 2 (1.20%) Data Lake
5 2 (1.20%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (1.20%) Elasticsearch
5 2 (1.20%) Metadata
5 2 (1.20%) MS Access
5 2 (1.20%) NewSQL
6 1 (0.60%) ObjectStore
6 1 (0.60%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 41 (24.55%) JIRA
2 36 (21.56%) Selenium
3 32 (19.16%) Jenkins
4 31 (18.56%) Git
5 19 (11.38%) Cucumber
6 14 (8.38%) GitLab
7 13 (7.78%) REST Assured
8 10 (5.99%) TestRail
9 9 (5.39%) SonarQube
10 8 (4.79%) GoogleTest
10 8 (4.79%) SoapUI
11 6 (3.59%) Bitbucket
12 5 (2.99%) JUnit
12 5 (2.99%) Rational DOORS
12 5 (2.99%) Robot Framework
13 4 (2.40%) Cypress.io
13 4 (2.40%) Postman
13 4 (2.40%) SpecFlow
14 3 (1.80%) JMeter
14 3 (1.80%) WebDriver
General
1 40 (23.95%) Social Skills
2 31 (18.56%) Public Sector
3 30 (17.96%) Finance
4 26 (15.57%) Telecoms
5 24 (14.37%) Electronics
5 24 (14.37%) Manufacturing
5 24 (14.37%) Marketing
6 23 (13.77%) Analytical Skills
7 8 (4.79%) Law
8 4 (2.40%) Billing
8 4 (2.40%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (2.40%) Police
9 1 (0.60%) Games
9 1 (0.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.60%) Legal
9 1 (0.60%) Retail
Job Titles
1 31 (18.56%) Architect
2 27 (16.17%) Senior
3 26 (15.57%) Active Directory Architect
4 24 (14.37%) Developer
5 23 (13.77%) Software Engineer
6 16 (9.58%) Tester
7 15 (8.98%) Analyst
8 14 (8.38%) Test Engineer
9 13 (7.78%) Test Analyst
10 10 (5.99%) DevOps Engineer
11 9 (5.39%) Java Engineer
11 9 (5.39%) Java Software Engineer
12 7 (4.19%) Automation Tester
12 7 (4.19%) Azure Developer
12 7 (4.19%) Full-Stack Developer
12 7 (4.19%) Senior Software Engineer
12 7 (4.19%) Senior Tester
13 6 (3.59%) Embedded Engineer
13 6 (3.59%) Lead
13 6 (3.59%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (11.98%) REST
2 14 (8.38%) .NET
3 13 (7.78%) Java EE
4 11 (6.59%) CSS
5 10 (5.99%) ARM Templates
6 9 (5.39%) RESTful
6 9 (5.39%) XML
7 8 (4.79%) HTML
8 7 (4.19%) Playwright
9 6 (3.59%) SOAP
9 6 (3.59%) Web Services
10 5 (2.99%) ADO
10 5 (2.99%) React
11 3 (1.80%) .NET Core
11 3 (1.80%) FastAPI
11 3 (1.80%) JSON
11 3 (1.80%) Next.js
11 3 (1.80%) Node.js
11 3 (1.80%) Spring
11 3 (1.80%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 9 (5.39%) Self-Motivation
2 8 (4.79%) Algorithms
3 7 (4.19%) Cloud Native
3 7 (4.19%) Product Ownership
4 5 (2.99%) Renewable Energy
5 4 (2.40%) Linux Command Line
6 3 (1.80%) Distributed Systems
6 3 (1.80%) Onboarding
7 2 (1.20%) Operational Technology
7 2 (1.20%) Replication
7 2 (1.20%) SCADA
7 2 (1.20%) Virtual Team
8 1 (0.60%) Data Centre
8 1 (0.60%) Data Structures
8 1 (0.60%) EPoS
8 1 (0.60%) Fibre Optics
8 1 (0.60%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 41 (24.55%) Windows
2 14 (8.38%) Linux
3 7 (4.19%) Unix
4 5 (2.99%) Embedded Linux
5 2 (1.20%) Windows 10
5 2 (1.20%) Windows 7
6 1 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (57.49%) Agile
2 57 (34.13%) DevOps
3 40 (23.95%) CI/CD
4 38 (22.75%) Software Engineering
5 35 (20.96%) Problem-Solving
6 27 (16.17%) Identity Access Management
7 26 (15.57%) Continuous Integration
7 26 (15.57%) Test Scripting
8 24 (14.37%) Business Intelligence
8 24 (14.37%) Digital Marketing
8 24 (14.37%) Programme Management
8 24 (14.37%) Scrum
9 22 (13.17%) Containerisation
9 22 (13.17%) Software Testing
10 21 (12.57%) Manual Testing
11 20 (11.98%) Test Strategy
12 19 (11.38%) Validation
13 18 (10.78%) Infrastructure as Code
14 17 (10.18%) Scenario Testing
15 14 (8.38%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 41 (24.55%) Python
2 37 (22.16%) Java
3 34 (20.36%) PowerShell
4 33 (19.76%) SQL
5 21 (12.57%) C#
6 14 (8.38%) JavaScript
7 11 (6.59%) TypeScript
8 7 (4.19%) C++
9 5 (2.99%) Bash
9 5 (2.99%) Rust
10 3 (1.80%) Go
11 2 (1.20%) Bicep
11 2 (1.20%) Perl
11 2 (1.20%) PL/SQL
11 2 (1.20%) Scala
11 2 (1.20%) Shell Script
11 2 (1.20%) VB
12 1 (0.60%) ActionScript
12 1 (0.60%) C
Qualifications
1 92 (55.09%) Security Cleared
2 52 (31.14%) SC Cleared
3 38 (22.75%) DV Cleared
4 24 (14.37%) Degree
5 12 (7.19%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (4.19%) ISTQB
7 4 (2.40%) Master's Degree
8 3 (1.80%) AWS Certification
8 3 (1.80%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 1 (0.60%) CCNA
9 1 (0.60%) CCNP
9 1 (0.60%) Cisco Certification
9 1 (0.60%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (16.77%) QA
2 3 (1.80%) Software Quality Assurance
3 2 (1.20%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (1.20%) Data Quality
3 2 (1.20%) GDPR
3 2 (1.20%) GMP
3 2 (1.20%) HIPAA
4 1 (0.60%) HL7
4 1 (0.60%) SLA
System Software
1 27 (16.17%) Active Directory
2 19 (11.38%) Docker
3 2 (1.20%) Firmware
3 2 (1.20%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.60%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 19 (11.38%) Kubernetes
2 15 (8.98%) Ansible
3 14 (8.38%) Terraform
4 9 (5.39%) Docker Swarm
4 9 (5.39%) Podman
5 3 (1.80%) WMI
6 2 (1.20%) Proxmox
7 1 (0.60%) Grafana
7 1 (0.60%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.60%) Puppet
7 1 (0.60%) Rancher
Vendors
1 25 (14.97%) SAP
2 10 (5.99%) Microsoft
3 9 (5.39%) Google
4 4 (2.40%) Databricks
5 3 (1.80%) Cisco
5 3 (1.80%) Salesforce
6 2 (1.20%) Citrix
6 2 (1.20%) Red Hat
7 1 (0.60%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.60%) CA Agile Central
7 1 (0.60%) CheckPoint
7 1 (0.60%) Conga
7 1 (0.60%) Infor
7 1 (0.60%) Oracle
7 1 (0.60%) ServiceNow
7 1 (0.60%) Splunk
7 1 (0.60%) VMware
7 1 (0.60%) webMethods