Test Automation Contract Job Trends in South Wales

Automated Testing
Wales > South Wales

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in South Wales requiring Test Automation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 25 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 18 28
Rank change year-on-year +4 +10 +18
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 32 20 16
As % of all contract jobs in South Wales 7.86% 7.63% 4.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.32% 8.55% 5.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 23 16 16
10th Percentile £413 £183 £156
25th Percentile £445 £297 £180
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £413 £363
Median % change year-on-year +21.21% +13.79% -36.96%
75th Percentile £719 £538 £538
90th Percentile £750 £550 £551
Wales median daily rate £505 £400 £356
% change year-on-year +26.13% +12.28% -35.23%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South Wales

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 South Wales.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 310 234 286
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in South Wales 76.17% 89.31% 80.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 194 165 215
10th Percentile £250 £185 £143
25th Percentile £305 £263 £260
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £450
Median % change year-on-year - -5.56% -5.26%
75th Percentile £513 £540 £588
90th Percentile £650 £633 £660
Wales median daily rate £425 £425 £450
% change year-on-year - -5.56% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 26 22
10th Percentile £12.21 £16.00 £11.21
25th Percentile £15.48 £20.12 £13.59
Median hourly rate £21.38 £22.25 £21.49
Median % change year-on-year -3.93% +3.56% +18.44%
75th Percentile £43.57 £38.13 £42.34
90th Percentile £66.25 £45.00 £82.93
Wales median hourly rate £21.00 £22.00 £19.00
% change year-on-year -4.55% +15.79% +4.74%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in South Wales

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

Test Automation job vacancy trend in South Wales

Test Automation
Daily Rate Trend in South Wales

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

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

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram in South Wales

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in South Wales over the 6 months to 25 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in South Wales

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Trend in South Wales

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

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

Test Automation
Contract Job Locations in South Wales

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 Wales region over the 6 months to 25 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
Cardiff -6 18 £475 +21.79% 11
Newport +11 14 £688 +22.22% 8
Test Automation
Wales

Test Automation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in South Wales 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:

Cloud Services
1 23 (71.88%) Azure
2 18 (56.25%) GitHub
3 15 (46.88%) Azure DevOps
4 7 (21.88%) Power Platform
5 6 (18.75%) Dynamics 365
6 5 (15.63%) GitHub Actions
7 4 (12.50%) GCP
8 2 (6.25%) PowerApps
9 1 (3.13%) AWS
9 1 (3.13%) Azure App Service
9 1 (3.13%) Azure Monitor
9 1 (3.13%) BrowserStack
Communications & Networking
1 1 (3.13%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (6.25%) Power BI
2 1 (3.13%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 15 (46.88%) JMeter
2 11 (34.38%) Selenium
3 10 (31.25%) MSTest
4 9 (28.13%) Visual Studio
5 6 (18.75%) Cucumber
5 6 (18.75%) Postman
6 2 (6.25%) Git
6 2 (6.25%) JIRA
7 1 (3.13%) Bitbucket
7 1 (3.13%) GitLab
7 1 (3.13%) Jenkins
7 1 (3.13%) SpecFlow
7 1 (3.13%) WebDriver
7 1 (3.13%) Zephyr
General
1 7 (21.88%) Social Skills
2 3 (9.38%) Military
2 3 (9.38%) Public Sector
3 2 (6.25%) Finance
4 1 (3.13%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 13 (40.63%) Automation Tester
1 13 (40.63%) Tester
2 12 (37.50%) Senior
3 8 (25.00%) Senior Automation Tester
3 8 (25.00%) Senior Tester
4 7 (21.88%) Test Engineer
5 5 (15.63%) Lead
5 5 (15.63%) Performance Test Leader
5 5 (15.63%) Test Leader
6 4 (12.50%) Test Automation Engineer
7 3 (9.38%) Quality Engineer
8 2 (6.25%) DevOps Engineer
8 2 (6.25%) Senior DevOps
8 2 (6.25%) Senior DevOps Engineer
8 2 (6.25%) Senior Test Engineer
8 2 (6.25%) Web Specialist
9 1 (3.13%) Automation Engineer
9 1 (3.13%) QA Automation Tester
9 1 (3.13%) QA Test Engineer
9 1 (3.13%) Senior Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (31.25%) Playwright
2 9 (28.13%) Web Services
3 2 (6.25%) Node.js
4 1 (3.13%) .NET
4 1 (3.13%) React
4 1 (3.13%) REST
4 1 (3.13%) SOAP
4 1 (3.13%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 4 (12.50%) Data Centre
1 4 (12.50%) NHS
1 4 (12.50%) Product Ownership
2 1 (3.13%) Data Protection Act
2 1 (3.13%) Legacy Systems
2 1 (3.13%) Virtual Team
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (56.25%) Agile
2 17 (53.13%) DevOps
3 16 (50.00%) Test Strategy
4 14 (43.75%) CI/CD
5 9 (28.13%) Architectural Design
5 9 (28.13%) Design Patterns
5 9 (28.13%) Non-Functional Testing
6 8 (25.00%) Acceptance Criteria
6 8 (25.00%) Data Modelling
7 7 (21.88%) AI
7 7 (21.88%) Migration
7 7 (21.88%) Project Delivery
7 7 (21.88%) Unit Testing
8 6 (18.75%) Continuous Deployment
8 6 (18.75%) Machine Learning
8 6 (18.75%) Manual Testing
8 6 (18.75%) Regression Testing
8 6 (18.75%) Scrum
9 5 (15.63%) Performance Tuning
9 5 (15.63%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 13 (40.63%) JavaScript
2 12 (37.50%) C#
3 10 (31.25%) SQL
4 9 (28.13%) Python
5 6 (18.75%) TypeScript
6 5 (15.63%) Ruby
7 1 (3.13%) Apex Code
7 1 (3.13%) Bash
7 1 (3.13%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 13 (40.63%) Security Cleared
2 10 (31.25%) SC Cleared
3 8 (25.00%) ISTQB
3 8 (25.00%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 4 (12.50%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (31.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
1 10 (31.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (21.88%) QA
3 2 (6.25%) Accessibility
3 2 (6.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 8 (25.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (3.13%) Terraform
Vendors
1 5 (15.63%) Microsoft
2 4 (12.50%) Google
3 1 (3.13%) Salesforce
3 1 (3.13%) ServiceNow