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 5 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 17 24 37
Rank change year-on-year +7 +13 -8
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 25 22 13
As % of all contract jobs in South Wales 7.62% 5.85% 3.38%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.90% 7.19% 3.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 17 11
10th Percentile £333 £186 £152
25th Percentile £391 £375 £173
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% - -12.50%
75th Percentile £621 £550 £622
90th Percentile £728 £565 £675
Wales median daily rate £485 £523 £195
% change year-on-year -7.18% +167.95% -66.95%

All Process and 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 281 306 343
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in South Wales 85.67% 81.38% 89.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 192 165 265
10th Percentile £197 £160 £169
25th Percentile £282 £213 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £403 £425 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.29% -5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £494 £550 £588
90th Percentile £638 £683 £648
Wales median daily rate £400 £425 £425
% change year-on-year -5.88% - -15.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 42 20
10th Percentile £13.08 £15.48 £16.63
25th Percentile £14.23 £20.12 £21.86
Median hourly rate £17.99 £25.27 £29.83
Median % change year-on-year -28.82% -15.29% +49.50%
75th Percentile £20.75 £40.00 £53.19
90th Percentile £29.82 £49.88 £55.38
Wales median hourly rate £20.50 £25.18 £27.17
% change year-on-year -18.59% -7.31% +50.92%

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 5 November 2025.

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 5 November 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
Cardiff -4 18 £463 -11.48% 7
Newport +10 7 £675 +10.20% 13
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:

Business Applications
1 1 (4.00%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 16 (64.00%) Azure
2 12 (48.00%) Azure DevOps
3 8 (32.00%) GitHub
4 6 (24.00%) Dynamics 365
5 5 (20.00%) GCP
5 5 (20.00%) Power Platform
6 3 (12.00%) AWS
7 2 (8.00%) BrowserStack
8 1 (4.00%) Azure App Service
8 1 (4.00%) Azure Monitor
8 1 (4.00%) Cloud Functions
Communications & Networking
1 1 (4.00%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (16.00%) Relational Database
2 3 (12.00%) MongoDB
2 3 (12.00%) MySQL
2 3 (12.00%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (8.00%) BigQuery
3 2 (8.00%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (8.00%) RDBMS
4 1 (4.00%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 11 (44.00%) Selenium
2 9 (36.00%) JMeter
3 7 (28.00%) MSTest
3 7 (28.00%) Postman
4 6 (24.00%) Visual Studio
5 5 (20.00%) Git
5 5 (20.00%) JIRA
5 5 (20.00%) Zephyr
6 4 (16.00%) Cucumber
6 4 (16.00%) GitLab
6 4 (16.00%) Jenkins
7 3 (12.00%) SpecFlow
8 2 (8.00%) Bitbucket
8 2 (8.00%) Cypress.io
8 2 (8.00%) WebDriver
General
1 8 (32.00%) Finance
2 6 (24.00%) Public Sector
3 3 (12.00%) Social Skills
4 1 (4.00%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (4.00%) Documentation Skills
4 1 (4.00%) Electronics
4 1 (4.00%) Local Government
4 1 (4.00%) Manufacturing
4 1 (4.00%) Marketing
4 1 (4.00%) Military
4 1 (4.00%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 7 (28.00%) Senior
2 6 (24.00%) Automation Tester
2 6 (24.00%) Tester
3 5 (20.00%) Analyst
3 5 (20.00%) Business Test Analyst
3 5 (20.00%) Senior Automation Tester
3 5 (20.00%) Senior Tester
3 5 (20.00%) Test Analyst
4 4 (16.00%) Lead
4 4 (16.00%) Test Engineer
5 3 (12.00%) Payments Analyst
6 2 (8.00%) Data Engineer
6 2 (8.00%) Developer
6 2 (8.00%) DevOps Engineer
6 2 (8.00%) Java Developer
6 2 (8.00%) Lead Test Engineer
6 2 (8.00%) Quality Engineer
6 2 (8.00%) Senior DevOps
6 2 (8.00%) Senior DevOps Engineer
6 2 (8.00%) Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (24.00%) Web Services
2 5 (20.00%) JSON
2 5 (20.00%) REST
2 5 (20.00%) SOAP
2 5 (20.00%) XML
3 3 (12.00%) .NET
3 3 (12.00%) Node.js
3 3 (12.00%) React
3 3 (12.00%) Spring
3 3 (12.00%) Spring Boot
4 2 (8.00%) .NET Core
4 2 (8.00%) .NET Framework
4 2 (8.00%) CSS
4 2 (8.00%) Entity Framework
4 2 (8.00%) HTML
4 2 (8.00%) Jest
4 2 (8.00%) Next.js
4 2 (8.00%) Playwright
4 2 (8.00%) PySpark
4 2 (8.00%) Spring Cloud
Miscellaneous
1 5 (20.00%) Data Protection Act
1 5 (20.00%) SWIFT Messaging Network
2 3 (12.00%) Onboarding
3 2 (8.00%) Client/Server
4 1 (4.00%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (4.00%) NHS
4 1 (4.00%) Product Ownership
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (72.00%) Agile
2 15 (60.00%) Test Strategy
3 14 (56.00%) DevOps
4 11 (44.00%) CI/CD
5 8 (32.00%) Non-Functional Testing
5 8 (32.00%) Unit Testing
6 6 (24.00%) Architectural Design
6 6 (24.00%) Design Patterns
6 6 (24.00%) Mentoring
7 5 (20.00%) AI
7 5 (20.00%) Business Strategy
7 5 (20.00%) Code Quality
7 5 (20.00%) Computer Science
7 5 (20.00%) Continuous Improvement
7 5 (20.00%) Data Protection
7 5 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
7 5 (20.00%) Scenario Testing
7 5 (20.00%) Software Testing
7 5 (20.00%) Translating Business Requirements
7 5 (20.00%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 11 (44.00%) JavaScript
1 11 (44.00%) SQL
2 9 (36.00%) C#
3 8 (32.00%) Python
4 5 (20.00%) Java
5 4 (16.00%) TypeScript
6 1 (4.00%) Bash
6 1 (4.00%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 10 (40.00%) Degree
1 10 (40.00%) ISTQB
2 9 (36.00%) Security Cleared
3 6 (24.00%) SC Cleared
4 5 (20.00%) Computer Science Degree
4 5 (20.00%) ISEB
4 5 (20.00%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 1 (4.00%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (24.00%) HMG Security Policy Framework
1 6 (24.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (20.00%) QA
2 5 (20.00%) SEPA
3 2 (8.00%) Accessibility
3 2 (8.00%) Data Quality
3 2 (8.00%) WCAG
System Software
1 6 (24.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (4.00%) Terraform
Vendors
1 2 (8.00%) Google
1 2 (8.00%) Microsoft
1 2 (8.00%) Oracle
2 1 (4.00%) SAP