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 1 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 15 19
Rank change year-on-year -2 +4 +26
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 32 22 23
As % of all contract jobs in South Wales 6.81% 8.53% 6.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.25% 9.57% 8.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 24 16 20
10th Percentile £308 £305 £409
25th Percentile £391 £326 £480
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £406 £519
Median % change year-on-year +16.92% -21.69% -13.54%
75th Percentile £731 £497 £545
90th Percentile £768 £534 £551
Wales median daily rate £475 £406 £519
% change year-on-year +16.92% -21.69% -13.54%

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 346 230 280
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in South Wales 73.62% 89.15% 78.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 212 161 170
10th Percentile £301 £190 £143
25th Percentile £394 £285 £209
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £400 £425
Median % change year-on-year +18.75% -5.88% -15.00%
75th Percentile £588 £488 £544
90th Percentile £748 £649 £602
Wales median daily rate £475 £400 £431
% change year-on-year +18.75% -7.25% -9.21%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 24 40
10th Percentile £12.21 £13.08 £15.48
25th Percentile £20.65 £13.94 £19.81
Median hourly rate £22.00 £15.50 £25.27
Median % change year-on-year +41.94% -38.66% +29.66%
75th Percentile £47.63 £20.75 £48.19
90th Percentile £55.00 £22.21 £53.88
Wales median hourly rate £22.00 £20.50 £23.66
% change year-on-year +7.32% -13.36% +21.40%

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 1 August 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 1 August 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 -1 23 £455 +15.19% 11
Newport -7 6 £700 +33.33% 1
Bridgend - 3 £600 - 2
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 (3.13%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 29 (90.63%) Azure
2 19 (59.38%) Azure DevOps
3 10 (31.25%) GitHub
4 6 (18.75%) Power Platform
4 6 (18.75%) PowerApps
5 4 (12.50%) GCP
6 3 (9.38%) BrowserStack
6 3 (9.38%) SonarCloud
7 2 (6.25%) Azure Key Vault
8 1 (3.13%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 1 (3.13%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (9.38%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 8 (25.00%) JMeter
2 3 (9.38%) MSTest
2 3 (9.38%) Selenium
2 3 (9.38%) Visual Studio
3 1 (3.13%) JIRA
General
1 6 (18.75%) Social Skills
2 4 (12.50%) Public Sector
3 1 (3.13%) Finance
3 1 (3.13%) Influencing Skills
3 1 (3.13%) Military
3 1 (3.13%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 10 (31.25%) Lead
2 7 (21.88%) Senior
3 6 (18.75%) Test Engineer
3 6 (18.75%) Test Leader
4 5 (15.63%) Automation Tester
4 5 (15.63%) Performance Test Leader
4 5 (15.63%) Tester
5 3 (9.38%) Analyst
5 3 (9.38%) Architect
5 3 (9.38%) Developer
5 3 (9.38%) DevOps Engineer
5 3 (9.38%) Infrastructure Architect
5 3 (9.38%) Infrastructure Technical Architect
5 3 (9.38%) Senior Automation Tester
5 3 (9.38%) Senior DevOps
5 3 (9.38%) Senior DevOps Engineer
5 3 (9.38%) Senior Tester
5 3 (9.38%) Technical Architect
5 3 (9.38%) Technical Infrastructure Architect
5 3 (9.38%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (43.75%) Playwright
2 8 (25.00%) ADO
3 3 (9.38%) .NET
3 3 (9.38%) Web Services
4 2 (6.25%) Django
5 1 (3.13%) REST
5 1 (3.13%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 10 (31.25%) NHS
2 4 (12.50%) Data Centre
3 2 (6.25%) Onboarding
3 2 (6.25%) Virtual Team
4 1 (3.13%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 2 (6.25%) Windows
1 2 (6.25%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (71.88%) DevOps
2 16 (50.00%) CI/CD
3 10 (31.25%) Agile
4 8 (25.00%) Infrastructure as Code
4 8 (25.00%) Technical Leadership
5 7 (21.88%) Acceptance Criteria
6 6 (18.75%) Coaching
6 6 (18.75%) Project Delivery
7 5 (15.63%) Code Quality
7 5 (15.63%) Collaborative Working
7 5 (15.63%) Mentoring
7 5 (15.63%) Migration
7 5 (15.63%) Performance Testing
7 5 (15.63%) Performance Tuning
7 5 (15.63%) Regression Testing
7 5 (15.63%) Test Strategy
7 5 (15.63%) Validation
8 4 (12.50%) Architectural Design
8 4 (12.50%) Continuous Deployment
8 4 (12.50%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 10 (31.25%) JavaScript
2 9 (28.13%) TypeScript
3 4 (12.50%) C#
4 3 (9.38%) Python
4 3 (9.38%) SQL
5 2 (6.25%) PowerShell
6 1 (3.13%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 14 (43.75%) Security Cleared
2 13 (40.63%) SC Cleared
3 3 (9.38%) ISTQB
3 3 (9.38%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (12.50%) HMG Security Policy Framework
1 4 (12.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (6.25%) GDPR
3 1 (3.13%) QA
System Software
1 5 (15.63%) Docker
2 2 (6.25%) Hyper-V
2 2 (6.25%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 3 (9.38%) Terraform
2 2 (6.25%) Ansible
2 2 (6.25%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 6 (18.75%) Microsoft
2 4 (12.50%) Google
2 4 (12.50%) Salesforce
3 2 (6.25%) VMware
4 1 (3.13%) SAP
4 1 (3.13%) ServiceNow