Test Automation Contracts in the South West

Automated Testing
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South West 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 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 65 104 50
Rank change year-on-year +39 -54 +1
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 46 53 159
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South West 2.74% 1.66% 4.38%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.03% 2.00% 4.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 31 32 120
10th Percentile £325 £375 £361
25th Percentile £355 £494 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% - +10.00%
75th Percentile £685 £600 £661
90th Percentile £715 £668 £725
England median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% +0.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 10 3
10th Percentile - £34.13 £51.60
25th Percentile - £52.50 £61.50
Median hourly rate £40.84 £55.00 £78.00
Median % change year-on-year -25.75% -29.49% +56.78%
75th Percentile - £78.13 -
90th Percentile - £85.00 -
England median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £61.25
% change year-on-year -8.33% -2.04% +2.08%

All Process and Methodology Skills
South West

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 West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,516 2,656 3,250
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 90.35% 83.03% 89.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 965 1,696 2,395
10th Percentile £235 £220 £313
25th Percentile £400 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £549
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.37% +9.80%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £644
90th Percentile £688 £700 £719
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% +2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 145 336 335
10th Percentile £18.33 £13.86 £9.80
25th Percentile £20.48 £27.50 £17.00
Median hourly rate £63.00 £50.00 £61.50
Median % change year-on-year +26.00% -18.70% +26.16%
75th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £70.30
90th Percentile £70.00 £77.50 £83.36
England median hourly rate £29.07 £36.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -19.25% -4.00% +53.06%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Job postings citing Test Automation as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the South West.

Job vacancy trend for Test Automation in the South West

Test Automation
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the South West

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Test Automation in the South West.

Daily rate trend for Test Automation in the South West

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in the South West over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in the South West

Test Automation
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Test Automation in the South West.

Hourly rate trend for Test Automation in the South West

Test Automation
Contract Job Locations in the South West

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 West region over the 6 months to 1 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
Bristol +6 17 £370 -34.22% 51
Gloucestershire +22 11 £697 +31.20% 50
Wiltshire +34 9 £575 +9.52% 2
Devon +14 3 £588 -2.08% 13
Somerset +5 3 £610 +1.67% 16
Dorset +4 2 £392 - 14
Test Automation
England

Test Automation
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South West 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 4 (8.70%) Confluence
2 1 (2.17%) Apache Spark
2 1 (2.17%) Appian
Applications
1 2 (4.35%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (2.17%) CATIA
Cloud Services
1 17 (36.96%) Azure
2 14 (30.43%) AWS
3 10 (21.74%) GCP
4 5 (10.87%) Azure DevOps
5 3 (6.52%) SaaS
6 1 (2.17%) Azure Pipelines
6 1 (2.17%) Dynamics 365
6 1 (2.17%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 2 (4.35%) iSCSI
1 2 (4.35%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (4.35%) MongoDB
2 1 (2.17%) CockroachDB
2 1 (2.17%) Oracle Reports
2 1 (2.17%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 8 (17.39%) JIRA
2 7 (15.22%) Cypress.io
2 7 (15.22%) Selenium
3 6 (13.04%) Cucumber
4 5 (10.87%) Jenkins
5 3 (6.52%) Git
5 3 (6.52%) NUnit
6 2 (4.35%) Postman
6 2 (4.35%) Visual Studio
7 1 (2.17%) TestRail
7 1 (2.17%) Zephyr
General
1 23 (50.00%) Social Skills
2 20 (43.48%) Public Sector
3 13 (28.26%) Finance
4 12 (26.09%) Manufacturing
5 11 (23.91%) Electronics
5 11 (23.91%) Marketing
5 11 (23.91%) Telecoms
6 5 (10.87%) Analytical Skills
7 3 (6.52%) Military
8 1 (2.17%) Aerospace
8 1 (2.17%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 9 (19.57%) Developer
2 8 (17.39%) Applications Support
3 7 (15.22%) Applications Developer
3 7 (15.22%) Applications Engineer
3 7 (15.22%) Applications Support Engineer
3 7 (15.22%) Azure Engineer
3 7 (15.22%) Senior
3 7 (15.22%) Support Engineer
4 6 (13.04%) Azure Developer
4 6 (13.04%) C# Application Developer
4 6 (13.04%) C# Developer
4 6 (13.04%) Site Reliability Engineer
5 4 (8.70%) Lead
5 4 (8.70%) Test Engineer
5 4 (8.70%) Test Leader
5 4 (8.70%) Test Manager
6 3 (6.52%) DevOps Engineer
6 3 (6.52%) Senior DevOps
6 3 (6.52%) Senior DevOps Engineer
6 3 (6.52%) ServiceNow Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (26.09%) .NET
2 9 (19.57%) CSS
2 9 (19.57%) HTML
3 4 (8.70%) AngularJS
4 3 (6.52%) Gherkin
4 3 (6.52%) Playwright
5 2 (4.35%) Flash
5 2 (4.35%) React
6 1 (2.17%) .NET Framework
6 1 (2.17%) CSS3
6 1 (2.17%) Django
6 1 (2.17%) Elastic Stack
6 1 (2.17%) GraphQL
6 1 (2.17%) HTML5
6 1 (2.17%) Jest
6 1 (2.17%) Kafka
6 1 (2.17%) Middleware
6 1 (2.17%) OpenTracing
6 1 (2.17%) REST
6 1 (2.17%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 8 (17.39%) Management Information System
2 2 (4.35%) Clustering
2 2 (4.35%) PKI
3 1 (2.17%) Data Centre
3 1 (2.17%) Distributed Systems
3 1 (2.17%) Mobile App
3 1 (2.17%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 12 (26.09%) Linux
2 5 (10.87%) Windows
3 2 (4.35%) VMS
3 2 (4.35%) Windows Server
3 2 (4.35%) Windows Server 2012
4 1 (2.17%) Android
4 1 (2.17%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (52.17%) CI/CD
2 20 (43.48%) Agile
3 16 (34.78%) Continuous Integration
3 16 (34.78%) DevOps
4 13 (28.26%) TDD
5 12 (26.09%) Continuous Delivery
6 11 (23.91%) Business Intelligence
6 11 (23.91%) Digital Marketing
6 11 (23.91%) Programme Management
6 11 (23.91%) Service Management
6 11 (23.91%) Software Engineering
6 11 (23.91%) Software Testing
7 10 (21.74%) Computer Science
8 9 (19.57%) Software Delivery
8 9 (19.57%) User Experience
8 9 (19.57%) Web Development
9 8 (17.39%) Service Delivery
10 7 (15.22%) Test Strategy
11 6 (13.04%) Site Reliability Engineering
11 6 (13.04%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 14 (30.43%) JavaScript
2 12 (26.09%) C#
3 8 (17.39%) SQL
4 7 (15.22%) Java
5 6 (13.04%) Python
6 4 (8.70%) Bash
7 3 (6.52%) PowerShell
7 3 (6.52%) Shell Script
7 3 (6.52%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 22 (47.83%) Security Cleared
2 16 (34.78%) SC Cleared
3 11 (23.91%) Degree
3 11 (23.91%) DV Cleared
4 8 (17.39%) Azure Certification
4 8 (17.39%) Computer Science Degree
5 4 (8.70%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (4.35%) CCNA
6 2 (4.35%) CCNP
6 2 (4.35%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (4.35%) ISTQB
6 2 (4.35%) Master's Degree
6 2 (4.35%) MCSA
6 2 (4.35%) MCSE
6 2 (4.35%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (4.35%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 1 (2.17%) HNC
7 1 (2.17%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (13.04%) QA
2 2 (4.35%) Accessibility
2 2 (4.35%) NCSC
System Software
1 7 (15.22%) Docker
2 2 (4.35%) VMware ESXi
2 2 (4.35%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (4.35%) VMware NSX
3 1 (2.17%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 6 (13.04%) Ansible
2 4 (8.70%) Kubernetes
3 2 (4.35%) Puppet
3 2 (4.35%) SCOM
3 2 (4.35%) Terraform
3 2 (4.35%) vCenter Server
4 1 (2.17%) OPNET
4 1 (2.17%) Prometheus
4 1 (2.17%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 11 (23.91%) SAP
2 8 (17.39%) Google
3 4 (8.70%) ServiceNow
4 3 (6.52%) Foundry
4 3 (6.52%) Microsoft
5 2 (4.35%) Atlassian
5 2 (4.35%) Cisco
5 2 (4.35%) Oracle
5 2 (4.35%) VMware
6 1 (2.17%) ESRI
6 1 (2.17%) Rapid7
6 1 (2.17%) Siemens