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

6 months to
31 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 67 98 51
Rank change year-on-year +31 -47 -5
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 44 58 138
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South West 2.57% 1.79% 4.06%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.83% 2.17% 4.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 27 37 109
10th Percentile £343 £375 £360
25th Percentile £355 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -13.64% +4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £685 £600 £625
90th Percentile £710 £648 £710
England median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 8 4
10th Percentile - - £54.90
25th Percentile - £52.50 £69.75
Median hourly rate £40.84 £55.00 £78.00
Median % change year-on-year -25.75% -29.49% +50.00%
75th Percentile - £85.00 -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £71.00
% change year-on-year -8.33% -15.49% +18.33%

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 1,557 2,668 3,037
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 90.84% 82.32% 89.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 948 1,694 2,209
10th Percentile £220 £227 £313
25th Percentile £381 £405 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £525 £549
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% -4.37% +9.80%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £650
90th Percentile £688 £700 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 161 358 318
10th Percentile £18.13 £13.86 £9.80
25th Percentile £18.87 £29.75 £15.29
Median hourly rate £36.00 £55.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -34.55% -8.33% +27.66%
75th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £70.23
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £82.74
England median hourly rate £28.53 £37.50 £37.50
% change year-on-year -23.93% - +50.00%

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 31 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 31 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 +4 15 £370 -32.73% 66
Gloucestershire +25 13 £700 +27.27% 51
Wiltshire +37 9 £575 +43.75% 7
Devon +12 3 £588 -2.08% 15
Dorset +8 3 - - 11
Somerset +3 1 £450 -25.00% 17
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 (9.09%) Confluence
2 1 (2.27%) Camunda
Applications
1 2 (4.55%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (2.27%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 2 (4.55%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 17 (38.64%) Azure
2 14 (31.82%) AWS
3 12 (27.27%) GCP
4 3 (6.82%) Azure DevOps
4 3 (6.82%) OpenShift
4 3 (6.82%) SaaS
5 2 (4.55%) AWS CloudFormation
5 2 (4.55%) GitHub
6 1 (2.27%) Azure Pipelines
6 1 (2.27%) BrowserStack
6 1 (2.27%) Dynamics 365
6 1 (2.27%) GitHub Actions
6 1 (2.27%) npm
6 1 (2.27%) Pulumi
6 1 (2.27%) Sauce Labs
Communications & Networking
1 2 (4.55%) iSCSI
1 2 (4.55%) SAN
2 1 (2.27%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (4.55%) CockroachDB
1 2 (4.55%) MongoDB
1 2 (4.55%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 9 (20.45%) Cypress.io
2 8 (18.18%) JIRA
3 7 (15.91%) Jenkins
4 5 (11.36%) GitLab
5 4 (9.09%) Cucumber
5 4 (9.09%) Selenium
6 2 (4.55%) Git
6 2 (4.55%) SonarQube
6 2 (4.55%) Visual Studio
7 1 (2.27%) Appium
7 1 (2.27%) Snyk
7 1 (2.27%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (2.27%) webpack
7 1 (2.27%) Zephyr
General
1 26 (59.09%) Social Skills
2 15 (34.09%) Public Sector
3 12 (27.27%) Finance
4 9 (20.45%) Manufacturing
5 8 (18.18%) Electronics
5 8 (18.18%) Marketing
5 8 (18.18%) Telecoms
6 6 (13.64%) Analytical Skills
7 3 (6.82%) Military
8 2 (4.55%) Banking
9 1 (2.27%) Aerospace
9 1 (2.27%) Aviation
9 1 (2.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 11 (25.00%) Developer
2 8 (18.18%) Applications Support
3 7 (15.91%) Applications Developer
3 7 (15.91%) Applications Engineer
3 7 (15.91%) Applications Support Engineer
3 7 (15.91%) Support Engineer
4 6 (13.64%) Azure Developer
4 6 (13.64%) Azure Engineer
4 6 (13.64%) C# Application Developer
4 6 (13.64%) C# Developer
4 6 (13.64%) Site Reliability Engineer
5 5 (11.36%) Lead
5 5 (11.36%) QA Engineer
5 5 (11.36%) Tester
6 4 (9.09%) Senior
6 4 (9.09%) Test Leader
6 4 (9.09%) Test Manager
7 3 (6.82%) Analyst
7 3 (6.82%) Test Analyst
8 2 (4.55%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (20.45%) CSS
1 9 (20.45%) HTML
2 8 (18.18%) .NET
3 4 (9.09%) React
4 2 (4.55%) AngularJS
4 2 (4.55%) Django
4 2 (4.55%) Flash
4 2 (4.55%) Playwright
4 2 (4.55%) REST
5 1 (2.27%) Apache NiFi
5 1 (2.27%) Jest
5 1 (2.27%) PySpark
5 1 (2.27%) RESTful
5 1 (2.27%) Spring Boot
5 1 (2.27%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 8 (18.18%) Management Information System
2 2 (4.55%) Clustering
2 2 (4.55%) PKI
2 2 (4.55%) Product Ownership
3 1 (2.27%) Data Centre
3 1 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
3 1 (2.27%) Mobile App
3 1 (2.27%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 9 (20.45%) Linux
2 2 (4.55%) VMS
2 2 (4.55%) Windows
2 2 (4.55%) Windows Server
2 2 (4.55%) Windows Server 2012
3 1 (2.27%) Android
3 1 (2.27%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (54.55%) Agile
1 24 (54.55%) CI/CD
2 18 (40.91%) Continuous Integration
3 12 (27.27%) Software Testing
4 11 (25.00%) Continuous Delivery
4 11 (25.00%) DevOps
4 11 (25.00%) Service Management
4 11 (25.00%) Software Engineering
4 11 (25.00%) TDD
5 10 (22.73%) Computer Science
6 9 (20.45%) Containerisation
6 9 (20.45%) Software Delivery
6 9 (20.45%) User Experience
7 8 (18.18%) Business Intelligence
7 8 (18.18%) Digital Marketing
7 8 (18.18%) Programme Management
7 8 (18.18%) Service Delivery
7 8 (18.18%) Web Development
8 7 (15.91%) Problem-Solving
8 7 (15.91%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 17 (38.64%) JavaScript
2 9 (20.45%) C#
2 9 (20.45%) Python
3 7 (15.91%) Java
4 5 (11.36%) Bash
5 4 (9.09%) SQL
6 2 (4.55%) TypeScript
7 1 (2.27%) Groovy
7 1 (2.27%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 21 (47.73%) Security Cleared
2 12 (27.27%) DV Cleared
2 12 (27.27%) SC Cleared
3 11 (25.00%) Degree
4 9 (20.45%) Azure Certification
5 8 (18.18%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (9.09%) BPSS Clearance
6 4 (9.09%) ISTQB
7 2 (4.55%) CCNA
7 2 (4.55%) CCNP
7 2 (4.55%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (4.55%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 2 (4.55%) Master's Degree
7 2 (4.55%) MCSA
7 2 (4.55%) MCSE
7 2 (4.55%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (4.55%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 1 (2.27%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (20.45%) QA
2 2 (4.55%) NCSC
System Software
1 3 (6.82%) Docker
2 2 (4.55%) VMware ESXi
2 2 (4.55%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (4.55%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 5 (11.36%) Ansible
2 4 (9.09%) Kubernetes
2 4 (9.09%) Terraform
3 2 (4.55%) SCOM
3 2 (4.55%) vCenter Server
4 1 (2.27%) Grafana
4 1 (2.27%) Graphite
4 1 (2.27%) OPNET
4 1 (2.27%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 8 (18.18%) Google
1 8 (18.18%) SAP
2 4 (9.09%) Atlassian
2 4 (9.09%) Microsoft
3 3 (6.82%) Cisco
3 3 (6.82%) Oracle
4 2 (4.55%) IBM
4 2 (4.55%) VMware
5 1 (2.27%) ESRI
5 1 (2.27%) Rapid7
5 1 (2.27%) Salesforce
5 1 (2.27%) ServiceNow
5 1 (2.27%) Siemens