Test Automation Contract Job Trends in Southampton

Automated Testing
Hampshire > Southampton

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Southampton requiring Test Automation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
18 Oct 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 12 22 27
Rank change year-on-year +10 +5 -18
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 8 2 3
As % of all contract jobs in Southampton 5.67% 1.32% 1.52%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.72% 1.96% 1.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 6 2 1
10th Percentile £488 £361 -
25th Percentile £491 £369 -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £388 £450
Median % change year-on-year +35.48% -13.89% -16.28%
75th Percentile £625 £406 -
90th Percentile £650 £414 -
Hampshire median daily rate £500 £538 £525
% change year-on-year -6.98% +2.38% -

All Process and Methodology Skills
Southampton

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 Southampton.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 119 102 172
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Southampton 84.40% 67.55% 87.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 75 71 127
10th Percentile £170 £200 £263
25th Percentile £342 £350 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £525
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -14.29% +3.96%
75th Percentile £550 £588 £614
90th Percentile £665 £650 £650
Hampshire median daily rate £525 £570 £535
% change year-on-year -7.89% +6.54% +1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 2 7
10th Percentile £22.50 - £19.25
25th Percentile £39.63 - £24.13
Median hourly rate £71.00 £80.00 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.25% +196.30% +69.70%
75th Percentile £74.00 - £34.13
90th Percentile £90.40 - £36.20
Hampshire median hourly rate £20.71 £70.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year -70.41% +33.33% +16.67%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in Southampton

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

Test Automation job vacancy trend in Southampton

Test Automation
Daily Rate Trend in Southampton

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Southampton citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram in Southampton

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in Southampton over the 6 months to 18 October 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in Southampton

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Trend in Southampton

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Southampton citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Southampton 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:

Application Platforms
1 1 (12.50%) Confluence
Communications & Networking
1 3 (37.50%) BGP
1 3 (37.50%) Cisco ASA
1 3 (37.50%) Firewall
1 3 (37.50%) MPLS
1 3 (37.50%) Multicast
1 3 (37.50%) OSPF
1 3 (37.50%) TCP/IP
1 3 (37.50%) VLAN
1 3 (37.50%) VPN
1 3 (37.50%) Wireshark
2 1 (12.50%) NAS
2 1 (12.50%) SAN
2 1 (12.50%) VSAN
Development Applications
1 1 (12.50%) HP UFT
1 1 (12.50%) JIRA
1 1 (12.50%) Katalon Studio
1 1 (12.50%) Selenium
1 1 (12.50%) TestRail
General
1 3 (37.50%) Social Skills
2 2 (25.00%) Telecoms
3 1 (12.50%) Finance
3 1 (12.50%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 4 (50.00%) Senior
1 4 (50.00%) Tester
2 3 (37.50%) Senior Tester
3 2 (25.00%) Analyst
3 2 (25.00%) Business Analyst
3 2 (25.00%) Infrastructure Analyst
3 2 (25.00%) Infrastructure Business Analyst
3 2 (25.00%) Validation Tester
4 1 (12.50%) Senior Analyst
4 1 (12.50%) Senior Business Analyst
4 1 (12.50%) Senior Infrastructure Analyst
4 1 (12.50%) Server Engineer
4 1 (12.50%) Storage Engineer
4 1 (12.50%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (12.50%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 2 (25.00%) Hybrid Cloud
2 1 (12.50%) Data Centre
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (37.50%) Agile
1 3 (37.50%) CI/CD
1 3 (37.50%) Test Scripting
2 2 (25.00%) Business Analysis
2 2 (25.00%) End-to-End Testing
2 2 (25.00%) Manual Testing
2 2 (25.00%) Microservices
2 2 (25.00%) Project Delivery
2 2 (25.00%) Scenario Testing
2 2 (25.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
2 2 (25.00%) Test Planning
2 2 (25.00%) Test Strategy
2 2 (25.00%) Validation
3 1 (12.50%) BDD
3 1 (12.50%) Continuous Improvement
3 1 (12.50%) Data Management
3 1 (12.50%) Process Improvement
3 1 (12.50%) Scrum
3 1 (12.50%) TDD
3 1 (12.50%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 4 (50.00%) Bash
2 3 (37.50%) Python
3 1 (12.50%) PowerShell
3 1 (12.50%) SQL
Qualifications
1 3 (37.50%) Security Cleared
2 2 (25.00%) CCIE
2 2 (25.00%) CCNP
2 2 (25.00%) Cisco Certification
3 1 (12.50%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (12.50%) QA
System Software
1 1 (12.50%) Firmware
1 1 (12.50%) VMware ESXi
1 1 (12.50%) VMware Infrastructure
1 1 (12.50%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 3 (37.50%) Ansible
1 3 (37.50%) Iperf
1 3 (37.50%) Nmap
2 1 (12.50%) vCenter Server
2 1 (12.50%) VxRail
Vendors
1 3 (37.50%) CheckPoint
1 3 (37.50%) Cisco
1 3 (37.50%) Fortinet
1 3 (37.50%) Palo Alto
1 3 (37.50%) SolarWinds
2 1 (12.50%) EMC
2 1 (12.50%) VMware
5 Test Automation jobs in Southampton