Test Automation Contract Job Trends in Surrey

Automated Testing
South East > Surrey

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Surrey requiring Test Automation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 12 24
Rank change year-on-year -2 +12 +7
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 45 29 33
As % of all contract jobs in Surrey 8.77% 9.73% 5.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.64% 10.86% 6.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 23 14 28
10th Percentile £401 £445 £357
25th Percentile £456 £475 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £588
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -14.89% +17.50%
75th Percentile £588 £669 £688
90th Percentile £625 £675 -
South East median daily rate £500 £513 £550
% change year-on-year -2.44% -6.82% -3.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 0 1
10th Percentile £60.00 - -
25th Percentile £62.50 - £31.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 - £32.50
75th Percentile - - £33.75
90th Percentile - - -
South East median hourly rate £67.50 £56.75 £38.50
% change year-on-year +18.94% +47.40% -27.36%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Surrey

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 Surrey.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 423 267 484
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Surrey 82.46% 89.60% 82.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 286 184 352
10th Percentile £204 £188 £213
25th Percentile £391 £280 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £470 £500
Median % change year-on-year +6.38% -6.00% -2.68%
75th Percentile £575 £544 £619
90th Percentile £688 £659 £700
South East median daily rate £513 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.50% - -1.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 26 55
10th Percentile £26.11 £20.63 £11.71
25th Percentile £55.00 £24.18 £13.25
Median hourly rate £66.99 £26.33 £20.50
Median % change year-on-year +154.47% +28.41% -54.44%
75th Percentile £70.00 £40.98 £53.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £62.50 £76.86
South East median hourly rate £52.50 £28.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year +87.50% -41.05% -5.00%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in Surrey

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

Test Automation job vacancy trend in Surrey

Test Automation
Daily Rate Trend in Surrey

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

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

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram in Surrey

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in Surrey over the 6 months to 1 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in Surrey

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Trend in Surrey

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

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

Test Automation
Contract Job Locations in Surrey

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 Surrey region over the 6 months to 1 May 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
Guildford - 18 £513 - 2
Staines -4 7 £500 -
Redhill -8 5 £550 +10.00%
Reigate +1 4 - -
Woking - 2 £475 -
Egham - 1 £360 -
Test Automation
South East

Test Automation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Surrey 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 4 (8.89%) Confluence
2 1 (2.22%) SharePoint
Applications
1 5 (11.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (8.89%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 13 (28.89%) OpenShift
2 7 (15.56%) Azure
3 6 (13.33%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (8.89%) Tricentis Tosca
5 2 (4.44%) Firebase
5 2 (4.44%) OCI
6 1 (2.22%) GitHub
6 1 (2.22%) GitHub Actions
6 1 (2.22%) Google Play
6 1 (2.22%) Microsoft 365
6 1 (2.22%) Power Automate
6 1 (2.22%) Power Platform
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (4.44%) MongoDB
2 1 (2.22%) Azure SQL Database
2 1 (2.22%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 13 (28.89%) SonarQube
2 9 (20.00%) JIRA
3 5 (11.11%) Postman
4 4 (8.89%) GitLab
4 4 (8.89%) Jenkins
4 4 (8.89%) NUnit
4 4 (8.89%) Selenium
5 3 (6.67%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 2 (4.44%) Android Studio
6 2 (4.44%) fastlane
6 2 (4.44%) Gradle
7 1 (2.22%) Bitbucket
7 1 (2.22%) Crashlytics
7 1 (2.22%) Git
7 1 (2.22%) JMeter
7 1 (2.22%) Tricentis qTest
7 1 (2.22%) Xcode
General
1 5 (11.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
1 5 (11.11%) Public Sector
2 2 (4.44%) Analytical Skills
3 1 (2.22%) Advertising
3 1 (2.22%) Finance
Job Titles
1 12 (26.67%) Developer
2 10 (22.22%) Senior
3 8 (17.78%) Test Engineer
4 7 (15.56%) Analyst
4 7 (15.56%) Pensions Analyst
5 6 (13.33%) Java Developer
6 5 (11.11%) Java Engineer
6 5 (11.11%) Software Engineer
7 4 (8.89%) Consultant
7 4 (8.89%) QA Engineer
7 4 (8.89%) Senior Test Automation Engineer
7 4 (8.89%) Senior Test Engineer
7 4 (8.89%) Software Test Engineer
7 4 (8.89%) Test Automation Engineer
8 3 (6.67%) Java Software Engineer
8 3 (6.67%) SC Cleared Java Developer
9 2 (4.44%) Lead
9 2 (4.44%) Robotic Process Automation Consultant
9 2 (4.44%) Senior Analyst
9 2 (4.44%) Senior Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (28.89%) AngularJS
1 13 (28.89%) Quarkus
2 7 (15.56%) RESTful
3 6 (13.33%) REST
4 4 (8.89%) Oracle Fusion
4 4 (8.89%) Playwright
5 2 (4.44%) .NET
5 2 (4.44%) ADO
6 1 (2.22%) Android Jetpack
6 1 (2.22%) Android SDK
6 1 (2.22%) Core Data
6 1 (2.22%) Flask
6 1 (2.22%) iOS SDK
6 1 (2.22%) Jetpack Compose
6 1 (2.22%) JSON
6 1 (2.22%) JSON Schema
6 1 (2.22%) Microsoft Graph
6 1 (2.22%) Retrofit
6 1 (2.22%) SOAP
6 1 (2.22%) UIKit
Miscellaneous
1 7 (15.56%) Product Ownership
2 5 (11.11%) Linux Command Line
3 4 (8.89%) Self-Motivation
3 4 (8.89%) Synthetic Data
3 4 (8.89%) Virtual Team
4 2 (4.44%) Mobile App
5 1 (2.22%) Algorithms
5 1 (2.22%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 5 (11.11%) Unix
2 2 (4.44%) Android
3 1 (2.22%) Apple iOS
3 1 (2.22%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (66.67%) Agile
2 23 (51.11%) Scrum
3 21 (46.67%) SDLC
4 16 (35.56%) Sprint Planning
5 14 (31.11%) DevSecOps
5 14 (31.11%) Software Engineering
6 13 (28.89%) Unit Testing
7 12 (26.67%) DevOps
7 12 (26.67%) Front End Development
7 12 (26.67%) Sprint Review
8 10 (22.22%) Acceptance Criteria
9 9 (20.00%) CI/CD
10 8 (17.78%) User Experience
10 8 (17.78%) User Stories
11 7 (15.56%) AI
12 6 (13.33%) API Testing
12 6 (13.33%) Problem-Solving
12 6 (13.33%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
13 5 (11.11%) Exploratory Testing
13 5 (11.11%) QA Automation
Programming Languages
1 17 (37.78%) Java
2 16 (35.56%) SQL
3 9 (20.00%) Python
4 6 (13.33%) C#
5 4 (8.89%) PL/SQL
6 3 (6.67%) T-SQL
7 1 (2.22%) JavaScript
7 1 (2.22%) Kotlin
7 1 (2.22%) PowerShell
7 1 (2.22%) Swift
7 1 (2.22%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 18 (40.00%) SC Cleared
1 18 (40.00%) Security Cleared
2 4 (8.89%) OCA
2 4 (8.89%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (42.22%) QA
2 4 (8.89%) GDPR
3 2 (4.44%) Accessibility
3 2 (4.44%) WCAG
4 1 (2.22%) GMP
Systems Management
1 13 (28.89%) Argo
1 13 (28.89%) Kubernetes
2 4 (8.89%) HP Quality Center
3 1 (2.22%) Ansible
Vendors
1 12 (26.67%) Red Hat
2 4 (8.89%) Oracle
3 2 (4.44%) Blue Prism
3 2 (4.44%) Dynatrace
4 1 (2.22%) Apple
4 1 (2.22%) Automation Anywhere
4 1 (2.22%) Google
4 1 (2.22%) Microsoft
4 1 (2.22%) Splunk
4 1 (2.22%) UiPath