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 27 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 15 29
Rank change year-on-year -22 +14 0
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 19 35 41
As % of all contract jobs in Surrey 4.40% 9.49% 6.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.26% 10.70% 7.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 12 19 34
10th Percentile £376 £440 £375
25th Percentile £405 £475 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £425
Median % change year-on-year - +17.65% -21.30%
75th Percentile £541 £588 £560
90th Percentile £550 £675 £658
South East median daily rate £500 £513 £550
% change year-on-year -2.44% -6.82% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 1
10th Percentile £56.50 - -
25th Percentile £58.75 - £31.25
Median hourly rate £60.00 - £32.50
75th Percentile - - £33.75
90th Percentile - - -
South East median hourly rate £60.00 £75.60 £32.50
% change year-on-year -20.63% +132.60% -50.00%

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 361 327 566
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Surrey 83.56% 88.62% 84.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 236 207 436
10th Percentile £204 £203 £200
25th Percentile £329 £265 £355
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -2.44%
75th Percentile £575 £550 £594
90th Percentile £683 £661 £675
South East median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% +1.49%
Number of hourly rates quoted 45 15 41
10th Percentile £25.15 £15.95 £13.25
25th Percentile £27.50 £22.24 £16.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 £24.18 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +127.46% -51.64% +11.11%
75th Percentile £57.50 £26.50 £76.53
90th Percentile £75.00 £31.95 £77.50
South East median hourly rate £23.58 £42.88 £48.40
% change year-on-year -45.02% -11.40% +9.38%

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 27 January 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 27 January 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
Staines -1 7 £500 +257.14%
Guildford - 5 £330 - 8
Woking - 3 £450 - 6
Reigate +3 2 - - 2
Redhill -4 2 £538 +7.50%
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 2 (10.53%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (10.53%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (10.53%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 7 (36.84%) Tricentis Tosca
2 4 (21.05%) OpenShift
3 2 (10.53%) Azure
3 2 (10.53%) OCI
4 1 (5.26%) Datadog
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (10.53%) Azure SQL Database
1 2 (10.53%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 9 (47.37%) JIRA
2 7 (36.84%) GitLab
3 4 (21.05%) SonarQube
4 2 (10.53%) Jenkins
5 1 (5.26%) Android Studio
5 1 (5.26%) Cucumber
5 1 (5.26%) Gradle
5 1 (5.26%) JMeter
5 1 (5.26%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 1 (5.26%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 2 (10.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 1 (5.26%) Finance
2 1 (5.26%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 7 (36.84%) QA Engineer
2 6 (31.58%) Developer
3 4 (21.05%) Java Developer
3 4 (21.05%) Lead
4 3 (15.79%) QA Leader
4 3 (15.79%) Senior
4 3 (15.79%) Senior QA Engineer
5 2 (10.53%) Analyst
5 2 (10.53%) Pensions Analyst
5 2 (10.53%) Tester
6 1 (5.26%) .NET Developer
6 1 (5.26%) Android Developer
6 1 (5.26%) Azure Developer
6 1 (5.26%) Cloud Developer
6 1 (5.26%) Manual Tester
6 1 (5.26%) QA Tester
6 1 (5.26%) SQL Developer
6 1 (5.26%) SQL Server Developer
6 1 (5.26%) Team Leader
6 1 (5.26%) Test Team Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (36.84%) Oracle Fusion
2 4 (21.05%) AngularJS
2 4 (21.05%) Quarkus
3 2 (10.53%) .NET
3 2 (10.53%) ADO
4 1 (5.26%) Flask
4 1 (5.26%) Spring
4 1 (5.26%) Spring Batch
4 1 (5.26%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 7 (36.84%) Synthetic Data
2 2 (10.53%) Linux Command Line
3 1 (5.26%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 2 (10.53%) Unix
2 1 (5.26%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (73.68%) Agile
2 9 (47.37%) QA Automation
3 8 (42.11%) Acceptance Criteria
3 8 (42.11%) Test Planning
4 7 (36.84%) CI/CD
4 7 (36.84%) Data Management
4 7 (36.84%) Data Privacy
4 7 (36.84%) Data Strategy
4 7 (36.84%) DevOps
4 7 (36.84%) Digital Transformation Programme
4 7 (36.84%) ERP
4 7 (36.84%) Problem-Solving
4 7 (36.84%) User Experience
4 7 (36.84%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
4 7 (36.84%) Validation
5 6 (31.58%) Scrum
5 6 (31.58%) SDLC
6 5 (26.32%) Software Engineering
7 4 (21.05%) AI
7 4 (21.05%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 13 (68.42%) SQL
2 7 (36.84%) PL/SQL
3 6 (31.58%) Java
4 2 (10.53%) Python
5 1 (5.26%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 7 (36.84%) OCA
1 7 (36.84%) Oracle Certification
1 7 (36.84%) SC Cleared
1 7 (36.84%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (73.68%) QA
2 7 (36.84%) GDPR
3 1 (5.26%) GMP
3 1 (5.26%) SLA
Systems Management
1 4 (21.05%) Argo
1 4 (21.05%) Kubernetes
2 2 (10.53%) HP Quality Center
Vendors
1 7 (36.84%) Oracle
2 4 (21.05%) Red Hat