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 10 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 10 25
Rank change year-on-year -15 +15 +7
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 27 36 42
As % of all contract jobs in Surrey 6.04% 11.54% 6.90%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 7.48% 12.63% 8.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 20 37
10th Percentile £378 £438 £392
25th Percentile £406 £472 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -9.09% +46.67%
75th Percentile £550 £556 £638
90th Percentile £573 £675 £688
South East median daily rate £500 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -9.09% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 0 1
10th Percentile £57.50 - -
25th Percentile - - £31.25
Median hourly rate £60.00 - £32.50
75th Percentile £65.63 - £33.75
90th Percentile £67.50 - -
South East median hourly rate £60.00 £52.28 £53.75
% change year-on-year +14.77% -2.74% -14.00%

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 361 285 498
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Surrey 80.76% 91.35% 81.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 254 186 361
10th Percentile £207 £181 £200
25th Percentile £400 £252 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -1.48%
75th Percentile £585 £538 £575
90th Percentile £688 £658 £688
South East median daily rate £500 £510 £500
% change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -1.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 19 49
10th Percentile £24.37 £20.24 £12.34
25th Percentile £27.50 - £16.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £24.18 £26.73
Median % change year-on-year +168.82% -9.54% -40.60%
75th Percentile £71.99 £31.50 £71.90
90th Percentile £77.97 £65.67 £76.53
South East median hourly rate £29.61 £35.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -15.40% -6.67% -16.67%

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 10 March 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 10 March 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 - 8 £330 - 9
Staines -2 7 £500 +257.14%
Reigate +1 4 - -
Woking - 3 £450 - 3
Redhill -11 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 4 (14.81%) Confluence
Applications
1 4 (14.81%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (7.41%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 7 (25.93%) OpenShift
1 7 (25.93%) Tricentis Tosca
2 4 (14.81%) Azure
3 2 (7.41%) Azure DevOps
3 2 (7.41%) OCI
4 1 (3.70%) Datadog
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (7.41%) Azure SQL Database
1 2 (7.41%) SQL Server
2 1 (3.70%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 12 (44.44%) JIRA
2 7 (25.93%) GitLab
2 7 (25.93%) SonarQube
3 3 (11.11%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 2 (7.41%) Jenkins
4 2 (7.41%) NUnit
4 2 (7.41%) Selenium
5 1 (3.70%) Android Studio
5 1 (3.70%) Cucumber
5 1 (3.70%) Gradle
5 1 (3.70%) JMeter
5 1 (3.70%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 2 (7.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 1 (3.70%) Finance
2 1 (3.70%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 8 (29.63%) Developer
2 7 (25.93%) QA Engineer
2 7 (25.93%) Senior
3 5 (18.52%) Java Developer
4 4 (14.81%) Analyst
4 4 (14.81%) Lead
4 4 (14.81%) Pensions Analyst
5 3 (11.11%) QA Leader
5 3 (11.11%) Senior QA Engineer
6 2 (7.41%) Senior Analyst
6 2 (7.41%) Senior Test Analyst
6 2 (7.41%) Senior Test Automation Engineer
6 2 (7.41%) Senior Test Engineer
6 2 (7.41%) Software Engineer
6 2 (7.41%) Test Analyst
6 2 (7.41%) Test Automation Engineer
6 2 (7.41%) Test Engineer
6 2 (7.41%) Tester
7 1 (3.70%) Azure Developer
7 1 (3.70%) Cloud Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (25.93%) AngularJS
1 7 (25.93%) Oracle Fusion
1 7 (25.93%) Quarkus
2 2 (7.41%) .NET
2 2 (7.41%) ADO
2 2 (7.41%) Playwright
3 1 (3.70%) Flask
3 1 (3.70%) JSON
3 1 (3.70%) JSON Schema
3 1 (3.70%) Spring
3 1 (3.70%) Spring Batch
3 1 (3.70%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 7 (25.93%) Synthetic Data
2 2 (7.41%) Linux Command Line
3 1 (3.70%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 2 (7.41%) Unix
2 1 (3.70%) Android
2 1 (3.70%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (70.37%) Agile
2 11 (40.74%) Scrum
2 11 (40.74%) SDLC
3 10 (37.04%) DevOps
4 9 (33.33%) QA Automation
5 8 (29.63%) Acceptance Criteria
5 8 (29.63%) CI/CD
5 8 (29.63%) Software Engineering
5 8 (29.63%) Test Planning
6 7 (25.93%) Data Management
6 7 (25.93%) Data Strategy
6 7 (25.93%) DevSecOps
6 7 (25.93%) Digital Transformation Programme
6 7 (25.93%) ERP
6 7 (25.93%) Problem-Solving
6 7 (25.93%) Sprint Planning
6 7 (25.93%) Sprint Review
6 7 (25.93%) Unit Testing
6 7 (25.93%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
6 7 (25.93%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 15 (55.56%) SQL
2 9 (33.33%) Java
3 7 (25.93%) PL/SQL
4 3 (11.11%) Python
4 3 (11.11%) T-SQL
5 2 (7.41%) C#
Qualifications
1 10 (37.04%) SC Cleared
1 10 (37.04%) Security Cleared
2 7 (25.93%) OCA
2 7 (25.93%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (66.67%) QA
2 7 (25.93%) GDPR
3 1 (3.70%) GMP
3 1 (3.70%) SLA
Systems Management
1 7 (25.93%) Argo
1 7 (25.93%) Kubernetes
2 4 (14.81%) HP Quality Center
Vendors
1 7 (25.93%) Oracle
1 7 (25.93%) Red Hat
2 1 (3.70%) Splunk