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 25 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 42 20
Rank change year-on-year +11 -22 +18
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 38 7 40
As % of all contract jobs in Surrey 5.79% 1.97% 7.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.88% 2.09% 8.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 18 4 30
10th Percentile £342 £344 £70
25th Percentile £413 £364 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £393 £450
Median % change year-on-year +21.02% -12.78% -
75th Percentile £550 £424 £525
90th Percentile £597 £440 £538
South East median daily rate £448 £475 £525
% change year-on-year -5.79% -9.52% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 0 1
10th Percentile £69.63 - -
25th Percentile - - £57.50
Median hourly rate £70.00 - £60.00
75th Percentile - - £62.50
90th Percentile - - -
South East median hourly rate £70.00 £50.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year +40.00% - -11.11%

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 552 335 458
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Surrey 84.15% 94.37% 85.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 350 222 327
10th Percentile £203 £204 £203
25th Percentile £357 £250 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £478 £463
Median % change year-on-year -2.72% +3.35% -11.90%
75th Percentile £571 £550 £551
90th Percentile £638 £600 £643
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £511
% change year-on-year +5.00% -2.07% -1.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 36 32
10th Percentile £14.08 £16.49 £13.25
25th Percentile £30.75 £25.15 £30.00
Median hourly rate £62.50 £55.00 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.64% -4.35% -0.84%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £75.00
90th Percentile - - £76.86
South East median hourly rate £50.00 £22.13 £57.43
% change year-on-year +125.94% -61.46% +7.34%

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 25 September 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in Surrey

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Automation in Surrey over the 6 months to 25 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Automation in Surrey

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 25 September 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 22 £511 +38.18% 8
Staines -10 9 £475 +26.67% 1
Egham - 2 £360 - 1
Redhill - 2 £550 - 3
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 (5.26%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (5.26%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 18 (47.37%) OpenShift
2 8 (21.05%) Azure
3 7 (18.42%) AWS
3 7 (18.42%) GCP
4 2 (5.26%) Microsoft 365
4 2 (5.26%) Power Automate
4 2 (5.26%) Power Platform
5 1 (2.63%) Azure DevOps
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (18.42%) PostgreSQL
1 7 (18.42%) Relational Database
2 1 (2.63%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 18 (47.37%) SonarQube
2 8 (21.05%) Git
3 4 (10.53%) Postman
4 1 (2.63%) Bitbucket
4 1 (2.63%) Cucumber
4 1 (2.63%) JIRA
4 1 (2.63%) NUnit
4 1 (2.63%) Selenium
General
1 9 (23.68%) Social Skills
2 8 (21.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 8 (21.05%) Public Sector
3 2 (5.26%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (2.63%) Advertising
4 1 (2.63%) Finance
Job Titles
1 11 (28.95%) Developer
2 8 (21.05%) Java Engineer
3 7 (18.42%) Java Developer
3 7 (18.42%) Lead
3 7 (18.42%) Technical Leader
4 4 (10.53%) Software Engineer
4 4 (10.53%) Test Engineer
5 3 (7.89%) Java Software Engineer
5 3 (7.89%) Software Developer
5 3 (7.89%) Software Test Engineer
5 3 (7.89%) Tester
6 2 (5.26%) Analyst
6 2 (5.26%) Cloud Developer
6 2 (5.26%) Consultant
6 2 (5.26%) Pensions Analyst
6 2 (5.26%) Power Platform Consultant
6 2 (5.26%) SC Cleared Java Developer
6 2 (5.26%) Senior
7 1 (2.63%) Test Automation Developer
7 1 (2.63%) Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (47.37%) AngularJS
1 18 (47.37%) Quarkus
2 11 (28.95%) RESTful
3 7 (18.42%) CSS
3 7 (18.42%) Django
3 7 (18.42%) HTML
3 7 (18.42%) OAuth
3 7 (18.42%) OAuth2
3 7 (18.42%) OpenID
3 7 (18.42%) React
4 4 (10.53%) REST
5 2 (5.26%) Microsoft Graph
6 1 (2.63%) Gherkin
6 1 (2.63%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 6 (15.79%) Product Ownership
2 5 (13.16%) Cloud Native
3 3 (7.89%) Self-Motivation
4 2 (5.26%) Linux Command Line
4 2 (5.26%) Virtual Team
5 1 (2.63%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 2 (5.26%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 35 (92.11%) Agile
2 22 (57.89%) Scrum
2 22 (57.89%) SDLC
3 20 (52.63%) Sprint Planning
4 18 (47.37%) DevSecOps
4 18 (47.37%) Software Engineering
4 18 (47.37%) Unit Testing
5 17 (44.74%) Front End Development
5 17 (44.74%) Sprint Review
6 11 (28.95%) Code Quality
7 10 (26.32%) CI/CD
8 9 (23.68%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
9 8 (21.05%) DevOps
9 8 (21.05%) Infrastructure Automation
9 8 (21.05%) Mentoring
9 8 (21.05%) Microservices
9 8 (21.05%) Problem-Solving
10 7 (18.42%) Analytics
10 7 (18.42%) API Development
10 7 (18.42%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 18 (47.37%) Java
2 10 (26.32%) Python
3 7 (18.42%) JavaScript
4 3 (7.89%) SQL
5 1 (2.63%) C#
5 1 (2.63%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 21 (55.26%) SC Cleared
1 21 (55.26%) Security Cleared
2 5 (13.16%) Computer Science Degree
2 5 (13.16%) Degree
2 5 (13.16%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (71.05%) QA
2 8 (21.05%) Accessibility
System Software
1 7 (18.42%) Docker
Systems Management
1 25 (65.79%) Kubernetes
2 18 (47.37%) Argo
3 1 (2.63%) Ansible
Vendors
1 17 (44.74%) Red Hat
2 2 (5.26%) Microsoft
3 1 (2.63%) Tagetik