Test Automation Contracts in the Thames Valley

Automated Testing
South East > Thames Valley

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the Thames Valley with a requirement for Test Automation skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Test Automation over the 6 months to 5 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
5 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 55 60 62
Rank change year-on-year +5 +2 -18
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 90 99 119
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 3.39% 3.42% 3.38%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.89% 3.72% 3.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 44 72 99
10th Percentile £463 £363 £350
25th Percentile £505 £413 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £563 £515
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% +9.22% +14.44%
75th Percentile £650 £619 £575
90th Percentile £688 £675 £613
South East median daily rate £550 £575 £503
% change year-on-year -4.35% +14.43% +11.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £68.08
Median hourly rate - - £68.17
75th Percentile - - £68.25
90th Percentile - - -
South East median hourly rate £38.50 £54.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year -29.36% -0.91% +25.71%

All Process and Methodology Skills
Thames Valley

Test Automation is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies advertised in the Thames Valley with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 2,313 2,661 3,138
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 87.02% 91.82% 89.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,304 1,850 2,115
10th Percentile £213 £322 £225
25th Percentile £370 £413 £393
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £480
Median % change year-on-year - +4.17% +6.67%
75th Percentile £600 £604 £576
90th Percentile £675 £688 £650
South East median daily rate £500 £510 £500
% change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 168 64 87
10th Percentile £14.25 £18.50 £10.77
25th Percentile £19.25 £22.88 £12.15
Median hourly rate £45.00 £51.25 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.20% +192.86% -16.86%
75th Percentile £65.00 £66.21 £25.36
90th Percentile £85.65 £79.19 £66.75
South East median hourly rate £47.50 £49.00 £21.95
% change year-on-year -3.06% +123.23% -20.51%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Job postings citing Test Automation as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

Job vacancy trend for Test Automation in the Thames Valley

Test Automation
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Test Automation in the Thames Valley.

Daily rate trend for Test Automation in the Thames Valley

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 5 May 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in the Thames Valley

Test Automation
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Test Automation in the Thames Valley.

Hourly rate trend for Test Automation in the Thames Valley

Test Automation
Contract Job Locations in the Thames Valley

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 Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 5 May 2024. 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
Berkshire +6 79 £600 +12.94% 19
Buckinghamshire +1 9 £600 - 14
Oxfordshire +8 2 £488 - 8
Test Automation
South East

Test Automation
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the Thames Valley by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 12 (13.33%) Apache
2 11 (12.22%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (2.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (1.11%) Confluence
4 1 (1.11%) Jupyter
4 1 (1.11%) Microsoft Exchange
Business Applications
1 1 (1.11%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 41 (45.56%) Azure
2 18 (20.00%) AWS
3 17 (18.89%) Azure DevOps
4 11 (12.22%) Azure Monitor
5 6 (6.67%) Azure Cosmos DB
5 6 (6.67%) Azure Data Factory
5 6 (6.67%) Azure Service Bus
5 6 (6.67%) PaaS
6 5 (5.56%) Azure Key Vault
7 4 (4.44%) Azure Cognitive Search
7 4 (4.44%) Azure Functions
7 4 (4.44%) Serverless
8 3 (3.33%) Azure AKS
8 3 (3.33%) Azure API Management
8 3 (3.33%) Azure Logic Apps
9 2 (2.22%) Dynamics 365
9 2 (2.22%) Entra ID
9 2 (2.22%) GitHub
9 2 (2.22%) OpenShift
10 1 (1.11%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 11 (12.22%) BGP
1 11 (12.22%) Ethernet VPN
1 11 (12.22%) MPLS
1 11 (12.22%) Radio Access Network
1 11 (12.22%) VPN
2 2 (2.22%) Firewall
3 1 (1.11%) DNS
3 1 (1.11%) SNA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (14.44%) NoSQL
2 12 (13.33%) MongoDB
3 11 (12.22%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (3.33%) Relational Database
5 2 (2.22%) Azure SQL Database
6 1 (1.11%) Data Lake
6 1 (1.11%) MySQL
6 1 (1.11%) Neo4j
6 1 (1.11%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 38 (42.22%) Selenium
2 28 (31.11%) Jenkins
2 28 (31.11%) JIRA
3 27 (30.00%) REST Assured
4 26 (28.89%) Cucumber
5 25 (27.78%) GitLab
6 24 (26.67%) SonarQube
7 16 (17.78%) Git
8 14 (15.56%) Robot Framework
9 12 (13.33%) TestRail
10 6 (6.67%) Postman
10 6 (6.67%) SpecFlow
11 4 (4.44%) TestLink
12 3 (3.33%) WebDriver
13 2 (2.22%) Appium
14 1 (1.11%) Android Studio
14 1 (1.11%) Cypress.io
14 1 (1.11%) MSTest
14 1 (1.11%) TeamCity
14 1 (1.11%) TestNG
General
1 38 (42.22%) Analytical Skills
2 35 (38.89%) Social Skills
3 20 (22.22%) Law
4 13 (14.44%) Police
5 7 (7.78%) Telecoms
6 2 (2.22%) Public Sector
7 1 (1.11%) Finance
7 1 (1.11%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 17 (18.89%) Java Engineer
2 16 (17.78%) Developer
3 11 (12.22%) Test Engineer
4 10 (11.11%) Network Engineer
4 10 (11.11%) Senior
5 7 (7.78%) Lead
5 7 (7.78%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
5 7 (7.78%) Software Engineer
5 7 (7.78%) Tester
6 6 (6.67%) Analyst
6 6 (6.67%) C# Developer
6 6 (6.67%) Ericsson Engineer
6 6 (6.67%) Java Software Engineer
6 6 (6.67%) Test Manager
7 5 (5.56%) Designer
7 5 (5.56%) Java Developer
7 5 (5.56%) Lead Designer
7 5 (5.56%) Senior Java Engineer
7 5 (5.56%) Senior Java Software Engineer
7 5 (5.56%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (41.11%) REST
2 25 (27.78%) Java EE
3 14 (15.56%) ARM Templates
4 11 (12.22%) NETCONF
4 11 (12.22%) RESTCONF
4 11 (12.22%) SOAP
4 11 (12.22%) YANG
5 10 (11.11%) HTML
6 7 (7.78%) CSS
7 6 (6.67%) AngularJS
7 6 (6.67%) Node.js
8 4 (4.44%) XML
9 3 (3.33%) .NET
9 3 (3.33%) React
9 3 (3.33%) Web Services
10 2 (2.22%) .NET Framework
10 2 (2.22%) jQuery
10 2 (2.22%) JSON
10 2 (2.22%) Swagger
10 2 (2.22%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 9 (10.00%) Product Ownership
2 4 (4.44%) Data Protection Act
3 3 (3.33%) Client/Server
3 3 (3.33%) Life Science
4 2 (2.22%) NHS
5 1 (1.11%) Cloud Native
5 1 (1.11%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (1.11%) Greenfield Project
5 1 (1.11%) Linux Command Line
5 1 (1.11%) Management Information System
5 1 (1.11%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 8 (8.89%) Linux
2 3 (3.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 3 (3.33%) Windows
2 3 (3.33%) Windows Server
3 2 (2.22%) Android
4 1 (1.11%) Apple iOS
4 1 (1.11%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 53 (58.89%) DevOps
2 37 (41.11%) Agile
3 33 (36.67%) CI/CD
4 29 (32.22%) Continuous Integration
4 29 (32.22%) Problem-Solving
5 27 (30.00%) Containerisation
5 27 (30.00%) Decision-Making
6 26 (28.89%) Software Engineering
6 26 (28.89%) Technical Leadership
7 25 (27.78%) Software Architecture
8 24 (26.67%) Scrum
9 19 (21.11%) Unit Testing
10 18 (20.00%) Security Testing
11 17 (18.89%) Infrastructure as Code
12 16 (17.78%) Integration Testing
12 16 (17.78%) Performance Testing
13 15 (16.67%) Configuration Management
14 13 (14.44%) Software Testing
14 13 (14.44%) Workflow
15 12 (13.33%) Regression Testing
Programming Languages
1 33 (36.67%) Java
2 21 (23.33%) Python
3 18 (20.00%) SQL
4 10 (11.11%) C#
5 8 (8.89%) JavaScript
6 7 (7.78%) PowerShell
7 5 (5.56%) PHP
8 3 (3.33%) T-SQL
8 3 (3.33%) VBScript
9 1 (1.11%) Bash
9 1 (1.11%) Bicep
9 1 (1.11%) C
9 1 (1.11%) Go
9 1 (1.11%) Scala
9 1 (1.11%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 35 (38.89%) Security Cleared
2 30 (33.33%) SC Cleared
3 7 (7.78%) ISTQB
4 6 (6.67%) AAT
5 4 (4.44%) DV Cleared
6 3 (3.33%) Degree
7 2 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (2.22%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (2.22%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 1 (1.11%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (15.56%) QA
2 3 (3.33%) HL7
3 2 (2.22%) Accessibility
4 1 (1.11%) Data Quality
System Software
1 25 (27.78%) Docker
2 4 (4.44%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (3.33%) Active Directory
4 1 (1.11%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 27 (30.00%) Ansible
2 18 (20.00%) Terraform
3 17 (18.89%) Kubernetes
4 12 (13.33%) Docker Swarm
4 12 (13.33%) Podman
5 2 (2.22%) Progress Chef
5 2 (2.22%) Puppet
6 1 (1.11%) Rancher
6 1 (1.11%) vRealize
6 1 (1.11%) VxRail
Vendors
1 10 (11.11%) Microsoft
2 6 (6.67%) Ericsson
3 5 (5.56%) VMware
4 3 (3.33%) ServiceNow
5 2 (2.22%) Adobe
5 2 (2.22%) Atlassian
5 2 (2.22%) Databricks
5 2 (2.22%) Red Hat
6 1 (1.11%) BMC
6 1 (1.11%) Dell
6 1 (1.11%) Google
6 1 (1.11%) LogRhythm
6 1 (1.11%) Oracle
6 1 (1.11%) Remedy
6 1 (1.11%) SolarWinds