Test Automation Contracts in the Thames Valley

Automated Testing
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the Thames Valley requiring Test Automation skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Test Automation over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 31 56 61
Rank change year-on-year +25 +5 -2
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 87 91 96
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 5.76% 3.39% 3.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.20% 3.89% 3.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 49 44 70
10th Percentile £373 £463 £350
25th Percentile £475 £505 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £600 £564
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% +6.43% +12.75%
75th Percentile £700 £650 £624
90th Percentile - £688 £675
South East median daily rate £513 £550 £570
% change year-on-year -6.82% -3.51% +14.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 0
10th Percentile £38.70 - -
25th Percentile £51.38 - -
Median hourly rate £74.00 - -
75th Percentile £76.35 - -
90th Percentile £76.85 - -
South East median hourly rate £56.75 £38.50 £53.00
% change year-on-year +47.40% -27.36% -3.64%

All Process and Methodology Skills
Thames Valley

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 the Thames Valley.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,403 2,340 2,682
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 92.85% 87.12% 91.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 851 1,306 1,860
10th Percentile £300 £213 £320
25th Percentile £413 £369 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - +5.26%
75th Percentile £605 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
South East median daily rate £500 £500 £508
% change year-on-year - -1.53% +1.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 170 62
10th Percentile £14.20 £15.30 £18.60
25th Percentile £14.54 £19.48 £24.86
Median hourly rate £32.05 £45.00 £51.25
Median % change year-on-year -28.78% -12.20% +192.86%
75th Percentile £62.44 £64.57 £66.21
90th Percentile £78.03 £85.65 £79.19
South East median hourly rate £28.00 £47.50 £50.00
% change year-on-year -41.05% -5.00% +122.22%

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 1 May 2025.

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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Automation in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram 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 1 May 2025. 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 +20 80 £638 +6.25% 56
Buckinghamshire +13 6 £375 -37.50% 39
Oxfordshire +4 1 £475 -2.56% 35
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 1 (1.15%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 1 (1.15%) Infor CloudSuite
Cloud Services
1 48 (55.17%) Azure
2 19 (21.84%) AWS
3 17 (19.54%) Azure DevOps
4 10 (11.49%) Azure Data Factory
5 8 (9.20%) Azure Cosmos DB
6 7 (8.05%) Azure API Management
7 6 (6.90%) Azure Service Bus
7 6 (6.90%) Tricentis Tosca
8 5 (5.75%) GCP
9 3 (3.45%) SaaS
10 2 (2.30%) Azure Monitor
10 2 (2.30%) Azure Stack
10 2 (2.30%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 2 (2.30%) Entra ID
11 1 (1.15%) Azure AKS
11 1 (1.15%) Azure App Service
11 1 (1.15%) Azure Functions
11 1 (1.15%) Azure Key Vault
11 1 (1.15%) Azure Storage
11 1 (1.15%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 6 (6.90%) BGP
1 6 (6.90%) MPLS
2 5 (5.75%) TCP/IP
2 5 (5.75%) VLAN
3 1 (1.15%) Ethernet VPN
3 1 (1.15%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (4.60%) NoSQL
2 3 (3.45%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (2.30%) MS Access
3 2 (2.30%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (2.30%) SQL Server
4 1 (1.15%) MongoDB
4 1 (1.15%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 31 (35.63%) Selenium
2 16 (18.39%) JIRA
3 15 (17.24%) Cucumber
4 14 (16.09%) GitLab
4 14 (16.09%) Jenkins
5 13 (14.94%) REST Assured
6 9 (10.34%) SonarQube
7 8 (9.20%) Git
8 5 (5.75%) Robot Framework
9 4 (4.60%) SpecFlow
10 2 (2.30%) QARun
10 2 (2.30%) WinRunner
11 1 (1.15%) Cypress.io
11 1 (1.15%) NUnit
11 1 (1.15%) WebDriver
General
1 29 (33.33%) Telecoms
2 26 (29.89%) Public Sector
3 25 (28.74%) Finance
4 24 (27.59%) Electronics
4 24 (27.59%) Manufacturing
4 24 (27.59%) Marketing
5 21 (24.14%) Social Skills
6 19 (21.84%) Analytical Skills
7 8 (9.20%) Law
8 4 (4.60%) Police
9 1 (1.15%) Billing
9 1 (1.15%) Games
9 1 (1.15%) Retail
Job Titles
1 24 (27.59%) Architect
2 21 (24.14%) Active Directory Architect
3 18 (20.69%) Developer
4 11 (12.64%) Senior
5 10 (11.49%) Software Engineer
6 9 (10.34%) Automation Tester
6 9 (10.34%) Java Engineer
6 9 (10.34%) Java Software Engineer
6 9 (10.34%) Tester
7 8 (9.20%) Azure Developer
7 8 (9.20%) Full-Stack Developer
8 6 (6.90%) Analyst
8 6 (6.90%) Test Analyst
8 6 (6.90%) Test Engineer
9 5 (5.75%) Senior Developer
9 5 (5.75%) Telecoms Tester
10 4 (4.60%) DevOps Engineer
10 4 (4.60%) Java Developer
10 4 (4.60%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
11 3 (3.45%) .NET Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (17.24%) REST
2 13 (14.94%) Java EE
3 10 (11.49%) ARM Templates
4 7 (8.05%) .NET
5 6 (6.90%) ADO
6 5 (5.75%) CSS
6 5 (5.75%) HTML
7 3 (3.45%) .NET Core
7 3 (3.45%) .NET Framework
7 3 (3.45%) Entity Framework
8 2 (2.30%) Ember.js
8 2 (2.30%) Gherkin
8 2 (2.30%) JSON
8 2 (2.30%) Middleware
8 2 (2.30%) Playwright
8 2 (2.30%) PySpark
8 2 (2.30%) React
8 2 (2.30%) Web Services
9 1 (1.15%) SAML
9 1 (1.15%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 10 (11.49%) Cloud Native
2 8 (9.20%) Algorithms
3 6 (6.90%) Renewable Energy
4 5 (5.75%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (3.45%) Operational Technology
5 3 (3.45%) SCADA
6 1 (1.15%) EPoS
6 1 (1.15%) Product Ownership
6 1 (1.15%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 31 (35.63%) Windows
2 4 (4.60%) Linux
3 3 (3.45%) Unix
4 1 (1.15%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (49.43%) Agile
2 36 (41.38%) DevOps
3 25 (28.74%) Problem-Solving
4 24 (27.59%) Business Intelligence
4 24 (27.59%) Digital Marketing
4 24 (27.59%) Programme Management
5 22 (25.29%) Identity Access Management
6 15 (17.24%) Containerisation
7 14 (16.09%) Continuous Integration
7 14 (16.09%) Software Engineering
8 13 (14.94%) Configuration Management
8 13 (14.94%) Scenario Testing
8 13 (14.94%) Software Architecture
8 13 (14.94%) Technical Leadership
9 11 (12.64%) CI/CD
10 10 (11.49%) Data Modelling
11 9 (10.34%) Decision-Making
11 9 (10.34%) Infrastructure as Code
11 9 (10.34%) Test Strategy
11 9 (10.34%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 27 (31.03%) Java
2 26 (29.89%) Python
3 25 (28.74%) PowerShell
4 18 (20.69%) SQL
5 10 (11.49%) C#
6 5 (5.75%) JavaScript
7 3 (3.45%) Bash
7 3 (3.45%) Perl
7 3 (3.45%) PL/SQL
8 2 (2.30%) VB
9 1 (1.15%) ActionScript
9 1 (1.15%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 45 (51.72%) Security Cleared
2 21 (24.14%) DV Cleared
2 21 (24.14%) SC Cleared
3 8 (9.20%) Degree
4 5 (5.75%) Master's Degree
5 1 (1.15%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (18.39%) QA
2 2 (2.30%) Cyber Essentials
2 2 (2.30%) Data Quality
System Software
1 23 (26.44%) Active Directory
2 15 (17.24%) Docker
Systems Management
1 15 (17.24%) Kubernetes
2 14 (16.09%) Ansible
3 10 (11.49%) Terraform
4 9 (10.34%) Docker Swarm
4 9 (10.34%) Podman
Vendors
1 24 (27.59%) SAP
2 5 (5.75%) Microsoft
3 2 (2.30%) Citrix
3 2 (2.30%) Databricks
4 1 (1.15%) CheckPoint
4 1 (1.15%) Cisco
4 1 (1.15%) Infor