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 28 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
28 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 55 62 51
Rank change year-on-year +7 -11 -15
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 90 97 140
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 3.42% 3.42% 3.90%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.95% 3.77% 4.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 51 69 122
10th Percentile £425 £360 £360
25th Percentile £501 £413 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £565 £470
Median % change year-on-year +6.19% +20.21% +4.44%
75th Percentile £650 £620 £575
90th Percentile £688 £675 £625
South East median daily rate £550 £575 £500
% change year-on-year -4.35% +15.00% +11.11%
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 £60.00 £55.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% +27.78%

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 2,277 2,574 3,224
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 86.64% 90.76% 89.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,262 1,757 2,182
10th Percentile £213 £314 £235
25th Percentile £375 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £488
Median % change year-on-year - +2.56% +8.33%
75th Percentile £600 £605 £584
90th Percentile £675 £688 £650
South East median daily rate £510 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.00% - +8.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 166 66 88
10th Percentile £14.09 £16.88 £10.77
25th Percentile £19.25 £24.86 £12.25
Median hourly rate £45.00 £52.30 £17.42
Median % change year-on-year -13.96% +200.23% -17.24%
75th Percentile £64.42 £69.05 £25.38
90th Percentile £85.65 £79.19 £67.40
South East median hourly rate £47.50 £50.00 £21.95
% change year-on-year -5.00% +127.79% -20.18%

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 28 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 28 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 +8 81 £615 +11.82% 13
Buckinghamshire -2 6 £475 -20.83% 15
Oxfordshire +12 3 £488 - 9
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 9 (10.00%) Apache
2 8 (8.89%) 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 48 (53.33%) Azure
2 17 (18.89%) Azure DevOps
3 16 (17.78%) AWS
4 14 (15.56%) Azure Monitor
5 12 (13.33%) Azure Data Factory
6 10 (11.11%) Azure Cosmos DB
6 10 (11.11%) Azure Functions
6 10 (11.11%) Serverless
7 6 (6.67%) Entra ID
8 5 (5.56%) Azure Service Bus
8 5 (5.56%) PaaS
9 3 (3.33%) Azure AKS
10 2 (2.22%) Azure API Management
10 2 (2.22%) Azure Key Vault
10 2 (2.22%) Azure Logic Apps
10 2 (2.22%) Dynamics 365
10 2 (2.22%) OpenShift
11 1 (1.11%) GitHub
11 1 (1.11%) Microsoft 365
11 1 (1.11%) NuGet
Communications & Networking
1 8 (8.89%) BGP
1 8 (8.89%) Ethernet VPN
1 8 (8.89%) MPLS
1 8 (8.89%) Radio Access Network
1 8 (8.89%) VPN
2 1 (1.11%) DNS
2 1 (1.11%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (18.89%) NoSQL
2 9 (10.00%) MongoDB
3 8 (8.89%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (2.22%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (1.11%) Data Lake
5 1 (1.11%) Data Warehouse
5 1 (1.11%) MySQL
5 1 (1.11%) Relational Database
5 1 (1.11%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 49 (54.44%) Selenium
2 30 (33.33%) Cucumber
3 27 (30.00%) Jenkins
4 26 (28.89%) JIRA
5 25 (27.78%) REST Assured
6 24 (26.67%) SonarQube
7 22 (24.44%) GitLab
8 19 (21.11%) Git
9 11 (12.22%) Robot Framework
10 10 (11.11%) TestRail
11 7 (7.78%) SpecFlow
12 5 (5.56%) Postman
13 4 (4.44%) JMeter
13 4 (4.44%) TestLink
14 3 (3.33%) Maven
15 2 (2.22%) Appium
15 2 (2.22%) Cypress.io
16 1 (1.11%) TeamCity
16 1 (1.11%) TestNG
16 1 (1.11%) WebDriver
General
1 39 (43.33%) Analytical Skills
2 34 (37.78%) Social Skills
3 20 (22.22%) Law
4 13 (14.44%) Police
5 4 (4.44%) Telecoms
6 2 (2.22%) Finance
6 2 (2.22%) Public Sector
7 1 (1.11%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 21 (23.33%) Developer
2 17 (18.89%) Java Engineer
3 12 (13.33%) Senior
4 11 (12.22%) Full Stack Developer
5 8 (8.89%) Test Engineer
5 8 (8.89%) Tester
6 7 (7.78%) Analyst
6 7 (7.78%) Network Engineer
6 7 (7.78%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
6 7 (7.78%) Software Engineer
6 7 (7.78%) Test Manager
7 6 (6.67%) Azure Developer
7 6 (6.67%) Ericsson Engineer
7 6 (6.67%) Java Software Engineer
8 5 (5.56%) C# Developer
8 5 (5.56%) Java Developer
8 5 (5.56%) Senior Java Engineer
8 5 (5.56%) Senior Java Software Engineer
8 5 (5.56%) Senior Software Engineer
9 4 (4.44%) Test Automation Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (37.78%) REST
2 25 (27.78%) Java EE
3 14 (15.56%) ARM Templates
4 10 (11.11%) React
5 8 (8.89%) NETCONF
5 8 (8.89%) RESTCONF
5 8 (8.89%) SOAP
5 8 (8.89%) YANG
6 6 (6.67%) HTML
7 4 (4.44%) .NET
7 4 (4.44%) XML
8 3 (3.33%) AngularJS
8 3 (3.33%) CSS
8 3 (3.33%) Gherkin
8 3 (3.33%) Node.js
8 3 (3.33%) Web Services
9 2 (2.22%) .NET Framework
9 2 (2.22%) JSON
9 2 (2.22%) Playwright
9 2 (2.22%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 12 (13.33%) 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%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 7 (7.78%) Linux
2 3 (3.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 3 (3.33%) Windows
2 3 (3.33%) Windows Server
3 1 (1.11%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 58 (64.44%) DevOps
2 36 (40.00%) Agile
3 33 (36.67%) CI/CD
4 29 (32.22%) Continuous Integration
5 28 (31.11%) Problem-Solving
6 26 (28.89%) Software Architecture
6 26 (28.89%) Software Engineering
7 25 (27.78%) Decision-Making
7 25 (27.78%) Technical Leadership
8 23 (25.56%) Containerisation
9 20 (22.22%) Scrum
10 16 (17.78%) Infrastructure as Code
10 16 (17.78%) Unit Testing
11 15 (16.67%) Configuration Management
12 14 (15.56%) Performance Testing
13 12 (13.33%) Security Testing
14 11 (12.22%) Full Stack Development
14 11 (12.22%) Microservices
14 11 (12.22%) Software Testing
15 10 (11.11%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 43 (47.78%) Java
2 28 (31.11%) Python
3 15 (16.67%) SQL
4 9 (10.00%) C#
5 7 (7.78%) JavaScript
5 7 (7.78%) PowerShell
6 3 (3.33%) T-SQL
6 3 (3.33%) VBScript
7 2 (2.22%) C
7 2 (2.22%) PHP
7 2 (2.22%) TypeScript
8 1 (1.11%) Bash
8 1 (1.11%) Bicep
8 1 (1.11%) Go
8 1 (1.11%) Scala
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 11 (12.22%) QA
2 3 (3.33%) HL7
3 2 (2.22%) Accessibility
4 1 (1.11%) Data Quality
System Software
1 22 (24.44%) Docker
2 9 (10.00%) Active Directory
3 4 (4.44%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 26 (28.89%) Ansible
2 17 (18.89%) Kubernetes
2 17 (18.89%) Terraform
3 12 (13.33%) Docker Swarm
3 12 (13.33%) Podman
4 1 (1.11%) HP Quality Center
4 1 (1.11%) Progress Chef
4 1 (1.11%) Puppet
4 1 (1.11%) Rancher
Vendors
1 10 (11.11%) Microsoft
2 6 (6.67%) Ericsson
3 4 (4.44%) VMware
4 3 (3.33%) Databricks
5 2 (2.22%) Adobe
5 2 (2.22%) Red Hat
5 2 (2.22%) ServiceNow
6 1 (1.11%) BMC
6 1 (1.11%) Google
6 1 (1.11%) Remedy
6 1 (1.11%) Salesforce