Senior Test Automation Engineer Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Senior Automation Test Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Senior Automation Test Engineer daily rate in the UK excluding London is £600, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 2 June 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 424 - 393
Rank change year-on-year - - +41
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Test Automation Engineer 11 0 7
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.044% - 0.034%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.048% - 0.036%
Number of daily rates quoted 4 0 7
10th Percentile £566 - £504
25th Percentile £572 - £585
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 - £590
Median % change year-on-year - - +7.27%
75th Percentile £625 - -
90th Percentile - - £594
UK median daily rate £575 - £573
% change year-on-year - - +7.51%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK excluding London with a recognized job title 22,861 11,862 19,247
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.84% 91.68% 92.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,149 7,556 11,616
10th Percentile £300 £213 £213
25th Percentile £403 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £594
90th Percentile £677 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £513 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +1.49% -3.81% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,641 858 2,422
10th Percentile £14.65 £13.72 £12.50
25th Percentile £20.00 £16.95 £15.75
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.72 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.96% -35.70% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.25 £60.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £42.69 £28.08 £37.50
% change year-on-year +52.04% -25.13% -16.67%

Senior Test Automation Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Senior Test Automation Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Senior Test Automation Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Senior Test Automation Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Senior Test Automation Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Senior Test Automation Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Senior Test Automation Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Senior Test Automation Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Senior Test Automation Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Senior Test Automation Engineer
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Senior Test Automation Engineer within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 2 June 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
South East - 4 £600 -
Yorkshire - 3 - - 2
North of England - 3 - - 5
West Midlands - 2 - -
Northern Ireland - 2 - -
Midlands - 2 - -
North East - 1 - - 1
Wales - 1 - -
Senior Test Automation Engineer
UK

Senior Test Automation Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 2 June 2026, Senior Test Automation Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the UK excluding London region featuring Senior Test Automation Engineer in the job title.

1 11 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 6 (54.55%) C#
2 6 (54.55%) Playwright
3 5 (45.45%) API Testing
3 5 (45.45%) Selenium
3 5 (45.45%) TypeScript
4 4 (36.36%) Azure
4 4 (36.36%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (36.36%) DevOps
4 4 (36.36%) NUnit
5 3 (27.27%) Accessibility
5 3 (27.27%) Creative Thinking
5 3 (27.27%) Functional Testing
5 3 (27.27%) Non-Functional Testing
5 3 (27.27%) Test Planning
6 2 (18.18%) End-to-End Testing
6 2 (18.18%) Java
6 2 (18.18%) Python
6 2 (18.18%) QA
6 2 (18.18%) Software Testing
7 1 (9.09%) Acceptance Criteria
7 1 (9.09%) Agile
7 1 (9.09%) AWS
7 1 (9.09%) Backlog Management
7 1 (9.09%) Black-Box Testing
7 1 (9.09%) CI/CD
7 1 (9.09%) Computer Science
7 1 (9.09%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (9.09%) Containerisation
7 1 (9.09%) Continuous Deployment

Senior Test Automation Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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:

Cloud Services
1 4 (36.36%) Azure
1 4 (36.36%) Azure DevOps
2 1 (9.09%) AWS
Development Applications
1 5 (45.45%) Selenium
2 4 (36.36%) NUnit
3 1 (9.09%) Git
3 1 (9.09%) GitLab
3 1 (9.09%) JIRA
3 1 (9.09%) WebDriver
General
1 1 (9.09%) Military
1 1 (9.09%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (54.55%) Playwright
2 1 (9.09%) Jest
2 1 (9.09%) React
2 1 (9.09%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 1 (9.09%) Distributed Systems
Processes & Methodologies
1 11 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 5 (45.45%) API Testing
3 4 (36.36%) DevOps
4 3 (27.27%) Creative Thinking
4 3 (27.27%) Functional Testing
4 3 (27.27%) Non-Functional Testing
4 3 (27.27%) Test Planning
5 2 (18.18%) End-to-End Testing
5 2 (18.18%) Software Testing
6 1 (9.09%) Acceptance Criteria
6 1 (9.09%) Agile
6 1 (9.09%) Black-Box Testing
6 1 (9.09%) Computer Science
6 1 (9.09%) Integration Testing
6 1 (9.09%) Mathematics
6 1 (9.09%) Microservices
6 1 (9.09%) Performance Testing
6 1 (9.09%) Test Strategy
6 1 (9.09%) Time Management
6 1 (9.09%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 6 (54.55%) C#
2 5 (45.45%) TypeScript
3 2 (18.18%) Java
3 2 (18.18%) Python
4 1 (9.09%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 1 (9.09%) Computer Science Degree
1 1 (9.09%) Degree
1 1 (9.09%) SC Cleared
1 1 (9.09%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (27.27%) Accessibility
2 2 (18.18%) QA
System Software
1 1 (9.09%) Docker