Test Automation Contracts in the UK excluding London

Automated Testing
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London 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 51 67 44
Rank change year-on-year +16 -23 +3
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 554 598 1,145
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 4.34% 2.88% 4.76%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.80% 3.40% 5.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 376 378 845
10th Percentile £317 £363 £363
25th Percentile £389 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% +7.36%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £698 £653 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £550
% change year-on-year -2.44% -6.82% +4.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 46 38
10th Percentile £35.55 £42.38 £39.68
25th Percentile £44.51 £52.50 £48.44
Median hourly rate £55.00 £61.25 £58.75
Median % change year-on-year -10.20% +4.26% +20.51%
75th Percentile £64.52 £85.00 £77.00
90th Percentile £72.00 £90.00 £88.25
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £60.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% +13.64%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 11,543 17,602 21,544
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 90.42% 84.74% 89.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,249 10,520 14,947
10th Percentile £235 £250 £255
25th Percentile £375 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.50% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £662 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 825 2,048 1,307
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.33 £11.00
25th Percentile £17.30 £15.28 £16.00
Median hourly rate £27.50 £37.34 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.35% +3.72% +80.00%
75th Percentile £64.50 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £72.98
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
% change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing Test Automation as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Test Automation in the UK excluding London

Test Automation
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Test Automation in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Test Automation in the UK excluding London

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in the UK excluding London

Test Automation
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Test Automation in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Test Automation in the UK excluding London

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Automation in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Automation in the UK excluding London

Test Automation
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 Test Automation within the UK excluding London 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
South East +18 176 £513 -6.82% 313
North of England +7 144 £450 -5.26% 264
Scotland +7 77 £448 -6.28% 75
Midlands +44 72 £463 +8.82% 145
North West +4 70 £450 -10.00% 156
Yorkshire +1 58 £488 +8.33% 72
South West +39 46 £500 -9.09% 134
West Midlands +31 43 £495 +16.47% 86
East Midlands +19 29 £444 +5.91% 53
Wales -1 20 £395 -22.32% 43
East of England +10 19 £490 -1.51% 101
North East +11 16 £395 -2.47% 37
Northern Ireland -10 2 £409 -18.30% 22
Test Automation
UK

Test Automation
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 37 (6.68%) Confluence
2 3 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
2 3 (0.54%) Apache Spark
2 3 (0.54%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.36%) Apache
3 2 (0.36%) CICS
3 2 (0.36%) GeoServer
3 2 (0.36%) WebLogic
3 2 (0.36%) WebSphere
4 1 (0.18%) Appian
4 1 (0.18%) nginx
4 1 (0.18%) SAS
Applications
1 6 (1.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.90%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.54%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.18%) CATIA
4 1 (0.18%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.18%) Infor CloudSuite
2 1 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 143 (25.81%) Azure
2 102 (18.41%) AWS
3 70 (12.64%) Azure DevOps
4 33 (5.96%) GCP
5 27 (4.87%) GitHub
5 27 (4.87%) Serverless
6 22 (3.97%) SaaS
7 19 (3.43%) AWS Lambda
8 14 (2.53%) Amazon S3
9 13 (2.35%) Azure Data Factory
10 12 (2.17%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 12 (2.17%) GitHub Actions
11 11 (1.99%) AWS CloudFormation
11 11 (1.99%) Cloud Computing
12 10 (1.81%) AWS CodePipeline
12 10 (1.81%) Power Platform
13 9 (1.62%) Azure Service Bus
13 9 (1.62%) Dynamics 365
13 9 (1.62%) OpenShift
13 9 (1.62%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 10 (1.81%) Firewall
1 10 (1.81%) HTTP
2 7 (1.26%) BGP
2 7 (1.26%) VLAN
2 7 (1.26%) Wireless
3 6 (1.08%) MPLS
3 6 (1.08%) TCP/IP
4 4 (0.72%) SAN
5 3 (0.54%) Network Security
5 3 (0.54%) SNMP
5 3 (0.54%) Software-Defined Radio
6 2 (0.36%) iSCSI
7 1 (0.18%) DNS
7 1 (0.18%) EIGRP
7 1 (0.18%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 1 (0.18%) HTTPS
7 1 (0.18%) OSPF
7 1 (0.18%) SNA
7 1 (0.18%) SSL
7 1 (0.18%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (7.22%) PostgreSQL
2 28 (5.05%) MongoDB
3 25 (4.51%) NoSQL
4 21 (3.79%) Relational Database
5 17 (3.07%) SQL Server
6 15 (2.71%) MySQL
7 12 (2.17%) DB2
8 10 (1.81%) Apache Cassandra
9 9 (1.62%) Data Warehouse
9 9 (1.62%) Elasticsearch
10 6 (1.08%) Big Data
10 6 (1.08%) Hadoop
11 5 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
11 5 (0.90%) GIS
11 5 (0.90%) ObjectStore
12 4 (0.72%) Amazon Aurora
12 4 (0.72%) InfluxDB
12 4 (0.72%) Power BI
12 4 (0.72%) RDBMS
13 3 (0.54%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 131 (23.65%) Selenium
2 123 (22.20%) JIRA
3 105 (18.95%) Git
4 99 (17.87%) Jenkins
5 75 (13.54%) Cucumber
6 61 (11.01%) GitLab
7 41 (7.40%) Postman
8 40 (7.22%) Cypress.io
8 40 (7.22%) JUnit
9 28 (5.05%) REST Assured
10 23 (4.15%) JMeter
11 19 (3.43%) Bitbucket
12 18 (3.25%) Maven
13 16 (2.89%) SoapUI
13 16 (2.89%) SpecFlow
14 15 (2.71%) SonarQube
15 13 (2.35%) Jasmine
16 12 (2.17%) IntelliJ
16 12 (2.17%) TestRail
16 12 (2.17%) WebDriver
General
1 144 (25.99%) Social Skills
2 109 (19.68%) Public Sector
3 97 (17.51%) Finance
4 86 (15.52%) Analytical Skills
5 50 (9.03%) Telecoms
6 42 (7.58%) Manufacturing
7 41 (7.40%) Electronics
8 40 (7.22%) Marketing
9 39 (7.04%) Banking
10 8 (1.44%) Documentation Skills
10 8 (1.44%) Law
11 6 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
12 5 (0.90%) Games
12 5 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (0.90%) Investment Banking
12 5 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
13 4 (0.72%) Aerospace
13 4 (0.72%) Financial Institution
13 4 (0.72%) Front Office
13 4 (0.72%) Police
Job Titles
1 118 (21.30%) Developer
2 77 (13.90%) Senior
3 75 (13.54%) Tester
4 55 (9.93%) Test Engineer
5 47 (8.48%) Architect
6 39 (7.04%) Software Engineer
7 32 (5.78%) Lead
8 30 (5.42%) Analyst
9 29 (5.23%) Java Developer
9 29 (5.23%) Senior Developer
10 28 (5.05%) Automation Tester
11 27 (4.87%) DevOps Engineer
12 26 (4.69%) QA Engineer
12 26 (4.69%) Test Analyst
13 25 (4.51%) Active Directory Architect
14 21 (3.79%) Test Manager
15 20 (3.61%) Full-Stack Developer
15 20 (3.61%) Python Developer
16 19 (3.43%) QA Tester
17 18 (3.25%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (9.93%) .NET
2 50 (9.03%) CSS
3 47 (8.48%) REST
4 43 (7.76%) HTML
4 43 (7.76%) RESTful
5 40 (7.22%) React
6 32 (5.78%) Node.js
7 30 (5.42%) Playwright
8 27 (4.87%) Spring
9 26 (4.69%) AngularJS
10 25 (4.51%) Spring Boot
11 21 (3.79%) Kafka
12 17 (3.07%) Web Services
12 17 (3.07%) XML
13 14 (2.53%) Java EE
13 14 (2.53%) SOAP
14 13 (2.35%) AWS CDK
15 12 (2.17%) Gherkin
15 12 (2.17%) Swagger
16 11 (1.99%) jQuery
Miscellaneous
1 25 (4.51%) Product Ownership
2 20 (3.61%) Cloud Native
3 18 (3.25%) Onboarding
4 15 (2.71%) Self-Motivation
5 14 (2.53%) Mobile App
6 11 (1.99%) Algorithms
6 11 (1.99%) Management Information System
6 11 (1.99%) Virtual Team
7 9 (1.62%) Data Structures
8 8 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
8 8 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
9 7 (1.26%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 7 (1.26%) Mainframe
9 7 (1.26%) PKI
10 6 (1.08%) Data Centre
10 6 (1.08%) NHS
10 6 (1.08%) Renewable Energy
11 5 (0.90%) Equities
11 5 (0.90%) Greenfield Project
11 5 (0.90%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 73 (13.18%) Linux
2 62 (11.19%) Windows
3 17 (3.07%) Unix
4 11 (1.99%) Android
4 11 (1.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (1.26%) Embedded Linux
6 6 (1.08%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.90%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.54%) Windows Server
9 2 (0.36%) Mac OS X
9 2 (0.36%) VMS
9 2 (0.36%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.36%) Windows 7
9 2 (0.36%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.18%) AIX
10 1 (0.18%) CentOS
10 1 (0.18%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.18%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 287 (51.81%) Agile
2 209 (37.73%) CI/CD
3 184 (33.21%) DevOps
4 117 (21.12%) Problem-Solving
5 96 (17.33%) Software Engineering
6 83 (14.98%) Continuous Integration
7 76 (13.72%) Test Strategy
8 72 (13.00%) Containerisation
9 71 (12.82%) TDD
10 69 (12.45%) Scrum
11 67 (12.09%) Microservices
12 63 (11.37%) Test Scripting
13 57 (10.29%) Validation
14 56 (10.11%) API Testing
14 56 (10.11%) Software Testing
15 54 (9.75%) Manual Testing
16 52 (9.39%) BDD
17 48 (8.66%) Infrastructure as Code
18 46 (8.30%) Business Intelligence
19 42 (7.58%) Performance Testing
Programming Languages
1 147 (26.53%) Java
2 126 (22.74%) Python
3 111 (20.04%) SQL
4 91 (16.43%) JavaScript
5 68 (12.27%) C#
6 50 (9.03%) TypeScript
7 46 (8.30%) PowerShell
8 38 (6.86%) Bash
9 19 (3.43%) C++
10 9 (1.62%) Shell Script
11 7 (1.26%) Go
12 6 (1.08%) Kotlin
13 5 (0.90%) Groovy
13 5 (0.90%) Rust
14 4 (0.72%) JCL
14 4 (0.72%) REXX
14 4 (0.72%) Scala
15 3 (0.54%) COBOL
15 3 (0.54%) Perl
15 3 (0.54%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 155 (27.98%) Security Cleared
2 103 (18.59%) SC Cleared
3 60 (10.83%) Degree
4 47 (8.48%) DV Cleared
5 30 (5.42%) Computer Science Degree
6 29 (5.23%) ISTQB
7 11 (1.99%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 11 (1.99%) Master's Degree
8 8 (1.44%) Azure Certification
9 7 (1.26%) BPSS Clearance
9 7 (1.26%) ISEB
10 5 (0.90%) CCNP
10 5 (0.90%) Cisco Certification
11 4 (0.72%) CCNA
12 3 (0.54%) CEH
12 3 (0.54%) CISSP
12 3 (0.54%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 2 (0.36%) CTC Cleared
13 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
13 2 (0.36%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 116 (20.94%) QA
2 28 (5.05%) Accessibility
3 7 (1.26%) Software Quality Assurance
3 7 (1.26%) WCAG
4 6 (1.08%) Data Quality
5 5 (0.90%) GDPR
6 2 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (0.36%) GMP
6 2 (0.36%) HIPAA
6 2 (0.36%) MISRA
6 2 (0.36%) MISRA C
6 2 (0.36%) NCSC
7 1 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.18%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 75 (13.54%) Docker
2 27 (4.87%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.54%) Firmware
3 3 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (0.54%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.54%) VMware NSX
4 2 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.18%) VirtualBox
5 1 (0.18%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 81 (14.62%) Kubernetes
2 47 (8.48%) Ansible
3 43 (7.76%) Terraform
4 14 (2.53%) Grafana
5 11 (1.99%) Podman
6 10 (1.81%) Docker Swarm
6 10 (1.81%) Puppet
7 8 (1.44%) Progress Chef
8 5 (0.90%) Kibana
8 5 (0.90%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.54%) vRealize
9 3 (0.54%) WMI
10 2 (0.36%) Control-M
10 2 (0.36%) HP ALM
10 2 (0.36%) Proxmox
10 2 (0.36%) RSA Archer
10 2 (0.36%) SCOM
10 2 (0.36%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.36%) vCenter Server
11 1 (0.18%) Rancher
Vendors
1 45 (8.12%) SAP
2 38 (6.86%) Microsoft
3 31 (5.60%) Oracle
4 27 (4.87%) Google
5 21 (3.79%) ServiceNow
6 12 (2.17%) Databricks
7 11 (1.99%) Splunk
8 9 (1.62%) Cisco
9 8 (1.44%) Informatica
10 7 (1.26%) IBM
11 6 (1.08%) HP
11 6 (1.08%) Sybase
11 6 (1.08%) Virgin Media
11 6 (1.08%) VMware
12 5 (0.90%) Atlassian
13 4 (0.72%) CA Agile Central
13 4 (0.72%) Fortinet
13 4 (0.72%) Infoblox
13 4 (0.72%) Salesforce
14 3 (0.54%) Talend