Test Automation Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Automated Testing
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Test Automation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 25 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 48 49 46
Rank change year-on-year +1 -3 -10
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 794 637 736
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 4.33% 4.29% 3.77%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.06% 4.92% 4.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 552 439 516
10th Percentile £325 £323 £375
25th Percentile £400 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £587
90th Percentile £675 £675 £650
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 3 49
10th Percentile £27.16 £42.50 £34.95
25th Percentile £50.00 £44.38 £45.88
Median hourly rate £65.00 £50.00 £77.50
Median % change year-on-year +30.00% -35.48% +29.17%
75th Percentile £67.00 £70.00 £90.00
90th Percentile £68.80 £80.50 -
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £47.50 £77.50
% change year-on-year +36.84% -38.71% +29.17%

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 15,701 12,950 17,158
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 85.65% 87.28% 87.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,596 7,620 11,036
10th Percentile £220 £238 £250
25th Percentile £375 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,760 747 1,225
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.50 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.00 £17.72
Median hourly rate £23.54 £31.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -25.28% -30.00% +40.63%
75th Percentile £50.00 £64.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £73.75 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -26.97% +27.14%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Test Automation relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Test Automation job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Test Automation
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Test Automation.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Test Automation

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 25 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in the UK excluding London

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Test Automation.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Test Automation

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 25 December 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 25 December 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
North of England +3 303 £488 +13.04% 446
Midlands +15 155 £495 - 298
Yorkshire -4 144 £513 +13.89% 193
South East -33 138 £500 -1.23% 480
West Midlands +12 119 £515 -2.60% 145
North West +2 118 £425 +6.25% 212
South West +1 77 £550 - 227
Scotland -14 55 £500 +7.82% 96
East of England -4 48 £550 +37.50% 277
North East +18 43 £488 +34.48% 41
East Midlands +2 36 £400 -13.51% 132
Wales +6 28 £495 -4.81% 48
Northern Ireland +4 12 £295 -43.13% 16
Test Automation
UK

Test Automation
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:

Application Platforms
1 53 (6.68%) SAS
2 35 (4.41%) Confluence
3 8 (1.01%) SharePoint
4 7 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (0.76%) OpenStack
5 6 (0.76%) Oracle Application Server
6 5 (0.63%) Apache Spark
7 4 (0.50%) Apache
7 4 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
8 3 (0.38%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.25%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.25%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.13%) Cloud Foundry
10 1 (0.13%) CMS
10 1 (0.13%) EPiServer
10 1 (0.13%) IIS
10 1 (0.13%) JBoss
10 1 (0.13%) nginx
10 1 (0.13%) WebSphere
Applications
1 4 (0.50%) Microsoft Office
1 4 (0.50%) Simulink
1 4 (0.50%) Windchill
2 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.38%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.13%) Trello
Business Applications
1 10 (1.26%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.50%) SAP PLM
3 2 (0.25%) Maximo
3 2 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
3 2 (0.25%) SAP FI
3 2 (0.25%) Workday HCM
4 1 (0.13%) Adobe Campaign
4 1 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
4 1 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
4 1 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.13%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
4 1 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.13%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 203 (25.57%) Azure
2 189 (23.80%) AWS
3 104 (13.10%) GitHub
4 72 (9.07%) Azure DevOps
5 67 (8.44%) GCP
6 57 (7.18%) GitHub Actions
7 54 (6.80%) Serverless
8 47 (5.92%) OpenShift
9 30 (3.78%) AWS CloudFormation
10 27 (3.40%) Power Platform
11 26 (3.27%) AWS Lambda
12 21 (2.64%) Amazon S3
13 20 (2.52%) Entra ID
13 20 (2.52%) npm
14 19 (2.39%) Azure AKS
15 16 (2.02%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 16 (2.02%) GitHub Copilot
16 14 (1.76%) Power Automate
16 14 (1.76%) Tricentis Tosca
17 13 (1.64%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 24 (3.02%) Firewall
1 24 (3.02%) Wireshark
2 10 (1.26%) HTTP
3 9 (1.13%) TCP/IP
3 9 (1.13%) VPN
4 8 (1.01%) AMQP
4 8 (1.01%) SD-WAN
5 7 (0.88%) Network Security
6 5 (0.63%) Broadband
6 5 (0.63%) Ethernet
6 5 (0.63%) HTTPS
6 5 (0.63%) MPLS
6 5 (0.63%) VLAN
7 4 (0.50%) Internet
7 4 (0.50%) SSL
7 4 (0.50%) WAN
8 3 (0.38%) BGP
8 3 (0.38%) Cisco ASA
8 3 (0.38%) OSPF
8 3 (0.38%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (5.42%) MongoDB
2 41 (5.16%) PostgreSQL
3 38 (4.79%) Relational Database
4 33 (4.16%) NoSQL
5 28 (3.53%) Pentaho
6 19 (2.39%) MySQL
7 17 (2.14%) SQL Server
8 15 (1.89%) SAS Enterprise Guide
9 14 (1.76%) Oracle Database
10 13 (1.64%) Data Warehouse
10 13 (1.64%) Power BI
11 11 (1.39%) DynamoDB
12 9 (1.13%) Apache Cassandra
12 9 (1.13%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (1.01%) GIS
13 8 (1.01%) RDBMS
14 7 (0.88%) Amazon RDS
14 7 (0.88%) BigQuery
14 7 (0.88%) SAS Visual Analytics
15 6 (0.76%) Oracle ODI
Development Applications
1 180 (22.67%) Jenkins
2 163 (20.53%) Git
3 151 (19.02%) JIRA
4 141 (17.76%) GitLab
5 139 (17.51%) Selenium
6 83 (10.45%) Cucumber
7 59 (7.43%) Postman
8 54 (6.80%) JUnit
9 49 (6.17%) Cypress.io
10 42 (5.29%) REST Assured
11 32 (4.03%) SonarQube
12 29 (3.65%) JMeter
13 22 (2.77%) Maven
13 22 (2.77%) Mockito
14 21 (2.64%) Bitbucket
15 19 (2.39%) Sonatype Nexus
16 17 (2.14%) Gradle
17 13 (1.64%) TestRail
18 12 (1.51%) CircleCI
18 12 (1.51%) Gatling
General
1 218 (27.46%) Social Skills
2 135 (17.00%) Public Sector
3 117 (14.74%) Finance
4 84 (10.58%) Analytical Skills
5 37 (4.66%) Banking
6 24 (3.02%) Telecoms
7 17 (2.14%) Documentation Skills
7 17 (2.14%) Manufacturing
8 12 (1.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 11 (1.39%) Electronics
9 11 (1.39%) Marketing
9 11 (1.39%) Organisational Skills
10 10 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
11 8 (1.01%) Aerospace
11 8 (1.01%) Military
12 6 (0.76%) Automotive
12 6 (0.76%) Retail
13 5 (0.63%) Financial Institution
13 5 (0.63%) Influencing Skills
14 4 (0.50%) Law
Job Titles
1 167 (21.03%) Developer
2 116 (14.61%) Senior
3 103 (12.97%) Test Engineer
4 75 (9.45%) Lead
5 73 (9.19%) Java Developer
6 71 (8.94%) Tester
7 42 (5.29%) Data Engineer
8 41 (5.16%) DevOps Engineer
9 39 (4.91%) Automation Tester
9 39 (4.91%) Software Engineer
9 39 (4.91%) Test Automation Engineer
10 34 (4.28%) Test Manager
11 29 (3.65%) Senior Developer
12 28 (3.53%) Test Leader
13 25 (3.15%) Full-Stack Developer
14 23 (2.90%) Analyst
15 21 (2.64%) Automation Engineer
15 21 (2.64%) QA Leader
15 21 (2.64%) Senior Java Developer
16 20 (2.52%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (14.48%) REST
2 75 (9.45%) Spring
3 66 (8.31%) Spring Boot
4 58 (7.30%) Playwright
5 57 (7.18%) .NET
6 54 (6.80%) Kafka
7 52 (6.55%) RESTful
8 51 (6.42%) React
9 40 (5.04%) Node.js
10 33 (4.16%) AngularJS
11 29 (3.65%) pytest
12 26 (3.27%) CSS
12 26 (3.27%) HTML
13 24 (3.02%) Jest
13 24 (3.02%) SOAP
14 22 (2.77%) YAML
15 21 (2.64%) XML
16 19 (2.39%) Elastic Stack
16 19 (2.39%) SailPoint
17 18 (2.27%) JMS
Miscellaneous
1 67 (8.44%) Cloud Native
2 60 (7.56%) Product Ownership
3 25 (3.15%) Security Posture
4 22 (2.77%) Mobile App
5 21 (2.64%) Data Protection Act
6 20 (2.52%) Public Cloud
7 19 (2.39%) Distributed Systems
8 16 (2.02%) Algorithms
8 16 (2.02%) Self-Motivation
9 15 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
10 13 (1.64%) Onboarding
11 12 (1.51%) NHS
12 11 (1.39%) Data Centre
12 11 (1.39%) Synthetic Data
13 9 (1.13%) Driving Licence
13 9 (1.13%) SWIFT Messaging Network
14 8 (1.01%) Greenfield Project
14 8 (1.01%) Hybrid Cloud
14 8 (1.01%) Management Information System
14 8 (1.01%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 91 (11.46%) Linux
2 48 (6.05%) Windows
3 32 (4.03%) Unix
4 19 (2.39%) Android
5 18 (2.27%) Mac OS X
6 11 (1.39%) Apple iOS
6 11 (1.39%) Windows Server
7 8 (1.01%) Kali Linux
8 6 (0.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.63%) CentOS
10 3 (0.38%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.25%) Robot Operating System
12 1 (0.13%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.13%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 400 (50.38%) CI/CD
2 396 (49.87%) Agile
3 290 (36.52%) DevOps
4 227 (28.59%) Problem-Solving
5 151 (19.02%) Continuous Improvement
6 142 (17.88%) Test Strategy
7 140 (17.63%) Microservices
8 130 (16.37%) Scrum
9 120 (15.11%) Containerisation
10 112 (14.11%) TDD
11 104 (13.10%) Infrastructure as Code
12 89 (11.21%) Test Scripting
13 88 (11.08%) BDD
14 87 (10.96%) Analytics
15 84 (10.58%) SDLC
16 78 (9.82%) Software Engineering
17 76 (9.57%) Data Pipeline
18 73 (9.19%) Validation
19 70 (8.82%) Software Testing
20 69 (8.69%) Regression Testing
Programming Languages
1 228 (28.72%) Java
2 209 (26.32%) Python
3 141 (17.76%) SQL
4 98 (12.34%) JavaScript
5 61 (7.68%) C#
6 57 (7.18%) TypeScript
7 54 (6.80%) Bash
8 38 (4.79%) PowerShell
9 18 (2.27%) C++
9 18 (2.27%) Go
10 11 (1.39%) Kotlin
10 11 (1.39%) PL/SQL
11 9 (1.13%) PHP
12 7 (0.88%) Groovy
12 7 (0.88%) Ruby
13 6 (0.76%) Shell Script
14 5 (0.63%) Bicep
15 4 (0.50%) MATLAB
15 4 (0.50%) Swift
16 3 (0.38%) Rust
Qualifications
1 250 (31.49%) Security Cleared
2 174 (21.91%) SC Cleared
3 45 (5.67%) DV Cleared
4 42 (5.29%) Degree
5 29 (3.65%) ISTQB
6 28 (3.53%) Computer Science Degree
7 25 (3.15%) BPSS Clearance
8 17 (2.14%) AWS Certification
9 14 (1.76%) CISSP
10 12 (1.51%) Cisco Certification
10 12 (1.51%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 11 (1.39%) CISM
12 10 (1.26%) Azure Certification
12 10 (1.26%) Master's Degree
12 10 (1.26%) MCP
13 9 (1.13%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 9 (1.13%) Oracle Certification
14 8 (1.01%) CEH
14 8 (1.01%) CISA
14 8 (1.01%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 163 (20.53%) QA
2 59 (7.43%) Accessibility
3 46 (5.79%) Data Quality
4 29 (3.65%) NIST
5 20 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 18 (2.27%) WCAG
7 17 (2.14%) GDPR
8 15 (1.89%) EU AI Act
9 14 (1.76%) PSD2
10 13 (1.64%) NCSC
11 9 (1.13%) ISO 20022
11 9 (1.13%) PCI DSS
11 9 (1.13%) SEPA
12 8 (1.01%) NIST 800
13 6 (0.76%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 5 (0.63%) Actionable Recommendations
14 5 (0.63%) SLA
15 4 (0.50%) COBIT
15 4 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
16 3 (0.38%) PMO
System Software
1 184 (23.17%) Docker
2 17 (2.14%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.76%) Firmware
4 3 (0.38%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
4 3 (0.38%) ISA Server
4 3 (0.38%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.25%) vSphere
6 1 (0.13%) HDFS
6 1 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 176 (22.17%) Kubernetes
2 100 (12.59%) Terraform
3 92 (11.59%) Ansible
4 55 (6.93%) Grafana
5 29 (3.65%) Prometheus
6 13 (1.64%) Progress Chef
7 12 (1.51%) NetBackup
8 11 (1.39%) CSIRT
8 11 (1.39%) Nmap
8 11 (1.39%) Puppet
9 7 (0.88%) Argo
9 7 (0.88%) Podman
10 5 (0.63%) Kibana
11 4 (0.50%) Forefront Identity Manager
11 4 (0.50%) HP ALM
11 4 (0.50%) NetIQ Identity Manager
11 4 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
12 3 (0.38%) Iperf
13 2 (0.25%) Nagios
13 2 (0.25%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 99 (12.47%) Oracle
2 91 (11.46%) Microsoft
3 43 (5.42%) Splunk
4 39 (4.91%) ServiceNow
5 32 (4.03%) SAP
6 28 (3.53%) Denodo
6 28 (3.53%) Talend
7 17 (2.14%) Red Hat
7 17 (2.14%) VMware
8 16 (2.02%) Cisco
9 13 (1.64%) F5
10 12 (1.51%) Commvault
10 12 (1.51%) Databricks
10 12 (1.51%) Salesforce
11 11 (1.39%) Atlassian
12 10 (1.26%) Foundry
13 9 (1.13%) Google
13 9 (1.13%) Veritas
13 9 (1.13%) Workday
14 8 (1.01%) Juniper