Automation Tester Contract Job Trends

Automation Tester
UK

The median Automation Tester daily rate in the UK is £425, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 September 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 594 456 460
Rank change year-on-year -138 +4 +67
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Tester 91 97 103
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.30% 0.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.18% 0.33% 0.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 53 69 69
10th Percentile £313 £246 £310
25th Percentile £363 £300 £370
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £388 £450
Median % change year-on-year +9.68% -13.89% -8.63%
75th Percentile £475 £483 £570
90th Percentile £517 £538 £606
UK excluding London median daily rate £420 £340 £413
% change year-on-year +23.53% -17.58% -13.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £21.50 - -
Median hourly rate £23.00 - -
75th Percentile £24.50 - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 - -

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 with a recognized job title 50,326 29,813 35,459
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.39% 91.05% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,971 18,780 22,045
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £625 £621 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,688 1,551 1,736
10th Percentile £14.82 £13.65 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.31 £17.00 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.91 £53.13 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.16 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +11.35%

Automation Tester
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Automation Tester' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Automation Tester job vacancy trend in the UK

Automation Tester
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Automation Tester job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Automation Tester job vacancies in the UK

Automation Tester
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Automation Tester over the 6 months to 9 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Automation Tester in the UK

Automation Tester
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Automation Tester job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Automation Tester job vacancies in the UK

Automation Tester
Top 14 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Automation Tester within the UK over the 6 months to 9 September 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
England -142 57 £425 +14.25% 11
UK excluding London -109 42 £420 +23.53% 7
London -101 27 £450 -1.15% 5
Work from Home -84 26 £425 +10.03% 6
North of England -71 9 £420 +12.00% 1
South West -42 8 - -
South East -69 8 £250 -31.51% 1
Scotland -22 6 £313 -
Wales - 6 £613 - 1
North East -42 5 £485 +14.12%
West Midlands -43 4 £425 - 2
North West -51 4 £402 +18.24% 1
Midlands -64 4 £425 +58.58% 2
East of England -23 1 - - 2

Automation Tester Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 9 September 2026, Automation Tester 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 featuring Automation Tester in the job title.

1 91 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 46 (50.55%) CI/CD
3 35 (38.46%) Selenium
4 34 (37.36%) Playwright
5 32 (35.16%) Agile
6 30 (32.97%) Azure
6 30 (32.97%) Security Cleared
7 29 (31.87%) SC Cleared
8 28 (30.77%) QA
9 27 (29.67%) Python
10 25 (27.47%) Java
11 24 (26.37%) DevOps
12 23 (25.27%) SQL
13 21 (23.08%) Azure DevOps
13 21 (23.08%) JavaScript
13 21 (23.08%) Test Strategy
13 21 (23.08%) Validation
14 20 (21.98%) API Testing
15 19 (20.88%) GitHub
15 19 (20.88%) GitLab
15 19 (20.88%) Jenkins
15 19 (20.88%) Test Scripting
16 18 (19.78%) Cucumber
16 18 (19.78%) Postman
17 17 (18.68%) Continuous Improvement
17 17 (18.68%) Git
17 17 (18.68%) TypeScript
18 16 (17.58%) BDD
18 16 (17.58%) C#
18 16 (17.58%) JIRA

Automation Tester Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 6 (6.59%) Confluence
2 1 (1.10%) Apache
2 1 (1.10%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (1.10%) Camunda
2 1 (1.10%) SAS
Business Applications
1 2 (2.20%) Aladdin
1 2 (2.20%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 30 (32.97%) Azure
2 21 (23.08%) Azure DevOps
3 19 (20.88%) GitHub
4 15 (16.48%) GitHub Actions
5 13 (14.29%) AWS
6 8 (8.79%) GCP
7 3 (3.30%) Dynamics 365
7 3 (3.30%) SaaS
8 2 (2.20%) Snowflake
9 1 (1.10%) Amazon ECS
9 1 (1.10%) Amazon EKS
9 1 (1.10%) Azure API Management
9 1 (1.10%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 1 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
9 1 (1.10%) BrowserStack
9 1 (1.10%) Power Automate
9 1 (1.10%) Power Platform
9 1 (1.10%) PowerApps
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (7.69%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (1.10%) Apache Hive
2 1 (1.10%) Base SAS
2 1 (1.10%) Big Data
2 1 (1.10%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (1.10%) Hadoop
2 1 (1.10%) SAS Data Integration Studio
2 1 (1.10%) SAS Enterprise Guide
2 1 (1.10%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 35 (38.46%) Selenium
2 19 (20.88%) GitLab
2 19 (20.88%) Jenkins
3 18 (19.78%) Cucumber
3 18 (19.78%) Postman
4 17 (18.68%) Git
5 16 (17.58%) JIRA
6 14 (15.38%) JMeter
7 13 (14.29%) Cypress.io
7 13 (14.29%) REST Assured
8 10 (10.99%) JUnit
9 9 (9.89%) WebDriver
10 6 (6.59%) SpecFlow
10 6 (6.59%) TestNG
11 5 (5.49%) Maven
12 4 (4.40%) Bitbucket
13 3 (3.30%) Appium
13 3 (3.30%) Bugzilla
13 3 (3.30%) NUnit
13 3 (3.30%) PyCharm
General
1 18 (19.78%) Social Skills
2 17 (18.68%) Finance
3 13 (14.29%) Banking
4 9 (9.89%) Analytical Skills
5 5 (5.49%) Public Sector
6 2 (2.20%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (1.10%) Military
7 1 (1.10%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (37.36%) Playwright
2 10 (10.99%) REST
2 10 (10.99%) WireMock
3 7 (7.69%) Spring
4 6 (6.59%) Kafka
5 4 (4.40%) Node.js
6 3 (3.30%) pytest
6 3 (3.30%) XML
7 2 (2.20%) Gherkin
7 2 (2.20%) RESTful
7 2 (2.20%) Swagger
7 2 (2.20%) Web Services
7 2 (2.20%) WebdriverIO
7 2 (2.20%) XSD
8 1 (1.10%) Django
8 1 (1.10%) Jest
8 1 (1.10%) Pandas
8 1 (1.10%) React
8 1 (1.10%) Terraform
8 1 (1.10%) XML Schema
Miscellaneous
1 8 (8.79%) Data Protection Act
1 8 (8.79%) Distributed Systems
2 4 (4.40%) Distributed Architecture
3 3 (3.30%) Mobile App
3 3 (3.30%) Product Ownership
4 2 (2.20%) Cloud Native
4 2 (2.20%) Enterprise Software
4 2 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (1.10%) Data Structures
5 1 (1.10%) Greenfield Project
5 1 (1.10%) Linux Command Line
5 1 (1.10%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 2 (2.20%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 91 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 46 (50.55%) CI/CD
3 32 (35.16%) Agile
4 24 (26.37%) DevOps
5 21 (23.08%) Test Strategy
5 21 (23.08%) Validation
6 20 (21.98%) API Testing
7 19 (20.88%) Test Scripting
8 17 (18.68%) Continuous Improvement
9 16 (17.58%) BDD
10 15 (16.48%) Performance Testing
10 15 (16.48%) Problem-Solving
11 14 (15.38%) Regression Testing
12 13 (14.29%) End-to-End Testing
13 12 (13.19%) AI
13 12 (13.19%) Data Validation
14 9 (9.89%) Scrum
14 9 (9.89%) SDLC
15 8 (8.79%) Defect Management
15 8 (8.79%) Scenario Testing
Programming Languages
1 27 (29.67%) Python
2 25 (27.47%) Java
3 23 (25.27%) SQL
4 21 (23.08%) JavaScript
5 17 (18.68%) TypeScript
6 16 (17.58%) C#
7 7 (7.69%) Bash
8 5 (5.49%) Kotlin
9 4 (4.40%) PowerShell
10 1 (1.10%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 30 (32.97%) Security Cleared
2 29 (31.87%) SC Cleared
3 6 (6.59%) ISTQB
4 5 (5.49%) Computer Science Degree
4 5 (5.49%) Degree
4 5 (5.49%) DV Cleared
5 2 (2.20%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (2.20%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (30.77%) QA
2 3 (3.30%) Data Quality
2 3 (3.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
2 3 (3.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (2.20%) Accessibility
3 2 (2.20%) ISO 20022
4 1 (1.10%) GDPR
4 1 (1.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 14 (15.38%) Docker
Systems Management
1 13 (14.29%) Kubernetes
2 4 (4.40%) Grafana
2 4 (4.40%) HP ALM
2 4 (4.40%) Prometheus
3 1 (1.10%) Control-M
Vendors
1 6 (6.59%) Microsoft
2 4 (4.40%) HP
3 3 (3.30%) Databricks
3 3 (3.30%) Talend
4 1 (1.10%) Oracle
4 1 (1.10%) Salesforce
4 1 (1.10%) SAP
4 1 (1.10%) Veracode