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 27 May 2026.

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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 535 445 478
Rank change year-on-year -90 +33 +75
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Tester 93 77 102
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.19% 0.27% 0.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.21% 0.29% 0.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 59 61 79
10th Percentile £319 £250 £336
25th Percentile £350 £281 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £440 £450
Median % change year-on-year -3.41% -2.22% -5.26%
75th Percentile £472 £523 £569
90th Percentile £493 £575 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £360 £400
% change year-on-year +18.22% -10.13% -6.54%

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 44,984 26,371 39,600
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.30% 92.30% 92.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,456 17,159 25,763
10th Percentile £325 £290 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,981 1,009 2,752
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.79
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.04 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.53 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +54.38% -24.58% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.50 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +70.97% -37.13% -5.88%

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 27 May 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 27 May 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 -106 77 £425 -10.53% 2
London -55 47 £401 -19.80% 2
UK excluding London -106 35 £425 +18.22% 2
Work from Home -45 30 £425 +17.24% 2
Midlands -68 12 £425 +60.23%
West Midlands - 11 £425 -
South West -23 8 - -
North of England -77 6 £426 -14.80%
Wales - 6 £450 -
North West -41 4 £351 -21.12%
South East -59 3 £375 +7.14%
North East -24 1 £450 +15.38%
East Midlands -40 1 £360 +35.72%
Yorkshire -58 1 £550 +2.33%

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

For the 6 months to 27 May 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 93 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 47 (50.54%) CI/CD
3 41 (44.09%) Playwright
4 40 (43.01%) Azure
5 39 (41.94%) Agile
6 30 (32.26%) Selenium
7 27 (29.03%) Python
7 27 (29.03%) SQL
7 27 (29.03%) Test Scripting
8 25 (26.88%) DevOps
8 25 (26.88%) TypeScript
9 24 (25.81%) Security Cleared
9 24 (25.81%) Test Strategy
10 23 (24.73%) GitHub
10 23 (24.73%) Problem-Solving
11 22 (23.66%) API Testing
11 22 (23.66%) Performance Testing
11 22 (23.66%) SC Cleared
12 21 (22.58%) Azure DevOps
12 21 (22.58%) Cucumber
12 21 (22.58%) JavaScript
12 21 (22.58%) Validation
13 20 (21.51%) C#
14 19 (20.43%) Jenkins
15 18 (19.35%) AWS
15 18 (19.35%) BDD
15 18 (19.35%) GitLab
15 18 (19.35%) QA
15 18 (19.35%) TDD
16 17 (18.28%) Continuous Improvement

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 11 (11.83%) Confluence
2 1 (1.08%) Camunda
2 1 (1.08%) SAS
2 1 (1.08%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 9 (9.68%) Aladdin
2 2 (2.15%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (1.08%) NetSuite
3 1 (1.08%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (1.08%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (1.08%) Oracle General Ledger
3 1 (1.08%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (1.08%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 40 (43.01%) Azure
2 23 (24.73%) GitHub
3 21 (22.58%) Azure DevOps
4 18 (19.35%) AWS
5 16 (17.20%) GitHub Actions
6 12 (12.90%) GCP
7 9 (9.68%) Snowflake
8 4 (4.30%) Dynamics 365
9 3 (3.23%) Azure API Management
9 3 (3.23%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 3 (3.23%) Power Automate
10 2 (2.15%) Azure Data Factory
10 2 (2.15%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 1 (1.08%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 1 (1.08%) Amazon EC2
11 1 (1.08%) AWS CodePipeline
11 1 (1.08%) Microsoft 365
11 1 (1.08%) Power Platform
11 1 (1.08%) Tricentis Tosca
11 1 (1.08%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 1 (1.08%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (10.75%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (3.23%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.08%) Apache Hive
3 1 (1.08%) Base SAS
3 1 (1.08%) Big Data
3 1 (1.08%) Hadoop
3 1 (1.08%) Power BI
3 1 (1.08%) SAS Data Integration Studio
3 1 (1.08%) SAS Enterprise Guide
3 1 (1.08%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 30 (32.26%) Selenium
2 21 (22.58%) Cucumber
3 19 (20.43%) Jenkins
4 18 (19.35%) GitLab
5 17 (18.28%) Git
6 16 (17.20%) JMeter
6 16 (17.20%) WebDriver
7 15 (16.13%) Postman
8 14 (15.05%) JIRA
9 13 (13.98%) SpecFlow
10 11 (11.83%) REST Assured
11 10 (10.75%) JUnit
12 7 (7.53%) Cypress.io
13 4 (4.30%) Gatling
14 3 (3.23%) PyCharm
14 3 (3.23%) TeamCity
15 2 (2.15%) Bitbucket
15 2 (2.15%) MSTest
15 2 (2.15%) TestRail
15 2 (2.15%) Visual Studio
General
1 24 (25.81%) Social Skills
2 14 (15.05%) Analytical Skills
2 14 (15.05%) Finance
3 9 (9.68%) Banking
4 3 (3.23%) Pharmaceutical
5 2 (2.15%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (2.15%) Public Sector
6 1 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.08%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (44.09%) Playwright
2 10 (10.75%) WireMock
3 9 (9.68%) Spring
4 7 (7.53%) REST
5 4 (4.30%) Gherkin
6 3 (3.23%) Kafka
6 3 (3.23%) pytest
7 2 (2.15%) Django
7 2 (2.15%) JSON
7 2 (2.15%) RESTful
7 2 (2.15%) Swagger
7 2 (2.15%) Web Services
7 2 (2.15%) XML
8 1 (1.08%) JDBC
8 1 (1.08%) Jest
8 1 (1.08%) Node.js
8 1 (1.08%) ODBC
8 1 (1.08%) React
Miscellaneous
1 11 (11.83%) Data Protection Act
2 10 (10.75%) Distributed Systems
3 7 (7.53%) Distributed Architecture
4 3 (3.23%) Mobile App
4 3 (3.23%) Virtual Team
5 2 (2.15%) Linux Command Line
6 1 (1.08%) Data Structures
6 1 (1.08%) Distributed Applications
6 1 (1.08%) Embedded Systems
6 1 (1.08%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.08%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 3 (3.23%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 47 (50.54%) CI/CD
3 39 (41.94%) Agile
4 27 (29.03%) Test Scripting
5 25 (26.88%) DevOps
6 24 (25.81%) Test Strategy
7 23 (24.73%) Problem-Solving
8 22 (23.66%) API Testing
8 22 (23.66%) Performance Testing
9 21 (22.58%) Validation
10 18 (19.35%) BDD
10 18 (19.35%) TDD
11 17 (18.28%) Continuous Improvement
11 17 (18.28%) Data Validation
12 13 (13.98%) End-to-End Testing
12 13 (13.98%) Regression Testing
13 11 (11.83%) Data Protection
14 10 (10.75%) Load Testing
15 9 (9.68%) Scrum
15 9 (9.68%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 27 (29.03%) Python
1 27 (29.03%) SQL
2 25 (26.88%) TypeScript
3 21 (22.58%) JavaScript
4 20 (21.51%) C#
5 14 (15.05%) Java
6 3 (3.23%) Bash
6 3 (3.23%) Kotlin
7 2 (2.15%) XPath
8 1 (1.08%) C
8 1 (1.08%) C++
8 1 (1.08%) PowerShell
8 1 (1.08%) Rust
8 1 (1.08%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 24 (25.81%) Security Cleared
2 22 (23.66%) SC Cleared
3 6 (6.45%) ISTQB
4 4 (4.30%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 2 (2.15%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (2.15%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (19.35%) QA
2 3 (3.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
2 3 (3.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (2.15%) Data Quality
4 1 (1.08%) Accessibility
4 1 (1.08%) GDPR
4 1 (1.08%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 17 (18.28%) Docker
Systems Management
1 15 (16.13%) Kubernetes
2 9 (9.68%) Grafana
3 8 (8.60%) Prometheus
4 1 (1.08%) Control-M
4 1 (1.08%) HP ALM
4 1 (1.08%) Terraform
Vendors
1 9 (9.68%) Databricks
2 7 (7.53%) Microsoft
3 2 (2.15%) Oracle
3 2 (2.15%) SAP
4 1 (1.08%) Avaloq
4 1 (1.08%) Google
4 1 (1.08%) HP
4 1 (1.08%) ServiceNow
4 1 (1.08%) Talend
4 1 (1.08%) Veracode
4 1 (1.08%) Workday