Automation Tester Contract Job Trends

Automation Tester
UK

The median Automation Tester daily rate in the UK is £402, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 21 September 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 597 462 462
Rank change year-on-year -135 0 +72
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Tester 83 103 104
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.15% 0.32% 0.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.17% 0.35% 0.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 49 75 70
10th Percentile £310 £250 £310
25th Percentile £350 £336 £364
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £402 £400 £450
Median % change year-on-year +0.50% -11.11% -5.76%
75th Percentile £475 £491 £568
90th Percentile £509 £538 £603
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £340 £425
% change year-on-year +10.29% -20.00% -10.53%
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 50,135 29,742 35,694
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 91.07% 92.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,651 18,759 21,938
10th Percentile £325 £278 £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 £627 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,860 1,586 1,659
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.17 £20.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.84 £51.88 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.78 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.13 £43.90
% change year-on-year +69.14% -42.76% +0.34%

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 21 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 12 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 21 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 -152 51 £425 +13.33% 28
UK excluding London -115 35 £375 +10.29% 15
London -100 26 £447 -5.89% 15
Work from Home -80 20 £420 +5.00% 12
South West -34 8 - - 1
South East -63 8 £250 -31.51% 2
North of England -73 8 £420 +12.00% 3
Scotland -22 7 £319 -
North East -36 5 £485 +14.12% 1
North West -52 3 £402 +18.24% 1
Wales - 3 £475 - 1
East of England -27 1 - - 7

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

For the 6 months to 21 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 83 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 44 (53.01%) CI/CD
3 35 (42.17%) Playwright
4 31 (37.35%) QA
4 31 (37.35%) Selenium
5 28 (33.73%) Agile
6 27 (32.53%) Java
7 24 (28.92%) Azure
7 24 (28.92%) SC Cleared
7 24 (28.92%) Security Cleared
8 23 (27.71%) Python
9 21 (25.30%) DevOps
10 20 (24.10%) SQL
11 19 (22.89%) API Testing
11 19 (22.89%) Azure DevOps
11 19 (22.89%) JavaScript
12 17 (20.48%) Postman
12 17 (20.48%) Test Scripting
12 17 (20.48%) Validation
13 16 (19.28%) Jenkins
14 15 (18.07%) C#
14 15 (18.07%) Cucumber
14 15 (18.07%) Cypress.io
14 15 (18.07%) GitLab
14 15 (18.07%) TypeScript
15 14 (16.87%) GitHub
15 14 (16.87%) Test Strategy
16 13 (15.66%) Continuous Improvement
16 13 (15.66%) Git
16 13 (15.66%) 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 3 (3.61%) Confluence
2 1 (1.20%) Apache
2 1 (1.20%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (1.20%) Camunda
Business Applications
1 2 (2.41%) Aladdin
1 2 (2.41%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 24 (28.92%) Azure
2 19 (22.89%) Azure DevOps
3 14 (16.87%) GitHub
4 12 (14.46%) GitHub Actions
5 9 (10.84%) AWS
6 4 (4.82%) GCP
7 3 (3.61%) Dynamics 365
7 3 (3.61%) SaaS
8 2 (2.41%) Snowflake
9 1 (1.20%) Amazon ECS
9 1 (1.20%) Amazon EKS
9 1 (1.20%) Azure Data Factory
9 1 (1.20%) BrowserStack
9 1 (1.20%) Power Platform
9 1 (1.20%) PowerApps
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.61%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (1.20%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
2 1 (1.20%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 31 (37.35%) Selenium
2 17 (20.48%) Postman
3 16 (19.28%) Jenkins
4 15 (18.07%) Cucumber
4 15 (18.07%) Cypress.io
4 15 (18.07%) GitLab
5 13 (15.66%) Git
5 13 (15.66%) JIRA
5 13 (15.66%) REST Assured
6 8 (9.64%) JMeter
7 6 (7.23%) JUnit
7 6 (7.23%) SpecFlow
7 6 (7.23%) TestNG
8 5 (6.02%) Maven
8 5 (6.02%) WebDriver
9 4 (4.82%) Bitbucket
9 4 (4.82%) NUnit
10 3 (3.61%) Bugzilla
10 3 (3.61%) LoadRunner
10 3 (3.61%) TeamCity
General
1 16 (19.28%) Finance
2 15 (18.07%) Social Skills
3 13 (15.66%) Banking
4 7 (8.43%) Analytical Skills
5 5 (6.02%) Public Sector
6 2 (2.41%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (1.20%) Investment Banking
7 1 (1.20%) Military
7 1 (1.20%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (42.17%) Playwright
2 9 (10.84%) REST
3 6 (7.23%) Kafka
3 6 (7.23%) WireMock
4 4 (4.82%) Node.js
5 3 (3.61%) Spring
5 3 (3.61%) XML
6 2 (2.41%) .NET
6 2 (2.41%) Gherkin
6 2 (2.41%) pytest
6 2 (2.41%) RESTful
6 2 (2.41%) Swagger
6 2 (2.41%) WebdriverIO
6 2 (2.41%) XSD
7 1 (1.20%) .NET Core
7 1 (1.20%) Great Expectations
7 1 (1.20%) Jest
7 1 (1.20%) Pandas
7 1 (1.20%) React
7 1 (1.20%) Terraform
Miscellaneous
1 8 (9.64%) Data Protection Act
2 6 (7.23%) Distributed Systems
3 4 (4.82%) Product Ownership
4 3 (3.61%) Mobile App
5 2 (2.41%) Cloud Native
5 2 (2.41%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (1.20%) Data Structures
6 1 (1.20%) Greenfield Project
6 1 (1.20%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.20%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.20%) Linux
1 1 (1.20%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 44 (53.01%) CI/CD
3 28 (33.73%) Agile
4 21 (25.30%) DevOps
5 19 (22.89%) API Testing
6 17 (20.48%) Test Scripting
6 17 (20.48%) Validation
7 14 (16.87%) Test Strategy
8 13 (15.66%) Continuous Improvement
8 13 (15.66%) Problem-Solving
9 12 (14.46%) Performance Testing
9 12 (14.46%) Regression Testing
10 11 (13.25%) BDD
10 11 (13.25%) End-to-End Testing
11 10 (12.05%) AI
11 10 (12.05%) Defect Management
11 10 (12.05%) SDLC
12 9 (10.84%) Scrum
13 8 (9.64%) Data Protection
13 8 (9.64%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 27 (32.53%) Java
2 23 (27.71%) Python
3 20 (24.10%) SQL
4 19 (22.89%) JavaScript
5 15 (18.07%) C#
5 15 (18.07%) TypeScript
6 7 (8.43%) Bash
7 5 (6.02%) Kotlin
8 4 (4.82%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 24 (28.92%) SC Cleared
1 24 (28.92%) Security Cleared
2 5 (6.02%) DV Cleared
2 5 (6.02%) ISTQB
3 4 (4.82%) Computer Science Degree
3 4 (4.82%) Degree
4 2 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (37.35%) QA
2 2 (2.41%) Accessibility
2 2 (2.41%) Data Quality
2 2 (2.41%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 7 (8.43%) Docker
Systems Management
1 8 (9.64%) Kubernetes
2 4 (4.82%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 4 (4.82%) HP
1 4 (4.82%) Microsoft
2 3 (3.61%) Databricks
2 3 (3.61%) Talend
3 1 (1.20%) Oracle
3 1 (1.20%) Salesforce
3 1 (1.20%) SAP
3 1 (1.20%) Veracode