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 13 July 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 569 464 487
Rank change year-on-year -105 +23 +37
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Tester 90 86 106
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.26% 0.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.18% 0.29% 0.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 54 63 79
10th Percentile £315 £234 £317
25th Percentile £369 £275 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £385 £450
Median % change year-on-year +10.39% -14.44% -5.26%
75th Percentile £475 £500 £569
90th Percentile £543 £573 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £280 £400
% change year-on-year +51.79% -30.00% -9.86%

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 48,729 30,023 39,779
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.49% 91.87% 93.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,502 19,148 25,568
10th Percentile £325 £287 £288
25th Percentile £419 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,285 1,392 2,719
10th Percentile £15.90 £13.75 £13.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.41 £17.00
Median hourly rate £43.69 £26.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +64.87% -33.75% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.84 £56.25 £63.20
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% +6.67%

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 13 July 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 13 July 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 -115 66 £425 +15.18% 10
UK excluding London -87 43 £425 +51.79% 8
London -68 34 £447 -1.87% 2
Work from Home -59 33 £425 +25.00% 4
Midlands -54 11 £425 +61.90% 1
West Midlands -55 11 £425 - 1
South West -27 8 - - 2
North of England -79 8 £450 +15.38% 4
Scotland -12 6 £313 -16.53%
Wales - 6 £450 -
North East -31 4 £485 +24.36% 3
South East -73 4 £375 +7.14% 1
North West -53 3 £351 +3.24% 1
Yorkshire -57 1 £550 +2.33%

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

For the 6 months to 13 July 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 90 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 49 (54.44%) CI/CD
3 40 (44.44%) Azure
4 37 (41.11%) Selenium
5 35 (38.89%) Agile
5 35 (38.89%) Playwright
6 27 (30.00%) DevOps
6 27 (30.00%) Security Cleared
7 26 (28.89%) GitHub
7 26 (28.89%) Python
8 25 (27.78%) SC Cleared
8 25 (27.78%) Test Strategy
9 24 (26.67%) Cucumber
10 23 (25.56%) API Testing
10 23 (25.56%) Azure DevOps
10 23 (25.56%) BDD
10 23 (25.56%) Jenkins
11 22 (24.44%) AWS
11 22 (24.44%) Test Scripting
11 22 (24.44%) Validation
12 21 (23.33%) Java
12 21 (23.33%) TypeScript
13 20 (22.22%) GitLab
13 20 (22.22%) SQL
14 19 (21.11%) Git
14 19 (21.11%) Kubernetes
14 19 (21.11%) Performance Testing
14 19 (21.11%) Postman
15 18 (20.00%) C#
15 18 (20.00%) 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 12 (13.33%) Confluence
2 1 (1.11%) Camunda
2 1 (1.11%) SAS
2 1 (1.11%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 4 (4.44%) Aladdin
2 2 (2.22%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 40 (44.44%) Azure
2 26 (28.89%) GitHub
3 23 (25.56%) Azure DevOps
4 22 (24.44%) AWS
5 18 (20.00%) GitHub Actions
6 13 (14.44%) GCP
7 4 (4.44%) Snowflake
8 3 (3.33%) Azure API Management
8 3 (3.33%) Dynamics 365
8 3 (3.33%) Power Automate
9 2 (2.22%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 2 (2.22%) Power Platform
9 2 (2.22%) SaaS
10 1 (1.11%) Amazon ECS
10 1 (1.11%) Amazon EKS
10 1 (1.11%) Azure Data Factory
10 1 (1.11%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 1 (1.11%) Microsoft 365
10 1 (1.11%) PowerApps
10 1 (1.11%) Tricentis Tosca
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (11.11%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (2.22%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.11%) Apache Hive
3 1 (1.11%) Base SAS
3 1 (1.11%) Big Data
3 1 (1.11%) Hadoop
3 1 (1.11%) Power BI
3 1 (1.11%) SAS Data Integration Studio
3 1 (1.11%) SAS Enterprise Guide
3 1 (1.11%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 37 (41.11%) Selenium
2 24 (26.67%) Cucumber
3 23 (25.56%) Jenkins
4 20 (22.22%) GitLab
5 19 (21.11%) Git
5 19 (21.11%) Postman
6 18 (20.00%) REST Assured
7 17 (18.89%) JMeter
8 16 (17.78%) JIRA
8 16 (17.78%) WebDriver
9 13 (14.44%) JUnit
10 9 (10.00%) Cypress.io
10 9 (10.00%) SpecFlow
11 4 (4.44%) Bitbucket
11 4 (4.44%) Maven
11 4 (4.44%) TeamCity
11 4 (4.44%) TestNG
12 3 (3.33%) Appium
12 3 (3.33%) PyCharm
13 2 (2.22%) Gatling
General
1 21 (23.33%) Social Skills
2 12 (13.33%) Finance
3 11 (12.22%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (7.78%) Banking
5 6 (6.67%) Public Sector
6 3 (3.33%) Pharmaceutical
7 2 (2.22%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (1.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (1.11%) Military
8 1 (1.11%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (38.89%) Playwright
2 14 (15.56%) WireMock
3 12 (13.33%) Spring
4 11 (12.22%) REST
5 4 (4.44%) Gherkin
5 4 (4.44%) pytest
6 3 (3.33%) Kafka
6 3 (3.33%) Swagger
7 2 (2.22%) Django
7 2 (2.22%) Node.js
7 2 (2.22%) Web Services
8 1 (1.11%) JDBC
8 1 (1.11%) Jest
8 1 (1.11%) ODBC
8 1 (1.11%) React
8 1 (1.11%) RESTful
8 1 (1.11%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 10 (11.11%) Distributed Systems
2 7 (7.78%) Distributed Architecture
3 6 (6.67%) Data Protection Act
4 3 (3.33%) Product Ownership
5 2 (2.22%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (2.22%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (2.22%) Mobile App
5 2 (2.22%) Virtual Team
6 1 (1.11%) Cloud Native
6 1 (1.11%) Data Structures
6 1 (1.11%) Distributed Applications
6 1 (1.11%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.11%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 90 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 49 (54.44%) CI/CD
3 35 (38.89%) Agile
4 27 (30.00%) DevOps
5 25 (27.78%) Test Strategy
6 23 (25.56%) API Testing
6 23 (25.56%) BDD
7 22 (24.44%) Test Scripting
7 22 (24.44%) Validation
8 19 (21.11%) Performance Testing
9 18 (20.00%) Continuous Improvement
10 16 (17.78%) Data Validation
10 16 (17.78%) Problem-Solving
11 15 (16.67%) Regression Testing
11 15 (16.67%) TDD
12 13 (14.44%) End-to-End Testing
13 10 (11.11%) Load Testing
13 10 (11.11%) Microservices
14 9 (10.00%) Digital Transformation Programme
14 9 (10.00%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 26 (28.89%) Python
2 21 (23.33%) Java
2 21 (23.33%) TypeScript
3 20 (22.22%) SQL
4 18 (20.00%) C#
4 18 (20.00%) JavaScript
5 4 (4.44%) Kotlin
6 3 (3.33%) Bash
6 3 (3.33%) PowerShell
7 1 (1.11%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 27 (30.00%) Security Cleared
2 25 (27.78%) SC Cleared
3 5 (5.56%) Computer Science Degree
3 5 (5.56%) Degree
3 5 (5.56%) ISTQB
4 4 (4.44%) DV Cleared
5 2 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (2.22%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (18.89%) QA
2 3 (3.33%) HMG Security Policy Framework
2 3 (3.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (2.22%) Accessibility
3 2 (2.22%) Data Quality
4 1 (1.11%) GDPR
4 1 (1.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 16 (17.78%) Docker
Systems Management
1 19 (21.11%) Kubernetes
2 8 (8.89%) Grafana
2 8 (8.89%) Prometheus
3 3 (3.33%) HP ALM
4 1 (1.11%) Control-M
4 1 (1.11%) Terraform
Vendors
1 7 (7.78%) Microsoft
2 4 (4.44%) Databricks
3 3 (3.33%) HP
4 2 (2.22%) Talend
5 1 (1.11%) Avaloq
5 1 (1.11%) Google
5 1 (1.11%) Salesforce
5 1 (1.11%) SAP
5 1 (1.11%) ServiceNow
5 1 (1.11%) Veracode