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 23 June 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 546 457 472
Rank change year-on-year -89 +15 +66
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Tester 91 80 108
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.27% 0.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.19% 0.29% 0.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 54 61 82
10th Percentile £315 £250 £350
25th Percentile £363 £280 £373
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £400 £475
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -15.79% -
75th Percentile £475 £500 £586
90th Percentile £543 £575 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £340 £406
% change year-on-year +25.00% -16.31% -7.14%

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 46,904 27,610 40,551
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 92.14% 92.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,521 17,729 25,983
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £414 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.60% -1.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,134 1,203 2,979
10th Percentile £15.38 £13.85 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.44 £16.37
Median hourly rate £43.25 £27.38 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.99% -27.00% -14.77%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -1.23%

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 23 June 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 23 June 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 69 £425 +4.94% 4
UK excluding London -95 41 £425 +25.00% 3
London -68 39 £425 -10.53% 1
Work from Home -44 33 £425 +25.00% 1
West Midlands -47 11 £425 -
Midlands -55 11 £425 +60.23%
South West -26 8 - -
Scotland -12 6 £313 -16.53%
North of England -78 6 £450 - 3
Wales - 6 £450 -
South East -58 4 £375 +7.14%
North West -41 3 £351 +3.24% 1
North East -34 2 £485 +24.36% 2
Yorkshire -57 1 £550 +2.33%

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

For the 6 months to 23 June 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 47 (51.65%) CI/CD
3 41 (45.05%) Azure
4 37 (40.66%) Playwright
5 36 (39.56%) Agile
6 35 (38.46%) Selenium
7 27 (29.67%) DevOps
7 27 (29.67%) Test Scripting
8 26 (28.57%) Security Cleared
9 25 (27.47%) GitHub
9 25 (27.47%) Python
9 25 (27.47%) Test Strategy
10 24 (26.37%) SC Cleared
11 23 (25.27%) API Testing
11 23 (25.27%) AWS
11 23 (25.27%) Azure DevOps
11 23 (25.27%) BDD
11 23 (25.27%) Cucumber
12 22 (24.18%) Jenkins
12 22 (24.18%) TypeScript
13 20 (21.98%) C#
13 20 (21.98%) GitLab
13 20 (21.98%) Java
13 20 (21.98%) JavaScript
13 20 (21.98%) Kubernetes
13 20 (21.98%) Performance Testing
13 20 (21.98%) SQL
13 20 (21.98%) Validation
14 19 (20.88%) Postman
14 19 (20.88%) Problem-Solving

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 (13.19%) Confluence
2 1 (1.10%) Camunda
2 1 (1.10%) SAS
2 1 (1.10%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 6 (6.59%) Aladdin
2 2 (2.20%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 41 (45.05%) Azure
2 25 (27.47%) GitHub
3 23 (25.27%) AWS
3 23 (25.27%) Azure DevOps
4 18 (19.78%) GitHub Actions
5 14 (15.38%) GCP
6 6 (6.59%) Snowflake
7 3 (3.30%) Azure API Management
7 3 (3.30%) Dynamics 365
7 3 (3.30%) Power Automate
8 2 (2.20%) Azure Cosmos DB
8 2 (2.20%) Power Platform
9 1 (1.10%) Amazon ECS
9 1 (1.10%) Amazon EKS
9 1 (1.10%) AWS CodePipeline
9 1 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
9 1 (1.10%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 1 (1.10%) Microsoft 365
9 1 (1.10%) PowerApps
9 1 (1.10%) Tricentis Tosca
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (10.99%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (2.20%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.10%) Apache Hive
3 1 (1.10%) Base SAS
3 1 (1.10%) Big Data
3 1 (1.10%) Hadoop
3 1 (1.10%) Power BI
3 1 (1.10%) SAS Data Integration Studio
3 1 (1.10%) SAS Enterprise Guide
3 1 (1.10%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 35 (38.46%) Selenium
2 23 (25.27%) Cucumber
3 22 (24.18%) Jenkins
4 20 (21.98%) GitLab
5 19 (20.88%) Postman
6 18 (19.78%) JMeter
7 17 (18.68%) Git
7 17 (18.68%) REST Assured
8 16 (17.58%) WebDriver
9 13 (14.29%) JIRA
10 12 (13.19%) JUnit
11 11 (12.09%) SpecFlow
12 10 (10.99%) Cypress.io
13 4 (4.40%) Bitbucket
13 4 (4.40%) Maven
13 4 (4.40%) TeamCity
14 3 (3.30%) Appium
14 3 (3.30%) Gatling
14 3 (3.30%) PyCharm
14 3 (3.30%) TestNG
General
1 21 (23.08%) Social Skills
2 13 (14.29%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (13.19%) Finance
4 7 (7.69%) Banking
5 5 (5.49%) Public Sector
6 3 (3.30%) Pharmaceutical
7 2 (2.20%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (1.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (1.10%) Military
8 1 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (40.66%) Playwright
2 12 (13.19%) Spring
2 12 (13.19%) WireMock
3 11 (12.09%) REST
4 4 (4.40%) Gherkin
4 4 (4.40%) pytest
5 3 (3.30%) Kafka
5 3 (3.30%) Swagger
6 2 (2.20%) Django
6 2 (2.20%) Web Services
7 1 (1.10%) JDBC
7 1 (1.10%) Jest
7 1 (1.10%) ODBC
7 1 (1.10%) React
7 1 (1.10%) RESTful
7 1 (1.10%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 10 (10.99%) Distributed Systems
2 8 (8.79%) Data Protection Act
3 7 (7.69%) Distributed Architecture
4 3 (3.30%) Mobile App
4 3 (3.30%) Product Ownership
4 3 (3.30%) Virtual Team
5 2 (2.20%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.10%) Cloud Native
6 1 (1.10%) Data Structures
6 1 (1.10%) Distributed Applications
6 1 (1.10%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.10%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 91 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 47 (51.65%) CI/CD
3 36 (39.56%) Agile
4 27 (29.67%) DevOps
4 27 (29.67%) Test Scripting
5 25 (27.47%) Test Strategy
6 23 (25.27%) API Testing
6 23 (25.27%) BDD
7 20 (21.98%) Performance Testing
7 20 (21.98%) Validation
8 19 (20.88%) Problem-Solving
9 17 (18.68%) TDD
10 16 (17.58%) Continuous Improvement
11 15 (16.48%) Data Validation
12 14 (15.38%) Regression Testing
13 12 (13.19%) End-to-End Testing
14 10 (10.99%) Load Testing
14 10 (10.99%) Microservices
15 9 (9.89%) Observability
15 9 (9.89%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 25 (27.47%) Python
2 22 (24.18%) TypeScript
3 20 (21.98%) C#
3 20 (21.98%) Java
3 20 (21.98%) JavaScript
3 20 (21.98%) SQL
4 4 (4.40%) Kotlin
5 1 (1.10%) Bash
5 1 (1.10%) PowerShell
5 1 (1.10%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 26 (28.57%) Security Cleared
2 24 (26.37%) SC Cleared
3 5 (5.49%) Computer Science Degree
3 5 (5.49%) Degree
3 5 (5.49%) ISTQB
4 4 (4.40%) DV Cleared
5 2 (2.20%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 1 (1.10%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (19.78%) QA
2 3 (3.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
2 3 (3.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (2.20%) Data Quality
4 1 (1.10%) Accessibility
4 1 (1.10%) GDPR
4 1 (1.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 17 (18.68%) Docker
Systems Management
1 20 (21.98%) Kubernetes
2 8 (8.79%) Grafana
2 8 (8.79%) Prometheus
3 1 (1.10%) Control-M
3 1 (1.10%) HP ALM
3 1 (1.10%) Terraform
Vendors
1 7 (7.69%) Microsoft
2 6 (6.59%) Databricks
3 1 (1.10%) Avaloq
3 1 (1.10%) Google
3 1 (1.10%) HP
3 1 (1.10%) Salesforce
3 1 (1.10%) SAP
3 1 (1.10%) ServiceNow
3 1 (1.10%) Talend
3 1 (1.10%) Veracode