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 November 2025.

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

6 months to
23 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 471 424 512
Rank change year-on-year -47 +88 +59
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Tester 113 114 111
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.32% 0.31% 0.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.35% 0.33% 0.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 84 70 97
10th Percentile £334 £330 £340
25th Percentile £375 £369 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £413 £440
Median % change year-on-year +3.03% -6.25% -4.86%
75th Percentile £519 £558 £538
90th Percentile £709 £588 £588
UK excluding London median daily rate £370 £400 £440
% change year-on-year -7.50% -9.09% -4.86%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 32,516 34,282 43,523
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.00% 92.79% 93.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,580 20,693 29,476
10th Percentile £280 £300 £291
25th Percentile £402 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £649
90th Percentile £725 £738 £742
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,925 1,305 1,549
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.22 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +48.33%
75th Percentile £56.25 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.00 £74.37 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £33.54 £44.75
% change year-on-year -25.01% -25.05% +83.48%

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 November 2025.

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 15 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 November 2025. 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 -35 83 £425 -8.11% 10
London +7 45 £455 -4.16% 4
UK excluding London -44 44 £370 -7.50% 13
Work from Home +20 42 £425 +8.97% 8
North of England -39 14 £375 -6.25% 3
Midlands - 12 £360 -
South East -7 11 £383 -26.79% 5
East Midlands - 11 £360 -
Yorkshire -30 7 £375 -21.05%
Wales - 7 £700 - 5
North West -26 5 £333 -15.82% 3
North East -4 2 £488 +14.71%
South West -7 2 - -
Scotland -17 2 - -
West Midlands - 1 - -

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

For the 6 months to 23 November 2025, 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.

1 113 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 64 (56.64%) Selenium
3 47 (41.59%) Agile
4 42 (37.17%) CI/CD
5 36 (31.86%) DevOps
6 35 (30.97%) Java
7 34 (30.09%) Azure
7 34 (30.09%) Test Strategy
8 32 (28.32%) Playwright
8 32 (28.32%) Security Cleared
9 31 (27.43%) Python
10 29 (25.66%) C#
11 28 (24.78%) API Testing
11 28 (24.78%) QA
11 28 (24.78%) SQL
12 27 (23.89%) Azure DevOps
12 27 (23.89%) Cucumber
12 27 (23.89%) Cypress.io
12 27 (23.89%) Jenkins
13 25 (22.12%) SC Cleared
14 23 (20.35%) Test Scripting
15 22 (19.47%) AWS
16 21 (18.58%) Postman
17 20 (17.70%) JavaScript
17 20 (17.70%) Non-Functional Testing
17 20 (17.70%) Performance Testing
18 18 (15.93%) JIRA
19 17 (15.04%) Continuous Improvement
19 17 (15.04%) GitHub
19 17 (15.04%) JMeter

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 7 (6.19%) Confluence
2 2 (1.77%) Apache
2 2 (1.77%) CICS
Business Applications
1 1 (0.88%) Aladdin
1 1 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.88%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 34 (30.09%) Azure
2 27 (23.89%) Azure DevOps
3 22 (19.47%) AWS
4 17 (15.04%) GitHub
5 9 (7.96%) Dynamics 365
5 9 (7.96%) Power Platform
6 8 (7.08%) GitHub Actions
7 3 (2.65%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 3 (2.65%) Amazon S3
8 2 (1.77%) AWS Lambda
8 2 (1.77%) GCP
8 2 (1.77%) Serverless
8 2 (1.77%) Snowflake
9 1 (0.88%) Amazon EC2
9 1 (0.88%) Amazon EventBridge
9 1 (0.88%) Azure AKS
9 1 (0.88%) Azure Service Bus
9 1 (0.88%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.65%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (3.54%) Relational Database
2 2 (1.77%) DB2
2 2 (1.77%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.88%) Amazon Athena
3 1 (0.88%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.88%) Big Data
3 1 (0.88%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.88%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.88%) RDBMS
3 1 (0.88%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 64 (56.64%) Selenium
2 27 (23.89%) Cucumber
2 27 (23.89%) Cypress.io
2 27 (23.89%) Jenkins
3 21 (18.58%) Postman
4 18 (15.93%) JIRA
5 17 (15.04%) JMeter
5 17 (15.04%) REST Assured
6 16 (14.16%) GitLab
7 14 (12.39%) JUnit
8 12 (10.62%) Git
9 10 (8.85%) SpecFlow
10 9 (7.96%) MSTest
11 8 (7.08%) Zephyr
12 6 (5.31%) Visual Studio
13 4 (3.54%) Bitbucket
13 4 (3.54%) TestRail
14 3 (2.65%) Gatling
14 3 (2.65%) SoapUI
14 3 (2.65%) TestNG
General
1 18 (15.93%) Social Skills
2 17 (15.04%) Finance
3 11 (9.73%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (9.73%) Banking
4 8 (7.08%) Public Sector
5 3 (2.65%) Automotive
6 2 (1.77%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (1.77%) Pharmaceutical
7 1 (0.88%) Billing
7 1 (0.88%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (28.32%) Playwright
2 16 (14.16%) REST
3 13 (11.50%) .NET
3 13 (11.50%) RESTful
3 13 (11.50%) Web Services
4 7 (6.19%) SOAP
5 5 (4.42%) Gherkin
5 5 (4.42%) pytest
6 4 (3.54%) JSON
6 4 (3.54%) Node.js
6 4 (3.54%) XML
7 3 (2.65%) HTML
7 3 (2.65%) jQuery
7 3 (2.65%) React
8 2 (1.77%) Apache NiFi
8 2 (1.77%) Puppeteer
8 2 (1.77%) Spring Boot
8 2 (1.77%) Swagger
8 2 (1.77%) WebdriverIO
8 2 (1.77%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 5 (4.42%) Product Ownership
2 3 (2.65%) Data Protection Act
3 2 (1.77%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 2 (1.77%) Mainframe
3 2 (1.77%) VSAM
4 1 (0.88%) Algorithms
4 1 (0.88%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (0.88%) Client/Server
4 1 (0.88%) Enterprise Software
4 1 (0.88%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (0.88%) Management Information System
4 1 (0.88%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 5 (4.42%) Linux
2 4 (3.54%) Windows
3 2 (1.77%) Unix
4 1 (0.88%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 113 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 47 (41.59%) Agile
3 42 (37.17%) CI/CD
4 36 (31.86%) DevOps
5 34 (30.09%) Test Strategy
6 28 (24.78%) API Testing
7 23 (20.35%) Test Scripting
8 20 (17.70%) Non-Functional Testing
8 20 (17.70%) Performance Testing
9 17 (15.04%) Continuous Improvement
9 17 (15.04%) Problem-Solving
10 15 (13.27%) Acceptance Criteria
10 15 (13.27%) Regression Testing
10 15 (13.27%) SDLC
11 14 (12.39%) Software Testing
12 13 (11.50%) Continuous Integration
13 12 (10.62%) Test Management
13 12 (10.62%) Validation
14 11 (9.73%) AI
14 11 (9.73%) Manual Testing
Programming Languages
1 35 (30.97%) Java
2 31 (27.43%) Python
3 29 (25.66%) C#
4 28 (24.78%) SQL
5 20 (17.70%) JavaScript
6 8 (7.08%) TypeScript
7 3 (2.65%) Bash
7 3 (2.65%) Ruby
7 3 (2.65%) XPath
8 2 (1.77%) COBOL
8 2 (1.77%) JCL
8 2 (1.77%) Scala
9 1 (0.88%) C
9 1 (0.88%) Go
9 1 (0.88%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 32 (28.32%) Security Cleared
2 25 (22.12%) SC Cleared
3 13 (11.50%) ISTQB
4 9 (7.96%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 8 (7.08%) Degree
6 5 (4.42%) DV Cleared
7 2 (1.77%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.88%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (24.78%) QA
2 11 (9.73%) Accessibility
3 6 (5.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
3 6 (5.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (2.65%) Data Quality
5 2 (1.77%) SLA
6 1 (0.88%) Software Quality Assurance
6 1 (0.88%) WCAG
System Software
1 12 (10.62%) Docker
Systems Management
1 5 (4.42%) Kubernetes
2 3 (2.65%) Terraform
3 2 (1.77%) Ansible
3 2 (1.77%) Grafana
4 1 (0.88%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 6 (5.31%) Microsoft
1 6 (5.31%) Oracle
2 4 (3.54%) UiPath
2 4 (3.54%) Wind River
3 3 (2.65%) Salesforce
4 2 (1.77%) Databricks
5 1 (0.88%) Conga
5 1 (0.88%) Duck Creek
5 1 (0.88%) Guidewire
5 1 (0.88%) SAP
5 1 (0.88%) Splunk