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 31 January 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 474 437 474
Rank change year-on-year -37 +37 +101
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Tester 117 103 130
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.30% 0.33% 0.29%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.33% 0.35% 0.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 91 66 112
10th Percentile £325 £330 £350
25th Percentile £360 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £448 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.03% -0.56% -2.70%
75th Percentile £505 £500 £550
90th Percentile £600 £561 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £400 £440
% change year-on-year -6.25% -9.09% -2.22%

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 35,445 29,208 41,662
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.48% 92.89% 93.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,347 17,858 27,594
10th Percentile £300 £296 £275
25th Percentile £405 £409 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £479 £495
% change year-on-year -0.84% -3.23% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,112 858 2,186
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.91 £13.25
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.00
Median hourly rate £29.60 £32.50 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.92% -10.96% +4.29%
75th Percentile £61.18 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £31.52 £38.00
% change year-on-year -12.75% -17.05% +26.67%

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 31 January 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 31 January 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 -59 86 £413 -11.19% 7
London -31 55 £430 -9.47% 4
Work from Home -1 40 £425 +9.32% 6
UK excluding London -64 36 £375 -6.25% 6
North of England -48 14 £375 -11.24% 1
South East -36 10 £383 -10.00% 1
Yorkshire -40 8 £375 -25.00% 1
Wales - 8 £700 - 1
East Midlands - 7 £360 - 1
Midlands - 7 £360 - 1
North West -33 4 £333 -16.88%
North East - 2 £488 -

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

For the 6 months to 31 January 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.

1 117 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 57 (48.72%) Agile
3 55 (47.01%) Selenium
4 48 (41.03%) CI/CD
5 45 (38.46%) Playwright
6 39 (33.33%) Azure
6 39 (33.33%) C#
6 39 (33.33%) Python
7 36 (30.77%) Test Scripting
8 34 (29.06%) DevOps
9 33 (28.21%) SQL
10 31 (26.50%) API Testing
10 31 (26.50%) Security Cleared
11 29 (24.79%) Java
11 29 (24.79%) Test Strategy
12 28 (23.93%) Azure DevOps
12 28 (23.93%) JavaScript
13 27 (23.08%) QA
14 26 (22.22%) SC Cleared
15 25 (21.37%) Cucumber
15 25 (21.37%) Cypress.io
15 25 (21.37%) Problem-Solving
15 25 (21.37%) TypeScript
16 24 (20.51%) Postman
17 22 (18.80%) Jenkins
18 21 (17.95%) Performance Testing
19 20 (17.09%) AWS
19 20 (17.09%) GitHub
19 20 (17.09%) JMeter
20 19 (16.24%) REST Assured

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 (5.98%) Confluence
2 2 (1.71%) Apache
Business Applications
1 8 (6.84%) Aladdin
2 2 (1.71%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.85%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.85%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.85%) Oracle General Ledger
3 1 (0.85%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.85%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 39 (33.33%) Azure
2 28 (23.93%) Azure DevOps
3 20 (17.09%) AWS
3 20 (17.09%) GitHub
4 11 (9.40%) GitHub Actions
5 10 (8.55%) Dynamics 365
6 9 (7.69%) Power Platform
7 8 (6.84%) Snowflake
8 4 (3.42%) GCP
9 3 (2.56%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 3 (2.56%) Amazon S3
10 2 (1.71%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 2 (1.71%) Azure Data Factory
10 2 (1.71%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 1 (0.85%) Amazon EventBridge
11 1 (0.85%) Azure AKS
11 1 (0.85%) Azure Service Bus
11 1 (0.85%) BlazeMeter
11 1 (0.85%) Google Analytics
11 1 (0.85%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 4 (3.42%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.71%) Data Warehouse
1 2 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
1 2 (1.71%) Relational Database
2 1 (0.85%) Amazon Athena
2 1 (0.85%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (0.85%) MongoDB
2 1 (0.85%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 55 (47.01%) Selenium
2 25 (21.37%) Cucumber
2 25 (21.37%) Cypress.io
3 24 (20.51%) Postman
4 22 (18.80%) Jenkins
5 20 (17.09%) JMeter
6 19 (16.24%) REST Assured
7 18 (15.38%) GitLab
7 18 (15.38%) SpecFlow
8 17 (14.53%) JIRA
9 11 (9.40%) Git
10 9 (7.69%) MSTest
11 8 (6.84%) JUnit
12 7 (5.98%) WebDriver
12 7 (5.98%) Zephyr
13 6 (5.13%) Gatling
13 6 (5.13%) Visual Studio
14 5 (4.27%) TestRail
15 4 (3.42%) Bitbucket
16 3 (2.56%) Appium
General
1 21 (17.95%) Social Skills
2 16 (13.68%) Analytical Skills
3 14 (11.97%) Finance
4 9 (7.69%) Banking
5 8 (6.84%) Public Sector
6 3 (2.56%) Automotive
7 2 (1.71%) Pharmaceutical
8 1 (0.85%) Billing
8 1 (0.85%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.85%) Retail Banking
8 1 (0.85%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (38.46%) Playwright
2 16 (13.68%) REST
3 11 (9.40%) .NET
4 9 (7.69%) RESTful
4 9 (7.69%) Web Services
5 6 (5.13%) JSON
5 6 (5.13%) XML
6 5 (4.27%) pytest
7 4 (3.42%) Node.js
7 4 (3.42%) SOAP
8 3 (2.56%) Gherkin
8 3 (2.56%) React
8 3 (2.56%) WebdriverIO
9 2 (1.71%) Apache NiFi
9 2 (1.71%) Kafka
9 2 (1.71%) Puppeteer
9 2 (1.71%) Spring
9 2 (1.71%) Spring Boot
9 2 (1.71%) Swagger
9 2 (1.71%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 8 (6.84%) Data Protection Act
2 4 (3.42%) Mobile App
3 3 (2.56%) Virtual Team
4 2 (1.71%) Product Ownership
5 1 (0.85%) Analytical Mindset
5 1 (0.85%) Client/Server
5 1 (0.85%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (0.85%) Embedded Systems
5 1 (0.85%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (0.85%) Linux Command Line
5 1 (0.85%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 4 (3.42%) Windows
2 2 (1.71%) Linux
3 1 (0.85%) Android
3 1 (0.85%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.85%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 117 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 57 (48.72%) Agile
3 48 (41.03%) CI/CD
4 36 (30.77%) Test Scripting
5 34 (29.06%) DevOps
6 31 (26.50%) API Testing
7 29 (24.79%) Test Strategy
8 25 (21.37%) Problem-Solving
9 21 (17.95%) Performance Testing
10 18 (15.38%) Non-Functional Testing
11 16 (13.68%) TDD
12 15 (12.82%) Regression Testing
13 13 (11.11%) Scrum
13 13 (11.11%) Validation
14 12 (10.26%) Continuous Improvement
14 12 (10.26%) SDLC
15 11 (9.40%) Test Management
16 10 (8.55%) AI
16 10 (8.55%) Continuous Integration
16 10 (8.55%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 39 (33.33%) C#
1 39 (33.33%) Python
2 33 (28.21%) SQL
3 29 (24.79%) Java
4 28 (23.93%) JavaScript
5 25 (21.37%) TypeScript
6 5 (4.27%) XPath
7 3 (2.56%) Bash
8 2 (1.71%) C
8 2 (1.71%) Scala
9 1 (0.85%) C++
9 1 (0.85%) Go
9 1 (0.85%) Ruby
9 1 (0.85%) Rust
9 1 (0.85%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 31 (26.50%) Security Cleared
2 26 (22.22%) SC Cleared
3 14 (11.97%) ISTQB
4 11 (9.40%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 5 (4.27%) Degree
6 3 (2.56%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.85%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (23.08%) QA
2 12 (10.26%) Accessibility
3 6 (5.13%) HMG Security Policy Framework
3 6 (5.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.71%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.85%) Software Quality Assurance
5 1 (0.85%) WCAG
System Software
1 17 (14.53%) Docker
Systems Management
1 8 (6.84%) Kubernetes
2 4 (3.42%) Terraform
3 3 (2.56%) Grafana
4 1 (0.85%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 9 (7.69%) Databricks
2 7 (5.98%) Oracle
3 6 (5.13%) Microsoft
4 4 (3.42%) Wind River
5 3 (2.56%) Salesforce
6 2 (1.71%) SAP
7 1 (0.85%) Conga
7 1 (0.85%) Optimizely
7 1 (0.85%) Splunk
7 1 (0.85%) Workday