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 21 March 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 501 434 464
Rank change year-on-year -67 +30 +83
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Tester 118 84 120
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.27% 0.29% 0.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.29% 0.31% 0.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 87 60 102
10th Percentile £319 £291 £350
25th Percentile £363 £363 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £450 £440
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% +2.27% -7.37%
75th Percentile £513 £508 £550
90th Percentile £730 £575 £648
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £390 £425
% change year-on-year +8.97% -8.24% -4.23%

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 40,298 27,260 41,112
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.93% 92.94% 92.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,195 17,769 26,943
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £410 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.37%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £721 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £487
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.46% -2.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,491 893 2,499
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.25 £12.92
25th Percentile £19.25 £21.05 £16.25
Median hourly rate £36.00 £33.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% +1.54% -23.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £76.25 £71.77
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.00 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +10.77% - -18.75%

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 March 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 13 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 March 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 -85 87 £425 -10.53% 5
London -32 59 £438 -7.89%
Work from Home -4 48 £425 +8.97% 7
UK excluding London -81 38 £425 +8.97% 12
Midlands - 15 £425 -
Wales - 13 £675 - 7
West Midlands - 11 £425 -
North of England -70 9 £550 +23.60% 2
Yorkshire -52 5 £550 +3.77%
South East -61 4 £725 - 2
East Midlands - 4 £725 -
North West -33 3 £325 -22.16% 1
North East -15 1 £550 +41.03% 1

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

For the 6 months to 21 March 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.

1 118 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 57 (48.31%) Agile
3 55 (46.61%) Azure
4 53 (44.92%) CI/CD
5 50 (42.37%) Selenium
6 42 (35.59%) Playwright
6 42 (35.59%) Python
7 38 (32.20%) Test Strategy
8 37 (31.36%) DevOps
8 37 (31.36%) SQL
9 36 (30.51%) C#
9 36 (30.51%) GitHub
9 36 (30.51%) Security Cleared
10 35 (29.66%) Test Scripting
11 33 (27.97%) Azure DevOps
12 31 (26.27%) JavaScript
12 31 (26.27%) JMeter
13 30 (25.42%) SC Cleared
14 29 (24.58%) API Testing
14 29 (24.58%) Cucumber
14 29 (24.58%) TypeScript
15 27 (22.88%) Docker
15 27 (22.88%) Java
16 26 (22.03%) AWS
16 26 (22.03%) Jenkins
16 26 (22.03%) Problem-Solving
16 26 (22.03%) Validation
17 24 (20.34%) Performance Testing
17 24 (20.34%) Postman
18 22 (18.64%) TDD

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 11 (9.32%) Confluence
2 2 (1.69%) Apache
3 1 (0.85%) SAS
3 1 (0.85%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 9 (7.63%) Aladdin
2 1 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.85%) NetSuite
2 1 (0.85%) Oracle Assets
2 1 (0.85%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.85%) Oracle General Ledger
2 1 (0.85%) Oracle Payables
2 1 (0.85%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 55 (46.61%) Azure
2 36 (30.51%) GitHub
3 33 (27.97%) Azure DevOps
4 26 (22.03%) AWS
5 21 (17.80%) GitHub Actions
6 12 (10.17%) GCP
7 10 (8.47%) Dynamics 365
7 10 (8.47%) Power Platform
8 9 (7.63%) Snowflake
9 3 (2.54%) Azure API Management
9 3 (2.54%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 3 (2.54%) Power Automate
10 2 (1.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 2 (1.69%) Amazon S3
10 2 (1.69%) Azure Data Factory
10 2 (1.69%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 1 (0.85%) AWS CodePipeline
11 1 (0.85%) BlazeMeter
11 1 (0.85%) Tricentis Tosca
11 1 (0.85%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 4 (3.39%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (10.17%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (2.54%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (1.69%) Relational Database
4 1 (0.85%) Amazon Athena
4 1 (0.85%) Apache Hive
4 1 (0.85%) Base SAS
4 1 (0.85%) Big Data
4 1 (0.85%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.85%) Power BI
4 1 (0.85%) RDBMS
4 1 (0.85%) SAS Data Integration Studio
4 1 (0.85%) SAS Enterprise Guide
4 1 (0.85%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 50 (42.37%) Selenium
2 31 (26.27%) JMeter
3 29 (24.58%) Cucumber
4 26 (22.03%) Jenkins
5 24 (20.34%) Postman
6 21 (17.80%) GitLab
7 20 (16.95%) SpecFlow
8 19 (16.10%) Git
8 19 (16.10%) JIRA
9 17 (14.41%) Cypress.io
10 16 (13.56%) WebDriver
11 15 (12.71%) REST Assured
12 13 (11.02%) JUnit
13 11 (9.32%) MSTest
14 8 (6.78%) Visual Studio
15 7 (5.93%) Zephyr
16 5 (4.24%) TestRail
17 4 (3.39%) Gatling
18 3 (2.54%) Appium
19 2 (1.69%) SoapUI
General
1 26 (22.03%) Social Skills
2 19 (16.10%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (9.32%) Finance
4 10 (8.47%) Banking
5 6 (5.08%) Public Sector
6 5 (4.24%) Pharmaceutical
7 1 (0.85%) Billing
7 1 (0.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (0.85%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (0.85%) Retail Banking
7 1 (0.85%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (35.59%) Playwright
2 12 (10.17%) REST
3 11 (9.32%) Web Services
4 10 (8.47%) WireMock
5 9 (7.63%) Spring
6 7 (5.93%) pytest
7 6 (5.08%) .NET
7 6 (5.08%) JSON
7 6 (5.08%) XML
8 5 (4.24%) Gherkin
8 5 (4.24%) RESTful
9 2 (1.69%) Apache NiFi
9 2 (1.69%) Kafka
9 2 (1.69%) Node.js
9 2 (1.69%) React
9 2 (1.69%) WebdriverIO
10 1 (0.85%) CSS
10 1 (0.85%) Great Expectations
10 1 (0.85%) React Native
10 1 (0.85%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 10 (8.47%) Data Protection Act
1 10 (8.47%) Distributed Systems
2 7 (5.93%) Distributed Architecture
3 4 (3.39%) Mobile App
4 3 (2.54%) Virtual Team
5 2 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (1.69%) Linux Command Line
5 2 (1.69%) Product Ownership
6 1 (0.85%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (0.85%) Distributed Applications
6 1 (0.85%) Embedded Systems
Operating Systems
1 3 (2.54%) Linux
2 1 (0.85%) Android
2 1 (0.85%) Apple iOS
2 1 (0.85%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 118 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 57 (48.31%) Agile
3 53 (44.92%) CI/CD
4 38 (32.20%) Test Strategy
5 37 (31.36%) DevOps
6 35 (29.66%) Test Scripting
7 29 (24.58%) API Testing
8 26 (22.03%) Problem-Solving
8 26 (22.03%) Validation
9 24 (20.34%) Performance Testing
10 22 (18.64%) TDD
11 20 (16.95%) BDD
12 18 (15.25%) Data Validation
13 17 (14.41%) Non-Functional Testing
14 16 (13.56%) AI
14 16 (13.56%) Continuous Improvement
14 16 (13.56%) End-to-End Testing
15 14 (11.86%) Scrum
16 13 (11.02%) Load Testing
17 12 (10.17%) Regression Testing
Programming Languages
1 42 (35.59%) Python
2 37 (31.36%) SQL
3 36 (30.51%) C#
4 31 (26.27%) JavaScript
5 29 (24.58%) TypeScript
6 27 (22.88%) Java
7 5 (4.24%) XPath
8 2 (1.69%) Bash
8 2 (1.69%) C
9 1 (0.85%) C++
9 1 (0.85%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.85%) Ruby
9 1 (0.85%) Rust
9 1 (0.85%) SAS Macro
9 1 (0.85%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 36 (30.51%) Security Cleared
2 30 (25.42%) SC Cleared
3 15 (12.71%) ISTQB
4 13 (11.02%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 6 (5.08%) Degree
6 3 (2.54%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.85%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.85%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (17.80%) QA
2 9 (7.63%) HMG Security Policy Framework
2 9 (7.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 8 (6.78%) Accessibility
4 4 (3.39%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.85%) GDPR
5 1 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.85%) Software Quality Assurance
5 1 (0.85%) WCAG
System Software
1 27 (22.88%) Docker
Systems Management
1 17 (14.41%) Kubernetes
2 10 (8.47%) Grafana
3 8 (6.78%) Prometheus
4 2 (1.69%) Terraform
5 1 (0.85%) Control-M
5 1 (0.85%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 10 (8.47%) Databricks
2 8 (6.78%) Microsoft
3 4 (3.39%) Wind River
4 3 (2.54%) SAP
5 2 (1.69%) Oracle
6 1 (0.85%) Avaloq
6 1 (0.85%) Conga
6 1 (0.85%) Google
6 1 (0.85%) HP
6 1 (0.85%) Optimizely
6 1 (0.85%) Salesforce
6 1 (0.85%) ServiceNow
6 1 (0.85%) Workday