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 9 December 2025.

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

6 months to
9 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 466 428 499
Rank change year-on-year -38 +71 +66
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Tester 116 115 109
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.32% 0.32% 0.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.35% 0.35% 0.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 84 72 96
10th Percentile £327 £330 £340
25th Percentile £372 £368 £368
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £419 £440
Median % change year-on-year +1.49% -4.83% -4.86%
75th Percentile £519 £511 £528
90th Percentile £679 £575 £585
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £400 £439
% change year-on-year -6.25% -8.83% -2.50%

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 32,988 33,120 42,501
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.93% 92.74% 93.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,924 20,243 28,641
10th Percentile £285 £300 £294
25th Percentile £403 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £645
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,924 1,136 1,517
10th Percentile £14.22 £15.36 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.75 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £34.75 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -27.63% -21.02% +40.98%
75th Percentile £56.81 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.75 £73.66 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -26.97% +78.00%

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 9 December 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 9 December 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 -48 85 £413 -8.74% 29
London -7 50 £448 -5.79% 5
Work from Home -1 42 £425 +6.25% 25
UK excluding London -53 41 £375 -6.25% 25
North of England -45 14 £375 -6.25% 11
South East -23 11 £383 -26.79% 4
Midlands - 9 £360 - 5
East Midlands - 8 £360 - 4
Wales - 8 £700 -
Yorkshire -37 7 £375 -14.29% 4
North West -24 5 £325 -18.75% 6
North East -2 2 £488 +14.71% 1
Scotland -7 1 - -
South West -14 1 - - 3
West Midlands - 1 - - 1

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

For the 6 months to 9 December 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.

1 116 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 59 (50.86%) Selenium
3 52 (44.83%) Agile
4 45 (38.79%) CI/CD
5 39 (33.62%) Playwright
6 37 (31.90%) DevOps
7 36 (31.03%) Azure
7 36 (31.03%) Python
8 34 (29.31%) Security Cleared
9 32 (27.59%) C#
9 32 (27.59%) Java
10 30 (25.86%) Test Strategy
11 29 (25.00%) Azure DevOps
12 28 (24.14%) Cypress.io
12 28 (24.14%) SC Cleared
13 27 (23.28%) API Testing
13 27 (23.28%) SQL
14 26 (22.41%) QA
15 25 (21.55%) Cucumber
15 25 (21.55%) Jenkins
15 25 (21.55%) Test Scripting
16 24 (20.69%) JavaScript
17 21 (18.10%) JIRA
17 21 (18.10%) Postman
18 20 (17.24%) AWS
19 19 (16.38%) GitHub
19 19 (16.38%) Non-Functional Testing
19 19 (16.38%) Performance Testing
20 18 (15.52%) GitLab
20 18 (15.52%) 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 (6.03%) Confluence
2 2 (1.72%) Apache
Business Applications
1 3 (2.59%) Aladdin
2 2 (1.72%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.86%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.86%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.86%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.86%) Oracle General Ledger
3 1 (0.86%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.86%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 36 (31.03%) Azure
2 29 (25.00%) Azure DevOps
3 20 (17.24%) AWS
4 19 (16.38%) GitHub
5 10 (8.62%) Dynamics 365
5 10 (8.62%) GitHub Actions
6 9 (7.76%) Power Platform
7 4 (3.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 4 (3.45%) Amazon S3
8 3 (2.59%) Snowflake
9 2 (1.72%) GCP
10 1 (0.86%) Amazon EC2
10 1 (0.86%) Amazon EventBridge
10 1 (0.86%) AWS Lambda
10 1 (0.86%) Azure AKS
10 1 (0.86%) Azure Service Bus
10 1 (0.86%) BlazeMeter
10 1 (0.86%) Google Analytics
10 1 (0.86%) Serverless
10 1 (0.86%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 4 (3.45%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (2.59%) Relational Database
2 2 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.86%) Amazon Athena
3 1 (0.86%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.86%) Big Data
3 1 (0.86%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.86%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 59 (50.86%) Selenium
2 28 (24.14%) Cypress.io
3 25 (21.55%) Cucumber
3 25 (21.55%) Jenkins
4 21 (18.10%) JIRA
4 21 (18.10%) Postman
5 18 (15.52%) GitLab
5 18 (15.52%) JMeter
6 15 (12.93%) REST Assured
7 14 (12.07%) JUnit
8 13 (11.21%) SpecFlow
9 10 (8.62%) Git
9 10 (8.62%) Zephyr
10 9 (7.76%) MSTest
11 6 (5.17%) TestRail
11 6 (5.17%) Visual Studio
12 4 (3.45%) Bitbucket
13 3 (2.59%) Gatling
13 3 (2.59%) SoapUI
13 3 (2.59%) TestNG
General
1 20 (17.24%) Finance
2 18 (15.52%) Social Skills
3 11 (9.48%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (8.62%) Banking
5 9 (7.76%) Public Sector
6 3 (2.59%) Automotive
7 2 (1.72%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (1.72%) Pharmaceutical
8 1 (0.86%) Billing
8 1 (0.86%) Retail Banking
8 1 (0.86%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (33.62%) Playwright
2 17 (14.66%) REST
3 13 (11.21%) RESTful
4 12 (10.34%) .NET
5 10 (8.62%) Web Services
6 7 (6.03%) SOAP
7 6 (5.17%) JSON
7 6 (5.17%) XML
8 5 (4.31%) Gherkin
8 5 (4.31%) pytest
9 4 (3.45%) Node.js
10 3 (2.59%) React
10 3 (2.59%) WebdriverIO
11 2 (1.72%) Apache NiFi
11 2 (1.72%) jQuery
11 2 (1.72%) Kafka
11 2 (1.72%) Puppeteer
11 2 (1.72%) Spring Boot
11 2 (1.72%) Swagger
11 2 (1.72%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 5 (4.31%) Product Ownership
2 4 (3.45%) Data Protection Act
3 2 (1.72%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 1 (0.86%) Algorithms
4 1 (0.86%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (0.86%) Client/Server
4 1 (0.86%) Distributed Systems
4 1 (0.86%) Enterprise Software
4 1 (0.86%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (0.86%) Linux Command Line
4 1 (0.86%) Mobile App
4 1 (0.86%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 5 (4.31%) Linux
2 4 (3.45%) Windows
3 2 (1.72%) Unix
4 1 (0.86%) Android
4 1 (0.86%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.86%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 116 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 52 (44.83%) Agile
3 45 (38.79%) CI/CD
4 37 (31.90%) DevOps
5 30 (25.86%) Test Strategy
6 27 (23.28%) API Testing
7 25 (21.55%) Test Scripting
8 19 (16.38%) Non-Functional Testing
8 19 (16.38%) Performance Testing
9 17 (14.66%) Problem-Solving
9 17 (14.66%) Regression Testing
10 16 (13.79%) SDLC
11 14 (12.07%) Test Management
12 13 (11.21%) Acceptance Criteria
12 13 (11.21%) Validation
13 12 (10.34%) Continuous Improvement
13 12 (10.34%) Continuous Integration
13 12 (10.34%) Software Testing
13 12 (10.34%) TDD
14 11 (9.48%) AI
Programming Languages
1 36 (31.03%) Python
2 32 (27.59%) C#
2 32 (27.59%) Java
3 27 (23.28%) SQL
4 24 (20.69%) JavaScript
5 16 (13.79%) TypeScript
6 5 (4.31%) XPath
7 3 (2.59%) Bash
7 3 (2.59%) Ruby
8 2 (1.72%) Scala
9 1 (0.86%) C
9 1 (0.86%) Go
9 1 (0.86%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 34 (29.31%) Security Cleared
2 28 (24.14%) SC Cleared
3 14 (12.07%) ISTQB
4 9 (7.76%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 8 (6.90%) Degree
6 4 (3.45%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.86%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.86%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (22.41%) QA
2 12 (10.34%) Accessibility
3 6 (5.17%) HMG Security Policy Framework
3 6 (5.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.72%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.72%) SLA
5 1 (0.86%) Software Quality Assurance
5 1 (0.86%) WCAG
System Software
1 13 (11.21%) Docker
Systems Management
1 4 (3.45%) Kubernetes
1 4 (3.45%) Terraform
2 3 (2.59%) Grafana
3 1 (0.86%) Ansible
3 1 (0.86%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 7 (6.03%) Microsoft
1 7 (6.03%) Oracle
2 4 (3.45%) Databricks
2 4 (3.45%) Wind River
3 3 (2.59%) Salesforce
4 2 (1.72%) SAP
5 1 (0.86%) Conga
5 1 (0.86%) Duck Creek
5 1 (0.86%) Guidewire
5 1 (0.86%) Optimizely
5 1 (0.86%) Splunk
5 1 (0.86%) UiPath
5 1 (0.86%) Workday