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 6 March 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 493 440 470
Rank change year-on-year -53 +30 +89
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Tester 119 87 125
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.28% 0.29% 0.28%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.30% 0.31% 0.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 90 60 107
10th Percentile £319 £307 £358
25th Percentile £363 £361 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £450 £440
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% +2.27% -7.37%
75th Percentile £507 £508 £550
90th Percentile £611 £575 £635
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £390 £425
% change year-on-year +8.97% -8.24% -5.56%

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 39,202 28,292 41,263
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.90% 92.81% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,554 17,968 27,109
10th Percentile £310 £291 £275
25th Percentile £409 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,408 853 2,419
10th Percentile £14.82 £16.23 £13.05
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.43 £16.25
Median hourly rate £34.00 £34.00 £34.08
Median % change year-on-year - -0.23% -15.93%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.52 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.20 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.00 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year +1.54% -7.14% -11.50%

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 6 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 6 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 -70 86 £426 -10.26% 6
London -20 59 £445 -6.32% 3
Work from Home +1 45 £425 +8.97% 2
UK excluding London -85 34 £425 +8.97% 4
Midlands - 12 £425 -
North of England -64 10 £463 +3.93% 2
Wales - 10 £592 - 1
West Midlands - 7 £425 -
Yorkshire -55 6 £463 -12.74% 1
South East -55 5 £725 - 1
East Midlands - 5 £725 -
North West -29 3 £325 -22.16% 1
North East -13 1 £550 +41.03%

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

For the 6 months to 6 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.

1 119 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 56 (47.06%) Agile
3 52 (43.70%) Selenium
4 51 (42.86%) CI/CD
5 48 (40.34%) Azure
6 47 (39.50%) Playwright
7 38 (31.93%) Python
8 36 (30.25%) Test Scripting
9 35 (29.41%) C#
9 35 (29.41%) Security Cleared
10 34 (28.57%) DevOps
11 33 (27.73%) SQL
11 33 (27.73%) Test Strategy
12 31 (26.05%) API Testing
12 31 (26.05%) JavaScript
13 30 (25.21%) Azure DevOps
13 30 (25.21%) GitHub
13 30 (25.21%) SC Cleared
14 28 (23.53%) Java
15 27 (22.69%) Cucumber
15 27 (22.69%) Problem-Solving
15 27 (22.69%) TypeScript
16 26 (21.85%) Postman
17 25 (21.01%) JMeter
17 25 (21.01%) QA
18 23 (19.33%) Cypress.io
18 23 (19.33%) Jenkins
19 22 (18.49%) AWS
19 22 (18.49%) Performance Testing
20 21 (17.65%) Docker

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 8 (6.72%) Confluence
2 2 (1.68%) Apache
3 1 (0.84%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 9 (7.56%) Aladdin
2 2 (1.68%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.84%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.84%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.84%) Oracle General Ledger
3 1 (0.84%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.84%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 48 (40.34%) Azure
2 30 (25.21%) Azure DevOps
2 30 (25.21%) GitHub
3 22 (18.49%) AWS
4 17 (14.29%) GitHub Actions
5 10 (8.40%) Dynamics 365
5 10 (8.40%) Power Platform
6 9 (7.56%) Snowflake
7 8 (6.72%) GCP
8 3 (2.52%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 2 (1.68%) Amazon S3
9 2 (1.68%) Azure API Management
9 2 (1.68%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 2 (1.68%) Azure Data Factory
9 2 (1.68%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 2 (1.68%) Power Automate
10 1 (0.84%) Amazon EC2
10 1 (0.84%) BlazeMeter
10 1 (0.84%) Google Analytics
10 1 (0.84%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 4 (3.36%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (6.72%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (1.68%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (1.68%) Relational Database
3 1 (0.84%) Amazon Athena
3 1 (0.84%) Power BI
3 1 (0.84%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 52 (43.70%) Selenium
2 27 (22.69%) Cucumber
3 26 (21.85%) Postman
4 25 (21.01%) JMeter
5 23 (19.33%) Cypress.io
5 23 (19.33%) Jenkins
6 20 (16.81%) SpecFlow
7 19 (15.97%) GitLab
8 16 (13.45%) JIRA
8 16 (13.45%) REST Assured
9 15 (12.61%) Git
10 13 (10.92%) JUnit
11 12 (10.08%) WebDriver
12 9 (7.56%) MSTest
13 7 (5.88%) Zephyr
14 6 (5.04%) Visual Studio
15 5 (4.20%) Gatling
15 5 (4.20%) TestRail
16 3 (2.52%) Appium
17 2 (1.68%) SoapUI
General
1 23 (19.33%) Social Skills
2 17 (14.29%) Analytical Skills
3 9 (7.56%) Banking
3 9 (7.56%) Finance
4 7 (5.88%) Public Sector
5 5 (4.20%) Pharmaceutical
6 1 (0.84%) Billing
6 1 (0.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (0.84%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (0.84%) Retail Banking
6 1 (0.84%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (39.50%) Playwright
2 12 (10.08%) REST
3 9 (7.56%) Web Services
4 7 (5.88%) .NET
4 7 (5.88%) WireMock
5 6 (5.04%) JSON
5 6 (5.04%) pytest
5 6 (5.04%) Spring
5 6 (5.04%) XML
6 5 (4.20%) Gherkin
6 5 (4.20%) RESTful
7 3 (2.52%) React
8 2 (1.68%) Apache NiFi
8 2 (1.68%) Kafka
8 2 (1.68%) Node.js
8 2 (1.68%) WebdriverIO
9 1 (0.84%) Great Expectations
9 1 (0.84%) Nightwatchjs
9 1 (0.84%) React Native
9 1 (0.84%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 10 (8.40%) Data Protection Act
2 6 (5.04%) Distributed Systems
3 4 (3.36%) Mobile App
4 3 (2.52%) Distributed Architecture
4 3 (2.52%) Virtual Team
5 2 (1.68%) Product Ownership
6 1 (0.84%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (0.84%) Distributed Applications
6 1 (0.84%) Embedded Systems
6 1 (0.84%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (0.84%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.68%) Linux
2 1 (0.84%) Android
2 1 (0.84%) Apple iOS
2 1 (0.84%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 119 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 56 (47.06%) Agile
3 51 (42.86%) CI/CD
4 36 (30.25%) Test Scripting
5 34 (28.57%) DevOps
6 33 (27.73%) Test Strategy
7 31 (26.05%) API Testing
8 27 (22.69%) Problem-Solving
9 22 (18.49%) Performance Testing
10 19 (15.97%) TDD
10 19 (15.97%) Validation
11 18 (15.13%) Non-Functional Testing
12 16 (13.45%) BDD
13 14 (11.76%) Scrum
14 13 (10.92%) AI
14 13 (10.92%) Continuous Improvement
15 12 (10.08%) Data Validation
15 12 (10.08%) End-to-End Testing
16 11 (9.24%) SDLC
17 10 (8.40%) Sprint Planning
Programming Languages
1 38 (31.93%) Python
2 35 (29.41%) C#
3 33 (27.73%) SQL
4 31 (26.05%) JavaScript
5 28 (23.53%) Java
6 27 (22.69%) TypeScript
7 5 (4.20%) XPath
8 2 (1.68%) Bash
8 2 (1.68%) C
9 1 (0.84%) C++
9 1 (0.84%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.84%) Ruby
9 1 (0.84%) Rust
9 1 (0.84%) Scala
9 1 (0.84%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 35 (29.41%) Security Cleared
2 30 (25.21%) SC Cleared
3 14 (11.76%) ISTQB
4 11 (9.24%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 5 (4.20%) Degree
6 3 (2.52%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.84%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (21.01%) QA
2 12 (10.08%) Accessibility
3 6 (5.04%) HMG Security Policy Framework
3 6 (5.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.68%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.84%) Software Quality Assurance
5 1 (0.84%) WCAG
System Software
1 21 (17.65%) Docker
Systems Management
1 12 (10.08%) Kubernetes
2 6 (5.04%) Grafana
3 4 (3.36%) Prometheus
4 2 (1.68%) Terraform
Vendors
1 10 (8.40%) Databricks
2 6 (5.04%) Microsoft
3 4 (3.36%) Wind River
4 3 (2.52%) Oracle
5 2 (1.68%) SAP
6 1 (0.84%) Avaloq
6 1 (0.84%) Conga
6 1 (0.84%) Google
6 1 (0.84%) Optimizely
6 1 (0.84%) Salesforce
6 1 (0.84%) ServiceNow
6 1 (0.84%) Splunk
6 1 (0.84%) Workday