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 July 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 587 467 482
Rank change year-on-year -120 +15 +47
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Tester 88 85 92
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.26% 0.23%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.18% 0.28% 0.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 50 59 69
10th Percentile £318 £229 £310
25th Percentile £391 £269 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £388 £425
Median % change year-on-year +9.68% -8.82% -10.53%
75th Percentile £475 £508 £570
90th Percentile £530 £569 £632
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £280 £400
% change year-on-year +51.79% -30.00% -11.11%

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 49,168 30,000 36,945
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.60% 91.47% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,645 19,092 23,906
10th Percentile £331 £284 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.02%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,387 1,467 2,179
10th Percentile £15.37 £13.72 £14.05
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £19.05
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -40.82% -1.16%
75th Percentile £67.86 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -41.51% +8.72%

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 July 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 14 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 July 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 -130 62 £425 +12.36% 4
UK excluding London -74 45 £425 +51.79% 2
Work from Home -49 31 £425 +25.00% 1
London -74 28 £449 -6.12% 3
West Midlands -51 11 £425 -
Midlands -57 11 £425 +61.90%
South West -36 8 - - 1
North of England -75 8 £426 +9.23%
Scotland -7 6 £313 -16.53%
Wales - 6 £450 -
North East -39 5 £485 +24.36%
South East -62 5 £375 +7.14% 1
North West -55 3 £351 +3.24%
East of England -19 1 - -

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

For the 6 months to 31 July 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 88 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 48 (54.55%) CI/CD
3 37 (42.05%) Azure
4 35 (39.77%) Selenium
5 34 (38.64%) Playwright
6 30 (34.09%) Agile
7 29 (32.95%) Security Cleared
8 27 (30.68%) Python
8 27 (30.68%) SC Cleared
9 25 (28.41%) DevOps
9 25 (28.41%) GitHub
10 24 (27.27%) Cucumber
10 24 (27.27%) Test Strategy
11 23 (26.14%) BDD
12 22 (25.00%) Validation
13 21 (23.86%) AWS
13 21 (23.86%) Azure DevOps
13 21 (23.86%) GitLab
13 21 (23.86%) Jenkins
14 20 (22.73%) Java
15 19 (21.59%) API Testing
15 19 (21.59%) Continuous Improvement
16 18 (20.45%) Git
16 18 (20.45%) JMeter
16 18 (20.45%) Kubernetes
16 18 (20.45%) SQL
16 18 (20.45%) Test Scripting
17 17 (19.32%) Docker
17 17 (19.32%) GitHub Actions
17 17 (19.32%) JIRA

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 12 (13.64%) Confluence
2 1 (1.14%) Apache
2 1 (1.14%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (1.14%) Camunda
2 1 (1.14%) SAS
2 1 (1.14%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 3 (3.41%) Aladdin
2 2 (2.27%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 37 (42.05%) Azure
2 25 (28.41%) GitHub
3 21 (23.86%) AWS
3 21 (23.86%) Azure DevOps
4 17 (19.32%) GitHub Actions
5 12 (13.64%) GCP
6 3 (3.41%) Azure API Management
6 3 (3.41%) Dynamics 365
6 3 (3.41%) Power Automate
6 3 (3.41%) SaaS
6 3 (3.41%) Snowflake
7 2 (2.27%) Power Platform
8 1 (1.14%) Amazon ECS
8 1 (1.14%) Amazon EKS
8 1 (1.14%) AWS CodePipeline
8 1 (1.14%) Azure Cosmos DB
8 1 (1.14%) Azure Data Factory
8 1 (1.14%) Microsoft 365
8 1 (1.14%) PowerApps
8 1 (1.14%) Tricentis Tosca
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (13.64%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (1.14%) Apache Hive
2 1 (1.14%) Base SAS
2 1 (1.14%) Big Data
2 1 (1.14%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (1.14%) Hadoop
2 1 (1.14%) Power BI
2 1 (1.14%) SAS Data Integration Studio
2 1 (1.14%) SAS Enterprise Guide
2 1 (1.14%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 35 (39.77%) Selenium
2 24 (27.27%) Cucumber
3 21 (23.86%) GitLab
3 21 (23.86%) Jenkins
4 18 (20.45%) Git
4 18 (20.45%) JMeter
5 17 (19.32%) JIRA
5 17 (19.32%) Postman
6 14 (15.91%) REST Assured
7 13 (14.77%) JUnit
7 13 (14.77%) WebDriver
8 8 (9.09%) SpecFlow
9 6 (6.82%) Cypress.io
10 4 (4.55%) Bitbucket
10 4 (4.55%) Maven
10 4 (4.55%) TeamCity
10 4 (4.55%) TestNG
11 3 (3.41%) Appium
11 3 (3.41%) Bugzilla
11 3 (3.41%) PyCharm
General
1 18 (20.45%) Social Skills
2 13 (14.77%) Finance
3 8 (9.09%) Analytical Skills
3 8 (9.09%) Banking
4 6 (6.82%) Public Sector
5 3 (3.41%) Pharmaceutical
6 2 (2.27%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (1.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (1.14%) Military
7 1 (1.14%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (38.64%) Playwright
2 15 (17.05%) WireMock
3 12 (13.64%) Spring
4 9 (10.23%) REST
5 5 (5.68%) pytest
6 4 (4.55%) Gherkin
6 4 (4.55%) Kafka
7 3 (3.41%) Node.js
7 3 (3.41%) Swagger
8 2 (2.27%) Django
8 2 (2.27%) Web Services
9 1 (1.14%) Great Expectations
9 1 (1.14%) JDBC
9 1 (1.14%) ODBC
9 1 (1.14%) Pandas
9 1 (1.14%) React
9 1 (1.14%) RESTful
9 1 (1.14%) WebdriverIO
9 1 (1.14%) XML
9 1 (1.14%) XML Schema
Miscellaneous
1 10 (11.36%) Distributed Systems
2 7 (7.95%) Distributed Architecture
3 6 (6.82%) Data Protection Act
4 3 (3.41%) Product Ownership
5 2 (2.27%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.14%) Cloud Native
6 1 (1.14%) Data Structures
6 1 (1.14%) Distributed Applications
6 1 (1.14%) Greenfield Project
6 1 (1.14%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.14%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 48 (54.55%) CI/CD
3 30 (34.09%) Agile
4 25 (28.41%) DevOps
5 24 (27.27%) Test Strategy
6 23 (26.14%) BDD
7 22 (25.00%) Validation
8 19 (21.59%) API Testing
8 19 (21.59%) Continuous Improvement
9 18 (20.45%) Test Scripting
10 17 (19.32%) Performance Testing
11 16 (18.18%) Data Validation
12 15 (17.05%) Regression Testing
13 14 (15.91%) TDD
14 12 (13.64%) End-to-End Testing
14 12 (13.64%) Problem-Solving
15 11 (12.50%) Microservices
16 10 (11.36%) Load Testing
17 9 (10.23%) Digital Transformation Programme
17 9 (10.23%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 27 (30.68%) Python
2 20 (22.73%) Java
3 18 (20.45%) SQL
4 17 (19.32%) TypeScript
5 16 (18.18%) JavaScript
6 15 (17.05%) C#
7 6 (6.82%) Bash
8 5 (5.68%) Kotlin
9 4 (4.55%) PowerShell
10 1 (1.14%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 29 (32.95%) Security Cleared
2 27 (30.68%) SC Cleared
3 5 (5.68%) Computer Science Degree
3 5 (5.68%) Degree
3 5 (5.68%) ISTQB
4 4 (4.55%) DV Cleared
5 2 (2.27%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (2.27%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (19.32%) QA
2 3 (3.41%) Data Quality
2 3 (3.41%) HMG Security Policy Framework
2 3 (3.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (1.14%) Accessibility
3 1 (1.14%) GDPR
3 1 (1.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 17 (19.32%) Docker
Systems Management
1 18 (20.45%) Kubernetes
2 8 (9.09%) Grafana
2 8 (9.09%) Prometheus
3 4 (4.55%) HP ALM
4 1 (1.14%) Control-M
4 1 (1.14%) Terraform
Vendors
1 6 (6.82%) Microsoft
2 4 (4.55%) Databricks
2 4 (4.55%) HP
3 3 (3.41%) Talend
4 1 (1.14%) Avaloq
4 1 (1.14%) Google
4 1 (1.14%) Salesforce
4 1 (1.14%) SAP
4 1 (1.14%) ServiceNow
4 1 (1.14%) Veracode