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 5 June 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 555 446 485
Rank change year-on-year -109 +39 +39
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Tester 90 77 101
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.27% 0.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.20% 0.29% 0.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 54 60 77
10th Percentile £319 £247 £338
25th Percentile £353 £280 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £400 £475
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -15.79% -
75th Percentile £473 £516 £588
90th Percentile £507 £575 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £340 £400
% change year-on-year +25.00% -15.00% -7.03%

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 45,342 26,733 39,846
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.39% 92.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,608 17,258 25,745
10th Percentile £325 £287 £280
25th Percentile £413 £404 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £501 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.40% -4.67% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,029 1,088 2,850
10th Percentile £15.05 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.69 £17.87 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.69 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +56.04% -25.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £58.75 £61.60
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -5.88%

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 5 June 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 5 June 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 -95 72 £425 -5.56% 2
London -56 43 £425 -15.00% 1
UK excluding London -100 38 £425 +25.00% 2
Work from Home -37 31 £425 +25.00% 2
Midlands -53 11 £425 +61.90%
West Midlands - 11 £425 -
South West -23 8 - -
Wales - 6 £450 -
North of England -84 5 £426 -14.80% 1
Scotland -4 4 - - 1
South East -64 4 £375 +7.14%
North West -37 3 £351 -3.51%
North East -28 1 £450 +15.38%
Yorkshire -56 1 £550 +2.33% 1

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

For the 6 months to 5 June 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 90 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 43 (47.78%) CI/CD
3 39 (43.33%) Azure
4 38 (42.22%) Playwright
5 35 (38.89%) Agile
6 29 (32.22%) Selenium
7 26 (28.89%) Python
8 25 (27.78%) Security Cleared
8 25 (27.78%) SQL
8 25 (27.78%) Test Scripting
9 23 (25.56%) DevOps
9 23 (25.56%) GitHub
9 23 (25.56%) SC Cleared
9 23 (25.56%) Test Strategy
10 22 (24.44%) TypeScript
11 21 (23.33%) Problem-Solving
12 20 (22.22%) API Testing
12 20 (22.22%) AWS
12 20 (22.22%) C#
12 20 (22.22%) Cucumber
12 20 (22.22%) JavaScript
12 20 (22.22%) Performance Testing
12 20 (22.22%) Validation
13 19 (21.11%) Azure DevOps
14 18 (20.00%) BDD
14 18 (20.00%) Docker
14 18 (20.00%) Jenkins
14 18 (20.00%) Kubernetes
14 18 (20.00%) QA
14 18 (20.00%) 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 (12.22%) Confluence
2 1 (1.11%) Camunda
2 1 (1.11%) SAS
2 1 (1.11%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 8 (8.89%) Aladdin
2 2 (2.22%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 39 (43.33%) Azure
2 23 (25.56%) GitHub
3 20 (22.22%) AWS
4 19 (21.11%) Azure DevOps
5 16 (17.78%) GitHub Actions
6 14 (15.56%) GCP
7 8 (8.89%) Snowflake
8 3 (3.33%) Azure API Management
8 3 (3.33%) Azure Cosmos DB
8 3 (3.33%) Dynamics 365
8 3 (3.33%) Power Automate
9 2 (2.22%) Azure Data Factory
9 2 (2.22%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 1 (1.11%) Amazon ECS
10 1 (1.11%) Amazon EKS
10 1 (1.11%) AWS CodePipeline
10 1 (1.11%) Microsoft 365
10 1 (1.11%) Power Platform
10 1 (1.11%) Tricentis Tosca
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (11.11%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (3.33%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.11%) Apache Hive
3 1 (1.11%) Base SAS
3 1 (1.11%) Big Data
3 1 (1.11%) Hadoop
3 1 (1.11%) Power BI
3 1 (1.11%) SAS Data Integration Studio
3 1 (1.11%) SAS Enterprise Guide
3 1 (1.11%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 29 (32.22%) Selenium
2 20 (22.22%) Cucumber
3 18 (20.00%) Jenkins
4 17 (18.89%) GitLab
5 16 (17.78%) Git
5 16 (17.78%) JMeter
5 16 (17.78%) WebDriver
6 14 (15.56%) Postman
7 13 (14.44%) REST Assured
8 12 (13.33%) JIRA
8 12 (13.33%) SpecFlow
9 10 (11.11%) JUnit
10 8 (8.89%) Cypress.io
11 4 (4.44%) Gatling
12 3 (3.33%) Appium
12 3 (3.33%) PyCharm
12 3 (3.33%) TeamCity
13 2 (2.22%) Bitbucket
13 2 (2.22%) MSTest
13 2 (2.22%) Visual Studio
General
1 22 (24.44%) Social Skills
2 13 (14.44%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (13.33%) Finance
4 9 (10.00%) Banking
5 5 (5.56%) Public Sector
6 3 (3.33%) Pharmaceutical
7 2 (2.22%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (1.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (1.11%) Military
8 1 (1.11%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (42.22%) Playwright
2 9 (10.00%) Spring
2 9 (10.00%) WireMock
3 6 (6.67%) REST
4 3 (3.33%) Gherkin
4 3 (3.33%) Kafka
4 3 (3.33%) pytest
4 3 (3.33%) Swagger
5 2 (2.22%) Django
5 2 (2.22%) Web Services
6 1 (1.11%) JDBC
6 1 (1.11%) Jest
6 1 (1.11%) ODBC
6 1 (1.11%) React
6 1 (1.11%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 10 (11.11%) Data Protection Act
1 10 (11.11%) Distributed Systems
2 7 (7.78%) Distributed Architecture
3 3 (3.33%) Mobile App
3 3 (3.33%) Virtual Team
4 2 (2.22%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (1.11%) Cloud Native
5 1 (1.11%) Data Structures
5 1 (1.11%) Distributed Applications
5 1 (1.11%) Embedded Systems
5 1 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (1.11%) Linux Command Line
5 1 (1.11%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 2 (2.22%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 90 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 43 (47.78%) CI/CD
3 35 (38.89%) Agile
4 25 (27.78%) Test Scripting
5 23 (25.56%) DevOps
5 23 (25.56%) Test Strategy
6 21 (23.33%) Problem-Solving
7 20 (22.22%) API Testing
7 20 (22.22%) Performance Testing
7 20 (22.22%) Validation
8 18 (20.00%) BDD
8 18 (20.00%) TDD
9 16 (17.78%) Continuous Improvement
9 16 (17.78%) Data Validation
10 13 (14.44%) Regression Testing
11 11 (12.22%) End-to-End Testing
12 10 (11.11%) Data Protection
12 10 (11.11%) Load Testing
12 10 (11.11%) Microservices
13 9 (10.00%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 26 (28.89%) Python
2 25 (27.78%) SQL
3 22 (24.44%) TypeScript
4 20 (22.22%) C#
4 20 (22.22%) JavaScript
5 13 (14.44%) Java
6 3 (3.33%) Kotlin
7 2 (2.22%) Bash
8 1 (1.11%) C
8 1 (1.11%) C++
8 1 (1.11%) PowerShell
8 1 (1.11%) Rust
8 1 (1.11%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 25 (27.78%) Security Cleared
2 23 (25.56%) SC Cleared
3 7 (7.78%) ISTQB
4 4 (4.44%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 3 (3.33%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (3.33%) Degree
5 3 (3.33%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (20.00%) QA
2 3 (3.33%) HMG Security Policy Framework
2 3 (3.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (2.22%) Data Quality
4 1 (1.11%) Accessibility
4 1 (1.11%) GDPR
4 1 (1.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 18 (20.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 18 (20.00%) Kubernetes
2 8 (8.89%) Grafana
2 8 (8.89%) Prometheus
3 1 (1.11%) Control-M
3 1 (1.11%) HP ALM
3 1 (1.11%) Terraform
Vendors
1 8 (8.89%) Databricks
2 6 (6.67%) Microsoft
3 1 (1.11%) Avaloq
3 1 (1.11%) Google
3 1 (1.11%) HP
3 1 (1.11%) SAP
3 1 (1.11%) ServiceNow
3 1 (1.11%) Talend
3 1 (1.11%) Veracode