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 28 June 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 554 452 482
Rank change year-on-year -102 +30 +48
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Tester 92 80 105
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.26% 0.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.20% 0.28% 0.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 56 59 80
10th Percentile £316 £229 £347
25th Percentile £359 £275 £368
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £388 £475
Median % change year-on-year +9.68% -18.42% -
75th Percentile £475 £492 £582
90th Percentile £538 £575 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £310 £406
% change year-on-year +37.10% -23.69% -6.61%

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 47,123 28,128 40,377
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.40% 92.07% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,580 18,010 25,933
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £415 £401 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,165 1,254 2,874
10th Percentile £15.50 £13.76 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.14 £17.31 £16.50
Median hourly rate £43.61 £27.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +61.50% -28.00% -14.50%
75th Percentile £67.50 £56.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -

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 28 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 28 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 -120 68 £425 +9.68% 8
UK excluding London -100 41 £425 +37.10% 7
London -67 38 £425 -6.64% 1
Work from Home -51 33 £425 +25.00% 3
West Midlands -49 11 £425 -
Midlands -64 11 £425 +61.90%
South West -30 8 - - 3
Scotland -4 6 £313 -16.53%
North of England -71 6 £450 - 3
Wales - 6 £450 -
South East -57 4 £375 +7.14% 1
North West -48 3 £351 +3.24% 1
North East -35 2 £485 +24.36% 2
Yorkshire -52 1 £550 +2.33%

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

For the 6 months to 28 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 92 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 49 (53.26%) CI/CD
3 42 (45.65%) Azure
4 38 (41.30%) Agile
5 37 (40.22%) Playwright
6 36 (39.13%) Selenium
7 28 (30.43%) DevOps
8 27 (29.35%) Test Scripting
9 26 (28.26%) GitHub
9 26 (28.26%) Python
9 26 (28.26%) Security Cleared
10 25 (27.17%) Test Strategy
11 24 (26.09%) API Testing
11 24 (26.09%) Azure DevOps
11 24 (26.09%) SC Cleared
12 23 (25.00%) AWS
12 23 (25.00%) BDD
12 23 (25.00%) Cucumber
12 23 (25.00%) Jenkins
13 22 (23.91%) TypeScript
14 21 (22.83%) C#
14 21 (22.83%) Java
14 21 (22.83%) SQL
14 21 (22.83%) Validation
15 20 (21.74%) GitLab
15 20 (21.74%) JavaScript
15 20 (21.74%) Kubernetes
15 20 (21.74%) Performance Testing
15 20 (21.74%) Postman
15 20 (21.74%) Problem-Solving

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 (13.04%) Confluence
2 1 (1.09%) Camunda
2 1 (1.09%) SAS
2 1 (1.09%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 6 (6.52%) Aladdin
2 2 (2.17%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 42 (45.65%) Azure
2 26 (28.26%) GitHub
3 24 (26.09%) Azure DevOps
4 23 (25.00%) AWS
5 19 (20.65%) GitHub Actions
6 14 (15.22%) GCP
7 6 (6.52%) Snowflake
8 3 (3.26%) Azure API Management
8 3 (3.26%) Dynamics 365
8 3 (3.26%) Power Automate
9 2 (2.17%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 2 (2.17%) Power Platform
10 1 (1.09%) Amazon ECS
10 1 (1.09%) Amazon EKS
10 1 (1.09%) AWS CodePipeline
10 1 (1.09%) Azure Data Factory
10 1 (1.09%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 1 (1.09%) Microsoft 365
10 1 (1.09%) PowerApps
10 1 (1.09%) Tricentis Tosca
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (10.87%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (2.17%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.09%) Apache Hive
3 1 (1.09%) Base SAS
3 1 (1.09%) Big Data
3 1 (1.09%) Hadoop
3 1 (1.09%) Power BI
3 1 (1.09%) SAS Data Integration Studio
3 1 (1.09%) SAS Enterprise Guide
3 1 (1.09%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 36 (39.13%) Selenium
2 23 (25.00%) Cucumber
2 23 (25.00%) Jenkins
3 20 (21.74%) GitLab
3 20 (21.74%) Postman
4 18 (19.57%) Git
4 18 (19.57%) JMeter
4 18 (19.57%) REST Assured
5 17 (18.48%) WebDriver
6 14 (15.22%) JIRA
7 13 (14.13%) JUnit
8 11 (11.96%) SpecFlow
9 10 (10.87%) Cypress.io
10 4 (4.35%) Bitbucket
10 4 (4.35%) Maven
10 4 (4.35%) TeamCity
10 4 (4.35%) TestNG
11 3 (3.26%) Appium
11 3 (3.26%) Gatling
11 3 (3.26%) PyCharm
General
1 22 (23.91%) Social Skills
2 13 (14.13%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (13.04%) Finance
4 7 (7.61%) Banking
5 5 (5.43%) Public Sector
6 3 (3.26%) Pharmaceutical
7 2 (2.17%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (1.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (1.09%) Military
8 1 (1.09%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (40.22%) Playwright
2 12 (13.04%) Spring
2 12 (13.04%) WireMock
3 11 (11.96%) REST
4 4 (4.35%) Gherkin
4 4 (4.35%) pytest
5 3 (3.26%) Kafka
5 3 (3.26%) Swagger
6 2 (2.17%) Django
6 2 (2.17%) Web Services
7 1 (1.09%) JDBC
7 1 (1.09%) Jest
7 1 (1.09%) ODBC
7 1 (1.09%) React
7 1 (1.09%) RESTful
7 1 (1.09%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 10 (10.87%) Distributed Systems
2 8 (8.70%) Data Protection Act
3 7 (7.61%) Distributed Architecture
4 3 (3.26%) Mobile App
4 3 (3.26%) Product Ownership
4 3 (3.26%) Virtual Team
5 2 (2.17%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (2.17%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.09%) Cloud Native
6 1 (1.09%) Data Structures
6 1 (1.09%) Distributed Applications
6 1 (1.09%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.09%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 92 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 49 (53.26%) CI/CD
3 38 (41.30%) Agile
4 28 (30.43%) DevOps
5 27 (29.35%) Test Scripting
6 25 (27.17%) Test Strategy
7 24 (26.09%) API Testing
8 23 (25.00%) BDD
9 21 (22.83%) Validation
10 20 (21.74%) Performance Testing
10 20 (21.74%) Problem-Solving
11 17 (18.48%) Continuous Improvement
11 17 (18.48%) TDD
12 15 (16.30%) Data Validation
13 14 (15.22%) Regression Testing
14 13 (14.13%) End-to-End Testing
15 10 (10.87%) Load Testing
15 10 (10.87%) Microservices
15 10 (10.87%) Scrum
16 9 (9.78%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 26 (28.26%) Python
2 22 (23.91%) TypeScript
3 21 (22.83%) C#
3 21 (22.83%) Java
3 21 (22.83%) SQL
4 20 (21.74%) JavaScript
5 4 (4.35%) Kotlin
6 1 (1.09%) Bash
6 1 (1.09%) PowerShell
6 1 (1.09%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 26 (28.26%) Security Cleared
2 24 (26.09%) SC Cleared
3 5 (5.43%) Computer Science Degree
3 5 (5.43%) Degree
3 5 (5.43%) ISTQB
4 4 (4.35%) DV Cleared
5 2 (2.17%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (2.17%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (19.57%) QA
2 3 (3.26%) HMG Security Policy Framework
2 3 (3.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (2.17%) Data Quality
4 1 (1.09%) Accessibility
4 1 (1.09%) GDPR
4 1 (1.09%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 17 (18.48%) Docker
Systems Management
1 20 (21.74%) Kubernetes
2 8 (8.70%) Grafana
2 8 (8.70%) Prometheus
3 1 (1.09%) Control-M
3 1 (1.09%) HP ALM
3 1 (1.09%) Terraform
Vendors
1 7 (7.61%) Microsoft
2 6 (6.52%) Databricks
3 1 (1.09%) Avaloq
3 1 (1.09%) Google
3 1 (1.09%) HP
3 1 (1.09%) Salesforce
3 1 (1.09%) SAP
3 1 (1.09%) ServiceNow
3 1 (1.09%) Talend
3 1 (1.09%) Veracode