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 21 January 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 469 424 488
Rank change year-on-year -45 +64 +67
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Tester 114 102 124
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.30% 0.32% 0.29%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.33% 0.35% 0.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 87 64 109
10th Percentile £325 £332 £348
25th Percentile £363 £368 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £450 £440
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% +2.27% -5.12%
75th Percentile £511 £500 £550
90th Percentile £645 £562 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £400 £439
% change year-on-year -6.25% -8.83% -2.50%

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 34,444 29,232 40,404
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.42% 92.85% 93.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,829 17,869 26,812
10th Percentile £300 £290 £275
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,030 877 1,934
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.92 £13.50
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.72
Median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% -18.75% +17.65%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £63.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £74.81
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £40.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -19.75% +36.13%

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 21 January 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 12 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 21 January 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 -64 83 £413 -12.00% 11
London -22 53 £438 -7.89% 4
Work from Home -7 41 £438 +12.18% 2
UK excluding London -74 35 £375 -6.25% 9
North of England -46 13 £375 -11.24% 1
South East -35 10 £383 -10.00% 5
Wales - 8 £700 -
Yorkshire -45 7 £375 -25.00% 1
East Midlands - 7 £360 - 1
Midlands - 7 £360 - 1
North West -37 4 £333 -16.88%
North East - 2 £488 -

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

For the 6 months to 21 January 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.

1 114 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 56 (49.12%) Agile
3 53 (46.49%) Selenium
4 45 (39.47%) CI/CD
5 43 (37.72%) Playwright
6 41 (35.96%) Python
7 38 (33.33%) C#
8 37 (32.46%) Azure
9 34 (29.82%) DevOps
9 34 (29.82%) Test Scripting
10 31 (27.19%) Security Cleared
10 31 (27.19%) SQL
11 28 (24.56%) API Testing
11 28 (24.56%) Azure DevOps
12 27 (23.68%) QA
12 27 (23.68%) Test Strategy
13 26 (22.81%) Java
13 26 (22.81%) JavaScript
13 26 (22.81%) SC Cleared
14 24 (21.05%) Cypress.io
15 23 (20.18%) Postman
15 23 (20.18%) Problem-Solving
16 22 (19.30%) Cucumber
16 22 (19.30%) TypeScript
17 21 (18.42%) Jenkins
18 19 (16.67%) AWS
18 19 (16.67%) GitHub
18 19 (16.67%) JMeter
18 19 (16.67%) Performance Testing
19 18 (15.79%) Non-Functional Testing

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 (6.14%) Confluence
2 2 (1.75%) Apache
Business Applications
1 7 (6.14%) Aladdin
2 2 (1.75%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.88%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.88%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.88%) Oracle General Ledger
3 1 (0.88%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.88%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 37 (32.46%) Azure
2 28 (24.56%) Azure DevOps
3 19 (16.67%) AWS
3 19 (16.67%) GitHub
4 10 (8.77%) Dynamics 365
4 10 (8.77%) GitHub Actions
5 9 (7.89%) Power Platform
6 7 (6.14%) Snowflake
7 3 (2.63%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 3 (2.63%) Amazon S3
7 3 (2.63%) GCP
8 1 (0.88%) Amazon EC2
8 1 (0.88%) Azure AKS
8 1 (0.88%) Azure Cosmos DB
8 1 (0.88%) Azure Data Factory
8 1 (0.88%) Azure Service Bus
8 1 (0.88%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 1 (0.88%) BlazeMeter
8 1 (0.88%) Google Analytics
8 1 (0.88%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 4 (3.51%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.75%) PostgreSQL
1 2 (1.75%) Relational Database
2 1 (0.88%) Amazon Athena
2 1 (0.88%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (0.88%) Big Data
2 1 (0.88%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (0.88%) MongoDB
2 1 (0.88%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 53 (46.49%) Selenium
2 24 (21.05%) Cypress.io
3 23 (20.18%) Postman
4 22 (19.30%) Cucumber
5 21 (18.42%) Jenkins
6 19 (16.67%) JMeter
7 17 (14.91%) GitLab
7 17 (14.91%) JIRA
7 17 (14.91%) SpecFlow
8 16 (14.04%) REST Assured
9 10 (8.77%) Git
10 9 (7.89%) JUnit
10 9 (7.89%) MSTest
11 7 (6.14%) Zephyr
12 6 (5.26%) Visual Studio
12 6 (5.26%) WebDriver
13 5 (4.39%) Gatling
13 5 (4.39%) TestRail
14 4 (3.51%) Bitbucket
15 3 (2.63%) Appium
General
1 19 (16.67%) Social Skills
2 15 (13.16%) Analytical Skills
2 15 (13.16%) Finance
3 9 (7.89%) Banking
4 8 (7.02%) Public Sector
5 3 (2.63%) Automotive
6 2 (1.75%) Pharmaceutical
7 1 (0.88%) Billing
7 1 (0.88%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.88%) Retail Banking
7 1 (0.88%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (37.72%) Playwright
2 16 (14.04%) REST
3 11 (9.65%) .NET
4 9 (7.89%) RESTful
4 9 (7.89%) Web Services
5 6 (5.26%) JSON
5 6 (5.26%) XML
6 5 (4.39%) pytest
7 4 (3.51%) Node.js
7 4 (3.51%) SOAP
8 3 (2.63%) Gherkin
8 3 (2.63%) React
8 3 (2.63%) WebdriverIO
9 2 (1.75%) Apache NiFi
9 2 (1.75%) Kafka
9 2 (1.75%) Puppeteer
9 2 (1.75%) Spring
9 2 (1.75%) Spring Boot
9 2 (1.75%) Swagger
9 2 (1.75%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 7 (6.14%) Data Protection Act
2 4 (3.51%) Mobile App
3 3 (2.63%) Virtual Team
4 2 (1.75%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 2 (1.75%) Product Ownership
5 1 (0.88%) Analytical Mindset
5 1 (0.88%) Client/Server
5 1 (0.88%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (0.88%) Embedded Systems
5 1 (0.88%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (0.88%) Linux Command Line
5 1 (0.88%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 4 (3.51%) Linux
1 4 (3.51%) Windows
2 2 (1.75%) Unix
3 1 (0.88%) Android
3 1 (0.88%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.88%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 114 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 56 (49.12%) Agile
3 45 (39.47%) CI/CD
4 34 (29.82%) DevOps
4 34 (29.82%) Test Scripting
5 28 (24.56%) API Testing
6 27 (23.68%) Test Strategy
7 23 (20.18%) Problem-Solving
8 19 (16.67%) Performance Testing
9 18 (15.79%) Non-Functional Testing
10 15 (13.16%) Regression Testing
10 15 (13.16%) TDD
11 12 (10.53%) Continuous Improvement
11 12 (10.53%) Scrum
11 12 (10.53%) SDLC
11 12 (10.53%) Validation
12 11 (9.65%) Software Testing
12 11 (9.65%) Test Management
13 10 (8.77%) AI
13 10 (8.77%) Continuous Integration
Programming Languages
1 41 (35.96%) Python
2 38 (33.33%) C#
3 31 (27.19%) SQL
4 26 (22.81%) Java
4 26 (22.81%) JavaScript
5 22 (19.30%) TypeScript
6 5 (4.39%) XPath
7 3 (2.63%) Bash
8 2 (1.75%) C
8 2 (1.75%) Scala
9 1 (0.88%) C++
9 1 (0.88%) Go
9 1 (0.88%) Ruby
9 1 (0.88%) Rust
9 1 (0.88%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 31 (27.19%) Security Cleared
2 26 (22.81%) SC Cleared
3 14 (12.28%) ISTQB
4 11 (9.65%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 5 (4.39%) Degree
6 3 (2.63%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.88%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (23.68%) QA
2 11 (9.65%) Accessibility
3 6 (5.26%) HMG Security Policy Framework
3 6 (5.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.75%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.88%) Software Quality Assurance
5 1 (0.88%) WCAG
System Software
1 16 (14.04%) Docker
Systems Management
1 7 (6.14%) Kubernetes
2 4 (3.51%) Terraform
3 3 (2.63%) Grafana
4 1 (0.88%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 8 (7.02%) Databricks
2 7 (6.14%) Oracle
3 5 (4.39%) Microsoft
4 4 (3.51%) Wind River
5 3 (2.63%) Salesforce
6 2 (1.75%) SAP
7 1 (0.88%) Conga
7 1 (0.88%) Optimizely
7 1 (0.88%) Splunk
7 1 (0.88%) Workday