Automation Tester Contract Job Trends

Automation Tester
UK

The median Automation Tester daily rate in the UK is £420, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 18 September 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 601 454 457
Rank change year-on-year -147 +3 +58
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Tester 85 103 105
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.16% 0.31% 0.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.17% 0.34% 0.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 49 75 70
10th Percentile £310 £250 £310
25th Percentile £358 £336 £364
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £420 £400 £450
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -11.11% -5.26%
75th Percentile £475 £491 £568
90th Percentile £521 £538 £603
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £340 £425
% change year-on-year +10.29% -20.00% -10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £21.50 - -
Median hourly rate £23.00 - -
75th Percentile £24.50 - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 - -

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 50,223 30,015 35,830
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 91.09% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,737 18,953 22,040
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £626 £623 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,829 1,585 1,681
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.30 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +2.86%

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 18 September 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 18 September 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 -136 54 £425 +13.33% 25
UK excluding London -120 35 £375 +10.29% 16
London -88 28 £449 -5.58% 12
Work from Home -78 21 £420 +5.00% 11
North of England -69 9 £420 +12.00% 3
South West -30 8 - - 1
South East -62 8 £250 -31.51% 2
Scotland -18 6 £313 - 1
North East -42 5 £485 +14.12% 1
North West -51 4 £402 +18.24% 1
Wales - 3 £475 - 1
East of England -29 1 - - 7

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

For the 6 months to 18 September 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 85 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 44 (51.76%) CI/CD
3 35 (41.18%) Playwright
4 31 (36.47%) Selenium
5 30 (35.29%) QA
6 28 (32.94%) Agile
7 27 (31.76%) Java
8 24 (28.24%) Python
8 24 (28.24%) SC Cleared
8 24 (28.24%) Security Cleared
9 23 (27.06%) Azure
9 23 (27.06%) SQL
10 20 (23.53%) DevOps
11 19 (22.35%) API Testing
11 19 (22.35%) JavaScript
12 18 (21.18%) Azure DevOps
12 18 (21.18%) Validation
13 17 (20.00%) Postman
13 17 (20.00%) Test Scripting
14 15 (17.65%) Cucumber
14 15 (17.65%) Cypress.io
14 15 (17.65%) GitLab
14 15 (17.65%) Jenkins
14 15 (17.65%) Test Strategy
14 15 (17.65%) TypeScript
15 14 (16.47%) C#
15 14 (16.47%) JIRA
15 14 (16.47%) Problem-Solving
15 14 (16.47%) Regression Testing
16 13 (15.29%) Continuous Improvement

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 3 (3.53%) Confluence
2 1 (1.18%) Apache
2 1 (1.18%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (1.18%) Camunda
2 1 (1.18%) SAS
Business Applications
1 2 (2.35%) Aladdin
1 2 (2.35%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 23 (27.06%) Azure
2 18 (21.18%) Azure DevOps
3 13 (15.29%) GitHub
4 11 (12.94%) GitHub Actions
5 10 (11.76%) AWS
6 4 (4.71%) GCP
7 3 (3.53%) Dynamics 365
7 3 (3.53%) SaaS
8 2 (2.35%) Snowflake
9 1 (1.18%) Amazon ECS
9 1 (1.18%) Amazon EKS
9 1 (1.18%) Azure Data Factory
9 1 (1.18%) BrowserStack
9 1 (1.18%) Power Platform
9 1 (1.18%) PowerApps
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.53%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (2.35%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.18%) Apache Hive
3 1 (1.18%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.18%) Base SAS
3 1 (1.18%) Big Data
3 1 (1.18%) Hadoop
3 1 (1.18%) SAS Data Integration Studio
3 1 (1.18%) SAS Enterprise Guide
3 1 (1.18%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 31 (36.47%) Selenium
2 17 (20.00%) Postman
3 15 (17.65%) Cucumber
3 15 (17.65%) Cypress.io
3 15 (17.65%) GitLab
3 15 (17.65%) Jenkins
4 14 (16.47%) JIRA
5 13 (15.29%) REST Assured
6 12 (14.12%) Git
7 8 (9.41%) JMeter
8 6 (7.06%) JUnit
8 6 (7.06%) SpecFlow
8 6 (7.06%) TestNG
9 5 (5.88%) Maven
9 5 (5.88%) WebDriver
10 4 (4.71%) Bitbucket
11 3 (3.53%) Appium
11 3 (3.53%) Bugzilla
11 3 (3.53%) LoadRunner
11 3 (3.53%) NUnit
General
1 18 (21.18%) Finance
2 16 (18.82%) Social Skills
3 14 (16.47%) Banking
4 8 (9.41%) Analytical Skills
5 5 (5.88%) Public Sector
6 2 (2.35%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (1.18%) Investment Banking
7 1 (1.18%) Military
7 1 (1.18%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (41.18%) Playwright
2 9 (10.59%) REST
3 6 (7.06%) Kafka
3 6 (7.06%) WireMock
4 4 (4.71%) Node.js
5 3 (3.53%) Spring
5 3 (3.53%) XML
6 2 (2.35%) Gherkin
6 2 (2.35%) pytest
6 2 (2.35%) RESTful
6 2 (2.35%) Swagger
6 2 (2.35%) WebdriverIO
6 2 (2.35%) XSD
7 1 (1.18%) Django
7 1 (1.18%) Great Expectations
7 1 (1.18%) Jest
7 1 (1.18%) Pandas
7 1 (1.18%) React
7 1 (1.18%) Terraform
7 1 (1.18%) XML Schema
Miscellaneous
1 8 (9.41%) Data Protection Act
2 6 (7.06%) Distributed Systems
3 3 (3.53%) Mobile App
3 3 (3.53%) Product Ownership
4 2 (2.35%) Cloud Native
4 2 (2.35%) Enterprise Software
4 2 (2.35%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (1.18%) Data Structures
5 1 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
5 1 (1.18%) Linux Command Line
5 1 (1.18%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 2 (2.35%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 85 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 44 (51.76%) CI/CD
3 28 (32.94%) Agile
4 20 (23.53%) DevOps
5 19 (22.35%) API Testing
6 18 (21.18%) Validation
7 17 (20.00%) Test Scripting
8 15 (17.65%) Test Strategy
9 14 (16.47%) Problem-Solving
9 14 (16.47%) Regression Testing
10 13 (15.29%) Continuous Improvement
11 12 (14.12%) BDD
11 12 (14.12%) Performance Testing
12 11 (12.94%) AI
12 11 (12.94%) End-to-End Testing
12 11 (12.94%) SDLC
13 10 (11.76%) Data Validation
13 10 (11.76%) Defect Management
14 9 (10.59%) Scrum
15 8 (9.41%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 27 (31.76%) Java
2 24 (28.24%) Python
3 23 (27.06%) SQL
4 19 (22.35%) JavaScript
5 15 (17.65%) TypeScript
6 14 (16.47%) C#
7 7 (8.24%) Bash
8 5 (5.88%) Kotlin
9 4 (4.71%) PowerShell
10 1 (1.18%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 24 (28.24%) SC Cleared
1 24 (28.24%) Security Cleared
2 5 (5.88%) Computer Science Degree
2 5 (5.88%) Degree
2 5 (5.88%) DV Cleared
2 5 (5.88%) ISTQB
3 2 (2.35%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (35.29%) QA
2 4 (4.71%) Data Quality
3 2 (2.35%) Accessibility
3 2 (2.35%) ISO 20022
4 1 (1.18%) GDPR
4 1 (1.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 8 (9.41%) Docker
Systems Management
1 9 (10.59%) Kubernetes
2 5 (5.88%) HP ALM
3 1 (1.18%) Control-M
Vendors
1 5 (5.88%) HP
1 5 (5.88%) Microsoft
2 3 (3.53%) Databricks
2 3 (3.53%) Talend
3 2 (2.35%) SAP
4 1 (1.18%) Oracle
4 1 (1.18%) Salesforce
4 1 (1.18%) Veracode