Automation Tester Contract Job Trends

Automation Tester
UK

The median Automation Tester daily rate in the UK is £400, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 14 October 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 600 453 452
Rank change year-on-year -147 -1 +56
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Tester 88 103 103
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.16% 0.31% 0.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.17% 0.34% 0.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 54 77 68
10th Percentile £314 £263 £310
25th Percentile £350 £340 £367
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £400 £425
Median % change year-on-year - -5.88% -10.53%
75th Percentile £475 £500 £570
90th Percentile £511 £538 £591
UK excluding London median daily rate £345 £340 £400
% change year-on-year +1.47% -15.00% -12.09%
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 50,840 30,143 34,861
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.99% 90.86% 93.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,838 19,043 21,029
10th Percentile £325 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £737 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,127 1,648 1,435
10th Percentile £14.36 £13.75 £15.00
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.30 £20.30
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £41.27
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -39.05% -8.30%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.08 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £25.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +66.84% -41.18% -4.49%

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 14 October 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 15 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 14 October 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 -156 52 £401 +2.82% 35
UK excluding London -108 41 £345 +1.47% 22
London -120 23 £449 -5.58% 17
Work from Home -84 17 £420 +5.00% 16
Scotland -16 9 £319 - 2
North of England -77 9 £401 +6.93% 6
South West -29 8 - - 3
South East -61 8 £250 -32.43% 1
North East -39 4 £520 +6.67% 4
East of England -26 3 £335 +67.25% 4
North West -53 3 £402 +18.24% 2
Wales - 3 £475 - 2
Yorkshire -38 2 £400 +6.67%
West Midlands -46 1 £345 - 4
Midlands -68 1 £345 +28.73% 4

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

For the 6 months to 14 October 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 53 (60.23%) CI/CD
3 36 (40.91%) Selenium
4 34 (38.64%) Agile
4 34 (38.64%) Playwright
5 32 (36.36%) Java
5 32 (36.36%) QA
6 30 (34.09%) SC Cleared
6 30 (34.09%) Security Cleared
7 28 (31.82%) Azure
8 24 (27.27%) API Testing
8 24 (27.27%) Python
9 23 (26.14%) DevOps
10 21 (23.86%) Azure DevOps
10 21 (23.86%) Jenkins
10 21 (23.86%) Postman
11 19 (21.59%) Cucumber
11 19 (21.59%) SQL
11 19 (21.59%) Test Scripting
11 19 (21.59%) Validation
12 18 (20.45%) JavaScript
13 17 (19.32%) C#
13 17 (19.32%) Cypress.io
14 16 (18.18%) GitHub
14 16 (18.18%) Problem-Solving
14 16 (18.18%) Test Strategy
15 15 (17.05%) GitHub Actions
15 15 (17.05%) JIRA
15 15 (17.05%) REST Assured
15 15 (17.05%) TypeScript

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 (3.41%) Confluence
2 1 (1.14%) Apache
2 1 (1.14%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (1.14%) Camunda
Business Applications
1 2 (2.27%) Aladdin
1 2 (2.27%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 28 (31.82%) Azure
2 21 (23.86%) Azure DevOps
3 16 (18.18%) GitHub
4 15 (17.05%) GitHub Actions
5 10 (11.36%) AWS
6 5 (5.68%) GCP
7 3 (3.41%) Dynamics 365
7 3 (3.41%) SaaS
8 2 (2.27%) Snowflake
9 1 (1.14%) Amazon ECS
9 1 (1.14%) Amazon EKS
9 1 (1.14%) Azure Data Factory
9 1 (1.14%) BrowserStack
9 1 (1.14%) Power Platform
9 1 (1.14%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.27%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.41%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (1.14%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
2 1 (1.14%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 36 (40.91%) Selenium
2 21 (23.86%) Jenkins
2 21 (23.86%) Postman
3 19 (21.59%) Cucumber
4 17 (19.32%) Cypress.io
5 15 (17.05%) JIRA
5 15 (17.05%) REST Assured
6 14 (15.91%) Git
6 14 (15.91%) GitLab
7 9 (10.23%) JMeter
8 8 (9.09%) JUnit
8 8 (9.09%) TestNG
9 7 (7.95%) SpecFlow
9 7 (7.95%) WebDriver
10 5 (5.68%) Maven
10 5 (5.68%) NUnit
11 4 (4.55%) Appium
12 3 (3.41%) Bitbucket
12 3 (3.41%) Bugzilla
12 3 (3.41%) LoadRunner
General
1 18 (20.45%) Social Skills
2 17 (19.32%) Finance
3 12 (13.64%) Banking
4 9 (10.23%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (6.82%) Public Sector
6 2 (2.27%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (1.14%) Investment Banking
7 1 (1.14%) Military
7 1 (1.14%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (38.64%) Playwright
2 9 (10.23%) REST
3 6 (6.82%) Kafka
3 6 (6.82%) WireMock
4 5 (5.68%) RESTful
5 4 (4.55%) Node.js
6 3 (3.41%) Spring
6 3 (3.41%) XML
7 2 (2.27%) .NET
7 2 (2.27%) pytest
7 2 (2.27%) Swagger
7 2 (2.27%) WebdriverIO
7 2 (2.27%) XSD
8 1 (1.14%) .NET Core
8 1 (1.14%) .NET Framework
8 1 (1.14%) Gherkin
8 1 (1.14%) Great Expectations
8 1 (1.14%) Pandas
8 1 (1.14%) Terraform
8 1 (1.14%) XML Schema
Miscellaneous
1 8 (9.09%) Data Protection Act
2 6 (6.82%) Distributed Systems
3 4 (4.55%) Product Ownership
4 3 (3.41%) Mobile App
5 2 (2.27%) Cloud Native
5 2 (2.27%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (1.14%) Data Centre
6 1 (1.14%) Data Structures
6 1 (1.14%) Greenfield Project
6 1 (1.14%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.14%) Low-Code
6 1 (1.14%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.14%) Linux
1 1 (1.14%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 53 (60.23%) CI/CD
3 34 (38.64%) Agile
4 24 (27.27%) API Testing
5 23 (26.14%) DevOps
6 19 (21.59%) Test Scripting
6 19 (21.59%) Validation
7 16 (18.18%) Problem-Solving
7 16 (18.18%) Test Strategy
8 14 (15.91%) Continuous Improvement
8 14 (15.91%) End-to-End Testing
8 14 (15.91%) Performance Testing
9 13 (14.77%) Scrum
10 12 (13.64%) Defect Management
10 12 (13.64%) Regression Testing
11 11 (12.50%) Scenario Testing
12 10 (11.36%) AI
12 10 (11.36%) Code Quality
12 10 (11.36%) SDLC
12 10 (11.36%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 32 (36.36%) Java
2 24 (27.27%) Python
3 19 (21.59%) SQL
4 18 (20.45%) JavaScript
5 17 (19.32%) C#
6 15 (17.05%) TypeScript
7 7 (7.95%) Bash
8 4 (4.55%) Kotlin
8 4 (4.55%) PowerShell
9 1 (1.14%) Scala
Qualifications
1 30 (34.09%) SC Cleared
1 30 (34.09%) Security Cleared
2 6 (6.82%) DV Cleared
2 6 (6.82%) ISTQB
3 4 (4.55%) Computer Science Degree
3 4 (4.55%) Degree
4 2 (2.27%) BPSS Clearance
5 1 (1.14%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (36.36%) QA
2 2 (2.27%) Accessibility
2 2 (2.27%) Data Quality
2 2 (2.27%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 11 (12.50%) Docker
Systems Management
1 12 (13.64%) Kubernetes
2 4 (4.55%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 5 (5.68%) Microsoft
2 4 (4.55%) HP
3 3 (3.41%) Databricks
3 3 (3.41%) Talend
4 1 (1.14%) Atlassian
4 1 (1.14%) IBM
4 1 (1.14%) OpenText
4 1 (1.14%) Oracle
4 1 (1.14%) Pega
4 1 (1.14%) Salesforce
4 1 (1.14%) SAP
4 1 (1.14%) Veracode