QA Automation Tester Contract Job Trends

Automation QA Tester
UK

The median Automation QA Tester daily rate in the UK is £401, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 19 September 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 684 549 558
Rank change year-on-year -135 +9 +58
Contract jobs requiring a QA Automation Tester 5 8 4
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.009% 0.024% 0.010%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.010% 0.027% 0.011%
Number of daily rates quoted 2 5 4
10th Percentile £400 £370 £291
25th Percentile £401 £428 £397
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £401 £500 £469
Median % change year-on-year -19.80% +6.67% +16.75%
75th Percentile £402 £523 £513
90th Percentile £402 £629 £558
UK excluding London median daily rate - - -
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 50,612 30,015 35,830
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.27% 91.09% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,983 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 3,861 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 £79.00 £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%

QA Automation Tester
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'QA Automation Tester' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

QA Automation Tester job vacancy trend in the UK

QA Automation Tester
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for QA Automation Tester job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for QA Automation Tester job vacancies in the UK

QA Automation Tester
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for QA Automation Tester job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for QA Automation Tester job vacancies in the UK

QA Automation Tester
Top 5 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing QA Automation Tester within the UK over the 6 months to 19 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
Work from Home -65 3 £402 -5.96% 2
London -84 3 £401 -19.80% 2
England -128 3 £401 -19.80% 4
Wales - 2 - - 1
UK excluding London - 2 - - 3

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

For the 6 months to 19 September 2026, QA 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 QA Automation Tester in the job title.

1 5 (100.00%) QA
1 5 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 3 (60.00%) CI/CD
2 3 (60.00%) Test Scripting
3 2 (40.00%) Agile
3 2 (40.00%) API Testing
3 2 (40.00%) Code Quality
3 2 (40.00%) Git
3 2 (40.00%) JavaScript
3 2 (40.00%) Playwright
3 2 (40.00%) QA Automation
3 2 (40.00%) SDLC
3 2 (40.00%) Selenium
3 2 (40.00%) Software Testing
4 1 (20.00%) Acceptance Criteria
4 1 (20.00%) AWS
4 1 (20.00%) Azure
4 1 (20.00%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
4 1 (20.00%) Bitbucket
4 1 (20.00%) BrowserStack
4 1 (20.00%) Build Automation
4 1 (20.00%) Containerisation
4 1 (20.00%) Continuous Deployment
4 1 (20.00%) Continuous Integration
4 1 (20.00%) Cucumber
4 1 (20.00%) Cypress.io
4 1 (20.00%) Data Protection
4 1 (20.00%) Data Validation
4 1 (20.00%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (20.00%) Defect Management

QA 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:

Cloud Services
1 1 (20.00%) AWS
1 1 (20.00%) Azure
1 1 (20.00%) BrowserStack
1 1 (20.00%) GitHub
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (20.00%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
1 1 (20.00%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 2 (40.00%) Git
1 2 (40.00%) Selenium
2 1 (20.00%) Bitbucket
2 1 (20.00%) Cucumber
2 1 (20.00%) Cypress.io
2 1 (20.00%) Gatling
2 1 (20.00%) Jenkins
2 1 (20.00%) JIRA
2 1 (20.00%) JMeter
2 1 (20.00%) JUnit
2 1 (20.00%) TestNG
General
1 2 (40.00%) Finance
1 2 (40.00%) Social Skills
2 1 (20.00%) Banking
2 1 (20.00%) Investment Banking
2 1 (20.00%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (40.00%) Playwright
2 1 (20.00%) Node.js
2 1 (20.00%) RESTful
2 1 (20.00%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 1 (20.00%) Data Protection Act
1 1 (20.00%) Distributed Systems
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 3 (60.00%) CI/CD
2 3 (60.00%) Test Scripting
3 2 (40.00%) Agile
3 2 (40.00%) API Testing
3 2 (40.00%) Code Quality
3 2 (40.00%) QA Automation
3 2 (40.00%) SDLC
3 2 (40.00%) Software Testing
4 1 (20.00%) Continuous Integration
4 1 (20.00%) Data Protection
4 1 (20.00%) Data Validation
4 1 (20.00%) ETL
4 1 (20.00%) Manual Testing
4 1 (20.00%) Performance Testing
4 1 (20.00%) Scrum
4 1 (20.00%) Stakeholder Management
4 1 (20.00%) Test Management
4 1 (20.00%) Test Strategy
4 1 (20.00%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 2 (40.00%) JavaScript
2 1 (20.00%) Java
2 1 (20.00%) SQL
2 1 (20.00%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 1 (20.00%) DV Cleared
1 1 (20.00%) ISTQB
1 1 (20.00%) SC Cleared
1 1 (20.00%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (100.00%) QA
System Software
1 1 (20.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (20.00%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 1 (20.00%) SAP