QA Automation Contracts

Quality Assurance (QA) Automation
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring QA Automation skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited QA Automation over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 484 547 642
Rank change year-on-year +63 +95 +108
Contract jobs citing QA Automation 36 35 76
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.12% 0.080% 0.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.14% 0.093% 0.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 22 31 62
10th Percentile £393 £413 £363
25th Percentile £428 £459 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £522 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year +4.48% +11.11% -5.26%
75th Percentile £600 £694 £525
90th Percentile - £700 £563
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £581 £431
% change year-on-year -10.58% +34.86% -9.26%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

QA Automation falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 26,594 37,597 53,655
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.84% 86.31% 89.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,149 24,227 37,238
10th Percentile £308 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £743 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.50% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,071 2,443 1,746
10th Percentile £14.41 £12.75 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.21 £16.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
Median % change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%
75th Percentile £60.38 £59.98 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £37.34 £36.00
% change year-on-year -26.35% +3.72% +80.00%

QA Automation
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing QA Automation as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for QA Automation in the UK

QA Automation
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing QA Automation.

Daily rate trend for QA Automation in the UK

QA Automation
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing QA Automation over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for QA Automation in the UK

QA Automation
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing QA Automation.

Hourly rate trend for QA Automation in the UK

QA Automation
Top 10 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing QA Automation within the UK over the 6 months to 1 May 2025. 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 +57 31 £535 +1.88% 29
London +44 20 £600 +17.07% 13
Work from Home +40 13 £436 -9.17% 22
UK excluding London +56 11 £520 -10.58% 22
North of England +14 8 £520 -21.55% 3
Yorkshire +13 6 £535 -
North West +7 2 £422 -36.30% 2
East of England +30 1 £450 - 6
Wales +1 1 £525 +7.14% 2
South West - 1 £450 - 3

QA Automation
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 7 (19.44%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 4 (11.11%) SAP Hybris
2 1 (2.78%) SAP CRM
2 1 (2.78%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 11 (30.56%) AWS
2 6 (16.67%) BrowserStack
2 6 (16.67%) GitHub
2 6 (16.67%) Sauce Labs
3 5 (13.89%) SAP Commerce Cloud
4 2 (5.56%) Azure
4 2 (5.56%) Azure DevOps
4 2 (5.56%) GitHub Actions
5 1 (2.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 1 (2.78%) Amazon EventBridge
5 1 (2.78%) Amazon SQS
5 1 (2.78%) Azure Data Factory
5 1 (2.78%) Azure Monitor
5 1 (2.78%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 1 (2.78%) Dynamics 365
5 1 (2.78%) Fivetran
5 1 (2.78%) Power Platform
5 1 (2.78%) Snowflake
5 1 (2.78%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.78%) Network Security
1 1 (2.78%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (5.56%) Data Warehouse
1 2 (5.56%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (2.78%) Azure SQL Database
2 1 (2.78%) BusinessObjects
2 1 (2.78%) Crystal Reports
2 1 (2.78%) Delta Lake
2 1 (2.78%) Power BI
2 1 (2.78%) SAP Data Services
2 1 (2.78%) SQL Server
2 1 (2.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 18 (50.00%) Selenium
2 12 (33.33%) JUnit
3 10 (27.78%) Git
4 7 (19.44%) Appium
4 7 (19.44%) Cucumber
4 7 (19.44%) Jenkins
4 7 (19.44%) JIRA
4 7 (19.44%) TestNG
5 5 (13.89%) Postman
6 4 (11.11%) Cypress.io
6 4 (11.11%) Gradle
6 4 (11.11%) HP UFT
6 4 (11.11%) IntelliJ
6 4 (11.11%) JMeter
6 4 (11.11%) Maven
7 2 (5.56%) GitLab
7 2 (5.56%) SpecFlow
7 2 (5.56%) Xcode
7 2 (5.56%) XCUITest
8 1 (2.78%) Serenity BDD
General
1 5 (13.89%) Finance
1 5 (13.89%) Social Skills
2 3 (8.33%) Analytical Skills
3 1 (2.78%) Billing
3 1 (2.78%) Presentation Skills
3 1 (2.78%) Public Sector
3 1 (2.78%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 14 (38.89%) QA Engineer
2 9 (25.00%) Automation Engineer
3 8 (22.22%) QA Automation Engineer
4 4 (11.11%) Performance Engineer
4 4 (11.11%) Performance Test Engineer
4 4 (11.11%) Python Engineer
4 4 (11.11%) Test Engineer
4 4 (11.11%) Tester
5 3 (8.33%) Android Engineer
5 3 (8.33%) Mobile Engineer
5 3 (8.33%) Test Manager
6 2 (5.56%) Automation Tester
6 2 (5.56%) Data Engineer
6 2 (5.56%) Developer
6 2 (5.56%) Senior
7 1 (2.78%) Developer in Test
7 1 (2.78%) Java Engineer
7 1 (2.78%) Lead
7 1 (2.78%) QA Automation Analyst
7 1 (2.78%) Senior Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (16.67%) pytest
2 4 (11.11%) RESTful
3 2 (5.56%) Playwright
4 1 (2.78%) .NET
4 1 (2.78%) Node.js
4 1 (2.78%) Pandas
4 1 (2.78%) PySpark
4 1 (2.78%) React
4 1 (2.78%) React Native
4 1 (2.78%) REST
4 1 (2.78%) Spring Boot
4 1 (2.78%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 3 (8.33%) Mobile App
2 1 (2.78%) Analytical Mindset
2 1 (2.78%) Data Centre
2 1 (2.78%) Educational Technology
2 1 (2.78%) Linux Command Line
2 1 (2.78%) Renewable Energy
2 1 (2.78%) Solar Panel
Operating Systems
1 4 (11.11%) Android
2 2 (5.56%) Apple iOS
3 1 (2.78%) Linux
3 1 (2.78%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 34 (94.44%) Test Automation
2 17 (47.22%) CI/CD
3 12 (33.33%) E-Commerce
4 11 (30.56%) DevOps
4 11 (30.56%) Test Scripting
5 8 (22.22%) Continuous Improvement
6 7 (19.44%) Agile
6 7 (19.44%) Analytics
6 7 (19.44%) BDD
6 7 (19.44%) Software Testing
7 6 (16.67%) TDD
7 6 (16.67%) Test Strategy
8 5 (13.89%) Case Management
8 5 (13.89%) Coaching
8 5 (13.89%) End-to-End Testing
8 5 (13.89%) Exploratory Testing
8 5 (13.89%) Performance Testing
8 5 (13.89%) Scrum
8 5 (13.89%) Technical Leadership
9 4 (11.11%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 15 (41.67%) Java
2 9 (25.00%) Python
3 5 (13.89%) SQL
4 3 (8.33%) Swift
5 2 (5.56%) C#
5 2 (5.56%) JavaScript
5 2 (5.56%) TypeScript
6 1 (2.78%) ABAP
6 1 (2.78%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 4 (11.11%) Degree
2 2 (5.56%) Computer Science Degree
2 2 (5.56%) SC Cleared
2 2 (5.56%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (100.00%) QA
2 2 (5.56%) Accessibility
2 2 (5.56%) Data Quality
3 1 (2.78%) WCAG
System Software
1 2 (5.56%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (2.78%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 6 (16.67%) SAP
2 5 (13.89%) Microsoft
3 1 (2.78%) Databricks
3 1 (2.78%) Informatica
3 1 (2.78%) Splunk