Test Automation Contract Job Trends

Automated Testing
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Test Automation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 5 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 44 54
Rank change year-on-year -3 +10 -8
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,920 1,365 1,576
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.51% 4.51% 3.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.22% 5.00% 4.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,311 934 1,093
10th Percentile £335 £325 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £477 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.70% -2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £575 £625 £625
90th Percentile £675 £738 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.26% -2.56% -7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 7 60
10th Percentile £38.01 £43.21 £44.25
25th Percentile £50.94 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £64.25 £56.75 £65.75
Median % change year-on-year +13.22% -13.69% +12.39%
75th Percentile £68.75 £76.35 £90.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £81.31 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £70.00
% change year-on-year +14.54% -18.93% +22.81%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Test 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 36,798 27,287 38,212
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.45% 90.16% 86.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,332 17,120 24,896
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £482 £492 £500
% change year-on-year -2.03% -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,175 894 2,252
10th Percentile £14.64 £15.62 £13.25
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.05 £16.11
Median hourly rate £28.00 £32.50 £32.85
Median % change year-on-year -13.85% -1.05% -6.16%
75th Percentile £63.75 £63.75 £58.75
90th Percentile £73.63 £75.00 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.76 £33.28
% change year-on-year -20.81% -4.57% -4.91%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Test Automation relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Test Automation job vacancy trend in the UK

Test Automation
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Test Automation.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Automation over the 6 months to 5 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in the UK

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Test Automation.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Automation over the 6 months to 5 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Automation in the UK

Test Automation
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Test Automation within the UK over the 6 months to 5 March 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 -1 1,652 £490 -2.00% 760
UK excluding London -1 883 £481 +1.26% 667
London -1 806 £500 -4.76% 215
Work from Home -1 558 £475 -5.38% 459
North of England +7 322 £494 +12.86% 152
Midlands +6 191 £477 +3.03% 87
South East -19 166 £500 -13.04% 170
West Midlands +9 158 £490 +1.45% 50
North West +5 140 £450 +0.56% 83
Yorkshire -16 138 £500 +10.50% 46
South West -2 81 £515 -6.36% 101
East of England 0 58 £570 +21.93% 78
North East +13 48 £488 +28.09% 23
Scotland -11 41 £440 -2.22% 64
East Midlands -22 33 £400 +8.11% 34
Wales +5 31 £475 +11.76% 25
Northern Ireland +14 20 £475 -2.56% 5

Test Automation
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
1 132 (6.88%) Confluence
2 63 (3.28%) SAS
3 34 (1.77%) Apache Spark
4 17 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
5 11 (0.57%) Apache
5 11 (0.57%) SharePoint
6 8 (0.42%) Appian
7 6 (0.31%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 6 (0.31%) nginx
7 6 (0.31%) WebLogic
8 5 (0.26%) CMS
8 5 (0.26%) Tomcat
9 4 (0.21%) Camunda
9 4 (0.21%) Microsoft Exchange
9 4 (0.21%) Oracle Application Server
10 3 (0.16%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.16%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.10%) Magnolia
11 2 (0.10%) Sitecore CMS
11 2 (0.10%) WordPress
Applications
1 30 (1.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (0.68%) Microsoft Office
4 12 (0.63%) MS Visio
5 11 (0.57%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.16%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.052%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 19 (0.99%) Aladdin
2 8 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.31%) Loan IQ
4 5 (0.26%) Maximo
4 5 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.26%) Workday HCM
5 4 (0.21%) SAP HR
5 4 (0.21%) Shopify
6 3 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
6 3 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
7 2 (0.10%) BambooHR
7 2 (0.10%) Infor CloudSuite
7 2 (0.10%) Infor LN
7 2 (0.10%) Infor M3
7 2 (0.10%) iTrent
7 2 (0.10%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.10%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.10%) Summit
8 1 (0.052%) PORTIA
Cloud Services
1 564 (29.38%) Azure
2 488 (25.42%) AWS
3 336 (17.50%) GitHub
4 248 (12.92%) Azure DevOps
5 195 (10.16%) GCP
6 184 (9.58%) GitHub Actions
7 132 (6.88%) Serverless
8 81 (4.22%) Power Platform
9 73 (3.80%) OpenShift
10 61 (3.18%) AWS Lambda
11 59 (3.07%) Amazon S3
12 48 (2.50%) Azure AKS
13 46 (2.40%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 46 (2.40%) AWS CloudFormation
14 39 (2.03%) Snowflake
15 35 (1.82%) Amazon EKS
15 35 (1.82%) Azure Data Factory
16 34 (1.77%) Azure Functions
16 34 (1.77%) SaaS
17 33 (1.72%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 35 (1.82%) Firewall
2 27 (1.41%) HTTP
3 22 (1.15%) Wireshark
4 20 (1.04%) TCP/IP
4 20 (1.04%) VPN
5 17 (0.89%) SSL
6 13 (0.68%) HTTPS
6 13 (0.68%) SD-WAN
7 12 (0.63%) Network Security
7 12 (0.63%) WAN
8 11 (0.57%) DNS
9 10 (0.52%) FTP
10 9 (0.47%) Ethernet
10 9 (0.47%) MPLS
11 8 (0.42%) Multicast
11 8 (0.42%) VLAN
12 7 (0.36%) AMQP
12 7 (0.36%) SAN
13 5 (0.26%) BGP
13 5 (0.26%) Cisco IPT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (5.89%) PostgreSQL
2 93 (4.84%) NoSQL
3 83 (4.32%) MongoDB
4 77 (4.01%) SQL Server
5 63 (3.28%) Relational Database
6 53 (2.76%) Data Warehouse
7 47 (2.45%) Power BI
8 34 (1.77%) Pentaho
9 30 (1.56%) BigQuery
9 30 (1.56%) DynamoDB
10 28 (1.46%) MySQL
11 27 (1.41%) Oracle Database
12 21 (1.09%) Big Data
12 21 (1.09%) Tableau
13 20 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
14 18 (0.94%) Amazon RDS
14 18 (0.94%) Oracle Reports
14 18 (0.94%) Redis
15 17 (0.89%) Data Lake
15 17 (0.89%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 371 (19.32%) JIRA
2 366 (19.06%) Git
3 357 (18.59%) Jenkins
4 295 (15.36%) GitLab
5 287 (14.95%) Selenium
6 177 (9.22%) Cucumber
7 171 (8.91%) Postman
8 117 (6.09%) Cypress.io
9 113 (5.89%) JUnit
10 103 (5.36%) JMeter
11 99 (5.16%) REST Assured
12 48 (2.50%) WebDriver
13 42 (2.19%) SpecFlow
14 40 (2.08%) SonarQube
15 39 (2.03%) Gatling
16 38 (1.98%) Maven
16 38 (1.98%) Zephyr
17 33 (1.72%) Gradle
17 33 (1.72%) TestRail
18 32 (1.67%) Mockito
General
1 495 (25.78%) Social Skills
2 306 (15.94%) Finance
3 272 (14.17%) Public Sector
4 205 (10.68%) Analytical Skills
5 148 (7.71%) Banking
6 31 (1.61%) Documentation Skills
7 29 (1.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 28 (1.46%) Investment Banking
9 22 (1.15%) Front Office
9 22 (1.15%) Pharmaceutical
10 21 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
10 21 (1.09%) Telecoms
11 18 (0.94%) Military
12 17 (0.89%) Organisational Skills
13 14 (0.73%) Influencing Skills
14 13 (0.68%) Aerospace
14 13 (0.68%) Financial Institution
14 13 (0.68%) Legal
15 9 (0.47%) Electronics
15 9 (0.47%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 405 (21.09%) Developer
2 316 (16.46%) Senior
3 231 (12.03%) Tester
4 217 (11.30%) Lead
5 210 (10.94%) Test Engineer
6 119 (6.20%) Automation Tester
7 102 (5.31%) Java Developer
8 101 (5.26%) Data Engineer
9 90 (4.69%) Analyst
10 85 (4.43%) Test Automation Engineer
11 83 (4.32%) Software Engineer
12 75 (3.91%) Test Leader
13 74 (3.85%) DevOps Engineer
14 72 (3.75%) QA Engineer
15 70 (3.65%) Senior Developer
16 65 (3.39%) Test Manager
17 61 (3.18%) Architect
18 58 (3.02%) Test Analyst
19 54 (2.81%) Automation Engineer
20 48 (2.50%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 242 (12.60%) REST
2 240 (12.50%) Playwright
3 172 (8.96%) React
4 153 (7.97%) RESTful
5 150 (7.81%) .NET
6 147 (7.66%) Node.js
7 145 (7.55%) Spring
8 129 (6.72%) Kafka
9 119 (6.20%) Spring Boot
10 93 (4.84%) pytest
11 68 (3.54%) HTML
12 65 (3.39%) AngularJS
13 58 (3.02%) CSS
14 56 (2.92%) Jest
14 56 (2.92%) OAuth
15 52 (2.71%) Web Services
16 50 (2.60%) JSON
17 44 (2.29%) GraphQL
18 40 (2.08%) OpenID
19 39 (2.03%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 210 (10.94%) Cloud Native
2 127 (6.61%) Product Ownership
3 79 (4.11%) Distributed Systems
4 48 (2.50%) Mobile App
5 47 (2.45%) Legacy Systems
6 42 (2.19%) Algorithms
6 42 (2.19%) Data Protection Act
7 38 (1.98%) Security Posture
8 35 (1.82%) Onboarding
9 30 (1.56%) Virtual Team
10 26 (1.35%) Data Structures
10 26 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
10 26 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
11 25 (1.30%) NHS
12 22 (1.15%) Management Information System
13 21 (1.09%) Greenfield Project
14 20 (1.04%) Data Centre
14 20 (1.04%) Equities
14 20 (1.04%) Public Cloud
15 18 (0.94%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 146 (7.60%) Linux
2 90 (4.69%) Windows
3 46 (2.40%) Android
4 42 (2.19%) Unix
5 41 (2.14%) Apple iOS
6 23 (1.20%) Windows Server
7 17 (0.89%) Mac OS X
8 15 (0.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 11 (0.57%) Kali Linux
10 9 (0.47%) Mac OS
11 6 (0.31%) CentOS
12 5 (0.26%) Solaris
12 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
12 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.10%) VMS
13 2 (0.10%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.052%) Robot Operating System
14 1 (0.052%) Windows Embedded Compact
14 1 (0.052%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,024 (53.33%) CI/CD
2 926 (48.23%) Agile
3 723 (37.66%) DevOps
4 456 (23.75%) Problem-Solving
5 315 (16.41%) Continuous Improvement
6 305 (15.89%) Microservices
7 300 (15.63%) Test Strategy
8 281 (14.64%) Containerisation
9 272 (14.17%) Scrum
10 247 (12.86%) Infrastructure as Code
11 244 (12.71%) AI
12 243 (12.66%) Validation
13 236 (12.29%) Test Scripting
14 223 (11.61%) Software Engineering
15 215 (11.20%) Analytics
16 214 (11.15%) TDD
17 202 (10.52%) Observability
18 190 (9.90%) API Testing
18 190 (9.90%) Software Testing
19 184 (9.58%) Regression Testing
Programming Languages
1 597 (31.09%) Python
2 460 (23.96%) Java
3 395 (20.57%) SQL
4 297 (15.47%) JavaScript
5 276 (14.38%) TypeScript
6 191 (9.95%) C#
7 84 (4.38%) Bash
8 78 (4.06%) PowerShell
9 43 (2.24%) C++
10 34 (1.77%) Go
11 28 (1.46%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.30%) Bicep
12 25 (1.30%) Kotlin
13 22 (1.15%) Scala
14 21 (1.09%) Ruby
15 19 (0.99%) Apex Code
15 19 (0.99%) C
16 17 (0.89%) Swift
17 14 (0.73%) Shell Script
18 13 (0.68%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 548 (28.54%) Security Cleared
2 424 (22.08%) SC Cleared
3 108 (5.63%) Degree
4 92 (4.79%) ISTQB
5 70 (3.65%) BPSS Clearance
6 58 (3.02%) Computer Science Degree
6 58 (3.02%) DV Cleared
7 34 (1.77%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 29 (1.51%) Master's Degree
9 18 (0.94%) OSCP
10 17 (0.89%) AWS Certification
11 15 (0.78%) Azure Certification
11 15 (0.78%) Cisco Certification
12 14 (0.73%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 13 (0.68%) CISSP
13 13 (0.68%) GPEN
13 13 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
13 13 (0.68%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 12 (0.63%) CEH
14 12 (0.63%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 428 (22.29%) QA
2 156 (8.13%) Accessibility
3 107 (5.57%) Data Quality
4 50 (2.60%) WCAG
5 39 (2.03%) GDPR
6 35 (1.82%) NIST
7 22 (1.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 18 (0.94%) EU AI Act
9 17 (0.89%) NCSC
10 15 (0.78%) SLA
11 11 (0.57%) ISO 20022
11 11 (0.57%) PCI DSS
12 9 (0.47%) NIST 800
12 9 (0.47%) PSD2
13 8 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 7 (0.36%) Def Stans
14 7 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 7 (0.36%) SEPA
14 7 (0.36%) SOC 2
15 6 (0.31%) HIPAA
System Software
1 408 (21.25%) Docker
2 35 (1.82%) Active Directory
3 10 (0.52%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
5 7 (0.36%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
5 7 (0.36%) Firmware
6 5 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
8 3 (0.16%) ISA Server
9 2 (0.10%) SRDF
9 2 (0.10%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.052%) Embedded Firmware
10 1 (0.052%) HDFS
10 1 (0.052%) KVM
10 1 (0.052%) QEMU
10 1 (0.052%) Squid
10 1 (0.052%) Time Sharing Option
10 1 (0.052%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.052%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 375 (19.53%) Kubernetes
2 225 (11.72%) Terraform
3 111 (5.78%) Ansible
3 111 (5.78%) Grafana
4 79 (4.11%) Prometheus
5 23 (1.20%) HP ALM
6 20 (1.04%) Argo
7 19 (0.99%) Puppet
8 18 (0.94%) Nmap
9 17 (0.89%) Progress Chef
10 15 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
11 12 (0.63%) NetBackup
12 10 (0.52%) HP Quality Center
13 7 (0.36%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 7 (0.36%) Kibana
13 7 (0.36%) Nessus
13 7 (0.36%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 7 (0.36%) Podman
14 6 (0.31%) CSIRT
15 4 (0.21%) Rancher
Vendors
1 172 (8.96%) Microsoft
2 159 (8.28%) Oracle
3 74 (3.85%) Databricks
4 69 (3.59%) ServiceNow
5 67 (3.49%) Splunk
6 66 (3.44%) Google
7 64 (3.33%) Salesforce
8 46 (2.40%) SAP
9 38 (1.98%) Talend
10 35 (1.82%) Red Hat
11 30 (1.56%) Denodo
12 29 (1.51%) VMware
13 25 (1.30%) HP
14 24 (1.25%) Cisco
14 24 (1.25%) IBM
15 18 (0.94%) Workday
16 16 (0.83%) Atlassian
17 15 (0.78%) Dynatrace
17 15 (0.78%) MuleSoft
17 15 (0.78%) OpenAI