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 26 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 50 50
Rank change year-on-year +4 0 0
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,272 1,461 1,582
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.28% 4.44% 3.92%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.03% 4.91% 4.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,465 1,011 1,049
10th Percentile £325 £313 £363
25th Percentile £402 £382 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £517
Median % change year-on-year - -8.12% -1.52%
75th Percentile £575 £580 £606
90th Percentile £663 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £458 £461 £509
% change year-on-year -0.65% -9.29% +1.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 32 36
10th Percentile £40.00 £35.58 £47.75
25th Percentile £60.42 £44.51 £51.25
Median hourly rate £67.50 £50.00 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year +35.00% -11.11% -14.77%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.50 £71.87
90th Percentile £74.80 £74.35 £76.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £52.50 £56.25
% change year-on-year +28.57% -6.67% -10.00%

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 45,137 29,773 34,561
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.05% 90.43% 85.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,973 18,705 22,228
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £419 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.14%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,675 1,607 2,050
10th Percentile £14.81 £14.20 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.33 £17.50
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.80 £68.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.57 £40.00
% change year-on-year +86.55% -41.09% -

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 26 July 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 26 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Automation in the UK

Test Automation
Top 18 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 26 July 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 +4 1,922 £475 - 778
UK excluding London +2 1,123 £458 -0.65% 540
London +4 872 £500 - 327
Work from Home -1 633 £475 +4.40% 322
North of England +18 387 £465 +4.03% 148
Midlands +8 255 £447 +8.69% 65
West Midlands +35 237 £450 -2.70% 38
South East -38 199 £459 -8.20% 154
Yorkshire +5 154 £500 +5.26% 38
North West -7 148 £489 +18.63% 77
South West +5 112 £463 +7.25% 85
North East +12 95 £425 +6.25% 35
East of England +12 81 £450 - 55
Scotland -24 73 £440 -10.34% 28
Wales -5 35 £475 +13.43% 9
Northern Ireland +19 19 £475 +16.28% 14
East Midlands -42 18 £425 +30.37% 27
Channel Islands - 2 - -

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
1 203 (8.93%) Confluence
2 52 (2.29%) Apache Spark
3 48 (2.11%) SAS
4 46 (2.02%) Apache Airflow
5 25 (1.10%) SharePoint
6 24 (1.06%) Apache
7 14 (0.62%) CMS
8 13 (0.57%) WebLogic
9 8 (0.35%) nginx
9 8 (0.35%) Tomcat
10 5 (0.22%) Camunda
10 5 (0.22%) Microsoft Exchange
11 4 (0.18%) Anypoint
11 4 (0.18%) Appian
11 4 (0.18%) Jupyter
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 3 (0.13%) Kentico
13 2 (0.088%) Apache Pulsar
13 2 (0.088%) Mendix
13 2 (0.088%) Mule
Applications
1 22 (0.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (0.75%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
4 9 (0.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.35%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.18%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.18%) Simulink
6 4 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.13%) Trello
8 1 (0.044%) Mingle
8 1 (0.044%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 26 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
2 17 (0.75%) Aladdin
2 17 (0.75%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (0.57%) Oracle EBS
4 12 (0.53%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.35%) Findur
6 6 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.26%) SAP ERP
6 6 (0.26%) SAP MDG
6 6 (0.26%) Shopify
7 5 (0.22%) BambooHR
8 4 (0.18%) Infor CloudSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Infor LN
8 4 (0.18%) Infor M3
9 3 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
9 3 (0.13%) Loan IQ
10 2 (0.088%) Advent Geneva
10 2 (0.088%) Oracle EBS R12
10 2 (0.088%) SAP GRC
10 2 (0.088%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 678 (29.84%) Azure
2 674 (29.67%) AWS
3 409 (18.00%) GitHub
4 309 (13.60%) Azure DevOps
5 250 (11.00%) GitHub Actions
6 168 (7.39%) GCP
7 163 (7.17%) Serverless
8 112 (4.93%) AWS Lambda
9 99 (4.36%) Amazon S3
10 98 (4.31%) Power Platform
11 71 (3.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 67 (2.95%) Amazon ECS
13 66 (2.90%) OpenShift
14 58 (2.55%) AWS CloudFormation
15 53 (2.33%) Amazon EC2
16 51 (2.24%) Amazon EKS
17 50 (2.20%) GitHub Copilot
18 48 (2.11%) dbt
19 44 (1.94%) Snowflake
20 42 (1.85%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.01%) Firewall
1 23 (1.01%) HTTP
2 17 (0.75%) Network Security
3 16 (0.70%) SAN
4 12 (0.53%) 2G
4 12 (0.53%) 3G
4 12 (0.53%) 4G
4 12 (0.53%) 5G
4 12 (0.53%) Diameter Protocol
4 12 (0.53%) SIGTRAN
4 12 (0.53%) SS7
4 12 (0.53%) WAN
5 10 (0.44%) TCP/IP
6 9 (0.40%) LAN
6 9 (0.40%) VPN
7 8 (0.35%) BGP
7 8 (0.35%) DNS
7 8 (0.35%) Wi-Fi
8 7 (0.31%) MPLS
8 7 (0.31%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 129 (5.68%) PostgreSQL
2 123 (5.41%) MongoDB
3 118 (5.19%) Data Warehouse
4 106 (4.67%) NoSQL
5 90 (3.96%) SQL Server
6 82 (3.61%) Relational Database
7 77 (3.39%) Power BI
8 50 (2.20%) DynamoDB
9 46 (2.02%) Metadata
10 42 (1.85%) Oracle Reports
11 39 (1.72%) Big Data
12 36 (1.58%) Pentaho
13 35 (1.54%) MySQL
14 32 (1.41%) Amazon Athena
15 30 (1.32%) Amazon RDS
16 28 (1.23%) Data Lake
17 27 (1.19%) Redis
18 26 (1.14%) Amazon Redshift
19 24 (1.06%) Elasticsearch
20 22 (0.97%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 434 (19.10%) JIRA
2 428 (18.84%) Git
3 369 (16.24%) Jenkins
4 298 (13.12%) GitLab
5 288 (12.68%) Selenium
6 164 (7.22%) Postman
7 152 (6.69%) Cucumber
8 117 (5.15%) REST Assured
9 115 (5.06%) Cypress.io
10 114 (5.02%) JUnit
11 99 (4.36%) JMeter
12 71 (3.13%) Zephyr
13 63 (2.77%) WebDriver
14 58 (2.55%) SonarQube
15 54 (2.38%) Gatling
16 49 (2.16%) Gradle
17 43 (1.89%) Bitbucket
17 43 (1.89%) Maven
17 43 (1.89%) Mockito
18 36 (1.58%) SpecFlow
General
1 609 (26.80%) Social Skills
2 414 (18.22%) Finance
3 318 (14.00%) Public Sector
4 281 (12.37%) Analytical Skills
5 192 (8.45%) Banking
6 62 (2.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 42 (1.85%) Documentation Skills
8 37 (1.63%) Front Office
9 35 (1.54%) Investment Banking
10 34 (1.50%) Influencing Skills
10 34 (1.50%) Telecoms
11 30 (1.32%) Military
12 29 (1.28%) Retail
13 23 (1.01%) Financial Institution
14 19 (0.84%) Aerospace
15 18 (0.79%) Manufacturing
16 16 (0.70%) Back Office
16 16 (0.70%) Legal
16 16 (0.70%) Organisational Skills
17 14 (0.62%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 486 (21.39%) Developer
2 375 (16.51%) Senior
3 249 (10.96%) Lead
4 227 (9.99%) Test Engineer
5 222 (9.77%) Tester
6 160 (7.04%) Java Developer
7 153 (6.73%) Data Engineer
8 124 (5.46%) Analyst
9 116 (5.11%) Software Engineer
10 112 (4.93%) DevOps Engineer
11 107 (4.71%) Senior Developer
12 106 (4.67%) Architect
13 100 (4.40%) Test Automation Engineer
14 92 (4.05%) Automation Tester
15 91 (4.01%) Test Leader
16 88 (3.87%) QA Engineer
17 85 (3.74%) Test Analyst
18 75 (3.30%) Full-Stack Developer
19 58 (2.55%) Automation Engineer
19 58 (2.55%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 305 (13.42%) REST
2 269 (11.84%) Playwright
3 204 (8.98%) React
4 194 (8.54%) RESTful
5 188 (8.27%) Spring
6 173 (7.61%) Kafka
7 157 (6.91%) .NET
8 154 (6.78%) Spring Boot
9 121 (5.33%) Node.js
10 93 (4.09%) HTML
11 91 (4.01%) AngularJS
12 86 (3.79%) CSS
13 72 (3.17%) OAuth
14 57 (2.51%) pytest
15 56 (2.46%) JSON
16 53 (2.33%) Jest
17 49 (2.16%) HTML5
18 48 (2.11%) Gherkin
19 47 (2.07%) OAuth2
20 46 (2.02%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 319 (14.04%) Cloud Native
2 168 (7.39%) Product Ownership
3 148 (6.51%) Distributed Systems
4 81 (3.57%) Enterprise Software
5 63 (2.77%) Legacy Systems
6 56 (2.46%) Onboarding
7 55 (2.42%) Data Protection Act
8 51 (2.24%) Self-Motivation
9 40 (1.76%) Mobile App
10 36 (1.58%) Virtual Team
11 33 (1.45%) AI Agents
12 31 (1.36%) Distributed Architecture
13 28 (1.23%) NHS
13 28 (1.23%) Security Posture
14 27 (1.19%) Embedded Systems
15 25 (1.10%) Management Information System
16 21 (0.92%) Algorithms
16 21 (0.92%) Fixed Income
16 21 (0.92%) Greenfield Project
17 20 (0.88%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 140 (6.16%) Linux
2 82 (3.61%) Windows
3 77 (3.39%) Unix
4 42 (1.85%) Android
5 41 (1.80%) Apple iOS
6 24 (1.06%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 20 (0.88%) Windows Server
8 14 (0.62%) Mac OS X
9 10 (0.44%) Mac OS
10 9 (0.40%) Solaris
11 6 (0.26%) Embedded Linux
11 6 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.18%) Ubuntu
13 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
14 3 (0.13%) AIX
15 2 (0.088%) CentOS
16 1 (0.044%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,324 (58.27%) CI/CD
2 1,073 (47.23%) Agile
3 847 (37.28%) DevOps
4 419 (18.44%) Problem-Solving
5 418 (18.40%) Microservices
6 400 (17.61%) Continuous Improvement
7 369 (16.24%) Scrum
8 352 (15.49%) Software Engineering
9 351 (15.45%) Infrastructure as Code
10 345 (15.18%) Test Strategy
11 343 (15.10%) Validation
12 305 (13.42%) Containerisation
13 301 (13.25%) AI
14 295 (12.98%) TDD
15 294 (12.94%) Observability
16 234 (10.30%) ETL
17 232 (10.21%) End-to-End Testing
18 230 (10.12%) SDLC
19 226 (9.95%) Data Pipeline
20 220 (9.68%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 583 (25.66%) Python
2 577 (25.40%) Java
3 529 (23.28%) SQL
4 287 (12.63%) JavaScript
5 242 (10.65%) TypeScript
6 206 (9.07%) C#
7 84 (3.70%) Bash
8 81 (3.57%) PowerShell
9 54 (2.38%) Kotlin
10 49 (2.16%) C++
11 44 (1.94%) Bicep
12 36 (1.58%) PL/SQL
13 30 (1.32%) Scala
14 29 (1.28%) Apex Code
14 29 (1.28%) C
14 29 (1.28%) Go
15 23 (1.01%) Ruby
16 22 (0.97%) Shell Script
16 22 (0.97%) Swift
17 16 (0.70%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 717 (31.56%) Security Cleared
2 605 (26.63%) SC Cleared
3 110 (4.84%) Degree
4 108 (4.75%) BPSS Clearance
5 102 (4.49%) ISTQB
6 69 (3.04%) DV Cleared
7 54 (2.38%) Computer Science Degree
8 29 (1.28%) AWS Certification
9 28 (1.23%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 22 (0.97%) Azure Certification
11 17 (0.75%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 13 (0.57%) Cisco Certification
12 13 (0.57%) Master's Degree
13 11 (0.48%) CCNP
13 11 (0.48%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 11 (0.48%) SAFe Agilist
14 9 (0.40%) CISSP
14 9 (0.40%) DBS Check
14 9 (0.40%) Microsoft Certification
15 7 (0.31%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 542 (23.86%) QA
2 188 (8.27%) Accessibility
3 159 (7.00%) Data Quality
4 81 (3.57%) WCAG
5 43 (1.89%) GDPR
6 16 (0.70%) SLA
7 14 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 14 (0.62%) NCSC
8 10 (0.44%) NIST
9 9 (0.40%) ISO 20022
10 7 (0.31%) GRC
10 7 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 7 (0.31%) PCI DSS
11 6 (0.26%) Def Stans
12 5 (0.22%) FATCA
12 5 (0.22%) Software Quality Assurance
13 4 (0.18%) MiFID
14 3 (0.13%) HL7
14 3 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 3 (0.13%) SEPA
System Software
1 419 (18.44%) Docker
2 32 (1.41%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (1.10%) Active Directory
4 15 (0.66%) Virtual Machines
5 12 (0.53%) Firmware
6 6 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
8 4 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.13%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.088%) SRDF
10 2 (0.088%) VMware NSX
11 1 (0.044%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.044%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 415 (18.27%) Kubernetes
2 308 (13.56%) Terraform
3 118 (5.19%) Ansible
3 118 (5.19%) Grafana
4 100 (4.40%) Prometheus
5 40 (1.76%) Argo
6 22 (0.97%) HP ALM
7 19 (0.84%) Puppet
8 14 (0.62%) Kibana
9 11 (0.48%) Progress Chef
9 11 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
10 10 (0.44%) Dell DRAC
11 8 (0.35%) NetBackup
12 7 (0.31%) HP Quality Center
12 7 (0.31%) Kustomize
13 5 (0.22%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 5 (0.22%) Istio
13 5 (0.22%) Microsoft Intune
13 5 (0.22%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 5 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 207 (9.11%) Microsoft
2 190 (8.36%) Oracle
3 97 (4.27%) Salesforce
4 77 (3.39%) Databricks
5 65 (2.86%) Google
5 65 (2.86%) Talend
6 60 (2.64%) Red Hat
7 59 (2.60%) Splunk
8 49 (2.16%) ServiceNow
9 44 (1.94%) Denodo
10 43 (1.89%) IBM
11 40 (1.76%) SAP
12 39 (1.72%) Informatica
13 38 (1.67%) VMware
14 31 (1.36%) Dynatrace
15 29 (1.28%) UiPath
16 28 (1.23%) HP
16 28 (1.23%) MuleSoft
17 25 (1.10%) Cisco
18 14 (0.62%) Fortinet