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 7 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 50 51
Rank change year-on-year +4 +1 +1
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,283 1,486 1,525
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.27% 4.52% 3.91%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.03% 5.00% 4.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,473 1,036 1,016
10th Percentile £325 £313 £356
25th Percentile £405 £387 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £490 £513
Median % change year-on-year -3.06% -4.39% -2.38%
75th Percentile £575 £581 £612
90th Percentile £663 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £468 £507
% change year-on-year -1.82% -7.79% +1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 107 32 25
10th Percentile £38.90 £35.58 £44.50
25th Percentile £60.17 £44.51 £51.25
Median hourly rate £67.50 £50.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +35.00% -9.09% -16.35%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.50 £71.88
90th Percentile £74.00 £74.35 £80.80
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 45,370 29,720 33,385
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.93% 90.44% 85.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,958 18,627 21,372
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £729 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,804 1,656 1,869
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.33 £18.13
Median hourly rate £42.68 £25.15 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +69.69% -37.63% -5.12%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £64.25
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.00 £74.51
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.30 £40.94
% change year-on-year +88.67% -43.09% +2.35%

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 7 August 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 7 August 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 7 August 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 +2 1,950 £475 -4.52% 1,240
UK excluding London -3 1,140 £459 -1.82% 738
London +6 874 £500 -2.20% 602
Work from Home -5 622 £475 +3.26% 498
North of England +13 387 £465 +3.39% 178
Midlands +4 268 £450 +4.35% 110
West Midlands +25 251 £450 -10.00% 65
South East -32 212 £459 -8.20% 205
Yorkshire -2 155 £496 +4.47% 48
North West -3 141 £490 +16.11% 97
South West +1 112 £469 +8.70% 107
North East +16 99 £425 +1.19% 33
East of England +12 82 £450 -1.91% 69
Scotland -26 69 £440 -12.00% 53
Wales -1 31 £475 +16.92% 20
Northern Ireland +21 17 £488 -0.91% 14
East Midlands -45 17 £425 +25.00% 45
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
1 196 (8.59%) Confluence
2 52 (2.28%) SAS
3 51 (2.23%) Apache Airflow
4 49 (2.15%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.14%) SharePoint
6 24 (1.05%) Apache
7 14 (0.61%) CMS
8 13 (0.57%) WebLogic
9 7 (0.31%) nginx
9 7 (0.31%) Tomcat
10 6 (0.26%) Microsoft Exchange
11 5 (0.22%) Camunda
12 4 (0.18%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.18%) Jupyter
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.13%) Kentico
13 3 (0.13%) OpenStack
14 2 (0.088%) Appian
14 2 (0.088%) Mendix
14 2 (0.088%) Mule
Applications
1 20 (0.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.31%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.26%) Chatbot
4 6 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.18%) Simulink
6 3 (0.13%) Trello
7 2 (0.088%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.044%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 26 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.79%) SAP S/4HANA
3 16 (0.70%) Aladdin
4 12 (0.53%) Payment Gateway
5 11 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.35%) Findur
7 6 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
7 6 (0.26%) SAP ERP
7 6 (0.26%) SAP MDG
7 6 (0.26%) Shopify
8 5 (0.22%) BambooHR
9 4 (0.18%) Infor CloudSuite
9 4 (0.18%) Infor LN
9 4 (0.18%) Infor M3
10 3 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
11 2 (0.088%) Advent Geneva
11 2 (0.088%) Loan IQ
11 2 (0.088%) Oracle ERP
11 2 (0.088%) SAP GRC
12 1 (0.044%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 690 (30.22%) Azure
2 683 (29.92%) AWS
3 419 (18.35%) GitHub
4 315 (13.80%) Azure DevOps
5 252 (11.04%) GitHub Actions
6 167 (7.31%) GCP
7 166 (7.27%) Serverless
8 115 (5.04%) AWS Lambda
9 99 (4.34%) Power Platform
10 98 (4.29%) Amazon S3
11 76 (3.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 70 (3.07%) Amazon ECS
13 64 (2.80%) OpenShift
14 61 (2.67%) AWS CloudFormation
15 58 (2.54%) Amazon EKS
15 58 (2.54%) GitHub Copilot
16 55 (2.41%) dbt
17 52 (2.28%) Amazon EC2
18 48 (2.10%) Snowflake
19 41 (1.80%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.01%) Firewall
2 22 (0.96%) HTTP
3 18 (0.79%) Network Security
4 16 (0.70%) 4G
4 16 (0.70%) 5G
5 14 (0.61%) 2G
5 14 (0.61%) 3G
5 14 (0.61%) Diameter Protocol
5 14 (0.61%) SIGTRAN
5 14 (0.61%) SS7
6 13 (0.57%) DNS
6 13 (0.57%) SAN
6 13 (0.57%) TCP/IP
6 13 (0.57%) WAN
7 10 (0.44%) LAN
8 9 (0.39%) Wi-Fi
9 6 (0.26%) BGP
9 6 (0.26%) HTTPS
10 5 (0.22%) DHCP
10 5 (0.22%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 139 (6.09%) PostgreSQL
2 128 (5.61%) Data Warehouse
3 122 (5.34%) MongoDB
4 108 (4.73%) NoSQL
5 91 (3.99%) SQL Server
6 79 (3.46%) Power BI
6 79 (3.46%) Relational Database
7 49 (2.15%) DynamoDB
8 47 (2.06%) Metadata
9 45 (1.97%) Oracle Reports
10 42 (1.84%) Pentaho
11 35 (1.53%) Data Lake
11 35 (1.53%) MySQL
12 34 (1.49%) Big Data
13 33 (1.45%) Amazon Athena
14 28 (1.23%) Amazon RDS
14 28 (1.23%) Redis
15 27 (1.18%) Amazon Redshift
16 23 (1.01%) Elasticsearch
17 20 (0.88%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 460 (20.15%) Git
2 429 (18.79%) JIRA
3 378 (16.56%) Jenkins
4 308 (13.49%) GitLab
5 288 (12.61%) Selenium
6 161 (7.05%) Postman
7 152 (6.66%) Cucumber
8 120 (5.26%) JUnit
9 115 (5.04%) Cypress.io
10 103 (4.51%) REST Assured
11 95 (4.16%) JMeter
12 74 (3.24%) Zephyr
13 64 (2.80%) WebDriver
14 63 (2.76%) SonarQube
15 52 (2.28%) Gatling
16 51 (2.23%) Gradle
17 47 (2.06%) Maven
18 45 (1.97%) Mockito
19 43 (1.88%) Bitbucket
20 33 (1.45%) SpecFlow
General
1 609 (26.68%) Social Skills
2 412 (18.05%) Finance
3 328 (14.37%) Public Sector
4 294 (12.88%) Analytical Skills
5 187 (8.19%) Banking
6 69 (3.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 42 (1.84%) Documentation Skills
8 40 (1.75%) Telecoms
9 36 (1.58%) Influencing Skills
10 35 (1.53%) Front Office
10 35 (1.53%) Investment Banking
11 32 (1.40%) Retail
12 27 (1.18%) Military
13 25 (1.10%) Financial Institution
14 20 (0.88%) Aerospace
15 17 (0.74%) Back Office
16 16 (0.70%) Manufacturing
17 15 (0.66%) Marketing
17 15 (0.66%) Organisational Skills
18 14 (0.61%) Legal
Job Titles
1 487 (21.33%) Developer
2 381 (16.69%) Senior
3 246 (10.78%) Lead
4 223 (9.77%) Test Engineer
5 212 (9.29%) Tester
6 165 (7.23%) Java Developer
7 158 (6.92%) Data Engineer
8 118 (5.17%) Analyst
8 118 (5.17%) Software Engineer
9 114 (4.99%) DevOps Engineer
10 111 (4.86%) Senior Developer
11 105 (4.60%) Architect
12 100 (4.38%) Test Automation Engineer
13 93 (4.07%) QA Engineer
14 88 (3.85%) Automation Tester
15 87 (3.81%) Test Leader
16 79 (3.46%) Test Analyst
17 73 (3.20%) Full-Stack Developer
18 61 (2.67%) Automation Engineer
18 61 (2.67%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 325 (14.24%) REST
2 272 (11.91%) Playwright
3 207 (9.07%) RESTful
4 204 (8.94%) React
5 193 (8.45%) Spring
6 189 (8.28%) Kafka
7 159 (6.96%) .NET
8 154 (6.75%) Spring Boot
9 126 (5.52%) Node.js
10 97 (4.25%) HTML
11 94 (4.12%) AngularJS
12 90 (3.94%) CSS
13 74 (3.24%) OAuth
14 61 (2.67%) JSON
15 59 (2.58%) pytest
16 56 (2.45%) Jest
17 53 (2.32%) OAuth2
18 52 (2.28%) HTML5
19 50 (2.19%) Gherkin
20 47 (2.06%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 333 (14.59%) Cloud Native
2 169 (7.40%) Product Ownership
3 154 (6.75%) Distributed Systems
4 82 (3.59%) Enterprise Software
5 59 (2.58%) Legacy Systems
5 59 (2.58%) Onboarding
6 55 (2.41%) Data Protection Act
7 53 (2.32%) Self-Motivation
8 41 (1.80%) Mobile App
9 37 (1.62%) Virtual Team
10 35 (1.53%) AI Agents
11 30 (1.31%) Distributed Architecture
12 28 (1.23%) Embedded Systems
13 27 (1.18%) NHS
14 25 (1.10%) Security Posture
15 23 (1.01%) Management Information System
16 19 (0.83%) Data Centre
16 19 (0.83%) Derivative
16 19 (0.83%) Fixed Income
17 17 (0.74%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 152 (6.66%) Linux
2 87 (3.81%) Windows
3 86 (3.77%) Unix
4 41 (1.80%) Apple iOS
5 39 (1.71%) Android
6 27 (1.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 20 (0.88%) Windows Server
8 13 (0.57%) Mac OS X
9 9 (0.39%) Mac OS
10 8 (0.35%) Solaris
11 6 (0.26%) Embedded Linux
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2008
13 4 (0.18%) Ubuntu
13 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
14 3 (0.13%) AIX
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.088%) CentOS
16 1 (0.044%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,345 (58.91%) CI/CD
2 1,078 (47.22%) Agile
3 877 (38.41%) DevOps
4 433 (18.97%) Microservices
5 428 (18.75%) Problem-Solving
6 420 (18.40%) Continuous Improvement
7 375 (16.43%) Scrum
8 372 (16.29%) Software Engineering
9 371 (16.25%) Infrastructure as Code
10 346 (15.16%) Validation
11 336 (14.72%) Test Strategy
12 315 (13.80%) Containerisation
13 313 (13.71%) AI
14 311 (13.62%) TDD
15 298 (13.05%) Observability
16 245 (10.73%) SDLC
17 241 (10.56%) ETL
18 235 (10.29%) Data Pipeline
18 235 (10.29%) End-to-End Testing
19 229 (10.03%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 590 (25.84%) Python
2 587 (25.71%) Java
3 537 (23.52%) SQL
4 299 (13.10%) JavaScript
5 237 (10.38%) TypeScript
6 210 (9.20%) C#
7 91 (3.99%) PowerShell
8 86 (3.77%) Bash
9 53 (2.32%) C++
9 53 (2.32%) Kotlin
10 49 (2.15%) Bicep
11 34 (1.49%) C
12 33 (1.45%) PL/SQL
13 30 (1.31%) Scala
14 28 (1.23%) Apex Code
14 28 (1.23%) Go
15 25 (1.10%) Shell Script
16 23 (1.01%) Ruby
17 21 (0.92%) Swift
18 18 (0.79%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 738 (32.33%) Security Cleared
2 625 (27.38%) SC Cleared
3 109 (4.77%) Degree
4 106 (4.64%) ISTQB
5 104 (4.56%) BPSS Clearance
6 68 (2.98%) DV Cleared
7 58 (2.54%) Computer Science Degree
8 35 (1.53%) AWS Certification
9 28 (1.23%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 24 (1.05%) Azure Certification
11 17 (0.74%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 11 (0.48%) Cisco Certification
12 11 (0.48%) CISSP
12 11 (0.48%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 11 (0.48%) Master's Degree
12 11 (0.48%) SAFe Agilist
13 10 (0.44%) Microsoft Certification
14 9 (0.39%) DBS Check
15 8 (0.35%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
15 8 (0.35%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 564 (24.70%) QA
2 186 (8.15%) Accessibility
3 164 (7.18%) Data Quality
4 85 (3.72%) WCAG
5 44 (1.93%) GDPR
6 15 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 15 (0.66%) NCSC
6 15 (0.66%) SLA
7 14 (0.61%) ISO 20022
8 9 (0.39%) NIST
9 7 (0.31%) Def Stans
9 7 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 7 (0.31%) PCI DSS
10 6 (0.26%) GRC
10 6 (0.26%) Software Quality Assurance
11 5 (0.22%) FATCA
11 5 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 4 (0.18%) MiFID
13 3 (0.13%) Actionable Recommendations
13 3 (0.13%) HL7
System Software
1 441 (19.32%) Docker
2 31 (1.36%) VMware Infrastructure
3 27 (1.18%) Active Directory
4 16 (0.70%) Virtual Machines
5 14 (0.61%) Firmware
6 5 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.13%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.088%) SRDF
9 2 (0.088%) VMware NSX
10 1 (0.044%) Embedded Firmware
10 1 (0.044%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.044%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 438 (19.19%) Kubernetes
2 323 (14.15%) Terraform
3 121 (5.30%) Ansible
4 120 (5.26%) Grafana
5 99 (4.34%) Prometheus
6 41 (1.80%) Argo
7 23 (1.01%) Puppet
8 18 (0.79%) HP ALM
8 18 (0.79%) Progress Chef
9 13 (0.57%) Kibana
9 13 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
10 10 (0.44%) Dell DRAC
11 7 (0.31%) Kustomize
11 7 (0.31%) NetBackup
12 6 (0.26%) Istio
12 6 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
12 6 (0.26%) Packer
13 5 (0.22%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 5 (0.22%) HP Quality Center
13 5 (0.22%) NetIQ Identity Manager
Vendors
1 209 (9.15%) Microsoft
2 195 (8.54%) Oracle
3 94 (4.12%) Salesforce
4 80 (3.50%) Databricks
5 68 (2.98%) Talend
6 63 (2.76%) Google
6 63 (2.76%) Red Hat
7 57 (2.50%) Splunk
8 52 (2.28%) ServiceNow
9 49 (2.15%) Denodo
10 44 (1.93%) IBM
11 41 (1.80%) Informatica
12 40 (1.75%) SAP
13 38 (1.66%) VMware
14 34 (1.49%) Dynatrace
15 29 (1.27%) MuleSoft
16 27 (1.18%) UiPath
17 25 (1.10%) HP
18 24 (1.05%) Cisco
19 13 (0.57%) OpenAI