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 27 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 45 51
Rank change year-on-year -3 +6 -6
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,892 1,392 1,608
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.56% 4.54% 3.64%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.25% 5.05% 4.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,295 946 1,126
10th Percentile £336 £325 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £500 £519
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -3.57% -7.41%
75th Percentile £575 £624 £625
90th Percentile £680 £738 £711
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.56% -7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 5 61
10th Percentile £33.09 £42.56 £45.00
25th Percentile £50.63 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £74.00 £66.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.16% +12.12% +15.79%
75th Percentile £68.13 £77.19 £90.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £83.38 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £74.00 £70.94
% change year-on-year -12.16% +4.32% +24.45%

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 36,013 27,550 38,397
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.71% 89.93% 86.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,879 17,122 25,100
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £411 £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 £721 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £482 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -1.58% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,136 871 2,197
10th Percentile £14.64 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £18.03 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% -1.71% -5.53%
75th Percentile £63.32 £63.75 £59.50
90th Percentile £72.96 £75.00 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.64 £35.00
% change year-on-year -20.51% -9.60% -

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 27 February 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 27 February 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 27 February 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 1,629 £489 -2.25% 479
UK excluding London +1 876 £481 +1.32% 388
London -2 787 £500 -4.76% 137
Work from Home 0 553 £475 -5.00% 259
North of England +5 325 £500 +17.65% 106
Midlands +9 186 £477 +3.03% 50
South East -14 163 £496 -0.80% 94
West Midlands +10 153 £490 +1.45% 32
Yorkshire -14 144 £523 +17.75% 37
North West +6 136 £450 +10.16% 54
South West -3 81 £520 -8.77% 61
East of England +2 60 £570 +25.55% 49
North East +11 49 £488 +28.09% 15
Scotland -13 39 £449 -0.22% 30
East Midlands -17 33 £400 +7.38% 18
Wales +4 30 £485 -3.00% 10
Northern Ireland +11 20 £475 -2.56% 1

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
1 126 (6.66%) Confluence
2 62 (3.28%) SAS
3 31 (1.64%) Apache Spark
4 14 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
5 11 (0.58%) SharePoint
6 10 (0.53%) Apache
7 8 (0.42%) Appian
8 6 (0.32%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 6 (0.32%) nginx
8 6 (0.32%) WebLogic
9 5 (0.26%) CMS
9 5 (0.26%) Tomcat
10 4 (0.21%) Camunda
10 4 (0.21%) Oracle Application Server
11 3 (0.16%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.16%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.11%) Magnolia
12 2 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.11%) WordPress
Applications
1 28 (1.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (0.69%) Microsoft Office
4 10 (0.53%) Microsoft Project
5 9 (0.48%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.16%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.053%) SOLIDWORKS
8 1 (0.053%) Trello
Business Applications
1 19 (1.00%) Aladdin
2 8 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.26%) Loan IQ
3 5 (0.26%) Maximo
3 5 (0.26%) Workday HCM
4 4 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
4 4 (0.21%) SAP HR
4 4 (0.21%) Shopify
5 3 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
5 3 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
6 2 (0.11%) iTrent
6 2 (0.11%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.11%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.11%) Summit
7 1 (0.053%) Algo Collateral
7 1 (0.053%) CODA-Financials
7 1 (0.053%) Oracle General Ledger
7 1 (0.053%) PORTIA
7 1 (0.053%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 549 (29.02%) Azure
2 481 (25.42%) AWS
3 326 (17.23%) GitHub
4 238 (12.58%) Azure DevOps
5 193 (10.20%) GCP
6 175 (9.25%) GitHub Actions
7 131 (6.92%) Serverless
8 77 (4.07%) Power Platform
9 72 (3.81%) OpenShift
10 60 (3.17%) AWS Lambda
11 57 (3.01%) Amazon S3
12 43 (2.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 43 (2.27%) AWS CloudFormation
12 43 (2.27%) Azure AKS
13 37 (1.96%) SaaS
14 35 (1.85%) Snowflake
15 34 (1.80%) Amazon EKS
15 34 (1.80%) Azure Data Factory
16 33 (1.74%) Dynamics 365
17 32 (1.69%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 35 (1.85%) Firewall
2 27 (1.43%) HTTP
3 22 (1.16%) Wireshark
4 20 (1.06%) TCP/IP
4 20 (1.06%) VPN
5 18 (0.95%) SSL
6 15 (0.79%) HTTPS
7 13 (0.69%) Network Security
7 13 (0.69%) SD-WAN
8 12 (0.63%) WAN
9 11 (0.58%) DNS
10 10 (0.53%) FTP
11 9 (0.48%) Ethernet
11 9 (0.48%) MPLS
12 8 (0.42%) Multicast
12 8 (0.42%) VLAN
13 7 (0.37%) AMQP
14 6 (0.32%) SAN
15 5 (0.26%) BGP
15 5 (0.26%) Cisco IPT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (5.81%) PostgreSQL
2 89 (4.70%) NoSQL
3 85 (4.49%) MongoDB
4 70 (3.70%) SQL Server
5 62 (3.28%) Relational Database
6 50 (2.64%) Data Warehouse
7 44 (2.33%) Power BI
8 33 (1.74%) Pentaho
9 30 (1.59%) DynamoDB
10 28 (1.48%) BigQuery
10 28 (1.48%) MySQL
10 28 (1.48%) Oracle Database
11 20 (1.06%) Big Data
12 19 (1.00%) Azure SQL Database
13 18 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
13 18 (0.95%) Oracle Reports
13 18 (0.95%) Redis
14 17 (0.90%) Tableau
15 16 (0.85%) Star Schema
16 15 (0.79%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 361 (19.08%) JIRA
2 358 (18.92%) Git
3 351 (18.55%) Jenkins
4 292 (15.43%) GitLab
5 282 (14.90%) Selenium
6 174 (9.20%) Cucumber
7 169 (8.93%) Postman
8 116 (6.13%) Cypress.io
9 111 (5.87%) JUnit
10 101 (5.34%) JMeter
10 101 (5.34%) REST Assured
11 48 (2.54%) WebDriver
12 43 (2.27%) SpecFlow
13 41 (2.17%) SonarQube
14 39 (2.06%) Gatling
15 37 (1.96%) Maven
15 37 (1.96%) Mockito
15 37 (1.96%) Zephyr
16 33 (1.74%) TestRail
17 32 (1.69%) Gradle
General
1 481 (25.42%) Social Skills
2 295 (15.59%) Finance
3 267 (14.11%) Public Sector
4 198 (10.47%) Analytical Skills
5 141 (7.45%) Banking
6 29 (1.53%) Documentation Skills
7 28 (1.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 28 (1.48%) Investment Banking
8 21 (1.11%) Front Office
8 21 (1.11%) Pharmaceutical
9 20 (1.06%) Telecoms
10 18 (0.95%) Military
10 18 (0.95%) Presentation Skills
11 16 (0.85%) Organisational Skills
12 14 (0.74%) Aerospace
13 13 (0.69%) Financial Institution
13 13 (0.69%) Influencing Skills
14 11 (0.58%) Legal
14 11 (0.58%) Manufacturing
15 10 (0.53%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 416 (21.99%) Developer
2 323 (17.07%) Senior
3 226 (11.95%) Tester
4 211 (11.15%) Lead
5 210 (11.10%) Test Engineer
6 115 (6.08%) Automation Tester
7 114 (6.03%) Java Developer
8 97 (5.13%) Data Engineer
9 88 (4.65%) Analyst
10 87 (4.60%) Software Engineer
11 86 (4.55%) Test Automation Engineer
12 78 (4.12%) Senior Developer
13 73 (3.86%) Test Leader
14 70 (3.70%) DevOps Engineer
14 70 (3.70%) QA Engineer
15 64 (3.38%) Test Manager
16 58 (3.07%) Test Analyst
17 57 (3.01%) Architect
18 54 (2.85%) Automation Engineer
19 49 (2.59%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 247 (13.05%) REST
2 237 (12.53%) Playwright
3 171 (9.04%) React
4 149 (7.88%) RESTful
5 146 (7.72%) Node.js
5 146 (7.72%) Spring
6 144 (7.61%) .NET
7 133 (7.03%) Kafka
8 123 (6.50%) Spring Boot
9 92 (4.86%) pytest
10 66 (3.49%) AngularJS
10 66 (3.49%) HTML
11 58 (3.07%) OAuth
12 57 (3.01%) CSS
13 55 (2.91%) Jest
14 52 (2.75%) Web Services
15 50 (2.64%) JSON
16 46 (2.43%) GraphQL
17 41 (2.17%) OpenID
18 39 (2.06%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 201 (10.62%) Cloud Native
2 126 (6.66%) Product Ownership
3 76 (4.02%) Distributed Systems
4 47 (2.48%) Mobile App
5 46 (2.43%) Legacy Systems
6 43 (2.27%) Algorithms
7 42 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
8 38 (2.01%) Security Posture
9 34 (1.80%) Onboarding
10 29 (1.53%) Virtual Team
11 27 (1.43%) Data Structures
12 26 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
13 23 (1.22%) Self-Motivation
14 22 (1.16%) NHS
15 21 (1.11%) Greenfield Project
16 20 (1.06%) Equities
16 20 (1.06%) Management Information System
16 20 (1.06%) Public Cloud
17 18 (0.95%) Distributed Architecture
18 17 (0.90%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 151 (7.98%) Linux
2 83 (4.39%) Windows
3 50 (2.64%) Unix
4 45 (2.38%) Android
5 40 (2.11%) Apple iOS
6 22 (1.16%) Mac OS X
7 20 (1.06%) Windows Server
8 14 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 11 (0.58%) Kali Linux
10 9 (0.48%) Mac OS
11 5 (0.26%) CentOS
11 5 (0.26%) Solaris
11 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
11 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
11 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.11%) VMS
12 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.053%) FreeRTOS
13 1 (0.053%) Robot Operating System
13 1 (0.053%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,000 (52.85%) CI/CD
2 926 (48.94%) Agile
3 706 (37.32%) DevOps
4 452 (23.89%) Problem-Solving
5 313 (16.54%) Microservices
6 296 (15.64%) Continuous Improvement
7 295 (15.59%) Test Strategy
8 278 (14.69%) Containerisation
9 272 (14.38%) Scrum
10 239 (12.63%) Infrastructure as Code
11 238 (12.58%) AI
12 236 (12.47%) Validation
13 232 (12.26%) Test Scripting
14 227 (12.00%) Software Engineering
15 223 (11.79%) TDD
16 202 (10.68%) Analytics
17 198 (10.47%) Observability
18 188 (9.94%) Software Testing
19 187 (9.88%) API Testing
20 186 (9.83%) BDD
Programming Languages
1 582 (30.76%) Python
2 470 (24.84%) Java
3 376 (19.87%) SQL
4 295 (15.59%) JavaScript
5 274 (14.48%) TypeScript
6 185 (9.78%) C#
7 79 (4.18%) Bash
8 69 (3.65%) PowerShell
9 45 (2.38%) C++
10 34 (1.80%) Go
11 26 (1.37%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.32%) Kotlin
13 24 (1.27%) Bicep
14 22 (1.16%) Scala
15 20 (1.06%) Ruby
16 18 (0.95%) C
17 17 (0.90%) Swift
18 16 (0.85%) Apex Code
19 14 (0.74%) Shell Script
19 14 (0.74%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 549 (29.02%) Security Cleared
2 426 (22.52%) SC Cleared
3 105 (5.55%) Degree
4 90 (4.76%) ISTQB
5 72 (3.81%) BPSS Clearance
6 58 (3.07%) Computer Science Degree
7 57 (3.01%) DV Cleared
8 33 (1.74%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 29 (1.53%) Master's Degree
10 18 (0.95%) OSCP
11 17 (0.90%) AWS Certification
12 14 (0.74%) Azure Certification
12 14 (0.74%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 13 (0.69%) Cisco Certification
13 13 (0.69%) CISSP
13 13 (0.69%) GPEN
13 13 (0.69%) Microsoft Certification
13 13 (0.69%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 12 (0.63%) CEH
15 11 (0.58%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 420 (22.20%) QA
2 153 (8.09%) Accessibility
3 101 (5.34%) Data Quality
4 50 (2.64%) WCAG
5 38 (2.01%) GDPR
6 35 (1.85%) NIST
7 23 (1.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 18 (0.95%) EU AI Act
8 18 (0.95%) NCSC
9 13 (0.69%) SLA
10 11 (0.58%) ISO 20022
10 11 (0.58%) PCI DSS
11 9 (0.48%) NIST 800
11 9 (0.48%) PSD2
12 8 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 7 (0.37%) Def Stans
13 7 (0.37%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 7 (0.37%) SEPA
13 7 (0.37%) SOC 2
14 6 (0.32%) HIPAA
System Software
1 408 (21.56%) Docker
2 34 (1.80%) Active Directory
3 9 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
3 9 (0.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.37%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
5 5 (0.26%) Firmware
5 5 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
7 3 (0.16%) ISA Server
8 2 (0.11%) SRDF
8 2 (0.11%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.053%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.053%) HDFS
9 1 (0.053%) KVM
9 1 (0.053%) QEMU
9 1 (0.053%) Squid
9 1 (0.053%) Time Sharing Option
9 1 (0.053%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.053%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 368 (19.45%) Kubernetes
2 217 (11.47%) Terraform
3 106 (5.60%) Ansible
3 106 (5.60%) Grafana
4 76 (4.02%) Prometheus
5 22 (1.16%) HP ALM
6 19 (1.00%) Argo
6 19 (1.00%) Puppet
7 18 (0.95%) Nmap
8 17 (0.90%) Progress Chef
9 16 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
10 12 (0.63%) NetBackup
11 10 (0.53%) HP Quality Center
12 7 (0.37%) Kibana
12 7 (0.37%) Nessus
12 7 (0.37%) Podman
13 6 (0.32%) CSIRT
13 6 (0.32%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 6 (0.32%) NetIQ Identity Manager
14 4 (0.21%) Rancher
Vendors
1 168 (8.88%) Microsoft
2 157 (8.30%) Oracle
3 68 (3.59%) Databricks
3 68 (3.59%) ServiceNow
4 65 (3.44%) Google
5 62 (3.28%) Splunk
6 61 (3.22%) Salesforce
7 48 (2.54%) SAP
8 37 (1.96%) Talend
9 34 (1.80%) Red Hat
10 29 (1.53%) Denodo
11 28 (1.48%) VMware
12 24 (1.27%) Cisco
12 24 (1.27%) HP
13 23 (1.22%) IBM
14 16 (0.85%) Workday
15 15 (0.79%) Atlassian
15 15 (0.79%) OpenAI
16 14 (0.74%) Foundry
16 14 (0.74%) UiPath