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 20 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 47 53
Rank change year-on-year +2 +6 -3
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,154 1,340 1,573
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.25% 4.49% 3.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.01% 4.93% 4.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,390 941 1,030
10th Percentile £335 £320 £363
25th Percentile £403 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £490 £513
Median % change year-on-year -3.06% -4.39% -6.82%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £625
90th Percentile £663 £725 £719
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £465 £505
% change year-on-year -1.08% -7.92% -3.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 109 26 53
10th Percentile £36.26 £37.92 £50.25
25th Percentile £60.00 £44.95 £52.50
Median hourly rate £67.50 £52.50 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +28.57% -8.70% -14.66%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.50 £72.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.35 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £52.50 £57.50
% change year-on-year +28.57% -8.70% -10.68%

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 42,996 27,186 37,276
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.90% 91.05% 84.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,808 17,251 23,716
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £502 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.19% -4.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £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 2,575 1,262 2,618
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.73
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.82 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +72.39% -32.00% +7.05%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.19 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +17.29%

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 20 June 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 20 June 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 20 June 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 +3 1,835 £475 -1.86% 519
UK excluding London +1 1,065 £460 -1.08% 437
London +4 832 £500 - 172
Work from Home -3 612 £475 - 255
North of England +10 369 £460 +2.22% 108
Midlands +7 230 £450 +6.51% 58
West Midlands +28 211 £450 -10.00% 35
South East -36 196 £475 -5.00% 139
North West -3 149 £475 +8.94% 54
Yorkshire -1 148 £500 +2.56% 32
South West +16 106 £450 - 56
East of England +14 84 £495 +7.90% 49
North East +5 80 £425 +6.25% 23
Scotland -23 60 £440 -8.33% 22
Wales 0 32 £475 +16.92% 5
Northern Ireland +20 21 £475 +16.28% 14
East Midlands -42 19 £418 +51.82% 23
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
1 183 (8.50%) Confluence
2 48 (2.23%) SAS
3 46 (2.14%) Apache Airflow
3 46 (2.14%) Apache Spark
4 19 (0.88%) Apache
5 14 (0.65%) SharePoint
6 12 (0.56%) CMS
7 8 (0.37%) Appian
7 8 (0.37%) Camunda
7 8 (0.37%) nginx
7 8 (0.37%) Tomcat
8 6 (0.28%) WebLogic
9 4 (0.19%) Anypoint
9 4 (0.19%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.14%) Kentico
10 3 (0.14%) Microsoft Exchange
10 3 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
11 2 (0.093%) Apache Pulsar
11 2 (0.093%) Mendix
11 2 (0.093%) Mule
Applications
1 31 (1.44%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (0.79%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (0.46%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.14%) Simulink
7 2 (0.093%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.046%) Mingle
8 1 (0.046%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 20 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.84%) Aladdin
3 12 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
4 11 (0.51%) Payment Gateway
5 9 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.37%) Findur
7 6 (0.28%) SAP ERP
7 6 (0.28%) Shopify
8 5 (0.23%) BambooHR
8 5 (0.23%) Loan IQ
8 5 (0.23%) SAP MDG
9 4 (0.19%) Infor CloudSuite
9 4 (0.19%) Infor LN
9 4 (0.19%) Infor M3
10 3 (0.14%) Distributed Ledger
10 3 (0.14%) Maximo
10 3 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
10 3 (0.14%) Workday HCM
11 2 (0.093%) iTrent
11 2 (0.093%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 615 (28.55%) AWS
1 615 (28.55%) Azure
2 356 (16.53%) GitHub
3 279 (12.95%) Azure DevOps
4 216 (10.03%) GitHub Actions
5 157 (7.29%) GCP
6 152 (7.06%) Serverless
7 103 (4.78%) AWS Lambda
8 94 (4.36%) Amazon S3
9 93 (4.32%) Power Platform
10 68 (3.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 64 (2.97%) OpenShift
12 58 (2.69%) Amazon ECS
13 50 (2.32%) Amazon EC2
14 46 (2.14%) AWS CloudFormation
15 44 (2.04%) Azure Data Factory
16 43 (2.00%) dbt
17 41 (1.90%) Snowflake
18 39 (1.81%) Amazon EKS
19 29 (1.35%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 25 (1.16%) HTTP
2 23 (1.07%) Firewall
3 16 (0.74%) SAN
4 12 (0.56%) Network Security
5 11 (0.51%) WAN
6 10 (0.46%) VPN
7 9 (0.42%) MPLS
7 9 (0.42%) TCP/IP
8 7 (0.32%) 5G
8 7 (0.32%) BGP
8 7 (0.32%) Wireshark
9 6 (0.28%) 4G
9 6 (0.28%) Ethernet
9 6 (0.28%) LAN
9 6 (0.28%) SD-WAN
9 6 (0.28%) VLAN
9 6 (0.28%) Wi-Fi
10 5 (0.23%) 3G
10 5 (0.23%) Diameter Protocol
10 5 (0.23%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (5.43%) PostgreSQL
2 111 (5.15%) MongoDB
3 99 (4.60%) Data Warehouse
4 94 (4.36%) NoSQL
5 77 (3.57%) Relational Database
6 73 (3.39%) SQL Server
7 69 (3.20%) Power BI
8 47 (2.18%) DynamoDB
9 41 (1.90%) Metadata
10 37 (1.72%) Oracle Reports
11 36 (1.67%) Big Data
11 36 (1.67%) Pentaho
12 34 (1.58%) Amazon Athena
13 29 (1.35%) Amazon RDS
14 28 (1.30%) Amazon Redshift
15 27 (1.25%) Data Lake
15 27 (1.25%) MySQL
15 27 (1.25%) Redis
16 22 (1.02%) BigQuery
16 22 (1.02%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 413 (19.17%) JIRA
2 391 (18.15%) Git
3 351 (16.30%) Jenkins
4 311 (14.44%) GitLab
5 277 (12.86%) Selenium
6 171 (7.94%) Postman
7 153 (7.10%) Cucumber
8 114 (5.29%) REST Assured
9 110 (5.11%) JUnit
10 104 (4.83%) JMeter
11 103 (4.78%) Cypress.io
12 61 (2.83%) WebDriver
13 58 (2.69%) SonarQube
13 58 (2.69%) Zephyr
14 47 (2.18%) Gradle
15 46 (2.14%) Gatling
16 40 (1.86%) Mockito
17 36 (1.67%) Bitbucket
17 36 (1.67%) Maven
18 31 (1.44%) SpecFlow
General
1 570 (26.46%) Social Skills
2 385 (17.87%) Finance
3 301 (13.97%) Public Sector
4 263 (12.21%) Analytical Skills
5 182 (8.45%) Banking
6 54 (2.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 40 (1.86%) Documentation Skills
8 38 (1.76%) Investment Banking
9 35 (1.62%) Front Office
10 28 (1.30%) Telecoms
11 27 (1.25%) Influencing Skills
12 26 (1.21%) Military
13 21 (0.97%) Financial Institution
14 18 (0.84%) Aerospace
14 18 (0.84%) Retail
15 17 (0.79%) Legal
15 17 (0.79%) Manufacturing
15 17 (0.79%) Organisational Skills
16 14 (0.65%) Back Office
16 14 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 436 (20.24%) Developer
2 340 (15.78%) Senior
3 234 (10.86%) Lead
4 232 (10.77%) Test Engineer
5 229 (10.63%) Tester
6 141 (6.55%) Data Engineer
7 133 (6.17%) Java Developer
8 112 (5.20%) Analyst
9 109 (5.06%) Software Engineer
10 100 (4.64%) Architect
11 98 (4.55%) DevOps Engineer
12 95 (4.41%) Test Automation Engineer
13 91 (4.22%) Automation Tester
14 84 (3.90%) Senior Developer
14 84 (3.90%) Test Leader
15 83 (3.85%) QA Engineer
16 69 (3.20%) Test Analyst
17 60 (2.79%) Full-Stack Developer
18 57 (2.65%) Automation Engineer
18 57 (2.65%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 254 (11.79%) REST
2 249 (11.56%) Playwright
3 198 (9.19%) React
4 166 (7.71%) RESTful
5 165 (7.66%) Spring
6 150 (6.96%) Kafka
7 136 (6.31%) Spring Boot
8 126 (5.85%) .NET
9 115 (5.34%) Node.js
10 89 (4.13%) AngularJS
11 73 (3.39%) HTML
12 63 (2.92%) CSS
13 62 (2.88%) pytest
14 60 (2.79%) OAuth
15 51 (2.37%) Jest
16 46 (2.14%) Swagger
17 44 (2.04%) Gherkin
18 43 (2.00%) JSON
19 40 (1.86%) OAuth2
20 39 (1.81%) Quarkus
Miscellaneous
1 254 (11.79%) Cloud Native
2 165 (7.66%) Product Ownership
3 125 (5.80%) Distributed Systems
4 63 (2.92%) Enterprise Software
5 60 (2.79%) Legacy Systems
6 55 (2.55%) Data Protection Act
7 46 (2.14%) Mobile App
8 43 (2.00%) Self-Motivation
9 42 (1.95%) Virtual Team
10 40 (1.86%) Onboarding
11 32 (1.49%) Distributed Architecture
12 27 (1.25%) NHS
13 26 (1.21%) Management Information System
14 24 (1.11%) Security Posture
15 23 (1.07%) AI Agents
15 23 (1.07%) Embedded Systems
15 23 (1.07%) Greenfield Project
16 22 (1.02%) Data Centre
17 21 (0.97%) Algorithms
18 19 (0.88%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 126 (5.85%) Linux
2 82 (3.81%) Windows
3 62 (2.88%) Unix
4 44 (2.04%) Android
5 42 (1.95%) Apple iOS
6 22 (1.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 20 (0.93%) Windows Server
8 12 (0.56%) Mac OS X
9 10 (0.46%) Mac OS
9 10 (0.46%) Solaris
10 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2008
11 7 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.19%) Embedded Linux
14 3 (0.14%) AIX
15 2 (0.093%) CentOS
15 2 (0.093%) Kali Linux
15 2 (0.093%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,186 (55.06%) CI/CD
2 1,006 (46.70%) Agile
3 763 (35.42%) DevOps
4 388 (18.01%) Problem-Solving
5 353 (16.39%) Microservices
6 343 (15.92%) Continuous Improvement
7 324 (15.04%) Scrum
8 322 (14.95%) Test Strategy
9 312 (14.48%) Validation
10 307 (14.25%) Software Engineering
11 300 (13.93%) Infrastructure as Code
12 265 (12.30%) Observability
13 262 (12.16%) Containerisation
14 254 (11.79%) AI
15 245 (11.37%) TDD
16 212 (9.84%) End-to-End Testing
17 210 (9.75%) ETL
18 209 (9.70%) User Acceptance Testing
19 202 (9.38%) SDLC
19 202 (9.38%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 554 (25.72%) Python
2 537 (24.93%) Java
3 489 (22.70%) SQL
4 286 (13.28%) JavaScript
5 242 (11.23%) TypeScript
6 196 (9.10%) C#
7 72 (3.34%) Bash
8 69 (3.20%) PowerShell
9 52 (2.41%) C++
10 48 (2.23%) Kotlin
11 37 (1.72%) PL/SQL
11 37 (1.72%) Scala
12 33 (1.53%) Apex Code
13 32 (1.49%) Go
14 31 (1.44%) Bicep
14 31 (1.44%) C
15 22 (1.02%) Swift
16 20 (0.93%) Ruby
17 17 (0.79%) Groovy
18 15 (0.70%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 682 (31.66%) Security Cleared
2 560 (26.00%) SC Cleared
3 102 (4.74%) ISTQB
4 95 (4.41%) BPSS Clearance
5 92 (4.27%) Degree
6 75 (3.48%) DV Cleared
7 44 (2.04%) Computer Science Degree
8 25 (1.16%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 21 (0.97%) AWS Certification
10 17 (0.79%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 16 (0.74%) Master's Degree
12 14 (0.65%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 13 (0.60%) Cisco Certification
14 11 (0.51%) CCNP
14 11 (0.51%) SAFe Agilist
15 9 (0.42%) CISSP
15 9 (0.42%) DBS Check
16 8 (0.37%) Azure Certification
17 5 (0.23%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 5 (0.23%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 470 (21.82%) QA
2 165 (7.66%) Accessibility
3 145 (6.73%) Data Quality
4 70 (3.25%) WCAG
5 35 (1.62%) GDPR
6 15 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 15 (0.70%) SLA
7 13 (0.60%) ISO 20022
7 13 (0.60%) NCSC
8 11 (0.51%) NIST
9 10 (0.46%) Def Stans
10 7 (0.32%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 6 (0.28%) PCI DSS
12 5 (0.23%) FATCA
13 4 (0.19%) HL7
13 4 (0.19%) MiFID
13 4 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 4 (0.19%) SEPA
13 4 (0.19%) Software Quality Assurance
14 3 (0.14%) SOC 2
System Software
1 359 (16.67%) Docker
2 30 (1.39%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (0.84%) Active Directory
4 14 (0.65%) Firmware
5 12 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
8 4 (0.19%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 4 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.093%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.093%) SRDF
10 1 (0.046%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.046%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 362 (16.81%) Kubernetes
2 266 (12.35%) Terraform
3 105 (4.87%) Ansible
3 105 (4.87%) Grafana
4 94 (4.36%) Prometheus
5 37 (1.72%) Argo
6 19 (0.88%) HP ALM
7 14 (0.65%) Puppet
8 13 (0.60%) Kibana
9 10 (0.46%) Dell DRAC
9 10 (0.46%) HP Quality Center
9 10 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
10 8 (0.37%) Kustomize
10 8 (0.37%) NetBackup
11 7 (0.32%) Forefront Identity Manager
11 7 (0.32%) NetIQ Identity Manager
12 6 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
13 5 (0.23%) Istio
13 5 (0.23%) Progress Chef
14 4 (0.19%) Rancher
Vendors
1 180 (8.36%) Microsoft
2 171 (7.94%) Oracle
3 97 (4.50%) Salesforce
4 67 (3.11%) Databricks
5 65 (3.02%) Talend
6 64 (2.97%) Google
7 60 (2.79%) Red Hat
8 59 (2.74%) ServiceNow
9 56 (2.60%) Splunk
10 46 (2.14%) Denodo
11 36 (1.67%) IBM
12 35 (1.62%) Informatica
12 35 (1.62%) SAP
13 34 (1.58%) VMware
14 29 (1.35%) Dynatrace
14 29 (1.35%) UiPath
15 24 (1.11%) MuleSoft
16 22 (1.02%) Cisco
16 22 (1.02%) HP
17 16 (0.74%) Blue Prism