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

6 months to
11 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 47 51
Rank change year-on-year +1 +4 -1
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,297 1,460 1,609
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.34% 4.50% 3.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.10% 4.97% 4.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,488 1,018 1,053
10th Percentile £327 £313 £363
25th Percentile £403 £400 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £483 £513
Median % change year-on-year -1.66% -5.76% -3.30%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £610
90th Percentile £663 £700 £724
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £465 £501
% change year-on-year -2.58% -7.14% -1.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 108 31 50
10th Percentile £36.22 £35.00 £49.80
25th Percentile £60.00 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £67.50 £50.00 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year +35.00% -11.11% -18.18%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £71.87
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.19 £82.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £52.50 £56.25
% change year-on-year +28.57% -6.67% -11.33%

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 45,068 29,357 36,726
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.21% 90.46% 85.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,042 18,505 23,449
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £415 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £501 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.40% -4.67% -4.55%
75th Percentile £624 £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 2,667 1,497 2,458
10th Percentile £14.85 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £20.01 £17.45 £16.25
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -4.70%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £24.66 £38.12
% change year-on-year +80.45% -35.31% -2.91%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 +5 1,953 £475 -2.06% 540
UK excluding London +4 1,143 £453 -2.58% 434
London +5 880 £500 - 205
Work from Home +1 650 £475 +3.49% 269
North of England +16 398 £460 +2.56% 105
Midlands +5 250 £450 +9.42% 52
West Midlands +26 233 £450 -6.83% 22
South East -33 203 £459 -8.20% 154
Yorkshire +8 163 £493 -1.50% 37
North West +6 156 £475 +18.16% 51
South West +8 116 £450 +2.86% 51
North East +12 89 £425 +6.25% 17
East of England +19 87 £475 +3.54% 40
Scotland -24 67 £440 -9.74% 13
Wales -4 35 £475 +15.15% 11
Northern Ireland +24 22 £475 +16.28% 16
East Midlands -46 17 £425 +54.55% 30
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
1 198 (8.62%) Confluence
2 51 (2.22%) Apache Spark
3 48 (2.09%) SAS
4 46 (2.00%) Apache Airflow
5 22 (0.96%) Apache
6 16 (0.70%) SharePoint
7 13 (0.57%) CMS
8 10 (0.44%) nginx
8 10 (0.44%) Tomcat
8 10 (0.44%) WebLogic
9 6 (0.26%) Camunda
10 5 (0.22%) Appian
11 4 (0.17%) Anypoint
11 4 (0.17%) Jupyter
12 3 (0.13%) Kentico
12 3 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
12 3 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
13 2 (0.087%) Apache Pulsar
13 2 (0.087%) Mendix
13 2 (0.087%) Mule
Applications
1 30 (1.31%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (0.74%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
4 8 (0.35%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.17%) Simulink
5 4 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.044%) Mingle
6 1 (0.044%) SOLIDWORKS
6 1 (0.044%) Trello
Business Applications
1 23 (1.00%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.78%) Aladdin
3 16 (0.70%) SAP S/4HANA
4 12 (0.52%) Oracle EBS
4 12 (0.52%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.35%) Findur
6 7 (0.30%) SAP ERP
7 6 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
7 6 (0.26%) SAP MDG
7 6 (0.26%) Shopify
8 5 (0.22%) BambooHR
8 5 (0.22%) Loan IQ
9 4 (0.17%) Infor CloudSuite
9 4 (0.17%) Infor LN
9 4 (0.17%) Infor M3
10 3 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
10 3 (0.13%) Maximo
10 3 (0.13%) Workday HCM
11 2 (0.087%) Oracle ERP
11 2 (0.087%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 677 (29.47%) Azure
2 667 (29.04%) AWS
3 393 (17.11%) GitHub
4 302 (13.15%) Azure DevOps
5 234 (10.19%) GitHub Actions
6 171 (7.44%) GCP
7 157 (6.84%) Serverless
8 107 (4.66%) AWS Lambda
9 100 (4.35%) Power Platform
10 98 (4.27%) Amazon S3
11 67 (2.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 63 (2.74%) OpenShift
13 61 (2.66%) Amazon ECS
14 52 (2.26%) Amazon EC2
15 51 (2.22%) AWS CloudFormation
16 47 (2.05%) dbt
17 44 (1.92%) Amazon EKS
18 43 (1.87%) Snowflake
19 41 (1.78%) Azure Data Factory
20 38 (1.65%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 25 (1.09%) HTTP
2 19 (0.83%) Firewall
3 16 (0.70%) SAN
4 12 (0.52%) Network Security
5 11 (0.48%) WAN
6 9 (0.39%) 5G
6 9 (0.39%) MPLS
7 8 (0.35%) 4G
7 8 (0.35%) VPN
8 7 (0.30%) 2G
8 7 (0.30%) 3G
8 7 (0.30%) BGP
8 7 (0.30%) Diameter Protocol
8 7 (0.30%) SIGTRAN
8 7 (0.30%) SS7
8 7 (0.30%) Wireshark
9 6 (0.26%) Ethernet
9 6 (0.26%) SD-WAN
9 6 (0.26%) TCP/IP
9 6 (0.26%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 120 (5.22%) PostgreSQL
2 118 (5.14%) MongoDB
3 109 (4.75%) Data Warehouse
4 96 (4.18%) NoSQL
5 84 (3.66%) SQL Server
6 82 (3.57%) Relational Database
7 77 (3.35%) Power BI
8 46 (2.00%) DynamoDB
8 46 (2.00%) Metadata
9 40 (1.74%) Big Data
10 38 (1.65%) Oracle Reports
11 36 (1.57%) Pentaho
12 34 (1.48%) Amazon Athena
13 31 (1.35%) Amazon RDS
14 30 (1.31%) MySQL
15 27 (1.18%) Amazon Redshift
16 26 (1.13%) Data Lake
16 26 (1.13%) Redis
17 23 (1.00%) Elasticsearch
18 22 (0.96%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 440 (19.16%) JIRA
2 420 (18.28%) Git
3 370 (16.11%) Jenkins
4 312 (13.58%) GitLab
5 298 (12.97%) Selenium
6 181 (7.88%) Postman
7 159 (6.92%) Cucumber
8 124 (5.40%) REST Assured
9 117 (5.09%) JUnit
10 114 (4.96%) Cypress.io
11 106 (4.61%) JMeter
12 66 (2.87%) WebDriver
13 65 (2.83%) Zephyr
14 56 (2.44%) SonarQube
15 55 (2.39%) Gatling
16 48 (2.09%) Gradle
17 42 (1.83%) Mockito
18 39 (1.70%) Bitbucket
19 38 (1.65%) Maven
20 37 (1.61%) SpecFlow
General
1 613 (26.69%) Social Skills
2 414 (18.02%) Finance
3 306 (13.32%) Public Sector
4 285 (12.41%) Analytical Skills
5 192 (8.36%) Banking
6 59 (2.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 45 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
8 39 (1.70%) Investment Banking
9 36 (1.57%) Front Office
10 30 (1.31%) Influencing Skills
10 30 (1.31%) Telecoms
11 27 (1.18%) Military
12 25 (1.09%) Retail
13 24 (1.04%) Financial Institution
14 20 (0.87%) Aerospace
15 18 (0.78%) Manufacturing
16 17 (0.74%) Legal
16 17 (0.74%) Organisational Skills
17 15 (0.65%) Back Office
18 14 (0.61%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 476 (20.72%) Developer
2 366 (15.93%) Senior
3 249 (10.84%) Lead
4 239 (10.40%) Test Engineer
4 239 (10.40%) Tester
5 155 (6.75%) Data Engineer
5 155 (6.75%) Java Developer
6 119 (5.18%) Analyst
7 114 (4.96%) Software Engineer
8 108 (4.70%) DevOps Engineer
9 106 (4.61%) Architect
10 104 (4.53%) Test Automation Engineer
11 96 (4.18%) Senior Developer
12 92 (4.01%) Automation Tester
12 92 (4.01%) QA Engineer
12 92 (4.01%) Test Leader
13 76 (3.31%) Test Analyst
14 65 (2.83%) Full-Stack Developer
15 62 (2.70%) Automation Engineer
16 59 (2.57%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 283 (12.32%) REST
2 281 (12.23%) Playwright
3 209 (9.10%) React
4 184 (8.01%) RESTful
4 184 (8.01%) Spring
5 160 (6.97%) Kafka
6 154 (6.70%) .NET
7 149 (6.49%) Spring Boot
8 122 (5.31%) Node.js
9 93 (4.05%) AngularJS
10 88 (3.83%) HTML
11 78 (3.40%) CSS
12 65 (2.83%) OAuth
13 61 (2.66%) pytest
14 54 (2.35%) Jest
15 51 (2.22%) Swagger
16 48 (2.09%) JSON
17 46 (2.00%) Gherkin
18 44 (1.92%) OAuth2
19 42 (1.83%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 303 (13.19%) Cloud Native
2 168 (7.31%) Product Ownership
3 133 (5.79%) Distributed Systems
4 77 (3.35%) Enterprise Software
5 65 (2.83%) Legacy Systems
6 54 (2.35%) Onboarding
7 53 (2.31%) Data Protection Act
8 47 (2.05%) Mobile App
8 47 (2.05%) Self-Motivation
9 44 (1.92%) Virtual Team
10 32 (1.39%) Distributed Architecture
11 29 (1.26%) Security Posture
12 28 (1.22%) AI Agents
12 28 (1.22%) Management Information System
13 26 (1.13%) Embedded Systems
13 26 (1.13%) NHS
14 23 (1.00%) Greenfield Project
15 20 (0.87%) Data Centre
15 20 (0.87%) Fixed Income
16 19 (0.83%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 136 (5.92%) Linux
2 80 (3.48%) Windows
3 70 (3.05%) Unix
4 43 (1.87%) Android
5 41 (1.78%) Apple iOS
6 25 (1.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 18 (0.78%) Windows Server
8 14 (0.61%) Mac OS X
9 11 (0.48%) Solaris
10 10 (0.44%) Mac OS
11 8 (0.35%) Windows Server 2008
12 7 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
13 6 (0.26%) Embedded Linux
13 6 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.17%) Ubuntu
15 3 (0.13%) AIX
16 2 (0.087%) CentOS
16 2 (0.087%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,308 (56.94%) CI/CD
2 1,064 (46.32%) Agile
3 843 (36.70%) DevOps
4 413 (17.98%) Problem-Solving
5 394 (17.15%) Microservices
6 385 (16.76%) Continuous Improvement
7 358 (15.59%) Scrum
8 348 (15.15%) Test Strategy
9 347 (15.11%) Validation
10 337 (14.67%) Infrastructure as Code
10 337 (14.67%) Software Engineering
11 302 (13.15%) Containerisation
12 287 (12.49%) TDD
13 286 (12.45%) AI
14 283 (12.32%) Observability
15 235 (10.23%) End-to-End Testing
16 233 (10.14%) ETL
17 226 (9.84%) Software Testing
18 223 (9.71%) User Acceptance Testing
19 221 (9.62%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 596 (25.95%) Python
2 580 (25.25%) Java
3 524 (22.81%) SQL
4 306 (13.32%) JavaScript
5 263 (11.45%) TypeScript
6 213 (9.27%) C#
7 81 (3.53%) Bash
8 76 (3.31%) PowerShell
9 54 (2.35%) C++
10 51 (2.22%) Kotlin
11 39 (1.70%) PL/SQL
12 38 (1.65%) Scala
13 37 (1.61%) Bicep
14 34 (1.48%) Apex Code
14 34 (1.48%) C
15 33 (1.44%) Go
16 23 (1.00%) Ruby
16 23 (1.00%) Swift
17 19 (0.83%) Shell Script
18 17 (0.74%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 713 (31.04%) Security Cleared
2 595 (25.90%) SC Cleared
3 110 (4.79%) BPSS Clearance
3 110 (4.79%) Degree
4 104 (4.53%) ISTQB
5 73 (3.18%) DV Cleared
6 57 (2.48%) Computer Science Degree
7 27 (1.18%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 24 (1.04%) AWS Certification
9 18 (0.78%) Master's Degree
10 17 (0.74%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 13 (0.57%) Azure Certification
12 12 (0.52%) Cisco Certification
13 11 (0.48%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 11 (0.48%) SAFe Agilist
14 10 (0.44%) CCNP
15 9 (0.39%) CISSP
15 9 (0.39%) DBS Check
16 6 (0.26%) Microsoft Certification
17 5 (0.22%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 527 (22.94%) QA
2 183 (7.97%) Accessibility
3 159 (6.92%) Data Quality
4 78 (3.40%) WCAG
5 41 (1.78%) GDPR
6 16 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 15 (0.65%) SLA
8 14 (0.61%) NCSC
9 12 (0.52%) ISO 20022
10 10 (0.44%) Def Stans
11 9 (0.39%) NIST
12 7 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 6 (0.26%) PCI DSS
14 5 (0.22%) FATCA
14 5 (0.22%) SEPA
14 5 (0.22%) Software Quality Assurance
15 4 (0.17%) GRC
15 4 (0.17%) HL7
15 4 (0.17%) MiFID
15 4 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 405 (17.63%) Docker
2 31 (1.35%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (0.78%) Active Directory
4 14 (0.61%) Firmware
5 13 (0.57%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.26%) Oracle RAC
8 4 (0.17%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 4 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.13%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.087%) SRDF
11 1 (0.044%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.044%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 407 (17.72%) Kubernetes
2 293 (12.76%) Terraform
3 116 (5.05%) Ansible
4 114 (4.96%) Grafana
5 95 (4.14%) Prometheus
6 37 (1.61%) Argo
7 23 (1.00%) HP ALM
8 15 (0.65%) Puppet
9 13 (0.57%) Kibana
10 12 (0.52%) HP Quality Center
11 11 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
12 10 (0.44%) Dell DRAC
13 8 (0.35%) Kustomize
13 8 (0.35%) NetBackup
14 6 (0.26%) Oracle RMAN
14 6 (0.26%) Progress Chef
15 5 (0.22%) Forefront Identity Manager
15 5 (0.22%) Istio
15 5 (0.22%) NetIQ Identity Manager
16 4 (0.17%) Packer
Vendors
1 199 (8.66%) Microsoft
2 180 (7.84%) Oracle
3 106 (4.61%) Salesforce
4 74 (3.22%) Databricks
5 66 (2.87%) Talend
6 64 (2.79%) Google
7 59 (2.57%) Red Hat
8 58 (2.53%) Splunk
9 55 (2.39%) ServiceNow
10 45 (1.96%) Denodo
11 39 (1.70%) IBM
11 39 (1.70%) SAP
12 38 (1.65%) Informatica
13 34 (1.48%) VMware
14 30 (1.31%) UiPath
15 29 (1.26%) Dynatrace
16 26 (1.13%) HP
17 25 (1.09%) MuleSoft
18 21 (0.91%) Cisco
19 16 (0.70%) Blue Prism