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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 46 55
Rank change year-on-year 0 +9 -6
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,033 1,305 1,502
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.17% 4.57% 3.52%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.94% 5.02% 4.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,319 914 992
10th Percentile £350 £325 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £625
90th Percentile £663 £738 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £469 £469 £500
% change year-on-year - -6.20% -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 98 22 52
10th Percentile £35.44 £35.58 £51.38
25th Percentile £55.31 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £66.25 £52.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +26.19% -12.50% -12.73%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.52 £73.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £75.45 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £55.00 £61.25
% change year-on-year +22.73% -10.20% -4.85%

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 41,181 26,010 36,599
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 91.03% 85.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,765 16,696 23,578
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.14% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £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 2,462 1,066 2,486
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.73 £17.92 £16.00
Median hourly rate £41.94 £27.45 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year +52.79% -23.80% -2.64%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.05 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.69 £25.15 £37.75
% change year-on-year +69.72% -33.38% +7.86%

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 May 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 May 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 27 May 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 1,737 £475 -5.00% 631
UK excluding London -9 977 £469 - 452
London +1 815 £500 -2.44% 260
Work from Home -2 583 £475 - 293
North of England +7 353 £467 +4.18% 128
Midlands +5 203 £459 +9.61% 64
West Midlands +27 182 £459 -4.97% 46
South East -31 180 £500 - 109
North West +12 157 £475 +6.26% 75
Yorkshire -4 149 £493 +3.68% 25
South West +15 99 £469 -8.54% 60
East of England +15 75 £495 +5.88% 43
North East +2 55 £425 +6.25% 28
Scotland -35 44 £440 -4.35% 23
Wales -4 32 £475 +16.92% 14
East Midlands -43 21 £400 +45.45% 18
Northern Ireland +20 20 £475 +16.28% 19
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
1 166 (8.17%) Confluence
2 44 (2.16%) SAS
3 40 (1.97%) Apache Spark
4 38 (1.87%) Apache Airflow
5 14 (0.69%) Apache
6 12 (0.59%) SharePoint
7 8 (0.39%) Appian
7 8 (0.39%) Camunda
7 8 (0.39%) CMS
8 7 (0.34%) nginx
8 7 (0.34%) Tomcat
9 6 (0.30%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.20%) Anypoint
10 4 (0.20%) WebLogic
11 3 (0.15%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
12 2 (0.098%) Mendix
13 1 (0.049%) Ethereum
13 1 (0.049%) Jupyter
13 1 (0.049%) Kentico
Applications
1 27 (1.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.69%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
3 11 (0.54%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.15%) Simulink
6 1 (0.049%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.049%) Mingle
6 1 (0.049%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 21 (1.03%) Aladdin
2 15 (0.74%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.54%) SAP S/4HANA
4 9 (0.44%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.39%) Findur
5 8 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.30%) Shopify
7 5 (0.25%) BambooHR
7 5 (0.25%) Loan IQ
7 5 (0.25%) SAP ERP
7 5 (0.25%) SAP MDG
8 3 (0.15%) Distributed Ledger
8 3 (0.15%) Infor CloudSuite
8 3 (0.15%) Infor LN
8 3 (0.15%) Infor M3
8 3 (0.15%) Maximo
8 3 (0.15%) Workday HCM
9 2 (0.098%) Advent Geneva
9 2 (0.098%) Salesforce CRM
9 2 (0.098%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 581 (28.58%) Azure
2 571 (28.09%) AWS
3 350 (17.22%) GitHub
4 266 (13.08%) Azure DevOps
5 200 (9.84%) GitHub Actions
6 155 (7.62%) GCP
7 132 (6.49%) Serverless
8 84 (4.13%) AWS Lambda
9 80 (3.94%) Amazon S3
9 80 (3.94%) Power Platform
10 58 (2.85%) OpenShift
11 55 (2.71%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 52 (2.56%) Amazon ECS
13 46 (2.26%) AWS CloudFormation
14 43 (2.12%) Azure Data Factory
15 41 (2.02%) Snowflake
16 39 (1.92%) Amazon EKS
17 38 (1.87%) Amazon EC2
18 30 (1.48%) Dynamics 365
19 28 (1.38%) BrowserStack
Communications & Networking
1 25 (1.23%) HTTP
2 23 (1.13%) Firewall
3 15 (0.74%) SAN
4 11 (0.54%) Network Security
4 11 (0.54%) TCP/IP
4 11 (0.54%) VPN
5 9 (0.44%) SSL
6 8 (0.39%) MPLS
6 8 (0.39%) WAN
7 7 (0.34%) Wi-Fi
8 6 (0.30%) Ethernet
8 6 (0.30%) VLAN
8 6 (0.30%) Wireshark
9 5 (0.25%) 5G
9 5 (0.25%) FTP
9 5 (0.25%) Multicast
10 4 (0.20%) BGP
10 4 (0.20%) NAS
10 4 (0.20%) Reverse Proxy
10 4 (0.20%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (5.41%) PostgreSQL
2 107 (5.26%) MongoDB
3 98 (4.82%) NoSQL
4 87 (4.28%) SQL Server
5 81 (3.98%) Data Warehouse
6 73 (3.59%) Relational Database
7 55 (2.71%) Power BI
8 46 (2.26%) DynamoDB
9 41 (2.02%) Metadata
10 33 (1.62%) Big Data
10 33 (1.62%) MySQL
10 33 (1.62%) Pentaho
11 30 (1.48%) Oracle Reports
12 26 (1.28%) Amazon RDS
13 25 (1.23%) Data Lake
13 25 (1.23%) Tableau
14 24 (1.18%) Redis
15 22 (1.08%) BigQuery
16 21 (1.03%) Amazon Athena
16 21 (1.03%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 391 (19.23%) JIRA
2 355 (17.46%) Git
3 338 (16.63%) Jenkins
4 284 (13.97%) GitLab
5 281 (13.82%) Selenium
6 171 (8.41%) Postman
7 150 (7.38%) Cucumber
8 112 (5.51%) REST Assured
9 102 (5.02%) JUnit
10 100 (4.92%) Cypress.io
11 99 (4.87%) JMeter
12 58 (2.85%) WebDriver
13 52 (2.56%) Zephyr
14 49 (2.41%) SonarQube
15 43 (2.12%) Gatling
16 37 (1.82%) Gradle
16 37 (1.82%) Mockito
17 31 (1.52%) Bitbucket
17 31 (1.52%) Maven
17 31 (1.52%) SpecFlow
General
1 531 (26.12%) Social Skills
2 348 (17.12%) Finance
3 278 (13.67%) Public Sector
4 240 (11.81%) Analytical Skills
5 169 (8.31%) Banking
6 42 (2.07%) Documentation Skills
7 40 (1.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 39 (1.92%) Investment Banking
9 36 (1.77%) Front Office
10 25 (1.23%) Influencing Skills
11 21 (1.03%) Telecoms
12 19 (0.93%) Military
13 18 (0.89%) Legal
14 17 (0.84%) Aerospace
14 17 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
14 17 (0.84%) Retail
15 16 (0.79%) Organisational Skills
16 15 (0.74%) Manufacturing
17 13 (0.64%) Back Office
17 13 (0.64%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 415 (20.41%) Developer
2 311 (15.30%) Senior
3 231 (11.36%) Test Engineer
4 215 (10.58%) Lead
5 209 (10.28%) Tester
6 120 (5.90%) Data Engineer
7 111 (5.46%) Java Developer
8 107 (5.26%) Analyst
9 100 (4.92%) Software Engineer
9 100 (4.92%) Test Automation Engineer
10 93 (4.57%) Architect
10 93 (4.57%) Automation Tester
11 92 (4.53%) DevOps Engineer
12 84 (4.13%) Test Leader
13 80 (3.94%) QA Engineer
13 80 (3.94%) Senior Developer
14 64 (3.15%) Test Analyst
15 62 (3.05%) Full-Stack Developer
16 59 (2.90%) Test Manager
17 57 (2.80%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 249 (12.25%) Playwright
2 241 (11.85%) REST
3 184 (9.05%) React
4 159 (7.82%) RESTful
5 144 (7.08%) Kafka
5 144 (7.08%) Spring
6 141 (6.94%) .NET
7 122 (6.00%) Node.js
8 121 (5.95%) Spring Boot
9 75 (3.69%) AngularJS
10 74 (3.64%) HTML
11 64 (3.15%) pytest
12 61 (3.00%) CSS
12 61 (3.00%) OAuth
13 51 (2.51%) Jest
14 46 (2.26%) Swagger
15 44 (2.16%) Gherkin
15 44 (2.16%) OpenID
16 43 (2.12%) JSON
17 41 (2.02%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 223 (10.97%) Cloud Native
2 152 (7.48%) Product Ownership
3 106 (5.21%) Distributed Systems
4 54 (2.66%) Data Protection Act
5 47 (2.31%) Legacy Systems
6 46 (2.26%) Mobile App
7 43 (2.12%) Enterprise Software
8 40 (1.97%) Self-Motivation
9 39 (1.92%) Virtual Team
10 36 (1.77%) Onboarding
11 31 (1.52%) NHS
12 25 (1.23%) Algorithms
12 25 (1.23%) Distributed Architecture
13 24 (1.18%) Management Information System
14 23 (1.13%) Data Centre
14 23 (1.13%) Derivative
15 22 (1.08%) Greenfield Project
16 19 (0.93%) Fixed Income
17 18 (0.89%) Data Structures
17 18 (0.89%) Embedded Systems
Operating Systems
1 128 (6.30%) Linux
2 80 (3.94%) Windows
3 57 (2.80%) Unix
4 41 (2.02%) Android
5 35 (1.72%) Apple iOS
6 22 (1.08%) Windows Server
7 20 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (0.59%) Mac OS X
9 9 (0.44%) Mac OS
10 8 (0.39%) Solaris
11 7 (0.34%) Windows Server 2008
11 7 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.20%) Embedded Linux
14 3 (0.15%) AIX
14 3 (0.15%) CentOS
15 2 (0.098%) Kali Linux
16 1 (0.049%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,099 (54.06%) CI/CD
2 932 (45.84%) Agile
3 734 (36.10%) DevOps
4 381 (18.74%) Problem-Solving
5 334 (16.43%) Continuous Improvement
6 328 (16.13%) Microservices
7 313 (15.40%) Test Strategy
8 287 (14.12%) Scrum
9 274 (13.48%) Validation
10 269 (13.23%) Infrastructure as Code
10 269 (13.23%) Software Engineering
11 252 (12.40%) Containerisation
12 248 (12.20%) Observability
13 234 (11.51%) TDD
14 222 (10.92%) AI
15 205 (10.08%) API Testing
16 198 (9.74%) ETL
17 195 (9.59%) Software Testing
17 195 (9.59%) Test Scripting
18 193 (9.49%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 534 (26.27%) Python
2 513 (25.23%) Java
3 458 (22.53%) SQL
4 285 (14.02%) JavaScript
5 241 (11.85%) TypeScript
6 201 (9.89%) C#
7 75 (3.69%) PowerShell
8 67 (3.30%) Bash
9 55 (2.71%) C++
10 45 (2.21%) Kotlin
11 39 (1.92%) PL/SQL
12 35 (1.72%) Scala
13 32 (1.57%) C
14 31 (1.52%) Apex Code
15 29 (1.43%) Go
16 26 (1.28%) Bicep
17 21 (1.03%) Ruby
18 19 (0.93%) Swift
19 16 (0.79%) Groovy
20 14 (0.69%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 631 (31.04%) Security Cleared
2 500 (24.59%) SC Cleared
3 92 (4.53%) ISTQB
4 86 (4.23%) Degree
5 83 (4.08%) BPSS Clearance
6 73 (3.59%) DV Cleared
7 42 (2.07%) Computer Science Degree
8 26 (1.28%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 13 (0.64%) Master's Degree
10 12 (0.59%) Cisco Certification
11 11 (0.54%) CCNP
11 11 (0.54%) DBS Check
12 10 (0.49%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 10 (0.49%) SAFe Agilist
13 9 (0.44%) AWS Certification
14 8 (0.39%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
14 8 (0.39%) Azure Certification
15 7 (0.34%) CISSP
16 6 (0.30%) Microsoft Certification
17 5 (0.25%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 431 (21.20%) QA
2 154 (7.58%) Accessibility
3 124 (6.10%) Data Quality
4 68 (3.34%) WCAG
5 35 (1.72%) GDPR
6 15 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 15 (0.74%) SLA
7 11 (0.54%) ISO 20022
8 10 (0.49%) Def Stans
9 9 (0.44%) NCSC
9 9 (0.44%) NIST
10 7 (0.34%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 6 (0.30%) PCI DSS
11 6 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 5 (0.25%) FATCA
13 4 (0.20%) HL7
13 4 (0.20%) MiFID
13 4 (0.20%) SEPA
13 4 (0.20%) Software Quality Assurance
14 3 (0.15%) SOC 2
System Software
1 348 (17.12%) Docker
2 25 (1.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (1.03%) Active Directory
4 13 (0.64%) Firmware
5 11 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.34%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 6 (0.30%) Oracle RAC
9 4 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.098%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.098%) ISA Server
10 2 (0.098%) SRDF
11 1 (0.049%) HDFS
11 1 (0.049%) KVM
11 1 (0.049%) Squid
11 1 (0.049%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.049%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 338 (16.63%) Kubernetes
2 238 (11.71%) Terraform
3 111 (5.46%) Grafana
4 93 (4.57%) Ansible
4 93 (4.57%) Prometheus
5 28 (1.38%) Argo
6 19 (0.93%) HP ALM
7 16 (0.79%) Puppet
8 13 (0.64%) Kibana
8 13 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
9 10 (0.49%) Forefront Identity Manager
9 10 (0.49%) HP Quality Center
9 10 (0.49%) NetIQ Identity Manager
10 9 (0.44%) Dell DRAC
11 8 (0.39%) Kustomize
11 8 (0.39%) NetBackup
12 6 (0.30%) Oracle RMAN
12 6 (0.30%) Progress Chef
13 4 (0.20%) Nmap
13 4 (0.20%) Rancher
Vendors
1 167 (8.21%) Oracle
2 163 (8.02%) Microsoft
3 85 (4.18%) Salesforce
4 67 (3.30%) Databricks
5 61 (3.00%) ServiceNow
6 60 (2.95%) Splunk
6 60 (2.95%) Talend
7 58 (2.85%) Google
8 50 (2.46%) Red Hat
9 41 (2.02%) Denodo
10 36 (1.77%) SAP
11 31 (1.52%) VMware
12 28 (1.38%) IBM
13 22 (1.08%) Dynatrace
13 22 (1.08%) HP
14 21 (1.03%) UiPath
15 20 (0.98%) Informatica
15 20 (0.98%) MuleSoft
16 19 (0.93%) Cisco
17 16 (0.79%) Blue Prism