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

6 months to
9 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 51 50
Rank change year-on-year +6 -1 +2
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,309 1,500 1,528
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.31% 4.53% 3.93%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.07% 5.00% 4.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,486 1,046 1,016
10th Percentile £325 £313 £356
25th Percentile £405 £388 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £491 £513
Median % change year-on-year -3.26% -4.20% -2.38%
75th Percentile £575 £584 £606
90th Percentile £663 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £468 £505
% change year-on-year -1.92% -7.33% +1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 108 32 24
10th Percentile £39.18 £35.58 £44.00
25th Percentile £60.25 £44.51 £50.94
Median hourly rate £67.50 £50.00 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year +35.00% -11.11% -14.12%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.50 £71.88
90th Percentile £74.00 £74.35 £81.85
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £52.50 £57.50
% change year-on-year +28.57% -8.70% -8.00%

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 45,550 29,973 33,247
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.00% 90.45% 85.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,063 18,757 21,325
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% -4.02%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £730 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,827 1,692 1,840
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.30 £18.25
Median hourly rate £43.50 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +72.96% -38.57% -3.67%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.00 £74.59
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.63 £42.27
% change year-on-year +94.26% -46.47% +12.73%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 +4 1,969 £475 -5.00% 1,256
UK excluding London -4 1,143 £459 -1.92% 734
London +2 890 £500 -2.20% 613
Work from Home -4 630 £475 +0.64% 505
North of England +16 389 £465 +3.33% 179
Midlands +9 270 £450 +2.86% 101
West Midlands +28 253 £450 -11.11% 64
South East -32 211 £459 -8.20% 205
Yorkshire -1 156 £493 +3.68% 50
North West -8 141 £490 +16.11% 94
South West -5 112 £469 +8.70% 111
North East +14 100 £425 +1.19% 35
East of England +16 82 £450 -1.91% 69
Scotland -25 70 £440 -11.65% 53
Wales -7 31 £475 +16.92% 19
Northern Ireland +21 17 £488 -0.91% 16
East Midlands -42 17 £425 +25.00% 37
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 (8.49%) Confluence
2 52 (2.25%) Apache Airflow
2 52 (2.25%) SAS
3 50 (2.17%) Apache Spark
4 29 (1.26%) SharePoint
5 25 (1.08%) Apache
6 14 (0.61%) CMS
7 13 (0.56%) WebLogic
8 7 (0.30%) nginx
8 7 (0.30%) Tomcat
9 6 (0.26%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.22%) Camunda
11 4 (0.17%) Anypoint
11 4 (0.17%) Jupyter
11 4 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
12 3 (0.13%) Kentico
12 3 (0.13%) OpenStack
13 2 (0.087%) Apache Pulsar
13 2 (0.087%) Appian
13 2 (0.087%) Mendix
Applications
1 20 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.30%) Chatbot
3 7 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.30%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.17%) Simulink
6 3 (0.13%) Trello
7 2 (0.087%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.043%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 26 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.78%) SAP S/4HANA
3 16 (0.69%) Aladdin
4 12 (0.52%) 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 (0.17%) Infor CloudSuite
9 4 (0.17%) Infor LN
9 4 (0.17%) Infor M3
10 3 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
11 2 (0.087%) Advent Geneva
11 2 (0.087%) Loan IQ
11 2 (0.087%) Oracle ERP
11 2 (0.087%) SAP GRC
12 1 (0.043%) Misys Midas
Cloud Services
1 701 (30.36%) Azure
2 689 (29.84%) AWS
3 428 (18.54%) GitHub
4 319 (13.82%) Azure DevOps
5 257 (11.13%) GitHub Actions
6 169 (7.32%) GCP
7 166 (7.19%) Serverless
8 115 (4.98%) AWS Lambda
9 99 (4.29%) Power Platform
10 98 (4.24%) Amazon S3
11 76 (3.29%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 70 (3.03%) Amazon ECS
13 65 (2.82%) OpenShift
14 61 (2.64%) AWS CloudFormation
15 60 (2.60%) GitHub Copilot
16 58 (2.51%) Amazon EKS
17 55 (2.38%) dbt
18 52 (2.25%) Amazon EC2
19 51 (2.21%) Snowflake
20 43 (1.86%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.00%) Firewall
2 22 (0.95%) HTTP
3 18 (0.78%) Network Security
4 16 (0.69%) 4G
4 16 (0.69%) 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 (0.56%) DNS
6 13 (0.56%) SAN
6 13 (0.56%) TCP/IP
6 13 (0.56%) WAN
7 10 (0.43%) LAN
8 9 (0.39%) Wi-Fi
9 8 (0.35%) BGP
10 6 (0.26%) Ethernet VPN
10 6 (0.26%) HTTPS
10 6 (0.26%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 140 (6.06%) PostgreSQL
2 131 (5.67%) Data Warehouse
3 123 (5.33%) MongoDB
4 109 (4.72%) NoSQL
5 91 (3.94%) SQL Server
6 79 (3.42%) Power BI
6 79 (3.42%) Relational Database
7 49 (2.12%) DynamoDB
8 47 (2.04%) Metadata
9 46 (1.99%) Oracle Reports
10 42 (1.82%) Pentaho
11 36 (1.56%) Data Lake
12 35 (1.52%) MySQL
13 34 (1.47%) Big Data
14 33 (1.43%) Amazon Athena
15 28 (1.21%) Amazon RDS
15 28 (1.21%) Redis
16 27 (1.17%) Amazon Redshift
17 23 (1.00%) Elasticsearch
18 20 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 467 (20.23%) Git
2 431 (18.67%) JIRA
3 383 (16.59%) Jenkins
4 313 (13.56%) GitLab
5 294 (12.73%) Selenium
6 165 (7.15%) Postman
7 154 (6.67%) Cucumber
8 121 (5.24%) JUnit
9 118 (5.11%) Cypress.io
10 103 (4.46%) REST Assured
11 97 (4.20%) JMeter
12 75 (3.25%) Zephyr
13 65 (2.82%) SonarQube
14 64 (2.77%) WebDriver
15 54 (2.34%) Gatling
16 51 (2.21%) Gradle
17 47 (2.04%) Maven
18 45 (1.95%) Mockito
19 43 (1.86%) Bitbucket
20 33 (1.43%) SpecFlow
General
1 619 (26.81%) Social Skills
2 417 (18.06%) Finance
3 330 (14.29%) Public Sector
4 298 (12.91%) Analytical Skills
5 191 (8.27%) Banking
6 69 (2.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 42 (1.82%) Documentation Skills
8 40 (1.73%) Telecoms
9 36 (1.56%) Front Office
9 36 (1.56%) Influencing Skills
9 36 (1.56%) Investment Banking
10 32 (1.39%) Retail
11 27 (1.17%) Military
12 25 (1.08%) Financial Institution
13 20 (0.87%) Aerospace
14 18 (0.78%) Back Office
15 16 (0.69%) Manufacturing
15 16 (0.69%) Organisational Skills
16 15 (0.65%) Marketing
17 14 (0.61%) Legal
Job Titles
1 493 (21.35%) Developer
2 383 (16.59%) Senior
3 249 (10.78%) Lead
4 224 (9.70%) Test Engineer
5 215 (9.31%) Tester
6 165 (7.15%) Java Developer
7 160 (6.93%) Data Engineer
8 119 (5.15%) Software Engineer
9 118 (5.11%) Analyst
10 115 (4.98%) DevOps Engineer
11 110 (4.76%) Senior Developer
12 107 (4.63%) Architect
13 100 (4.33%) Test Automation Engineer
14 95 (4.11%) QA Engineer
15 89 (3.85%) Automation Tester
16 87 (3.77%) Test Leader
17 79 (3.42%) Test Analyst
18 73 (3.16%) Full-Stack Developer
19 63 (2.73%) Automation Engineer
19 63 (2.73%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 334 (14.47%) REST
2 277 (12.00%) Playwright
3 207 (8.96%) RESTful
4 205 (8.88%) React
5 195 (8.45%) Spring
6 194 (8.40%) Kafka
7 161 (6.97%) .NET
8 155 (6.71%) Spring Boot
9 126 (5.46%) Node.js
10 102 (4.42%) HTML
11 96 (4.16%) AngularJS
12 93 (4.03%) CSS
13 76 (3.29%) OAuth
14 64 (2.77%) JSON
15 59 (2.56%) pytest
16 56 (2.43%) Jest
17 54 (2.34%) OAuth2
18 52 (2.25%) HTML5
19 50 (2.17%) Gherkin
20 47 (2.04%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 334 (14.47%) Cloud Native
2 173 (7.49%) Product Ownership
3 154 (6.67%) Distributed Systems
4 83 (3.59%) Enterprise Software
5 61 (2.64%) Onboarding
6 59 (2.56%) Legacy Systems
7 56 (2.43%) Data Protection Act
8 54 (2.34%) Self-Motivation
9 44 (1.91%) Mobile App
10 38 (1.65%) Virtual Team
11 37 (1.60%) AI Agents
12 30 (1.30%) Distributed Architecture
13 28 (1.21%) Embedded Systems
14 27 (1.17%) NHS
15 25 (1.08%) Security Posture
16 23 (1.00%) Management Information System
17 21 (0.91%) Data Centre
18 20 (0.87%) Derivative
19 19 (0.82%) Fixed Income
20 18 (0.78%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 156 (6.76%) Linux
2 89 (3.85%) Unix
3 87 (3.77%) Windows
4 43 (1.86%) Apple iOS
5 41 (1.78%) Android
6 28 (1.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 20 (0.87%) Windows Server
8 13 (0.56%) 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 (0.17%) Ubuntu
13 4 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
14 3 (0.13%) AIX
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.087%) CentOS
16 1 (0.043%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,361 (58.94%) CI/CD
2 1,092 (47.29%) Agile
3 884 (38.28%) DevOps
4 437 (18.93%) Microservices
5 436 (18.88%) Problem-Solving
6 428 (18.54%) Continuous Improvement
7 381 (16.50%) Scrum
8 377 (16.33%) Software Engineering
9 373 (16.15%) Infrastructure as Code
10 349 (15.11%) Validation
11 341 (14.77%) Test Strategy
12 320 (13.86%) AI
13 318 (13.77%) Containerisation
14 314 (13.60%) TDD
15 301 (13.04%) Observability
16 249 (10.78%) SDLC
17 244 (10.57%) ETL
18 240 (10.39%) End-to-End Testing
19 236 (10.22%) Data Pipeline
20 234 (10.13%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 606 (26.25%) Python
2 596 (25.81%) Java
3 545 (23.60%) SQL
4 307 (13.30%) JavaScript
5 241 (10.44%) TypeScript
6 214 (9.27%) C#
7 91 (3.94%) PowerShell
8 86 (3.72%) Bash
9 54 (2.34%) C++
10 53 (2.30%) Kotlin
11 49 (2.12%) Bicep
12 35 (1.52%) C
12 35 (1.52%) PL/SQL
13 31 (1.34%) Scala
14 28 (1.21%) Apex Code
15 27 (1.17%) Go
16 25 (1.08%) Shell Script
17 23 (1.00%) Ruby
18 21 (0.91%) Swift
19 18 (0.78%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 743 (32.18%) Security Cleared
2 630 (27.28%) SC Cleared
3 111 (4.81%) Degree
4 109 (4.72%) ISTQB
5 104 (4.50%) BPSS Clearance
6 67 (2.90%) DV Cleared
7 59 (2.56%) Computer Science Degree
8 35 (1.52%) AWS Certification
9 28 (1.21%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 24 (1.04%) 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 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
14 9 (0.39%) DBS Check
15 8 (0.35%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
15 8 (0.35%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 572 (24.77%) QA
2 188 (8.14%) Accessibility
3 165 (7.15%) Data Quality
4 86 (3.72%) WCAG
5 44 (1.91%) GDPR
6 15 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 15 (0.65%) NCSC
6 15 (0.65%) SLA
7 14 (0.61%) ISO 20022
8 9 (0.39%) NIST
9 7 (0.30%) Def Stans
9 7 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 7 (0.30%) 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 (0.17%) Actionable Recommendations
12 4 (0.17%) MiFID
13 3 (0.13%) HL7
System Software
1 448 (19.40%) Docker
2 32 (1.39%) VMware Infrastructure
3 27 (1.17%) Active Directory
4 16 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
5 14 (0.61%) Firmware
6 5 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.17%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.13%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.13%) VMware NSX
9 2 (0.087%) SRDF
10 1 (0.043%) Embedded Firmware
10 1 (0.043%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.043%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 444 (19.23%) Kubernetes
2 324 (14.03%) Terraform
3 123 (5.33%) Ansible
4 122 (5.28%) Grafana
5 99 (4.29%) Prometheus
6 42 (1.82%) Argo
7 25 (1.08%) Puppet
8 19 (0.82%) Progress Chef
9 18 (0.78%) HP ALM
10 13 (0.56%) Kibana
10 13 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
11 10 (0.43%) Dell DRAC
12 7 (0.30%) Kustomize
12 7 (0.30%) NetBackup
13 6 (0.26%) Istio
13 6 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
13 6 (0.26%) Packer
14 5 (0.22%) Control-M
14 5 (0.22%) HP Quality Center
15 4 (0.17%) NetIQ Identity Manager
Vendors
1 212 (9.18%) Microsoft
2 198 (8.58%) Oracle
3 94 (4.07%) Salesforce
4 82 (3.55%) Databricks
5 69 (2.99%) Talend
6 67 (2.90%) Red Hat
7 63 (2.73%) Google
8 58 (2.51%) Splunk
9 56 (2.43%) ServiceNow
10 49 (2.12%) Denodo
11 47 (2.04%) IBM
12 42 (1.82%) Informatica
13 41 (1.78%) SAP
14 39 (1.69%) VMware
15 35 (1.52%) Dynatrace
16 29 (1.26%) MuleSoft
17 27 (1.17%) UiPath
18 26 (1.13%) Cisco
19 25 (1.08%) HP
20 14 (0.61%) OpenAI