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

6 months to
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 44 52
Rank change year-on-year -1 +8 -6
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,942 1,360 1,577
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.50% 4.63% 3.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.23% 5.12% 4.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,318 945 1,074
10th Percentile £331 £328 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £514
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -2.68% -6.59%
75th Percentile £575 £638 £629
90th Percentile £675 £736 £708
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £496
% change year-on-year -1.04% -3.27% -5.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 8 60
10th Percentile £28.25 £40.23 £44.25
25th Percentile £50.63 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +14.54% -9.20% +4.17%
75th Percentile £70.00 £75.92 £84.38
90th Percentile - £80.28 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year +14.54% -9.20% +4.17%

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 37,130 26,538 38,501
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.00% 90.38% 86.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,530 17,031 25,049
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £610 £638 £638
90th Percentile £723 £745 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,210 919 2,337
10th Percentile £14.89 £15.25 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.62 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £31.76 £31.50
% change year-on-year -13.41% +0.83% -10.07%

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 17 March 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 17 March 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 17 March 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 -2 1,663 £481 -3.75% 739
UK excluding London -1 899 £475 -1.04% 648
London +1 813 £500 -0.50% 205
Work from Home -4 551 £475 -5.00% 379
North of England +4 329 £487 +8.88% 177
Midlands +10 193 £472 +0.96% 80
South East -30 165 £500 -14.53% 178
West Midlands +14 160 £480 -1.84% 48
North West +8 149 £450 - 87
Yorkshire -9 136 £500 +5.26% 49
South West -2 78 £500 -4.76% 93
East of England +1 62 £570 +19.06% 61
North East +9 48 £488 +28.09% 41
Scotland -12 41 £440 -2.22% 46
Wales +2 34 £502 +21.70% 28
East Midlands -21 33 £400 +7.38% 32
Northern Ireland +13 22 £475 -2.56% 7

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
1 133 (6.85%) Confluence
2 58 (2.99%) SAS
3 35 (1.80%) Apache Spark
4 18 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.67%) SharePoint
6 11 (0.57%) Apache
7 8 (0.41%) Appian
8 6 (0.31%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 6 (0.31%) nginx
8 6 (0.31%) WebLogic
9 5 (0.26%) CMS
9 5 (0.26%) Tomcat
10 4 (0.21%) Camunda
10 4 (0.21%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.21%) Oracle Application Server
11 3 (0.15%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.15%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.10%) Magnolia
12 2 (0.10%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.10%) WordPress
Applications
1 29 (1.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (0.67%) Microsoft Office
4 12 (0.62%) MS Visio
5 11 (0.57%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.15%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.051%) Mingle
8 1 (0.051%) Simulink
8 1 (0.051%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 24 (1.24%) Aladdin
2 8 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
4 6 (0.31%) Loan IQ
4 6 (0.31%) Shopify
5 5 (0.26%) Maximo
5 5 (0.26%) Workday HCM
6 4 (0.21%) SAP HR
7 3 (0.15%) BambooHR
7 3 (0.15%) Infor CloudSuite
7 3 (0.15%) Infor LN
7 3 (0.15%) Infor M3
7 3 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
7 3 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
8 2 (0.10%) Advent Geneva
8 2 (0.10%) Findur
8 2 (0.10%) iTrent
8 2 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.10%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.10%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 573 (29.51%) Azure
2 505 (26.00%) AWS
3 352 (18.13%) GitHub
4 260 (13.39%) Azure DevOps
5 190 (9.78%) GitHub Actions
6 189 (9.73%) GCP
7 141 (7.26%) Serverless
8 83 (4.27%) Power Platform
9 74 (3.81%) OpenShift
10 70 (3.60%) AWS Lambda
11 68 (3.50%) Amazon S3
12 49 (2.52%) AWS CloudFormation
13 47 (2.42%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 46 (2.37%) Azure AKS
15 43 (2.21%) Snowflake
16 38 (1.96%) Amazon ECS
17 37 (1.91%) Amazon EKS
18 34 (1.75%) Azure Data Factory
18 34 (1.75%) Dynamics 365
18 34 (1.75%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 33 (1.70%) Firewall
2 25 (1.29%) HTTP
3 21 (1.08%) Wireshark
4 18 (0.93%) TCP/IP
5 17 (0.88%) VPN
6 15 (0.77%) SSL
7 13 (0.67%) Network Security
7 13 (0.67%) SD-WAN
7 13 (0.67%) WAN
8 11 (0.57%) HTTPS
9 10 (0.51%) DNS
9 10 (0.51%) FTP
10 8 (0.41%) Ethernet
10 8 (0.41%) MPLS
10 8 (0.41%) SAN
11 7 (0.36%) Multicast
12 6 (0.31%) AMQP
13 5 (0.26%) Cisco IPT
13 5 (0.26%) VLAN
14 4 (0.21%) RS-232
Database & Business Intelligence
1 115 (5.92%) PostgreSQL
2 91 (4.69%) NoSQL
3 75 (3.86%) MongoDB
4 74 (3.81%) SQL Server
5 60 (3.09%) Relational Database
6 55 (2.83%) Data Warehouse
7 50 (2.57%) Power BI
8 35 (1.80%) DynamoDB
9 32 (1.65%) BigQuery
10 29 (1.49%) MySQL
10 29 (1.49%) Pentaho
11 25 (1.29%) Oracle Database
12 23 (1.18%) Tableau
13 21 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
14 20 (1.03%) Azure SQL Database
14 20 (1.03%) Redis
15 19 (0.98%) Big Data
16 18 (0.93%) Metadata
16 18 (0.93%) Oracle Reports
17 17 (0.88%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 366 (18.85%) Git
2 364 (18.74%) JIRA
3 350 (18.02%) Jenkins
4 296 (15.24%) Selenium
5 293 (15.09%) GitLab
6 176 (9.06%) Cucumber
7 162 (8.34%) Postman
8 114 (5.87%) JUnit
9 112 (5.77%) Cypress.io
10 111 (5.72%) JMeter
11 101 (5.20%) REST Assured
12 52 (2.68%) WebDriver
13 41 (2.11%) SpecFlow
14 38 (1.96%) Zephyr
15 37 (1.91%) Gatling
15 37 (1.91%) SonarQube
16 34 (1.75%) Maven
17 33 (1.70%) TestRail
18 32 (1.65%) Gradle
18 32 (1.65%) Mockito
General
1 519 (26.73%) Social Skills
2 319 (16.43%) Finance
3 281 (14.47%) Public Sector
4 209 (10.76%) Analytical Skills
5 153 (7.88%) Banking
6 38 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
7 31 (1.60%) Investment Banking
8 26 (1.34%) Front Office
9 24 (1.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 21 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
10 21 (1.08%) Telecoms
11 20 (1.03%) Pharmaceutical
12 18 (0.93%) Influencing Skills
13 17 (0.88%) Military
13 17 (0.88%) Organisational Skills
14 15 (0.77%) Financial Institution
14 15 (0.77%) Legal
15 14 (0.72%) Aerospace
16 10 (0.51%) Electronics
17 9 (0.46%) Retail
Job Titles
1 405 (20.85%) Developer
2 319 (16.43%) Senior
3 226 (11.64%) Tester
4 219 (11.28%) Lead
5 217 (11.17%) Test Engineer
6 117 (6.02%) Automation Tester
7 100 (5.15%) Data Engineer
8 96 (4.94%) Java Developer
9 94 (4.84%) Analyst
10 90 (4.63%) Test Automation Engineer
11 81 (4.17%) Test Leader
12 79 (4.07%) QA Engineer
13 78 (4.02%) Software Engineer
14 72 (3.71%) DevOps Engineer
15 69 (3.55%) Architect
15 69 (3.55%) Senior Developer
16 67 (3.45%) Test Manager
17 61 (3.14%) Test Analyst
18 59 (3.04%) Automation Engineer
19 48 (2.47%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 249 (12.82%) REST
2 239 (12.31%) Playwright
3 170 (8.75%) React
4 151 (7.78%) RESTful
5 149 (7.67%) .NET
6 148 (7.62%) Spring
7 146 (7.52%) Node.js
8 132 (6.80%) Kafka
9 121 (6.23%) Spring Boot
10 89 (4.58%) pytest
11 70 (3.60%) AngularJS
12 65 (3.35%) HTML
13 62 (3.19%) OAuth
14 56 (2.88%) Jest
15 55 (2.83%) CSS
15 55 (2.83%) Web Services
16 49 (2.52%) JSON
17 44 (2.27%) GraphQL
18 42 (2.16%) Gherkin
18 42 (2.16%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 211 (10.87%) Cloud Native
2 131 (6.75%) Product Ownership
3 85 (4.38%) Distributed Systems
4 48 (2.47%) Mobile App
5 47 (2.42%) Legacy Systems
6 44 (2.27%) Data Protection Act
7 43 (2.21%) Algorithms
8 37 (1.91%) Onboarding
9 32 (1.65%) Security Posture
10 30 (1.54%) Virtual Team
11 29 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
12 26 (1.34%) NHS
13 25 (1.29%) Data Structures
14 23 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
15 22 (1.13%) Equities
15 22 (1.13%) Management Information System
15 22 (1.13%) Self-Motivation
16 21 (1.08%) Distributed Architecture
17 20 (1.03%) Data Centre
17 20 (1.03%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 143 (7.36%) Linux
2 88 (4.53%) Windows
3 44 (2.27%) Android
4 39 (2.01%) Apple iOS
5 38 (1.96%) Unix
6 22 (1.13%) Windows Server
7 16 (0.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.67%) Mac OS X
9 11 (0.57%) Kali Linux
10 9 (0.46%) Mac OS
11 6 (0.31%) Solaris
12 5 (0.26%) CentOS
12 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
12 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.10%) Embedded Linux
13 2 (0.10%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.051%) VMS
14 1 (0.051%) Windows Embedded Compact
14 1 (0.051%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,033 (53.19%) CI/CD
2 925 (47.63%) Agile
3 726 (37.38%) DevOps
4 442 (22.76%) Problem-Solving
5 322 (16.58%) Continuous Improvement
6 307 (15.81%) Test Strategy
7 301 (15.50%) Microservices
8 281 (14.47%) Containerisation
9 268 (13.80%) Scrum
10 255 (13.13%) Validation
11 244 (12.56%) AI
12 237 (12.20%) Infrastructure as Code
13 226 (11.64%) Software Engineering
14 223 (11.48%) Test Scripting
15 218 (11.23%) TDD
16 214 (11.02%) Analytics
17 209 (10.76%) Observability
18 201 (10.35%) Regression Testing
19 198 (10.20%) API Testing
20 196 (10.09%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 608 (31.31%) Python
2 467 (24.05%) Java
3 408 (21.01%) SQL
4 299 (15.40%) JavaScript
5 276 (14.21%) TypeScript
6 199 (10.25%) C#
7 82 (4.22%) PowerShell
8 81 (4.17%) Bash
9 48 (2.47%) C++
10 31 (1.60%) Go
11 28 (1.44%) Kotlin
12 27 (1.39%) C
12 27 (1.39%) PL/SQL
13 25 (1.29%) Bicep
14 24 (1.24%) Ruby
15 23 (1.18%) Scala
16 20 (1.03%) Apex Code
17 17 (0.88%) Swift
18 15 (0.77%) Groovy
18 15 (0.77%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 553 (28.48%) Security Cleared
2 423 (21.78%) SC Cleared
3 105 (5.41%) Degree
4 99 (5.10%) ISTQB
5 75 (3.86%) BPSS Clearance
6 60 (3.09%) Computer Science Degree
7 57 (2.94%) DV Cleared
8 35 (1.80%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 25 (1.29%) Master's Degree
10 15 (0.77%) AWS Certification
11 14 (0.72%) Cisco Certification
11 14 (0.72%) OSCP
12 13 (0.67%) Azure Certification
12 13 (0.67%) CISSP
12 13 (0.67%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 12 (0.62%) CEH
13 12 (0.62%) Microsoft Certification
13 12 (0.62%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 10 (0.51%) ISEB
15 9 (0.46%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 436 (22.45%) QA
2 147 (7.57%) Accessibility
3 107 (5.51%) Data Quality
4 49 (2.52%) WCAG
5 37 (1.91%) GDPR
6 34 (1.75%) NIST
7 30 (1.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 18 (0.93%) EU AI Act
9 16 (0.82%) NCSC
9 16 (0.82%) SLA
10 14 (0.72%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 11 (0.57%) ISO 20022
12 10 (0.51%) PCI DSS
13 9 (0.46%) Def Stans
13 9 (0.46%) PSD2
14 8 (0.41%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 7 (0.36%) SEPA
16 6 (0.31%) HIPAA
16 6 (0.31%) SOC 2
System Software
1 399 (20.55%) Docker
2 32 (1.65%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.41%) Firmware
4 8 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
5 7 (0.36%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
6 5 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.15%) ISA Server
9 2 (0.10%) SRDF
10 1 (0.051%) Embedded Firmware
10 1 (0.051%) HDFS
10 1 (0.051%) KVM
10 1 (0.051%) Squid
10 1 (0.051%) Time Sharing Option
10 1 (0.051%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.051%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 369 (19.00%) Kubernetes
2 224 (11.53%) Terraform
3 115 (5.92%) Grafana
4 105 (5.41%) Ansible
5 85 (4.38%) Prometheus
6 25 (1.29%) HP ALM
7 20 (1.03%) Argo
7 20 (1.03%) Puppet
8 16 (0.82%) Progress Chef
9 15 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
10 14 (0.72%) Nmap
11 12 (0.62%) NetBackup
12 11 (0.57%) HP Quality Center
13 8 (0.41%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 8 (0.41%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 8 (0.41%) Podman
14 7 (0.36%) Kibana
15 6 (0.31%) CSIRT
16 5 (0.26%) Rancher
17 4 (0.21%) Istio
Vendors
1 176 (9.06%) Microsoft
2 154 (7.93%) Oracle
3 75 (3.86%) Databricks
4 65 (3.35%) Google
5 63 (3.24%) ServiceNow
5 63 (3.24%) Splunk
6 62 (3.19%) Salesforce
7 49 (2.52%) SAP
8 40 (2.06%) Red Hat
9 33 (1.70%) Talend
10 28 (1.44%) HP
10 28 (1.44%) VMware
11 25 (1.29%) Denodo
11 25 (1.29%) IBM
12 23 (1.18%) Cisco
13 19 (0.98%) Workday
14 17 (0.88%) Dynatrace
15 16 (0.82%) Atlassian
15 16 (0.82%) MuleSoft
16 15 (0.77%) OpenAI