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

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 50 51
Rank change year-on-year +4 +1 +1
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,330 1,505 1,524
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.35% 4.58% 3.93%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.14% 5.06% 4.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,515 1,043 1,016
10th Percentile £325 £313 £350
25th Percentile £406 £396 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £496 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.23% -3.22% -2.38%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £603
90th Percentile £663 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £475 £506
% change year-on-year -3.37% -6.13% +1.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 104 34 24
10th Percentile £38.08 £36.75 £42.50
25th Percentile £60.25 £44.63 £49.50
Median hourly rate £69.25 £50.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.50% -9.09% -16.03%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £71.87
90th Percentile £74.00 £73.05 £81.85
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.22 £52.50 £56.25
% change year-on-year +29.93% -6.67% -10.00%

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 45,374 29,740 33,103
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.72% 90.47% 85.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,858 18,514 21,188
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.58%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,851 1,725 1,782
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £18.17
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -38.57% +0.86%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.13% -45.88% +19.72%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 +3 1,985 £475 -5.00% 593
UK excluding London -4 1,151 £459 -3.37% 522
London +5 902 £500 -1.72% 160
Work from Home 0 636 £475 - 271
North of England +9 393 £465 +2.31% 123
Midlands +5 271 £450 - 76
West Midlands +26 255 £450 -10.00% 51
South East -33 215 £462 -7.60% 149
Yorkshire -7 161 £475 -5.00% 36
North West -10 140 £492 +16.62% 57
South West -5 111 £463 +7.25% 88
North East +17 100 £438 +0.57% 30
East of England +11 82 £450 -1.91% 54
Scotland -28 70 £450 -10.00% 16
Wales -8 30 £488 +20.00% 5
Northern Ireland +20 17 £488 +60.63% 26
East Midlands -45 16 £425 +25.00% 25
Channel Islands - 3 £450 -

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
1 188 (8.07%) Confluence
2 53 (2.27%) Apache Airflow
2 53 (2.27%) Apache Spark
3 52 (2.23%) SAS
4 42 (1.80%) SharePoint
5 26 (1.12%) Apache
6 14 (0.60%) CMS
7 13 (0.56%) WebLogic
8 7 (0.30%) nginx
8 7 (0.30%) Tomcat
9 6 (0.26%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.21%) Camunda
10 5 (0.21%) Microsoft Exchange
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 (0.086%) ColdFusion
13 2 (0.086%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 24 (1.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (0.69%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (0.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.30%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.26%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.17%) Simulink
8 3 (0.13%) Trello
9 1 (0.043%) Mingle
9 1 (0.043%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 26 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
2 20 (0.86%) SAP S/4HANA
3 15 (0.64%) Aladdin
4 13 (0.56%) Payment Gateway
5 11 (0.47%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.34%) Findur
7 6 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
7 6 (0.26%) SAP ERP
7 6 (0.26%) SAP MDG
8 5 (0.21%) BambooHR
8 5 (0.21%) Shopify
9 4 (0.17%) Infor CloudSuite
9 4 (0.17%) Infor LN
9 4 (0.17%) Infor M3
9 4 (0.17%) SAP GRC
10 3 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
11 2 (0.086%) Advent Geneva
11 2 (0.086%) Loan IQ
11 2 (0.086%) Oracle ERP
12 1 (0.043%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 704 (30.21%) Azure
2 697 (29.91%) AWS
3 424 (18.20%) GitHub
4 327 (14.03%) Azure DevOps
5 260 (11.16%) GitHub Actions
6 167 (7.17%) GCP
7 166 (7.12%) Serverless
8 119 (5.11%) AWS Lambda
9 102 (4.38%) Power Platform
10 96 (4.12%) Amazon S3
11 76 (3.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 70 (3.00%) Amazon ECS
13 69 (2.96%) OpenShift
14 63 (2.70%) GitHub Copilot
15 62 (2.66%) AWS CloudFormation
16 58 (2.49%) Amazon EKS
17 56 (2.40%) dbt
18 54 (2.32%) Snowflake
19 51 (2.19%) Amazon EC2
20 45 (1.93%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.16%) Firewall
2 21 (0.90%) HTTP
3 17 (0.73%) 4G
3 17 (0.73%) 5G
4 16 (0.69%) DNS
4 16 (0.69%) Network Security
5 15 (0.64%) 2G
5 15 (0.64%) 3G
5 15 (0.64%) Diameter Protocol
5 15 (0.64%) SIGTRAN
5 15 (0.64%) SS7
5 15 (0.64%) WAN
6 13 (0.56%) TCP/IP
7 12 (0.52%) LAN
7 12 (0.52%) SAN
8 11 (0.47%) Wi-Fi
9 9 (0.39%) BGP
10 8 (0.34%) Ethernet VPN
10 8 (0.34%) VXLAN
11 7 (0.30%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 145 (6.22%) PostgreSQL
2 132 (5.67%) Data Warehouse
3 116 (4.98%) MongoDB
4 111 (4.76%) NoSQL
5 93 (3.99%) SQL Server
6 86 (3.69%) Relational Database
7 82 (3.52%) Power BI
8 49 (2.10%) DynamoDB
9 48 (2.06%) Metadata
10 46 (1.97%) Oracle Reports
11 43 (1.85%) Pentaho
12 36 (1.55%) Data Lake
13 34 (1.46%) Amazon Athena
13 34 (1.46%) MySQL
14 33 (1.42%) Big Data
15 29 (1.24%) Amazon Redshift
16 28 (1.20%) Redis
17 27 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
18 24 (1.03%) Tableau
19 22 (0.94%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 472 (20.26%) Git
2 414 (17.77%) JIRA
3 386 (16.57%) Jenkins
4 312 (13.39%) GitLab
5 294 (12.62%) Selenium
6 171 (7.34%) Postman
7 151 (6.48%) Cucumber
8 122 (5.24%) JUnit
9 120 (5.15%) Cypress.io
10 102 (4.38%) JMeter
11 99 (4.25%) REST Assured
12 76 (3.26%) Zephyr
13 64 (2.75%) SonarQube
14 62 (2.66%) WebDriver
15 54 (2.32%) Gatling
16 52 (2.23%) Gradle
17 47 (2.02%) Maven
18 42 (1.80%) Bitbucket
19 41 (1.76%) Mockito
20 28 (1.20%) SpecFlow
General
1 627 (26.91%) Social Skills
2 425 (18.24%) Finance
3 326 (13.99%) Public Sector
4 315 (13.52%) Analytical Skills
5 197 (8.45%) Banking
6 71 (3.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 46 (1.97%) Documentation Skills
8 43 (1.85%) Telecoms
9 37 (1.59%) Front Office
10 35 (1.50%) Investment Banking
11 34 (1.46%) Influencing Skills
12 32 (1.37%) Retail
13 26 (1.12%) Military
14 25 (1.07%) Financial Institution
15 20 (0.86%) Aerospace
16 19 (0.82%) Back Office
17 16 (0.69%) Manufacturing
18 15 (0.64%) Law
18 15 (0.64%) Legal
18 15 (0.64%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 496 (21.29%) Developer
2 382 (16.39%) Senior
3 257 (11.03%) Lead
4 225 (9.66%) Test Engineer
5 213 (9.14%) Tester
6 159 (6.82%) Data Engineer
6 159 (6.82%) Java Developer
7 119 (5.11%) Analyst
8 114 (4.89%) Software Engineer
9 113 (4.85%) DevOps Engineer
10 107 (4.59%) Senior Developer
11 105 (4.51%) Architect
12 102 (4.38%) Test Automation Engineer
13 95 (4.08%) QA Engineer
14 87 (3.73%) Test Leader
15 86 (3.69%) Automation Tester
16 80 (3.43%) Test Analyst
17 74 (3.18%) Full-Stack Developer
18 68 (2.92%) Test Manager
19 67 (2.88%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 355 (15.24%) REST
2 275 (11.80%) Playwright
3 217 (9.31%) RESTful
4 207 (8.88%) Kafka
5 206 (8.84%) React
6 200 (8.58%) Spring
7 165 (7.08%) .NET
8 163 (7.00%) Spring Boot
9 123 (5.28%) Node.js
10 110 (4.72%) HTML
11 98 (4.21%) AngularJS
12 96 (4.12%) CSS
13 77 (3.30%) OAuth
14 69 (2.96%) JSON
15 61 (2.62%) pytest
16 58 (2.49%) OAuth2
17 57 (2.45%) Jest
18 53 (2.27%) XML
19 50 (2.15%) Gherkin
19 50 (2.15%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 342 (14.68%) Cloud Native
2 180 (7.73%) Product Ownership
3 152 (6.52%) Distributed Systems
4 92 (3.95%) Enterprise Software
5 61 (2.62%) Onboarding
6 60 (2.58%) Legacy Systems
7 52 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
8 51 (2.19%) Self-Motivation
9 44 (1.89%) Mobile App
10 41 (1.76%) AI Agents
11 37 (1.59%) Virtual Team
12 28 (1.20%) Embedded Systems
13 27 (1.16%) Distributed Architecture
14 25 (1.07%) Security Posture
15 24 (1.03%) Management Information System
15 24 (1.03%) NHS
16 22 (0.94%) Data Centre
17 19 (0.82%) Derivative
18 18 (0.77%) Data Structures
18 18 (0.77%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 163 (7.00%) Linux
2 96 (4.12%) Unix
2 96 (4.12%) Windows
3 42 (1.80%) Apple iOS
4 41 (1.76%) Android
5 31 (1.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 21 (0.90%) Windows Server
7 8 (0.34%) Solaris
8 6 (0.26%) Embedded Linux
8 6 (0.26%) Mac OS X
9 5 (0.21%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.21%) Windows 10
9 5 (0.21%) Windows 7
9 5 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
9 5 (0.21%) Windows Server 2008
10 4 (0.17%) AIX
10 4 (0.17%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.086%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,363 (58.50%) CI/CD
2 1,082 (46.44%) Agile
3 888 (38.11%) DevOps
4 442 (18.97%) Problem-Solving
5 436 (18.71%) Continuous Improvement
6 425 (18.24%) Microservices
7 384 (16.48%) Software Engineering
8 379 (16.27%) Infrastructure as Code
9 375 (16.09%) Scrum
10 365 (15.67%) Validation
11 356 (15.28%) Test Strategy
12 335 (14.38%) AI
13 318 (13.65%) Containerisation
14 297 (12.75%) Observability
15 295 (12.66%) TDD
16 254 (10.90%) End-to-End Testing
17 252 (10.82%) SDLC
18 249 (10.69%) ETL
19 239 (10.26%) Data Pipeline
20 236 (10.13%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 625 (26.82%) Python
2 605 (25.97%) Java
3 579 (24.85%) SQL
4 320 (13.73%) JavaScript
5 245 (10.52%) TypeScript
6 206 (8.84%) C#
7 102 (4.38%) PowerShell
8 84 (3.61%) Bash
9 53 (2.27%) C++
10 51 (2.19%) Kotlin
11 49 (2.10%) Bicep
12 37 (1.59%) PL/SQL
13 33 (1.42%) C
14 31 (1.33%) Scala
15 28 (1.20%) Apex Code
16 27 (1.16%) Go
17 25 (1.07%) Shell Script
18 24 (1.03%) Ruby
19 18 (0.77%) Swift
20 17 (0.73%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 767 (32.92%) Security Cleared
2 656 (28.15%) SC Cleared
3 118 (5.06%) ISTQB
4 111 (4.76%) Degree
5 102 (4.38%) BPSS Clearance
6 68 (2.92%) DV Cleared
7 59 (2.53%) Computer Science Degree
8 35 (1.50%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 33 (1.42%) AWS Certification
10 23 (0.99%) Azure Certification
11 17 (0.73%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 12 (0.52%) Cisco Certification
12 12 (0.52%) ISEB
12 12 (0.52%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 11 (0.47%) Master's Degree
13 11 (0.47%) SAFe Agilist
14 10 (0.43%) CISSP
14 10 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
15 8 (0.34%) CCNP
15 8 (0.34%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 589 (25.28%) QA
2 191 (8.20%) Accessibility
3 170 (7.30%) Data Quality
4 84 (3.61%) WCAG
5 41 (1.76%) GDPR
6 17 (0.73%) ISO 20022
7 16 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 16 (0.69%) SLA
8 15 (0.64%) NCSC
9 10 (0.43%) NIST
10 8 (0.34%) GRC
11 7 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
11 7 (0.30%) Def Stans
11 7 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 7 (0.30%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.26%) Software Quality Assurance
13 5 (0.21%) FATCA
14 4 (0.17%) MiFID
14 4 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 3 (0.13%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 460 (19.74%) Docker
2 35 (1.50%) VMware Infrastructure
3 31 (1.33%) Active Directory
4 17 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
5 14 (0.60%) Firmware
6 5 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (0.21%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.17%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.13%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.086%) SRDF
10 1 (0.043%) Embedded Firmware
10 1 (0.043%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 454 (19.48%) Kubernetes
2 326 (13.99%) Terraform
3 127 (5.45%) Ansible
4 124 (5.32%) Grafana
5 98 (4.21%) Prometheus
6 41 (1.76%) Argo
7 24 (1.03%) Puppet
8 22 (0.94%) Progress Chef
9 18 (0.77%) HP ALM
10 14 (0.60%) Kibana
11 11 (0.47%) Control-M
11 11 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
12 10 (0.43%) Dell DRAC
13 7 (0.30%) Kustomize
14 6 (0.26%) Istio
14 6 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
14 6 (0.26%) Packer
15 5 (0.21%) HP Fortify
15 5 (0.21%) HP Quality Center
15 5 (0.21%) SCCM
Vendors
1 221 (9.48%) Microsoft
2 212 (9.10%) Oracle
3 92 (3.95%) Salesforce
4 89 (3.82%) Databricks
5 70 (3.00%) Talend
6 65 (2.79%) Google
6 65 (2.79%) Red Hat
7 61 (2.62%) Splunk
8 56 (2.40%) IBM
8 56 (2.40%) ServiceNow
9 50 (2.15%) Denodo
10 48 (2.06%) SAP
11 43 (1.85%) Informatica
12 42 (1.80%) VMware
13 36 (1.55%) Dynatrace
14 31 (1.33%) Cisco
15 29 (1.24%) MuleSoft
16 25 (1.07%) HP
16 25 (1.07%) UiPath
17 14 (0.60%) OpenAI