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

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 45 52
Rank change year-on-year -2 +7 -6
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,946 1,360 1,576
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.50% 4.64% 3.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.23% 5.13% 4.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,320 942 1,074
10th Percentile £331 £326 £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 £734 £708
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £496
% change year-on-year -0.99% -3.32% -5.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 8 59
10th Percentile £28.25 £40.23 £43.50
25th Percentile £51.88 £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 £81.88
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 37,207 26,505 38,501
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.99% 90.41% 86.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,564 17,019 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 £721 £744 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,206 924 2,336
10th Percentile £14.93 £15.25 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.99 £16.05
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.52 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.41 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £31.64 £31.50
% change year-on-year -13.08% +0.44% -10.00%

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 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 18 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 18 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 -3 1,668 £483 -3.40% 702
UK excluding London -1 901 £475 -0.99% 612
London +1 815 £500 - 199
Work from Home -7 557 £475 -5.00% 365
North of England +6 328 £488 +8.33% 171
Midlands +11 193 £472 +1.51% 72
South East -30 168 £500 -14.53% 168
West Midlands +17 161 £480 -0.62% 45
North West +6 150 £463 +2.78% 80
Yorkshire -10 135 £500 +5.26% 47
South West -3 79 £500 -4.76% 88
East of England +7 62 £570 +19.06% 58
North East +8 47 £488 +28.09% 44
Scotland -14 41 £440 -2.22% 43
Wales +5 34 £502 +25.50% 27
East Midlands -28 32 £400 +8.11% 27
Northern Ireland +16 21 £475 -2.56% 6

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
1 134 (6.89%) Confluence
2 58 (2.98%) SAS
3 35 (1.80%) Apache Spark
4 18 (0.92%) Apache Airflow
5 12 (0.62%) 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
12 2 (0.10%) Magnolia
12 2 (0.10%) Mendix
12 2 (0.10%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.10%) WordPress
Applications
1 28 (1.44%) 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 2 (0.10%) Simulink
9 1 (0.051%) Mingle
9 1 (0.051%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 24 (1.23%) Aladdin
2 8 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
3 6 (0.31%) Loan IQ
3 6 (0.31%) Shopify
4 5 (0.26%) Maximo
4 5 (0.26%) Workday HCM
5 4 (0.21%) SAP HR
6 3 (0.15%) BambooHR
6 3 (0.15%) Findur
6 3 (0.15%) Infor CloudSuite
6 3 (0.15%) Infor LN
6 3 (0.15%) Infor M3
6 3 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
6 3 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
7 2 (0.10%) Advent Geneva
7 2 (0.10%) iTrent
7 2 (0.10%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.10%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.10%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 573 (29.45%) Azure
2 507 (26.05%) AWS
3 354 (18.19%) GitHub
4 260 (13.36%) Azure DevOps
5 190 (9.76%) GitHub Actions
6 189 (9.71%) GCP
7 144 (7.40%) Serverless
8 81 (4.16%) Power Platform
9 73 (3.75%) OpenShift
10 72 (3.70%) AWS Lambda
11 69 (3.55%) Amazon S3
12 49 (2.52%) AWS CloudFormation
13 48 (2.47%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 45 (2.31%) Azure AKS
15 43 (2.21%) Snowflake
16 39 (2.00%) Amazon ECS
17 37 (1.90%) Amazon EKS
18 34 (1.75%) Azure Data Factory
18 34 (1.75%) SaaS
19 33 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 32 (1.64%) Firewall
2 24 (1.23%) HTTP
3 21 (1.08%) Wireshark
4 17 (0.87%) TCP/IP
4 17 (0.87%) VPN
5 15 (0.77%) SSL
6 13 (0.67%) Network Security
6 13 (0.67%) SD-WAN
6 13 (0.67%) WAN
7 11 (0.57%) HTTPS
8 10 (0.51%) DNS
8 10 (0.51%) FTP
9 8 (0.41%) Ethernet
9 8 (0.41%) MPLS
9 8 (0.41%) SAN
10 7 (0.36%) Multicast
11 6 (0.31%) AMQP
12 5 (0.26%) Cisco IPT
12 5 (0.26%) VLAN
13 4 (0.21%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (5.81%) PostgreSQL
2 91 (4.68%) NoSQL
3 75 (3.85%) MongoDB
4 72 (3.70%) SQL Server
5 61 (3.13%) Relational Database
6 56 (2.88%) Data Warehouse
7 48 (2.47%) Power BI
8 36 (1.85%) DynamoDB
9 32 (1.64%) BigQuery
10 29 (1.49%) MySQL
10 29 (1.49%) Pentaho
11 25 (1.28%) 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 (0.92%) Metadata
16 18 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
17 17 (0.87%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 367 (18.86%) JIRA
2 364 (18.71%) Git
3 350 (17.99%) Jenkins
4 295 (15.16%) GitLab
5 293 (15.06%) Selenium
6 175 (8.99%) Cucumber
7 160 (8.22%) Postman
8 114 (5.86%) JUnit
9 112 (5.76%) Cypress.io
10 111 (5.70%) JMeter
11 100 (5.14%) REST Assured
12 52 (2.67%) WebDriver
13 41 (2.11%) SpecFlow
14 38 (1.95%) Zephyr
15 37 (1.90%) Gatling
16 36 (1.85%) SonarQube
17 33 (1.70%) Maven
17 33 (1.70%) Mockito
17 33 (1.70%) TestRail
18 32 (1.64%) Bitbucket
General
1 526 (27.03%) Social Skills
2 319 (16.39%) Finance
3 281 (14.44%) Public Sector
4 211 (10.84%) Analytical Skills
5 153 (7.86%) Banking
6 38 (1.95%) Documentation Skills
7 31 (1.59%) Investment Banking
8 26 (1.34%) Front Office
9 25 (1.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 22 (1.13%) Telecoms
11 21 (1.08%) Pharmaceutical
11 21 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
12 19 (0.98%) Influencing Skills
13 18 (0.92%) Organisational Skills
14 17 (0.87%) Military
15 15 (0.77%) Legal
16 14 (0.72%) Aerospace
16 14 (0.72%) Financial Institution
17 10 (0.51%) Electronics
18 9 (0.46%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 407 (20.91%) Developer
2 318 (16.34%) Senior
3 224 (11.51%) Tester
4 220 (11.31%) Lead
5 216 (11.10%) Test Engineer
6 116 (5.96%) Automation Tester
7 101 (5.19%) Data Engineer
8 96 (4.93%) Java Developer
9 93 (4.78%) Analyst
10 90 (4.62%) Test Automation Engineer
11 82 (4.21%) Test Leader
12 80 (4.11%) QA Engineer
13 79 (4.06%) Software Engineer
14 70 (3.60%) DevOps Engineer
14 70 (3.60%) Senior Developer
15 69 (3.55%) Architect
16 68 (3.49%) Test Manager
17 61 (3.13%) Test Analyst
18 58 (2.98%) Automation Engineer
19 49 (2.52%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 245 (12.59%) REST
2 239 (12.28%) Playwright
3 170 (8.74%) React
4 152 (7.81%) RESTful
5 148 (7.61%) Spring
6 147 (7.55%) .NET
7 146 (7.50%) Node.js
8 132 (6.78%) Kafka
9 120 (6.17%) Spring Boot
10 89 (4.57%) pytest
11 70 (3.60%) AngularJS
12 65 (3.34%) HTML
13 62 (3.19%) OAuth
14 56 (2.88%) Jest
15 55 (2.83%) CSS
15 55 (2.83%) Web Services
16 48 (2.47%) JSON
17 44 (2.26%) GraphQL
18 42 (2.16%) Gherkin
18 42 (2.16%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 211 (10.84%) Cloud Native
2 132 (6.78%) Product Ownership
3 86 (4.42%) Distributed Systems
4 48 (2.47%) Mobile App
5 47 (2.42%) Legacy Systems
6 44 (2.26%) Algorithms
6 44 (2.26%) Data Protection Act
7 37 (1.90%) Onboarding
8 32 (1.64%) Security Posture
9 30 (1.54%) Virtual Team
10 29 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
11 25 (1.28%) Data Structures
11 25 (1.28%) NHS
12 23 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
12 23 (1.18%) Self-Motivation
13 22 (1.13%) Equities
13 22 (1.13%) Management Information System
14 21 (1.08%) Distributed Architecture
15 20 (1.03%) Data Centre
15 20 (1.03%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 142 (7.30%) Linux
2 86 (4.42%) Windows
3 44 (2.26%) Android
4 38 (1.95%) Apple iOS
4 38 (1.95%) Unix
5 21 (1.08%) Windows Server
6 16 (0.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (0.67%) Mac OS X
8 11 (0.57%) Kali Linux
9 9 (0.46%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.31%) Solaris
11 5 (0.26%) CentOS
11 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
11 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
11 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.10%) Embedded Linux
12 2 (0.10%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.051%) VMS
13 1 (0.051%) Windows Embedded Compact
13 1 (0.051%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,032 (53.03%) CI/CD
2 924 (47.48%) Agile
3 728 (37.41%) DevOps
4 445 (22.87%) Problem-Solving
5 322 (16.55%) Continuous Improvement
6 308 (15.83%) Test Strategy
7 302 (15.52%) Microservices
8 280 (14.39%) Containerisation
9 269 (13.82%) Scrum
10 257 (13.21%) Validation
11 244 (12.54%) AI
12 239 (12.28%) Infrastructure as Code
13 228 (11.72%) Software Engineering
14 222 (11.41%) Test Scripting
15 219 (11.25%) TDD
16 213 (10.95%) Analytics
17 212 (10.89%) Observability
18 202 (10.38%) Regression Testing
19 196 (10.07%) API Testing
19 196 (10.07%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 608 (31.24%) Python
2 468 (24.05%) Java
3 410 (21.07%) SQL
4 297 (15.26%) JavaScript
5 275 (14.13%) TypeScript
6 200 (10.28%) C#
7 81 (4.16%) Bash
7 81 (4.16%) PowerShell
8 49 (2.52%) C++
9 31 (1.59%) Go
10 28 (1.44%) C
10 28 (1.44%) Kotlin
11 27 (1.39%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.28%) Ruby
13 24 (1.23%) Bicep
14 23 (1.18%) Scala
15 21 (1.08%) Apex Code
16 17 (0.87%) Swift
17 15 (0.77%) Groovy
17 15 (0.77%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 557 (28.62%) Security Cleared
2 428 (21.99%) SC Cleared
3 104 (5.34%) Degree
4 99 (5.09%) ISTQB
5 76 (3.91%) BPSS Clearance
6 59 (3.03%) Computer Science Degree
7 56 (2.88%) DV Cleared
8 35 (1.80%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 24 (1.23%) Master's Degree
10 15 (0.77%) AWS Certification
11 14 (0.72%) Cisco Certification
11 14 (0.72%) OSCP
12 13 (0.67%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 12 (0.62%) Azure Certification
13 12 (0.62%) CEH
13 12 (0.62%) CISSP
13 12 (0.62%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 11 (0.57%) Microsoft Certification
15 10 (0.51%) ISEB
16 9 (0.46%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 438 (22.51%) QA
2 146 (7.50%) Accessibility
3 108 (5.55%) Data Quality
4 49 (2.52%) WCAG
5 37 (1.90%) GDPR
6 33 (1.70%) NIST
7 30 (1.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 18 (0.92%) EU AI Act
9 16 (0.82%) NCSC
9 16 (0.82%) SLA
10 14 (0.72%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 10 (0.51%) ISO 20022
11 10 (0.51%) PCI DSS
12 9 (0.46%) Def Stans
13 8 (0.41%) PSD2
13 8 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 7 (0.36%) NIST 800
15 6 (0.31%) HIPAA
15 6 (0.31%) SEPA
15 6 (0.31%) SOC 2
System Software
1 397 (20.40%) Docker
2 30 (1.54%) 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
1 367 (18.86%) Kubernetes
2 223 (11.46%) Terraform
3 114 (5.86%) Grafana
4 103 (5.29%) Ansible
5 84 (4.32%) Prometheus
6 25 (1.28%) HP ALM
7 20 (1.03%) Argo
8 19 (0.98%) Puppet
9 15 (0.77%) 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
14 7 (0.36%) Kibana
14 7 (0.36%) Podman
15 6 (0.31%) CSIRT
16 5 (0.26%) Rancher
17 4 (0.21%) Istio
Vendors
1 175 (8.99%) Microsoft
2 151 (7.76%) Oracle
3 75 (3.85%) Databricks
4 65 (3.34%) Google
5 63 (3.24%) Salesforce
5 63 (3.24%) ServiceNow
6 62 (3.19%) Splunk
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 (1.28%) Denodo
11 25 (1.28%) IBM
12 23 (1.18%) Cisco
13 19 (0.98%) Workday
14 17 (0.87%) Dynatrace
15 16 (0.82%) Atlassian
15 16 (0.82%) MuleSoft
16 15 (0.77%) UiPath