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

6 months to
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 46 55
Rank change year-on-year -1 +9 -6
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,060 1,320 1,500
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.21% 4.53% 3.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.97% 4.98% 4.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,338 929 986
10th Percentile £343 £325 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £511
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -2.20% -7.05%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £625
90th Percentile £663 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £468 £500
% change year-on-year -0.53% -6.50% -4.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 99 23 53
10th Percentile £35.63 £36.17 £51.25
25th Percentile £56.25 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £67.50 £55.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +22.73% -8.33% -10.95%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.51 £72.50
90th Percentile £74.20 £76.85 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.25 £55.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +20.45% -8.33% -5.42%

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 41,434 26,510 36,773
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.66% 90.99% 85.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,895 16,942 23,625
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -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 2,481 1,120 2,526
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.85 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.97 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.98% -23.38% -0.11%
75th Percentile £67.84 £57.50 £60.71
90th Percentile £81.05 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +8.91%

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 1 June 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 1 June 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 1 June 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 1,759 £475 -5.00% 876
UK excluding London -2 993 £465 -0.53% 633
London +3 822 £500 -2.44% 383
Work from Home -3 590 £475 - 478
North of England +13 358 £463 +2.78% 152
Midlands +12 212 £450 +7.46% 71
West Midlands +34 189 £459 -4.97% 50
South East -34 181 £500 -0.10% 161
North West +4 153 £475 +6.26% 92
Yorkshire -7 150 £493 +3.68% 34
South West +20 100 £469 -1.32% 85
East of England +9 74 £501 +6.31% 80
North East +3 63 £425 +6.25% 27
Scotland -34 45 £440 -6.58% 42
Wales 0 32 £475 +16.92% 20
East Midlands -41 23 £400 +48.15% 21
Northern Ireland +22 20 £475 +16.28% 35
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
1 171 (8.30%) Confluence
2 46 (2.23%) SAS
3 42 (2.04%) Apache Airflow
4 41 (1.99%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.78%) Apache
6 12 (0.58%) SharePoint
7 10 (0.49%) CMS
8 9 (0.44%) Appian
9 8 (0.39%) Camunda
10 7 (0.34%) nginx
10 7 (0.34%) Tomcat
11 6 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.19%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.19%) WebLogic
13 3 (0.15%) Microsoft Exchange
13 3 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
14 2 (0.097%) Jupyter
14 2 (0.097%) Kentico
14 2 (0.097%) Mendix
15 1 (0.049%) Ethereum
Applications
1 28 (1.36%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.68%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.53%) Microsoft Project
3 11 (0.53%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.15%) Simulink
6 1 (0.049%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.049%) Mingle
6 1 (0.049%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 19 (0.92%) Aladdin
2 17 (0.83%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.53%) SAP S/4HANA
4 9 (0.44%) Oracle EBS
4 9 (0.44%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.39%) Findur
6 6 (0.29%) Shopify
7 5 (0.24%) BambooHR
7 5 (0.24%) Loan IQ
7 5 (0.24%) SAP ERP
7 5 (0.24%) 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 (0.097%) Advent Geneva
9 2 (0.097%) Salesforce CRM
9 2 (0.097%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 594 (28.83%) Azure
2 585 (28.40%) AWS
3 356 (17.28%) GitHub
4 270 (13.11%) Azure DevOps
5 207 (10.05%) GitHub Actions
6 163 (7.91%) GCP
7 137 (6.65%) Serverless
8 89 (4.32%) AWS Lambda
9 83 (4.03%) Amazon S3
9 83 (4.03%) Power Platform
10 59 (2.86%) OpenShift
11 57 (2.77%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 54 (2.62%) Amazon ECS
13 46 (2.23%) AWS CloudFormation
14 43 (2.09%) Azure Data Factory
15 42 (2.04%) Snowflake
16 39 (1.89%) Amazon EC2
16 39 (1.89%) Amazon EKS
17 32 (1.55%) Dynamics 365
18 29 (1.41%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.17%) HTTP
2 23 (1.12%) Firewall
3 15 (0.73%) SAN
4 11 (0.53%) Network Security
4 11 (0.53%) TCP/IP
5 10 (0.49%) VPN
6 8 (0.39%) MPLS
6 8 (0.39%) SSL
6 8 (0.39%) WAN
7 6 (0.29%) Ethernet
7 6 (0.29%) VLAN
7 6 (0.29%) Wi-Fi
7 6 (0.29%) Wireshark
8 5 (0.24%) 5G
8 5 (0.24%) FTP
8 5 (0.24%) Multicast
9 4 (0.19%) BGP
9 4 (0.19%) NAS
9 4 (0.19%) Reverse Proxy
9 4 (0.19%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (5.49%) PostgreSQL
2 106 (5.15%) MongoDB
3 94 (4.56%) NoSQL
4 87 (4.22%) SQL Server
5 83 (4.03%) Data Warehouse
6 72 (3.50%) Relational Database
7 57 (2.77%) Power BI
8 48 (2.33%) DynamoDB
9 41 (1.99%) Metadata
10 35 (1.70%) Big Data
11 34 (1.65%) Pentaho
12 31 (1.50%) MySQL
12 31 (1.50%) Oracle Reports
13 28 (1.36%) Amazon RDS
14 26 (1.26%) Data Lake
14 26 (1.26%) Tableau
15 23 (1.12%) Amazon Athena
15 23 (1.12%) Redis
16 22 (1.07%) BigQuery
17 21 (1.02%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 399 (19.37%) JIRA
2 355 (17.23%) Git
3 345 (16.75%) Jenkins
4 297 (14.42%) GitLab
5 286 (13.88%) Selenium
6 171 (8.30%) Postman
7 155 (7.52%) Cucumber
8 112 (5.44%) REST Assured
9 105 (5.10%) JUnit
10 102 (4.95%) JMeter
11 100 (4.85%) Cypress.io
12 63 (3.06%) WebDriver
13 55 (2.67%) Zephyr
14 50 (2.43%) SonarQube
15 43 (2.09%) Gatling
16 39 (1.89%) Gradle
17 38 (1.84%) Mockito
18 31 (1.50%) Bitbucket
18 31 (1.50%) Maven
19 30 (1.46%) SpecFlow
General
1 540 (26.21%) Social Skills
2 351 (17.04%) Finance
3 280 (13.59%) Public Sector
4 245 (11.89%) Analytical Skills
5 174 (8.45%) Banking
6 45 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 42 (2.04%) Documentation Skills
8 40 (1.94%) Investment Banking
9 36 (1.75%) Front Office
10 25 (1.21%) Influencing Skills
11 21 (1.02%) Telecoms
12 19 (0.92%) Military
13 18 (0.87%) Legal
14 17 (0.83%) Aerospace
14 17 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
14 17 (0.83%) Presentation Skills
14 17 (0.83%) Retail
15 15 (0.73%) Manufacturing
16 14 (0.68%) Financial Institution
17 13 (0.63%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 414 (20.10%) Developer
2 320 (15.53%) Senior
3 236 (11.46%) Test Engineer
4 219 (10.63%) Lead
4 219 (10.63%) Tester
5 125 (6.07%) Data Engineer
6 108 (5.24%) Analyst
6 108 (5.24%) Java Developer
7 100 (4.85%) Software Engineer
8 99 (4.81%) Test Automation Engineer
9 93 (4.51%) Architect
9 93 (4.51%) Automation Tester
9 93 (4.51%) DevOps Engineer
10 83 (4.03%) QA Engineer
10 83 (4.03%) Test Leader
11 78 (3.79%) Senior Developer
12 65 (3.16%) Test Analyst
13 62 (3.01%) Full-Stack Developer
14 59 (2.86%) Test Manager
15 56 (2.72%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 250 (12.14%) Playwright
2 238 (11.55%) REST
3 186 (9.03%) React
4 160 (7.77%) RESTful
5 143 (6.94%) Kafka
5 143 (6.94%) Spring
6 140 (6.80%) .NET
7 120 (5.83%) Node.js
8 118 (5.73%) Spring Boot
9 78 (3.79%) AngularJS
10 74 (3.59%) HTML
11 64 (3.11%) pytest
12 61 (2.96%) CSS
13 58 (2.82%) OAuth
14 51 (2.48%) Jest
15 48 (2.33%) Swagger
16 44 (2.14%) OpenID
17 42 (2.04%) Gherkin
17 42 (2.04%) JSON
18 38 (1.84%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 228 (11.07%) Cloud Native
2 156 (7.57%) Product Ownership
3 109 (5.29%) Distributed Systems
4 56 (2.72%) Data Protection Act
5 48 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
6 45 (2.18%) Enterprise Software
6 45 (2.18%) Mobile App
7 40 (1.94%) Self-Motivation
8 39 (1.89%) Virtual Team
9 37 (1.80%) Onboarding
10 31 (1.50%) NHS
11 28 (1.36%) Distributed Architecture
12 25 (1.21%) Algorithms
13 24 (1.17%) Management Information System
14 23 (1.12%) Data Centre
15 22 (1.07%) Derivative
15 22 (1.07%) Greenfield Project
16 19 (0.92%) Fixed Income
17 18 (0.87%) Data Structures
17 18 (0.87%) Embedded Systems
Operating Systems
1 127 (6.17%) Linux
2 79 (3.83%) Windows
3 60 (2.91%) Unix
4 44 (2.14%) Android
5 37 (1.80%) Apple iOS
6 21 (1.02%) Windows Server
7 20 (0.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (0.58%) 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 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.19%) Embedded Linux
14 3 (0.15%) AIX
14 3 (0.15%) CentOS
15 2 (0.097%) Kali Linux
16 1 (0.049%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,116 (54.17%) CI/CD
2 943 (45.78%) Agile
3 739 (35.87%) DevOps
4 377 (18.30%) Problem-Solving
5 334 (16.21%) Continuous Improvement
6 331 (16.07%) Microservices
7 321 (15.58%) Test Strategy
8 294 (14.27%) Scrum
9 283 (13.74%) Validation
10 275 (13.35%) Infrastructure as Code
11 274 (13.30%) Software Engineering
12 255 (12.38%) Containerisation
13 251 (12.18%) Observability
14 234 (11.36%) TDD
15 229 (11.12%) AI
16 204 (9.90%) API Testing
17 201 (9.76%) ETL
18 199 (9.66%) User Acceptance Testing
19 198 (9.61%) Test Scripting
20 197 (9.56%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 536 (26.02%) Python
2 515 (25.00%) Java
3 468 (22.72%) SQL
4 284 (13.79%) JavaScript
5 241 (11.70%) TypeScript
6 201 (9.76%) C#
7 73 (3.54%) PowerShell
8 70 (3.40%) Bash
9 56 (2.72%) C++
10 42 (2.04%) Kotlin
10 42 (2.04%) PL/SQL
11 36 (1.75%) Scala
12 32 (1.55%) C
13 31 (1.50%) Apex Code
14 29 (1.41%) Go
15 26 (1.26%) Bicep
16 21 (1.02%) Ruby
17 19 (0.92%) Swift
18 16 (0.78%) Groovy
19 14 (0.68%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 638 (30.97%) Security Cleared
2 513 (24.90%) SC Cleared
3 95 (4.61%) ISTQB
4 89 (4.32%) BPSS Clearance
5 86 (4.17%) Degree
6 73 (3.54%) DV Cleared
7 42 (2.04%) Computer Science Degree
8 26 (1.26%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 15 (0.73%) Master's Degree
10 12 (0.58%) Cisco Certification
11 11 (0.53%) CCNP
11 11 (0.53%) DBS Check
11 11 (0.53%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 10 (0.49%) AWS Certification
12 10 (0.49%) SAFe Agilist
13 8 (0.39%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 8 (0.39%) Azure Certification
14 7 (0.34%) CISSP
15 5 (0.24%) CCIE
15 5 (0.24%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 445 (21.60%) QA
2 155 (7.52%) Accessibility
3 129 (6.26%) Data Quality
4 68 (3.30%) WCAG
5 35 (1.70%) GDPR
6 16 (0.78%) SLA
7 15 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 11 (0.53%) ISO 20022
9 10 (0.49%) Def Stans
10 9 (0.44%) NIST
11 8 (0.39%) NCSC
12 7 (0.34%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 6 (0.29%) PCI DSS
13 6 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 5 (0.24%) FATCA
15 4 (0.19%) HL7
15 4 (0.19%) SEPA
15 4 (0.19%) Software Quality Assurance
16 3 (0.15%) GRC
16 3 (0.15%) SOC 2
System Software
1 353 (17.14%) Docker
2 25 (1.21%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (0.97%) Active Directory
4 13 (0.63%) Firmware
5 11 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.34%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 6 (0.29%) Oracle RAC
9 4 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.097%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.097%) ISA Server
10 2 (0.097%) SRDF
11 1 (0.049%) KVM
11 1 (0.049%) Squid
11 1 (0.049%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.049%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 344 (16.70%) Kubernetes
2 240 (11.65%) Terraform
3 112 (5.44%) Grafana
4 95 (4.61%) Prometheus
5 93 (4.51%) Ansible
6 29 (1.41%) Argo
7 19 (0.92%) HP ALM
8 16 (0.78%) Puppet
9 13 (0.63%) Kibana
10 12 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
11 10 (0.49%) HP Quality Center
12 9 (0.44%) Dell DRAC
12 9 (0.44%) Forefront Identity Manager
12 9 (0.44%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 8 (0.39%) Kustomize
13 8 (0.39%) NetBackup
14 6 (0.29%) Oracle RMAN
14 6 (0.29%) Progress Chef
15 4 (0.19%) Nmap
15 4 (0.19%) Rancher
Vendors
1 169 (8.20%) Microsoft
1 169 (8.20%) Oracle
2 86 (4.17%) Salesforce
3 68 (3.30%) Databricks
4 63 (3.06%) Talend
5 61 (2.96%) ServiceNow
6 59 (2.86%) Google
6 59 (2.86%) Splunk
7 51 (2.48%) Red Hat
8 44 (2.14%) Denodo
9 36 (1.75%) SAP
10 30 (1.46%) VMware
11 28 (1.36%) IBM
12 24 (1.17%) UiPath
13 23 (1.12%) Dynatrace
14 22 (1.07%) HP
15 21 (1.02%) Informatica
16 20 (0.97%) MuleSoft
17 19 (0.92%) Cisco
18 16 (0.78%) Blue Prism