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

6 months to
20 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 48 50
Rank change year-on-year +2 +2 +3
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,269 1,456 1,610
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.30% 4.44% 3.86%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.06% 4.91% 4.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,460 1,012 1,055
10th Percentile £325 £313 £363
25th Percentile £402 £387 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £480 £520
Median % change year-on-year -1.04% -7.69% -0.95%
75th Percentile £575 £581 £613
90th Percentile £663 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £452 £463 £510
% change year-on-year -2.38% -9.31% +2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 109 31 44
10th Percentile £37.00 £35.00 £48.60
25th Percentile £60.33 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £67.50 £50.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +35.00% -9.09% -21.29%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.76 £71.87
90th Percentile £74.20 £75.00 £73.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £50.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +35.00% -9.09% -14.56%

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 44,857 29,633 35,662
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.99% 90.35% 85.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,817 18,625 22,863
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.02%
75th Percentile £625 £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 2,658 1,571 2,253
10th Percentile £14.84 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.44 £16.82
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -10.31%
75th Percentile £68.50 £51.05 £62.00
90th Percentile £82.41 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.00 £38.12
% change year-on-year +87.50% -37.04% -6.09%

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 20 July 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 20 July 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 20 July 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 1,917 £475 -1.86% 497
UK excluding London +5 1,120 £452 -2.38% 395
London +4 873 £500 - 174
Work from Home -1 644 £475 +3.94% 243
North of England +16 388 £463 +3.12% 107
Midlands +11 243 £450 +9.09% 52
West Midlands +24 226 £450 -6.83% 26
South East -37 197 £459 -8.20% 134
Yorkshire +2 154 £496 +1.79% 33
North West -1 152 £478 +18.91% 56
South West +3 116 £463 +5.71% 47
North East +11 92 £425 +7.59% 19
East of England +23 84 £450 -1.91% 44
Scotland -23 71 £440 -10.34% 11
Wales -2 35 £475 +15.15% 12
Northern Ireland +22 21 £475 +16.28% 6
East Midlands -41 17 £425 +40.26% 26
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
1 194 (8.55%) Confluence
2 52 (2.29%) Apache Spark
3 46 (2.03%) Apache Airflow
3 46 (2.03%) SAS
4 24 (1.06%) Apache
5 20 (0.88%) SharePoint
6 14 (0.62%) CMS
7 11 (0.48%) WebLogic
8 10 (0.44%) nginx
8 10 (0.44%) Tomcat
9 7 (0.31%) Camunda
10 4 (0.18%) Anypoint
10 4 (0.18%) Appian
10 4 (0.18%) Jupyter
10 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.13%) Kentico
12 2 (0.088%) Apache Pulsar
12 2 (0.088%) Mendix
12 2 (0.088%) Microsoft Exchange
12 2 (0.088%) Mule
Applications
1 28 (1.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (0.71%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
4 8 (0.35%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.18%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.18%) Simulink
5 4 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.088%) Trello
7 1 (0.044%) Mingle
7 1 (0.044%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 25 (1.10%) Dynamics CRM
2 17 (0.75%) Aladdin
2 17 (0.75%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (0.57%) Oracle EBS
4 12 (0.53%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.35%) Findur
6 6 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.26%) SAP ERP
6 6 (0.26%) SAP MDG
6 6 (0.26%) Shopify
7 5 (0.22%) BambooHR
8 4 (0.18%) Infor CloudSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Infor LN
8 4 (0.18%) Infor M3
8 4 (0.18%) Loan IQ
9 3 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
10 2 (0.088%) Advent Geneva
10 2 (0.088%) Oracle EBS R12
10 2 (0.088%) Oracle ERP
10 2 (0.088%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 668 (29.44%) Azure
2 664 (29.26%) AWS
3 407 (17.94%) GitHub
4 303 (13.35%) Azure DevOps
5 248 (10.93%) GitHub Actions
6 165 (7.27%) GCP
7 157 (6.92%) Serverless
8 107 (4.72%) AWS Lambda
9 98 (4.32%) Amazon S3
10 96 (4.23%) Power Platform
11 67 (2.95%) OpenShift
12 66 (2.91%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 60 (2.64%) Amazon ECS
14 54 (2.38%) AWS CloudFormation
15 53 (2.34%) Amazon EC2
16 48 (2.12%) dbt
17 46 (2.03%) GitHub Copilot
18 44 (1.94%) Amazon EKS
18 44 (1.94%) Snowflake
19 41 (1.81%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 25 (1.10%) HTTP
2 19 (0.84%) Firewall
3 16 (0.71%) SAN
4 13 (0.57%) Network Security
5 11 (0.48%) 5G
6 10 (0.44%) 2G
6 10 (0.44%) 3G
6 10 (0.44%) 4G
6 10 (0.44%) Diameter Protocol
6 10 (0.44%) SIGTRAN
6 10 (0.44%) SS7
7 9 (0.40%) WAN
8 8 (0.35%) VPN
9 7 (0.31%) BGP
9 7 (0.31%) MPLS
9 7 (0.31%) Wireshark
10 6 (0.26%) LAN
10 6 (0.26%) TCP/IP
10 6 (0.26%) Wi-Fi
11 5 (0.22%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 123 (5.42%) PostgreSQL
2 122 (5.38%) MongoDB
3 114 (5.02%) Data Warehouse
4 98 (4.32%) NoSQL
5 85 (3.75%) SQL Server
6 82 (3.61%) Relational Database
7 74 (3.26%) Power BI
8 47 (2.07%) DynamoDB
9 45 (1.98%) Metadata
10 41 (1.81%) Oracle Reports
11 39 (1.72%) Big Data
12 33 (1.45%) Amazon Athena
12 33 (1.45%) MySQL
12 33 (1.45%) Pentaho
13 31 (1.37%) Amazon RDS
14 26 (1.15%) Amazon Redshift
14 26 (1.15%) Data Lake
14 26 (1.15%) Redis
15 24 (1.06%) Elasticsearch
16 22 (0.97%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 421 (18.55%) JIRA
2 418 (18.42%) Git
3 363 (16.00%) Jenkins
4 300 (13.22%) GitLab
5 291 (12.83%) Selenium
6 168 (7.40%) Postman
7 154 (6.79%) Cucumber
8 119 (5.24%) REST Assured
9 117 (5.16%) Cypress.io
10 115 (5.07%) JUnit
11 101 (4.45%) JMeter
12 67 (2.95%) Zephyr
13 65 (2.86%) WebDriver
14 58 (2.56%) SonarQube
15 52 (2.29%) Gatling
16 48 (2.12%) Gradle
17 44 (1.94%) Mockito
18 40 (1.76%) Bitbucket
19 38 (1.67%) Maven
20 36 (1.59%) SpecFlow
General
1 602 (26.53%) Social Skills
2 407 (17.94%) Finance
3 306 (13.49%) Public Sector
4 285 (12.56%) Analytical Skills
5 190 (8.37%) Banking
6 61 (2.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 44 (1.94%) Documentation Skills
8 38 (1.67%) Front Office
9 36 (1.59%) Investment Banking
10 32 (1.41%) Influencing Skills
11 31 (1.37%) Telecoms
12 29 (1.28%) Retail
13 27 (1.19%) Military
14 24 (1.06%) Financial Institution
15 21 (0.93%) Aerospace
16 18 (0.79%) Manufacturing
17 16 (0.71%) Back Office
17 16 (0.71%) Legal
17 16 (0.71%) Organisational Skills
18 14 (0.62%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 481 (21.20%) Developer
2 370 (16.31%) Senior
3 246 (10.84%) Lead
4 230 (10.14%) Tester
5 229 (10.09%) Test Engineer
6 159 (7.01%) Java Developer
7 152 (6.70%) Data Engineer
8 120 (5.29%) Analyst
9 118 (5.20%) Software Engineer
10 109 (4.80%) DevOps Engineer
11 105 (4.63%) Architect
12 103 (4.54%) Senior Developer
13 102 (4.50%) Test Automation Engineer
14 93 (4.10%) Automation Tester
15 91 (4.01%) QA Engineer
15 91 (4.01%) Test Leader
16 78 (3.44%) Test Analyst
17 69 (3.04%) Full-Stack Developer
18 57 (2.51%) Automation Engineer
18 57 (2.51%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 285 (12.56%) REST
2 268 (11.81%) Playwright
3 207 (9.12%) React
4 191 (8.42%) RESTful
5 187 (8.24%) Spring
6 167 (7.36%) Kafka
7 155 (6.83%) .NET
8 154 (6.79%) Spring Boot
9 118 (5.20%) Node.js
10 92 (4.05%) AngularJS
11 89 (3.92%) HTML
12 81 (3.57%) CSS
13 62 (2.73%) OAuth
14 56 (2.47%) pytest
15 52 (2.29%) Jest
16 50 (2.20%) Swagger
17 49 (2.16%) JSON
18 48 (2.12%) Gherkin
19 47 (2.07%) HTML5
20 44 (1.94%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 305 (13.44%) Cloud Native
2 164 (7.23%) Product Ownership
3 142 (6.26%) Distributed Systems
4 82 (3.61%) Enterprise Software
5 63 (2.78%) Legacy Systems
6 54 (2.38%) Data Protection Act
7 53 (2.34%) Onboarding
8 49 (2.16%) Self-Motivation
9 43 (1.90%) Mobile App
10 41 (1.81%) Virtual Team
11 31 (1.37%) AI Agents
11 31 (1.37%) Distributed Architecture
12 29 (1.28%) Security Posture
13 27 (1.19%) Embedded Systems
14 26 (1.15%) NHS
15 25 (1.10%) Management Information System
16 22 (0.97%) Fixed Income
16 22 (0.97%) Greenfield Project
17 20 (0.88%) Algorithms
18 19 (0.84%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 136 (5.99%) Linux
2 76 (3.35%) Windows
3 75 (3.31%) Unix
4 42 (1.85%) Android
5 41 (1.81%) Apple iOS
6 25 (1.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 18 (0.79%) Windows Server
8 14 (0.62%) Mac OS X
9 11 (0.48%) Solaris
10 10 (0.44%) Mac OS
11 8 (0.35%) Windows Server 2008
12 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
13 6 (0.26%) Embedded Linux
13 6 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.18%) Ubuntu
15 3 (0.13%) AIX
16 2 (0.088%) CentOS
17 1 (0.044%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,308 (57.65%) CI/CD
2 1,065 (46.94%) Agile
3 832 (36.67%) DevOps
4 417 (18.38%) Problem-Solving
5 406 (17.89%) Microservices
6 388 (17.10%) Continuous Improvement
7 364 (16.04%) Scrum
8 351 (15.47%) Software Engineering
9 342 (15.07%) Test Strategy
10 338 (14.90%) Infrastructure as Code
11 337 (14.85%) Validation
12 296 (13.05%) TDD
13 295 (13.00%) Containerisation
14 293 (12.91%) AI
15 283 (12.47%) Observability
16 234 (10.31%) End-to-End Testing
17 230 (10.14%) ETL
18 225 (9.92%) SDLC
19 221 (9.74%) Data Pipeline
20 217 (9.56%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 575 (25.34%) Python
2 573 (25.25%) Java
3 518 (22.83%) SQL
4 292 (12.87%) JavaScript
5 250 (11.02%) TypeScript
6 205 (9.03%) C#
7 83 (3.66%) Bash
8 77 (3.39%) PowerShell
9 54 (2.38%) C++
10 53 (2.34%) Kotlin
11 38 (1.67%) Bicep
11 38 (1.67%) PL/SQL
12 34 (1.50%) Apex Code
12 34 (1.50%) C
13 33 (1.45%) Go
14 30 (1.32%) Scala
15 23 (1.01%) Ruby
15 23 (1.01%) Swift
16 22 (0.97%) Shell Script
17 16 (0.71%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 705 (31.07%) Security Cleared
2 594 (26.18%) SC Cleared
3 109 (4.80%) Degree
4 107 (4.72%) BPSS Clearance
5 100 (4.41%) ISTQB
6 71 (3.13%) DV Cleared
7 55 (2.42%) Computer Science Degree
8 28 (1.23%) AWS Certification
9 26 (1.15%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 18 (0.79%) Azure Certification
11 17 (0.75%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 14 (0.62%) Master's Degree
13 12 (0.53%) Cisco Certification
14 11 (0.48%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 11 (0.48%) SAFe Agilist
15 10 (0.44%) CCNP
16 9 (0.40%) CISSP
16 9 (0.40%) DBS Check
17 7 (0.31%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
17 7 (0.31%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 535 (23.58%) QA
2 187 (8.24%) Accessibility
3 156 (6.88%) Data Quality
4 81 (3.57%) WCAG
5 43 (1.90%) GDPR
6 15 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 14 (0.62%) SLA
8 13 (0.57%) NCSC
9 10 (0.44%) Def Stans
9 10 (0.44%) NIST
10 9 (0.40%) ISO 20022
11 7 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 7 (0.31%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.26%) GRC
13 5 (0.22%) FATCA
13 5 (0.22%) Software Quality Assurance
14 4 (0.18%) MiFID
15 3 (0.13%) HL7
15 3 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 3 (0.13%) SEPA
System Software
1 407 (17.94%) Docker
2 31 (1.37%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (0.75%) Active Directory
4 15 (0.66%) Virtual Machines
5 12 (0.53%) Firmware
6 8 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.26%) Oracle RAC
8 4 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.13%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.088%) SRDF
11 1 (0.044%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.044%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 408 (17.98%) Kubernetes
2 292 (12.87%) Terraform
3 118 (5.20%) Grafana
4 117 (5.16%) Ansible
5 99 (4.36%) Prometheus
6 39 (1.72%) Argo
7 23 (1.01%) HP ALM
8 16 (0.71%) Puppet
9 14 (0.62%) Kibana
10 11 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
11 10 (0.44%) Dell DRAC
12 8 (0.35%) HP Quality Center
12 8 (0.35%) NetBackup
12 8 (0.35%) Progress Chef
13 7 (0.31%) Kustomize
14 6 (0.26%) Oracle RMAN
15 5 (0.22%) Forefront Identity Manager
15 5 (0.22%) Istio
15 5 (0.22%) NetIQ Identity Manager
16 4 (0.18%) Packer
Vendors
1 199 (8.77%) Microsoft
2 186 (8.20%) Oracle
3 104 (4.58%) Salesforce
4 75 (3.31%) Databricks
5 63 (2.78%) Google
5 63 (2.78%) Talend
6 61 (2.69%) Red Hat
7 58 (2.56%) Splunk
8 52 (2.29%) ServiceNow
9 43 (1.90%) IBM
10 42 (1.85%) Denodo
11 37 (1.63%) Informatica
11 37 (1.63%) SAP
12 34 (1.50%) VMware
13 29 (1.28%) Dynatrace
13 29 (1.28%) UiPath
14 27 (1.19%) MuleSoft
15 26 (1.15%) HP
16 21 (0.93%) Cisco
17 14 (0.62%) Fortinet