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

6 months to
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 46 51
Rank change year-on-year 0 +5 0
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,223 1,385 1,585
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.32% 4.47% 3.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.08% 4.92% 4.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,437 970 1,042
10th Percentile £327 £313 £363
25th Percentile £402 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £484 £513
Median % change year-on-year -1.86% -5.56% -5.96%
75th Percentile £575 £594 £619
90th Percentile £663 £707 £722
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £465 £502
% change year-on-year -2.58% -7.32% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 109 30 51
10th Percentile £36.26 £40.26 £50.00
25th Percentile £60.00 £44.95 £52.50
Median hourly rate £67.50 £52.50 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +28.57% -8.70% -12.55%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.50 £71.88
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.22 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £55.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year +22.73% -4.35% -8.00%

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 43,739 28,136 37,017
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.99% 90.86% 85.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,189 17,763 23,600
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £415 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.08% -3.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £621 £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 2,627 1,381 2,550
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.61 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +3.45%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.95 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £25.00 £38.12
% change year-on-year +75.84% -34.42% +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 2 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 2 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 2 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 1,892 £475 -1.66% 767
UK excluding London -1 1,105 £453 -2.58% 570
London +6 855 £500 - 310
Work from Home 0 631 £475 +1.71% 399
North of England +14 387 £454 +1.23% 138
Midlands +7 239 £450 +8.11% 80
West Midlands +28 222 £450 -8.44% 42
South East -37 199 £462 -7.60% 173
Yorkshire +9 160 £496 +1.79% 41
North West -3 152 £475 +12.56% 72
South West +15 110 £450 - 74
East of England +23 85 £485 +3.74% 57
North East +10 85 £425 +6.25% 25
Scotland -22 64 £440 -8.33% 27
Wales -1 34 £475 +20.25% 8
Northern Ireland +21 22 £475 +16.28% 24
East Midlands -45 17 £425 +54.55% 38
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
1 193 (8.68%) Confluence
2 47 (2.11%) SAS
3 46 (2.07%) Apache Airflow
3 46 (2.07%) Apache Spark
4 19 (0.85%) Apache
5 15 (0.67%) SharePoint
6 12 (0.54%) CMS
7 8 (0.36%) nginx
7 8 (0.36%) Tomcat
8 7 (0.31%) Appian
8 7 (0.31%) Camunda
9 6 (0.27%) WebLogic
10 4 (0.18%) Anypoint
10 4 (0.18%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.13%) Kentico
11 3 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
12 2 (0.090%) Apache Pulsar
12 2 (0.090%) Mendix
12 2 (0.090%) Mule
Applications
1 31 (1.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (0.76%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
4 9 (0.40%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.13%) Simulink
8 1 (0.045%) Mingle
8 1 (0.045%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 22 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
2 16 (0.72%) Aladdin
3 12 (0.54%) SAP S/4HANA
4 11 (0.49%) Oracle EBS
4 11 (0.49%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.36%) Findur
6 6 (0.27%) SAP ERP
6 6 (0.27%) Shopify
7 5 (0.22%) BambooHR
7 5 (0.22%) Loan IQ
7 5 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
7 5 (0.22%) SAP MDG
8 4 (0.18%) Infor CloudSuite
8 4 (0.18%) Infor LN
8 4 (0.18%) Infor M3
9 3 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
9 3 (0.13%) Maximo
9 3 (0.13%) Workday HCM
10 2 (0.090%) Oracle ERP
10 2 (0.090%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 646 (29.06%) Azure
2 635 (28.57%) AWS
3 382 (17.18%) GitHub
4 291 (13.09%) Azure DevOps
5 226 (10.17%) GitHub Actions
6 162 (7.29%) GCP
7 151 (6.79%) Serverless
8 102 (4.59%) AWS Lambda
9 95 (4.27%) Power Platform
10 94 (4.23%) Amazon S3
11 65 (2.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 65 (2.92%) OpenShift
12 57 (2.56%) Amazon ECS
13 50 (2.25%) Amazon EC2
14 48 (2.16%) AWS CloudFormation
15 47 (2.11%) dbt
16 43 (1.93%) Azure Data Factory
17 41 (1.84%) Snowflake
18 40 (1.80%) Amazon EKS
19 31 (1.39%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.08%) HTTP
2 21 (0.94%) Firewall
3 16 (0.72%) SAN
4 13 (0.58%) Network Security
5 11 (0.49%) WAN
6 9 (0.40%) MPLS
6 9 (0.40%) VPN
7 8 (0.36%) 5G
8 7 (0.31%) 4G
8 7 (0.31%) BGP
8 7 (0.31%) TCP/IP
8 7 (0.31%) Wireshark
9 6 (0.27%) 2G
9 6 (0.27%) 3G
9 6 (0.27%) Ethernet
9 6 (0.27%) LAN
9 6 (0.27%) SD-WAN
9 6 (0.27%) SIGTRAN
9 6 (0.27%) SS7
9 6 (0.27%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (5.31%) PostgreSQL
2 117 (5.26%) MongoDB
3 103 (4.63%) Data Warehouse
4 95 (4.27%) NoSQL
5 83 (3.73%) SQL Server
6 81 (3.64%) Relational Database
7 72 (3.24%) Power BI
8 47 (2.11%) DynamoDB
9 43 (1.93%) Metadata
10 37 (1.66%) Oracle Reports
11 36 (1.62%) Big Data
12 35 (1.57%) Pentaho
13 34 (1.53%) Amazon Athena
14 31 (1.39%) MySQL
15 29 (1.30%) Amazon RDS
16 27 (1.21%) Amazon Redshift
16 27 (1.21%) Data Lake
16 27 (1.21%) Redis
17 21 (0.94%) Oracle Database
17 21 (0.94%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 428 (19.25%) JIRA
2 403 (18.13%) Git
3 365 (16.42%) Jenkins
4 309 (13.90%) GitLab
5 292 (13.14%) Selenium
6 177 (7.96%) Postman
7 157 (7.06%) Cucumber
8 122 (5.49%) REST Assured
9 116 (5.22%) JUnit
10 109 (4.90%) Cypress.io
11 104 (4.68%) JMeter
12 64 (2.88%) Zephyr
13 62 (2.79%) WebDriver
14 57 (2.56%) SonarQube
15 50 (2.25%) Gatling
16 47 (2.11%) Gradle
17 44 (1.98%) Mockito
18 38 (1.71%) Maven
19 37 (1.66%) Bitbucket
20 34 (1.53%) SpecFlow
General
1 590 (26.54%) Social Skills
2 405 (18.22%) Finance
3 297 (13.36%) Public Sector
4 269 (12.10%) Analytical Skills
5 188 (8.46%) Banking
6 56 (2.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 44 (1.98%) Documentation Skills
8 40 (1.80%) Investment Banking
9 35 (1.57%) Front Office
10 29 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
10 29 (1.30%) Telecoms
11 26 (1.17%) Military
12 24 (1.08%) Financial Institution
13 21 (0.94%) Retail
14 18 (0.81%) Aerospace
15 17 (0.76%) Legal
15 17 (0.76%) Manufacturing
15 17 (0.76%) Organisational Skills
16 14 (0.63%) Marketing
16 14 (0.63%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 459 (20.65%) Developer
2 349 (15.70%) Senior
3 240 (10.80%) Lead
4 233 (10.48%) Test Engineer
5 230 (10.35%) Tester
6 148 (6.66%) Java Developer
7 146 (6.57%) Data Engineer
8 117 (5.26%) Analyst
9 111 (4.99%) Software Engineer
10 105 (4.72%) DevOps Engineer
11 104 (4.68%) Architect
12 100 (4.50%) Test Automation Engineer
13 91 (4.09%) Senior Developer
13 91 (4.09%) Test Leader
14 89 (4.00%) Automation Tester
15 86 (3.87%) QA Engineer
16 74 (3.33%) Test Analyst
17 62 (2.79%) Full-Stack Developer
18 61 (2.74%) Automation Engineer
19 56 (2.52%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 271 (12.19%) Playwright
2 270 (12.15%) REST
3 200 (9.00%) React
4 178 (8.01%) Spring
5 172 (7.74%) RESTful
6 157 (7.06%) Kafka
7 146 (6.57%) .NET
8 145 (6.52%) Spring Boot
9 115 (5.17%) Node.js
10 92 (4.14%) AngularJS
11 80 (3.60%) HTML
12 71 (3.19%) CSS
13 63 (2.83%) pytest
14 60 (2.70%) OAuth
15 50 (2.25%) Jest
16 49 (2.20%) Swagger
17 46 (2.07%) Gherkin
18 44 (1.98%) JSON
19 40 (1.80%) .NET Framework
19 40 (1.80%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 276 (12.42%) Cloud Native
2 164 (7.38%) Product Ownership
3 129 (5.80%) Distributed Systems
4 74 (3.33%) Enterprise Software
5 62 (2.79%) Legacy Systems
6 52 (2.34%) Data Protection Act
7 45 (2.02%) Mobile App
7 45 (2.02%) Onboarding
7 45 (2.02%) Self-Motivation
8 42 (1.89%) Virtual Team
9 32 (1.44%) Distributed Architecture
10 29 (1.30%) Security Posture
11 28 (1.26%) Management Information System
12 26 (1.17%) NHS
13 24 (1.08%) Embedded Systems
14 23 (1.03%) AI Agents
14 23 (1.03%) Greenfield Project
15 21 (0.94%) Data Centre
16 19 (0.85%) Algorithms
16 19 (0.85%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 131 (5.89%) Linux
2 82 (3.69%) Windows
3 68 (3.06%) Unix
4 42 (1.89%) Android
5 40 (1.80%) Apple iOS
6 24 (1.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 20 (0.90%) Windows Server
8 14 (0.63%) Mac OS X
9 10 (0.45%) Mac OS
9 10 (0.45%) Solaris
10 8 (0.36%) Windows Server 2008
11 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.18%) Embedded Linux
13 4 (0.18%) Ubuntu
14 3 (0.13%) AIX
15 2 (0.090%) CentOS
15 2 (0.090%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,244 (55.96%) CI/CD
2 1,030 (46.33%) Agile
3 800 (35.99%) DevOps
4 395 (17.77%) Problem-Solving
5 375 (16.87%) Microservices
6 366 (16.46%) Continuous Improvement
7 341 (15.34%) Scrum
8 334 (15.02%) Test Strategy
9 329 (14.80%) Validation
10 319 (14.35%) Software Engineering
11 316 (14.22%) Infrastructure as Code
12 282 (12.69%) Containerisation
13 274 (12.33%) TDD
14 271 (12.19%) AI
15 270 (12.15%) Observability
16 227 (10.21%) End-to-End Testing
17 219 (9.85%) ETL
18 217 (9.76%) User Acceptance Testing
19 212 (9.54%) Software Testing
20 211 (9.49%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 571 (25.69%) Python
2 561 (25.24%) Java
3 507 (22.81%) SQL
4 291 (13.09%) JavaScript
5 249 (11.20%) TypeScript
6 208 (9.36%) C#
7 76 (3.42%) Bash
8 75 (3.37%) PowerShell
9 51 (2.29%) C++
10 48 (2.16%) Kotlin
11 37 (1.66%) PL/SQL
11 37 (1.66%) Scala
12 36 (1.62%) Bicep
13 34 (1.53%) Apex Code
14 32 (1.44%) C
14 32 (1.44%) Go
15 22 (0.99%) Ruby
15 22 (0.99%) Swift
16 17 (0.76%) Groovy
17 16 (0.72%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 693 (31.17%) Security Cleared
2 577 (25.96%) SC Cleared
3 102 (4.59%) Degree
3 102 (4.59%) ISTQB
4 100 (4.50%) BPSS Clearance
5 73 (3.28%) DV Cleared
6 50 (2.25%) Computer Science Degree
7 26 (1.17%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 22 (0.99%) AWS Certification
9 17 (0.76%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 16 (0.72%) Master's Degree
11 12 (0.54%) Cisco Certification
11 12 (0.54%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 11 (0.49%) Azure Certification
12 11 (0.49%) SAFe Agilist
13 10 (0.45%) CCNP
13 10 (0.45%) CISSP
14 9 (0.40%) DBS Check
15 5 (0.22%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 5 (0.22%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 496 (22.31%) QA
2 171 (7.69%) Accessibility
3 148 (6.66%) Data Quality
4 72 (3.24%) WCAG
5 39 (1.75%) GDPR
6 16 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 15 (0.67%) SLA
8 14 (0.63%) NCSC
9 12 (0.54%) ISO 20022
10 10 (0.45%) Def Stans
10 10 (0.45%) NIST
11 7 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 6 (0.27%) PCI DSS
13 5 (0.22%) FATCA
13 5 (0.22%) SEPA
14 4 (0.18%) GRC
14 4 (0.18%) HL7
14 4 (0.18%) MiFID
14 4 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 4 (0.18%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 381 (17.14%) Docker
2 31 (1.39%) VMware Infrastructure
3 19 (0.85%) Active Directory
4 14 (0.63%) Firmware
5 13 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
8 4 (0.18%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 4 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.13%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.090%) SRDF
11 1 (0.045%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.045%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 387 (17.41%) Kubernetes
2 283 (12.73%) Terraform
3 114 (5.13%) Ansible
4 110 (4.95%) Grafana
5 93 (4.18%) Prometheus
6 38 (1.71%) Argo
7 20 (0.90%) HP ALM
8 14 (0.63%) Puppet
9 13 (0.58%) Kibana
10 11 (0.49%) HP Quality Center
10 11 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
11 10 (0.45%) Dell DRAC
12 8 (0.36%) Kustomize
12 8 (0.36%) NetBackup
13 6 (0.27%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 6 (0.27%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 6 (0.27%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.22%) Istio
14 5 (0.22%) Progress Chef
15 4 (0.18%) Packer
Vendors
1 191 (8.59%) Microsoft
2 171 (7.69%) Oracle
3 104 (4.68%) Salesforce
4 66 (2.97%) Databricks
5 64 (2.88%) Talend
6 62 (2.79%) Google
7 60 (2.70%) Red Hat
8 58 (2.61%) ServiceNow
9 57 (2.56%) Splunk
10 45 (2.02%) Denodo
11 38 (1.71%) IBM
12 36 (1.62%) Informatica
13 35 (1.57%) SAP
14 34 (1.53%) VMware
15 30 (1.35%) UiPath
16 28 (1.26%) Dynatrace
17 23 (1.03%) HP
17 23 (1.03%) MuleSoft
18 21 (0.94%) Cisco
19 16 (0.72%) Blue Prism