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

6 months to
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 44 51
Rank change year-on-year -5 +7 -11
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,670 1,378 1,659
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.56% 4.39% 3.87%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.20% 4.96% 4.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,144 927 1,204
10th Percentile £343 £325 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -6.67%
75th Percentile £588 £606 £630
90th Percentile £699 £714 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.22% -4.05% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 4 46
10th Percentile £41.94 £41.63 £37.50
25th Percentile £50.00 £42.19 £55.94
Median hourly rate £63.50 £47.50 £77.50
Median % change year-on-year +33.68% -38.71% +36.30%
75th Percentile £67.00 £61.25 £90.00
90th Percentile £67.60 £77.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £50.00 £77.50
% change year-on-year +25.00% -35.48% +36.30%

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 32,128 27,808 37,611
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.80% 88.68% 87.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,262 16,883 24,972
10th Percentile £304 £306 £304
25th Percentile £406 £413 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £650
90th Percentile £720 £743 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,977 884 1,589
10th Percentile £14.52 £15.62 £14.17
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.30 £18.16
Median hourly rate £25.15 £31.69 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year -20.64% -21.75% +15.71%
75th Percentile £56.00 £61.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.39 £74.66 £76.62
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £30.00 £43.75
% change year-on-year -20.58% -31.43% +51.38%

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 13 January 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 13 January 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 13 January 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 -2 1,453 £500 - 1,038
UK excluding London +1 770 £500 +4.22% 965
London -3 700 £500 -3.15% 196
Work from Home 0 494 £500 - 428
North of England +4 308 £500 +14.29% 204
Midlands +15 152 £500 +2.04% 113
Yorkshire -5 152 £513 +13.89% 91
South East -21 139 £500 -2.44% 302
West Midlands +15 116 £523 +3.73% 38
North West +5 112 £430 +7.50% 84
South West -11 70 £550 -3.51% 140
North East +20 46 £488 +34.48% 29
East of England -1 46 £570 +42.50% 124
Scotland -26 46 £500 +8.70% 44
East Midlands +3 36 £397 -14.27% 74
Wales -1 23 £513 -1.30% 40
Northern Ireland +5 12 £295 -43.13% 17

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 95 (5.69%) Confluence
2 55 (3.29%) SAS
3 22 (1.32%) Apache Spark
4 15 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.78%) SharePoint
6 11 (0.66%) Apache
7 6 (0.36%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 6 (0.36%) OpenStack
7 6 (0.36%) Oracle Application Server
8 5 (0.30%) CMS
9 4 (0.24%) Appian
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.18%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
10 3 (0.18%) nginx
10 3 (0.18%) WebLogic
11 2 (0.12%) Camunda
11 2 (0.12%) Magnolia
11 2 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
11 2 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 15 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (0.54%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.36%) Microsoft Office
5 3 (0.18%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.12%) Trello
7 1 (0.060%) Oracle Smart View
7 1 (0.060%) Simulink
7 1 (0.060%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.060%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 18 (1.08%) Aladdin
2 10 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.24%) SAP HR
4 3 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.18%) SAP BRIM
4 3 (0.18%) Workday HCM
5 2 (0.12%) Eagle PACE
5 2 (0.12%) Markit EDM
5 2 (0.12%) Maximo
5 2 (0.12%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.12%) Shopify
6 1 (0.060%) Adobe Campaign
6 1 (0.060%) CODA-Financials
6 1 (0.060%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.060%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.060%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.060%) PORTIA
6 1 (0.060%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.060%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 469 (28.08%) Azure
2 420 (25.15%) AWS
3 261 (15.63%) GitHub
4 192 (11.50%) Azure DevOps
5 161 (9.64%) GCP
6 137 (8.20%) GitHub Actions
7 123 (7.37%) Serverless
8 58 (3.47%) OpenShift
9 56 (3.35%) AWS Lambda
10 53 (3.17%) Power Platform
11 48 (2.87%) Amazon S3
12 46 (2.75%) Azure AKS
13 43 (2.57%) AWS CloudFormation
14 40 (2.40%) Amazon EKS
15 38 (2.28%) SaaS
16 35 (2.10%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 35 (2.10%) Snowflake
17 30 (1.80%) Azure Functions
17 30 (1.80%) Dynamics 365
17 30 (1.80%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 44 (2.63%) Firewall
2 35 (2.10%) Wireshark
3 30 (1.80%) HTTP
4 26 (1.56%) HTTPS
5 25 (1.50%) SSL
6 22 (1.32%) TCP/IP
7 19 (1.14%) VPN
8 16 (0.96%) Network Security
9 15 (0.90%) SD-WAN
10 12 (0.72%) Ethernet
11 10 (0.60%) FTP
11 10 (0.60%) WAN
12 9 (0.54%) DNS
13 8 (0.48%) VLAN
14 7 (0.42%) AMQP
14 7 (0.42%) Multicast
15 5 (0.30%) Cisco IPT
15 5 (0.30%) MPLS
16 4 (0.24%) DHCP
16 4 (0.24%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 108 (6.47%) PostgreSQL
2 86 (5.15%) NoSQL
3 82 (4.91%) MongoDB
4 70 (4.19%) Relational Database
5 63 (3.77%) SQL Server
6 34 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
7 29 (1.74%) Pentaho
8 25 (1.50%) BigQuery
9 24 (1.44%) DynamoDB
9 24 (1.44%) Power BI
10 20 (1.20%) Amazon RDS
10 20 (1.20%) Big Data
10 20 (1.20%) MySQL
10 20 (1.20%) Oracle Database
11 19 (1.14%) Redis
12 16 (0.96%) Data Lake
13 15 (0.90%) Apache Cassandra
13 15 (0.90%) SAS Enterprise Guide
14 13 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
14 13 (0.78%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 311 (18.62%) Jenkins
2 306 (18.32%) Git
3 295 (17.66%) JIRA
4 262 (15.69%) Selenium
5 245 (14.67%) GitLab
6 152 (9.10%) Cucumber
7 138 (8.26%) Postman
8 110 (6.59%) Cypress.io
9 86 (5.15%) JUnit
10 79 (4.73%) REST Assured
11 77 (4.61%) JMeter
12 41 (2.46%) Bitbucket
12 41 (2.46%) SonarQube
13 35 (2.10%) SpecFlow
14 33 (1.98%) Mockito
15 32 (1.92%) Gatling
15 32 (1.92%) TestRail
16 29 (1.74%) Maven
16 29 (1.74%) WebDriver
17 27 (1.62%) Gradle
General
1 442 (26.47%) Social Skills
2 283 (16.95%) Finance
3 243 (14.55%) Public Sector
4 179 (10.72%) Analytical Skills
5 120 (7.19%) Banking
6 33 (1.98%) Documentation Skills
7 30 (1.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 24 (1.44%) Investment Banking
8 24 (1.44%) Telecoms
9 23 (1.38%) Pharmaceutical
10 19 (1.14%) Front Office
10 19 (1.14%) Presentation Skills
11 16 (0.96%) Financial Institution
11 16 (0.96%) Manufacturing
12 14 (0.84%) Military
13 13 (0.78%) Marketing
14 11 (0.66%) Electronics
15 10 (0.60%) Aerospace
15 10 (0.60%) Influencing Skills
15 10 (0.60%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 374 (22.40%) Developer
2 283 (16.95%) Senior
3 194 (11.62%) Tester
4 182 (10.90%) Test Engineer
5 149 (8.92%) Lead
6 114 (6.83%) Automation Tester
7 105 (6.29%) Java Developer
8 83 (4.97%) Software Engineer
9 79 (4.73%) Test Automation Engineer
10 70 (4.19%) Data Engineer
10 70 (4.19%) Senior Developer
11 69 (4.13%) DevOps Engineer
12 68 (4.07%) QA Engineer
13 67 (4.01%) Analyst
14 52 (3.11%) Automation Engineer
15 51 (3.05%) Test Leader
16 50 (2.99%) Test Manager
17 47 (2.81%) Test Analyst
18 44 (2.63%) Full-Stack Developer
19 42 (2.51%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 230 (13.77%) REST
2 176 (10.54%) Playwright
3 140 (8.38%) React
4 137 (8.20%) .NET
5 131 (7.84%) Node.js
6 129 (7.72%) RESTful
7 122 (7.31%) Kafka
8 116 (6.95%) Spring
9 110 (6.59%) Spring Boot
10 73 (4.37%) pytest
11 68 (4.07%) JSON
12 63 (3.77%) HTML
13 60 (3.59%) AngularJS
14 58 (3.47%) XML
15 57 (3.41%) CSS
16 56 (3.35%) SOAP
17 50 (2.99%) Web Services
18 47 (2.81%) Jest
19 44 (2.63%) OAuth
20 38 (2.28%) JMS
Miscellaneous
1 168 (10.06%) Cloud Native
2 126 (7.54%) Product Ownership
3 54 (3.23%) Distributed Systems
4 45 (2.69%) Mobile App
5 41 (2.46%) Security Posture
6 33 (1.98%) Algorithms
7 31 (1.86%) Data Protection Act
8 28 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
8 28 (1.68%) Onboarding
9 23 (1.38%) Public Cloud
10 22 (1.32%) Data Structures
10 22 (1.32%) Enterprise Software
11 20 (1.20%) Management Information System
11 20 (1.20%) Virtual Team
12 19 (1.14%) Self-Motivation
13 18 (1.08%) Greenfield Project
14 17 (1.02%) NHS
15 16 (0.96%) Derivative
15 16 (0.96%) Genomics
15 16 (0.96%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 159 (9.52%) Linux
2 78 (4.67%) Windows
3 53 (3.17%) Unix
4 37 (2.22%) Android
5 33 (1.98%) Apple iOS
6 20 (1.20%) Mac OS X
6 20 (1.20%) Windows Server
7 11 (0.66%) Kali Linux
8 7 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.24%) CentOS
10 3 (0.18%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.18%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.12%) VMS
12 1 (0.060%) FreeRTOS
12 1 (0.060%) Robot Operating System
12 1 (0.060%) Solaris
12 1 (0.060%) Windows Embedded Compact
12 1 (0.060%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 846 (50.66%) CI/CD
2 822 (49.22%) Agile
3 642 (38.44%) DevOps
4 422 (25.27%) Problem-Solving
5 265 (15.87%) Microservices
6 253 (15.15%) Containerisation
7 251 (15.03%) Continuous Improvement
8 236 (14.13%) Test Strategy
9 232 (13.89%) Scrum
10 218 (13.05%) Infrastructure as Code
11 204 (12.22%) Test Scripting
12 203 (12.16%) TDD
13 199 (11.92%) Software Engineering
14 177 (10.60%) AI
15 173 (10.36%) Validation
16 162 (9.70%) SDLC
17 159 (9.52%) BDD
17 159 (9.52%) Software Testing
18 153 (9.16%) API Testing
19 150 (8.98%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 504 (30.18%) Python
2 398 (23.83%) Java
3 324 (19.40%) SQL
4 246 (14.73%) JavaScript
5 210 (12.57%) TypeScript
6 166 (9.94%) C#
7 89 (5.33%) Bash
8 70 (4.19%) PowerShell
9 37 (2.22%) C++
10 34 (2.04%) Go
11 23 (1.38%) Bicep
12 22 (1.32%) PL/SQL
13 21 (1.26%) Kotlin
14 18 (1.08%) Ruby
15 16 (0.96%) Scala
16 14 (0.84%) PHP
17 13 (0.78%) Groovy
17 13 (0.78%) Shell Script
18 12 (0.72%) Rust
18 12 (0.72%) Swift
Qualifications
1 446 (26.71%) Security Cleared
2 339 (20.30%) SC Cleared
3 97 (5.81%) Degree
4 71 (4.25%) ISTQB
5 56 (3.35%) Computer Science Degree
6 52 (3.11%) BPSS Clearance
7 50 (2.99%) DV Cleared
8 24 (1.44%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 24 (1.44%) Master's Degree
9 19 (1.14%) AWS Certification
9 19 (1.14%) OSCP
10 16 (0.96%) CISSP
10 16 (0.96%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 15 (0.90%) Cisco Certification
12 14 (0.84%) Azure Certification
12 14 (0.84%) CEH
12 14 (0.84%) MCP
13 13 (0.78%) GPEN
14 12 (0.72%) Oracle Certification
15 11 (0.66%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 365 (21.86%) QA
2 131 (7.84%) Accessibility
3 76 (4.55%) Data Quality
4 45 (2.69%) WCAG
5 40 (2.40%) GDPR
6 39 (2.34%) NIST
7 27 (1.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 20 (1.20%) NCSC
9 18 (1.08%) EU AI Act
10 15 (0.90%) PCI DSS
11 14 (0.84%) PSD2
12 13 (0.78%) ISO 20022
13 10 (0.60%) NIST 800
14 9 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 9 (0.54%) SEPA
15 7 (0.42%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 6 (0.36%) SLA
17 5 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
17 5 (0.30%) MiFID
17 5 (0.30%) PERC
System Software
1 370 (22.16%) Docker
2 32 (1.92%) Active Directory
3 5 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
4 4 (0.24%) Firmware
4 4 (0.24%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.18%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
5 3 (0.18%) ISA Server
5 3 (0.18%) QEMU
5 3 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
5 3 (0.18%) zsh
6 2 (0.12%) vSphere
7 1 (0.060%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.060%) HDFS
7 1 (0.060%) KVM
7 1 (0.060%) Squid
7 1 (0.060%) Time Sharing Option
7 1 (0.060%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 322 (19.28%) Kubernetes
2 207 (12.40%) Terraform
3 117 (7.01%) Ansible
4 85 (5.09%) Grafana
5 53 (3.17%) Prometheus
6 17 (1.02%) Nmap
6 17 (1.02%) Progress Chef
7 16 (0.96%) CSIRT
8 15 (0.90%) Argo
9 14 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
10 13 (0.78%) HP ALM
10 13 (0.78%) NetBackup
10 13 (0.78%) Puppet
11 7 (0.42%) Nessus
11 7 (0.42%) Podman
12 6 (0.36%) Kibana
13 5 (0.30%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 5 (0.30%) NetIQ Identity Manager
14 4 (0.24%) SCCM
14 4 (0.24%) vRealize
Vendors
1 157 (9.40%) Microsoft
2 151 (9.04%) Oracle
3 66 (3.95%) Splunk
4 58 (3.47%) Databricks
5 56 (3.35%) ServiceNow
6 55 (3.29%) SAP
7 50 (2.99%) Salesforce
8 41 (2.46%) Google
9 29 (1.74%) Denodo
9 29 (1.74%) Talend
10 27 (1.62%) VMware
11 26 (1.56%) Cisco
12 24 (1.44%) F5
12 24 (1.44%) Red Hat
13 21 (1.26%) webMethods
14 19 (1.14%) IBM
15 17 (1.02%) Atlassian
15 17 (1.02%) Dynatrace
15 17 (1.02%) MuleSoft
16 15 (0.90%) Workday