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

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 50 47
Rank change year-on-year +6 -3 +4
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,425 1,503 1,550
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.44% 4.63% 4.08%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.27% 5.11% 4.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,550 1,026 1,047
10th Percentile £322 £313 £350
25th Percentile £405 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £665 £688 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 111 39 18
10th Percentile £40.00 £31.71 £40.88
25th Percentile £57.63 £45.63 £43.75
Median hourly rate £70.00 £55.00 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +27.27% -4.35% -22.03%
75th Percentile £74.00 £67.00 £73.84
90th Percentile £77.50 £69.80 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.61 £57.50 £57.50
% change year-on-year +19.32% - -16.36%

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 46,027 29,389 32,594
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.35% 90.49% 85.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,906 18,237 19,938
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £626 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,152 1,808 1,420
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.24 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.69
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.09% -1.10%
75th Percentile £67.25 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.08 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +79.61% -48.10% +1.18%

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 22 September 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 22 September 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 22 September 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 +5 2,040 £475 -5.00% 3,263
UK excluding London -6 1,182 £450 -5.26% 1,951
London +8 923 £500 - 1,689
Work from Home -1 652 £476 +0.11% 1,394
North of England -3 410 £450 -5.26% 449
Midlands +9 257 £450 -2.70% 212
West Midlands +20 242 £458 -11.76% 144
South East -12 227 £450 -10.00% 422
Yorkshire -6 173 £460 -8.00% 125
North West -20 136 £492 +15.76% 263
South West -2 113 £456 -15.31% 268
North East +6 108 £425 -10.53% 62
Scotland -19 94 £475 -5.00% 279
East of England +9 89 £400 +16.79% 212
Wales -2 26 £475 +20.63% 38
East Midlands -43 15 £418 +15.97% 67
Northern Ireland +5 7 £513 +345.65% 80
Channel Islands - 3 £450 -

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
1 191 (7.88%) Confluence
2 64 (2.64%) Apache Airflow
3 46 (1.90%) Apache Spark
3 46 (1.90%) SharePoint
4 39 (1.61%) SAS
5 27 (1.11%) Apache
6 17 (0.70%) CMS
7 14 (0.58%) Camunda
8 12 (0.49%) WebLogic
9 7 (0.29%) Jupyter
9 7 (0.29%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
10 6 (0.25%) nginx
10 6 (0.25%) Tomcat
11 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.16%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.16%) ColdFusion
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
13 3 (0.12%) Kentico
Applications
1 23 (0.95%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (0.74%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.29%) Chatbot
4 6 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.16%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.12%) Trello
7 2 (0.082%) Mingle
7 2 (0.082%) Simulink
7 2 (0.082%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.041%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 30 (1.24%) Dynamics CRM
2 28 (1.15%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (0.54%) Payment Gateway
4 10 (0.41%) Aladdin
4 10 (0.41%) SAP MDG
5 7 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.29%) SAP GRC
6 6 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.25%) SAP ERP
7 4 (0.16%) FLEXCUBE
8 3 (0.12%) Finacle
8 3 (0.12%) Temenos T24
9 2 (0.082%) BambooHR
9 2 (0.082%) Distributed Ledger
9 2 (0.082%) Findur
9 2 (0.082%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.082%) SAP HR
9 2 (0.082%) SAP Payroll
9 2 (0.082%) Shopify
10 1 (0.041%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 764 (31.51%) AWS
2 722 (29.77%) Azure
3 417 (17.20%) GitHub
4 331 (13.65%) Azure DevOps
5 251 (10.35%) GitHub Actions
6 184 (7.59%) GCP
7 173 (7.13%) Serverless
8 129 (5.32%) AWS Lambda
9 115 (4.74%) Power Platform
10 98 (4.04%) Amazon S3
11 83 (3.42%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 81 (3.34%) OpenShift
13 78 (3.22%) GitHub Copilot
14 71 (2.93%) AWS CloudFormation
15 66 (2.72%) Amazon ECS
15 66 (2.72%) Amazon EKS
16 61 (2.52%) dbt
17 60 (2.47%) Snowflake
18 48 (1.98%) Anthropic Claude
19 47 (1.94%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 26 (1.07%) HTTP
2 24 (0.99%) DNS
2 24 (0.99%) Firewall
3 23 (0.95%) 4G
4 22 (0.91%) 5G
5 20 (0.82%) TCP/IP
6 19 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
7 16 (0.66%) Network Security
8 15 (0.62%) 2G
8 15 (0.62%) 3G
8 15 (0.62%) Diameter Protocol
8 15 (0.62%) SIGTRAN
8 15 (0.62%) SS7
9 14 (0.58%) Broadband
9 14 (0.58%) WAN
10 13 (0.54%) LAN
11 12 (0.49%) BGP
12 11 (0.45%) DHCP
12 11 (0.45%) Ethernet VPN
12 11 (0.45%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 146 (6.02%) PostgreSQL
2 126 (5.20%) MongoDB
3 124 (5.11%) Data Warehouse
4 115 (4.74%) Relational Database
5 107 (4.41%) NoSQL
6 96 (3.96%) SQL Server
7 84 (3.46%) Power BI
8 51 (2.10%) Metadata
9 42 (1.73%) DynamoDB
10 40 (1.65%) Data Lake
11 39 (1.61%) Oracle Reports
12 37 (1.53%) MySQL
13 35 (1.44%) Big Data
14 34 (1.40%) Pentaho
15 31 (1.28%) Amazon Redshift
15 31 (1.28%) Redis
16 30 (1.24%) Amazon Athena
17 28 (1.15%) Amazon RDS
17 28 (1.15%) Elasticsearch
18 27 (1.11%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 543 (22.39%) Git
2 399 (16.45%) Jenkins
2 399 (16.45%) JIRA
3 329 (13.57%) GitLab
4 307 (12.66%) Selenium
5 171 (7.05%) Postman
6 162 (6.68%) Cucumber
7 142 (5.86%) JUnit
8 124 (5.11%) Cypress.io
9 106 (4.37%) REST Assured
10 97 (4.00%) JMeter
11 89 (3.67%) SonarQube
12 68 (2.80%) Gatling
13 67 (2.76%) Maven
14 65 (2.68%) Zephyr
15 59 (2.43%) Gradle
15 59 (2.43%) Mockito
16 50 (2.06%) WebDriver
17 37 (1.53%) Bitbucket
18 29 (1.20%) SpecFlow
General
1 670 (27.63%) Social Skills
2 442 (18.23%) Finance
3 336 (13.86%) Public Sector
4 332 (13.69%) Analytical Skills
5 217 (8.95%) Banking
6 79 (3.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 53 (2.19%) Telecoms
8 42 (1.73%) Front Office
9 35 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
9 35 (1.44%) Investment Banking
10 33 (1.36%) Retail
11 32 (1.32%) Documentation Skills
11 32 (1.32%) Military
12 22 (0.91%) Financial Institution
13 21 (0.87%) Law
14 20 (0.82%) Marketing
15 19 (0.78%) Aerospace
15 19 (0.78%) Manufacturing
16 14 (0.58%) Automotive
16 14 (0.58%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 555 (22.89%) Developer
2 402 (16.58%) Senior
3 241 (9.94%) Lead
4 234 (9.65%) Test Engineer
5 194 (8.00%) Tester
6 182 (7.51%) Java Developer
7 151 (6.23%) Data Engineer
8 126 (5.20%) Software Engineer
9 122 (5.03%) Analyst
10 118 (4.87%) DevOps Engineer
10 118 (4.87%) Senior Developer
11 106 (4.37%) Architect
12 102 (4.21%) Test Automation Engineer
13 96 (3.96%) QA Engineer
14 84 (3.46%) Automation Tester
15 80 (3.30%) Test Analyst
16 79 (3.26%) Full-Stack Developer
17 76 (3.13%) Test Leader
18 74 (3.05%) Test Manager
19 71 (2.93%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 424 (17.48%) REST
2 353 (14.56%) Terraform
3 286 (11.79%) Playwright
4 251 (10.35%) RESTful
5 243 (10.02%) Spring
6 242 (9.98%) Kafka
7 225 (9.28%) React
8 210 (8.66%) Spring Boot
9 176 (7.26%) .NET
10 147 (6.06%) HTML
11 140 (5.77%) Node.js
12 127 (5.24%) CSS
13 107 (4.41%) AngularJS
14 91 (3.75%) OAuth
15 80 (3.30%) JSON
16 70 (2.89%) Middleware
17 68 (2.80%) pytest
18 63 (2.60%) OAuth2
19 60 (2.47%) XML
20 59 (2.43%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 382 (15.75%) Cloud Native
2 206 (8.49%) Product Ownership
3 173 (7.13%) Distributed Systems
4 99 (4.08%) Enterprise Software
5 74 (3.05%) Onboarding
6 65 (2.68%) AI Agents
7 61 (2.52%) Legacy Systems
8 58 (2.39%) Self-Motivation
9 55 (2.27%) Data Protection Act
10 47 (1.94%) Mobile App
11 37 (1.53%) Virtual Team
12 30 (1.24%) Security Posture
13 28 (1.15%) Data Structures
14 27 (1.11%) Management Information System
15 25 (1.03%) Data Centre
15 25 (1.03%) Legacy Applications
15 25 (1.03%) Private Cloud
16 22 (0.91%) Life Science
17 21 (0.87%) Embedded Systems
18 19 (0.78%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 177 (7.30%) Linux
2 103 (4.25%) Windows
3 101 (4.16%) Unix
4 44 (1.81%) Apple iOS
5 42 (1.73%) Android
6 31 (1.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 25 (1.03%) Windows Server
8 7 (0.29%) VMS
9 6 (0.25%) Mac OS X
9 6 (0.25%) Solaris
10 5 (0.21%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.21%) Windows 7
10 5 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
11 4 (0.16%) AIX
11 4 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
11 4 (0.16%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.16%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2008
12 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,484 (61.20%) CI/CD
2 1,181 (48.70%) Agile
3 896 (36.95%) DevOps
4 476 (19.63%) Microservices
5 473 (19.51%) Problem-Solving
6 467 (19.26%) Continuous Improvement
7 453 (18.68%) Software Engineering
8 433 (17.86%) Infrastructure as Code
9 412 (16.99%) Scrum
10 407 (16.78%) Validation
11 400 (16.49%) AI
12 365 (15.05%) Containerisation
13 362 (14.93%) Test Strategy
14 323 (13.32%) Observability
15 315 (12.99%) TDD
16 300 (12.37%) SDLC
17 289 (11.92%) Software Testing
18 277 (11.42%) Stakeholder Management
19 253 (10.43%) End-to-End Testing
20 241 (9.94%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 680 (28.04%) Java
2 679 (28.00%) Python
3 607 (25.03%) SQL
4 368 (15.18%) JavaScript
5 275 (11.34%) TypeScript
6 203 (8.37%) C#
7 99 (4.08%) PowerShell
8 89 (3.67%) Bash
9 51 (2.10%) Bicep
10 46 (1.90%) Kotlin
11 45 (1.86%) C++
12 44 (1.81%) Scala
13 42 (1.73%) Go
14 33 (1.36%) PL/SQL
15 32 (1.32%) Shell Script
16 26 (1.07%) Apex Code
17 25 (1.03%) Perl
18 23 (0.95%) C
19 19 (0.78%) Ruby
20 17 (0.70%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 785 (32.37%) Security Cleared
2 665 (27.42%) SC Cleared
3 137 (5.65%) Degree
4 130 (5.36%) BPSS Clearance
5 104 (4.29%) ISTQB
6 93 (3.84%) DV Cleared
7 78 (3.22%) Computer Science Degree
8 42 (1.73%) AWS Certification
9 35 (1.44%) Azure Certification
10 27 (1.11%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 16 (0.66%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 14 (0.58%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 14 (0.58%) Master's Degree
13 13 (0.54%) CISSP
14 12 (0.49%) Cisco Certification
14 12 (0.49%) ISEB
14 12 (0.49%) Microsoft Certification
15 9 (0.37%) DBS Check
16 8 (0.33%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
16 8 (0.33%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 628 (25.90%) QA
2 218 (8.99%) Accessibility
3 170 (7.01%) Data Quality
4 96 (3.96%) WCAG
5 43 (1.77%) GDPR
6 23 (0.95%) ISO 20022
7 16 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 15 (0.62%) GRC
8 15 (0.62%) NIST
9 13 (0.54%) NCSC
9 13 (0.54%) SLA
10 8 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
11 6 (0.25%) PCI DSS
11 6 (0.25%) SEPA
11 6 (0.25%) SOC 2
11 6 (0.25%) Software Quality Assurance
12 5 (0.21%) FATCA
12 5 (0.21%) HL7
13 4 (0.16%) HIPAA
13 4 (0.16%) MiFID
System Software
1 496 (20.45%) Docker
2 41 (1.69%) VMware Infrastructure
3 36 (1.48%) Active Directory
4 19 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
5 13 (0.54%) Firmware
6 11 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.29%) VMware NSX
8 6 (0.25%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.082%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.041%) Embedded Firmware
11 1 (0.041%) KVM
11 1 (0.041%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.041%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 482 (19.88%) Kubernetes
2 136 (5.61%) Ansible
3 131 (5.40%) Grafana
4 88 (3.63%) Prometheus
5 40 (1.65%) Argo
6 28 (1.15%) Kibana
7 23 (0.95%) Progress Chef
8 22 (0.91%) Puppet
9 15 (0.62%) HP ALM
10 14 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
11 13 (0.54%) Control-M
12 8 (0.33%) Microsoft Intune
13 7 (0.29%) Kustomize
14 6 (0.25%) Dell DRAC
14 6 (0.25%) Istio
14 6 (0.25%) SCCM
15 5 (0.21%) HP Fortify
15 5 (0.21%) Packer
15 5 (0.21%) WMI
16 4 (0.16%) Rancher
Vendors
1 232 (9.57%) Microsoft
2 197 (8.12%) Oracle
3 97 (4.00%) Databricks
4 78 (3.22%) Google
4 78 (3.22%) Salesforce
5 67 (2.76%) IBM
6 66 (2.72%) ServiceNow
7 59 (2.43%) Red Hat
7 59 (2.43%) Talend
8 58 (2.39%) Splunk
9 57 (2.35%) SAP
10 50 (2.06%) VMware
11 45 (1.86%) Denodo
12 44 (1.81%) Informatica
13 42 (1.73%) Dynatrace
14 34 (1.40%) Cisco
14 34 (1.40%) MuleSoft
15 31 (1.28%) UiPath
16 23 (0.95%) OpenAI
17 22 (0.91%) Foundry