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

 6 months to
22 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 44 52
Rank change year-on-year -4 +8 -12
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,762 1,400 1,643
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.66% 4.42% 3.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.32% 4.96% 4.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,209 939 1,186
10th Percentile £350 £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 £612 £625
90th Percentile £688 £725 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 6 54
10th Percentile £41.94 £41.88 £37.51
25th Percentile £50.00 £43.75 £52.50
Median hourly rate £63.50 £62.00 £75.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.42% -17.33% +25.00%
75th Percentile £67.00 £76.77 £90.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £82.35 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £74.00 £77.50
% change year-on-year -15.54% -4.52% +29.17%

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 33,128 28,199 37,720
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.64% 88.95% 87.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,004 17,123 24,892
10th Percentile £305 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £645
90th Percentile £720 £743 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,016 901 1,818
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £17.08
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -13.33% +17.19%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £69.65 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.00 £30.78 £40.00
% change year-on-year -22.03% -23.05% +53.85%

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 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 22 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 22 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 0 1,536 £500 - 1,040
UK excluding London -2 818 £500 +5.26% 983
London -2 733 £500 -2.20% 195
Work from Home +3 528 £500 - 476
North of England +3 317 £496 +13.37% 184
South East -21 161 £500 - 303
Midlands +14 158 £509 +4.14% 117
Yorkshire -13 154 £519 +15.28% 77
West Midlands +15 125 £525 +5.00% 47
North West +2 117 £430 +6.30% 80
South West +6 76 £540 -1.82% 133
East of England +3 52 £593 +48.13% 155
North East +14 48 £488 +34.48% 27
Scotland -22 46 £500 +6.55% 48
East Midlands -2 33 £393 -14.33% 69
Wales -5 21 £509 -2.12% 50
Northern Ireland +6 14 £295 -43.13% 19

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
1 102 (5.79%) Confluence
2 59 (3.35%) SAS
3 21 (1.19%) Apache Spark
4 16 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.74%) SharePoint
6 11 (0.62%) Apache
7 6 (0.34%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 6 (0.34%) OpenStack
7 6 (0.34%) Oracle Application Server
8 5 (0.28%) Appian
8 5 (0.28%) CMS
9 4 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.17%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.17%) Camunda
10 3 (0.17%) Microsoft Exchange
10 3 (0.17%) nginx
10 3 (0.17%) WebLogic
11 2 (0.11%) Magnolia
11 2 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
11 2 (0.11%) WordPress
Applications
1 22 (1.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.57%) MS Visio
4 8 (0.45%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.17%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.11%) Trello
8 1 (0.057%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.057%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 18 (1.02%) Aladdin
2 9 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.28%) Workday HCM
4 4 (0.23%) Maximo
4 4 (0.23%) SAP HR
5 3 (0.17%) Loan IQ
5 3 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
5 3 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
6 2 (0.11%) Eagle PACE
6 2 (0.11%) iTrent
6 2 (0.11%) Markit EDM
6 2 (0.11%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.11%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
6 2 (0.11%) Shopify
7 1 (0.057%) CODA-Financials
7 1 (0.057%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.057%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.057%) PORTIA
7 1 (0.057%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 504 (28.60%) Azure
2 440 (24.97%) AWS
3 272 (15.44%) GitHub
4 208 (11.80%) Azure DevOps
5 175 (9.93%) GCP
6 144 (8.17%) GitHub Actions
7 127 (7.21%) Serverless
8 63 (3.58%) Power Platform
9 60 (3.41%) OpenShift
10 57 (3.23%) AWS Lambda
11 47 (2.67%) Amazon S3
12 46 (2.61%) Azure AKS
13 44 (2.50%) AWS CloudFormation
14 40 (2.27%) SaaS
15 39 (2.21%) Amazon EKS
16 38 (2.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 35 (1.99%) Snowflake
18 33 (1.87%) Entra ID
18 33 (1.87%) Tricentis Tosca
19 32 (1.82%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 42 (2.38%) Firewall
2 33 (1.87%) Wireshark
3 29 (1.65%) HTTP
4 26 (1.48%) HTTPS
5 25 (1.42%) SSL
6 21 (1.19%) TCP/IP
7 19 (1.08%) VPN
8 17 (0.96%) Network Security
9 14 (0.79%) SD-WAN
10 11 (0.62%) WAN
11 10 (0.57%) Ethernet
11 10 (0.57%) FTP
12 9 (0.51%) DNS
13 8 (0.45%) MPLS
13 8 (0.45%) VLAN
14 7 (0.40%) AMQP
14 7 (0.40%) Multicast
15 5 (0.28%) Cisco IPT
16 4 (0.23%) DHCP
16 4 (0.23%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 100 (5.68%) PostgreSQL
2 83 (4.71%) NoSQL
3 81 (4.60%) MongoDB
4 64 (3.63%) Relational Database
4 64 (3.63%) SQL Server
5 33 (1.87%) Data Warehouse
5 33 (1.87%) Power BI
6 32 (1.82%) Pentaho
7 26 (1.48%) BigQuery
8 24 (1.36%) DynamoDB
9 21 (1.19%) MySQL
10 20 (1.14%) Big Data
10 20 (1.14%) Oracle Database
11 18 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
12 17 (0.96%) Redis
13 15 (0.85%) Apache Cassandra
13 15 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
13 15 (0.85%) Data Lake
13 15 (0.85%) SAS Enterprise Guide
13 15 (0.85%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 327 (18.56%) Jenkins
2 320 (18.16%) JIRA
3 310 (17.59%) Git
4 271 (15.38%) Selenium
5 263 (14.93%) GitLab
6 155 (8.80%) Cucumber
7 150 (8.51%) Postman
8 111 (6.30%) Cypress.io
9 95 (5.39%) JUnit
10 86 (4.88%) REST Assured
11 81 (4.60%) JMeter
12 40 (2.27%) SonarQube
13 38 (2.16%) Bitbucket
14 37 (2.10%) Mockito
15 36 (2.04%) SpecFlow
16 35 (1.99%) Gatling
17 34 (1.93%) Maven
17 34 (1.93%) WebDriver
18 33 (1.87%) TestRail
19 32 (1.82%) Gradle
General
1 467 (26.50%) Social Skills
2 293 (16.63%) Finance
3 248 (14.07%) Public Sector
4 199 (11.29%) Analytical Skills
5 126 (7.15%) Banking
6 35 (1.99%) Documentation Skills
7 32 (1.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 26 (1.48%) Investment Banking
9 23 (1.31%) Pharmaceutical
9 23 (1.31%) Telecoms
10 20 (1.14%) Front Office
11 19 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
12 16 (0.91%) Financial Institution
13 14 (0.79%) Manufacturing
13 14 (0.79%) Military
14 12 (0.68%) Aerospace
14 12 (0.68%) Marketing
15 11 (0.62%) Electronics
15 11 (0.62%) Organisational Skills
16 10 (0.57%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 402 (22.81%) Developer
2 286 (16.23%) Senior
3 207 (11.75%) Tester
4 188 (10.67%) Test Engineer
5 163 (9.25%) Lead
6 114 (6.47%) Automation Tester
7 112 (6.36%) Java Developer
8 83 (4.71%) Software Engineer
9 81 (4.60%) Test Automation Engineer
10 75 (4.26%) Analyst
11 73 (4.14%) Data Engineer
12 72 (4.09%) DevOps Engineer
13 70 (3.97%) QA Engineer
13 70 (3.97%) Senior Developer
14 59 (3.35%) Test Manager
15 56 (3.18%) Test Leader
16 55 (3.12%) Automation Engineer
17 48 (2.72%) Test Analyst
18 47 (2.67%) Full-Stack Developer
19 44 (2.50%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 245 (13.90%) REST
2 197 (11.18%) Playwright
3 147 (8.34%) React
4 140 (7.95%) Node.js
5 138 (7.83%) RESTful
6 134 (7.60%) .NET
7 127 (7.21%) Spring
8 122 (6.92%) Kafka
9 116 (6.58%) Spring Boot
10 76 (4.31%) pytest
11 67 (3.80%) JSON
12 62 (3.52%) AngularJS
13 60 (3.41%) HTML
14 59 (3.35%) SOAP
15 58 (3.29%) XML
16 52 (2.95%) OAuth
16 52 (2.95%) Web Services
17 51 (2.89%) CSS
18 48 (2.72%) Jest
19 40 (2.27%) JMS
Miscellaneous
1 181 (10.27%) Cloud Native
2 133 (7.55%) Product Ownership
3 62 (3.52%) Distributed Systems
4 49 (2.78%) Mobile App
5 44 (2.50%) Security Posture
6 35 (1.99%) Algorithms
7 33 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
8 30 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
9 29 (1.65%) Virtual Team
10 28 (1.59%) Onboarding
11 24 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
11 24 (1.36%) Public Cloud
12 21 (1.19%) Data Structures
13 20 (1.14%) Management Information System
14 19 (1.08%) Self-Motivation
15 18 (1.02%) Greenfield Project
15 18 (1.02%) NHS
16 16 (0.91%) Data Centre
16 16 (0.91%) Derivative
16 16 (0.91%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 161 (9.14%) Linux
2 81 (4.60%) Windows
3 53 (3.01%) Unix
4 40 (2.27%) Android
5 36 (2.04%) Apple iOS
6 20 (1.14%) Mac OS X
6 20 (1.14%) Windows Server
7 12 (0.68%) Kali Linux
8 6 (0.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.23%) CentOS
10 3 (0.17%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.11%) VMS
11 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.057%) FreeRTOS
12 1 (0.057%) Robot Operating System
12 1 (0.057%) Solaris
12 1 (0.057%) Windows Embedded Compact
12 1 (0.057%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 901 (51.14%) CI/CD
2 856 (48.58%) Agile
3 678 (38.48%) DevOps
4 442 (25.09%) Problem-Solving
5 275 (15.61%) Microservices
6 270 (15.32%) Containerisation
6 270 (15.32%) Continuous Improvement
7 251 (14.25%) Test Strategy
8 240 (13.62%) Scrum
9 222 (12.60%) Infrastructure as Code
10 217 (12.32%) Test Scripting
11 207 (11.75%) Software Engineering
12 201 (11.41%) TDD
13 191 (10.84%) Validation
14 190 (10.78%) AI
15 177 (10.05%) Software Testing
16 171 (9.70%) SDLC
17 166 (9.42%) API Testing
18 164 (9.31%) Regression Testing
19 163 (9.25%) BDD
Programming Languages
1 528 (29.97%) Python
2 430 (24.40%) Java
3 338 (19.18%) SQL
4 261 (14.81%) JavaScript
5 232 (13.17%) TypeScript
6 174 (9.88%) C#
7 87 (4.94%) Bash
8 71 (4.03%) PowerShell
9 41 (2.33%) C++
10 36 (2.04%) Go
11 24 (1.36%) Bicep
12 23 (1.31%) Scala
13 22 (1.25%) PL/SQL
14 21 (1.19%) Kotlin
15 18 (1.02%) Ruby
16 14 (0.79%) Apex Code
17 13 (0.74%) Groovy
17 13 (0.74%) PHP
17 13 (0.74%) Swift
18 12 (0.68%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 483 (27.41%) Security Cleared
2 367 (20.83%) SC Cleared
3 100 (5.68%) Degree
4 76 (4.31%) ISTQB
5 60 (3.41%) BPSS Clearance
6 58 (3.29%) Computer Science Degree
7 56 (3.18%) DV Cleared
8 27 (1.53%) Master's Degree
9 26 (1.48%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 20 (1.14%) AWS Certification
11 19 (1.08%) OSCP
12 16 (0.91%) CISSP
12 16 (0.91%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 14 (0.79%) Azure Certification
13 14 (0.79%) CEH
13 14 (0.79%) Cisco Certification
13 14 (0.79%) MCP
14 13 (0.74%) GPEN
15 12 (0.68%) Oracle Certification
16 11 (0.62%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 375 (21.28%) QA
2 129 (7.32%) Accessibility
3 84 (4.77%) Data Quality
4 42 (2.38%) WCAG
5 41 (2.33%) GDPR
6 39 (2.21%) NIST
7 28 (1.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 19 (1.08%) NCSC
9 18 (1.02%) EU AI Act
10 16 (0.91%) PSD2
11 15 (0.85%) ISO 20022
11 15 (0.85%) PCI DSS
12 11 (0.62%) SEPA
13 10 (0.57%) NIST 800
14 9 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 9 (0.51%) SLA
15 7 (0.40%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 7 (0.40%) SOC 2
16 6 (0.34%) HIPAA
17 5 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 390 (22.13%) Docker
2 33 (1.87%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.40%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
4 5 (0.28%) Firmware
4 5 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
5 4 (0.23%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (0.17%) ISA Server
6 3 (0.17%) QEMU
6 3 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
7 2 (0.11%) vSphere
7 2 (0.11%) zsh
8 1 (0.057%) Embedded Firmware
8 1 (0.057%) HDFS
8 1 (0.057%) KVM
8 1 (0.057%) Squid
8 1 (0.057%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.057%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 341 (19.35%) Kubernetes
2 211 (11.98%) Terraform
3 114 (6.47%) Ansible
4 84 (4.77%) Grafana
5 53 (3.01%) Prometheus
6 18 (1.02%) Nmap
6 18 (1.02%) Progress Chef
7 17 (0.96%) HP ALM
8 16 (0.91%) CSIRT
9 15 (0.85%) Argo
10 14 (0.79%) Puppet
10 14 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
11 13 (0.74%) NetBackup
12 8 (0.45%) Nessus
13 7 (0.40%) Podman
14 6 (0.34%) HP Quality Center
14 6 (0.34%) Kibana
15 5 (0.28%) Forefront Identity Manager
15 5 (0.28%) NetIQ Identity Manager
16 4 (0.23%) Rancher
Vendors
1 168 (9.53%) Microsoft
2 151 (8.57%) Oracle
3 70 (3.97%) Splunk
4 62 (3.52%) ServiceNow
5 59 (3.35%) SAP
6 58 (3.29%) Databricks
6 58 (3.29%) Salesforce
7 50 (2.84%) Google
8 32 (1.82%) Denodo
8 32 (1.82%) Talend
9 26 (1.48%) VMware
10 25 (1.42%) Red Hat
11 23 (1.31%) F5
12 22 (1.25%) Cisco
13 21 (1.19%) webMethods
14 19 (1.08%) IBM
15 18 (1.02%) MuleSoft
16 17 (0.96%) HP
16 17 (0.96%) OpenAI
16 17 (0.96%) Workday
1,180 Test Automation jobs Nationwide