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

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 46 54
Rank change year-on-year -1 +8 -8
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,925 1,382 1,604
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.51% 4.51% 3.57%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.22% 5.00% 4.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,310 943 1,106
10th Percentile £331 £325 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £476 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.85% -2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £575 £638 £625
90th Percentile £675 £738 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.56% -7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 7 62
10th Percentile £34.71 £38.81 £45.30
25th Percentile £51.25 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £64.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.54% -11.33% +9.40%
75th Percentile £68.75 £76.35 £88.13
90th Percentile £70.00 £81.31 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £67.75
% change year-on-year +14.54% -16.24% +18.86%

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 36,884 27,639 38,956
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.36% 90.19% 86.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,378 17,377 25,379
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £494 £500
% change year-on-year -2.58% -1.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,184 915 2,310
10th Percentile £14.72 £15.62 £13.16
25th Percentile £18.32 £21.03 £16.06
Median hourly rate £28.00 £32.81 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -14.66% +0.95% -7.14%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £58.64
90th Percentile £74.00 £75.95 £71.87
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.38 £32.25 £32.50
% change year-on-year -21.30% -0.77% -7.14%

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 7 March 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 7 March 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 7 March 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 1,654 £489 -2.25% 783
UK excluding London 0 883 £480 +1.05% 692
London +1 807 £500 -4.76% 242
Work from Home -3 561 £475 -5.19% 510
North of England +4 321 £488 +11.43% 156
Midlands +4 189 £477 +3.03% 77
South East -18 167 £500 -12.28% 196
West Midlands +11 156 £486 +0.54% 46
North West +7 140 £450 +0.56% 78
Yorkshire -12 137 £500 +5.26% 49
South West -5 83 £515 -6.36% 99
East of England +6 59 £570 +21.93% 94
North East +10 48 £488 +28.09% 29
Scotland -13 40 £440 -3.30% 61
East Midlands -24 33 £400 +8.11% 31
Wales +5 31 £475 +11.76% 20
Northern Ireland +13 20 £475 -2.56% 6

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
1 132 (6.86%) Confluence
2 63 (3.27%) SAS
3 34 (1.77%) Apache Spark
4 18 (0.94%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.68%) SharePoint
6 11 (0.57%) Apache
7 8 (0.42%) Appian
8 6 (0.31%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 6 (0.31%) nginx
8 6 (0.31%) WebLogic
9 5 (0.26%) CMS
9 5 (0.26%) Tomcat
10 4 (0.21%) Camunda
10 4 (0.21%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.21%) Oracle Application Server
11 3 (0.16%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.10%) Magnolia
12 2 (0.10%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.10%) WordPress
Applications
1 29 (1.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.62%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (0.62%) MS Visio
4 11 (0.57%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.16%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.052%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 22 (1.14%) Aladdin
2 8 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.31%) Loan IQ
4 5 (0.26%) Maximo
4 5 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.26%) Workday HCM
5 4 (0.21%) SAP HR
5 4 (0.21%) Shopify
6 3 (0.16%) BambooHR
6 3 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
6 3 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
7 2 (0.10%) Advent Geneva
7 2 (0.10%) Infor CloudSuite
7 2 (0.10%) Infor LN
7 2 (0.10%) Infor M3
7 2 (0.10%) iTrent
7 2 (0.10%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.10%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.10%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 562 (29.19%) Azure
2 491 (25.51%) AWS
3 337 (17.51%) GitHub
4 248 (12.88%) Azure DevOps
5 194 (10.08%) GCP
6 185 (9.61%) GitHub Actions
7 132 (6.86%) Serverless
8 83 (4.31%) Power Platform
9 74 (3.84%) OpenShift
10 62 (3.22%) AWS Lambda
11 60 (3.12%) Amazon S3
12 48 (2.49%) Azure AKS
13 46 (2.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 45 (2.34%) AWS CloudFormation
15 43 (2.23%) Snowflake
16 35 (1.82%) Amazon EKS
16 35 (1.82%) Azure Data Factory
17 34 (1.77%) Dynamics 365
18 33 (1.71%) Amazon ECS
18 33 (1.71%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 34 (1.77%) Firewall
2 26 (1.35%) HTTP
3 21 (1.09%) Wireshark
4 20 (1.04%) TCP/IP
4 20 (1.04%) VPN
5 17 (0.88%) SSL
6 13 (0.68%) HTTPS
6 13 (0.68%) SD-WAN
7 12 (0.62%) Network Security
7 12 (0.62%) WAN
8 11 (0.57%) DNS
9 10 (0.52%) FTP
10 9 (0.47%) Ethernet
10 9 (0.47%) MPLS
11 8 (0.42%) Multicast
11 8 (0.42%) SAN
11 8 (0.42%) VLAN
12 7 (0.36%) AMQP
13 5 (0.26%) BGP
13 5 (0.26%) Cisco IPT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (5.92%) PostgreSQL
2 91 (4.73%) NoSQL
3 79 (4.10%) MongoDB
4 76 (3.95%) SQL Server
5 62 (3.22%) Relational Database
6 53 (2.75%) Data Warehouse
7 49 (2.55%) Power BI
8 34 (1.77%) Pentaho
9 31 (1.61%) BigQuery
10 30 (1.56%) DynamoDB
11 28 (1.45%) MySQL
12 27 (1.40%) Oracle Database
13 23 (1.19%) Tableau
14 20 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
14 20 (1.04%) Big Data
15 19 (0.99%) Amazon RDS
15 19 (0.99%) Redis
16 18 (0.94%) Oracle Reports
17 17 (0.88%) Data Lake
17 17 (0.88%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 371 (19.27%) JIRA
2 364 (18.91%) Git
3 360 (18.70%) Jenkins
4 295 (15.32%) GitLab
5 289 (15.01%) Selenium
6 178 (9.25%) Cucumber
7 168 (8.73%) Postman
8 119 (6.18%) Cypress.io
9 112 (5.82%) JUnit
10 101 (5.25%) JMeter
10 101 (5.25%) REST Assured
11 48 (2.49%) WebDriver
12 42 (2.18%) SpecFlow
13 39 (2.03%) Gatling
13 39 (2.03%) SonarQube
13 39 (2.03%) Zephyr
14 36 (1.87%) Maven
15 33 (1.71%) TestRail
16 32 (1.66%) Gradle
17 31 (1.61%) Mockito
General
1 504 (26.18%) Social Skills
2 308 (16.00%) Finance
3 272 (14.13%) Public Sector
4 202 (10.49%) Analytical Skills
5 148 (7.69%) Banking
6 31 (1.61%) Documentation Skills
7 28 (1.45%) Investment Banking
8 26 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 23 (1.19%) Front Office
10 22 (1.14%) Pharmaceutical
11 21 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
11 21 (1.09%) Telecoms
12 18 (0.94%) Military
13 17 (0.88%) Organisational Skills
14 16 (0.83%) Influencing Skills
15 14 (0.73%) Aerospace
15 14 (0.73%) Legal
16 13 (0.68%) Financial Institution
17 10 (0.52%) Electronics
18 9 (0.47%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 399 (20.73%) Developer
2 316 (16.42%) Senior
3 230 (11.95%) Tester
4 221 (11.48%) Lead
5 214 (11.12%) Test Engineer
6 118 (6.13%) Automation Tester
7 101 (5.25%) Data Engineer
8 99 (5.14%) Java Developer
9 91 (4.73%) Analyst
10 87 (4.52%) Test Automation Engineer
11 83 (4.31%) Software Engineer
12 78 (4.05%) Test Leader
13 73 (3.79%) QA Engineer
14 72 (3.74%) DevOps Engineer
15 69 (3.58%) Senior Developer
16 65 (3.38%) Test Manager
17 63 (3.27%) Architect
18 58 (3.01%) Test Analyst
19 53 (2.75%) Automation Engineer
20 48 (2.49%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 243 (12.62%) Playwright
1 243 (12.62%) REST
2 171 (8.88%) React
3 153 (7.95%) RESTful
4 150 (7.79%) .NET
5 149 (7.74%) Node.js
6 143 (7.43%) Spring
7 126 (6.55%) Kafka
8 118 (6.13%) Spring Boot
9 92 (4.78%) pytest
10 68 (3.53%) HTML
11 64 (3.32%) AngularJS
12 58 (3.01%) CSS
13 57 (2.96%) Jest
13 57 (2.96%) OAuth
14 52 (2.70%) Web Services
15 49 (2.55%) JSON
16 45 (2.34%) GraphQL
17 40 (2.08%) OpenID
18 39 (2.03%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 213 (11.06%) Cloud Native
2 128 (6.65%) Product Ownership
3 77 (4.00%) Distributed Systems
4 47 (2.44%) Mobile App
5 46 (2.39%) Legacy Systems
6 42 (2.18%) Algorithms
6 42 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
7 38 (1.97%) Security Posture
8 35 (1.82%) Onboarding
9 30 (1.56%) Virtual Team
10 26 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
11 25 (1.30%) Data Structures
11 25 (1.30%) NHS
11 25 (1.30%) Self-Motivation
12 22 (1.14%) Equities
13 21 (1.09%) Data Centre
13 21 (1.09%) Greenfield Project
13 21 (1.09%) Management Information System
14 20 (1.04%) Derivative
14 20 (1.04%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 152 (7.90%) Linux
2 92 (4.78%) Windows
3 45 (2.34%) Android
4 42 (2.18%) Unix
5 40 (2.08%) Apple iOS
6 23 (1.19%) Windows Server
7 16 (0.83%) Mac OS X
8 15 (0.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 11 (0.57%) Kali Linux
10 9 (0.47%) Mac OS
11 6 (0.31%) CentOS
12 5 (0.26%) Solaris
12 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
12 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.10%) VMS
13 2 (0.10%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.052%) Embedded Linux
14 1 (0.052%) Windows Embedded Compact
14 1 (0.052%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,028 (53.40%) CI/CD
2 920 (47.79%) Agile
3 724 (37.61%) DevOps
4 453 (23.53%) Problem-Solving
5 317 (16.47%) Continuous Improvement
6 305 (15.84%) Test Strategy
7 301 (15.64%) Microservices
8 280 (14.55%) Containerisation
9 272 (14.13%) Scrum
10 244 (12.68%) Validation
11 243 (12.62%) AI
11 243 (12.62%) Infrastructure as Code
12 232 (12.05%) Test Scripting
13 224 (11.64%) Software Engineering
14 216 (11.22%) Analytics
14 216 (11.22%) TDD
15 203 (10.55%) Observability
16 192 (9.97%) Software Testing
17 191 (9.92%) API Testing
18 187 (9.71%) Regression Testing
Programming Languages
1 599 (31.12%) Python
2 460 (23.90%) Java
3 397 (20.62%) SQL
4 295 (15.32%) JavaScript
5 277 (14.39%) TypeScript
6 189 (9.82%) C#
7 85 (4.42%) Bash
8 78 (4.05%) PowerShell
9 48 (2.49%) C++
10 34 (1.77%) Go
11 28 (1.45%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.30%) Bicep
12 25 (1.30%) C
13 24 (1.25%) Kotlin
14 22 (1.14%) Ruby
14 22 (1.14%) Scala
15 19 (0.99%) Apex Code
16 16 (0.83%) Swift
17 15 (0.78%) Shell Script
18 13 (0.68%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 549 (28.52%) Security Cleared
2 424 (22.03%) SC Cleared
3 109 (5.66%) Degree
4 89 (4.62%) ISTQB
5 71 (3.69%) BPSS Clearance
6 61 (3.17%) Computer Science Degree
7 59 (3.06%) DV Cleared
8 32 (1.66%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 28 (1.45%) Master's Degree
10 18 (0.94%) OSCP
11 16 (0.83%) AWS Certification
12 15 (0.78%) Azure Certification
12 15 (0.78%) Cisco Certification
13 13 (0.68%) CISSP
13 13 (0.68%) GPEN
13 13 (0.68%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 13 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
13 13 (0.68%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 12 (0.62%) CEH
15 11 (0.57%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 431 (22.39%) QA
2 154 (8.00%) Accessibility
3 109 (5.66%) Data Quality
4 49 (2.55%) WCAG
5 38 (1.97%) GDPR
6 35 (1.82%) NIST
7 22 (1.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 18 (0.94%) EU AI Act
9 17 (0.88%) NCSC
10 15 (0.78%) SLA
11 11 (0.57%) ISO 20022
11 11 (0.57%) PCI DSS
12 9 (0.47%) NIST 800
12 9 (0.47%) PSD2
13 8 (0.42%) Def Stans
13 8 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 7 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 7 (0.36%) SEPA
14 7 (0.36%) SOC 2
15 6 (0.31%) HIPAA
System Software
1 407 (21.14%) Docker
2 35 (1.82%) Active Directory
3 10 (0.52%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
5 8 (0.42%) Firmware
6 7 (0.36%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
7 5 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
9 3 (0.16%) ISA Server
9 3 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.10%) SRDF
11 1 (0.052%) Embedded Firmware
11 1 (0.052%) HDFS
11 1 (0.052%) KVM
11 1 (0.052%) QEMU
11 1 (0.052%) Squid
11 1 (0.052%) Time Sharing Option
11 1 (0.052%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.052%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 375 (19.48%) Kubernetes
2 224 (11.64%) Terraform
3 113 (5.87%) Ansible
4 111 (5.77%) Grafana
5 79 (4.10%) Prometheus
6 24 (1.25%) HP ALM
7 20 (1.04%) Argo
7 20 (1.04%) Puppet
8 18 (0.94%) Nmap
9 17 (0.88%) Progress Chef
10 15 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
11 13 (0.68%) NetBackup
12 10 (0.52%) HP Quality Center
13 7 (0.36%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 7 (0.36%) Kibana
13 7 (0.36%) Nessus
13 7 (0.36%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 7 (0.36%) Podman
14 6 (0.31%) CSIRT
15 4 (0.21%) Rancher
Vendors
1 172 (8.94%) Microsoft
2 157 (8.16%) Oracle
3 75 (3.90%) Databricks
4 69 (3.58%) ServiceNow
5 66 (3.43%) Google
6 65 (3.38%) Splunk
7 61 (3.17%) Salesforce
8 47 (2.44%) SAP
9 38 (1.97%) Talend
10 36 (1.87%) Red Hat
11 30 (1.56%) Denodo
12 29 (1.51%) VMware
13 26 (1.35%) HP
14 24 (1.25%) Cisco
14 24 (1.25%) IBM
15 19 (0.99%) Workday
16 16 (0.83%) Atlassian
17 15 (0.78%) Dynatrace
17 15 (0.78%) MuleSoft
17 15 (0.78%) OpenAI