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

 6 months to
24 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 44 52
Rank change year-on-year -3 +8 -11
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,768 1,393 1,679
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.65% 4.41% 3.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.32% 4.95% 4.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,209 935 1,210
10th Percentile £350 £325 £363
25th Percentile £401 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -7.08%
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 39 5 55
10th Percentile £18.67 £41.75 £37.50
25th Percentile £43.22 £42.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £60.00 £74.00 £75.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.92% -1.33% +25.00%
75th Percentile £67.00 £77.19 £90.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £83.38 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £75.60 £76.25
% change year-on-year -20.63% -0.86% +30.34%

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 33,264 28,130 38,528
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.54% 88.98% 87.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,071 17,089 25,387
10th Percentile £305 £306 £300
25th Percentile £408 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £644
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,016 886 1,898
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.91
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.96 £17.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £36.42
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -10.76% +16.69%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £69.82 £74.93 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.00 £30.41 £37.50
% change year-on-year -21.08% -18.91% +44.23%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 -3 1,539 £500 - 1,064
UK excluding London +4 829 £500 +5.26% 1,014
London 0 729 £500 -3.38% 192
Work from Home +3 531 £500 - 491
North of England +3 325 £500 +14.29% 188
South East -16 161 £500 - 306
Midlands +18 159 £509 +5.43% 122
Yorkshire -11 157 £520 +15.56% 78
West Midlands +11 126 £525 +5.53% 49
North West +2 122 £445 +11.25% 83
South West +6 77 £540 -1.82% 150
East of England +7 51 £593 +48.13% 163
North East +13 48 £488 +34.48% 27
Scotland -27 47 £500 +6.55% 46
East Midlands -6 33 £393 -14.33% 70
Wales -6 21 £509 -2.12% 50
Northern Ireland +8 15 £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
1 101 (5.71%) Confluence
2 59 (3.34%) SAS
3 21 (1.19%) Apache Spark
4 16 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.74%) SharePoint
6 12 (0.68%) 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
8 5 (0.28%) nginx
9 4 (0.23%) Camunda
9 4 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
9 4 (0.23%) WebLogic
10 3 (0.17%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.17%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
11 2 (0.11%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.11%) WordPress
Applications
1 21 (1.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.57%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.40%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.17%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.057%) Oracle Smart View
7 1 (0.057%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.057%) Trello
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 (28.51%) Azure
2 438 (24.77%) AWS
3 273 (15.44%) GitHub
4 208 (11.76%) Azure DevOps
5 178 (10.07%) GCP
6 145 (8.20%) GitHub Actions
7 125 (7.07%) Serverless
8 63 (3.56%) Power Platform
9 60 (3.39%) OpenShift
10 55 (3.11%) AWS Lambda
11 47 (2.66%) Amazon S3
12 45 (2.55%) Azure AKS
13 44 (2.49%) AWS CloudFormation
14 41 (2.32%) SaaS
15 38 (2.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 38 (2.15%) Amazon EKS
16 35 (1.98%) Snowflake
17 33 (1.87%) Entra ID
17 33 (1.87%) Tricentis Tosca
18 32 (1.81%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 42 (2.38%) Firewall
2 33 (1.87%) Wireshark
3 31 (1.75%) HTTP
4 26 (1.47%) HTTPS
5 25 (1.41%) SSL
6 21 (1.19%) TCP/IP
7 19 (1.07%) 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 98 (5.54%) PostgreSQL
2 84 (4.75%) NoSQL
3 80 (4.52%) MongoDB
4 63 (3.56%) Relational Database
4 63 (3.56%) SQL Server
5 32 (1.81%) Data Warehouse
5 32 (1.81%) Pentaho
5 32 (1.81%) Power BI
6 26 (1.47%) BigQuery
7 23 (1.30%) DynamoDB
7 23 (1.30%) MySQL
8 20 (1.13%) Oracle Database
9 18 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
9 18 (1.02%) Big Data
10 17 (0.96%) Redis
11 15 (0.85%) Apache Cassandra
11 15 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
11 15 (0.85%) Data Lake
11 15 (0.85%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 15 (0.85%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 324 (18.33%) Jenkins
2 319 (18.04%) JIRA
3 314 (17.76%) Git
4 273 (15.44%) Selenium
5 268 (15.16%) GitLab
6 156 (8.82%) Cucumber
7 152 (8.60%) Postman
8 112 (6.33%) Cypress.io
9 96 (5.43%) JUnit
10 85 (4.81%) REST Assured
11 83 (4.69%) JMeter
12 40 (2.26%) SonarQube
13 38 (2.15%) Bitbucket
14 37 (2.09%) Mockito
15 36 (2.04%) WebDriver
16 35 (1.98%) SpecFlow
17 34 (1.92%) Gatling
17 34 (1.92%) TestRail
18 33 (1.87%) Maven
19 32 (1.81%) Gradle
General
1 457 (25.85%) Social Skills
2 290 (16.40%) Finance
3 253 (14.31%) Public Sector
4 197 (11.14%) Analytical Skills
5 125 (7.07%) Banking
6 35 (1.98%) Documentation Skills
7 32 (1.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 26 (1.47%) Investment Banking
9 24 (1.36%) Telecoms
10 23 (1.30%) Pharmaceutical
11 20 (1.13%) Front Office
12 19 (1.07%) Presentation Skills
13 16 (0.90%) Financial Institution
14 14 (0.79%) Manufacturing
14 14 (0.79%) Military
15 12 (0.68%) Marketing
16 11 (0.62%) Aerospace
16 11 (0.62%) Electronics
17 10 (0.57%) Influencing Skills
17 10 (0.57%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 408 (23.08%) Developer
2 288 (16.29%) Senior
3 208 (11.76%) Tester
4 188 (10.63%) Test Engineer
5 161 (9.11%) Lead
6 113 (6.39%) Automation Tester
6 113 (6.39%) Java Developer
7 85 (4.81%) Software Engineer
8 82 (4.64%) Test Automation Engineer
9 73 (4.13%) Analyst
9 73 (4.13%) Data Engineer
9 73 (4.13%) DevOps Engineer
10 71 (4.02%) QA Engineer
10 71 (4.02%) Senior Developer
11 59 (3.34%) Test Manager
12 55 (3.11%) Test Leader
13 53 (3.00%) Automation Engineer
14 47 (2.66%) Full-Stack Developer
15 46 (2.60%) Test Analyst
16 45 (2.55%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 248 (14.03%) REST
2 198 (11.20%) Playwright
3 151 (8.54%) React
4 145 (8.20%) RESTful
5 142 (8.03%) Node.js
6 134 (7.58%) .NET
7 130 (7.35%) Spring
8 122 (6.90%) Kafka
9 119 (6.73%) Spring Boot
10 74 (4.19%) pytest
11 65 (3.68%) JSON
12 62 (3.51%) AngularJS
13 61 (3.45%) HTML
14 60 (3.39%) SOAP
15 58 (3.28%) XML
16 52 (2.94%) CSS
16 52 (2.94%) OAuth
16 52 (2.94%) Web Services
17 48 (2.71%) Jest
18 40 (2.26%) JMS
Miscellaneous
1 179 (10.12%) Cloud Native
2 131 (7.41%) Product Ownership
3 61 (3.45%) Distributed Systems
4 51 (2.88%) Mobile App
5 44 (2.49%) Security Posture
6 35 (1.98%) Algorithms
7 33 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
8 32 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
9 29 (1.64%) Virtual Team
10 28 (1.58%) Onboarding
11 27 (1.53%) Enterprise Software
12 23 (1.30%) Public Cloud
13 21 (1.19%) Data Structures
14 20 (1.13%) Management Information System
15 19 (1.07%) Greenfield Project
16 18 (1.02%) NHS
16 18 (1.02%) Self-Motivation
17 16 (0.90%) Data Centre
17 16 (0.90%) Genomics
17 16 (0.90%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 163 (9.22%) Linux
2 85 (4.81%) Windows
3 52 (2.94%) Unix
4 41 (2.32%) Android
5 37 (2.09%) Apple iOS
6 22 (1.24%) Windows Server
7 20 (1.13%) Mac OS X
8 12 (0.68%) Kali Linux
9 8 (0.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (0.23%) CentOS
11 3 (0.17%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.17%) Solaris
12 2 (0.11%) VMS
12 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.057%) FreeRTOS
13 1 (0.057%) Robot Operating System
13 1 (0.057%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 908 (51.36%) CI/CD
2 855 (48.36%) Agile
3 677 (38.29%) DevOps
4 441 (24.94%) Problem-Solving
5 276 (15.61%) Microservices
6 269 (15.21%) Continuous Improvement
7 268 (15.16%) Containerisation
8 253 (14.31%) Test Strategy
9 243 (13.74%) Scrum
10 218 (12.33%) Infrastructure as Code
11 215 (12.16%) Test Scripting
12 209 (11.82%) Software Engineering
13 207 (11.71%) TDD
14 190 (10.75%) AI
15 189 (10.69%) Validation
16 177 (10.01%) Software Testing
17 172 (9.73%) SDLC
18 168 (9.50%) API Testing
19 166 (9.39%) BDD
20 165 (9.33%) Regression Testing
Programming Languages
1 519 (29.36%) Python
2 438 (24.77%) Java
3 339 (19.17%) SQL
4 268 (15.16%) JavaScript
5 239 (13.52%) TypeScript
6 173 (9.79%) C#
7 87 (4.92%) Bash
8 70 (3.96%) PowerShell
9 43 (2.43%) C++
10 39 (2.21%) Go
11 24 (1.36%) Bicep
11 24 (1.36%) PL/SQL
12 23 (1.30%) Scala
13 21 (1.19%) Kotlin
14 18 (1.02%) Ruby
15 16 (0.90%) Apex Code
16 13 (0.74%) Groovy
16 13 (0.74%) PHP
16 13 (0.74%) Shell Script
16 13 (0.74%) Swift
Qualifications
1 486 (27.49%) Security Cleared
2 369 (20.87%) SC Cleared
3 97 (5.49%) Degree
4 76 (4.30%) ISTQB
5 61 (3.45%) BPSS Clearance
6 56 (3.17%) DV Cleared
7 55 (3.11%) Computer Science Degree
8 27 (1.53%) Master's Degree
9 26 (1.47%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 20 (1.13%) AWS Certification
11 19 (1.07%) OSCP
12 16 (0.90%) CISSP
12 16 (0.90%) 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
1 377 (21.32%) QA
2 132 (7.47%) Accessibility
3 84 (4.75%) Data Quality
4 44 (2.49%) WCAG
5 41 (2.32%) GDPR
6 39 (2.21%) NIST
7 28 (1.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 19 (1.07%) NCSC
9 18 (1.02%) EU AI Act
10 16 (0.90%) 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 (22.06%) Docker
2 33 (1.87%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.40%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
3 7 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
4 5 (0.28%) Firmware
4 5 (0.28%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.17%) ISA Server
5 3 (0.17%) QEMU
5 3 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
6 2 (0.11%) vSphere
6 2 (0.11%) zsh
7 1 (0.057%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.057%) HDFS
7 1 (0.057%) KVM
7 1 (0.057%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.057%) Squid
7 1 (0.057%) Time Sharing Option
7 1 (0.057%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 344 (19.46%) Kubernetes
2 207 (11.71%) Terraform
3 113 (6.39%) Ansible
4 86 (4.86%) Grafana
5 55 (3.11%) Prometheus
6 18 (1.02%) Nmap
6 18 (1.02%) Progress Chef
7 17 (0.96%) HP ALM
8 16 (0.90%) 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 (9.50%) Microsoft
2 153 (8.65%) Oracle
3 70 (3.96%) Splunk
4 62 (3.51%) ServiceNow
5 60 (3.39%) Salesforce
6 59 (3.34%) SAP
7 58 (3.28%) Databricks
8 51 (2.88%) Google
9 32 (1.81%) Denodo
9 32 (1.81%) Talend
10 28 (1.58%) VMware
11 26 (1.47%) Red Hat
12 23 (1.30%) F5
13 22 (1.24%) Cisco
14 21 (1.19%) IBM
14 21 (1.19%) webMethods
15 17 (0.96%) Atlassian
15 17 (0.96%) HP
15 17 (0.96%) MuleSoft
15 17 (0.96%) Workday
1,205 Test Automation jobs Nationwide