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

6 months to
19 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 51 47
Rank change year-on-year +7 -4 +4
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,439 1,496 1,571
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.45% 4.54% 4.08%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.26% 5.02% 4.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,562 1,018 1,050
10th Percentile £325 £313 £350
25th Percentile £406 £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 £669 £695 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 113 39 18
10th Percentile £40.00 £31.71 £40.88
25th Percentile £56.25 £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 £71.88
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 46,340 29,830 33,021
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.48% 90.53% 85.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,136 18,534 20,247
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 £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,159 1,812 1,459
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.23 £14.96
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -1.91%
75th Percentile £67.50 £44.76 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.00 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +82.22% -47.67% +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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +7 2,052 £475 -5.00% 2,850
UK excluding London -3 1,185 £450 -5.26% 1,738
London +6 932 £500 -1.72% 1,433
Work from Home -1 664 £475 +0.05% 1,196
North of England +4 412 £450 -2.17% 410
Midlands +12 256 £450 -2.70% 183
West Midlands +19 241 £458 -11.76% 120
South East -12 230 £449 -10.25% 389
Yorkshire -6 173 £466 -6.84% 122
North West -20 137 £492 +15.76% 228
South West -5 113 £456 -15.08% 235
North East +7 109 £425 -5.03% 60
Scotland -16 94 £475 -5.00% 221
East of England +16 88 £425 +24.09% 191
Wales -3 26 £475 +20.63% 34
East Midlands -42 15 £418 +17.61% 63
Northern Ireland +3 7 £513 +345.65% 83
Channel Islands - 3 £450 - 1

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 (7.83%) Confluence
2 63 (2.58%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (1.93%) SharePoint
4 46 (1.89%) Apache Spark
5 40 (1.64%) SAS
6 27 (1.11%) Apache
7 17 (0.70%) CMS
8 14 (0.57%) Camunda
9 12 (0.49%) WebLogic
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
11 6 (0.25%) nginx
11 6 (0.25%) Tomcat
12 5 (0.21%) Jupyter
12 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.16%) Anypoint
13 4 (0.16%) ColdFusion
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
14 3 (0.12%) Kentico
Applications
1 24 (0.98%) 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
Business Applications
1 30 (1.23%) Dynamics CRM
2 28 (1.15%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (0.53%) 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%) Findur
7 4 (0.16%) FLEXCUBE
8 3 (0.12%) Distributed Ledger
8 3 (0.12%) Finacle
8 3 (0.12%) Temenos T24
9 2 (0.082%) BambooHR
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
1 763 (31.28%) AWS
2 726 (29.77%) Azure
3 422 (17.30%) GitHub
4 336 (13.78%) Azure DevOps
5 255 (10.46%) GitHub Actions
6 181 (7.42%) GCP
7 176 (7.22%) Serverless
8 131 (5.37%) AWS Lambda
9 114 (4.67%) Power Platform
10 100 (4.10%) Amazon S3
11 84 (3.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 80 (3.28%) GitHub Copilot
13 79 (3.24%) OpenShift
14 70 (2.87%) AWS CloudFormation
15 68 (2.79%) Amazon ECS
16 67 (2.75%) Amazon EKS
17 61 (2.50%) dbt
18 60 (2.46%) Snowflake
19 49 (2.01%) Anthropic Claude
20 48 (1.97%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.11%) HTTP
2 24 (0.98%) DNS
2 24 (0.98%) Firewall
3 22 (0.90%) 4G
4 21 (0.86%) 5G
5 20 (0.82%) TCP/IP
6 18 (0.74%) 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 (0.57%) WAN
10 13 (0.53%) Broadband
10 13 (0.53%) 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
1 147 (6.03%) PostgreSQL
2 125 (5.13%) Data Warehouse
2 125 (5.13%) MongoDB
3 115 (4.72%) Relational Database
4 109 (4.47%) NoSQL
5 100 (4.10%) SQL Server
6 84 (3.44%) Power BI
7 53 (2.17%) Metadata
8 44 (1.80%) DynamoDB
9 40 (1.64%) Data Lake
10 39 (1.60%) Oracle Reports
11 36 (1.48%) MySQL
12 35 (1.44%) Big Data
13 34 (1.39%) Pentaho
14 33 (1.35%) Redis
15 32 (1.31%) Amazon Athena
16 31 (1.27%) Amazon Redshift
17 29 (1.19%) Amazon RDS
18 28 (1.15%) Elasticsearch
19 27 (1.11%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 545 (22.35%) Git
2 400 (16.40%) JIRA
3 399 (16.36%) Jenkins
4 330 (13.53%) GitLab
5 304 (12.46%) Selenium
6 169 (6.93%) Postman
7 160 (6.56%) Cucumber
8 138 (5.66%) JUnit
9 126 (5.17%) Cypress.io
10 106 (4.35%) REST Assured
11 93 (3.81%) JMeter
12 88 (3.61%) SonarQube
13 67 (2.75%) Gatling
13 67 (2.75%) Maven
14 64 (2.62%) Zephyr
15 60 (2.46%) Gradle
16 57 (2.34%) Mockito
17 51 (2.09%) WebDriver
18 37 (1.52%) Bitbucket
19 29 (1.19%) SpecFlow
General
1 675 (27.68%) Social Skills
2 453 (18.57%) Finance
3 341 (13.98%) Public Sector
4 338 (13.86%) Analytical Skills
5 221 (9.06%) Banking
6 82 (3.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 51 (2.09%) Telecoms
8 44 (1.80%) Front Office
9 36 (1.48%) Investment Banking
10 35 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
11 33 (1.35%) Documentation Skills
11 33 (1.35%) Retail
12 32 (1.31%) Military
13 22 (0.90%) Financial Institution
14 21 (0.86%) Law
15 20 (0.82%) Marketing
16 19 (0.78%) Aerospace
17 18 (0.74%) Manufacturing
18 15 (0.62%) Back Office
19 14 (0.57%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 562 (23.04%) Developer
2 407 (16.69%) Senior
3 242 (9.92%) Lead
4 231 (9.47%) Test Engineer
5 195 (8.00%) Tester
6 182 (7.46%) Java Developer
7 149 (6.11%) Data Engineer
8 130 (5.33%) Software Engineer
9 126 (5.17%) Analyst
10 123 (5.04%) DevOps Engineer
10 123 (5.04%) Senior Developer
11 106 (4.35%) Architect
12 102 (4.18%) Test Automation Engineer
13 97 (3.98%) QA Engineer
14 86 (3.53%) Automation Tester
15 82 (3.36%) Test Analyst
16 80 (3.28%) Full-Stack Developer
17 77 (3.16%) Test Leader
18 74 (3.03%) Test Manager
19 71 (2.91%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 423 (17.34%) REST
2 353 (14.47%) Terraform
3 289 (11.85%) Playwright
4 253 (10.37%) RESTful
5 241 (9.88%) Kafka
5 241 (9.88%) Spring
6 224 (9.18%) React
7 208 (8.53%) Spring Boot
8 179 (7.34%) .NET
9 147 (6.03%) HTML
10 141 (5.78%) Node.js
11 127 (5.21%) CSS
12 105 (4.31%) AngularJS
13 89 (3.65%) OAuth
14 79 (3.24%) JSON
15 67 (2.75%) pytest
16 66 (2.71%) Middleware
17 62 (2.54%) OAuth2
18 58 (2.38%) Swagger
18 58 (2.38%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 383 (15.70%) Cloud Native
2 210 (8.61%) Product Ownership
3 176 (7.22%) Distributed Systems
4 99 (4.06%) Enterprise Software
5 74 (3.03%) Onboarding
6 65 (2.67%) AI Agents
7 63 (2.58%) Legacy Systems
8 59 (2.42%) Self-Motivation
9 55 (2.26%) Data Protection Act
10 49 (2.01%) Mobile App
11 38 (1.56%) Virtual Team
12 30 (1.23%) 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
16 24 (0.98%) Private Cloud
17 22 (0.90%) Life Science
18 21 (0.86%) Embedded Systems
19 20 (0.82%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 175 (7.18%) Linux
2 103 (4.22%) Windows
3 101 (4.14%) Unix
4 45 (1.85%) Apple iOS
5 43 (1.76%) Android
6 31 (1.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 25 (1.03%) Windows Server
8 7 (0.29%) VMS
9 6 (0.25%) Solaris
10 5 (0.21%) Mac OS X
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 1,489 (61.05%) CI/CD
2 1,182 (48.46%) Agile
3 904 (37.06%) DevOps
4 478 (19.60%) Microservices
4 478 (19.60%) Problem-Solving
5 471 (19.31%) Continuous Improvement
6 455 (18.66%) Software Engineering
7 436 (17.88%) Infrastructure as Code
8 416 (17.06%) Scrum
9 404 (16.56%) Validation
10 403 (16.52%) AI
11 366 (15.01%) Containerisation
12 358 (14.68%) Test Strategy
13 324 (13.28%) Observability
14 318 (13.04%) TDD
15 301 (12.34%) SDLC
16 287 (11.77%) Software Testing
17 277 (11.36%) Stakeholder Management
18 257 (10.54%) End-to-End Testing
19 239 (9.80%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 680 (27.88%) Java
1 680 (27.88%) Python
2 607 (24.89%) SQL
3 365 (14.97%) JavaScript
4 273 (11.19%) TypeScript
5 207 (8.49%) C#
6 100 (4.10%) PowerShell
7 92 (3.77%) Bash
8 52 (2.13%) Bicep
9 48 (1.97%) Kotlin
10 46 (1.89%) C++
11 45 (1.85%) Scala
12 39 (1.60%) Go
13 33 (1.35%) PL/SQL
14 31 (1.27%) Shell Script
15 26 (1.07%) Apex Code
16 24 (0.98%) C
16 24 (0.98%) Perl
17 20 (0.82%) Ruby
18 18 (0.74%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 786 (32.23%) Security Cleared
2 666 (27.31%) SC Cleared
3 136 (5.58%) Degree
4 126 (5.17%) BPSS Clearance
5 106 (4.35%) ISTQB
6 90 (3.69%) DV Cleared
7 76 (3.12%) Computer Science Degree
8 42 (1.72%) AWS Certification
9 36 (1.48%) Azure Certification
10 28 (1.15%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 16 (0.66%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 14 (0.57%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 14 (0.57%) Master's Degree
13 13 (0.53%) CISSP
14 12 (0.49%) Cisco Certification
14 12 (0.49%) ISEB
14 12 (0.49%) Microsoft Certification
15 8 (0.33%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
15 8 (0.33%) DBS Check
15 8 (0.33%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 628 (25.75%) QA
2 221 (9.06%) Accessibility
3 173 (7.09%) Data Quality
4 100 (4.10%) WCAG
5 45 (1.85%) GDPR
6 23 (0.94%) ISO 20022
7 14 (0.57%) GRC
8 13 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 13 (0.53%) NCSC
8 13 (0.53%) NIST
8 13 (0.53%) SLA
9 7 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
10 6 (0.25%) SEPA
10 6 (0.25%) Software Quality Assurance
11 5 (0.21%) FATCA
11 5 (0.21%) HL7
11 5 (0.21%) PCI DSS
12 4 (0.16%) MiFID
12 4 (0.16%) SOC 2
13 3 (0.12%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 498 (20.42%) Docker
2 40 (1.64%) VMware Infrastructure
3 35 (1.44%) Active Directory
4 19 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
5 13 (0.53%) Firmware
6 10 (0.41%) 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
1 484 (19.84%) Kubernetes
2 134 (5.49%) Ansible
2 134 (5.49%) Grafana
3 92 (3.77%) Prometheus
4 39 (1.60%) Argo
5 26 (1.07%) Kibana
6 24 (0.98%) Progress Chef
7 23 (0.94%) Puppet
8 16 (0.66%) HP ALM
9 14 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
10 13 (0.53%) Control-M
11 8 (0.33%) Microsoft Intune
12 7 (0.29%) Kustomize
13 6 (0.25%) Dell DRAC
13 6 (0.25%) Istio
13 6 (0.25%) SCCM
14 5 (0.21%) HP Fortify
14 5 (0.21%) Packer
14 5 (0.21%) Rancher
14 5 (0.21%) WMI
Vendors
1 235 (9.64%) Microsoft
2 197 (8.08%) Oracle
3 97 (3.98%) Databricks
4 81 (3.32%) Salesforce
5 77 (3.16%) Google
6 66 (2.71%) IBM
7 65 (2.67%) ServiceNow
8 60 (2.46%) Splunk
9 59 (2.42%) Red Hat
9 59 (2.42%) Talend
10 58 (2.38%) SAP
11 49 (2.01%) VMware
12 45 (1.85%) Denodo
12 45 (1.85%) Informatica
13 44 (1.80%) Dynatrace
14 34 (1.39%) Cisco
14 34 (1.39%) MuleSoft
15 31 (1.27%) UiPath
16 23 (0.94%) OpenAI
17 22 (0.90%) HP