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

 6 months to
31 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 45 51
Rank change year-on-year -3 +6 -12
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,809 1,387 1,703
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.67% 4.41% 3.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.35% 4.95% 4.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,233 922 1,217
10th Percentile £344 £325 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -5.66%
75th Percentile £580 £612 £625
90th Percentile £688 £725 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 5 59
10th Percentile £20.23 £41.75 £43.50
25th Percentile £42.58 £42.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £61.25 £74.00 £68.50
Median % change year-on-year -17.23% +8.03% +14.17%
75th Percentile £67.00 £77.19 £90.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £83.38 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £75.60 £75.00
% change year-on-year -20.63% +0.79% +28.21%

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 33,821 28,022 39,068
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.29% 89.12% 87.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,401 17,008 25,726
10th Percentile £305 £307 £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 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,033 874 2,031
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.41
25th Percentile £17.60 £21.00 £16.78
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.96
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -9.62% +12.38%
75th Percentile £58.00 £62.50 £62.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.71 £30.62 £36.50
% change year-on-year -19.29% -16.12% +31.77%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 +1 1,560 £500 - 617
UK excluding London +3 841 £500 +5.26% 505
London 0 747 £500 -1.96% 211
Work from Home +2 543 £500 - 338
North of England +3 326 £500 +15.94% 117
South East -21 161 £500 - 187
Midlands +19 159 £509 +6.09% 50
Yorkshire -10 149 £523 +15.47% 39
North West -2 132 £446 +11.50% 65
West Midlands +13 126 £525 +7.25% 28
South West +2 80 £537 -4.11% 68
East of England +10 52 £593 +48.13% 55
Scotland -15 52 £500 +6.95% 23
North East +13 49 £488 +34.48% 13
East Midlands -3 33 £393 -14.33% 22
Wales +1 24 £527 +5.40% 13
Northern Ireland +14 17 £475 -8.43% 3

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
1 104 (5.75%) Confluence
2 59 (3.26%) SAS
3 24 (1.33%) Apache Spark
4 16 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.72%) SharePoint
6 12 (0.66%) Apache
7 6 (0.33%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 6 (0.33%) Appian
7 6 (0.33%) nginx
7 6 (0.33%) OpenStack
7 6 (0.33%) Oracle Application Server
8 5 (0.28%) CMS
9 4 (0.22%) Camunda
9 4 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
9 4 (0.22%) WebLogic
10 3 (0.17%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.17%) Microsoft Exchange
10 3 (0.17%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
11 2 (0.11%) WordPress
Applications
1 22 (1.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.55%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (0.50%) MS Visio
5 8 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.17%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.055%) Oracle Smart View
7 1 (0.055%) SOLIDWORKS
7 1 (0.055%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.055%) Trello
Business Applications
1 20 (1.11%) Aladdin
2 8 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.28%) Workday HCM
4 4 (0.22%) Loan IQ
4 4 (0.22%) Maximo
4 4 (0.22%) SAP HR
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%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.11%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
6 2 (0.11%) Shopify
6 2 (0.11%) Summit
7 1 (0.055%) Algo Collateral
7 1 (0.055%) Oracle EBS R12
7 1 (0.055%) Oracle General Ledger
Cloud Services
1 509 (28.14%) Azure
2 442 (24.43%) AWS
3 284 (15.70%) GitHub
4 218 (12.05%) Azure DevOps
5 176 (9.73%) GCP
6 151 (8.35%) GitHub Actions
7 129 (7.13%) Serverless
8 69 (3.81%) Power Platform
9 62 (3.43%) OpenShift
10 60 (3.32%) AWS Lambda
11 50 (2.76%) Amazon S3
12 44 (2.43%) AWS CloudFormation
13 43 (2.38%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 43 (2.38%) Azure AKS
14 42 (2.32%) SaaS
15 38 (2.10%) Amazon EKS
16 36 (1.99%) Snowflake
17 33 (1.82%) Dynamics 365
18 32 (1.77%) Tricentis Tosca
19 31 (1.71%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 39 (2.16%) Firewall
2 34 (1.88%) HTTP
3 33 (1.82%) Wireshark
4 26 (1.44%) HTTPS
5 24 (1.33%) SSL
6 22 (1.22%) TCP/IP
7 20 (1.11%) VPN
8 14 (0.77%) Network Security
8 14 (0.77%) SD-WAN
9 11 (0.61%) Ethernet
9 11 (0.61%) WAN
10 10 (0.55%) FTP
11 9 (0.50%) DNS
11 9 (0.50%) MPLS
11 9 (0.50%) VLAN
12 8 (0.44%) Multicast
13 7 (0.39%) AMQP
14 5 (0.28%) Cisco IPT
15 4 (0.22%) Cisco ASA
15 4 (0.22%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 97 (5.36%) PostgreSQL
2 87 (4.81%) MongoDB
3 84 (4.64%) NoSQL
4 65 (3.59%) Relational Database
4 65 (3.59%) SQL Server
5 38 (2.10%) Power BI
6 34 (1.88%) Data Warehouse
7 32 (1.77%) Pentaho
8 28 (1.55%) BigQuery
9 24 (1.33%) DynamoDB
9 24 (1.33%) MySQL
10 22 (1.22%) Big Data
10 22 (1.22%) Oracle Database
11 21 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
12 17 (0.94%) Redis
12 17 (0.94%) Tableau
13 16 (0.88%) Star Schema
14 15 (0.83%) Apache Cassandra
14 15 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
14 15 (0.83%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 331 (18.30%) Jenkins
2 326 (18.02%) JIRA
3 312 (17.25%) Git
4 274 (15.15%) GitLab
5 268 (14.81%) Selenium
6 160 (8.84%) Cucumber
7 153 (8.46%) Postman
8 111 (6.14%) Cypress.io
9 94 (5.20%) REST Assured
10 89 (4.92%) JUnit
11 83 (4.59%) JMeter
12 39 (2.16%) SonarQube
13 38 (2.10%) Gatling
14 37 (2.05%) WebDriver
15 36 (1.99%) Bitbucket
15 36 (1.99%) Mockito
16 35 (1.93%) Maven
16 35 (1.93%) TestRail
17 34 (1.88%) Gradle
17 34 (1.88%) SpecFlow
General
1 467 (25.82%) Social Skills
2 294 (16.25%) Finance
3 259 (14.32%) Public Sector
4 195 (10.78%) Analytical Skills
5 130 (7.19%) Banking
6 34 (1.88%) Documentation Skills
7 32 (1.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 26 (1.44%) Investment Banking
9 25 (1.38%) Telecoms
10 22 (1.22%) Pharmaceutical
11 21 (1.16%) Front Office
12 19 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
13 16 (0.88%) Manufacturing
13 16 (0.88%) Military
14 15 (0.83%) Financial Institution
15 12 (0.66%) Aerospace
15 12 (0.66%) Electronics
15 12 (0.66%) Marketing
16 11 (0.61%) Legal
17 10 (0.55%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 417 (23.05%) Developer
2 297 (16.42%) Senior
3 216 (11.94%) Tester
4 198 (10.95%) Test Engineer
5 177 (9.78%) Lead
6 117 (6.47%) Automation Tester
7 114 (6.30%) Java Developer
8 82 (4.53%) Software Engineer
8 82 (4.53%) Test Automation Engineer
9 80 (4.42%) Analyst
10 73 (4.04%) Data Engineer
10 73 (4.04%) DevOps Engineer
10 73 (4.04%) Senior Developer
11 69 (3.81%) QA Engineer
12 63 (3.48%) Test Leader
13 58 (3.21%) Test Manager
14 55 (3.04%) Automation Engineer
15 52 (2.87%) Test Analyst
16 50 (2.76%) Full-Stack Developer
17 45 (2.49%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 253 (13.99%) REST
2 207 (11.44%) Playwright
3 157 (8.68%) React
4 147 (8.13%) RESTful
5 145 (8.02%) Node.js
6 136 (7.52%) .NET
7 135 (7.46%) Spring
8 126 (6.97%) Kafka
8 126 (6.97%) Spring Boot
9 76 (4.20%) pytest
10 66 (3.65%) JSON
11 63 (3.48%) AngularJS
12 60 (3.32%) SOAP
13 59 (3.26%) HTML
14 58 (3.21%) XML
15 55 (3.04%) OAuth
16 53 (2.93%) Web Services
17 50 (2.76%) Jest
18 49 (2.71%) CSS
19 41 (2.27%) JMS
Miscellaneous
1 184 (10.17%) Cloud Native
2 131 (7.24%) Product Ownership
3 60 (3.32%) Distributed Systems
4 51 (2.82%) Mobile App
5 42 (2.32%) Security Posture
6 37 (2.05%) Algorithms
7 36 (1.99%) Legacy Systems
8 35 (1.93%) Data Protection Act
9 32 (1.77%) Virtual Team
10 31 (1.71%) Onboarding
11 24 (1.33%) Enterprise Software
12 21 (1.16%) Data Structures
13 20 (1.11%) Greenfield Project
13 20 (1.11%) Management Information System
13 20 (1.11%) Public Cloud
14 19 (1.05%) NHS
15 18 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
16 16 (0.88%) Data Centre
16 16 (0.88%) Equities
16 16 (0.88%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 165 (9.12%) Linux
2 84 (4.64%) Windows
3 51 (2.82%) Unix
4 40 (2.21%) Android
5 37 (2.05%) Apple iOS
6 23 (1.27%) Windows Server
7 21 (1.16%) Mac OS X
8 12 (0.66%) Kali Linux
9 10 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (0.22%) CentOS
10 4 (0.22%) Solaris
11 3 (0.17%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.17%) Windows Server 2008
11 3 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.11%) VMS
12 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.055%) FreeRTOS
13 1 (0.055%) Robot Operating System
13 1 (0.055%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 925 (51.13%) CI/CD
2 869 (48.04%) Agile
3 687 (37.98%) DevOps
4 449 (24.82%) Problem-Solving
5 277 (15.31%) Microservices
6 271 (14.98%) Continuous Improvement
6 271 (14.98%) Test Strategy
7 268 (14.81%) Containerisation
8 251 (13.88%) Scrum
9 220 (12.16%) Test Scripting
10 218 (12.05%) Infrastructure as Code
11 207 (11.44%) Software Engineering
12 206 (11.39%) TDD
13 198 (10.95%) AI
14 196 (10.83%) Validation
15 177 (9.78%) Software Testing
16 176 (9.73%) API Testing
17 168 (9.29%) Analytics
17 168 (9.29%) SDLC
18 167 (9.23%) Regression Testing
Programming Languages
1 525 (29.02%) Python
2 446 (24.65%) Java
3 343 (18.96%) SQL
4 267 (14.76%) JavaScript
5 252 (13.93%) TypeScript
6 172 (9.51%) C#
7 86 (4.75%) Bash
8 68 (3.76%) PowerShell
9 42 (2.32%) C++
10 40 (2.21%) Go
11 25 (1.38%) Bicep
11 25 (1.38%) PL/SQL
12 24 (1.33%) Scala
13 21 (1.16%) Kotlin
14 18 (1.00%) Ruby
15 17 (0.94%) Apex Code
16 14 (0.77%) C
16 14 (0.77%) Shell Script
17 13 (0.72%) Groovy
17 13 (0.72%) Swift
Qualifications
1 509 (28.14%) Security Cleared
2 391 (21.61%) SC Cleared
3 100 (5.53%) Degree
4 76 (4.20%) ISTQB
5 68 (3.76%) BPSS Clearance
6 59 (3.26%) DV Cleared
7 56 (3.10%) Computer Science Degree
8 28 (1.55%) Master's Degree
9 26 (1.44%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 19 (1.05%) OSCP
11 17 (0.94%) AWS Certification
12 16 (0.88%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 14 (0.77%) CEH
14 13 (0.72%) CISSP
14 13 (0.72%) GPEN
14 13 (0.72%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 12 (0.66%) Cisco Certification
15 12 (0.66%) Oracle Certification
16 11 (0.61%) CISM
16 11 (0.61%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 377 (20.84%) QA
2 141 (7.79%) Accessibility
3 87 (4.81%) Data Quality
4 47 (2.60%) WCAG
5 40 (2.21%) GDPR
6 36 (1.99%) NIST
7 25 (1.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 20 (1.11%) NCSC
9 18 (1.00%) EU AI Act
10 16 (0.88%) ISO 20022
11 14 (0.77%) PSD2
12 12 (0.66%) PCI DSS
12 12 (0.66%) SEPA
13 10 (0.55%) NIST 800
14 9 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 9 (0.50%) SLA
15 7 (0.39%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 7 (0.39%) SOC 2
16 6 (0.33%) HIPAA
17 5 (0.28%) Def Stans
System Software
1 393 (21.72%) Docker
2 33 (1.82%) Active Directory
3 8 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
4 7 (0.39%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
5 6 (0.33%) VMware Infrastructure
6 5 (0.28%) Firmware
7 3 (0.17%) ISA Server
7 3 (0.17%) QEMU
7 3 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.11%) vSphere
9 1 (0.055%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.055%) HDFS
9 1 (0.055%) KVM
9 1 (0.055%) Squid
9 1 (0.055%) Time Sharing Option
9 1 (0.055%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.055%) zsh
Systems Management
1 339 (18.74%) Kubernetes
2 209 (11.55%) Terraform
3 114 (6.30%) Ansible
4 93 (5.14%) Grafana
5 61 (3.37%) Prometheus
6 19 (1.05%) HP ALM
6 19 (1.05%) Nmap
7 18 (1.00%) Progress Chef
8 16 (0.88%) Argo
9 15 (0.83%) CSIRT
10 14 (0.77%) Puppet
10 14 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
11 13 (0.72%) NetBackup
12 8 (0.44%) HP Quality Center
12 8 (0.44%) Nessus
12 8 (0.44%) Podman
13 6 (0.33%) Kibana
14 5 (0.28%) Forefront Identity Manager
14 5 (0.28%) NetIQ Identity Manager
15 4 (0.22%) Iperf
Vendors
1 172 (9.51%) Microsoft
2 155 (8.57%) Oracle
3 74 (4.09%) Splunk
4 63 (3.48%) Salesforce
5 62 (3.43%) ServiceNow
6 57 (3.15%) Databricks
6 57 (3.15%) SAP
7 53 (2.93%) Google
8 32 (1.77%) Denodo
8 32 (1.77%) Talend
9 28 (1.55%) Red Hat
9 28 (1.55%) VMware
10 24 (1.33%) Cisco
11 22 (1.22%) IBM
12 21 (1.16%) F5
12 21 (1.16%) webMethods
13 19 (1.05%) HP
14 17 (0.94%) MuleSoft
14 17 (0.94%) OpenAI
15 16 (0.88%) Dynatrace
689 Test Automation jobs Nationwide