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

6 months to
19 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 45 51
Rank change year-on-year -2 +6 -5
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,943 1,360 1,583
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.48% 4.64% 3.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.21% 5.13% 4.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,319 941 1,082
10th Percentile £330 £330 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £522
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -4.26% -5.05%
75th Percentile £575 £638 £638
90th Percentile £675 £734 £718
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £483 £498
% change year-on-year -1.66% -2.91% -5.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 8 59
10th Percentile £29.86 £40.23 £43.50
25th Percentile £52.50 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +14.54% -9.20% +4.17%
75th Percentile £70.00 £75.92 £81.88
90th Percentile - £80.28 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year +14.54% -9.20% +6.84%

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 37,265 26,485 38,452
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.97% 90.43% 86.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,631 17,037 25,025
10th Percentile £313 £308 £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 £610 £638 £638
90th Percentile £723 £744 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,203 922 2,327
10th Percentile £14.97 £15.25 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.12
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% +1.20% -8.24%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.52 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £31.76 £30.91
% change year-on-year -13.41% +2.74% -11.68%

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 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 19 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 19 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 -3 1,664 £482 -3.58% 696
UK excluding London -1 898 £475 -1.66% 614
London +3 814 £500 - 188
Work from Home -6 557 £475 -5.00% 353
North of England +2 328 £488 +8.33% 174
Midlands +6 193 £472 +0.43% 72
South East -34 167 £500 -14.53% 169
West Midlands +16 161 £480 -3.52% 44
North West +8 150 £463 +2.78% 83
Yorkshire -10 136 £500 +5.26% 47
South West -1 79 £500 -4.76% 87
East of England +4 59 £570 +19.06% 58
North East +10 46 £481 +26.45% 44
Scotland -18 41 £440 -2.22% 41
Wales +1 34 £502 +25.50% 27
East Midlands -24 32 £400 +8.11% 28
Northern Ireland +15 22 £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
1 136 (7.00%) Confluence
2 58 (2.99%) SAS
3 34 (1.75%) Apache Spark
4 19 (0.98%) Apache Airflow
5 12 (0.62%) SharePoint
6 11 (0.57%) Apache
7 8 (0.41%) 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 (0.15%) Anypoint
12 2 (0.10%) Magnolia
12 2 (0.10%) Mendix
12 2 (0.10%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.10%) WordPress
Applications
1 28 (1.44%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (0.67%) Microsoft Office
4 12 (0.62%) MS Visio
5 11 (0.57%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.15%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.10%) Simulink
9 1 (0.051%) Mingle
9 1 (0.051%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 24 (1.24%) Aladdin
2 8 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
3 6 (0.31%) Loan IQ
4 5 (0.26%) Maximo
4 5 (0.26%) Shopify
4 5 (0.26%) Workday HCM
5 4 (0.21%) Findur
5 4 (0.21%) SAP HR
6 3 (0.15%) BambooHR
6 3 (0.15%) Infor CloudSuite
6 3 (0.15%) Infor LN
6 3 (0.15%) Infor M3
6 3 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
6 3 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
7 2 (0.10%) Advent Geneva
7 2 (0.10%) iTrent
7 2 (0.10%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.10%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.10%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 569 (29.28%) Azure
2 506 (26.04%) AWS
3 353 (18.17%) GitHub
4 263 (13.54%) Azure DevOps
5 192 (9.88%) GitHub Actions
6 187 (9.62%) GCP
7 142 (7.31%) Serverless
8 81 (4.17%) Power Platform
9 73 (3.76%) OpenShift
10 72 (3.71%) AWS Lambda
11 69 (3.55%) Amazon S3
12 50 (2.57%) AWS CloudFormation
13 48 (2.47%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 43 (2.21%) Azure AKS
14 43 (2.21%) Snowflake
15 39 (2.01%) Amazon ECS
16 36 (1.85%) Amazon EKS
17 34 (1.75%) SaaS
18 33 (1.70%) Azure Data Factory
18 33 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 31 (1.60%) Firewall
2 23 (1.18%) HTTP
3 20 (1.03%) Wireshark
4 17 (0.87%) TCP/IP
4 17 (0.87%) VPN
5 15 (0.77%) SSL
6 13 (0.67%) Network Security
6 13 (0.67%) SD-WAN
6 13 (0.67%) WAN
7 11 (0.57%) HTTPS
8 10 (0.51%) DNS
8 10 (0.51%) FTP
9 8 (0.41%) Ethernet
9 8 (0.41%) MPLS
9 8 (0.41%) SAN
10 7 (0.36%) Multicast
11 6 (0.31%) AMQP
12 5 (0.26%) Cisco IPT
12 5 (0.26%) VLAN
13 4 (0.21%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (5.87%) PostgreSQL
2 91 (4.68%) NoSQL
3 75 (3.86%) MongoDB
4 73 (3.76%) SQL Server
5 61 (3.14%) Relational Database
6 55 (2.83%) Data Warehouse
7 48 (2.47%) Power BI
8 36 (1.85%) DynamoDB
9 32 (1.65%) BigQuery
10 29 (1.49%) MySQL
10 29 (1.49%) Pentaho
11 25 (1.29%) Oracle Database
12 23 (1.18%) Tableau
13 21 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
14 20 (1.03%) Redis
15 19 (0.98%) Azure SQL Database
15 19 (0.98%) Big Data
16 18 (0.93%) Metadata
16 18 (0.93%) Oracle Reports
17 17 (0.87%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 372 (19.15%) JIRA
2 360 (18.53%) Git
3 353 (18.17%) Jenkins
4 293 (15.08%) GitLab
4 293 (15.08%) Selenium
5 176 (9.06%) Cucumber
6 159 (8.18%) Postman
7 114 (5.87%) JUnit
8 111 (5.71%) Cypress.io
8 111 (5.71%) JMeter
9 101 (5.20%) REST Assured
10 53 (2.73%) WebDriver
11 41 (2.11%) SpecFlow
12 40 (2.06%) Zephyr
13 36 (1.85%) Gatling
13 36 (1.85%) SonarQube
14 34 (1.75%) TestRail
15 33 (1.70%) Maven
15 33 (1.70%) Mockito
16 32 (1.65%) Bitbucket
General
1 521 (26.81%) Social Skills
2 321 (16.52%) Finance
3 284 (14.62%) Public Sector
4 210 (10.81%) Analytical Skills
5 153 (7.87%) Banking
6 35 (1.80%) Documentation Skills
7 31 (1.60%) Investment Banking
8 26 (1.34%) Front Office
9 25 (1.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 22 (1.13%) Telecoms
11 21 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
12 19 (0.98%) Pharmaceutical
13 18 (0.93%) Organisational Skills
14 17 (0.87%) Military
15 16 (0.82%) Influencing Skills
16 15 (0.77%) Legal
17 14 (0.72%) Aerospace
17 14 (0.72%) Financial Institution
18 10 (0.51%) Electronics
19 9 (0.46%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 405 (20.84%) Developer
2 319 (16.42%) Senior
3 223 (11.48%) Tester
4 220 (11.32%) Lead
5 217 (11.17%) Test Engineer
6 116 (5.97%) Automation Tester
7 101 (5.20%) Data Engineer
8 94 (4.84%) Analyst
8 94 (4.84%) Java Developer
9 91 (4.68%) Test Automation Engineer
10 83 (4.27%) Test Leader
11 82 (4.22%) QA Engineer
12 76 (3.91%) Software Engineer
13 71 (3.65%) DevOps Engineer
14 70 (3.60%) Senior Developer
15 69 (3.55%) Architect
16 65 (3.35%) Test Manager
17 61 (3.14%) Test Analyst
18 58 (2.99%) Automation Engineer
19 49 (2.52%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 248 (12.76%) REST
2 237 (12.20%) Playwright
3 166 (8.54%) React
4 148 (7.62%) RESTful
4 148 (7.62%) Spring
5 145 (7.46%) .NET
5 145 (7.46%) Node.js
6 132 (6.79%) Kafka
7 118 (6.07%) Spring Boot
8 89 (4.58%) pytest
9 70 (3.60%) AngularJS
10 65 (3.35%) HTML
11 63 (3.24%) OAuth
12 56 (2.88%) Jest
13 55 (2.83%) CSS
14 54 (2.78%) Web Services
15 47 (2.42%) JSON
16 43 (2.21%) GraphQL
17 42 (2.16%) OpenID
18 41 (2.11%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 206 (10.60%) Cloud Native
2 134 (6.90%) Product Ownership
3 88 (4.53%) Distributed Systems
4 48 (2.47%) Mobile App
5 47 (2.42%) Legacy Systems
6 44 (2.26%) Data Protection Act
7 42 (2.16%) Algorithms
8 37 (1.90%) Onboarding
9 31 (1.60%) Security Posture
10 30 (1.54%) Virtual Team
11 27 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
12 25 (1.29%) Data Structures
12 25 (1.29%) NHS
12 25 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
13 23 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
14 22 (1.13%) Distributed Architecture
14 22 (1.13%) Equities
14 22 (1.13%) Management Information System
15 20 (1.03%) Data Centre
15 20 (1.03%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 143 (7.36%) Linux
2 86 (4.43%) Windows
3 45 (2.32%) Android
4 38 (1.96%) Apple iOS
4 38 (1.96%) Unix
5 21 (1.08%) Windows Server
6 17 (0.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (0.67%) Mac OS X
8 11 (0.57%) Kali Linux
9 9 (0.46%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.31%) Solaris
11 5 (0.26%) CentOS
11 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
11 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
11 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.10%) Embedded Linux
12 2 (0.10%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.051%) VMS
13 1 (0.051%) Windows Embedded Compact
13 1 (0.051%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,034 (53.22%) CI/CD
2 915 (47.09%) Agile
3 730 (37.57%) DevOps
4 440 (22.65%) Problem-Solving
5 319 (16.42%) Continuous Improvement
6 308 (15.85%) Test Strategy
7 302 (15.54%) Microservices
8 275 (14.15%) Containerisation
9 268 (13.79%) Scrum
10 253 (13.02%) Validation
11 239 (12.30%) AI
11 239 (12.30%) Infrastructure as Code
12 223 (11.48%) Software Engineering
13 222 (11.43%) Test Scripting
14 218 (11.22%) TDD
15 214 (11.01%) Analytics
15 214 (11.01%) Observability
16 205 (10.55%) Regression Testing
17 197 (10.14%) API Testing
18 193 (9.93%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 605 (31.14%) Python
2 469 (24.14%) Java
3 409 (21.05%) SQL
4 294 (15.13%) JavaScript
5 273 (14.05%) TypeScript
6 202 (10.40%) C#
7 83 (4.27%) PowerShell
8 82 (4.22%) Bash
9 49 (2.52%) C++
10 30 (1.54%) Go
11 29 (1.49%) Kotlin
12 28 (1.44%) C
13 27 (1.39%) PL/SQL
14 25 (1.29%) Bicep
14 25 (1.29%) Ruby
15 23 (1.18%) Scala
16 21 (1.08%) Apex Code
17 17 (0.87%) Swift
18 15 (0.77%) Groovy
18 15 (0.77%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 559 (28.77%) Security Cleared
2 428 (22.03%) SC Cleared
3 103 (5.30%) Degree
4 95 (4.89%) ISTQB
5 77 (3.96%) BPSS Clearance
6 60 (3.09%) Computer Science Degree
7 57 (2.93%) DV Cleared
8 35 (1.80%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 24 (1.24%) Master's Degree
10 15 (0.77%) AWS Certification
11 14 (0.72%) Cisco Certification
11 14 (0.72%) OSCP
12 12 (0.62%) Azure Certification
12 12 (0.62%) CEH
12 12 (0.62%) CISSP
13 11 (0.57%) Microsoft Certification
14 10 (0.51%) ISEB
14 10 (0.51%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 10 (0.51%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 9 (0.46%) GPEN
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 441 (22.70%) QA
2 147 (7.57%) Accessibility
3 109 (5.61%) Data Quality
4 50 (2.57%) WCAG
5 38 (1.96%) GDPR
6 30 (1.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 30 (1.54%) NIST
7 16 (0.82%) NCSC
7 16 (0.82%) SLA
8 15 (0.77%) EU AI Act
9 14 (0.72%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 11 (0.57%) PCI DSS
11 10 (0.51%) ISO 20022
12 9 (0.46%) Def Stans
12 9 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 8 (0.41%) PSD2
14 7 (0.36%) NIST 800
15 6 (0.31%) HIPAA
15 6 (0.31%) SEPA
15 6 (0.31%) SOC 2
System Software
1 393 (20.23%) Docker
2 30 (1.54%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.41%) Firmware
4 8 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
5 7 (0.36%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
6 5 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.15%) ISA Server
9 2 (0.10%) SRDF
10 1 (0.051%) Embedded Firmware
10 1 (0.051%) HDFS
10 1 (0.051%) KVM
10 1 (0.051%) Squid
10 1 (0.051%) Time Sharing Option
10 1 (0.051%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.051%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 365 (18.79%) Kubernetes
2 223 (11.48%) Terraform
3 115 (5.92%) Grafana
4 104 (5.35%) Ansible
5 85 (4.37%) Prometheus
6 25 (1.29%) HP ALM
7 21 (1.08%) Argo
7 21 (1.08%) Puppet
8 16 (0.82%) Progress Chef
9 15 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
10 14 (0.72%) Nmap
11 13 (0.67%) NetBackup
12 11 (0.57%) HP Quality Center
13 8 (0.41%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 8 (0.41%) NetIQ Identity Manager
14 7 (0.36%) Kibana
14 7 (0.36%) Podman
15 5 (0.26%) CSIRT
15 5 (0.26%) Rancher
16 4 (0.21%) Istio
Vendors
1 172 (8.85%) Microsoft
2 150 (7.72%) Oracle
3 75 (3.86%) Databricks
4 64 (3.29%) Salesforce
5 63 (3.24%) Google
6 61 (3.14%) Splunk
7 59 (3.04%) ServiceNow
8 49 (2.52%) SAP
9 42 (2.16%) Red Hat
10 33 (1.70%) Talend
11 28 (1.44%) HP
11 28 (1.44%) VMware
12 25 (1.29%) Denodo
12 25 (1.29%) IBM
13 23 (1.18%) Cisco
14 17 (0.87%) Dynatrace
15 16 (0.82%) Atlassian
15 16 (0.82%) MuleSoft
15 16 (0.82%) Workday
16 15 (0.77%) UiPath