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

6 months to
3 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 46 55
Rank change year-on-year -1 +9 -9
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,977 1,325 1,537
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.41% 4.56% 3.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.15% 5.03% 4.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,326 911 1,024
10th Percentile £331 £325 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -1.96% -7.27%
75th Percentile £575 £623 £630
90th Percentile £682 £725 £719
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 72 10 58
10th Percentile £34.35 £29.08 £37.50
25th Percentile £54.89 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.50 £53.38 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +22.72% -7.17% -8.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.50 £76.25
90th Percentile - £75.67 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £53.38 £60.00
% change year-on-year +26.46% -11.04% -4.00%

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 38,381 26,317 38,146
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.55% 90.50% 86.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,335 17,078 24,751
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 £613 £635 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.51% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,256 968 2,345
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.00 £12.77
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.12 £15.89
Median hourly rate £35.77 £31.76 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.61% -2.28% -10.41%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £70.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £30.62 £31.50
% change year-on-year +14.32% -2.81% -12.50%

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 3 April 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 3 April 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 3 April 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 1,684 £488 -2.50% 674
UK excluding London +2 913 £475 -1.04% 573
London -1 822 £500 - 183
Work from Home -6 575 £475 -5.00% 333
North of England +9 330 £477 +5.89% 162
Midlands +5 197 £472 -1.67% 83
South East -26 178 £500 -6.10% 145
West Midlands +13 169 £477 -6.10% 57
North West +5 144 £464 +3.06% 82
Yorkshire -9 141 £500 +3.90% 41
South West -3 82 £475 -9.52% 72
East of England -6 56 £620 +26.53% 65
North East +7 48 £425 +8.97% 39
Scotland -16 40 £405 -10.11% 30
Wales +1 35 £505 +26.13% 27
East Midlands -23 28 £400 +8.11% 26
Northern Ireland +13 20 £475 -3.01% 7
Channel Islands - 2 - - 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
1 131 (6.63%) Confluence
2 68 (3.44%) SAS
3 31 (1.57%) Apache Spark
4 22 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
5 14 (0.71%) SharePoint
6 11 (0.56%) Apache
7 8 (0.40%) Appian
7 8 (0.40%) nginx
8 7 (0.35%) Tomcat
8 7 (0.35%) WebLogic
9 6 (0.30%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 6 (0.30%) Camunda
10 5 (0.25%) CMS
11 3 (0.15%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.15%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
12 2 (0.10%) Magnolia
12 2 (0.10%) Mendix
12 2 (0.10%) Oracle Application Server
12 2 (0.10%) WordPress
Applications
1 29 (1.47%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 12 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (0.61%) MS Visio
4 11 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.15%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.15%) Simulink
7 1 (0.051%) Mingle
7 1 (0.051%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 22 (1.11%) Aladdin
2 9 (0.46%) Oracle EBS
3 8 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
4 6 (0.30%) Findur
4 6 (0.30%) Loan IQ
5 5 (0.25%) Maximo
5 5 (0.25%) Shopify
5 5 (0.25%) Workday HCM
6 4 (0.20%) SAP HR
7 3 (0.15%) BambooHR
7 3 (0.15%) Distributed Ledger
7 3 (0.15%) Infor CloudSuite
7 3 (0.15%) Infor LN
7 3 (0.15%) Infor M3
7 3 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
7 3 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
8 2 (0.10%) iTrent
8 2 (0.10%) NetSuite
8 2 (0.10%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.10%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 573 (28.98%) Azure
2 507 (25.64%) AWS
3 352 (17.80%) GitHub
4 270 (13.66%) Azure DevOps
5 194 (9.81%) GitHub Actions
6 173 (8.75%) GCP
7 134 (6.78%) Serverless
8 81 (4.10%) OpenShift
9 78 (3.95%) Power Platform
10 73 (3.69%) AWS Lambda
11 69 (3.49%) Amazon S3
12 51 (2.58%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 51 (2.58%) AWS CloudFormation
13 41 (2.07%) Snowflake
14 40 (2.02%) Azure AKS
15 39 (1.97%) Amazon ECS
16 34 (1.72%) Azure Data Factory
17 33 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
17 33 (1.67%) SaaS
18 32 (1.62%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.37%) HTTP
2 23 (1.16%) Firewall
3 14 (0.71%) SSL
3 14 (0.71%) TCP/IP
4 12 (0.61%) Network Security
4 12 (0.61%) VPN
5 11 (0.56%) Wireshark
6 10 (0.51%) FTP
6 10 (0.51%) SAN
7 9 (0.46%) Ethernet
8 8 (0.40%) HTTPS
8 8 (0.40%) MPLS
8 8 (0.40%) Multicast
8 8 (0.40%) SD-WAN
8 8 (0.40%) WAN
9 7 (0.35%) 5G
9 7 (0.35%) DNS
10 5 (0.25%) AMQP
10 5 (0.25%) Cisco IPT
10 5 (0.25%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 109 (5.51%) PostgreSQL
2 88 (4.45%) NoSQL
3 81 (4.10%) SQL Server
4 78 (3.95%) MongoDB
5 63 (3.19%) Relational Database
6 53 (2.68%) Data Warehouse
7 44 (2.23%) Power BI
8 43 (2.18%) DynamoDB
9 33 (1.67%) MySQL
9 33 (1.67%) Pentaho
10 30 (1.52%) BigQuery
11 25 (1.26%) Metadata
11 25 (1.26%) Oracle Database
12 23 (1.16%) Tableau
13 22 (1.11%) Amazon RDS
13 22 (1.11%) Redis
14 19 (0.96%) Amazon Athena
14 19 (0.96%) Big Data
14 19 (0.96%) Oracle Reports
15 17 (0.86%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 387 (19.58%) Git
2 378 (19.12%) JIRA
3 347 (17.55%) Jenkins
4 300 (15.17%) Selenium
5 276 (13.96%) GitLab
6 164 (8.30%) Cucumber
7 163 (8.24%) Postman
8 118 (5.97%) JUnit
9 105 (5.31%) Cypress.io
10 103 (5.21%) JMeter
11 101 (5.11%) REST Assured
12 55 (2.78%) WebDriver
13 45 (2.28%) SonarQube
14 43 (2.18%) Zephyr
15 38 (1.92%) SpecFlow
16 37 (1.87%) Maven
17 35 (1.77%) Gatling
17 35 (1.77%) Mockito
18 34 (1.72%) TestRail
19 32 (1.62%) Gradle
General
1 524 (26.50%) Social Skills
2 328 (16.59%) Finance
3 291 (14.72%) Public Sector
4 202 (10.22%) Analytical Skills
5 157 (7.94%) Banking
6 37 (1.87%) Documentation Skills
7 32 (1.62%) Front Office
7 32 (1.62%) Investment Banking
8 27 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 24 (1.21%) Telecoms
10 21 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
11 19 (0.96%) Organisational Skills
12 18 (0.91%) Influencing Skills
13 17 (0.86%) Aerospace
13 17 (0.86%) Legal
14 16 (0.81%) Financial Institution
14 16 (0.81%) Pharmaceutical
15 15 (0.76%) Military
16 11 (0.56%) Publishing
17 10 (0.51%) Retail
Job Titles
1 416 (21.04%) Developer
2 319 (16.14%) Senior
3 223 (11.28%) Tester
4 215 (10.88%) Test Engineer
5 213 (10.77%) Lead
6 113 (5.72%) Automation Tester
7 104 (5.26%) Analyst
7 104 (5.26%) Java Developer
8 98 (4.96%) Data Engineer
9 95 (4.81%) Test Automation Engineer
10 84 (4.25%) Software Engineer
10 84 (4.25%) Test Leader
11 80 (4.05%) DevOps Engineer
11 80 (4.05%) QA Engineer
12 77 (3.89%) Senior Developer
13 71 (3.59%) Architect
14 67 (3.39%) Test Analyst
15 63 (3.19%) Test Manager
16 57 (2.88%) Automation Engineer
17 53 (2.68%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 260 (13.15%) REST
2 236 (11.94%) Playwright
3 173 (8.75%) React
4 158 (7.99%) RESTful
5 148 (7.49%) Spring
6 145 (7.33%) Node.js
7 136 (6.88%) .NET
8 131 (6.63%) Kafka
9 118 (5.97%) Spring Boot
10 92 (4.65%) pytest
11 81 (4.10%) AngularJS
12 63 (3.19%) HTML
13 62 (3.14%) OAuth
14 57 (2.88%) Jest
15 51 (2.58%) CSS
15 51 (2.58%) Web Services
16 47 (2.38%) JSON
17 41 (2.07%) Gherkin
17 41 (2.07%) GraphQL
17 41 (2.07%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 208 (10.52%) Cloud Native
2 143 (7.23%) Product Ownership
3 97 (4.91%) Distributed Systems
4 51 (2.58%) Mobile App
5 46 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
6 42 (2.12%) Data Protection Act
7 38 (1.92%) Onboarding
8 37 (1.87%) Virtual Team
9 36 (1.82%) Algorithms
10 34 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
11 31 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
12 30 (1.52%) NHS
13 28 (1.42%) Security Posture
14 22 (1.11%) Data Structures
14 22 (1.11%) Management Information System
15 21 (1.06%) Equities
16 20 (1.01%) Data Centre
16 20 (1.01%) Derivative
17 19 (0.96%) Distributed Architecture
17 19 (0.96%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 141 (7.13%) Linux
2 89 (4.50%) Windows
3 49 (2.48%) Android
4 41 (2.07%) Apple iOS
5 38 (1.92%) Unix
6 22 (1.11%) Windows Server
7 18 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.66%) Mac OS X
9 9 (0.46%) Mac OS
10 8 (0.40%) Solaris
11 7 (0.35%) Kali Linux
11 7 (0.35%) Windows Server 2008
12 6 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
12 6 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.20%) CentOS
14 3 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
15 1 (0.051%) FreeRTOS
15 1 (0.051%) Robot Operating System
15 1 (0.051%) Windows 10
15 1 (0.051%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,047 (52.96%) CI/CD
2 929 (46.99%) Agile
3 739 (37.38%) DevOps
4 428 (21.65%) Problem-Solving
5 322 (16.29%) Continuous Improvement
6 308 (15.58%) Test Strategy
7 301 (15.23%) Microservices
8 280 (14.16%) Scrum
9 278 (14.06%) Containerisation
10 264 (13.35%) Validation
11 252 (12.75%) Infrastructure as Code
12 232 (11.73%) AI
13 225 (11.38%) Software Engineering
14 224 (11.33%) Analytics
15 222 (11.23%) Observability
15 222 (11.23%) Test Scripting
16 215 (10.88%) TDD
17 208 (10.52%) Regression Testing
18 207 (10.47%) SDLC
19 197 (9.96%) API Testing
Programming Languages
1 590 (29.84%) Python
2 479 (24.23%) Java
3 421 (21.29%) SQL
4 286 (14.47%) JavaScript
5 263 (13.30%) TypeScript
6 207 (10.47%) C#
7 80 (4.05%) PowerShell
8 76 (3.84%) Bash
9 50 (2.53%) C++
10 32 (1.62%) C
11 30 (1.52%) Kotlin
12 29 (1.47%) Ruby
13 28 (1.42%) PL/SQL
14 26 (1.32%) Apex Code
14 26 (1.32%) Bicep
14 26 (1.32%) Go
15 24 (1.21%) Scala
16 19 (0.96%) Swift
17 16 (0.81%) Groovy
18 15 (0.76%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 599 (30.30%) Security Cleared
2 469 (23.72%) SC Cleared
3 102 (5.16%) Degree
3 102 (5.16%) ISTQB
4 80 (4.05%) BPSS Clearance
5 62 (3.14%) DV Cleared
6 57 (2.88%) Computer Science Degree
7 37 (1.87%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 23 (1.16%) Master's Degree
9 15 (0.76%) Cisco Certification
10 13 (0.66%) AWS Certification
10 13 (0.66%) Azure Certification
11 11 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
12 10 (0.51%) CISSP
12 10 (0.51%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 10 (0.51%) OSCP
13 9 (0.46%) CCNP
13 9 (0.46%) ISEB
14 8 (0.40%) CEH
14 8 (0.40%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 444 (22.46%) QA
2 135 (6.83%) Accessibility
3 115 (5.82%) Data Quality
4 55 (2.78%) WCAG
5 41 (2.07%) GDPR
6 29 (1.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 16 (0.81%) NIST
7 16 (0.81%) SLA
8 15 (0.76%) NCSC
9 14 (0.71%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 12 (0.61%) ISO 20022
11 11 (0.56%) PCI DSS
12 10 (0.51%) Def Stans
13 9 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 8 (0.40%) PSD2
15 7 (0.35%) SEPA
16 6 (0.30%) HIPAA
16 6 (0.30%) SOC 2
17 5 (0.25%) EU AI Act
17 5 (0.25%) PERC
System Software
1 395 (19.98%) Docker
2 29 (1.47%) Active Directory
3 13 (0.66%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (0.56%) Firmware
5 10 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (0.35%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
7 6 (0.30%) Oracle RAC
8 5 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.15%) ISA Server
11 2 (0.10%) SRDF
12 1 (0.051%) Embedded Firmware
12 1 (0.051%) HDFS
12 1 (0.051%) KVM
12 1 (0.051%) Squid
12 1 (0.051%) Time Sharing Option
12 1 (0.051%) Virtual Servers
12 1 (0.051%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 370 (18.72%) Kubernetes
2 232 (11.73%) Terraform
3 110 (5.56%) Grafana
4 88 (4.45%) Ansible
5 86 (4.35%) Prometheus
6 29 (1.47%) Argo
7 25 (1.26%) HP ALM
8 20 (1.01%) Puppet
9 15 (0.76%) Progress Chef
9 15 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
10 11 (0.56%) NetBackup
11 10 (0.51%) Forefront Identity Manager
11 10 (0.51%) HP Quality Center
11 10 (0.51%) NetIQ Identity Manager
11 10 (0.51%) Nmap
12 7 (0.35%) Podman
13 6 (0.30%) Kibana
13 6 (0.30%) Oracle RMAN
13 6 (0.30%) Rancher
14 5 (0.25%) Dell DRAC
Vendors
1 169 (8.55%) Microsoft
2 164 (8.30%) Oracle
3 76 (3.84%) Salesforce
4 72 (3.64%) Databricks
5 65 (3.29%) Google
6 60 (3.03%) ServiceNow
7 57 (2.88%) Splunk
8 51 (2.58%) SAP
9 50 (2.53%) Red Hat
10 39 (1.97%) Talend
11 33 (1.67%) Denodo
12 29 (1.47%) IBM
12 29 (1.47%) VMware
13 28 (1.42%) HP
14 20 (1.01%) Cisco
14 20 (1.01%) Dynatrace
15 17 (0.86%) Workday
16 16 (0.81%) MuleSoft
17 14 (0.71%) OpenAI
17 14 (0.71%) UiPath