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

6 months to
26 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 45 51
Rank change year-on-year -2 +6 -10
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,748 1,374 1,684
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.63% 4.39% 3.80%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.31% 4.93% 4.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,201 916 1,209
10th Percentile £350 £328 £363
25th Percentile £402 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -7.08%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £625
90th Percentile £688 £725 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £489
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.81% -6.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 5 55
10th Percentile £18.34 £41.75 £37.50
25th Percentile £42.58 £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 £66.88 £77.19 £90.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £83.38 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £75.60 £77.50
% change year-on-year -20.63% -2.46% +32.48%

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 32,948 27,851 38,703
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.34% 89.03% 87.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,870 16,883 25,489
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 £643
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,006 881 1,954
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.69
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £17.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -9.78% +12.89%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.50 £62.47
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.71 £30.45 £37.50
% change year-on-year -18.85% -18.80% +41.24%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 1,520 £500 - 970
UK excluding London +2 815 £500 +5.26% 897
London -3 724 £500 -4.76% 210
Work from Home +2 521 £500 - 473
North of England +3 318 £500 +14.29% 164
Midlands +17 157 £509 +6.76% 101
South East -19 157 £500 -2.44% 285
Yorkshire -8 151 £520 +15.56% 66
West Midlands +19 124 £525 +6.06% 45
North West +6 121 £438 +9.38% 75
South West +5 78 £539 -2.09% 130
East of England +7 49 £593 +48.13% 138
North East +11 48 £488 +34.48% 23
Scotland -21 47 £500 +6.16% 45
East Midlands -6 33 £393 -14.33% 54
Wales -2 21 £509 +1.80% 44
Northern Ireland +7 15 £295 -43.13% 15

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 99 (5.66%) Confluence
2 59 (3.38%) SAS
3 21 (1.20%) Apache Spark
4 16 (0.92%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.74%) SharePoint
6 11 (0.63%) Apache
7 6 (0.34%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 6 (0.34%) OpenStack
7 6 (0.34%) Oracle Application Server
8 5 (0.29%) Appian
8 5 (0.29%) CMS
8 5 (0.29%) 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%) Magnolia
11 2 (0.11%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.11%) WordPress
Applications
1 21 (1.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (0.51%) 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 (1.03%) Aladdin
2 8 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.29%) 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%) Adobe Campaign
7 1 (0.057%) CODA-Financials
7 1 (0.057%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.057%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.057%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 496 (28.38%) Azure
2 429 (24.54%) AWS
3 273 (15.62%) GitHub
4 207 (11.84%) Azure DevOps
5 175 (10.01%) GCP
6 145 (8.30%) GitHub Actions
7 124 (7.09%) Serverless
8 63 (3.60%) Power Platform
9 60 (3.43%) OpenShift
10 55 (3.15%) AWS Lambda
11 46 (2.63%) Amazon S3
12 44 (2.52%) AWS CloudFormation
12 44 (2.52%) Azure AKS
13 41 (2.35%) SaaS
14 38 (2.17%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 38 (2.17%) Amazon EKS
15 35 (2.00%) Snowflake
16 33 (1.89%) Tricentis Tosca
17 32 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
18 31 (1.77%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 38 (2.17%) Firewall
2 33 (1.89%) Wireshark
3 31 (1.77%) HTTP
4 26 (1.49%) HTTPS
5 25 (1.43%) SSL
6 21 (1.20%) TCP/IP
7 19 (1.09%) VPN
8 14 (0.80%) Network Security
8 14 (0.80%) SD-WAN
9 11 (0.63%) WAN
10 10 (0.57%) Ethernet
10 10 (0.57%) FTP
11 9 (0.51%) DNS
12 8 (0.46%) MPLS
12 8 (0.46%) VLAN
13 7 (0.40%) AMQP
13 7 (0.40%) Multicast
14 5 (0.29%) Cisco IPT
15 4 (0.23%) DHCP
15 4 (0.23%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 95 (5.43%) PostgreSQL
2 84 (4.81%) NoSQL
3 80 (4.58%) MongoDB
4 63 (3.60%) Relational Database
5 61 (3.49%) SQL Server
6 32 (1.83%) Data Warehouse
6 32 (1.83%) Pentaho
6 32 (1.83%) Power BI
7 26 (1.49%) BigQuery
8 23 (1.32%) DynamoDB
8 23 (1.32%) MySQL
9 20 (1.14%) Oracle Database
10 18 (1.03%) Amazon RDS
10 18 (1.03%) Big Data
11 17 (0.97%) Redis
12 15 (0.86%) Apache Cassandra
12 15 (0.86%) Azure SQL Database
12 15 (0.86%) Data Lake
12 15 (0.86%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 15 (0.86%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 322 (18.42%) Jenkins
2 316 (18.08%) JIRA
3 307 (17.56%) Git
4 268 (15.33%) GitLab
5 266 (15.22%) Selenium
6 154 (8.81%) Cucumber
7 152 (8.70%) Postman
8 110 (6.29%) Cypress.io
9 92 (5.26%) JUnit
10 85 (4.86%) REST Assured
11 83 (4.75%) JMeter
12 40 (2.29%) SonarQube
13 36 (2.06%) Bitbucket
13 36 (2.06%) Mockito
14 35 (2.00%) WebDriver
15 34 (1.95%) Gatling
15 34 (1.95%) TestRail
16 33 (1.89%) Maven
16 33 (1.89%) SpecFlow
17 32 (1.83%) Gradle
General
1 452 (25.86%) Social Skills
2 284 (16.25%) Finance
3 251 (14.36%) Public Sector
4 191 (10.93%) Analytical Skills
5 124 (7.09%) Banking
6 34 (1.95%) Documentation Skills
7 32 (1.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 26 (1.49%) Investment Banking
9 24 (1.37%) Telecoms
10 23 (1.32%) Pharmaceutical
11 20 (1.14%) Front Office
12 19 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
13 16 (0.92%) Financial Institution
14 14 (0.80%) Military
15 13 (0.74%) Manufacturing
16 12 (0.69%) Marketing
17 11 (0.63%) Electronics
18 10 (0.57%) Aerospace
18 10 (0.57%) Influencing Skills
18 10 (0.57%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 405 (23.17%) Developer
2 288 (16.48%) Senior
3 210 (12.01%) Tester
4 187 (10.70%) Test Engineer
5 160 (9.15%) Lead
6 113 (6.46%) Automation Tester
7 111 (6.35%) Java Developer
8 81 (4.63%) Software Engineer
8 81 (4.63%) Test Automation Engineer
9 73 (4.18%) Analyst
9 73 (4.18%) DevOps Engineer
10 72 (4.12%) Data Engineer
11 71 (4.06%) Senior Developer
12 69 (3.95%) QA Engineer
13 58 (3.32%) Test Manager
14 55 (3.15%) Test Leader
15 54 (3.09%) Automation Engineer
16 47 (2.69%) Full-Stack Developer
17 46 (2.63%) Test Analyst
18 42 (2.40%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 247 (14.13%) REST
2 195 (11.16%) Playwright
3 150 (8.58%) React
4 142 (8.12%) Node.js
5 141 (8.07%) RESTful
6 133 (7.61%) .NET
7 126 (7.21%) Spring
8 122 (6.98%) Kafka
9 118 (6.75%) Spring Boot
10 74 (4.23%) pytest
11 65 (3.72%) JSON
12 61 (3.49%) AngularJS
13 60 (3.43%) HTML
13 60 (3.43%) SOAP
14 58 (3.32%) XML
15 52 (2.97%) OAuth
15 52 (2.97%) Web Services
16 51 (2.92%) CSS
17 48 (2.75%) Jest
18 40 (2.29%) JMS
Miscellaneous
1 175 (10.01%) Cloud Native
2 126 (7.21%) Product Ownership
3 60 (3.43%) Distributed Systems
4 51 (2.92%) Mobile App
5 41 (2.35%) Security Posture
6 35 (2.00%) Algorithms
7 33 (1.89%) Data Protection Act
8 32 (1.83%) Legacy Systems
9 29 (1.66%) Virtual Team
10 26 (1.49%) Onboarding
11 23 (1.32%) Enterprise Software
12 21 (1.20%) Data Structures
13 20 (1.14%) Management Information System
13 20 (1.14%) Public Cloud
14 18 (1.03%) Greenfield Project
14 18 (1.03%) NHS
14 18 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
15 16 (0.92%) Data Centre
15 16 (0.92%) Genomics
15 16 (0.92%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 161 (9.21%) Linux
2 83 (4.75%) Windows
3 52 (2.97%) Unix
4 40 (2.29%) Android
5 37 (2.12%) Apple iOS
6 22 (1.26%) Windows Server
7 20 (1.14%) Mac OS X
8 12 (0.69%) Kali Linux
9 8 (0.46%) 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
1 890 (50.92%) CI/CD
2 849 (48.57%) Agile
3 671 (38.39%) DevOps
4 434 (24.83%) Problem-Solving
5 271 (15.50%) Microservices
6 266 (15.22%) Containerisation
7 263 (15.05%) Continuous Improvement
8 251 (14.36%) Test Strategy
9 240 (13.73%) Scrum
10 214 (12.24%) Infrastructure as Code
10 214 (12.24%) Test Scripting
11 205 (11.73%) TDD
12 202 (11.56%) Software Engineering
13 191 (10.93%) AI
14 185 (10.58%) Validation
15 177 (10.13%) Software Testing
16 168 (9.61%) API Testing
16 168 (9.61%) SDLC
17 163 (9.32%) Regression Testing
18 162 (9.27%) BDD
Programming Languages
1 514 (29.41%) Python
2 432 (24.71%) Java
3 332 (18.99%) SQL
4 266 (15.22%) JavaScript
5 240 (13.73%) TypeScript
6 168 (9.61%) C#
7 84 (4.81%) Bash
8 68 (3.89%) PowerShell
9 40 (2.29%) C++
10 39 (2.23%) Go
11 24 (1.37%) Bicep
11 24 (1.37%) PL/SQL
12 23 (1.32%) Scala
13 21 (1.20%) Kotlin
14 18 (1.03%) Ruby
15 16 (0.92%) Apex Code
16 13 (0.74%) Groovy
16 13 (0.74%) Shell Script
16 13 (0.74%) Swift
17 12 (0.69%) C
Qualifications
1 486 (27.80%) Security Cleared
2 370 (21.17%) SC Cleared
3 97 (5.55%) Degree
4 74 (4.23%) ISTQB
5 60 (3.43%) BPSS Clearance
6 57 (3.26%) DV Cleared
7 55 (3.15%) Computer Science Degree
8 27 (1.54%) Master's Degree
9 26 (1.49%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 19 (1.09%) OSCP
11 17 (0.97%) AWS Certification
12 16 (0.92%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 14 (0.80%) CEH
13 14 (0.80%) MCP
14 13 (0.74%) CISSP
14 13 (0.74%) GPEN
15 12 (0.69%) Oracle Certification
16 11 (0.63%) Cisco Certification
16 11 (0.63%) CISM
16 11 (0.63%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 372 (21.28%) QA
2 132 (7.55%) Accessibility
3 82 (4.69%) Data Quality
4 44 (2.52%) WCAG
5 37 (2.12%) GDPR
6 36 (2.06%) NIST
7 25 (1.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 19 (1.09%) NCSC
9 18 (1.03%) EU AI Act
10 15 (0.86%) ISO 20022
11 13 (0.74%) PSD2
12 12 (0.69%) PCI DSS
13 11 (0.63%) SEPA
14 10 (0.57%) NIST 800
15 9 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 9 (0.51%) SLA
16 7 (0.40%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 7 (0.40%) SOC 2
17 6 (0.34%) HIPAA
18 5 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 383 (21.91%) Docker
2 33 (1.89%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.40%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
3 7 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
4 5 (0.29%) Firmware
4 5 (0.29%) 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
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
7 1 (0.057%) zsh
Systems Management
1 337 (19.28%) Kubernetes
2 206 (11.78%) Terraform
3 112 (6.41%) Ansible
4 86 (4.92%) Grafana
5 55 (3.15%) Prometheus
6 18 (1.03%) Nmap
6 18 (1.03%) Progress Chef
7 17 (0.97%) HP ALM
8 16 (0.92%) CSIRT
9 15 (0.86%) Argo
10 14 (0.80%) Puppet
10 14 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
11 13 (0.74%) NetBackup
12 8 (0.46%) Nessus
13 7 (0.40%) Podman
14 6 (0.34%) HP Quality Center
14 6 (0.34%) Kibana
15 5 (0.29%) Forefront Identity Manager
15 5 (0.29%) NetIQ Identity Manager
16 4 (0.23%) vRealize
Vendors
1 165 (9.44%) Microsoft
2 152 (8.70%) Oracle
3 70 (4.00%) Splunk
4 62 (3.55%) ServiceNow
5 60 (3.43%) Salesforce
6 58 (3.32%) SAP
7 56 (3.20%) Databricks
8 51 (2.92%) Google
9 32 (1.83%) Denodo
9 32 (1.83%) Talend
10 27 (1.54%) VMware
11 26 (1.49%) Red Hat
12 23 (1.32%) F5
13 22 (1.26%) Cisco
14 21 (1.20%) IBM
14 21 (1.20%) webMethods
15 17 (0.97%) HP
15 17 (0.97%) MuleSoft
15 17 (0.97%) OpenAI
16 16 (0.92%) Workday