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

6 months to
6 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 45 54
Rank change year-on-year -2 +9 -8
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,926 1,372 1,590
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.52% 4.50% 3.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.23% 4.99% 4.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,311 936 1,100
10th Percentile £331 £325 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £477 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.70% -2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £575 £628 £625
90th Percentile £675 £738 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.56% -7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 7 60
10th Percentile £34.71 £43.21 £44.25
25th Percentile £51.25 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £65.75
Median % change year-on-year +14.54% -13.69% +12.39%
75th Percentile £68.75 £76.35 £90.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £81.31 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £70.00
% change year-on-year +14.54% -18.93% +22.81%

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 36,846 27,490 38,514
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.38% 90.18% 86.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,348 17,263 25,101
10th Percentile £313 £306 £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 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £492 £500
% change year-on-year -2.18% -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,189 895 2,262
10th Percentile £14.79 £15.62 £13.25
25th Percentile £18.32 £21.05 £16.13
Median hourly rate £28.00 £32.50 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.85% -1.52% -5.71%
75th Percentile £63.75 £63.75 £58.75
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £71.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.38 £31.76 £33.28
% change year-on-year -20.09% -4.57% -4.91%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 0 1,656 £490 -2.00% 681
UK excluding London -1 884 £480 +1.05% 620
London -2 808 £500 -4.76% 184
Work from Home -1 563 £475 -5.66% 425
North of England +1 324 £493 +12.57% 158
Midlands +7 189 £477 +3.03% 78
South East -21 164 £500 -13.04% 155
West Midlands +13 156 £486 +0.54% 45
North West +13 141 £450 +0.56% 85
Yorkshire -13 139 £500 +10.50% 49
South West +2 84 £515 -6.36% 85
East of England 0 59 £570 +21.93% 69
North East +10 48 £488 +28.09% 24
Scotland -12 40 £440 -2.22% 66
East Midlands -16 33 £400 +8.11% 32
Wales +10 31 £475 +11.76% 20
Northern Ireland +13 20 £475 -2.56% 5

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
1 132 (6.85%) Confluence
2 63 (3.27%) SAS
3 34 (1.77%) Apache Spark
4 18 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
5 12 (0.62%) SharePoint
6 11 (0.57%) Apache
7 8 (0.42%) 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 (0.16%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.10%) Magnolia
12 2 (0.10%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.10%) WordPress
Applications
1 30 (1.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (0.78%) 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 (0.16%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.052%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 19 (0.99%) Aladdin
2 8 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.31%) Loan IQ
4 5 (0.26%) Maximo
4 5 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
4 5 (0.26%) Workday HCM
5 4 (0.21%) SAP HR
5 4 (0.21%) Shopify
6 3 (0.16%) BambooHR
6 3 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
6 3 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
7 2 (0.10%) Advent Geneva
7 2 (0.10%) Infor CloudSuite
7 2 (0.10%) Infor LN
7 2 (0.10%) Infor M3
7 2 (0.10%) iTrent
7 2 (0.10%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.10%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.10%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.10%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 564 (29.28%) Azure
2 487 (25.29%) AWS
3 337 (17.50%) GitHub
4 248 (12.88%) Azure DevOps
5 195 (10.12%) GCP
6 185 (9.61%) GitHub Actions
7 131 (6.80%) Serverless
8 82 (4.26%) Power Platform
9 74 (3.84%) OpenShift
10 61 (3.17%) AWS Lambda
11 59 (3.06%) Amazon S3
12 49 (2.54%) Azure AKS
13 46 (2.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 46 (2.39%) AWS CloudFormation
14 40 (2.08%) Snowflake
15 35 (1.82%) Amazon EKS
15 35 (1.82%) Azure Data Factory
16 34 (1.77%) Dynamics 365
17 33 (1.71%) Amazon ECS
17 33 (1.71%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 34 (1.77%) Firewall
2 27 (1.40%) HTTP
3 21 (1.09%) Wireshark
4 20 (1.04%) TCP/IP
4 20 (1.04%) VPN
5 17 (0.88%) SSL
6 13 (0.67%) HTTPS
6 13 (0.67%) SD-WAN
7 12 (0.62%) Network Security
7 12 (0.62%) WAN
8 11 (0.57%) DNS
9 10 (0.52%) FTP
10 9 (0.47%) Ethernet
10 9 (0.47%) MPLS
11 8 (0.42%) Multicast
11 8 (0.42%) VLAN
12 7 (0.36%) AMQP
12 7 (0.36%) SAN
13 5 (0.26%) BGP
13 5 (0.26%) Cisco IPT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (5.92%) PostgreSQL
2 92 (4.78%) NoSQL
3 81 (4.21%) MongoDB
4 77 (4.00%) SQL Server
5 63 (3.27%) Relational Database
6 54 (2.80%) Data Warehouse
7 48 (2.49%) Power BI
8 34 (1.77%) Pentaho
9 31 (1.61%) BigQuery
10 30 (1.56%) DynamoDB
11 28 (1.45%) MySQL
12 27 (1.40%) Oracle Database
13 22 (1.14%) Tableau
14 21 (1.09%) Big Data
15 20 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
16 19 (0.99%) Redis
17 18 (0.93%) Amazon RDS
17 18 (0.93%) Oracle Reports
18 17 (0.88%) Data Lake
18 17 (0.88%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 371 (19.26%) JIRA
2 367 (19.06%) Git
3 361 (18.74%) Jenkins
4 296 (15.37%) GitLab
5 289 (15.01%) Selenium
6 178 (9.24%) Cucumber
7 170 (8.83%) Postman
8 119 (6.18%) Cypress.io
9 112 (5.82%) JUnit
10 101 (5.24%) JMeter
10 101 (5.24%) REST Assured
11 48 (2.49%) WebDriver
12 42 (2.18%) SpecFlow
13 40 (2.08%) SonarQube
14 39 (2.02%) Gatling
14 39 (2.02%) Zephyr
15 38 (1.97%) Maven
16 33 (1.71%) Gradle
16 33 (1.71%) TestRail
17 32 (1.66%) Mockito
General
1 499 (25.91%) Social Skills
2 308 (15.99%) Finance
3 273 (14.17%) Public Sector
4 204 (10.59%) Analytical Skills
5 146 (7.58%) Banking
6 31 (1.61%) Documentation Skills
7 28 (1.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 26 (1.35%) Investment Banking
9 22 (1.14%) Front Office
9 22 (1.14%) Pharmaceutical
9 22 (1.14%) Telecoms
10 21 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
11 18 (0.93%) Military
12 17 (0.88%) Organisational Skills
13 14 (0.73%) Aerospace
13 14 (0.73%) Influencing Skills
13 14 (0.73%) Legal
14 13 (0.67%) Financial Institution
15 10 (0.52%) Electronics
16 9 (0.47%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 402 (20.87%) Developer
2 319 (16.56%) Senior
3 231 (11.99%) Tester
4 221 (11.47%) Lead
5 213 (11.06%) Test Engineer
6 119 (6.18%) Automation Tester
7 101 (5.24%) Data Engineer
7 101 (5.24%) Java Developer
8 90 (4.67%) Analyst
9 86 (4.47%) Test Automation Engineer
10 83 (4.31%) Software Engineer
11 79 (4.10%) Test Leader
12 73 (3.79%) DevOps Engineer
12 73 (3.79%) QA Engineer
13 70 (3.63%) Senior Developer
14 64 (3.32%) Test Manager
15 62 (3.22%) Architect
16 58 (3.01%) Test Analyst
17 54 (2.80%) Automation Engineer
18 48 (2.49%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 245 (12.72%) REST
2 243 (12.62%) Playwright
3 172 (8.93%) React
4 153 (7.94%) RESTful
5 151 (7.84%) .NET
6 149 (7.74%) Node.js
7 144 (7.48%) Spring
8 127 (6.59%) Kafka
9 119 (6.18%) Spring Boot
10 93 (4.83%) pytest
11 68 (3.53%) HTML
12 65 (3.37%) AngularJS
13 58 (3.01%) CSS
14 57 (2.96%) OAuth
15 56 (2.91%) Jest
16 53 (2.75%) Web Services
17 50 (2.60%) JSON
18 45 (2.34%) GraphQL
19 40 (2.08%) OpenID
20 39 (2.02%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 211 (10.96%) Cloud Native
2 127 (6.59%) Product Ownership
3 78 (4.05%) Distributed Systems
4 48 (2.49%) Mobile App
5 46 (2.39%) Legacy Systems
6 42 (2.18%) Algorithms
6 42 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
7 38 (1.97%) Security Posture
8 35 (1.82%) Onboarding
9 30 (1.56%) Virtual Team
10 26 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
11 25 (1.30%) Data Structures
11 25 (1.30%) NHS
11 25 (1.30%) Self-Motivation
12 21 (1.09%) Greenfield Project
12 21 (1.09%) Management Information System
13 20 (1.04%) Data Centre
13 20 (1.04%) Equities
13 20 (1.04%) Public Cloud
14 19 (0.99%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 151 (7.84%) Linux
2 91 (4.72%) Windows
3 46 (2.39%) Android
4 43 (2.23%) Unix
5 41 (2.13%) Apple iOS
6 23 (1.19%) Windows Server
7 17 (0.88%) Mac OS X
8 15 (0.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 11 (0.57%) Kali Linux
10 9 (0.47%) Mac OS
11 6 (0.31%) CentOS
12 5 (0.26%) Solaris
12 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
12 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.10%) VMS
13 2 (0.10%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.052%) Robot Operating System
14 1 (0.052%) Windows Embedded Compact
14 1 (0.052%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,028 (53.37%) CI/CD
2 926 (48.08%) Agile
3 723 (37.54%) DevOps
4 453 (23.52%) Problem-Solving
5 316 (16.41%) Continuous Improvement
6 305 (15.84%) Test Strategy
7 304 (15.78%) Microservices
8 281 (14.59%) Containerisation
9 272 (14.12%) Scrum
10 244 (12.67%) Infrastructure as Code
10 244 (12.67%) Validation
11 243 (12.62%) AI
12 234 (12.15%) Test Scripting
13 224 (11.63%) Software Engineering
14 219 (11.37%) TDD
15 215 (11.16%) Analytics
16 203 (10.54%) Observability
17 193 (10.02%) Software Testing
18 190 (9.87%) API Testing
19 187 (9.71%) Regression Testing
Programming Languages
1 600 (31.15%) Python
2 463 (24.04%) Java
3 399 (20.72%) SQL
4 297 (15.42%) JavaScript
5 277 (14.38%) TypeScript
6 190 (9.87%) C#
7 85 (4.41%) Bash
8 78 (4.05%) PowerShell
9 47 (2.44%) C++
10 35 (1.82%) Go
11 28 (1.45%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.30%) Bicep
12 25 (1.30%) Kotlin
13 24 (1.25%) C
14 22 (1.14%) Ruby
14 22 (1.14%) Scala
15 19 (0.99%) Apex Code
16 17 (0.88%) Swift
17 15 (0.78%) Shell Script
18 13 (0.67%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 549 (28.50%) Security Cleared
2 425 (22.07%) SC Cleared
3 107 (5.56%) Degree
4 90 (4.67%) ISTQB
5 71 (3.69%) BPSS Clearance
6 58 (3.01%) Computer Science Degree
6 58 (3.01%) DV Cleared
7 32 (1.66%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 29 (1.51%) Master's Degree
9 18 (0.93%) OSCP
10 16 (0.83%) AWS Certification
11 15 (0.78%) Azure Certification
11 15 (0.78%) Cisco Certification
12 13 (0.67%) CISSP
12 13 (0.67%) GPEN
12 13 (0.67%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 13 (0.67%) Microsoft Certification
12 13 (0.67%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 12 (0.62%) CEH
13 12 (0.62%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 434 (22.53%) QA
2 156 (8.10%) Accessibility
3 108 (5.61%) Data Quality
4 50 (2.60%) WCAG
5 38 (1.97%) GDPR
6 35 (1.82%) NIST
7 22 (1.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 18 (0.93%) EU AI Act
9 17 (0.88%) NCSC
10 15 (0.78%) SLA
11 11 (0.57%) ISO 20022
11 11 (0.57%) PCI DSS
12 9 (0.47%) NIST 800
12 9 (0.47%) PSD2
13 8 (0.42%) Def Stans
13 8 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 7 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 7 (0.36%) SEPA
14 7 (0.36%) SOC 2
15 6 (0.31%) HIPAA
System Software
1 408 (21.18%) Docker
2 35 (1.82%) Active Directory
3 10 (0.52%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
5 7 (0.36%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
5 7 (0.36%) Firmware
6 5 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
8 3 (0.16%) ISA Server
8 3 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.10%) SRDF
10 1 (0.052%) Embedded Firmware
10 1 (0.052%) HDFS
10 1 (0.052%) KVM
10 1 (0.052%) QEMU
10 1 (0.052%) Squid
10 1 (0.052%) Time Sharing Option
10 1 (0.052%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.052%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 376 (19.52%) Kubernetes
2 225 (11.68%) Terraform
3 113 (5.87%) Ansible
4 111 (5.76%) Grafana
5 79 (4.10%) Prometheus
6 24 (1.25%) HP ALM
7 20 (1.04%) Argo
7 20 (1.04%) Puppet
8 18 (0.93%) Nmap
9 17 (0.88%) Progress Chef
10 15 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
11 13 (0.67%) NetBackup
12 10 (0.52%) HP Quality Center
13 7 (0.36%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 7 (0.36%) Kibana
13 7 (0.36%) Nessus
13 7 (0.36%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 7 (0.36%) Podman
14 6 (0.31%) CSIRT
15 4 (0.21%) Rancher
Vendors
1 173 (8.98%) Microsoft
2 160 (8.31%) Oracle
3 75 (3.89%) Databricks
4 69 (3.58%) ServiceNow
5 66 (3.43%) Google
5 66 (3.43%) Splunk
6 61 (3.17%) Salesforce
7 46 (2.39%) SAP
8 38 (1.97%) Talend
9 36 (1.87%) Red Hat
10 30 (1.56%) Denodo
11 29 (1.51%) VMware
12 26 (1.35%) HP
13 24 (1.25%) Cisco
13 24 (1.25%) IBM
14 19 (0.99%) Workday
15 16 (0.83%) Atlassian
16 15 (0.78%) Dynatrace
16 15 (0.78%) MuleSoft
16 15 (0.78%) OpenAI