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

6 months to
6 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 47 56
Rank change year-on-year -1 +9 -10
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,976 1,334 1,512
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.37% 4.56% 3.45%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.12% 5.04% 3.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,328 917 1,006
10th Percentile £331 £325 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £575 £623 £638
90th Percentile £675 £730 £720
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 56
10th Percentile £34.35 £29.08 £37.50
25th Percentile £54.89 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.50 £53.38 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +22.72% -2.95% -12.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.50 £73.75
90th Percentile - £75.67 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £53.38 £55.00
% change year-on-year +26.46% -2.95% -10.20%

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 38,628 26,479 37,892
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.41% 90.55% 86.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,477 17,189 24,572
10th Percentile £314 £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 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.10% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,295 988 2,354
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.00 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.00 £19.99 £16.00
Median hourly rate £35.91 £31.58 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.71% -2.83% -13.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.73 £70.27
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.55 £30.00 £32.12
% change year-on-year +18.50% -6.59% -13.90%

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 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 6 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 6 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 -2 1,682 £482 -3.58% 674
UK excluding London -2 911 £475 -1.04% 573
London +1 823 £500 - 183
Work from Home -2 575 £475 -5.00% 333
North of England +2 325 £475 +5.56% 162
Midlands +3 197 £471 -1.26% 83
South East -26 179 £505 -2.42% 145
West Midlands +18 169 £475 -6.40% 57
North West +6 141 £464 +3.06% 82
Yorkshire -7 139 £500 +3.90% 41
South West +2 83 £475 -9.52% 72
East of England +1 56 £620 +26.53% 65
North East +6 48 £425 +8.97% 39
Scotland -17 40 £415 -7.83% 30
Wales 0 36 £509 +27.25% 27
East Midlands -27 28 £400 -0.93% 26
Northern Ireland +12 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 69 (3.49%) SAS
3 29 (1.47%) 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%) Mendix
12 2 (0.10%) Oracle Application Server
12 2 (0.10%) Sitecore CMS
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 7 (0.35%) Findur
5 6 (0.30%) Loan IQ
5 6 (0.30%) Shopify
6 5 (0.25%) Maximo
6 5 (0.25%) Workday HCM
7 4 (0.20%) BambooHR
8 3 (0.15%) Distributed Ledger
8 3 (0.15%) Infor CloudSuite
8 3 (0.15%) Infor LN
8 3 (0.15%) Infor M3
8 3 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
8 3 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
9 2 (0.10%) Advent Geneva
9 2 (0.10%) iTrent
9 2 (0.10%) NetSuite
9 2 (0.10%) SAP HR
9 2 (0.10%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 572 (28.95%) Azure
2 502 (25.40%) AWS
3 348 (17.61%) GitHub
4 270 (13.66%) Azure DevOps
5 193 (9.77%) GitHub Actions
6 163 (8.25%) GCP
7 131 (6.63%) Serverless
8 80 (4.05%) OpenShift
9 78 (3.95%) Power Platform
10 72 (3.64%) AWS Lambda
11 68 (3.44%) Amazon S3
12 51 (2.58%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 50 (2.53%) AWS CloudFormation
14 42 (2.13%) Snowflake
15 39 (1.97%) Amazon ECS
15 39 (1.97%) Azure AKS
16 34 (1.72%) Azure Data Factory
17 33 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
17 33 (1.67%) SaaS
18 31 (1.57%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.37%) HTTP
2 23 (1.16%) Firewall
3 14 (0.71%) SSL
4 13 (0.66%) TCP/IP
5 12 (0.61%) FTP
5 12 (0.61%) Network Security
5 12 (0.61%) VPN
6 10 (0.51%) SAN
6 10 (0.51%) Wireshark
7 9 (0.46%) Ethernet
8 8 (0.40%) HTTPS
8 8 (0.40%) MPLS
8 8 (0.40%) SD-WAN
8 8 (0.40%) WAN
9 7 (0.35%) 5G
9 7 (0.35%) DNS
9 7 (0.35%) Multicast
10 5 (0.25%) AMQP
10 5 (0.25%) Cisco IPT
10 5 (0.25%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 106 (5.36%) PostgreSQL
2 86 (4.35%) NoSQL
3 81 (4.10%) SQL Server
4 78 (3.95%) MongoDB
5 63 (3.19%) Relational Database
6 54 (2.73%) Data Warehouse
7 44 (2.23%) Power BI
8 42 (2.13%) DynamoDB
9 34 (1.72%) Pentaho
10 33 (1.67%) MySQL
11 30 (1.52%) BigQuery
12 26 (1.32%) Metadata
13 25 (1.27%) Oracle Database
14 24 (1.21%) Tableau
15 22 (1.11%) Amazon RDS
15 22 (1.11%) Redis
16 19 (0.96%) Amazon Athena
16 19 (0.96%) Big Data
16 19 (0.96%) Oracle Reports
17 17 (0.86%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 384 (19.43%) Git
2 380 (19.23%) JIRA
3 345 (17.46%) Jenkins
4 300 (15.18%) Selenium
5 273 (13.82%) GitLab
6 162 (8.20%) Cucumber
6 162 (8.20%) Postman
7 118 (5.97%) JUnit
8 102 (5.16%) Cypress.io
8 102 (5.16%) JMeter
9 101 (5.11%) REST Assured
10 55 (2.78%) WebDriver
11 44 (2.23%) SonarQube
12 43 (2.18%) Zephyr
13 38 (1.92%) SpecFlow
14 35 (1.77%) Maven
14 35 (1.77%) Mockito
15 34 (1.72%) Gatling
15 34 (1.72%) TestRail
16 31 (1.57%) Gradle
General
1 517 (26.16%) Social Skills
2 329 (16.65%) Finance
3 293 (14.83%) Public Sector
4 202 (10.22%) Analytical Skills
5 154 (7.79%) Banking
6 36 (1.82%) Documentation Skills
7 32 (1.62%) Investment Banking
8 31 (1.57%) Front Office
9 25 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 25 (1.27%) Telecoms
10 21 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
11 20 (1.01%) Legal
12 19 (0.96%) Organisational Skills
13 18 (0.91%) Influencing Skills
14 17 (0.86%) Aerospace
15 15 (0.76%) Military
16 13 (0.66%) Financial Institution
16 13 (0.66%) Pharmaceutical
17 11 (0.56%) Publishing
18 10 (0.51%) Retail
Job Titles
1 417 (21.10%) Developer
2 314 (15.89%) Senior
3 222 (11.23%) Tester
4 214 (10.83%) Test Engineer
5 213 (10.78%) Lead
6 113 (5.72%) Automation Tester
7 103 (5.21%) Analyst
7 103 (5.21%) Java Developer
8 99 (5.01%) Data Engineer
9 94 (4.76%) Test Automation Engineer
10 83 (4.20%) QA Engineer
10 83 (4.20%) Test Leader
11 81 (4.10%) DevOps Engineer
12 78 (3.95%) Software Engineer
13 77 (3.90%) Senior Developer
14 74 (3.74%) Architect
15 67 (3.39%) Test Analyst
16 62 (3.14%) Test Manager
17 58 (2.94%) Automation Engineer
18 53 (2.68%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 258 (13.06%) REST
2 233 (11.79%) Playwright
3 170 (8.60%) React
4 156 (7.89%) RESTful
5 147 (7.44%) Spring
6 144 (7.29%) Node.js
7 136 (6.88%) .NET
8 129 (6.53%) Kafka
9 117 (5.92%) Spring Boot
10 90 (4.55%) pytest
11 81 (4.10%) AngularJS
12 64 (3.24%) HTML
13 62 (3.14%) OAuth
14 57 (2.88%) Jest
15 52 (2.63%) CSS
16 51 (2.58%) Web Services
17 48 (2.43%) JSON
18 41 (2.07%) GraphQL
18 41 (2.07%) OpenID
19 40 (2.02%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 202 (10.22%) Cloud Native
2 143 (7.24%) Product Ownership
3 93 (4.71%) Distributed Systems
4 52 (2.63%) Mobile App
5 46 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
6 43 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
7 38 (1.92%) Onboarding
7 38 (1.92%) Virtual Team
8 36 (1.82%) Algorithms
9 34 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
10 32 (1.62%) Self-Motivation
11 30 (1.52%) NHS
12 29 (1.47%) Security Posture
13 22 (1.11%) Data Structures
13 22 (1.11%) Management Information System
14 21 (1.06%) Equities
15 20 (1.01%) Data Centre
16 19 (0.96%) Derivative
16 19 (0.96%) Distributed Architecture
16 19 (0.96%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 136 (6.88%) Linux
2 89 (4.50%) Windows
3 51 (2.58%) Android
4 43 (2.18%) 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%) Windows Server 2008
12 6 (0.30%) Kali Linux
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 1,048 (53.04%) CI/CD
2 926 (46.86%) Agile
3 733 (37.10%) DevOps
4 430 (21.76%) Problem-Solving
5 323 (16.35%) Continuous Improvement
6 307 (15.54%) Test Strategy
7 297 (15.03%) Microservices
8 282 (14.27%) Scrum
9 269 (13.61%) Containerisation
9 269 (13.61%) Validation
10 251 (12.70%) Infrastructure as Code
11 227 (11.49%) AI
11 227 (11.49%) Analytics
12 224 (11.34%) Test Scripting
13 223 (11.29%) Observability
14 217 (10.98%) Software Engineering
15 216 (10.93%) TDD
16 211 (10.68%) Regression Testing
17 207 (10.48%) SDLC
18 197 (9.97%) API Testing
Programming Languages
1 584 (29.55%) Python
2 478 (24.19%) Java
3 424 (21.46%) SQL
4 284 (14.37%) JavaScript
5 260 (13.16%) TypeScript
6 207 (10.48%) C#
7 81 (4.10%) PowerShell
8 77 (3.90%) Bash
9 50 (2.53%) C++
10 32 (1.62%) C
11 31 (1.57%) Kotlin
12 29 (1.47%) Ruby
13 28 (1.42%) PL/SQL
14 26 (1.32%) Apex Code
14 26 (1.32%) Bicep
15 24 (1.21%) Scala
16 23 (1.16%) Go
17 19 (0.96%) Swift
18 16 (0.81%) Groovy
19 15 (0.76%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 605 (30.62%) Security Cleared
2 474 (23.99%) SC Cleared
3 102 (5.16%) ISTQB
4 97 (4.91%) Degree
5 80 (4.05%) BPSS Clearance
6 61 (3.09%) DV Cleared
7 55 (2.78%) Computer Science Degree
8 37 (1.87%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 20 (1.01%) Master's Degree
10 15 (0.76%) Cisco Certification
11 13 (0.66%) AWS Certification
11 13 (0.66%) Azure Certification
12 11 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
13 10 (0.51%) CISSP
13 10 (0.51%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 9 (0.46%) CCNP
14 9 (0.46%) ISEB
14 9 (0.46%) OSCP
15 8 (0.40%) Oracle Certification
16 7 (0.35%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 445 (22.52%) QA
2 136 (6.88%) Accessibility
3 117 (5.92%) Data Quality
4 56 (2.83%) WCAG
5 44 (2.23%) 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%) HL7
17 5 (0.25%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 386 (19.53%) 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
7 6 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.15%) ISA Server
10 2 (0.10%) SRDF
11 1 (0.051%) Embedded Firmware
11 1 (0.051%) HDFS
11 1 (0.051%) KVM
11 1 (0.051%) Squid
11 1 (0.051%) Time Sharing Option
11 1 (0.051%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.051%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 365 (18.47%) Kubernetes
2 229 (11.59%) Terraform
3 106 (5.36%) Grafana
4 84 (4.25%) Ansible
5 82 (4.15%) Prometheus
6 29 (1.47%) Argo
7 25 (1.27%) HP ALM
8 19 (0.96%) Puppet
9 17 (0.86%) Single Sign-On
10 14 (0.71%) Progress Chef
11 11 (0.56%) NetBackup
12 10 (0.51%) Forefront Identity Manager
12 10 (0.51%) HP Quality Center
12 10 (0.51%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 9 (0.46%) Nmap
14 6 (0.30%) Kibana
14 6 (0.30%) Oracle RMAN
14 6 (0.30%) Podman
14 6 (0.30%) Rancher
15 5 (0.25%) Dell DRAC
Vendors
1 170 (8.60%) Microsoft
2 167 (8.45%) Oracle
3 77 (3.90%) Salesforce
4 72 (3.64%) Databricks
5 61 (3.09%) ServiceNow
6 60 (3.04%) Google
7 53 (2.68%) Splunk
8 50 (2.53%) Red Hat
9 49 (2.48%) SAP
10 41 (2.07%) Talend
11 35 (1.77%) 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 16 (0.81%) MuleSoft
15 16 (0.81%) Workday
16 14 (0.71%) OpenAI
16 14 (0.71%) UiPath