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

 6 months to
5 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 45 52
Rank change year-on-year -2 +7 -10
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,812 1,387 1,653
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.63% 4.45% 3.72%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.31% 4.99% 4.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,240 917 1,178
10th Percentile £338 £330 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -4.76% -5.91%
75th Percentile £576 £613 £625
90th Percentile £688 £729 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £476 £500
% change year-on-year +5.04% -4.80% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 5 59
10th Percentile £20.23 £41.75 £43.50
25th Percentile £42.58 £42.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £61.25 £74.00 £68.50
Median % change year-on-year -17.23% +8.03% +20.18%
75th Percentile £67.00 £77.19 £90.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £83.38 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £75.60 £75.00
% change year-on-year -20.63% +0.79% +31.58%

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 34,128 27,815 38,732
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.17% 89.32% 87.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,612 16,932 25,487
10th Percentile £306 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £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 £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £498 £500
% change year-on-year -3.52% -0.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,064 868 2,102
10th Percentile £14.51 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.26
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +9.38%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £61.13
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.04 £31.50 £35.25
% change year-on-year -20.52% -10.64% +18.61%

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 5 February 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 5 February 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 5 February 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 1,562 £500 - 682
UK excluding London +2 829 £500 +5.04% 557
London -1 756 £500 -2.44% 227
Work from Home +4 544 £500 - 389
North of England +3 323 £496 +16.71% 141
South East -17 160 £496 -0.80% 190
Midlands +9 154 £500 +4.17% 54
Yorkshire -15 145 £525 +16.67% 39
North West +8 132 £446 +10.88% 88
West Midlands +14 124 £519 +5.92% 32
South West +9 82 £525 -6.25% 77
East of England +5 54 £570 +42.50% 59
North East +17 50 £488 +34.48% 14
Scotland -18 43 £468 -0.37% 31
East Midlands -7 30 £400 -13.51% 22
Wales +6 26 £509 +1.80% 14
Northern Ireland +12 17 £475 -8.43% 2

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
1 104 (5.74%) Confluence
2 56 (3.09%) SAS
3 24 (1.32%) Apache Spark
4 14 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.72%) SharePoint
6 11 (0.61%) Apache
7 7 (0.39%) Appian
8 6 (0.33%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 6 (0.33%) Oracle Application Server
9 5 (0.28%) CMS
9 5 (0.28%) nginx
9 5 (0.28%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.22%) Camunda
10 4 (0.22%) WebLogic
11 3 (0.17%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.17%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.17%) Tomcat
12 2 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.11%) WordPress
Applications
1 24 (1.32%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
4 10 (0.55%) MS Visio
5 8 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.11%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.055%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.055%) SOLIDWORKS
8 1 (0.055%) Trello
Business Applications
1 19 (1.05%) Aladdin
2 7 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.28%) Workday HCM
4 4 (0.22%) Loan IQ
4 4 (0.22%) Maximo
4 4 (0.22%) SAP HR
5 3 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
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
6 2 (0.11%) Summit
7 1 (0.055%) Algo Collateral
7 1 (0.055%) Oracle EBS R12
7 1 (0.055%) Oracle General Ledger
Cloud Services
1 514 (28.37%) Azure
2 451 (24.89%) AWS
3 288 (15.89%) GitHub
4 220 (12.14%) Azure DevOps
5 186 (10.26%) GCP
6 155 (8.55%) GitHub Actions
7 127 (7.01%) Serverless
8 73 (4.03%) Power Platform
9 65 (3.59%) OpenShift
10 58 (3.20%) AWS Lambda
11 49 (2.70%) Amazon S3
12 43 (2.37%) SaaS
13 42 (2.32%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 42 (2.32%) Azure AKS
14 41 (2.26%) AWS CloudFormation
15 37 (2.04%) Amazon EKS
15 37 (2.04%) Snowflake
16 33 (1.82%) Dynamics 365
17 32 (1.77%) Tricentis Tosca
18 31 (1.71%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 38 (2.10%) Firewall
2 32 (1.77%) Wireshark
3 26 (1.43%) HTTP
3 26 (1.43%) HTTPS
4 23 (1.27%) SSL
5 21 (1.16%) TCP/IP
6 20 (1.10%) VPN
7 14 (0.77%) Network Security
8 13 (0.72%) SD-WAN
9 11 (0.61%) WAN
10 10 (0.55%) DNS
10 10 (0.55%) Ethernet
10 10 (0.55%) FTP
11 9 (0.50%) MPLS
11 9 (0.50%) VLAN
12 8 (0.44%) Multicast
13 7 (0.39%) AMQP
14 5 (0.28%) Cisco IPT
15 4 (0.22%) Cisco ASA
15 4 (0.22%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 99 (5.46%) PostgreSQL
2 90 (4.97%) NoSQL
3 87 (4.80%) MongoDB
4 69 (3.81%) SQL Server
5 62 (3.42%) Relational Database
6 41 (2.26%) Power BI
7 34 (1.88%) Data Warehouse
8 29 (1.60%) BigQuery
8 29 (1.60%) Pentaho
9 27 (1.49%) MySQL
10 24 (1.32%) Oracle Database
11 23 (1.27%) Big Data
11 23 (1.27%) DynamoDB
12 20 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
13 17 (0.94%) Redis
13 17 (0.94%) Star Schema
13 17 (0.94%) Tableau
14 16 (0.88%) Apache Cassandra
15 15 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
15 15 (0.83%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 333 (18.38%) Jenkins
2 320 (17.66%) JIRA
3 309 (17.05%) Git
4 278 (15.34%) GitLab
5 270 (14.90%) Selenium
6 162 (8.94%) Cucumber
7 157 (8.66%) Postman
8 113 (6.24%) Cypress.io
9 98 (5.41%) REST Assured
10 89 (4.91%) JMeter
11 88 (4.86%) JUnit
12 38 (2.10%) SonarQube
13 37 (2.04%) Gatling
13 37 (2.04%) Mockito
13 37 (2.04%) WebDriver
14 36 (1.99%) TestRail
15 35 (1.93%) SpecFlow
16 34 (1.88%) Bitbucket
16 34 (1.88%) Maven
17 33 (1.82%) Gradle
General
1 462 (25.50%) Social Skills
2 296 (16.34%) Finance
3 260 (14.35%) Public Sector
4 197 (10.87%) Analytical Skills
5 134 (7.40%) Banking
6 33 (1.82%) Documentation Skills
7 31 (1.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 27 (1.49%) Investment Banking
9 26 (1.43%) Telecoms
10 23 (1.27%) Front Office
10 23 (1.27%) Pharmaceutical
11 18 (0.99%) Presentation Skills
12 17 (0.94%) Military
13 16 (0.88%) Manufacturing
14 15 (0.83%) Financial Institution
15 12 (0.66%) Aerospace
15 12 (0.66%) Electronics
15 12 (0.66%) Legal
15 12 (0.66%) Marketing
16 10 (0.55%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 424 (23.40%) Developer
2 303 (16.72%) Senior
3 216 (11.92%) Tester
4 198 (10.93%) Test Engineer
5 180 (9.93%) Lead
6 117 (6.46%) Automation Tester
7 113 (6.24%) Java Developer
8 83 (4.58%) Analyst
8 83 (4.58%) Software Engineer
9 80 (4.42%) Test Automation Engineer
10 74 (4.08%) Senior Developer
11 71 (3.92%) DevOps Engineer
12 70 (3.86%) Data Engineer
12 70 (3.86%) QA Engineer
13 66 (3.64%) Test Leader
14 57 (3.15%) Test Manager
15 55 (3.04%) Automation Engineer
15 55 (3.04%) Test Analyst
16 51 (2.81%) Full-Stack Developer
17 47 (2.59%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 249 (13.74%) REST
2 208 (11.48%) Playwright
3 160 (8.83%) React
4 148 (8.17%) Node.js
5 147 (8.11%) RESTful
6 140 (7.73%) .NET
7 134 (7.40%) Spring
8 127 (7.01%) Kafka
9 124 (6.84%) Spring Boot
10 84 (4.64%) pytest
11 63 (3.48%) JSON
12 61 (3.37%) AngularJS
12 61 (3.37%) HTML
13 57 (3.15%) OAuth
14 56 (3.09%) SOAP
15 53 (2.92%) Web Services
15 53 (2.92%) XML
16 51 (2.81%) CSS
17 50 (2.76%) Jest
18 42 (2.32%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 189 (10.43%) Cloud Native
2 126 (6.95%) Product Ownership
3 63 (3.48%) Distributed Systems
4 50 (2.76%) Mobile App
5 43 (2.37%) Security Posture
6 38 (2.10%) Legacy Systems
7 37 (2.04%) Algorithms
8 35 (1.93%) Data Protection Act
9 31 (1.71%) Onboarding
10 28 (1.55%) Virtual Team
11 25 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
12 21 (1.16%) Data Structures
12 21 (1.16%) Greenfield Project
13 20 (1.10%) Management Information System
13 20 (1.10%) NHS
13 20 (1.10%) Public Cloud
14 18 (0.99%) Equities
14 18 (0.99%) Self-Motivation
15 15 (0.83%) Data Centre
15 15 (0.83%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 161 (8.89%) Linux
2 81 (4.47%) Windows
3 48 (2.65%) Unix
4 41 (2.26%) Android
5 36 (1.99%) Apple iOS
6 23 (1.27%) Windows Server
7 21 (1.16%) Mac OS X
8 12 (0.66%) Kali Linux
9 9 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (0.22%) CentOS
11 3 (0.17%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.17%) Solaris
11 3 (0.17%) Windows Server 2008
11 3 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.11%) VMS
12 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.055%) Robot Operating System
13 1 (0.055%) Windows Embedded Compact
13 1 (0.055%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 929 (51.27%) CI/CD
2 868 (47.90%) Agile
3 681 (37.58%) DevOps
4 446 (24.61%) Problem-Solving
5 278 (15.34%) Microservices
6 272 (15.01%) Test Strategy
7 268 (14.79%) Continuous Improvement
8 264 (14.57%) Containerisation
9 242 (13.36%) Scrum
10 222 (12.25%) Infrastructure as Code
11 218 (12.03%) Test Scripting
12 209 (11.53%) Validation
13 208 (11.48%) AI
14 207 (11.42%) Software Engineering
15 204 (11.26%) TDD
16 179 (9.88%) API Testing
17 178 (9.82%) Software Testing
18 174 (9.60%) Analytics
19 167 (9.22%) Regression Testing
20 166 (9.16%) BDD
Programming Languages
1 547 (30.19%) Python
2 449 (24.78%) Java
3 346 (19.09%) SQL
4 277 (15.29%) JavaScript
5 255 (14.07%) TypeScript
6 174 (9.60%) C#
7 84 (4.64%) Bash
8 65 (3.59%) PowerShell
9 40 (2.21%) C++
9 40 (2.21%) Go
10 24 (1.32%) Bicep
10 24 (1.32%) PL/SQL
11 23 (1.27%) Scala
12 21 (1.16%) Kotlin
13 18 (0.99%) Ruby
14 16 (0.88%) Apex Code
15 14 (0.77%) C
16 13 (0.72%) Groovy
16 13 (0.72%) Swift
17 12 (0.66%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 507 (27.98%) Security Cleared
2 391 (21.58%) SC Cleared
3 104 (5.74%) Degree
4 80 (4.42%) ISTQB
5 71 (3.92%) BPSS Clearance
6 59 (3.26%) DV Cleared
7 56 (3.09%) Computer Science Degree
8 30 (1.66%) Master's Degree
9 27 (1.49%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 19 (1.05%) OSCP
11 17 (0.94%) AWS Certification
12 16 (0.88%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 14 (0.77%) CEH
14 13 (0.72%) Cisco Certification
14 13 (0.72%) CISSP
14 13 (0.72%) GPEN
14 13 (0.72%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 12 (0.66%) Oracle Certification
16 11 (0.61%) CISM
16 11 (0.61%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 377 (20.81%) QA
2 145 (8.00%) Accessibility
3 87 (4.80%) Data Quality
4 48 (2.65%) WCAG
5 40 (2.21%) GDPR
6 37 (2.04%) NIST
7 25 (1.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 21 (1.16%) NCSC
9 18 (0.99%) EU AI Act
10 15 (0.83%) ISO 20022
11 13 (0.72%) PSD2
12 12 (0.66%) PCI DSS
12 12 (0.66%) SLA
13 11 (0.61%) SEPA
14 10 (0.55%) NIST 800
15 9 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 7 (0.39%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 7 (0.39%) SOC 2
17 6 (0.33%) HIPAA
18 5 (0.28%) Def Stans
System Software
1 389 (21.47%) Docker
2 32 (1.77%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.39%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
3 7 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
4 5 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (0.28%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (0.22%) Firmware
6 3 (0.17%) ISA Server
6 3 (0.17%) QEMU
6 3 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
7 2 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.055%) Embedded Firmware
8 1 (0.055%) HDFS
8 1 (0.055%) KVM
8 1 (0.055%) Squid
8 1 (0.055%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.055%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.055%) vSphere
8 1 (0.055%) zsh
Systems Management
1 342 (18.87%) Kubernetes
2 212 (11.70%) Terraform
3 106 (5.85%) Ansible
4 93 (5.13%) Grafana
5 63 (3.48%) Prometheus
6 21 (1.16%) HP ALM
7 19 (1.05%) Nmap
8 17 (0.94%) Progress Chef
9 16 (0.88%) Argo
10 15 (0.83%) CSIRT
11 14 (0.77%) Puppet
11 14 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
12 11 (0.61%) NetBackup
13 9 (0.50%) HP Quality Center
14 8 (0.44%) Nessus
15 7 (0.39%) Kibana
15 7 (0.39%) Podman
16 5 (0.28%) Forefront Identity Manager
16 5 (0.28%) NetIQ Identity Manager
17 4 (0.22%) Iperf
Vendors
1 165 (9.11%) Microsoft
2 155 (8.55%) Oracle
3 69 (3.81%) Splunk
4 61 (3.37%) Salesforce
5 60 (3.31%) ServiceNow
6 59 (3.26%) Databricks
7 58 (3.20%) Google
7 58 (3.20%) SAP
8 30 (1.66%) Talend
9 29 (1.60%) Denodo
10 25 (1.38%) Red Hat
10 25 (1.38%) VMware
11 23 (1.27%) Cisco
12 21 (1.16%) HP
12 21 (1.16%) IBM
12 21 (1.16%) webMethods
13 20 (1.10%) F5
14 18 (0.99%) OpenAI
15 17 (0.94%) MuleSoft
16 16 (0.88%) Atlassian
778 Test Automation jobs Nationwide