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

6 months to
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 45 55
Rank change year-on-year -1 +10 -10
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,964 1,332 1,559
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.47% 4.58% 3.52%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.20% 5.06% 4.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,314 924 1,051
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 £625 £638
90th Percentile £675 £736 £719
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £478 £487
% change year-on-year -0.52% -1.90% -7.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 8 60
10th Percentile £32.37 £40.23 £44.25
25th Percentile £54.89 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £61.25
Median % change year-on-year +14.54% -7.35% +2.08%
75th Percentile £70.00 £70.25 £81.56
90th Percentile - £76.01 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.25 £56.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year +16.74% -9.20% +4.17%

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 37,733 26,318 38,291
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.81% 90.56% 86.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,910 17,091 24,889
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 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £746
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.89% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,221 949 2,344
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.19 £12.85
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.45 £16.00
Median hourly rate £34.50 £32.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.81% -1.54% -9.72%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £58.69
90th Percentile £76.00 £76.25 £71.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £31.52 £31.80
% change year-on-year -4.82% -0.88% -12.28%

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 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 26 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 26 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 -1 1,683 £488 -2.50% 674
UK excluding London 0 901 £475 -0.52% 573
London +2 831 £500 - 183
Work from Home -7 570 £475 -5.00% 333
North of England +5 331 £483 +7.85% 162
Midlands +15 191 £472 -0.32% 83
South East -28 171 £500 -10.71% 145
West Midlands +15 162 £477 -4.22% 57
North West +5 150 £450 - 82
Yorkshire -8 138 £509 +7.11% 41
South West -1 80 £500 -4.76% 72
East of England +3 61 £570 +19.06% 65
North East +8 46 £425 +11.67% 39
Scotland -16 41 £425 -5.56% 30
Wales -1 33 £505 +26.13% 27
East Midlands -24 29 £400 +8.55% 26
Northern Ireland +13 21 £475 -2.56% 7

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
1 138 (7.03%) Confluence
2 60 (3.05%) SAS
3 32 (1.63%) Apache Spark
4 19 (0.97%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.66%) SharePoint
6 11 (0.56%) Apache
7 8 (0.41%) Appian
8 6 (0.31%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 6 (0.31%) nginx
8 6 (0.31%) WebLogic
9 5 (0.25%) Camunda
9 5 (0.25%) CMS
9 5 (0.25%) Tomcat
10 4 (0.20%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.15%) Anypoint
12 2 (0.10%) Magnolia
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 27 (1.37%) 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 24 (1.22%) Aladdin
2 9 (0.46%) Oracle EBS
3 8 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
4 6 (0.31%) Findur
4 6 (0.31%) 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%) 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%) Advent Geneva
8 2 (0.10%) iTrent
8 2 (0.10%) NetSuite
8 2 (0.10%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.10%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 575 (29.28%) Azure
2 509 (25.92%) AWS
3 351 (17.87%) GitHub
4 269 (13.70%) Azure DevOps
5 192 (9.78%) GitHub Actions
6 183 (9.32%) GCP
7 140 (7.13%) Serverless
8 78 (3.97%) Power Platform
9 77 (3.92%) OpenShift
10 73 (3.72%) AWS Lambda
11 70 (3.56%) Amazon S3
12 52 (2.65%) AWS CloudFormation
13 48 (2.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 42 (2.14%) Azure AKS
14 42 (2.14%) Snowflake
15 39 (1.99%) Amazon ECS
16 35 (1.78%) SaaS
17 34 (1.73%) Dynamics 365
18 33 (1.68%) Amazon EKS
18 33 (1.68%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.37%) Firewall
2 25 (1.27%) HTTP
3 17 (0.87%) TCP/IP
3 17 (0.87%) VPN
4 14 (0.71%) SSL
5 13 (0.66%) Network Security
5 13 (0.66%) SD-WAN
5 13 (0.66%) WAN
6 12 (0.61%) Wireshark
7 10 (0.51%) DNS
7 10 (0.51%) FTP
8 9 (0.46%) Ethernet
8 9 (0.46%) HTTPS
8 9 (0.46%) SAN
9 8 (0.41%) MPLS
9 8 (0.41%) Multicast
10 6 (0.31%) 5G
11 5 (0.25%) AMQP
11 5 (0.25%) Cisco IPT
11 5 (0.25%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (5.60%) PostgreSQL
2 89 (4.53%) NoSQL
3 77 (3.92%) SQL Server
4 76 (3.87%) MongoDB
5 61 (3.11%) Relational Database
6 50 (2.55%) Data Warehouse
7 45 (2.29%) Power BI
8 39 (1.99%) DynamoDB
9 32 (1.63%) MySQL
10 30 (1.53%) BigQuery
11 29 (1.48%) Pentaho
12 25 (1.27%) Oracle Database
13 23 (1.17%) Amazon RDS
13 23 (1.17%) Tableau
14 21 (1.07%) Metadata
14 21 (1.07%) Redis
15 19 (0.97%) Amazon Athena
15 19 (0.97%) Big Data
16 17 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
17 16 (0.81%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 374 (19.04%) JIRA
2 370 (18.84%) Git
3 359 (18.28%) Jenkins
4 288 (14.66%) Selenium
5 287 (14.61%) GitLab
6 168 (8.55%) Cucumber
7 160 (8.15%) Postman
8 116 (5.91%) JUnit
9 109 (5.55%) Cypress.io
10 105 (5.35%) JMeter
11 98 (4.99%) REST Assured
12 52 (2.65%) WebDriver
13 44 (2.24%) SonarQube
14 41 (2.09%) SpecFlow
15 39 (1.99%) Zephyr
16 38 (1.93%) Gatling
17 34 (1.73%) Maven
17 34 (1.73%) TestRail
18 32 (1.63%) Mockito
19 31 (1.58%) Bitbucket
General
1 527 (26.83%) Social Skills
2 334 (17.01%) Finance
3 289 (14.71%) Public Sector
4 206 (10.49%) Analytical Skills
5 157 (7.99%) Banking
6 35 (1.78%) Documentation Skills
7 32 (1.63%) Investment Banking
8 30 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 29 (1.48%) Front Office
10 23 (1.17%) Telecoms
11 21 (1.07%) Presentation Skills
12 19 (0.97%) Influencing Skills
12 19 (0.97%) Organisational Skills
13 18 (0.92%) Military
14 17 (0.87%) Aerospace
14 17 (0.87%) Legal
14 17 (0.87%) Pharmaceutical
15 14 (0.71%) Financial Institution
16 10 (0.51%) Electronics
17 9 (0.46%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 416 (21.18%) Developer
2 329 (16.75%) Senior
3 221 (11.25%) Test Engineer
4 218 (11.10%) Tester
5 214 (10.90%) Lead
6 117 (5.96%) Automation Tester
7 100 (5.09%) Java Developer
8 98 (4.99%) Analyst
9 95 (4.84%) Data Engineer
10 94 (4.79%) Test Automation Engineer
11 85 (4.33%) Test Leader
12 82 (4.18%) QA Engineer
13 80 (4.07%) Software Engineer
14 79 (4.02%) DevOps Engineer
15 78 (3.97%) Senior Developer
16 72 (3.67%) Architect
17 64 (3.26%) Test Analyst
17 64 (3.26%) Test Manager
18 59 (3.00%) Automation Engineer
19 52 (2.65%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 256 (13.03%) REST
2 237 (12.07%) Playwright
3 168 (8.55%) React
4 160 (8.15%) RESTful
5 149 (7.59%) Node.js
6 146 (7.43%) Spring
7 139 (7.08%) .NET
8 131 (6.67%) Kafka
9 116 (5.91%) Spring Boot
10 88 (4.48%) pytest
11 80 (4.07%) AngularJS
12 67 (3.41%) HTML
13 62 (3.16%) OAuth
14 58 (2.95%) Jest
15 55 (2.80%) CSS
16 51 (2.60%) Web Services
17 44 (2.24%) JSON
18 43 (2.19%) GraphQL
19 41 (2.09%) Gherkin
19 41 (2.09%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 207 (10.54%) Cloud Native
2 146 (7.43%) Product Ownership
3 98 (4.99%) Distributed Systems
4 49 (2.49%) Mobile App
5 47 (2.39%) Legacy Systems
6 46 (2.34%) Data Protection Act
7 42 (2.14%) Algorithms
8 36 (1.83%) Onboarding
9 35 (1.78%) Virtual Team
10 31 (1.58%) Enterprise Software
10 31 (1.58%) Self-Motivation
11 27 (1.37%) NHS
11 27 (1.37%) Security Posture
12 24 (1.22%) Equities
13 23 (1.17%) Data Structures
13 23 (1.17%) Greenfield Project
14 21 (1.07%) Derivative
14 21 (1.07%) Management Information System
15 20 (1.02%) Distributed Architecture
15 20 (1.02%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 139 (7.08%) Linux
2 88 (4.48%) Windows
3 49 (2.49%) Android
4 39 (1.99%) Apple iOS
5 33 (1.68%) Unix
6 21 (1.07%) Windows Server
7 17 (0.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 11 (0.56%) Mac OS X
9 8 (0.41%) Kali Linux
9 8 (0.41%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.31%) Solaris
11 5 (0.25%) Windows Server 2008
11 5 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
11 5 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.20%) CentOS
13 3 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
14 2 (0.10%) Windows 10
15 1 (0.051%) FreeRTOS
15 1 (0.051%) Robot Operating System
15 1 (0.051%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,040 (52.95%) CI/CD
2 927 (47.20%) Agile
3 740 (37.68%) DevOps
4 436 (22.20%) Problem-Solving
5 318 (16.19%) Continuous Improvement
6 309 (15.73%) Test Strategy
7 300 (15.27%) Microservices
8 281 (14.31%) Scrum
9 276 (14.05%) Containerisation
10 255 (12.98%) Validation
11 249 (12.68%) Infrastructure as Code
12 234 (11.91%) AI
13 232 (11.81%) Software Engineering
14 219 (11.15%) Test Scripting
15 217 (11.05%) Analytics
16 216 (11.00%) TDD
17 215 (10.95%) Observability
18 207 (10.54%) Regression Testing
19 205 (10.44%) SDLC
20 196 (9.98%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 604 (30.75%) Python
2 470 (23.93%) Java
3 407 (20.72%) SQL
4 295 (15.02%) JavaScript
5 272 (13.85%) TypeScript
6 207 (10.54%) C#
7 82 (4.18%) PowerShell
8 80 (4.07%) Bash
9 51 (2.60%) C++
10 31 (1.58%) C
10 31 (1.58%) Kotlin
11 29 (1.48%) Go
11 29 (1.48%) Ruby
12 26 (1.32%) Bicep
12 26 (1.32%) PL/SQL
13 24 (1.22%) Apex Code
13 24 (1.22%) Scala
14 18 (0.92%) Swift
15 17 (0.87%) Groovy
16 15 (0.76%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 575 (29.28%) Security Cleared
2 444 (22.61%) SC Cleared
3 102 (5.19%) Degree
4 95 (4.84%) ISTQB
5 78 (3.97%) BPSS Clearance
6 58 (2.95%) DV Cleared
7 57 (2.90%) Computer Science Degree
8 35 (1.78%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 23 (1.17%) Master's Degree
10 14 (0.71%) Cisco Certification
11 13 (0.66%) AWS Certification
11 13 (0.66%) Azure Certification
12 11 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
12 11 (0.56%) OSCP
13 10 (0.51%) CISSP
13 10 (0.51%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 9 (0.46%) CCNP
14 9 (0.46%) CEH
14 9 (0.46%) ISEB
15 8 (0.41%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 446 (22.71%) QA
2 150 (7.64%) Accessibility
3 109 (5.55%) Data Quality
4 55 (2.80%) WCAG
5 40 (2.04%) GDPR
6 29 (1.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 22 (1.12%) NIST
8 16 (0.81%) NCSC
8 16 (0.81%) SLA
9 14 (0.71%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 11 (0.56%) PCI DSS
11 10 (0.51%) Def Stans
11 10 (0.51%) EU AI Act
11 10 (0.51%) ISO 20022
11 10 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 8 (0.41%) PSD2
13 6 (0.31%) HIPAA
13 6 (0.31%) SEPA
13 6 (0.31%) SOC 2
14 5 (0.25%) MiFID
System Software
1 386 (19.65%) Docker
2 30 (1.53%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.56%) Firmware
3 11 (0.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
5 7 (0.36%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
6 4 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
6 4 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.15%) ISA Server
8 2 (0.10%) SRDF
9 1 (0.051%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.051%) HDFS
9 1 (0.051%) KVM
9 1 (0.051%) Squid
9 1 (0.051%) Time Sharing Option
9 1 (0.051%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.051%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 365 (18.58%) Kubernetes
2 224 (11.41%) Terraform
3 117 (5.96%) Grafana
4 101 (5.14%) Ansible
5 89 (4.53%) Prometheus
6 27 (1.37%) Argo
7 24 (1.22%) HP ALM
8 22 (1.12%) Puppet
9 16 (0.81%) Progress Chef
10 15 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
11 13 (0.66%) NetBackup
12 11 (0.56%) Nmap
13 10 (0.51%) HP Quality Center
14 9 (0.46%) Forefront Identity Manager
14 9 (0.46%) NetIQ Identity Manager
15 7 (0.36%) Kibana
15 7 (0.36%) Podman
16 6 (0.31%) Rancher
17 5 (0.25%) Dell DRAC
18 4 (0.20%) Istio
Vendors
1 168 (8.55%) Microsoft
2 148 (7.54%) Oracle
3 73 (3.72%) Databricks
4 72 (3.67%) Salesforce
5 65 (3.31%) Google
6 61 (3.11%) ServiceNow
7 59 (3.00%) Splunk
8 50 (2.55%) SAP
9 47 (2.39%) Red Hat
10 34 (1.73%) Talend
11 27 (1.37%) HP
11 27 (1.37%) VMware
12 25 (1.27%) Denodo
12 25 (1.27%) IBM
13 23 (1.17%) Cisco
14 20 (1.02%) Dynatrace
15 16 (0.81%) MuleSoft
15 16 (0.81%) Workday
16 15 (0.76%) UiPath
17 14 (0.71%) OpenAI