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

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 52 46
Rank change year-on-year +7 -6 +5
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,390 1,466 1,574
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.39% 4.52% 4.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.20% 4.99% 4.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,527 993 1,051
10th Percentile £325 £313 £350
25th Percentile £406 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £580 £600
90th Percentile £668 £699 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 109 38 18
10th Percentile £40.00 £30.06 £40.88
25th Percentile £59.25 £47.19 £43.75
Median hourly rate £70.00 £56.25 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +24.44% -2.17% -23.33%
75th Percentile £71.50 £67.00 £71.88
90th Percentile £77.50 £70.45 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £57.50 £57.50
% change year-on-year +17.39% - -16.36%

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 45,945 29,375 32,666
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.44% 90.50% 85.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,954 18,237 20,159
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,063 1,777 1,475
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.23 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.42 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.47 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £66.70 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.08 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +78.13% -47.67% +6.17%

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 15 September 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 15 September 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 15 September 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 +7 2,014 £475 -5.00% 3,340
UK excluding London -2 1,161 £450 -5.26% 2,002
London +7 915 £500 - 1,739
Work from Home -5 649 £479 +0.84% 1,457
North of England +1 404 £455 -1.09% 481
Midlands +8 249 £450 -2.70% 200
West Midlands +17 234 £459 -11.48% 129
South East -12 232 £450 -10.00% 429
Yorkshire -7 165 £473 -5.59% 143
North West -10 140 £492 +16.17% 279
South West -8 113 £463 -7.50% 262
North East +12 106 £425 -4.49% 60
Scotland -21 86 £475 -5.00% 311
East of England +10 83 £450 +31.39% 216
Wales -4 27 £475 +26.67% 38
East Midlands -38 15 £418 +19.29% 70
Northern Ireland +6 8 £513 +345.65% 75
Channel Islands - 3 £450 - 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
1 193 (8.08%) Confluence
2 55 (2.30%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (1.97%) SharePoint
4 45 (1.88%) Apache Spark
5 40 (1.67%) SAS
6 26 (1.09%) Apache
7 16 (0.67%) CMS
8 12 (0.50%) Camunda
8 12 (0.50%) WebLogic
9 7 (0.29%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
10 6 (0.25%) nginx
10 6 (0.25%) Tomcat
11 4 (0.17%) Anypoint
11 4 (0.17%) ColdFusion
11 4 (0.17%) Jupyter
11 4 (0.17%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
12 3 (0.13%) Kentico
13 2 (0.084%) Apache Pulsar
Applications
1 25 (1.05%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (0.71%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.29%) Chatbot
3 7 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.17%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.13%) Simulink
5 3 (0.13%) Trello
6 2 (0.084%) Mingle
6 2 (0.084%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 29 (1.21%) Dynamics CRM
2 24 (1.00%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (0.54%) Payment Gateway
4 9 (0.38%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.29%) Findur
5 7 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
5 7 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.29%) SAP GRC
6 6 (0.25%) SAP ERP
6 6 (0.25%) SAP MDG
7 4 (0.17%) FLEXCUBE
8 3 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
8 3 (0.13%) Finacle
8 3 (0.13%) Shopify
8 3 (0.13%) Temenos T24
9 2 (0.084%) BambooHR
9 2 (0.084%) Oracle ERP
9 2 (0.084%) SAP HR
9 2 (0.084%) SAP Payroll
10 1 (0.042%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 733 (30.67%) AWS
2 705 (29.50%) Azure
3 416 (17.41%) GitHub
4 327 (13.68%) Azure DevOps
5 256 (10.71%) GitHub Actions
6 176 (7.36%) Serverless
7 171 (7.15%) GCP
8 132 (5.52%) AWS Lambda
9 112 (4.69%) Power Platform
10 100 (4.18%) Amazon S3
11 85 (3.56%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 77 (3.22%) OpenShift
13 76 (3.18%) GitHub Copilot
14 71 (2.97%) Amazon ECS
15 68 (2.85%) Amazon EKS
15 68 (2.85%) AWS CloudFormation
16 59 (2.47%) dbt
17 57 (2.38%) Snowflake
18 48 (2.01%) Amazon EC2
19 45 (1.88%) Anthropic Claude
Communications & Networking
1 26 (1.09%) HTTP
2 23 (0.96%) Firewall
3 22 (0.92%) DNS
4 21 (0.88%) 4G
5 20 (0.84%) 5G
6 18 (0.75%) TCP/IP
7 16 (0.67%) 2G
7 16 (0.67%) 3G
7 16 (0.67%) Diameter Protocol
7 16 (0.67%) Network Security
7 16 (0.67%) SIGTRAN
7 16 (0.67%) SS7
7 16 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
8 14 (0.59%) WAN
9 13 (0.54%) LAN
10 11 (0.46%) Broadband
11 10 (0.42%) BGP
11 10 (0.42%) DHCP
12 9 (0.38%) SAN
13 8 (0.33%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 146 (6.11%) PostgreSQL
2 127 (5.31%) Data Warehouse
3 125 (5.23%) MongoDB
4 116 (4.85%) Relational Database
5 108 (4.52%) NoSQL
6 99 (4.14%) SQL Server
7 83 (3.47%) Power BI
8 50 (2.09%) Metadata
9 44 (1.84%) DynamoDB
10 39 (1.63%) Oracle Reports
11 38 (1.59%) Data Lake
12 35 (1.46%) Big Data
12 35 (1.46%) MySQL
13 34 (1.42%) Pentaho
14 32 (1.34%) Amazon Athena
15 31 (1.30%) Amazon Redshift
15 31 (1.30%) Redis
16 28 (1.17%) Amazon RDS
16 28 (1.17%) Elasticsearch
17 25 (1.05%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 515 (21.55%) Git
2 399 (16.69%) JIRA
3 385 (16.11%) Jenkins
4 323 (13.51%) GitLab
5 294 (12.30%) Selenium
6 162 (6.78%) Postman
7 149 (6.23%) Cucumber
8 132 (5.52%) JUnit
9 124 (5.19%) Cypress.io
10 106 (4.44%) REST Assured
11 93 (3.89%) JMeter
12 84 (3.51%) SonarQube
13 65 (2.72%) Maven
13 65 (2.72%) Zephyr
14 63 (2.64%) Gatling
15 60 (2.51%) Gradle
16 56 (2.34%) Mockito
17 51 (2.13%) WebDriver
18 39 (1.63%) Bitbucket
19 29 (1.21%) SpecFlow
General
1 667 (27.91%) Social Skills
2 437 (18.28%) Finance
3 342 (14.31%) Public Sector
4 334 (13.97%) Analytical Skills
5 210 (8.79%) Banking
6 80 (3.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 47 (1.97%) Telecoms
8 42 (1.76%) Front Office
9 34 (1.42%) Influencing Skills
9 34 (1.42%) Investment Banking
10 33 (1.38%) Documentation Skills
10 33 (1.38%) Retail
11 31 (1.30%) Military
12 22 (0.92%) Financial Institution
13 20 (0.84%) Law
13 20 (0.84%) Marketing
14 18 (0.75%) Aerospace
15 17 (0.71%) Manufacturing
16 16 (0.67%) Back Office
17 14 (0.59%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 549 (22.97%) Developer
2 398 (16.65%) Senior
3 239 (10.00%) Lead
4 233 (9.75%) Test Engineer
5 194 (8.12%) Tester
6 182 (7.62%) Java Developer
7 144 (6.03%) Data Engineer
8 127 (5.31%) Software Engineer
9 126 (5.27%) Analyst
10 123 (5.15%) Senior Developer
11 122 (5.10%) DevOps Engineer
12 105 (4.39%) Test Automation Engineer
13 101 (4.23%) QA Engineer
14 95 (3.97%) Architect
15 83 (3.47%) Automation Tester
16 82 (3.43%) Test Analyst
17 81 (3.39%) Full-Stack Developer
18 77 (3.22%) Test Leader
19 73 (3.05%) Test Manager
20 68 (2.85%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 402 (16.82%) REST
2 342 (14.31%) Terraform
3 282 (11.80%) Playwright
4 250 (10.46%) RESTful
5 234 (9.79%) Kafka
5 234 (9.79%) Spring
6 221 (9.25%) React
7 205 (8.58%) Spring Boot
8 172 (7.20%) .NET
9 140 (5.86%) HTML
10 134 (5.61%) Node.js
11 121 (5.06%) CSS
12 108 (4.52%) AngularJS
13 78 (3.26%) OAuth
14 72 (3.01%) JSON
15 61 (2.55%) pytest
16 60 (2.51%) XML
17 57 (2.38%) Middleware
17 57 (2.38%) Next.js
18 55 (2.30%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 370 (15.48%) Cloud Native
2 203 (8.49%) Product Ownership
3 172 (7.20%) Distributed Systems
4 98 (4.10%) Enterprise Software
5 66 (2.76%) Onboarding
6 62 (2.59%) Legacy Systems
7 60 (2.51%) AI Agents
8 57 (2.38%) Data Protection Act
9 53 (2.22%) Self-Motivation
10 49 (2.05%) Mobile App
11 39 (1.63%) Virtual Team
12 29 (1.21%) Security Posture
13 25 (1.05%) Data Structures
14 24 (1.00%) Management Information System
15 22 (0.92%) Legacy Applications
15 22 (0.92%) Life Science
16 21 (0.88%) Data Centre
16 21 (0.88%) Embedded Systems
16 21 (0.88%) Private Cloud
17 20 (0.84%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 169 (7.07%) Linux
2 100 (4.18%) Unix
3 93 (3.89%) Windows
4 44 (1.84%) Apple iOS
5 43 (1.80%) Android
6 31 (1.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 24 (1.00%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.25%) Solaris
8 6 (0.25%) VMS
9 5 (0.21%) Mac OS X
9 5 (0.21%) Windows 10
9 5 (0.21%) Windows 7
9 5 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
10 4 (0.17%) AIX
10 4 (0.17%) Embedded Linux
10 4 (0.17%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.17%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.17%) Windows Server 2008
11 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.13%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,444 (60.42%) CI/CD
2 1,145 (47.91%) Agile
3 888 (37.15%) DevOps
4 462 (19.33%) Microservices
5 461 (19.29%) Problem-Solving
6 458 (19.16%) Continuous Improvement
7 446 (18.66%) Software Engineering
8 422 (17.66%) Infrastructure as Code
9 407 (17.03%) Scrum
10 384 (16.07%) AI
11 383 (16.03%) Validation
12 357 (14.94%) Test Strategy
13 352 (14.73%) Containerisation
14 315 (13.18%) Observability
15 312 (13.05%) TDD
16 293 (12.26%) SDLC
17 274 (11.46%) Software Testing
18 263 (11.00%) Stakeholder Management
19 252 (10.54%) End-to-End Testing
20 233 (9.75%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 662 (27.70%) Java
2 658 (27.53%) Python
3 587 (24.56%) SQL
4 357 (14.94%) JavaScript
5 270 (11.30%) TypeScript
6 198 (8.28%) C#
7 100 (4.18%) PowerShell
8 91 (3.81%) Bash
9 52 (2.18%) Bicep
10 48 (2.01%) Kotlin
11 43 (1.80%) C++
12 34 (1.42%) Scala
13 33 (1.38%) PL/SQL
14 31 (1.30%) Go
15 27 (1.13%) Apex Code
15 27 (1.13%) Shell Script
16 24 (1.00%) C
17 23 (0.96%) Perl
18 21 (0.88%) Ruby
19 16 (0.67%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 777 (32.51%) Security Cleared
2 660 (27.62%) SC Cleared
3 132 (5.52%) Degree
4 119 (4.98%) BPSS Clearance
5 102 (4.27%) ISTQB
6 90 (3.77%) DV Cleared
7 75 (3.14%) Computer Science Degree
8 38 (1.59%) AWS Certification
9 35 (1.46%) Azure Certification
10 28 (1.17%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 19 (0.79%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 14 (0.59%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 14 (0.59%) Master's Degree
13 12 (0.50%) ISEB
14 11 (0.46%) SAFe Agilist
15 10 (0.42%) Cisco Certification
15 10 (0.42%) Microsoft Certification
16 9 (0.38%) CISSP
16 9 (0.38%) DBS Check
17 8 (0.33%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 616 (25.77%) QA
2 212 (8.87%) Accessibility
3 167 (6.99%) Data Quality
4 95 (3.97%) WCAG
5 44 (1.84%) GDPR
6 22 (0.92%) ISO 20022
7 14 (0.59%) GRC
8 13 (0.54%) NCSC
8 13 (0.54%) SLA
9 11 (0.46%) NIST
10 10 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 7 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
11 7 (0.29%) Software Quality Assurance
12 6 (0.25%) PCI DSS
13 5 (0.21%) FATCA
13 5 (0.21%) SEPA
14 4 (0.17%) HL7
14 4 (0.17%) MiFID
14 4 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 3 (0.13%) Def Stans
System Software
1 479 (20.04%) Docker
2 38 (1.59%) VMware Infrastructure
3 34 (1.42%) Active Directory
4 19 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
5 12 (0.50%) Firmware
6 10 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.25%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.21%) VMware NSX
9 3 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.084%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.042%) Embedded Firmware
11 1 (0.042%) KVM
11 1 (0.042%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.042%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 469 (19.62%) Kubernetes
2 129 (5.40%) Ansible
3 122 (5.10%) Grafana
4 89 (3.72%) Prometheus
5 40 (1.67%) Argo
6 24 (1.00%) Progress Chef
6 24 (1.00%) Puppet
7 16 (0.67%) Kibana
8 15 (0.63%) HP ALM
9 13 (0.54%) Control-M
9 13 (0.54%) Single Sign-On
10 7 (0.29%) Kustomize
10 7 (0.29%) Microsoft Intune
11 6 (0.25%) Dell DRAC
11 6 (0.25%) Istio
11 6 (0.25%) SCCM
12 5 (0.21%) HP Fortify
12 5 (0.21%) Packer
12 5 (0.21%) WMI
13 4 (0.17%) Rancher
Vendors
1 228 (9.54%) Microsoft
2 196 (8.20%) Oracle
3 91 (3.81%) Databricks
4 85 (3.56%) Salesforce
5 69 (2.89%) Google
6 63 (2.64%) IBM
7 59 (2.47%) Red Hat
7 59 (2.47%) Talend
8 55 (2.30%) ServiceNow
9 53 (2.22%) SAP
9 53 (2.22%) Splunk
10 46 (1.92%) VMware
11 44 (1.84%) Denodo
12 43 (1.80%) Informatica
13 41 (1.72%) Dynatrace
14 31 (1.30%) Cisco
15 30 (1.26%) MuleSoft
16 28 (1.17%) UiPath
17 20 (0.84%) OpenAI
18 19 (0.79%) HP