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 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 46 47 53
Rank change year-on-year +1 +6 -13
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,728 1,527 1,820
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.79% 4.19% 3.98%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.36% 4.82% 4.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,195 1,015 1,316
10th Percentile £325 £325 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -6.67%
75th Percentile £586 £600 £630
90th Percentile £688 £700 £719
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £495 £500
% change year-on-year +1.11% -1.10% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 8 57
10th Percentile £37.01 £40.88 £34.90
25th Percentile £46.25 £42.19 £47.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £47.50 £75.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.84% -36.67% +28.36%
75th Percentile £67.00 £63.75 £90.00
90th Percentile £68.60 £70.88 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £50.00 £75.00
% change year-on-year +30.00% -33.33% +25.00%

All Process and 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 32,237 31,694 40,485
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.44% 86.89% 88.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,185 19,077 27,186
10th Percentile £300 £310 £308
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.41% -3.18%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,109 1,149 1,555
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.22 £14.31
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.24 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +27.14%
75th Percentile £45.46 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.85 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -29.69% -26.97% +48.33%

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025. 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 1,477 £500 - 752
UK excluding London +4 819 £500 +1.11% 691
London -4 699 £504 -4.05% 224
Work from Home +9 553 £500 - 445
North of England -6 278 £488 +8.33% 110
Midlands +18 161 £500 +3.52% 85
South East -18 154 £492 -4.00% 253
Yorkshire -4 130 £519 +11.56% 38
West Midlands +17 125 £515 +1.48% 49
North West -8 107 £401 -10.83% 57
South West +12 85 £537 -2.36% 104
Scotland -2 70 £500 +11.11% 47
East of England +7 52 £500 +25.00% 81
North East +18 43 £494 +18.26% 15
East Midlands +7 36 £360 -20.88% 33
Wales +5 31 £495 -5.26% 18
Northern Ireland +4 11 £295 -43.13% 6

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 90 (5.21%) Confluence
2 53 (3.07%) SAS
3 28 (1.62%) Apache Spark
4 21 (1.22%) Apache Airflow
5 18 (1.04%) Apache
6 13 (0.75%) SharePoint
7 8 (0.46%) CMS
7 8 (0.46%) Oracle Application Server
8 5 (0.29%) Anypoint
8 5 (0.29%) OpenStack
9 4 (0.23%) JBoss
9 4 (0.23%) nginx
9 4 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
9 4 (0.23%) WordPress
10 3 (0.17%) CICS
10 3 (0.17%) Microsoft Exchange
10 3 (0.17%) WebLogic
11 2 (0.12%) IIS
11 2 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
11 2 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 24 (1.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.69%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.41%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.23%) Simulink
5 4 (0.23%) Windchill
6 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.12%) Trello
7 1 (0.058%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 16 (0.93%) Aladdin
2 13 (0.75%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.23%) SAP HR
3 4 (0.23%) SAP PLM
4 3 (0.17%) Workday HCM
5 2 (0.12%) Eagle PACE
5 2 (0.12%) Markit EDM
5 2 (0.12%) Maximo
5 2 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.12%) SAP BRIM
5 2 (0.12%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.12%) Shopify
6 1 (0.058%) CODA-Financials
6 1 (0.058%) ION Anvil
6 1 (0.058%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.058%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.058%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.058%) Oracle Financials
6 1 (0.058%) PORTIA
Cloud Services
1 476 (27.55%) Azure
2 435 (25.17%) AWS
3 257 (14.87%) GitHub
4 208 (12.04%) Azure DevOps
5 156 (9.03%) GCP
6 134 (7.75%) Serverless
7 133 (7.70%) GitHub Actions
8 67 (3.88%) AWS Lambda
9 55 (3.18%) Power Platform
10 54 (3.13%) Amazon S3
11 52 (3.01%) OpenShift
12 50 (2.89%) AWS CloudFormation
13 42 (2.43%) Azure AKS
14 38 (2.20%) Snowflake
15 37 (2.14%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 37 (2.14%) SaaS
16 35 (2.03%) Amazon EKS
17 32 (1.85%) Amazon ECS
18 27 (1.56%) Entra ID
19 25 (1.45%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 42 (2.43%) Firewall
2 35 (2.03%) HTTP
3 34 (1.97%) Wireshark
4 27 (1.56%) HTTPS
5 24 (1.39%) SSL
6 17 (0.98%) TCP/IP
6 17 (0.98%) VPN
7 16 (0.93%) Network Security
8 15 (0.87%) SD-WAN
9 13 (0.75%) DNS
9 13 (0.75%) Multicast
10 12 (0.69%) Ethernet
11 11 (0.64%) WAN
12 8 (0.46%) FTP
13 7 (0.41%) AMQP
14 6 (0.35%) Bluetooth
14 6 (0.35%) Internet
15 5 (0.29%) Broadband
15 5 (0.29%) MPLS
15 5 (0.29%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (6.48%) PostgreSQL
2 96 (5.56%) NoSQL
3 88 (5.09%) MongoDB
4 72 (4.17%) Relational Database
5 67 (3.88%) SQL Server
6 45 (2.60%) Data Warehouse
7 28 (1.62%) Amazon RDS
7 28 (1.62%) Pentaho
8 27 (1.56%) DynamoDB
8 27 (1.56%) Power BI
9 25 (1.45%) BigQuery
10 23 (1.33%) Oracle Database
11 21 (1.22%) Big Data
11 21 (1.22%) Data Lake
12 17 (0.98%) Apache Cassandra
13 16 (0.93%) MySQL
14 15 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
14 15 (0.87%) SAS Enterprise Guide
15 14 (0.81%) RDBMS
15 14 (0.81%) Redis
Development Applications
1 316 (18.29%) Git
2 312 (18.06%) JIRA
3 305 (17.65%) Jenkins
4 271 (15.68%) Selenium
5 223 (12.91%) GitLab
6 153 (8.85%) Cucumber
7 124 (7.18%) Postman
8 113 (6.54%) Cypress.io
9 100 (5.79%) JUnit
10 74 (4.28%) JMeter
11 67 (3.88%) REST Assured
12 58 (3.36%) Bitbucket
13 43 (2.49%) SonarQube
14 39 (2.26%) Maven
15 38 (2.20%) SpecFlow
16 34 (1.97%) Mockito
17 31 (1.79%) Gatling
18 26 (1.50%) Appium
19 25 (1.45%) Sonatype Nexus
20 24 (1.39%) Zephyr
General
1 492 (28.47%) Social Skills
2 291 (16.84%) Finance
3 210 (12.15%) Public Sector
4 189 (10.94%) Analytical Skills
5 129 (7.47%) Banking
6 34 (1.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 32 (1.85%) Documentation Skills
7 32 (1.85%) Telecoms
8 24 (1.39%) Investment Banking
9 23 (1.33%) Front Office
10 22 (1.27%) Manufacturing
10 22 (1.27%) Pharmaceutical
11 20 (1.16%) Presentation Skills
12 17 (0.98%) Financial Institution
13 16 (0.93%) Electronics
13 16 (0.93%) Marketing
14 15 (0.87%) Retail
15 13 (0.75%) Organisational Skills
16 12 (0.69%) Legal
16 12 (0.69%) Military
Job Titles
1 389 (22.51%) Developer
2 270 (15.63%) Senior
3 210 (12.15%) Tester
4 157 (9.09%) Test Engineer
5 150 (8.68%) Lead
6 117 (6.77%) Automation Tester
6 117 (6.77%) Java Developer
7 84 (4.86%) Analyst
8 80 (4.63%) Software Engineer
9 71 (4.11%) Data Engineer
10 67 (3.88%) DevOps Engineer
11 65 (3.76%) Test Analyst
12 63 (3.65%) QA Engineer
13 62 (3.59%) Test Automation Engineer
14 60 (3.47%) Senior Developer
15 54 (3.13%) Automation Engineer
16 52 (3.01%) Test Leader
17 51 (2.95%) Test Manager
18 42 (2.43%) Full-Stack Developer
19 39 (2.26%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 214 (12.38%) REST
2 160 (9.26%) Playwright
3 148 (8.56%) React
4 131 (7.58%) RESTful
5 129 (7.47%) .NET
6 120 (6.94%) Kafka
6 120 (6.94%) Spring
7 116 (6.71%) Node.js
8 110 (6.37%) Spring Boot
9 81 (4.69%) JSON
10 76 (4.40%) HTML
10 76 (4.40%) SOAP
11 75 (4.34%) XML
12 74 (4.28%) CSS
13 69 (3.99%) AngularJS
14 65 (3.76%) pytest
15 51 (2.95%) Jest
16 47 (2.72%) Web Services
17 43 (2.49%) JMS
18 39 (2.26%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 155 (8.97%) Cloud Native
2 112 (6.48%) Product Ownership
3 53 (3.07%) Mobile App
4 45 (2.60%) Security Posture
5 43 (2.49%) Distributed Systems
6 34 (1.97%) Data Protection Act
7 31 (1.79%) Algorithms
7 31 (1.79%) Public Cloud
8 30 (1.74%) Self-Motivation
9 29 (1.68%) Onboarding
9 29 (1.68%) Virtual Team
10 26 (1.50%) Legacy Systems
11 25 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
12 20 (1.16%) Management Information System
13 19 (1.10%) Data Structures
14 18 (1.04%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 18 (1.04%) Greenfield Project
15 16 (0.93%) Genomics
16 15 (0.87%) Life Science
17 14 (0.81%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 176 (10.19%) Linux
2 87 (5.03%) Windows
3 58 (3.36%) Unix
4 53 (3.07%) Android
5 41 (2.37%) Apple iOS
6 20 (1.16%) Mac OS X
7 17 (0.98%) Windows Server
8 16 (0.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 10 (0.58%) Kali Linux
10 9 (0.52%) CentOS
11 3 (0.17%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.17%) Windows 10
11 3 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.12%) FreeRTOS
12 2 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
13 1 (0.058%) Solaris
13 1 (0.058%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.058%) VMS
13 1 (0.058%) Windows Embedded Compact
13 1 (0.058%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 859 (49.71%) CI/CD
2 855 (49.48%) Agile
3 663 (38.37%) DevOps
4 431 (24.94%) Problem-Solving
5 274 (15.86%) Microservices
6 264 (15.28%) Scrum
7 253 (14.64%) Containerisation
8 250 (14.47%) Test Strategy
9 241 (13.95%) Continuous Improvement
10 224 (12.96%) TDD
11 215 (12.44%) Infrastructure as Code
12 212 (12.27%) Software Engineering
13 207 (11.98%) Test Scripting
14 186 (10.76%) SDLC
15 180 (10.42%) Software Testing
16 167 (9.66%) AI
16 167 (9.66%) BDD
17 162 (9.38%) Validation
18 155 (8.97%) Analytics
19 146 (8.45%) Regression Testing
Programming Languages
1 491 (28.41%) Python
2 409 (23.67%) Java
3 315 (18.23%) SQL
4 238 (13.77%) JavaScript
5 199 (11.52%) TypeScript
6 184 (10.65%) C#
7 103 (5.96%) Bash
8 72 (4.17%) PowerShell
9 42 (2.43%) C++
10 39 (2.26%) Go
11 24 (1.39%) Kotlin
12 23 (1.33%) Bicep
13 16 (0.93%) PL/SQL
14 15 (0.87%) Scala
15 14 (0.81%) Ruby
15 14 (0.81%) Shell Script
15 14 (0.81%) Swift
16 12 (0.69%) Perl
16 12 (0.69%) PHP
17 11 (0.64%) C
Qualifications
1 411 (23.78%) Security Cleared
2 322 (18.63%) SC Cleared
3 110 (6.37%) Degree
4 68 (3.94%) ISTQB
5 56 (3.24%) Computer Science Degree
6 49 (2.84%) BPSS Clearance
7 47 (2.72%) DV Cleared
8 27 (1.56%) AWS Certification
9 25 (1.45%) Master's Degree
10 22 (1.27%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 20 (1.16%) CISSP
12 18 (1.04%) OSCP
13 15 (0.87%) Azure Certification
14 14 (0.81%) Cisco Certification
14 14 (0.81%) CISM
14 14 (0.81%) MCP
15 13 (0.75%) CEH
15 13 (0.75%) GPEN
15 13 (0.75%) ISEB
16 12 (0.69%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 385 (22.28%) QA
2 134 (7.75%) Accessibility
3 78 (4.51%) Data Quality
4 42 (2.43%) NIST
5 39 (2.26%) GDPR
6 36 (2.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 34 (1.97%) WCAG
8 19 (1.10%) PCI DSS
9 18 (1.04%) EU AI Act
9 18 (1.04%) NCSC
10 16 (0.93%) NIST 800
11 13 (0.75%) PSD2
11 13 (0.75%) SEPA
12 8 (0.46%) COBIT
12 8 (0.46%) ISO 20022
12 8 (0.46%) SLA
13 7 (0.41%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 7 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 7 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 7 (0.41%) SOC 2
System Software
1 358 (20.72%) Docker
2 30 (1.74%) Active Directory
3 8 (0.46%) Firmware
3 8 (0.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
5 4 (0.23%) zsh
6 3 (0.17%) QEMU
6 3 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
7 2 (0.12%) Embedded Firmware
7 2 (0.12%) vSphere
8 1 (0.058%) ISA Server
8 1 (0.058%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 322 (18.63%) Kubernetes
2 219 (12.67%) Terraform
3 135 (7.81%) Ansible
4 80 (4.63%) Grafana
5 48 (2.78%) Prometheus
6 20 (1.16%) HP ALM
7 17 (0.98%) Argo
8 16 (0.93%) CSIRT
8 16 (0.93%) Nmap
8 16 (0.93%) Progress Chef
9 13 (0.75%) NetBackup
10 10 (0.58%) Puppet
10 10 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
11 7 (0.41%) Kibana
11 7 (0.41%) Nessus
12 6 (0.35%) Podman
13 5 (0.29%) HP Quality Center
13 5 (0.29%) RSA Archer
14 4 (0.23%) Rancher
14 4 (0.23%) vRealize
Vendors
1 179 (10.36%) Microsoft
2 155 (8.97%) Oracle
3 66 (3.82%) ServiceNow
4 65 (3.76%) SAP
4 65 (3.76%) Splunk
5 61 (3.53%) Salesforce
6 57 (3.30%) Databricks
7 54 (3.13%) Google
8 30 (1.74%) Talend
9 28 (1.62%) Denodo
10 27 (1.56%) VMware
11 24 (1.39%) Cisco
12 22 (1.27%) F5
12 22 (1.27%) webMethods
13 21 (1.22%) HP
13 21 (1.22%) IBM
14 19 (1.10%) Red Hat
14 19 (1.10%) UiPath
15 18 (1.04%) Atlassian
16 17 (0.98%) Dynatrace