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

6 months to
21 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 47 53
Rank change year-on-year 0 +6 -8
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,953 1,356 1,578
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.46% 4.62% 3.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.18% 5.11% 4.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,323 938 1,072
10th Percentile £331 £329 £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 £638 £638
90th Percentile £676 £738 £719
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £478 £488
% change year-on-year -0.52% -2.05% -7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 7 60
10th Percentile £26.24 £38.81 £44.25
25th Percentile £51.56 £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 £70.01 £81.56
90th Percentile - £76.18 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year +14.54% -9.20% +9.65%

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 37,710 26,528 38,308
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.02% 90.44% 86.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,926 17,086 24,905
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 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -1.28% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,216 926 2,329
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.25 £12.98
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate £30.32 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -6.71% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.51 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.72 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.50 £31.76 £31.25
% change year-on-year -10.26% +1.63% -10.71%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 -3 1,673 £488 -2.50% 688
UK excluding London +2 898 £475 -0.52% 592
London -1 825 £500 - 185
Work from Home -4 562 £475 -5.00% 337
North of England +7 327 £488 +8.33% 163
Midlands +10 191 £475 +0.32% 76
South East -29 170 £500 -13.04% 160
West Midlands +11 162 £480 -3.52% 47
North West +13 150 £463 +2.78% 82
Yorkshire -12 136 £509 +7.11% 43
South West -2 79 £500 -4.76% 78
East of England +7 59 £570 +19.06% 69
North East +4 44 £481 +26.45% 38
Scotland -16 42 £440 -2.22% 35
Wales +3 33 £502 +25.50% 26
East Midlands -24 29 £400 +8.55% 29
Northern Ireland +17 22 £475 -2.56% 4

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
1 136 (6.96%) Confluence
2 59 (3.02%) SAS
3 32 (1.64%) Apache Spark
4 18 (0.92%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.67%) 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 (0.26%) CMS
9 5 (0.26%) Tomcat
10 4 (0.20%) Camunda
10 4 (0.20%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.20%) Oracle Application Server
11 3 (0.15%) Anypoint
12 2 (0.10%) Magnolia
12 2 (0.10%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.10%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.10%) WordPress
Applications
1 29 (1.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (0.67%) Microsoft Office
4 12 (0.61%) MS Visio
5 11 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.15%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.10%) Simulink
9 1 (0.051%) Mingle
9 1 (0.051%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 24 (1.23%) Aladdin
2 8 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
3 6 (0.31%) Findur
3 6 (0.31%) Loan IQ
4 5 (0.26%) Maximo
4 5 (0.26%) Shopify
4 5 (0.26%) Workday HCM
5 4 (0.20%) SAP HR
6 3 (0.15%) BambooHR
6 3 (0.15%) Infor CloudSuite
6 3 (0.15%) Infor LN
6 3 (0.15%) Infor M3
6 3 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
6 3 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
7 2 (0.10%) Advent Geneva
7 2 (0.10%) iTrent
7 2 (0.10%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.10%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.10%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 573 (29.34%) Azure
2 509 (26.06%) AWS
3 357 (18.28%) GitHub
4 269 (13.77%) Azure DevOps
5 197 (10.09%) GitHub Actions
6 184 (9.42%) GCP
7 144 (7.37%) Serverless
8 81 (4.15%) Power Platform
9 75 (3.84%) AWS Lambda
10 71 (3.64%) Amazon S3
11 70 (3.58%) OpenShift
12 50 (2.56%) AWS CloudFormation
13 49 (2.51%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 43 (2.20%) Azure AKS
14 43 (2.20%) Snowflake
15 41 (2.10%) Amazon ECS
16 37 (1.89%) Amazon EKS
17 35 (1.79%) SaaS
18 34 (1.74%) Azure Data Factory
18 34 (1.74%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 28 (1.43%) Firewall
2 24 (1.23%) HTTP
3 17 (0.87%) TCP/IP
3 17 (0.87%) VPN
3 17 (0.87%) Wireshark
4 15 (0.77%) SSL
5 13 (0.67%) Network Security
5 13 (0.67%) SD-WAN
5 13 (0.67%) WAN
6 11 (0.56%) HTTPS
7 10 (0.51%) DNS
7 10 (0.51%) FTP
8 8 (0.41%) Ethernet
8 8 (0.41%) MPLS
8 8 (0.41%) Multicast
8 8 (0.41%) SAN
9 5 (0.26%) AMQP
9 5 (0.26%) Cisco IPT
9 5 (0.26%) VLAN
10 4 (0.20%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 115 (5.89%) PostgreSQL
2 92 (4.71%) NoSQL
3 77 (3.94%) SQL Server
4 76 (3.89%) MongoDB
5 61 (3.12%) Relational Database
6 54 (2.76%) Data Warehouse
7 48 (2.46%) Power BI
8 39 (2.00%) DynamoDB
9 30 (1.54%) BigQuery
10 29 (1.48%) MySQL
10 29 (1.48%) Pentaho
11 25 (1.28%) Oracle Database
12 23 (1.18%) Tableau
13 22 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
13 22 (1.13%) Redis
14 20 (1.02%) Metadata
15 19 (0.97%) Amazon Athena
15 19 (0.97%) Big Data
16 18 (0.92%) Azure SQL Database
16 18 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 371 (19.00%) JIRA
2 366 (18.74%) Git
3 358 (18.33%) Jenkins
4 294 (15.05%) GitLab
5 288 (14.75%) Selenium
6 173 (8.86%) Cucumber
7 156 (7.99%) Postman
8 115 (5.89%) JUnit
9 112 (5.73%) Cypress.io
10 107 (5.48%) JMeter
11 100 (5.12%) REST Assured
12 53 (2.71%) WebDriver
13 41 (2.10%) SpecFlow
14 39 (2.00%) Zephyr
15 37 (1.89%) Gatling
16 36 (1.84%) SonarQube
17 35 (1.79%) TestRail
18 34 (1.74%) Maven
19 33 (1.69%) Gradle
20 32 (1.64%) Bitbucket
General
1 522 (26.73%) Social Skills
2 331 (16.95%) Finance
3 287 (14.70%) Public Sector
4 213 (10.91%) Analytical Skills
5 157 (8.04%) Banking
6 35 (1.79%) Documentation Skills
7 32 (1.64%) Investment Banking
8 28 (1.43%) Front Office
8 28 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 22 (1.13%) Telecoms
10 21 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
11 19 (0.97%) Organisational Skills
12 18 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
13 17 (0.87%) Military
14 16 (0.82%) Influencing Skills
15 15 (0.77%) Legal
16 14 (0.72%) Aerospace
16 14 (0.72%) Financial Institution
17 10 (0.51%) Electronics
18 9 (0.46%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 416 (21.30%) Developer
2 327 (16.74%) Senior
3 224 (11.47%) Tester
4 214 (10.96%) Lead
5 213 (10.91%) Test Engineer
6 118 (6.04%) Automation Tester
7 98 (5.02%) Analyst
7 98 (5.02%) Data Engineer
8 94 (4.81%) Java Developer
9 92 (4.71%) Test Automation Engineer
10 84 (4.30%) Test Leader
11 83 (4.25%) QA Engineer
12 80 (4.10%) Software Engineer
13 76 (3.89%) Senior Developer
14 75 (3.84%) DevOps Engineer
15 69 (3.53%) Architect
16 65 (3.33%) Test Manager
17 63 (3.23%) Test Analyst
18 59 (3.02%) Automation Engineer
19 50 (2.56%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 250 (12.80%) REST
2 238 (12.19%) Playwright
3 169 (8.65%) React
4 152 (7.78%) RESTful
5 147 (7.53%) Node.js
5 147 (7.53%) Spring
6 143 (7.32%) .NET
7 132 (6.76%) Kafka
8 119 (6.09%) Spring Boot
9 89 (4.56%) pytest
10 70 (3.58%) AngularJS
11 65 (3.33%) HTML
12 64 (3.28%) OAuth
13 56 (2.87%) Jest
14 55 (2.82%) CSS
15 52 (2.66%) Web Services
16 46 (2.36%) JSON
17 44 (2.25%) GraphQL
18 42 (2.15%) OpenID
19 39 (2.00%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 205 (10.50%) Cloud Native
2 137 (7.01%) Product Ownership
3 94 (4.81%) Distributed Systems
4 50 (2.56%) Mobile App
5 49 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
6 44 (2.25%) Data Protection Act
7 42 (2.15%) Algorithms
8 38 (1.95%) Onboarding
9 32 (1.64%) Virtual Team
10 28 (1.43%) Security Posture
11 27 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
12 26 (1.33%) NHS
12 26 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
13 24 (1.23%) Data Structures
14 23 (1.18%) Equities
14 23 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
15 22 (1.13%) Distributed Architecture
16 21 (1.08%) Derivative
16 21 (1.08%) Management Information System
17 20 (1.02%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 137 (7.01%) Linux
2 86 (4.40%) Windows
3 46 (2.36%) Android
4 39 (2.00%) Apple iOS
5 35 (1.79%) Unix
6 21 (1.08%) Windows Server
7 16 (0.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 11 (0.56%) Kali Linux
8 11 (0.56%) Mac OS X
9 8 (0.41%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.31%) Solaris
11 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
11 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
11 5 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.20%) CentOS
13 2 (0.10%) Embedded Linux
13 2 (0.10%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.051%) FreeRTOS
14 1 (0.051%) Robot Operating System
14 1 (0.051%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,036 (53.05%) CI/CD
2 914 (46.80%) Agile
3 739 (37.84%) DevOps
4 439 (22.48%) Problem-Solving
5 319 (16.33%) Continuous Improvement
6 308 (15.77%) Test Strategy
7 302 (15.46%) Microservices
8 280 (14.34%) Containerisation
9 271 (13.88%) Scrum
10 252 (12.90%) Validation
11 244 (12.49%) Infrastructure as Code
12 238 (12.19%) AI
13 225 (11.52%) Software Engineering
14 221 (11.32%) Test Scripting
15 219 (11.21%) TDD
16 218 (11.16%) Analytics
17 215 (11.01%) Observability
18 208 (10.65%) Regression Testing
19 195 (9.98%) API Testing
20 194 (9.93%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 612 (31.34%) Python
2 468 (23.96%) Java
3 413 (21.15%) SQL
4 295 (15.10%) JavaScript
5 275 (14.08%) TypeScript
6 205 (10.50%) C#
7 84 (4.30%) PowerShell
8 82 (4.20%) Bash
9 50 (2.56%) C++
10 31 (1.59%) Kotlin
11 30 (1.54%) Go
12 28 (1.43%) C
13 27 (1.38%) PL/SQL
14 26 (1.33%) Bicep
14 26 (1.33%) Ruby
15 24 (1.23%) Scala
16 21 (1.08%) Apex Code
17 18 (0.92%) Swift
18 16 (0.82%) Groovy
19 15 (0.77%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 564 (28.88%) Security Cleared
2 435 (22.27%) SC Cleared
3 102 (5.22%) Degree
4 97 (4.97%) ISTQB
5 76 (3.89%) BPSS Clearance
6 60 (3.07%) Computer Science Degree
7 56 (2.87%) DV Cleared
8 36 (1.84%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 24 (1.23%) Master's Degree
10 15 (0.77%) AWS Certification
11 14 (0.72%) Cisco Certification
11 14 (0.72%) OSCP
12 13 (0.67%) Azure Certification
13 12 (0.61%) CEH
14 11 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
15 10 (0.51%) CISSP
15 10 (0.51%) ISEB
15 10 (0.51%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
16 9 (0.46%) CCNP
16 9 (0.46%) GPEN
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 444 (22.73%) QA
2 150 (7.68%) Accessibility
3 110 (5.63%) Data Quality
4 53 (2.71%) WCAG
5 40 (2.05%) GDPR
6 29 (1.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 25 (1.28%) NIST
8 16 (0.82%) NCSC
8 16 (0.82%) SLA
9 14 (0.72%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 12 (0.61%) EU AI Act
11 11 (0.56%) PCI DSS
12 10 (0.51%) ISO 20022
12 10 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 9 (0.46%) Def Stans
14 8 (0.41%) PSD2
15 6 (0.31%) HIPAA
15 6 (0.31%) SEPA
15 6 (0.31%) SOC 2
16 5 (0.26%) HL7
System Software
1 395 (20.23%) Docker
2 30 (1.54%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.41%) Firmware
4 8 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
5 7 (0.36%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
6 5 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.15%) ISA Server
9 2 (0.10%) SRDF
10 1 (0.051%) Embedded Firmware
10 1 (0.051%) HDFS
10 1 (0.051%) KVM
10 1 (0.051%) Squid
10 1 (0.051%) Time Sharing Option
10 1 (0.051%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.051%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 370 (18.95%) Kubernetes
2 226 (11.57%) Terraform
3 117 (5.99%) Grafana
4 102 (5.22%) Ansible
5 87 (4.45%) Prometheus
6 26 (1.33%) HP ALM
7 22 (1.13%) Puppet
8 21 (1.08%) Argo
9 16 (0.82%) Progress Chef
10 15 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
11 14 (0.72%) Nmap
12 13 (0.67%) NetBackup
13 11 (0.56%) HP Quality Center
14 8 (0.41%) Forefront Identity Manager
14 8 (0.41%) NetIQ Identity Manager
15 7 (0.36%) Kibana
15 7 (0.36%) Podman
16 6 (0.31%) Rancher
17 4 (0.20%) Dell DRAC
17 4 (0.20%) Istio
Vendors
1 171 (8.76%) Microsoft
2 148 (7.58%) Oracle
3 74 (3.79%) Databricks
4 65 (3.33%) Google
4 65 (3.33%) Salesforce
5 61 (3.12%) Splunk
6 59 (3.02%) ServiceNow
7 50 (2.56%) SAP
8 42 (2.15%) Red Hat
9 33 (1.69%) Talend
10 29 (1.48%) HP
11 27 (1.38%) VMware
12 26 (1.33%) IBM
13 25 (1.28%) Denodo
14 23 (1.18%) Cisco
15 20 (1.02%) Dynatrace
16 16 (0.82%) Atlassian
16 16 (0.82%) MuleSoft
16 16 (0.82%) Workday
17 15 (0.77%) UiPath