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

6 months to
27 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 45 54
Rank change year-on-year -2 +9 -13
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,760 1,371 1,673
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.62% 4.41% 3.77%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.29% 4.95% 4.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,208 913 1,201
10th Percentile £350 £325 £363
25th Percentile £402 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -7.08%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £625
90th Percentile £688 £725 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £489
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.81% -6.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 5 52
10th Percentile £19.01 £41.75 £38.25
25th Percentile £43.86 £42.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £61.25 £74.00 £76.25
Median % change year-on-year -17.23% -2.95% +27.08%
75th Percentile £67.00 £77.19 £90.00
90th Percentile £70.50 £83.38 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £75.60 £77.50
% change year-on-year -20.63% -2.46% +32.48%

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 33,264 27,700 38,783
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.38% 89.09% 87.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,060 16,780 25,534
10th Percentile £305 £306 £300
25th Percentile £408 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £643
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,011 875 1,974
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.50
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.88
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -9.72% +12.50%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.71 £30.43 £37.50
% change year-on-year -18.80% -18.85% +44.23%

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 27 January 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 27 January 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 27 January 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 1,527 £500 - 898
UK excluding London +1 819 £500 +5.26% 828
London 0 729 £500 -3.38% 204
Work from Home 0 526 £500 - 407
North of England +3 319 £500 +14.29% 153
South East -19 158 £500 -2.44% 266
Midlands +15 157 £509 +6.76% 102
Yorkshire -8 151 £520 +15.56% 65
West Midlands +17 124 £525 +6.06% 45
North West +2 122 £438 +9.38% 69
South West +7 78 £539 -2.09% 118
East of England +6 49 £593 +48.13% 120
Scotland -18 49 £500 +6.16% 41
North East +12 48 £488 +34.48% 19
East Midlands -5 33 £393 -14.33% 54
Wales -2 21 £509 +1.80% 39
Northern Ireland +7 15 £295 -43.13% 12

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
1 101 (5.74%) Confluence
2 59 (3.35%) SAS
3 23 (1.31%) Apache Spark
4 16 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.74%) SharePoint
6 11 (0.63%) Apache
7 6 (0.34%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 6 (0.34%) Appian
7 6 (0.34%) OpenStack
7 6 (0.34%) Oracle Application Server
8 5 (0.28%) CMS
8 5 (0.28%) nginx
9 4 (0.23%) Camunda
9 4 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
9 4 (0.23%) WebLogic
10 3 (0.17%) Anypoint
10 3 (0.17%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
11 2 (0.11%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.11%) WordPress
Applications
1 21 (1.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (0.51%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.40%) Microsoft Office
5 6 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.17%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.057%) Oracle Smart View
7 1 (0.057%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.057%) Trello
Business Applications
1 18 (1.02%) Aladdin
2 8 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.28%) Workday HCM
4 4 (0.23%) Maximo
4 4 (0.23%) SAP HR
5 3 (0.17%) Loan IQ
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
7 1 (0.057%) CODA-Financials
7 1 (0.057%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.057%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.057%) Oracle General Ledger
7 1 (0.057%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 501 (28.47%) Azure
2 434 (24.66%) AWS
3 274 (15.57%) GitHub
4 209 (11.88%) Azure DevOps
5 176 (10.00%) GCP
6 146 (8.30%) GitHub Actions
7 127 (7.22%) Serverless
8 64 (3.64%) Power Platform
9 60 (3.41%) OpenShift
10 58 (3.30%) AWS Lambda
11 49 (2.78%) Amazon S3
12 45 (2.56%) AWS CloudFormation
13 44 (2.50%) Azure AKS
14 41 (2.33%) SaaS
15 39 (2.22%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 38 (2.16%) Amazon EKS
17 35 (1.99%) Snowflake
18 33 (1.88%) Tricentis Tosca
19 32 (1.82%) Dynamics 365
20 31 (1.76%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 39 (2.22%) Firewall
2 34 (1.93%) Wireshark
3 32 (1.82%) HTTP
4 26 (1.48%) HTTPS
5 25 (1.42%) SSL
6 22 (1.25%) TCP/IP
7 20 (1.14%) VPN
8 14 (0.80%) Network Security
8 14 (0.80%) SD-WAN
9 11 (0.63%) WAN
10 10 (0.57%) Ethernet
10 10 (0.57%) FTP
11 9 (0.51%) DNS
11 9 (0.51%) MPLS
11 9 (0.51%) VLAN
12 8 (0.45%) Multicast
13 7 (0.40%) AMQP
14 5 (0.28%) Cisco IPT
15 4 (0.23%) Cisco ASA
15 4 (0.23%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 97 (5.51%) PostgreSQL
2 85 (4.83%) NoSQL
3 82 (4.66%) MongoDB
4 64 (3.64%) Relational Database
5 62 (3.52%) SQL Server
6 33 (1.88%) Power BI
7 32 (1.82%) Data Warehouse
7 32 (1.82%) Pentaho
8 26 (1.48%) BigQuery
9 25 (1.42%) DynamoDB
10 23 (1.31%) MySQL
11 20 (1.14%) Amazon RDS
11 20 (1.14%) Big Data
11 20 (1.14%) Oracle Database
12 18 (1.02%) Redis
13 16 (0.91%) Star Schema
14 15 (0.85%) Apache Cassandra
14 15 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
14 15 (0.85%) SAS Enterprise Guide
14 15 (0.85%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 324 (18.41%) Jenkins
2 319 (18.13%) JIRA
3 315 (17.90%) Git
4 269 (15.28%) GitLab
5 266 (15.11%) Selenium
6 154 (8.75%) Cucumber
7 152 (8.64%) Postman
8 110 (6.25%) Cypress.io
9 91 (5.17%) JUnit
10 85 (4.83%) REST Assured
11 82 (4.66%) JMeter
12 40 (2.27%) SonarQube
13 37 (2.10%) Mockito
14 36 (2.05%) Bitbucket
15 35 (1.99%) Maven
15 35 (1.99%) WebDriver
16 34 (1.93%) Gradle
16 34 (1.93%) TestRail
17 33 (1.88%) Gatling
17 33 (1.88%) SpecFlow
General
1 451 (25.63%) Social Skills
2 285 (16.19%) Finance
3 251 (14.26%) Public Sector
4 191 (10.85%) Analytical Skills
5 125 (7.10%) Banking
6 34 (1.93%) Documentation Skills
7 32 (1.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 26 (1.48%) Investment Banking
9 25 (1.42%) Telecoms
10 23 (1.31%) Pharmaceutical
11 20 (1.14%) Front Office
12 19 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
13 16 (0.91%) Financial Institution
14 14 (0.80%) Military
15 13 (0.74%) Manufacturing
16 12 (0.68%) Marketing
17 11 (0.63%) Aerospace
17 11 (0.63%) Electronics
18 10 (0.57%) Influencing Skills
19 9 (0.51%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 408 (23.18%) Developer
2 290 (16.48%) Senior
3 210 (11.93%) Tester
4 187 (10.63%) Test Engineer
5 160 (9.09%) Lead
6 113 (6.42%) Automation Tester
7 111 (6.31%) Java Developer
8 82 (4.66%) Software Engineer
9 81 (4.60%) Test Automation Engineer
10 73 (4.15%) Analyst
10 73 (4.15%) DevOps Engineer
11 72 (4.09%) Data Engineer
12 71 (4.03%) Senior Developer
13 69 (3.92%) QA Engineer
14 58 (3.30%) Test Manager
15 55 (3.13%) Automation Engineer
15 55 (3.13%) Test Leader
16 48 (2.73%) Full-Stack Developer
17 46 (2.61%) Test Analyst
18 43 (2.44%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 251 (14.26%) REST
2 195 (11.08%) Playwright
3 155 (8.81%) React
4 144 (8.18%) Node.js
5 143 (8.13%) RESTful
6 134 (7.61%) .NET
7 128 (7.27%) Spring
8 122 (6.93%) Kafka
9 120 (6.82%) Spring Boot
10 75 (4.26%) pytest
11 66 (3.75%) JSON
12 62 (3.52%) AngularJS
13 60 (3.41%) HTML
13 60 (3.41%) SOAP
14 58 (3.30%) XML
15 55 (3.13%) OAuth
16 53 (3.01%) Web Services
17 51 (2.90%) CSS
18 48 (2.73%) Jest
19 40 (2.27%) JMS
Miscellaneous
1 181 (10.28%) Cloud Native
2 129 (7.33%) Product Ownership
3 61 (3.47%) Distributed Systems
4 51 (2.90%) Mobile App
5 42 (2.39%) Security Posture
6 37 (2.10%) Algorithms
7 33 (1.88%) Data Protection Act
7 33 (1.88%) Legacy Systems
8 31 (1.76%) Virtual Team
9 28 (1.59%) Onboarding
10 23 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
11 22 (1.25%) Data Structures
11 22 (1.25%) Management Information System
12 20 (1.14%) Public Cloud
13 18 (1.02%) Greenfield Project
13 18 (1.02%) NHS
13 18 (1.02%) Self-Motivation
14 16 (0.91%) Equities
14 16 (0.91%) Genomics
14 16 (0.91%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 162 (9.20%) Linux
2 83 (4.72%) Windows
3 52 (2.95%) Unix
4 40 (2.27%) Android
5 37 (2.10%) Apple iOS
6 22 (1.25%) Windows Server
7 20 (1.14%) Mac OS X
8 12 (0.68%) Kali Linux
9 8 (0.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (0.23%) CentOS
11 3 (0.17%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.17%) Solaris
12 2 (0.11%) VMS
12 2 (0.11%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.057%) FreeRTOS
13 1 (0.057%) Robot Operating System
13 1 (0.057%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 900 (51.14%) CI/CD
2 853 (48.47%) Agile
3 677 (38.47%) DevOps
4 436 (24.77%) Problem-Solving
5 271 (15.40%) Microservices
6 267 (15.17%) Continuous Improvement
7 266 (15.11%) Containerisation
8 251 (14.26%) Test Strategy
9 243 (13.81%) Scrum
10 215 (12.22%) Infrastructure as Code
11 214 (12.16%) Test Scripting
12 205 (11.65%) TDD
13 204 (11.59%) Software Engineering
14 194 (11.02%) AI
15 190 (10.80%) Validation
16 177 (10.06%) Software Testing
17 169 (9.60%) API Testing
18 168 (9.55%) SDLC
19 165 (9.38%) Analytics
20 164 (9.32%) Regression Testing
Programming Languages
1 521 (29.60%) Python
2 434 (24.66%) Java
3 335 (19.03%) SQL
4 268 (15.23%) JavaScript
5 242 (13.75%) TypeScript
6 168 (9.55%) C#
7 85 (4.83%) Bash
8 68 (3.86%) PowerShell
9 41 (2.33%) C++
10 40 (2.27%) Go
11 24 (1.36%) Bicep
11 24 (1.36%) PL/SQL
11 24 (1.36%) Scala
12 21 (1.19%) Kotlin
13 18 (1.02%) Ruby
14 16 (0.91%) Apex Code
15 13 (0.74%) Groovy
15 13 (0.74%) Shell Script
15 13 (0.74%) Swift
16 12 (0.68%) Rust
Qualifications
1 488 (27.73%) Security Cleared
2 372 (21.14%) SC Cleared
3 100 (5.68%) Degree
4 75 (4.26%) ISTQB
5 60 (3.41%) BPSS Clearance
6 57 (3.24%) DV Cleared
7 56 (3.18%) Computer Science Degree
8 28 (1.59%) Master's Degree
9 26 (1.48%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 19 (1.08%) OSCP
11 17 (0.97%) AWS Certification
12 16 (0.91%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
13 14 (0.80%) CEH
13 14 (0.80%) MCP
14 13 (0.74%) CISSP
14 13 (0.74%) GPEN
15 12 (0.68%) Cisco Certification
15 12 (0.68%) Oracle Certification
16 11 (0.63%) CISM
16 11 (0.63%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 374 (21.25%) QA
2 132 (7.50%) Accessibility
3 85 (4.83%) Data Quality
4 44 (2.50%) WCAG
5 39 (2.22%) GDPR
6 36 (2.05%) NIST
7 25 (1.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 20 (1.14%) NCSC
9 18 (1.02%) EU AI Act
10 15 (0.85%) ISO 20022
11 13 (0.74%) PSD2
12 12 (0.68%) PCI DSS
13 11 (0.63%) SEPA
14 10 (0.57%) NIST 800
15 9 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 9 (0.51%) SLA
16 7 (0.40%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 7 (0.40%) SOC 2
17 6 (0.34%) HIPAA
18 5 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 386 (21.93%) Docker
2 33 (1.88%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.40%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
3 7 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
4 5 (0.28%) Firmware
4 5 (0.28%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.17%) ISA Server
5 3 (0.17%) QEMU
5 3 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
6 2 (0.11%) vSphere
7 1 (0.057%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.057%) HDFS
7 1 (0.057%) KVM
7 1 (0.057%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.057%) Squid
7 1 (0.057%) Time Sharing Option
7 1 (0.057%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.057%) zsh
Systems Management
1 337 (19.15%) Kubernetes
2 207 (11.76%) Terraform
3 113 (6.42%) Ansible
4 86 (4.89%) Grafana
5 55 (3.13%) Prometheus
6 19 (1.08%) Nmap
7 18 (1.02%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.97%) HP ALM
9 16 (0.91%) CSIRT
10 15 (0.85%) Argo
11 14 (0.80%) Puppet
11 14 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
12 13 (0.74%) NetBackup
13 8 (0.45%) Nessus
14 7 (0.40%) Podman
15 6 (0.34%) HP Quality Center
15 6 (0.34%) Kibana
16 5 (0.28%) Forefront Identity Manager
16 5 (0.28%) NetIQ Identity Manager
17 4 (0.23%) Iperf
Vendors
1 167 (9.49%) Microsoft
2 152 (8.64%) Oracle
3 70 (3.98%) Splunk
4 62 (3.52%) ServiceNow
5 60 (3.41%) Salesforce
6 58 (3.30%) SAP
7 56 (3.18%) Databricks
8 52 (2.95%) Google
9 32 (1.82%) Denodo
9 32 (1.82%) Talend
10 27 (1.53%) VMware
11 26 (1.48%) Red Hat
12 23 (1.31%) Cisco
12 23 (1.31%) F5
13 21 (1.19%) IBM
13 21 (1.19%) webMethods
14 18 (1.02%) OpenAI
15 17 (0.97%) HP
15 17 (0.97%) MuleSoft
16 16 (0.91%) Workday