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

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 51 51
Rank change year-on-year +5 0 +1
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,301 1,489 1,530
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.31% 4.52% 3.93%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.08% 4.99% 4.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,492 1,036 1,016
10th Percentile £325 £313 £353
25th Percentile £404 £385 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £492 £513
Median % change year-on-year -3.46% -4.00% -2.38%
75th Percentile £575 £580 £606
90th Percentile £658 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £470 £502
% change year-on-year -2.34% -6.33% +0.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 106 32 24
10th Percentile £38.63 £35.58 £44.00
25th Percentile £60.08 £44.51 £50.94
Median hourly rate £67.86 £50.00 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year +35.72% -11.11% -14.45%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.50 £71.88
90th Percentile £74.00 £74.35 £81.85
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £52.50 £57.50
% change year-on-year +28.57% -8.70% -8.00%

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 45,292 29,826 33,298
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.86% 90.48% 85.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,883 18,657 21,289
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £423 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
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 2,827 1,696 1,836
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.80 £17.30 £18.35
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £41.08
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -38.77% -1.96%
75th Percentile £68.00 £47.66 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.51 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.84 £42.50
% change year-on-year +92.47% -46.26% +17.24%

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 12 August 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 12 August 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 12 August 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 +5 1,970 £475 -4.52% 2,114
UK excluding London -2 1,155 £459 -2.34% 1,229
London +4 880 £500 -1.96% 1,117
Work from Home -5 630 £475 +0.64% 928
North of England +16 396 £466 +3.44% 266
Midlands +11 274 £450 +2.86% 154
West Midlands +32 258 £450 -11.11% 96
South East -32 212 £459 -8.20% 291
Yorkshire -3 162 £477 -2.26% 71
North West -6 142 £492 +16.59% 143
South West +3 114 £475 +10.14% 186
North East +14 100 £438 +4.17% 53
East of England +15 82 £450 -1.91% 122
Scotland -34 68 £440 -12.00% 150
Wales -1 31 £475 +16.92% 27
Northern Ireland +22 17 £488 -0.91% 49
East Midlands -40 16 £425 +25.00% 58
Channel Islands - 2 - - 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 (8.39%) Confluence
2 53 (2.30%) Apache Airflow
3 52 (2.26%) SAS
4 50 (2.17%) Apache Spark
5 33 (1.43%) SharePoint
6 26 (1.13%) Apache
7 14 (0.61%) CMS
8 13 (0.56%) WebLogic
9 7 (0.30%) nginx
9 7 (0.30%) Tomcat
10 5 (0.22%) Camunda
10 5 (0.22%) Microsoft Exchange
11 4 (0.17%) Anypoint
11 4 (0.17%) Jupyter
11 4 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
12 3 (0.13%) Kentico
12 3 (0.13%) OpenStack
13 2 (0.087%) Apache Pulsar
13 2 (0.087%) Mendix
13 2 (0.087%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 20 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.30%) Chatbot
3 7 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.30%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.22%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.17%) Simulink
6 3 (0.13%) Trello
7 2 (0.087%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.043%) Mingle
Business Applications
1 26 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.78%) SAP S/4HANA
3 16 (0.70%) Aladdin
4 12 (0.52%) Payment Gateway
5 11 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.35%) Findur
7 6 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
7 6 (0.26%) SAP ERP
7 6 (0.26%) SAP MDG
8 5 (0.22%) BambooHR
8 5 (0.22%) Shopify
9 4 (0.17%) Infor CloudSuite
9 4 (0.17%) Infor LN
9 4 (0.17%) Infor M3
10 3 (0.13%) Distributed Ledger
11 2 (0.087%) Advent Geneva
11 2 (0.087%) Loan IQ
11 2 (0.087%) Oracle ERP
11 2 (0.087%) SAP GRC
12 1 (0.043%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 693 (30.12%) Azure
2 684 (29.73%) AWS
3 424 (18.43%) GitHub
4 321 (13.95%) Azure DevOps
5 258 (11.21%) GitHub Actions
6 165 (7.17%) Serverless
7 163 (7.08%) GCP
8 117 (5.08%) AWS Lambda
9 100 (4.35%) Power Platform
10 97 (4.22%) Amazon S3
11 76 (3.30%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 71 (3.09%) Amazon ECS
13 66 (2.87%) OpenShift
14 61 (2.65%) GitHub Copilot
15 60 (2.61%) AWS CloudFormation
16 58 (2.52%) Amazon EKS
17 55 (2.39%) dbt
18 54 (2.35%) Snowflake
19 51 (2.22%) Amazon EC2
20 45 (1.96%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.04%) Firewall
2 21 (0.91%) HTTP
3 16 (0.70%) 4G
3 16 (0.70%) 5G
3 16 (0.70%) Network Security
4 14 (0.61%) 2G
4 14 (0.61%) 3G
4 14 (0.61%) Diameter Protocol
4 14 (0.61%) DNS
4 14 (0.61%) SIGTRAN
4 14 (0.61%) SS7
5 13 (0.56%) TCP/IP
5 13 (0.56%) WAN
6 12 (0.52%) SAN
7 10 (0.43%) LAN
8 9 (0.39%) Wi-Fi
9 8 (0.35%) BGP
10 7 (0.30%) DHCP
10 7 (0.30%) Ethernet VPN
10 7 (0.30%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 140 (6.08%) PostgreSQL
2 131 (5.69%) Data Warehouse
3 116 (5.04%) MongoDB
4 107 (4.65%) NoSQL
5 88 (3.82%) SQL Server
6 82 (3.56%) Relational Database
7 80 (3.48%) Power BI
8 48 (2.09%) DynamoDB
9 47 (2.04%) Metadata
10 46 (2.00%) Oracle Reports
11 42 (1.83%) Pentaho
12 36 (1.56%) Data Lake
13 34 (1.48%) Big Data
13 34 (1.48%) MySQL
14 32 (1.39%) Amazon Athena
15 28 (1.22%) Redis
16 27 (1.17%) Amazon RDS
16 27 (1.17%) Amazon Redshift
17 22 (0.96%) Elasticsearch
17 22 (0.96%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 469 (20.38%) Git
2 424 (18.43%) JIRA
3 389 (16.91%) Jenkins
4 311 (13.52%) GitLab
5 291 (12.65%) Selenium
6 173 (7.52%) Postman
7 157 (6.82%) Cucumber
8 120 (5.22%) JUnit
9 114 (4.95%) Cypress.io
10 101 (4.39%) JMeter
10 101 (4.39%) REST Assured
11 77 (3.35%) Zephyr
12 64 (2.78%) SonarQube
12 64 (2.78%) WebDriver
13 54 (2.35%) Gatling
14 51 (2.22%) Gradle
15 48 (2.09%) Maven
16 42 (1.83%) Bitbucket
17 41 (1.78%) Mockito
18 33 (1.43%) SpecFlow
General
1 626 (27.21%) Social Skills
2 414 (17.99%) Finance
3 321 (13.95%) Public Sector
4 302 (13.12%) Analytical Skills
5 191 (8.30%) Banking
6 67 (2.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 45 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
8 40 (1.74%) Telecoms
9 36 (1.56%) Investment Banking
10 35 (1.52%) Front Office
11 34 (1.48%) Influencing Skills
12 32 (1.39%) Retail
13 27 (1.17%) Military
14 25 (1.09%) Financial Institution
15 20 (0.87%) Aerospace
16 19 (0.83%) Back Office
17 16 (0.70%) Manufacturing
17 16 (0.70%) Organisational Skills
18 15 (0.65%) Legal
18 15 (0.65%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 480 (20.86%) Developer
2 373 (16.21%) Senior
3 249 (10.82%) Lead
4 227 (9.87%) Test Engineer
5 216 (9.39%) Tester
6 159 (6.91%) Data Engineer
7 156 (6.78%) Java Developer
8 118 (5.13%) Analyst
9 117 (5.08%) Software Engineer
10 112 (4.87%) DevOps Engineer
11 106 (4.61%) Architect
12 104 (4.52%) Senior Developer
13 103 (4.48%) Test Automation Engineer
14 94 (4.09%) QA Engineer
15 89 (3.87%) Automation Tester
16 87 (3.78%) Test Leader
17 79 (3.43%) Test Analyst
18 71 (3.09%) Full-Stack Developer
19 62 (2.69%) Automation Engineer
19 62 (2.69%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 337 (14.65%) REST
2 272 (11.82%) Playwright
3 206 (8.95%) RESTful
4 200 (8.69%) React
5 199 (8.65%) Kafka
6 198 (8.60%) Spring
7 157 (6.82%) Spring Boot
8 156 (6.78%) .NET
9 120 (5.22%) Node.js
10 100 (4.35%) HTML
11 94 (4.09%) AngularJS
12 90 (3.91%) CSS
13 72 (3.13%) OAuth
14 66 (2.87%) JSON
15 56 (2.43%) Jest
15 56 (2.43%) pytest
16 53 (2.30%) OAuth2
17 50 (2.17%) Gherkin
17 50 (2.17%) HTML5
18 47 (2.04%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 337 (14.65%) Cloud Native
2 176 (7.65%) Product Ownership
3 154 (6.69%) Distributed Systems
4 88 (3.82%) Enterprise Software
5 59 (2.56%) Legacy Systems
6 58 (2.52%) Onboarding
7 55 (2.39%) Data Protection Act
8 54 (2.35%) Self-Motivation
9 44 (1.91%) Mobile App
10 39 (1.69%) AI Agents
11 38 (1.65%) Virtual Team
12 29 (1.26%) Distributed Architecture
13 28 (1.22%) Embedded Systems
14 25 (1.09%) NHS
14 25 (1.09%) Security Posture
15 23 (1.00%) Management Information System
16 20 (0.87%) Data Centre
17 19 (0.83%) Derivative
17 19 (0.83%) Fixed Income
18 17 (0.74%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 154 (6.69%) Linux
2 94 (4.09%) Windows
3 87 (3.78%) Unix
4 42 (1.83%) Apple iOS
5 40 (1.74%) Android
6 30 (1.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 21 (0.91%) Windows Server
8 8 (0.35%) Solaris
9 7 (0.30%) Mac OS X
10 6 (0.26%) Embedded Linux
11 5 (0.22%) Mac OS
11 5 (0.22%) Windows 10
11 5 (0.22%) Windows 7
11 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
11 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2008
12 4 (0.17%) Ubuntu
12 4 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.13%) AIX
13 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.087%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,354 (58.84%) CI/CD
2 1,076 (46.76%) Agile
3 878 (38.16%) DevOps
4 433 (18.82%) Problem-Solving
5 429 (18.64%) Continuous Improvement
6 422 (18.34%) Microservices
7 378 (16.43%) Software Engineering
8 377 (16.38%) Scrum
9 369 (16.04%) Infrastructure as Code
10 351 (15.25%) Validation
11 347 (15.08%) Test Strategy
12 324 (14.08%) AI
13 313 (13.60%) Containerisation
14 301 (13.08%) TDD
15 296 (12.86%) Observability
16 250 (10.86%) SDLC
17 248 (10.78%) ETL
18 245 (10.65%) End-to-End Testing
19 236 (10.26%) Data Pipeline
20 234 (10.17%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 608 (26.42%) Python
2 588 (25.55%) Java
3 552 (23.99%) SQL
4 310 (13.47%) JavaScript
5 238 (10.34%) TypeScript
6 207 (9.00%) C#
7 96 (4.17%) PowerShell
8 85 (3.69%) Bash
9 56 (2.43%) C++
10 52 (2.26%) Kotlin
11 48 (2.09%) Bicep
12 37 (1.61%) C
13 35 (1.52%) PL/SQL
14 31 (1.35%) Scala
15 28 (1.22%) Apex Code
16 27 (1.17%) Go
17 25 (1.09%) Shell Script
18 23 (1.00%) Ruby
19 20 (0.87%) Swift
20 18 (0.78%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 753 (32.72%) Security Cleared
2 641 (27.86%) SC Cleared
3 110 (4.78%) ISTQB
4 108 (4.69%) Degree
5 102 (4.43%) BPSS Clearance
6 67 (2.91%) DV Cleared
7 58 (2.52%) Computer Science Degree
8 33 (1.43%) AWS Certification
9 30 (1.30%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 24 (1.04%) Azure Certification
11 17 (0.74%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 11 (0.48%) Cisco Certification
12 11 (0.48%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 11 (0.48%) Master's Degree
12 11 (0.48%) Microsoft Certification
12 11 (0.48%) SAFe Agilist
13 10 (0.43%) CISSP
14 9 (0.39%) DBS Check
15 8 (0.35%) CCNP
15 8 (0.35%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 573 (24.90%) QA
2 188 (8.17%) Accessibility
3 165 (7.17%) Data Quality
4 86 (3.74%) WCAG
5 43 (1.87%) GDPR
6 15 (0.65%) ISO 20022
6 15 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 15 (0.65%) NCSC
6 15 (0.65%) SLA
7 9 (0.39%) NIST
8 7 (0.30%) Def Stans
8 7 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 7 (0.30%) PCI DSS
9 6 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
9 6 (0.26%) GRC
9 6 (0.26%) Software Quality Assurance
10 5 (0.22%) FATCA
10 5 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 4 (0.17%) MiFID
12 3 (0.13%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 449 (19.51%) Docker
2 34 (1.48%) VMware Infrastructure
3 30 (1.30%) Active Directory
4 16 (0.70%) Virtual Machines
5 14 (0.61%) Firmware
6 5 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.17%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
7 4 (0.17%) VMware NSX
8 3 (0.13%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.087%) SRDF
10 1 (0.043%) Embedded Firmware
10 1 (0.043%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.043%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 445 (19.34%) Kubernetes
2 320 (13.91%) Terraform
3 125 (5.43%) Grafana
4 123 (5.35%) Ansible
5 100 (4.35%) Prometheus
6 40 (1.74%) Argo
7 26 (1.13%) Puppet
8 21 (0.91%) Progress Chef
9 18 (0.78%) HP ALM
10 14 (0.61%) Kibana
11 12 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
12 10 (0.43%) Dell DRAC
13 7 (0.30%) Control-M
13 7 (0.30%) Kustomize
14 6 (0.26%) Istio
14 6 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
14 6 (0.26%) NetBackup
14 6 (0.26%) Packer
15 5 (0.22%) HP Quality Center
15 5 (0.22%) SCCM
Vendors
1 214 (9.30%) Microsoft
2 202 (8.78%) Oracle
3 95 (4.13%) Salesforce
4 85 (3.69%) Databricks
5 69 (3.00%) Talend
6 67 (2.91%) Red Hat
7 63 (2.74%) Google
8 60 (2.61%) Splunk
9 54 (2.35%) IBM
9 54 (2.35%) ServiceNow
10 49 (2.13%) Denodo
11 42 (1.83%) SAP
12 41 (1.78%) Informatica
12 41 (1.78%) VMware
13 37 (1.61%) Dynatrace
14 29 (1.26%) MuleSoft
15 27 (1.17%) Cisco
16 25 (1.09%) HP
16 25 (1.09%) UiPath
17 14 (0.61%) OpenAI