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 29 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 47 55
Rank change year-on-year +1 +8 -7
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 2,049 1,305 1,523
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.19% 4.54% 3.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.95% 4.99% 4.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,330 918 1,009
10th Percentile £349 £325 £363
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £493 £513
Median % change year-on-year -3.65% -3.80% -6.82%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £625
90th Percentile £663 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £468 £500
% change year-on-year -0.48% -6.50% -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 98 22 52
10th Percentile £35.44 £35.58 £51.38
25th Percentile £55.31 £44.51 £52.50
Median hourly rate £66.25 £52.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +26.19% -12.50% -12.73%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.52 £73.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £75.45 £90.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £55.00 £61.25
% change year-on-year +22.73% -10.20% -4.85%

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 41,377 26,173 36,711
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 91.02% 85.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,864 16,755 23,656
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.10% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,474 1,096 2,500
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.87 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.30 £27.59 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.34% -24.42% +1.04%
75th Percentile £67.65 £57.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.76 £74.38 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -33.82% +8.57%

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 29 May 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 29 May 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 29 May 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 1,753 £475 -5.00% 609
UK excluding London -3 979 £465 -0.48% 439
London -2 827 £500 -1.23% 252
Work from Home +1 586 £475 - 283
North of England +11 355 £465 +3.33% 121
Midlands +11 207 £455 +6.94% 60
West Midlands +32 185 £459 -4.97% 43
South East -37 179 £500 -0.10% 112
North West +12 153 £475 +6.26% 74
Yorkshire -3 150 £493 +3.68% 23
South West +17 98 £469 -1.32% 57
East of England +12 74 £501 +6.31% 46
North East +3 60 £425 +6.25% 24
Scotland -37 43 £440 -5.48% 21
Wales -1 32 £475 +16.92% 16
East Midlands -40 22 £400 +42.86% 17
Northern Ireland +21 20 £475 +16.28% 19
Channel Islands - 2 - -

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
1 170 (8.30%) Confluence
2 45 (2.20%) SAS
3 42 (2.05%) Apache Airflow
4 41 (2.00%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.78%) Apache
6 12 (0.59%) SharePoint
7 10 (0.49%) CMS
8 9 (0.44%) Appian
9 8 (0.39%) Camunda
10 7 (0.34%) nginx
10 7 (0.34%) Tomcat
11 6 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.20%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.20%) WebLogic
13 3 (0.15%) Microsoft Exchange
13 3 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
14 2 (0.098%) Jupyter
14 2 (0.098%) Kentico
14 2 (0.098%) Mendix
15 1 (0.049%) Ethereum
Applications
1 28 (1.37%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.68%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
3 11 (0.54%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.15%) Simulink
6 1 (0.049%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.049%) Mingle
6 1 (0.049%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 19 (0.93%) Aladdin
2 17 (0.83%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.54%) SAP S/4HANA
4 9 (0.44%) Oracle EBS
4 9 (0.44%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.39%) Findur
6 6 (0.29%) Shopify
7 5 (0.24%) BambooHR
7 5 (0.24%) Loan IQ
7 5 (0.24%) SAP ERP
7 5 (0.24%) SAP MDG
8 3 (0.15%) Distributed Ledger
8 3 (0.15%) Infor CloudSuite
8 3 (0.15%) Infor LN
8 3 (0.15%) Infor M3
8 3 (0.15%) Maximo
8 3 (0.15%) Workday HCM
9 2 (0.098%) Advent Geneva
9 2 (0.098%) iTrent
9 2 (0.098%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 589 (28.75%) Azure
2 579 (28.26%) AWS
3 353 (17.23%) GitHub
4 272 (13.27%) Azure DevOps
5 203 (9.91%) GitHub Actions
6 156 (7.61%) GCP
7 137 (6.69%) Serverless
8 88 (4.29%) AWS Lambda
9 83 (4.05%) Power Platform
10 82 (4.00%) Amazon S3
11 58 (2.83%) OpenShift
12 56 (2.73%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 53 (2.59%) Amazon ECS
14 46 (2.24%) AWS CloudFormation
15 43 (2.10%) Azure Data Factory
16 41 (2.00%) Snowflake
17 39 (1.90%) Amazon EKS
18 38 (1.85%) Amazon EC2
19 32 (1.56%) Dynamics 365
20 29 (1.42%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 25 (1.22%) HTTP
2 23 (1.12%) Firewall
3 15 (0.73%) SAN
4 11 (0.54%) Network Security
4 11 (0.54%) TCP/IP
4 11 (0.54%) VPN
5 9 (0.44%) SSL
6 8 (0.39%) MPLS
6 8 (0.39%) WAN
7 6 (0.29%) Ethernet
7 6 (0.29%) VLAN
7 6 (0.29%) Wi-Fi
7 6 (0.29%) Wireshark
8 5 (0.24%) 5G
8 5 (0.24%) FTP
8 5 (0.24%) Multicast
9 4 (0.20%) BGP
9 4 (0.20%) NAS
9 4 (0.20%) Reverse Proxy
9 4 (0.20%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 109 (5.32%) PostgreSQL
2 107 (5.22%) MongoDB
3 96 (4.69%) NoSQL
4 87 (4.25%) SQL Server
5 83 (4.05%) Data Warehouse
6 71 (3.47%) Relational Database
7 57 (2.78%) Power BI
8 48 (2.34%) DynamoDB
9 41 (2.00%) Metadata
10 35 (1.71%) Big Data
11 33 (1.61%) Pentaho
12 31 (1.51%) MySQL
12 31 (1.51%) Oracle Reports
13 27 (1.32%) Amazon RDS
14 26 (1.27%) Data Lake
14 26 (1.27%) Tableau
15 24 (1.17%) Redis
16 23 (1.12%) Amazon Athena
16 23 (1.12%) BigQuery
17 21 (1.02%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 398 (19.42%) JIRA
2 357 (17.42%) Git
3 342 (16.69%) Jenkins
4 288 (14.06%) GitLab
5 284 (13.86%) Selenium
6 171 (8.35%) Postman
7 154 (7.52%) Cucumber
8 112 (5.47%) REST Assured
9 102 (4.98%) JUnit
10 100 (4.88%) Cypress.io
11 99 (4.83%) JMeter
12 60 (2.93%) WebDriver
13 56 (2.73%) Zephyr
14 49 (2.39%) SonarQube
15 43 (2.10%) Gatling
16 38 (1.85%) Gradle
16 38 (1.85%) Mockito
17 32 (1.56%) Bitbucket
18 31 (1.51%) Maven
18 31 (1.51%) SpecFlow
General
1 538 (26.26%) Social Skills
2 354 (17.28%) Finance
3 275 (13.42%) Public Sector
4 245 (11.96%) Analytical Skills
5 172 (8.39%) Banking
6 42 (2.05%) Documentation Skills
7 40 (1.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 40 (1.95%) Investment Banking
8 36 (1.76%) Front Office
9 25 (1.22%) Influencing Skills
10 21 (1.02%) Telecoms
11 19 (0.93%) Military
12 18 (0.88%) Legal
13 17 (0.83%) Aerospace
13 17 (0.83%) Presentation Skills
13 17 (0.83%) Retail
14 16 (0.78%) Organisational Skills
15 15 (0.73%) Manufacturing
16 14 (0.68%) Financial Institution
17 13 (0.63%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 415 (20.25%) Developer
2 315 (15.37%) Senior
3 233 (11.37%) Test Engineer
4 217 (10.59%) Lead
5 213 (10.40%) Tester
6 123 (6.00%) Data Engineer
7 108 (5.27%) Analyst
8 107 (5.22%) Java Developer
9 101 (4.93%) Software Engineer
10 99 (4.83%) Test Automation Engineer
11 93 (4.54%) Architect
11 93 (4.54%) Automation Tester
12 92 (4.49%) DevOps Engineer
13 84 (4.10%) QA Engineer
13 84 (4.10%) Test Leader
14 78 (3.81%) Senior Developer
15 65 (3.17%) Test Analyst
16 63 (3.07%) Full-Stack Developer
17 59 (2.88%) Test Manager
18 58 (2.83%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 250 (12.20%) Playwright
2 240 (11.71%) REST
3 185 (9.03%) React
4 159 (7.76%) RESTful
5 144 (7.03%) Kafka
6 141 (6.88%) Spring
7 140 (6.83%) .NET
8 123 (6.00%) Node.js
9 118 (5.76%) Spring Boot
10 75 (3.66%) AngularJS
11 74 (3.61%) HTML
12 64 (3.12%) pytest
13 60 (2.93%) CSS
14 59 (2.88%) OAuth
15 51 (2.49%) Jest
16 48 (2.34%) Swagger
17 44 (2.15%) Gherkin
18 43 (2.10%) JSON
18 43 (2.10%) OpenID
19 39 (1.90%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 226 (11.03%) Cloud Native
2 154 (7.52%) Product Ownership
3 109 (5.32%) Distributed Systems
4 53 (2.59%) Data Protection Act
5 48 (2.34%) Legacy Systems
6 45 (2.20%) Mobile App
7 44 (2.15%) Enterprise Software
8 40 (1.95%) Self-Motivation
9 39 (1.90%) Virtual Team
10 36 (1.76%) Onboarding
11 31 (1.51%) NHS
12 26 (1.27%) Distributed Architecture
13 25 (1.22%) Algorithms
14 24 (1.17%) Management Information System
15 23 (1.12%) Data Centre
15 23 (1.12%) Derivative
16 22 (1.07%) Greenfield Project
17 18 (0.88%) Data Structures
17 18 (0.88%) Embedded Systems
17 18 (0.88%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 128 (6.25%) Linux
2 78 (3.81%) Windows
3 59 (2.88%) Unix
4 42 (2.05%) Android
5 36 (1.76%) Apple iOS
6 21 (1.02%) Windows Server
7 20 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (0.59%) Mac OS X
9 9 (0.44%) Mac OS
10 8 (0.39%) Solaris
11 7 (0.34%) Windows Server 2008
11 7 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.20%) Embedded Linux
14 3 (0.15%) AIX
14 3 (0.15%) CentOS
15 2 (0.098%) Kali Linux
16 1 (0.049%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,109 (54.12%) CI/CD
2 938 (45.78%) Agile
3 738 (36.02%) DevOps
4 379 (18.50%) Problem-Solving
5 333 (16.25%) Continuous Improvement
6 327 (15.96%) Microservices
7 319 (15.57%) Test Strategy
8 290 (14.15%) Scrum
9 280 (13.67%) Validation
10 274 (13.37%) Infrastructure as Code
11 272 (13.27%) Software Engineering
12 253 (12.35%) Containerisation
13 250 (12.20%) Observability
14 234 (11.42%) TDD
15 225 (10.98%) AI
16 205 (10.00%) API Testing
17 201 (9.81%) ETL
18 197 (9.61%) Software Testing
18 197 (9.61%) User Acceptance Testing
19 196 (9.57%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 537 (26.21%) Python
2 515 (25.13%) Java
3 466 (22.74%) SQL
4 285 (13.91%) JavaScript
5 241 (11.76%) TypeScript
6 201 (9.81%) C#
7 73 (3.56%) PowerShell
8 69 (3.37%) Bash
9 55 (2.68%) C++
10 43 (2.10%) Kotlin
11 41 (2.00%) PL/SQL
12 36 (1.76%) Scala
13 32 (1.56%) C
14 31 (1.51%) Apex Code
15 29 (1.42%) Go
16 26 (1.27%) Bicep
17 22 (1.07%) Ruby
18 19 (0.93%) Swift
19 16 (0.78%) Groovy
20 14 (0.68%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 631 (30.80%) Security Cleared
2 504 (24.60%) SC Cleared
3 94 (4.59%) ISTQB
4 87 (4.25%) BPSS Clearance
5 84 (4.10%) Degree
6 71 (3.47%) DV Cleared
7 40 (1.95%) Computer Science Degree
8 26 (1.27%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 14 (0.68%) Master's Degree
10 12 (0.59%) Cisco Certification
11 11 (0.54%) CCNP
11 11 (0.54%) DBS Check
11 11 (0.54%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 10 (0.49%) SAFe Agilist
13 9 (0.44%) AWS Certification
14 8 (0.39%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
14 8 (0.39%) Azure Certification
15 7 (0.34%) CISSP
16 5 (0.24%) CCIE
16 5 (0.24%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 440 (21.47%) QA
2 155 (7.56%) Accessibility
3 128 (6.25%) Data Quality
4 67 (3.27%) WCAG
5 36 (1.76%) GDPR
6 16 (0.78%) SLA
7 15 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 11 (0.54%) ISO 20022
9 10 (0.49%) Def Stans
10 9 (0.44%) NIST
11 8 (0.39%) NCSC
12 7 (0.34%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 6 (0.29%) PCI DSS
13 6 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 5 (0.24%) FATCA
15 4 (0.20%) HL7
15 4 (0.20%) MiFID
15 4 (0.20%) SEPA
15 4 (0.20%) Software Quality Assurance
16 3 (0.15%) SOC 2
System Software
1 349 (17.03%) Docker
2 25 (1.22%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (0.98%) Active Directory
4 13 (0.63%) Firmware
5 11 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.34%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
8 6 (0.29%) Oracle RAC
9 4 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.098%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.098%) ISA Server
10 2 (0.098%) SRDF
11 1 (0.049%) KVM
11 1 (0.049%) Squid
11 1 (0.049%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.049%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 337 (16.45%) Kubernetes
2 240 (11.71%) Terraform
3 111 (5.42%) Grafana
4 93 (4.54%) Prometheus
5 92 (4.49%) Ansible
6 28 (1.37%) Argo
7 19 (0.93%) HP ALM
8 16 (0.78%) Puppet
9 13 (0.63%) Kibana
10 12 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
11 10 (0.49%) HP Quality Center
12 9 (0.44%) Dell DRAC
12 9 (0.44%) Forefront Identity Manager
12 9 (0.44%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 8 (0.39%) Kustomize
13 8 (0.39%) NetBackup
14 6 (0.29%) Oracle RMAN
14 6 (0.29%) Progress Chef
15 4 (0.20%) Nmap
15 4 (0.20%) Rancher
Vendors
1 169 (8.25%) Microsoft
2 168 (8.20%) Oracle
3 85 (4.15%) Salesforce
4 67 (3.27%) Databricks
5 62 (3.03%) ServiceNow
6 61 (2.98%) Talend
7 60 (2.93%) Splunk
8 58 (2.83%) Google
9 50 (2.44%) Red Hat
10 43 (2.10%) Denodo
11 36 (1.76%) SAP
12 30 (1.46%) VMware
13 28 (1.37%) IBM
14 24 (1.17%) UiPath
15 22 (1.07%) Dynatrace
15 22 (1.07%) HP
16 20 (0.98%) Informatica
16 20 (0.98%) MuleSoft
17 19 (0.93%) Cisco
18 16 (0.78%) Blue Prism