Automation Test Lead Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Test Automation Leader
England > West Midlands

The median Test Automation Leader daily rate in the West Midlands is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 19 June 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 157 - -
Rank change year-on-year - - -
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Test Lead 4 0 0
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 0.12% - -
As % of the Job Titles category 0.13% - -
Number of daily rates quoted 3 0 0
10th Percentile £403 - -
25th Percentile £425 - -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 - -
75th Percentile £488 - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median daily rate £500 £450 £565
% change year-on-year +11.11% -20.35% +2.73%

All Contract IT Job Roles
West Midlands

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the West Midlands. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the West Midlands with a recognized job title 3,055 1,349 1,883
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.89% 90.42% 91.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,944 852 1,254
10th Percentile £315 £200 £250
25th Percentile £408 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £492
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -3.36% -1.70%
75th Percentile £582 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £638 £700
England median daily rate £521 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +1.56% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 190 96 149
10th Percentile £14.87 £12.62 £11.92
25th Percentile £20.61 £14.00 £14.71
Median hourly rate £32.75 £22.05 £19.59
Median % change year-on-year +48.53% +12.56% -2.05%
75th Percentile £53.75 £33.91 £38.75
90th Percentile £68.20 £50.00 £55.25
England median hourly rate £45.50 £28.75 £39.55
% change year-on-year +58.26% -27.31% -12.11%

Automation Test Lead
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Automation Test Lead' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands.

Automation Test Lead job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

Automation Test Lead
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Automation Test Lead job vacancies in the West Midlands.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Automation Test Lead job vacancies in the West Midlands

Automation Test Lead
Contract Job Locations in the West Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Automation Test Lead within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 19 June 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
Birmingham - 3 £475 -
Solihull - 1 £425 -
Automation Test Lead
England

Automation Test Lead Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands

For the 6 months to 19 June 2026, Automation Test Lead contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the West Midlands region featuring Automation Test Lead in the job title.

1 4 (100.00%) CI/CD
1 4 (100.00%) Confluence
1 4 (100.00%) Cucumber
1 4 (100.00%) End-to-End Testing
1 4 (100.00%) Git
1 4 (100.00%) JIRA
1 4 (100.00%) JMeter
1 4 (100.00%) JUnit
1 4 (100.00%) Load Testing
1 4 (100.00%) Mentoring
1 4 (100.00%) Microservices
1 4 (100.00%) PostgreSQL
1 4 (100.00%) Selenium
1 4 (100.00%) Spring
1 4 (100.00%) Test Automation
1 4 (100.00%) Test Strategy
1 4 (100.00%) Validation
1 4 (100.00%) WebDriver
1 4 (100.00%) WireMock
2 3 (75.00%) API Testing
2 3 (75.00%) AWS
2 3 (75.00%) Azure
2 3 (75.00%) BDD
2 3 (75.00%) Coaching
2 3 (75.00%) Continuous Improvement
2 3 (75.00%) Digital Transformation Programme
2 3 (75.00%) Docker
2 3 (75.00%) GCP
2 3 (75.00%) Grafana
2 3 (75.00%) Kubernetes

Automation Test Lead Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands 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 4 (100.00%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 3 (75.00%) AWS
1 3 (75.00%) Azure
1 3 (75.00%) GCP
2 1 (25.00%) GitHub
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (100.00%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 4 (100.00%) Cucumber
1 4 (100.00%) Git
1 4 (100.00%) JIRA
1 4 (100.00%) JMeter
1 4 (100.00%) JUnit
1 4 (100.00%) Selenium
1 4 (100.00%) WebDriver
2 1 (25.00%) Jenkins
General
1 3 (75.00%) Organisational Skills
1 3 (75.00%) Social Skills
2 1 (25.00%) Analytical Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (100.00%) Spring
1 4 (100.00%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 3 (75.00%) Distributed Architecture
2 1 (25.00%) Distributed Systems
Processes & Methodologies
1 4 (100.00%) CI/CD
1 4 (100.00%) End-to-End Testing
1 4 (100.00%) Load Testing
1 4 (100.00%) Mentoring
1 4 (100.00%) Microservices
1 4 (100.00%) Test Automation
1 4 (100.00%) Test Strategy
1 4 (100.00%) Validation
2 3 (75.00%) API Testing
2 3 (75.00%) BDD
2 3 (75.00%) Coaching
2 3 (75.00%) Continuous Improvement
2 3 (75.00%) Digital Transformation Programme
2 3 (75.00%) Observability
2 3 (75.00%) Stakeholder Management
2 3 (75.00%) TDD
2 3 (75.00%) Workshop Facilitation
3 1 (25.00%) Agile
3 1 (25.00%) Data Validation
Qualifications
1 1 (25.00%) SC Cleared
1 1 (25.00%) Security Cleared
System Software
1 3 (75.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (75.00%) Grafana
1 3 (75.00%) Kubernetes
1 3 (75.00%) Prometheus