Hybrid/Remote Automation Test Lead Contract Job Trends

Test Automation Leader
UK > Work from Home

The median Test Automation Leader daily rate for remote/hybrid work is £540, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 5 February 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 318 304 359
Rank change year-on-year -14 +55 +156
Contract jobs requiring an Automation Test Lead 1 6 11
As % of all contract jobs with remote/hybrid work options 0.009% 0.056% 0.066%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.010% 0.060% 0.071%
Number of daily rates quoted 1 5 9
10th Percentile - £453 £420
25th Percentile £520 - £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +13.68% -5.00% -14.89%
75th Percentile £560 £513 £538
90th Percentile - £535 £550
UK median daily rate £513 £475 £450
% change year-on-year +7.89% +5.56% -25.00%

All Contract IT Job Roles
Work from Home

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies with remote/hybrid work options. 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 Work from Home with a recognized job title 9,923 10,035 15,595
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.18% 93.31% 94.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,398 6,398 10,541
10th Percentile £329 £325 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £628
90th Percentile £723 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 373 177 500
10th Percentile £15.74 £19.18 £14.25
25th Percentile £21.50 £25.25 £20.81
Median hourly rate £51.21 £38.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +34.76% -20.00% -17.39%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.10 £66.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £78.17
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £33.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -9.09% -5.71% -

Automation Test Lead
Job Vacancy Trend for Remote/Hybrid Roles

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Automation Test Lead' in the job title and offering remote or hybrid work options relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Automation Test Lead job vacancy trend for remote/hybrid roles

Automation Test Lead
Daily Rate Trend for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for remote/hybrid Automation Test Lead job vacancies.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for remote/hybrid Automation Test Lead job vacancies

Automation Test Lead Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Remote/Hybrid Jobs

For the 6 months to 5 February 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 jobs with hybrid/remote work options featuring Automation Test Lead in the job title.

1 1 (100.00%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
1 1 (100.00%) Agile
1 1 (100.00%) AWS
1 1 (100.00%) Azure
1 1 (100.00%) CI/CD
1 1 (100.00%) Containerisation
1 1 (100.00%) Cypher
1 1 (100.00%) Data Ingestion
1 1 (100.00%) Data Validation
1 1 (100.00%) DevOps
1 1 (100.00%) Entra ID
1 1 (100.00%) ETL
1 1 (100.00%) Event-Driven
1 1 (100.00%) Gatling
1 1 (100.00%) GCP
1 1 (100.00%) GitLab
1 1 (100.00%) GitOps
1 1 (100.00%) Identity Access Management
1 1 (100.00%) Java
1 1 (100.00%) Jenkins
1 1 (100.00%) JIRA
1 1 (100.00%) JMeter
1 1 (100.00%) LDAP
1 1 (100.00%) LoadRunner
1 1 (100.00%) Neo4j
1 1 (100.00%) NeoLoad
1 1 (100.00%) OpenID
1 1 (100.00%) Operational Acceptance Testing
1 1 (100.00%) Performance Analysis
1 1 (100.00%) Platform Engineering

Automation Test Lead Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Remote/Hybrid Jobs 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:

Cloud Services
1 1 (100.00%) AWS
1 1 (100.00%) Azure
1 1 (100.00%) Entra ID
1 1 (100.00%) GCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (100.00%) Neo4j
Development Applications
1 1 (100.00%) Gatling
1 1 (100.00%) GitLab
1 1 (100.00%) Jenkins
1 1 (100.00%) JIRA
1 1 (100.00%) JMeter
1 1 (100.00%) LoadRunner
1 1 (100.00%) NeoLoad
1 1 (100.00%) Postman
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (100.00%) LDAP
1 1 (100.00%) OpenID
1 1 (100.00%) Playwright
1 1 (100.00%) REST
1 1 (100.00%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 1 (100.00%) Management Information System
Processes & Methodologies
1 1 (100.00%) Agile
1 1 (100.00%) Data Ingestion
1 1 (100.00%) Data Validation
1 1 (100.00%) DevOps
1 1 (100.00%) ETL
1 1 (100.00%) GitOps
1 1 (100.00%) Identity Access Management
1 1 (100.00%) Operational Acceptance Testing
1 1 (100.00%) Performance Analysis
1 1 (100.00%) Process Improvement
1 1 (100.00%) Scenario Testing
1 1 (100.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
1 1 (100.00%) System Integration Testing
1 1 (100.00%) Technical Leadership
1 1 (100.00%) Test Automation
1 1 (100.00%) Test Scripting
1 1 (100.00%) Test Strategy
1 1 (100.00%) User Acceptance Testing
1 1 (100.00%) Validation
1 1 (100.00%) Volume Testing
Programming Languages
1 1 (100.00%) Cypher
1 1 (100.00%) Java
1 1 (100.00%) Python
1 1 (100.00%) Scala
1 1 (100.00%) TypeScript
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (100.00%) QA
System Software
1 1 (100.00%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
Vendors
1 1 (100.00%) ServiceNow