Test Automation Contracts in the UK excluding London

Automated Testing
UK > UK excluding London

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London with a requirement for Test Automation skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Test Automation over the 6 months to 16 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
16 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 66 47 48
Rank change year-on-year -19 +1 -8
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 577 1,032 1,379
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 2.84% 4.49% 4.53%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.37% 5.01% 5.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 371 770 992
10th Percentile £363 £363 £360
25th Percentile £425 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £495
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +5.05% +15.12%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £575
90th Percentile £650 £688 £638
UK median daily rate £513 £550 £540
% change year-on-year -6.82% +1.85% +13.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 31 36
10th Percentile £51.25 £47.50 £17.00
25th Percentile £52.50 £53.75 £31.25
Median hourly rate £62.50 £68.75 £48.75
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +41.03% +16.07%
75th Percentile £85.00 £79.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £90.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £70.50 £56.09
% change year-on-year -14.89% +25.69% +24.64%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

Test Automation is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 17,127 20,595 27,099
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 84.40% 89.52% 89.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,209 14,220 18,919
10th Percentile £250 £256 £238
25th Percentile £380 £400 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £479
Median % change year-on-year - +4.38% +9.49%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £575
90th Percentile £688 £688 £653
UK median daily rate £525 £550 £530
% change year-on-year -4.55% +3.77% +8.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,061 1,259 1,357
10th Percentile £12.34 £10.63 £12.25
25th Percentile £15.23 £15.25 £14.25
Median hourly rate £37.50 £35.00 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +75.00% -6.21%
75th Percentile £61.30 £65.00 £47.25
90th Percentile £72.50 £73.72 £61.50
UK median hourly rate £36.27 £35.65 £25.68
% change year-on-year +1.75% +38.82% +5.35%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing Test Automation as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Test Automation in the UK excluding London

Test Automation
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Test Automation in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Test Automation in the UK excluding London

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 16 May 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in the UK excluding London

Test Automation
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Test Automation in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Test Automation in the UK excluding London

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Automation in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 16 May 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Automation in the UK excluding London

Test Automation
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

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 excluding London region over the 6 months to 16 May 2024. 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
South East -2 192 £550 -4.35% 105
North of England -14 156 £475 -13.64% 111
North West +13 84 £500 +1.55% 72
Scotland -30 72 £475 - 42
Yorkshire -9 67 £475 -13.64% 35
South West -47 57 £550 +4.76% 75
Midlands -28 41 £425 -10.53% 74
East of England -33 33 £498 +2.05% 60
West Midlands -16 24 £430 -16.10% 46
Wales +33 22 £509 -11.18% 15
East Midlands -6 17 £400 +5.26% 28
North East -23 5 £405 -28.32% 4
Northern Ireland +3 2 - - 11
Isle of Man - 2 - -
Test Automation
UK

Test Automation
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 22 (3.81%) Confluence
2 19 (3.29%) Apache
3 15 (2.60%) Apache Airflow
4 14 (2.43%) Apache Spark
5 7 (1.21%) Alfresco
6 6 (1.04%) Appian
6 6 (1.04%) Camunda
7 3 (0.52%) SharePoint
8 2 (0.35%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 1 (0.17%) GeoServer
9 1 (0.17%) IIS
9 1 (0.17%) JBoss
9 1 (0.17%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 15 (2.60%) Simulink
2 14 (2.43%) Stateflow
3 7 (1.21%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
5 3 (0.52%) CANalyzer
6 2 (0.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.52%) Oracle EBS
1 3 (0.52%) SAP EWM
2 2 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.17%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.17%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.17%) Oracle Cash Management
3 1 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
3 1 (0.17%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
3 1 (0.17%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.17%) SAP Retail
3 1 (0.17%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 123 (21.32%) Azure
2 108 (18.72%) AWS
3 63 (10.92%) Azure DevOps
4 41 (7.11%) GitHub
5 32 (5.55%) Serverless
6 25 (4.33%) Amazon S3
7 23 (3.99%) GCP
8 19 (3.29%) AWS Lambda
9 18 (3.12%) Amazon EC2
10 14 (2.43%) Amazon SQS
11 13 (2.25%) GitHub Actions
12 12 (2.08%) AWS CloudFormation
12 12 (2.08%) Azure Monitor
13 11 (1.91%) Azure Data Factory
13 11 (1.91%) Azure Functions
13 11 (1.91%) OpenShift
13 11 (1.91%) PaaS
14 10 (1.73%) Amazon EKS
14 10 (1.73%) Azure Service Bus
14 10 (1.73%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 9 (1.56%) BGP
1 9 (1.56%) Ethernet VPN
1 9 (1.56%) HTTP
1 9 (1.56%) MPLS
1 9 (1.56%) Radio Access Network
1 9 (1.56%) VPN
2 8 (1.39%) TCP/IP
3 6 (1.04%) Firewall
3 6 (1.04%) Kerberos
4 5 (0.87%) FTP
5 3 (0.52%) DNS
6 2 (0.35%) Internet
6 2 (0.35%) Network Security
6 2 (0.35%) SSL
6 2 (0.35%) Wireless
7 1 (0.17%) 2G
7 1 (0.17%) 5G
7 1 (0.17%) FlexRay
7 1 (0.17%) VSAN
7 1 (0.17%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (6.93%) PostgreSQL
2 27 (4.68%) Relational Database
3 25 (4.33%) NoSQL
4 23 (3.99%) MongoDB
5 16 (2.77%) MySQL
6 14 (2.43%) Elasticsearch
6 14 (2.43%) SQL Server
7 8 (1.39%) Big Data
8 7 (1.21%) Amazon Aurora
9 5 (0.87%) SQLite
10 4 (0.69%) Apache Cassandra
10 4 (0.69%) Couchbase
10 4 (0.69%) GIS
10 4 (0.69%) MariaDB
10 4 (0.69%) Oracle Database
11 3 (0.52%) Amazon Redshift
11 3 (0.52%) Azure SQL Database
11 3 (0.52%) Data Lake
11 3 (0.52%) InfluxDB
11 3 (0.52%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 113 (19.58%) Selenium
2 95 (16.46%) Git
2 95 (16.46%) Jenkins
3 84 (14.56%) JIRA
4 62 (10.75%) GitLab
5 60 (10.40%) Cucumber
6 42 (7.28%) Cypress.io
7 38 (6.59%) Postman
8 34 (5.89%) TestRail
9 31 (5.37%) SonarQube
10 30 (5.20%) Robot Framework
11 29 (5.03%) REST Assured
12 27 (4.68%) JMeter
13 19 (3.29%) Visual Studio
14 17 (2.95%) Bitbucket
14 17 (2.95%) WebDriver
15 16 (2.77%) JUnit
16 15 (2.60%) Sonatype Nexus
17 11 (1.91%) NUnit
17 11 (1.91%) SpecFlow
General
1 111 (19.24%) Social Skills
2 64 (11.09%) Analytical Skills
3 48 (8.32%) Finance
4 41 (7.11%) Public Sector
5 28 (4.85%) Automotive
6 22 (3.81%) Banking
6 22 (3.81%) Law
7 16 (2.77%) Manufacturing
8 14 (2.43%) Legal
9 13 (2.25%) Police
10 9 (1.56%) Telecoms
11 8 (1.39%) Electronics
12 6 (1.04%) Aerospace
12 6 (1.04%) Influencing Skills
13 5 (0.87%) Documentation Skills
13 5 (0.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (0.87%) Marketing
13 5 (0.87%) Pharmaceutical
14 4 (0.69%) Multimedia
15 3 (0.52%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 115 (19.93%) Developer
2 71 (12.31%) Test Engineer
3 60 (10.40%) Tester
4 57 (9.88%) Analyst
5 52 (9.01%) Software Engineer
6 50 (8.67%) Senior
7 40 (6.93%) Test Analyst
8 36 (6.24%) Automation Tester
9 31 (5.37%) Java Developer
9 31 (5.37%) Lead
10 30 (5.20%) Architect
11 29 (5.03%) Test Manager
12 27 (4.68%) DevOps Engineer
13 26 (4.51%) Test Automation Engineer
14 24 (4.16%) Java Engineer
15 21 (3.64%) Senior Test Engineer
16 20 (3.47%) DV Cleared Test Analyst
17 19 (3.29%) Full Stack Developer
18 15 (2.60%) QA Engineer
19 14 (2.43%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (10.75%) REST
2 60 (10.40%) React
3 40 (6.93%) .NET
4 33 (5.72%) Node.js
5 29 (5.03%) JSON
6 28 (4.85%) HTML
6 28 (4.85%) Web Services
6 28 (4.85%) XML
7 27 (4.68%) AngularJS
7 27 (4.68%) RESTful
8 26 (4.51%) CSS
8 26 (4.51%) Playwright
8 26 (4.51%) Spring
9 25 (4.33%) Java EE
10 24 (4.16%) Kafka
10 24 (4.16%) Spring Boot
11 23 (3.99%) SOAP
12 18 (3.12%) AWS CDK
13 16 (2.77%) Gherkin
14 14 (2.43%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 46 (7.97%) Product Ownership
2 22 (3.81%) Algorithms
3 18 (3.12%) PKI
4 12 (2.08%) Distributed Systems
5 11 (1.91%) Data Protection Act
5 11 (1.91%) Legacy Systems
6 8 (1.39%) Client/Server
6 8 (1.39%) Data Structures
6 8 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (1.39%) NHS
6 8 (1.39%) Public Cloud
7 7 (1.21%) Data Centre
7 7 (1.21%) Mobile App
8 6 (1.04%) Enterprise Cloud
8 6 (1.04%) Life Science
8 6 (1.04%) Management Information System
9 5 (0.87%) Low-Code
9 5 (0.87%) Private Cloud
10 4 (0.69%) CMDB
10 4 (0.69%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 60 (10.40%) Linux
2 51 (8.84%) Windows
3 25 (4.33%) Windows Server
4 17 (2.95%) Unix
5 14 (2.43%) Windows Server 2019
6 12 (2.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 7 (1.21%) Android
7 7 (1.21%) Ubuntu
8 6 (1.04%) Mac OS X
9 5 (0.87%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.87%) VMS
10 4 (0.69%) Embedded Linux
11 3 (0.52%) Windows 2000
11 3 (0.52%) Windows XP
12 1 (0.17%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 293 (50.78%) Agile
2 183 (31.72%) DevOps
3 169 (29.29%) CI/CD
4 123 (21.32%) Continuous Integration
5 114 (19.76%) Software Engineering
6 95 (16.46%) Scrum
7 81 (14.04%) Problem-Solving
8 75 (13.00%) Software Testing
9 73 (12.65%) Containerisation
10 66 (11.44%) Infrastructure as Code
11 65 (11.27%) TDD
12 64 (11.09%) Test Strategy
13 62 (10.75%) Test Scripting
14 55 (9.53%) Unit Testing
15 51 (8.84%) Microservices
15 51 (8.84%) SDLC
16 50 (8.67%) Full Stack Development
17 46 (7.97%) BDD
18 45 (7.80%) Test Management
19 44 (7.63%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 156 (27.04%) Java
2 120 (20.80%) Python
3 83 (14.38%) SQL
4 74 (12.82%) JavaScript
5 69 (11.96%) C#
6 54 (9.36%) PowerShell
7 47 (8.15%) TypeScript
8 31 (5.37%) Bash
9 29 (5.03%) C
10 27 (4.68%) C++
11 20 (3.47%) Shell Script
12 17 (2.95%) Scala
13 16 (2.77%) Kotlin
14 15 (2.60%) MATLAB
15 13 (2.25%) PHP
16 12 (2.08%) Go
16 12 (2.08%) VBScript
17 9 (1.56%) Groovy
18 8 (1.39%) Embedded C
19 7 (1.21%) Perl
Qualifications
1 134 (23.22%) Security Cleared
2 75 (13.00%) SC Cleared
3 51 (8.84%) ISTQB
4 45 (7.80%) Degree
5 40 (6.93%) DV Cleared
6 30 (5.20%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 18 (3.12%) Computer Science Degree
8 13 (2.25%) ISEB
9 7 (1.21%) BPSS Clearance
10 6 (1.04%) AAT
11 5 (0.87%) Master's Degree
12 3 (0.52%) HNC
12 3 (0.52%) ITIL Certification
13 2 (0.35%) HND
13 2 (0.35%) ISEB Practitioner
14 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Certification
14 1 (0.17%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (19.41%) QA
2 32 (5.55%) Accessibility
3 11 (1.91%) Data Quality
4 8 (1.39%) Disclosure Scotland
5 7 (1.21%) RMADS
6 6 (1.04%) HL7
7 5 (0.87%) PMO
7 5 (0.87%) SLA
8 3 (0.52%) WCAG
9 2 (0.35%) GDPR
9 2 (0.35%) JTAG
9 2 (0.35%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.35%) Software Quality Assurance
10 1 (0.17%) GRC
10 1 (0.17%) IEC 61508
10 1 (0.17%) MISRA
10 1 (0.17%) MISRA C
System Software
1 67 (11.61%) Docker
2 30 (5.20%) Active Directory
3 26 (4.51%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (1.21%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.69%) VirtualBox
5 4 (0.69%) zsh
6 3 (0.52%) vSphere
7 1 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.17%) Firmware
7 1 (0.17%) Terminal Services
7 1 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.17%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 75 (13.00%) Kubernetes
2 67 (11.61%) Ansible
3 62 (10.75%) Terraform
4 16 (2.77%) Grafana
4 16 (2.77%) Puppet
5 12 (2.08%) Docker Swarm
5 12 (2.08%) Podman
6 10 (1.73%) Progress Chef
7 9 (1.56%) Kibana
7 9 (1.56%) Prometheus
8 8 (1.39%) Zipkin
9 6 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
10 4 (0.69%) HP Quality Center
10 4 (0.69%) Nagios
10 4 (0.69%) Rancher
11 2 (0.35%) Functional Safety
11 2 (0.35%) HP Fortify
11 2 (0.35%) Nessus
12 1 (0.17%) Graylog
12 1 (0.17%) vRealize
Vendors
1 52 (9.01%) Microsoft
2 31 (5.37%) Oracle
2 31 (5.37%) VMware
3 13 (2.25%) SAP
3 13 (2.25%) ServiceNow
4 10 (1.73%) Google
5 8 (1.39%) Databricks
6 7 (1.21%) Cadence
7 6 (1.04%) Ericsson
7 6 (1.04%) Informatica
7 6 (1.04%) Pega
7 6 (1.04%) Splunk
8 5 (0.87%) Red Hat
8 5 (0.87%) Talend
9 4 (0.69%) Atlassian
9 4 (0.69%) Infragistics
10 3 (0.52%) Fortinet
10 3 (0.52%) New Relic
10 3 (0.52%) Salesforce
10 3 (0.52%) Siemens