Test Automation Contracts

Automated Testing
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies 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 7 June 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
7 Jun 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 55 49 46
Rank change year-on-year -6 -3 -1
Contract jobs citing Test Automation 1,523 2,447 4,496
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 3.50% 4.39% 5.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.11% 4.89% 5.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,000 1,764 3,253
10th Percentile £363 £375 £393
25th Percentile £425 £458 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.82% - +15.79%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £723 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £501 £520 £500
% change year-on-year -3.65% +4.00% +17.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 51 48
10th Percentile £51.25 £47.50 £17.18
25th Percentile £52.50 £51.88 £35.00
Median hourly rate £60.00 £66.00 £56.09
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +17.67% +24.45%
75th Percentile £72.50 £85.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £89.50 £90.00 £79.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £62.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year -4.00% +31.58% +13.10%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

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 with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 37,078 50,015 79,966
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.30% 89.70% 90.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,703 34,589 56,207
10th Percentile £300 £325 £349
25th Percentile £413 £438 £433
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +2.33% +7.50%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £646
90th Percentile £750 £750 £741
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £488
% change year-on-year - +2.56% +8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,565 1,687 1,878
10th Percentile £12.75 £10.70 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.00 £15.50 £15.63
Median hourly rate £36.50 £35.80 £25.68
Median % change year-on-year +1.96% +39.41% +10.45%
75th Percentile £61.25 £65.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.12 £35.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year +8.91% +75.00% -4.76%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Test Automation as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Test Automation in the UK

Test Automation
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Test Automation.

Daily rate trend for Test Automation in the UK

Test Automation
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Test Automation over the 6 months to 7 June 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Test Automation in the UK

Test Automation
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Test Automation.

Hourly rate trend for Test Automation in the UK

Test Automation
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Test Automation over the 6 months to 7 June 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Test Automation in the UK

Test Automation
Top 18 Contract 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 7 June 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
England -7 1,287 £525 -4.55% 615
London -7 735 £525 -9.87% 202
UK excluding London -16 602 £501 -3.65% 452
Work from Home +5 588 £500 -4.76% 331
South East 0 202 £550 -4.35% 99
North of England +1 178 £500 -9.09% 101
North West +32 94 £509 +1.75% 75
Yorkshire -6 77 £475 -13.64% 20
Scotland -18 67 £475 -0.84% 44
South West -39 62 £570 +8.57% 65
Midlands -41 37 £422 -11.16% 70
East of England -35 32 £496 +1.79% 57
Wales +33 20 £509 -11.57% 9
East Midlands -5 19 £390 +2.63% 26
West Midlands -38 18 £425 -18.07% 44
North East -20 7 £405 -28.32% 6
Northern Ireland -3 2 - - 18
Isle of Man - 2 - -

Test Automation
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 82 (5.38%) Confluence
2 30 (1.97%) Apache Spark
3 22 (1.44%) Apache Airflow
4 21 (1.38%) Apache
5 19 (1.25%) nginx
6 17 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
7 15 (0.98%) SharePoint
8 8 (0.53%) Alfresco
8 8 (0.53%) SAS
9 7 (0.46%) CMS
10 6 (0.39%) Appian
10 6 (0.39%) Camunda
11 5 (0.33%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.20%) IIS
12 3 (0.20%) WebLogic
12 3 (0.20%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2010
13 2 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2013
14 1 (0.066%) Apache Solr
Applications
1 21 (1.38%) Simulink
2 20 (1.31%) Stateflow
3 12 (0.79%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (0.59%) Microsoft Office
5 8 (0.53%) Trello
6 5 (0.33%) CPLEX
7 4 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 4 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
8 3 (0.20%) CANalyzer
9 2 (0.13%) Gliffy
9 2 (0.13%) Mingle
10 1 (0.066%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 12 (0.79%) ION MarketView
2 6 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (0.39%) Endur
3 5 (0.33%) SimCorp Dimension
4 4 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
5 3 (0.20%) FLEXCUBE
5 3 (0.20%) IntelliMatch
5 3 (0.20%) ION Anvil
5 3 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
5 3 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.20%) SAP EWM
6 2 (0.13%) NEC Housing
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle BPM
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Cash Management
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.066%) Magento
Cloud Services
1 360 (23.64%) Azure
2 327 (21.47%) AWS
3 177 (11.62%) Azure DevOps
4 122 (8.01%) GitHub
5 88 (5.78%) Serverless
6 66 (4.33%) GCP
7 48 (3.15%) Amazon S3
7 48 (3.15%) PaaS
8 46 (3.02%) AWS Lambda
9 41 (2.69%) GitHub Actions
10 40 (2.63%) SaaS
11 33 (2.17%) Azure Monitor
12 32 (2.10%) Azure Functions
13 31 (2.04%) Amazon EC2
13 31 (2.04%) Azure Service Bus
14 30 (1.97%) Power Platform
15 28 (1.84%) Entra ID
15 28 (1.84%) OpenShift
16 27 (1.77%) Amazon EKS
17 26 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 26 (1.71%) Firewall
2 15 (0.98%) HTTP
3 14 (0.92%) VPN
4 13 (0.85%) DNS
5 12 (0.79%) 5G
5 12 (0.79%) Internet
5 12 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
6 10 (0.66%) TCP/IP
7 9 (0.59%) SSL
8 8 (0.53%) BGP
8 8 (0.53%) Ethernet VPN
8 8 (0.53%) Kerberos
8 8 (0.53%) MPLS
8 8 (0.53%) Radio Access Network
8 8 (0.53%) Wireless
9 6 (0.39%) FTP
10 5 (0.33%) DHCP
11 4 (0.26%) IPv4
11 4 (0.26%) VLAN
12 3 (0.20%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 94 (6.17%) NoSQL
2 84 (5.52%) SQL Server
3 73 (4.79%) Relational Database
4 66 (4.33%) PostgreSQL
5 56 (3.68%) MongoDB
6 40 (2.63%) MySQL
7 36 (2.36%) Data Warehouse
8 30 (1.97%) Elasticsearch
9 27 (1.77%) KDB
10 23 (1.51%) Azure SQL Database
10 23 (1.51%) Big Data
11 20 (1.31%) Power BI
12 18 (1.18%) Data Lake
13 15 (0.98%) Amazon RDS
14 14 (0.92%) Amazon Redshift
14 14 (0.92%) Apache Cassandra
15 13 (0.85%) DynamoDB
16 10 (0.66%) Amazon Aurora
17 8 (0.53%) BigQuery
17 8 (0.53%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 278 (18.25%) Selenium
2 247 (16.22%) Git
3 216 (14.18%) JIRA
4 214 (14.05%) Jenkins
5 145 (9.52%) Cucumber
6 131 (8.60%) Postman
7 114 (7.49%) Cypress.io
8 110 (7.22%) GitLab
9 87 (5.71%) JMeter
10 62 (4.07%) WebDriver
11 59 (3.87%) SpecFlow
12 57 (3.74%) REST Assured
13 56 (3.68%) SonarQube
14 55 (3.61%) Bitbucket
15 54 (3.55%) JUnit
16 49 (3.22%) Appium
16 49 (3.22%) Visual Studio
17 46 (3.02%) TeamCity
18 41 (2.69%) TestRail
19 37 (2.43%) Robot Framework
General
1 334 (21.93%) Social Skills
2 250 (16.41%) Finance
3 157 (10.31%) Banking
4 156 (10.24%) Analytical Skills
5 109 (7.16%) Public Sector
6 50 (3.28%) Front Office
7 46 (3.02%) Back Office
8 44 (2.89%) Investment Banking
9 35 (2.30%) Automotive
9 35 (2.30%) Legal
10 33 (2.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 30 (1.97%) Law
12 26 (1.71%) Telecoms
13 20 (1.31%) Manufacturing
14 19 (1.25%) Presentation Skills
15 18 (1.18%) Retail
16 16 (1.05%) Marketing
17 15 (0.98%) Electronics
18 13 (0.85%) Police
19 11 (0.72%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 370 (24.29%) Developer
2 218 (14.31%) Senior
3 176 (11.56%) Tester
4 141 (9.26%) Analyst
5 135 (8.86%) Test Engineer
6 118 (7.75%) Lead
7 105 (6.89%) Test Analyst
8 103 (6.76%) Automation Tester
9 98 (6.43%) Java Developer
10 85 (5.58%) Software Engineer
11 70 (4.60%) Full Stack Developer
12 69 (4.53%) Test Manager
13 68 (4.46%) DevOps Engineer
14 66 (4.33%) Architect
15 64 (4.20%) Senior Developer
16 62 (4.07%) Test Automation Engineer
17 54 (3.55%) QA Engineer
18 47 (3.09%) Senior Analyst
19 45 (2.95%) Consultant
20 43 (2.82%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 156 (10.24%) .NET
2 147 (9.65%) REST
3 133 (8.73%) React
4 94 (6.17%) Kafka
5 86 (5.65%) Node.js
6 84 (5.52%) CSS
6 84 (5.52%) HTML
7 78 (5.12%) RESTful
8 73 (4.79%) AngularJS
9 68 (4.46%) Spring
10 65 (4.27%) XML
11 63 (4.14%) Web Services
12 58 (3.81%) .NET Framework
13 57 (3.74%) JSON
14 55 (3.61%) Playwright
15 54 (3.55%) Spring Boot
16 44 (2.89%) .NET Core
17 43 (2.82%) SOAP
18 42 (2.76%) Gherkin
19 36 (2.36%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 114 (7.49%) Product Ownership
2 52 (3.41%) Algorithms
3 45 (2.95%) Mobile App
4 42 (2.76%) Distributed Systems
5 32 (2.10%) Derivative
6 31 (2.04%) Greenfield Project
7 30 (1.97%) Data Protection Act
8 27 (1.77%) Public Cloud
9 26 (1.71%) Equities
9 26 (1.71%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 24 (1.58%) Cloud Native
10 24 (1.58%) Data Structures
11 23 (1.51%) PKI
12 21 (1.38%) Onboarding
13 19 (1.25%) Fixed Income
13 19 (1.25%) Management Information System
14 18 (1.18%) Enterprise Software
15 17 (1.12%) Self-Motivation
16 15 (0.98%) Legacy Systems
17 14 (0.92%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 155 (10.18%) Linux
2 107 (7.03%) Windows
3 81 (5.32%) Unix
4 41 (2.69%) Android
5 34 (2.23%) Windows Server
6 23 (1.51%) Mac OS X
7 19 (1.25%) Apple iOS
8 16 (1.05%) Windows Server 2019
9 15 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 6 (0.39%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.33%) VMS
12 4 (0.26%) Embedded Linux
13 3 (0.20%) Windows 2000
13 3 (0.20%) Windows XP
14 1 (0.066%) Mac OS
14 1 (0.066%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 705 (46.29%) Agile
2 493 (32.37%) CI/CD
3 483 (31.71%) DevOps
4 293 (19.24%) Continuous Integration
5 229 (15.04%) Scrum
6 224 (14.71%) Software Engineering
7 218 (14.31%) TDD
8 213 (13.99%) Software Testing
9 205 (13.46%) Problem-Solving
10 197 (12.93%) Microservices
11 170 (11.16%) Test Strategy
12 160 (10.51%) BDD
13 158 (10.37%) Performance Testing
14 151 (9.91%) Test Scripting
15 139 (9.13%) Containerisation
16 133 (8.73%) Unit Testing
17 127 (8.34%) Computer Science
18 125 (8.21%) Full Stack Development
19 120 (7.88%) Infrastructure as Code
20 113 (7.42%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 464 (30.47%) Java
2 340 (22.32%) Python
3 255 (16.74%) SQL
4 227 (14.90%) C#
5 223 (14.64%) JavaScript
6 122 (8.01%) TypeScript
7 118 (7.75%) PowerShell
8 61 (4.01%) C++
9 60 (3.94%) Bash
10 46 (3.02%) Kotlin
11 44 (2.89%) C
11 44 (2.89%) PHP
12 39 (2.56%) Shell Script
13 34 (2.23%) Go
14 33 (2.17%) Scala
15 21 (1.38%) MATLAB
16 20 (1.31%) Groovy
17 17 (1.12%) Perl
18 15 (0.98%) Ruby
18 15 (0.98%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 259 (17.01%) Security Cleared
2 182 (11.95%) SC Cleared
3 142 (9.32%) Degree
4 59 (3.87%) ISTQB
5 48 (3.15%) DV Cleared
6 47 (3.09%) Computer Science Degree
7 32 (2.10%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 23 (1.51%) BPSS Clearance
9 20 (1.31%) ISEB
10 13 (0.85%) Master's Degree
11 8 (0.53%) AAT
12 4 (0.26%) HNC
13 3 (0.20%) Azure Certification
13 3 (0.20%) CISSP
13 3 (0.20%) ITIL Certification
13 3 (0.20%) PMI Certification
13 3 (0.20%) PMP
14 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Certification
14 2 (0.13%) Numerate Degree
14 2 (0.13%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 277 (18.19%) QA
2 75 (4.92%) Accessibility
3 25 (1.64%) Data Quality
4 11 (0.72%) HL7
4 11 (0.72%) NCSC
5 10 (0.66%) WCAG
6 7 (0.46%) Disclosure Scotland
6 7 (0.46%) NIST
6 7 (0.46%) RMADS
7 5 (0.33%) PMO
8 4 (0.26%) PCI DSS
8 4 (0.26%) SLA
9 3 (0.20%) ISO 20022
9 3 (0.20%) JTAG
9 3 (0.20%) Software Quality Assurance
10 2 (0.13%) GDPR
10 2 (0.13%) ISO 8583
11 1 (0.066%) GRC
11 1 (0.066%) IEC 61508
11 1 (0.066%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 182 (11.95%) Docker
2 61 (4.01%) Active Directory
3 30 (1.97%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (0.72%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.26%) VirtualBox
5 4 (0.26%) vSphere
6 3 (0.20%) BitLocker
6 3 (0.20%) zsh
7 2 (0.13%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
7 2 (0.13%) Embedded Firmware
7 2 (0.13%) Firmware
8 1 (0.066%) iptables
8 1 (0.066%) Terminal Services
8 1 (0.066%) vCloud
8 1 (0.066%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 186 (12.21%) Kubernetes
2 150 (9.85%) Terraform
3 134 (8.80%) Ansible
4 43 (2.82%) Grafana
5 34 (2.23%) Puppet
6 30 (1.97%) Prometheus
7 18 (1.18%) Progress Chef
8 13 (0.85%) Docker Swarm
8 13 (0.85%) Kibana
8 13 (0.85%) Podman
9 11 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
10 8 (0.53%) Zipkin
11 7 (0.46%) Packer
12 6 (0.39%) Nagios
12 6 (0.39%) Rancher
13 5 (0.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 5 (0.33%) HP Quality Center
14 4 (0.26%) Consul
14 4 (0.26%) Opsgenie
14 4 (0.26%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 190 (12.48%) Microsoft
2 81 (5.32%) Oracle
3 39 (2.56%) VMware
4 33 (2.17%) SAP
5 32 (2.10%) Google
6 28 (1.84%) Salesforce
7 26 (1.71%) ION Trading
8 24 (1.58%) Splunk
9 23 (1.51%) ServiceNow
10 18 (1.18%) Atlassian
11 17 (1.12%) Databricks
12 15 (0.98%) Dynatrace
13 13 (0.85%) TIBCO
14 11 (0.72%) Checkmarx
14 11 (0.72%) IBM
15 10 (0.66%) CyberArk
16 9 (0.59%) Ericsson
16 9 (0.59%) HP
17 7 (0.46%) Informatica
17 7 (0.46%) Micro Focus