Software Testing Job Trends in England

Software Testing
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in England requiring Software Testing skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 265 210 179
Rank change year-on-year -55 -31 -106
Permanent jobs citing Software Testing 544 577 1,333
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.68% 1.53% 1.60%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.91% 1.64% 1.87%
Number of salaries quoted 404 429 1,077
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £54,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +1.85% +2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £71,250 £68,750 £67,500
90th Percentile £81,750 £87,500 £86,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £54,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +1.85% +8.00% -9.09%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

Software Testing falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in England.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 59,858 35,198 71,429
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 74.86% 93.05% 85.59%
Number of salaries quoted 37,901 20,543 53,811
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,750 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,500 £93,750
UK median annual salary £57,946 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -3.42% +9.09% -10.57%

Software Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Software Testing relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in England.

Software Testing job vacancy trend in England

Software Testing
Salary Trend in England

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing Software Testing.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing Software Testing

Software Testing
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing Software Testing in England over the 6 months to 1 May 2026.

Salary histogram for Software Testing in England

Software Testing
Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Software Testing within the England region over the 6 months to 1 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
South East -15 149 £51,000 -2.86% 66
London -49 142 £60,000 -7.69% 36
North of England -72 90 £46,421 +3.16% 45
South West -44 62 £47,500 -2.08% 24
Midlands -72 56 £55,000 +22.22% 45
North West -40 46 £49,400 -5.90% 21
East of England -17 37 £50,000 -13.04% 42
Yorkshire -64 32 £35,000 +13.36% 12
West Midlands -49 29 £56,250 +32.35% 28
East Midlands -61 27 £55,000 +15.79% 17
North East -31 12 £55,000 +37.50% 12
Software Testing
UK

Software Testing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 10 (1.84%) IIS
2 7 (1.29%) Confluence
2 7 (1.29%) Moodle
3 5 (0.92%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.37%) Apache
4 2 (0.37%) WordPress
5 1 (0.18%) CMS
5 1 (0.18%) Jupyter
5 1 (0.18%) Umbraco
Applications
1 12 (2.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (1.47%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (0.92%) AutoCAD
3 5 (0.92%) DaVinci Resolve
3 5 (0.92%) Microsoft Project
3 5 (0.92%) MS Visio
3 5 (0.92%) Simulink
4 4 (0.74%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.55%) Photoshop
6 2 (0.37%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 3 (0.55%) Misys Midas
2 1 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.18%) Misys Equation
2 1 (0.18%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.18%) Sage X3
Cloud Services
1 108 (19.85%) Azure
2 105 (19.30%) AWS
3 40 (7.35%) Azure DevOps
4 35 (6.43%) GCP
5 20 (3.68%) GitHub
6 18 (3.31%) SaaS
7 15 (2.76%) Serverless
8 13 (2.39%) BrowserStack
9 10 (1.84%) OpenShift
9 10 (1.84%) Power Platform
10 9 (1.65%) GitHub Actions
11 8 (1.47%) AWS Lambda
12 7 (1.29%) Anthropic Claude
12 7 (1.29%) GitHub Copilot
13 6 (1.10%) AWS CloudFormation
13 6 (1.10%) Microsoft 365
14 5 (0.92%) Azure Data Factory
14 5 (0.92%) Tricentis Tosca
15 4 (0.74%) Azure AKS
15 4 (0.74%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.47%) Broadband
2 6 (1.10%) Ethernet
3 5 (0.92%) HTTP
3 5 (0.92%) SNMP
3 5 (0.92%) VPN
4 3 (0.55%) Cisco ISE
4 3 (0.55%) Software-Defined Radio
5 2 (0.37%) Modbus
5 2 (0.37%) MQTT
5 2 (0.37%) Network Security
6 1 (0.18%) AMQP
6 1 (0.18%) Bluetooth
6 1 (0.18%) LTE
6 1 (0.18%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.18%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.18%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (7.35%) SQL Server
2 21 (3.86%) PostgreSQL
3 15 (2.76%) OLTP
4 12 (2.21%) MongoDB
4 12 (2.21%) MySQL
5 9 (1.65%) NoSQL
6 8 (1.47%) DynamoDB
6 8 (1.47%) Elasticsearch
7 7 (1.29%) Power BI
7 7 (1.29%) Relational Database
8 6 (1.10%) Azure SQL Database
8 6 (1.10%) InfluxDB
8 6 (1.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 5 (0.92%) Spark SQL
10 4 (0.74%) Crystal Reports
10 4 (0.74%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.37%) DB2
11 2 (0.37%) Easytrieve
12 1 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
12 1 (0.18%) DTS
Development Applications
1 84 (15.44%) JIRA
2 65 (11.95%) Selenium
3 54 (9.93%) Git
4 44 (8.09%) Postman
5 43 (7.90%) GitLab
6 32 (5.88%) Jenkins
7 29 (5.33%) SoapUI
8 27 (4.96%) Team Foundation Server
9 26 (4.78%) WebDriver
10 20 (3.68%) TestRail
11 19 (3.49%) Cypress.io
12 12 (2.21%) Cucumber
12 12 (2.21%) JMeter
12 12 (2.21%) Zephyr
13 10 (1.84%) REST Assured
13 10 (1.84%) Subversion
13 10 (1.84%) Visual Studio Code
14 9 (1.65%) JUnit
14 9 (1.65%) LoadRunner
14 9 (1.65%) SpecFlow
General
1 157 (28.86%) Social Skills
2 77 (14.15%) Finance
3 74 (13.60%) Analytical Skills
4 32 (5.88%) Electronics
5 21 (3.86%) Law
5 21 (3.86%) Retail
6 18 (3.31%) Banking
7 15 (2.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 14 (2.57%) Manufacturing
9 12 (2.21%) Aerospace
9 12 (2.21%) Games
10 11 (2.02%) Public Sector
11 8 (1.47%) Health Technology
12 7 (1.29%) Documentation Skills
12 7 (1.29%) Pharmaceutical
13 6 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
14 4 (0.74%) Back Office
14 4 (0.74%) Publishing
14 4 (0.74%) Swedish Language
14 4 (0.74%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 120 (22.06%) Senior
2 94 (17.28%) Software Engineer
3 69 (12.68%) Test Engineer
4 67 (12.32%) Tester
5 65 (11.95%) Lead
6 57 (10.48%) Analyst
7 48 (8.82%) Developer
8 40 (7.35%) Software Test Engineer
8 40 (7.35%) Software Tester
9 38 (6.99%) Development Engineer
10 37 (6.80%) Software Development Engineer
11 32 (5.88%) Senior Developer
11 32 (5.88%) Test Development Engineer
12 27 (4.96%) Senior Software Engineer
13 26 (4.78%) Test Analyst
14 25 (4.60%) Test Automation Engineer
15 20 (3.68%) Embedded Engineer
16 18 (3.31%) Automation Tester
16 18 (3.31%) Oracle Developer
16 18 (3.31%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (14.71%) .NET
2 55 (10.11%) HTML
3 42 (7.72%) SOAP
4 39 (7.17%) Playwright
5 33 (6.07%) React
6 24 (4.41%) XML
7 21 (3.86%) Node.js
8 20 (3.68%) REST
9 13 (2.39%) ASP.NET
10 11 (2.02%) JSON
11 10 (1.84%) .NET Framework
11 10 (1.84%) CSS
11 10 (1.84%) RESTful
12 8 (1.47%) Elastic Stack
12 8 (1.47%) React Native
12 8 (1.47%) Spring
13 6 (1.10%) pytest
13 6 (1.10%) Spring Boot
13 6 (1.10%) Web Services
14 5 (0.92%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 41 (7.54%) Product Ownership
2 24 (4.41%) Algorithms
3 21 (3.86%) Cloud Native
4 18 (3.31%) Embedded Systems
5 17 (3.13%) Mobile App
6 12 (2.21%) Client/Server
6 12 (2.21%) Self-Motivation
7 11 (2.02%) Management Information System
8 10 (1.84%) Distributed Systems
9 9 (1.65%) Analytical Mindset
9 9 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
9 9 (1.65%) Low-Code
9 9 (1.65%) Robotics
10 7 (1.29%) e-Learning
10 7 (1.29%) NHS
10 7 (1.29%) Video\Live Streaming
11 6 (1.10%) Blog
11 6 (1.10%) FPGA
11 6 (1.10%) Onboarding
12 5 (0.92%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 43 (7.90%) Windows
2 36 (6.62%) Linux
3 10 (1.84%) Windows Server
4 8 (1.47%) Android
5 6 (1.10%) CentOS
6 4 (0.74%) Windows Server 2019
7 3 (0.55%) FreeRTOS
7 3 (0.55%) Kali Linux
7 3 (0.55%) Unix
8 2 (0.37%) VMS
8 2 (0.37%) zOS
9 1 (0.18%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.18%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.18%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.18%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 219 (40.26%) Test Automation
2 203 (37.32%) Agile
3 128 (23.53%) Continuous Improvement
3 128 (23.53%) Software Engineering
4 115 (21.14%) Problem-Solving
5 112 (20.59%) DevOps
6 107 (19.67%) CI/CD
7 93 (17.10%) Scrum
8 74 (13.60%) Computer Science
9 71 (13.05%) SDLC
10 69 (12.68%) Mentoring
11 58 (10.66%) Test Scripting
12 57 (10.48%) Test Management
13 56 (10.29%) Non-Functional Testing
13 56 (10.29%) Regression Testing
14 54 (9.93%) API Testing
15 52 (9.56%) Code Quality
16 51 (9.38%) Validation
17 50 (9.19%) AI
17 50 (9.19%) Manual Testing
Programming Languages
1 121 (22.24%) SQL
2 115 (21.14%) Python
3 98 (18.01%) C#
4 97 (17.83%) Java
5 63 (11.58%) JavaScript
6 42 (7.72%) C++
7 40 (7.35%) TypeScript
8 35 (6.43%) C
9 19 (3.49%) PL/SQL
10 15 (2.76%) PowerShell
11 14 (2.57%) Bash
12 13 (2.39%) Go
13 12 (2.21%) MATLAB
13 12 (2.21%) PHP
14 7 (1.29%) VBA
15 5 (0.92%) COBOL
15 5 (0.92%) Embedded C
15 5 (0.92%) Rust
15 5 (0.92%) VBScript
16 4 (0.74%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 168 (30.88%) Degree
2 80 (14.71%) Security Cleared
3 67 (12.32%) ISTQB
4 43 (7.90%) SC Cleared
5 34 (6.25%) Computer Science Degree
6 28 (5.15%) DV Cleared
7 25 (4.60%) Master's Degree
8 22 (4.04%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 18 (3.31%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 12 (2.21%) PhD
11 11 (2.02%) BPSS Clearance
12 7 (1.29%) ISEB
12 7 (1.29%) PMI Certification
13 6 (1.10%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
14 4 (0.74%) BC Cleared
14 4 (0.74%) Chartered Engineer
14 4 (0.74%) CIPD
14 4 (0.74%) DBS Check
14 4 (0.74%) Numerate Degree
15 3 (0.55%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 152 (27.94%) QA
2 30 (5.51%) Accessibility
3 20 (3.68%) Software Quality Assurance
4 10 (1.84%) SLA
5 6 (1.10%) Data Quality
5 6 (1.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (0.92%) PMO
7 4 (0.74%) DO-254
8 3 (0.55%) IEC 61508
8 3 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 12207
8 3 (0.55%) WCAG
9 2 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.37%) GDPR
9 2 (0.37%) JTAG
9 2 (0.37%) MISRA
9 2 (0.37%) MISRA C
9 2 (0.37%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.18%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 26 (4.78%) Docker
2 23 (4.23%) Firmware
3 13 (2.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (1.84%) Active Directory
5 9 (1.65%) Embedded Firmware
6 4 (0.74%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.74%) KVM
6 4 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.55%) Terminal Server
8 2 (0.37%) Time Sharing Option
9 1 (0.18%) Xen
Systems Management
1 22 (4.04%) Kubernetes
2 19 (3.49%) Terraform
3 12 (2.21%) Ansible
4 11 (2.02%) Grafana
5 7 (1.29%) SCCM
5 7 (1.29%) SCOM
6 6 (1.10%) Kibana
6 6 (1.10%) logstash
7 4 (0.74%) Rancher
7 4 (0.74%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.55%) HP ALM
8 3 (0.55%) HP Fortify
8 3 (0.55%) SCOrch
9 2 (0.37%) Functional Safety
9 2 (0.37%) Prometheus
10 1 (0.18%) Argo
10 1 (0.18%) Istio
10 1 (0.18%) Nessus
Vendors
1 55 (10.11%) Microsoft
2 31 (5.70%) Oracle
3 14 (2.57%) VMware
4 11 (2.02%) Splunk
5 10 (1.84%) Adobe
6 9 (1.65%) IBM
7 8 (1.47%) Google
8 7 (1.29%) Red Hat
9 5 (0.92%) Avid
9 5 (0.92%) Citrix
9 5 (0.92%) HP
9 5 (0.92%) Salesforce
9 5 (0.92%) SolarWinds
9 5 (0.92%) Zoho
10 4 (0.74%) Altera
10 4 (0.74%) Atlassian
10 4 (0.74%) ServiceNow
10 4 (0.74%) SYSPRO
11 3 (0.55%) Cisco
11 3 (0.55%) Juniper