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 4 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 282 203 169
Rank change year-on-year -79 -34 -94
Permanent jobs citing Software Testing 491 561 1,311
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.69% 1.53% 1.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.90% 1.65% 1.92%
Number of salaries quoted 376 422 1,071
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,750 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,750 £41,625 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year - +4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £71,625 £68,938 £68,750
90th Percentile £92,500 £87,500 £86,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - +10.00% -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 54,669 34,077 68,349
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 76.51% 93.17% 86.19%
Number of salaries quoted 34,477 20,466 52,607
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £43,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £78,000 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £103,750 £93,750
UK median annual salary £55,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -7.50% +9.09% -11.00%

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 4 April 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 4 April 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 -29 136 £50,000 -4.76% 76
London -32 134 £63,750 -1.92% 55
North of England -84 80 £46,421 -11.58% 48
Midlands -73 50 £55,000 +22.22% 43
South West -35 48 £46,961 -3.19% 36
East of England -22 36 £50,000 -13.04% 30
North West -54 36 £55,000 +4.76% 31
Yorkshire -52 34 £35,000 +7.69% 10
West Midlands -26 25 £52,500 +20.69% 24
East Midlands -63 25 £55,000 +15.79% 19
North East -19 10 £56,500 +41.25% 8
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 7 (1.43%) IIS
1 7 (1.43%) Moodle
2 5 (1.02%) Confluence
3 3 (0.61%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.61%) WordPress
4 2 (0.41%) Apache
5 1 (0.20%) Jupyter
Applications
1 11 (2.24%) Microsoft Excel
1 11 (2.24%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.43%) Microsoft Project
3 5 (1.02%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.81%) AutoCAD
4 4 (0.81%) Simulink
4 4 (0.81%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.61%) DaVinci Resolve
6 2 (0.41%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.20%) EPLAN
7 1 (0.20%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 3 (0.61%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.41%) Misys Midas
3 1 (0.20%) Cognos Business Intelligence
3 1 (0.20%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.20%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.20%) Sage X3
3 1 (0.20%) SAP Business One
3 1 (0.20%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 104 (21.18%) Azure
2 94 (19.14%) AWS
3 40 (8.15%) Azure DevOps
4 35 (7.13%) GCP
5 25 (5.09%) SaaS
6 21 (4.28%) GitHub
7 15 (3.05%) BrowserStack
8 13 (2.65%) Power Platform
9 9 (1.83%) Serverless
10 8 (1.63%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (1.63%) OpenShift
11 7 (1.43%) Anthropic Claude
11 7 (1.43%) GitHub Copilot
12 6 (1.22%) AWS CloudFormation
13 5 (1.02%) AWS Lambda
13 5 (1.02%) Microsoft 365
13 5 (1.02%) PaaS
14 4 (0.81%) Azure Data Factory
15 3 (0.61%) IaaS
15 3 (0.61%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.43%) Broadband
2 5 (1.02%) Ethernet
2 5 (1.02%) HTTP
3 4 (0.81%) VPN
4 3 (0.61%) Cisco ISE
4 3 (0.61%) Network Security
4 3 (0.61%) SNMP
5 2 (0.41%) MQTT
5 2 (0.41%) Software-Defined Radio
6 1 (0.20%) AMQP
6 1 (0.20%) Bluetooth
6 1 (0.20%) Kerberos
6 1 (0.20%) LTE
6 1 (0.20%) Modbus
6 1 (0.20%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.20%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.20%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (7.74%) SQL Server
2 19 (3.87%) PostgreSQL
3 15 (3.05%) OLTP
4 11 (2.24%) MongoDB
5 8 (1.63%) MySQL
5 8 (1.63%) Power BI
6 7 (1.43%) NoSQL
7 6 (1.22%) Azure SQL Database
8 5 (1.02%) Crystal Reports
8 5 (1.02%) InfluxDB
8 5 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 4 (0.81%) DynamoDB
9 4 (0.81%) Elasticsearch
9 4 (0.81%) Relational Database
9 4 (0.81%) Spark SQL
10 3 (0.61%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.41%) Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.41%) DB2
11 2 (0.41%) Easytrieve
12 1 (0.20%) GIS
Development Applications
1 76 (15.48%) JIRA
2 72 (14.66%) Selenium
3 43 (8.76%) Postman
4 36 (7.33%) Git
5 32 (6.52%) GitLab
6 30 (6.11%) SoapUI
7 29 (5.91%) WebDriver
8 28 (5.70%) Jenkins
9 25 (5.09%) Team Foundation Server
10 18 (3.67%) TestRail
11 17 (3.46%) Cypress.io
12 15 (3.05%) SpecFlow
13 11 (2.24%) Zephyr
14 10 (2.04%) Subversion
14 10 (2.04%) Visual Studio
15 9 (1.83%) Cucumber
15 9 (1.83%) JUnit
15 9 (1.83%) REST Assured
16 8 (1.63%) JMeter
16 8 (1.63%) Robot Framework
General
1 147 (29.94%) Social Skills
2 77 (15.68%) Finance
3 60 (12.22%) Analytical Skills
4 32 (6.52%) Electronics
5 22 (4.48%) Law
6 20 (4.07%) Retail
7 15 (3.05%) Banking
8 13 (2.65%) Public Sector
9 12 (2.44%) Manufacturing
10 11 (2.24%) Games
11 10 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 7 (1.43%) Pharmaceutical
13 6 (1.22%) Aerospace
13 6 (1.22%) Documentation Skills
13 6 (1.22%) Marketing
14 5 (1.02%) Health Technology
14 5 (1.02%) Organisational Skills
14 5 (1.02%) Telecoms
15 3 (0.61%) Back Office
15 3 (0.61%) Swedish Language
Job Titles
1 100 (20.37%) Senior
2 79 (16.09%) Software Engineer
3 66 (13.44%) Lead
4 58 (11.81%) Tester
5 55 (11.20%) Analyst
6 52 (10.59%) Test Engineer
7 44 (8.96%) Developer
8 34 (6.92%) Development Engineer
9 33 (6.72%) Software Development Engineer
10 32 (6.52%) Software Tester
11 31 (6.31%) Test Analyst
12 28 (5.70%) Software Test Engineer
12 28 (5.70%) Test Development Engineer
13 25 (5.09%) Senior Developer
14 21 (4.28%) Senior Software Engineer
15 20 (4.07%) QA Engineer
16 19 (3.87%) Embedded Engineer
16 19 (3.87%) Senior Analyst
16 19 (3.87%) Test Automation Engineer
17 18 (3.67%) Oracle Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (16.70%) .NET
2 50 (10.18%) HTML
3 41 (8.35%) SOAP
4 35 (7.13%) Playwright
5 34 (6.92%) React
6 27 (5.50%) XML
7 24 (4.89%) Node.js
8 17 (3.46%) REST
9 12 (2.44%) ASP.NET
10 11 (2.24%) JSON
11 10 (2.04%) .NET Framework
12 8 (1.63%) Elastic Stack
13 7 (1.43%) CSS
13 7 (1.43%) React Native
13 7 (1.43%) Spring
14 6 (1.22%) RESTful
14 6 (1.22%) Web Services
15 5 (1.02%) pytest
16 4 (0.81%) Gherkin
16 4 (0.81%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 32 (6.52%) Product Ownership
2 26 (5.30%) Cloud Native
3 17 (3.46%) Algorithms
3 17 (3.46%) Embedded Systems
4 16 (3.26%) Mobile App
5 13 (2.65%) Self-Motivation
6 11 (2.24%) Distributed Systems
6 11 (2.24%) Enterprise Software
7 10 (2.04%) Client/Server
8 9 (1.83%) Low-Code
9 8 (1.63%) Robotics
10 7 (1.43%) e-Learning
10 7 (1.43%) NHS
10 7 (1.43%) Video\Live Streaming
11 6 (1.22%) Legacy Systems
11 6 (1.22%) Management Information System
11 6 (1.22%) Onboarding
12 5 (1.02%) FPGA
12 5 (1.02%) Life Science
12 5 (1.02%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 34 (6.92%) Windows
2 28 (5.70%) Linux
3 8 (1.63%) Android
4 5 (1.02%) CentOS
4 5 (1.02%) Windows Server
5 4 (0.81%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (0.41%) FreeRTOS
6 2 (0.41%) zOS
7 1 (0.20%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.20%) Embedded Linux
7 1 (0.20%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.20%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.20%) ThreadX
7 1 (0.20%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 198 (40.33%) Test Automation
2 189 (38.49%) Agile
3 124 (25.25%) Continuous Improvement
4 117 (23.83%) Problem-Solving
5 108 (22.00%) Software Engineering
6 102 (20.77%) DevOps
7 101 (20.57%) CI/CD
8 79 (16.09%) Scrum
9 68 (13.85%) Test Scripting
10 64 (13.03%) Mentoring
11 63 (12.83%) Computer Science
12 58 (11.81%) Test Management
13 56 (11.41%) SDLC
14 55 (11.20%) Manual Testing
14 55 (11.20%) Non-Functional Testing
15 53 (10.79%) API Testing
15 53 (10.79%) Regression Testing
16 46 (9.37%) AI
17 44 (8.96%) Code Quality
17 44 (8.96%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 118 (24.03%) SQL
2 93 (18.94%) Java
3 90 (18.33%) Python
4 82 (16.70%) C#
5 61 (12.42%) JavaScript
6 43 (8.76%) TypeScript
7 33 (6.72%) C
8 32 (6.52%) C++
9 18 (3.67%) PL/SQL
10 16 (3.26%) Bash
11 15 (3.05%) Go
12 14 (2.85%) PowerShell
13 10 (2.04%) PHP
14 7 (1.43%) MATLAB
14 7 (1.43%) T-SQL
14 7 (1.43%) VBScript
15 5 (1.02%) Rust
15 5 (1.02%) VBA
16 4 (0.81%) Apex Code
16 4 (0.81%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 157 (31.98%) Degree
2 73 (14.87%) ISTQB
3 66 (13.44%) Security Cleared
4 38 (7.74%) SC Cleared
5 28 (5.70%) Computer Science Degree
6 24 (4.89%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 22 (4.48%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 19 (3.87%) DV Cleared
9 16 (3.26%) Master's Degree
10 12 (2.44%) ISEB
10 12 (2.44%) PhD
11 6 (1.22%) BPSS Clearance
12 5 (1.02%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 4 (0.81%) BC Cleared
13 4 (0.81%) CIPD
13 4 (0.81%) Numerate Degree
13 4 (0.81%) PMI Certification
14 3 (0.61%) CITP
14 3 (0.61%) CREST Certified
14 3 (0.61%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 131 (26.68%) QA
2 27 (5.50%) Accessibility
3 16 (3.26%) Software Quality Assurance
4 9 (1.83%) SLA
5 6 (1.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.61%) Data Quality
6 3 (0.61%) DO-254
6 3 (0.61%) GDPR
6 3 (0.61%) IEC 61508
7 2 (0.41%) JTAG
7 2 (0.41%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.41%) WCAG
8 1 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.20%) IEC 61131
8 1 (0.20%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.20%) MISRA
8 1 (0.20%) MISRA C
System Software
1 22 (4.48%) Docker
2 17 (3.46%) Firmware
3 12 (2.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (2.24%) Active Directory
5 9 (1.83%) Embedded Firmware
6 4 (0.81%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.81%) KVM
7 3 (0.61%) Terminal Server
7 3 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.41%) Time Sharing Option
9 1 (0.20%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.20%) Xen
Systems Management
1 20 (4.07%) Kubernetes
2 18 (3.67%) Terraform
3 9 (1.83%) Grafana
4 7 (1.43%) Ansible
5 5 (1.02%) HP ALM
6 4 (0.81%) SCCM
6 4 (0.81%) SCOM
7 3 (0.61%) Kibana
7 3 (0.61%) logstash
7 3 (0.61%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.61%) Rancher
7 3 (0.61%) vCenter Server
8 2 (0.41%) Nessus
9 1 (0.20%) Argo
9 1 (0.20%) Functional Safety
9 1 (0.20%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.20%) Istio
Vendors
1 51 (10.39%) Microsoft
2 29 (5.91%) Oracle
3 14 (2.85%) VMware
4 8 (1.63%) IBM
4 8 (1.63%) Splunk
5 7 (1.43%) Google
5 7 (1.43%) HP
6 6 (1.22%) Adobe
6 6 (1.22%) Red Hat
6 6 (1.22%) Salesforce
7 5 (1.02%) ServiceNow
7 5 (1.02%) Siebel
7 5 (1.02%) Zoho
8 4 (0.81%) Altera
8 4 (0.81%) Citrix
8 4 (0.81%) SYSPRO
9 3 (0.61%) Atlassian
9 3 (0.61%) Cisco
9 3 (0.61%) Juniper
9 3 (0.61%) McAfee