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 7 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 260 258 176
Rank change year-on-year -2 -82 -12
Permanent jobs citing Software Testing 686 510 1,103
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.74% 1.17% 1.52%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.00% 1.31% 1.87%
Number of salaries quoted 471 372 702
10th Percentile £29,750 £26,250 £32,500
25th Percentile £38,875 £40,000 £40,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.35%
75th Percentile £73,750 £68,750 £68,750
90th Percentile £90,000 £78,750 £81,250
UK median annual salary £52,500 £55,565 £52,500
% change year-on-year -5.52% +5.84% -8.70%

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 68,721 39,007 59,047
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.81% 89.54% 81.26%
Number of salaries quoted 48,509 22,580 39,212
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,132
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -12.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £98,474 £95,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.71%

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 7 August 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 7 August 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 +4 157 £47,500 -5.00% 80
London -42 148 £69,000 +7.81% 123
North of England -13 119 £53,750 +26.47% 62
Midlands -8 95 £55,000 +29.41% 38
South West -26 89 £51,250 -6.82% 32
East of England +13 72 £46,750 -11.79% 50
North West +13 63 £52,136 -21.30% 33
West Midlands -17 61 £62,500 +316.67% 24
North East -23 35 £57,500 +69.12% 18
East Midlands -17 34 £55,000 +1.85% 14
Yorkshire -39 21 £45,000 +51.26% 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 14 (2.04%) IIS
2 10 (1.46%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.31%) Confluence
4 8 (1.17%) CMS
5 4 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
5 4 (0.58%) Moodle
5 4 (0.58%) WordPress
6 3 (0.44%) Apache
6 3 (0.44%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.29%) nginx
7 2 (0.29%) Umbraco
7 2 (0.29%) WinCC
8 1 (0.15%) Jupyter
Applications
1 18 (2.62%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (2.04%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (1.46%) Simulink
4 6 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.87%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.73%) AutoCAD
5 5 (0.73%) DaVinci Resolve
5 5 (0.73%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.44%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.15%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.15%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 2 (0.29%) Shopify
1 2 (0.29%) Workday HCM
2 1 (0.15%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.15%) Misys Equation
2 1 (0.15%) Misys Midas
2 1 (0.15%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.15%) Sage 200
2 1 (0.15%) SystmOne
2 1 (0.15%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 123 (17.93%) AWS
2 121 (17.64%) Azure
3 41 (5.98%) Azure DevOps
4 33 (4.81%) GCP
5 29 (4.23%) GitHub
6 27 (3.94%) Serverless
7 20 (2.92%) Power Platform
8 16 (2.33%) Microsoft 365
9 13 (1.90%) AWS Lambda
9 13 (1.90%) GitHub Copilot
10 11 (1.60%) SaaS
11 10 (1.46%) OpenShift
12 9 (1.31%) Anthropic Claude
12 9 (1.31%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (1.17%) BrowserStack
14 7 (1.02%) AWS CloudFormation
15 5 (0.73%) Azure Data Factory
15 5 (0.73%) Azure Functions
15 5 (0.73%) Tricentis Tosca
16 4 (0.58%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.60%) SNMP
1 11 (1.60%) VPN
2 8 (1.17%) Broadband
2 8 (1.17%) HTTP
3 6 (0.87%) TCP/IP
4 5 (0.73%) Ethernet
5 4 (0.58%) Software-Defined Radio
6 2 (0.29%) ATM
6 2 (0.29%) DNS
6 2 (0.29%) LTE
6 2 (0.29%) Modbus
6 2 (0.29%) Wireless
7 1 (0.15%) 5G
7 1 (0.15%) Bluetooth
7 1 (0.15%) Cisco ISE
7 1 (0.15%) Internet
7 1 (0.15%) MQTT
7 1 (0.15%) SSL
7 1 (0.15%) Wi-Fi
7 1 (0.15%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (5.69%) SQL Server
2 19 (2.77%) PostgreSQL
3 18 (2.62%) Power BI
4 13 (1.90%) DynamoDB
5 12 (1.75%) Elasticsearch
6 10 (1.46%) MongoDB
6 10 (1.46%) OLTP
7 9 (1.31%) Azure SQL Database
8 8 (1.17%) NoSQL
8 8 (1.17%) Relational Database
8 8 (1.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 7 (1.02%) InfluxDB
9 7 (1.02%) MySQL
10 6 (0.87%) Geospatial Data
11 5 (0.73%) Spark SQL
12 4 (0.58%) Crystal Reports
12 4 (0.58%) Oracle Database
13 3 (0.44%) Big Data
13 3 (0.44%) DTS
14 2 (0.29%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 87 (12.68%) Git
2 69 (10.06%) JIRA
3 57 (8.31%) Selenium
4 50 (7.29%) GitLab
5 40 (5.83%) Jenkins
6 26 (3.79%) Postman
7 23 (3.35%) Cypress.io
8 18 (2.62%) JUnit
8 18 (2.62%) TestRail
9 16 (2.33%) Cucumber
9 16 (2.33%) Zephyr
10 14 (2.04%) JMeter
11 10 (1.46%) REST Assured
12 9 (1.31%) Claude Code
12 9 (1.31%) Gatling
12 9 (1.31%) Visual Studio Code
13 8 (1.17%) SpecFlow
14 7 (1.02%) LoadRunner
14 7 (1.02%) Maven
14 7 (1.02%) Robot Framework
General
1 206 (30.03%) Social Skills
2 113 (16.47%) Analytical Skills
3 93 (13.56%) Finance
4 45 (6.56%) Electronics
5 39 (5.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 37 (5.39%) Law
7 36 (5.25%) Manufacturing
8 23 (3.35%) Banking
9 18 (2.62%) Aerospace
10 16 (2.33%) Public Sector
11 13 (1.90%) Aviation
11 13 (1.90%) Documentation Skills
11 13 (1.90%) Retail
12 12 (1.75%) Games
13 11 (1.60%) Organisational Skills
14 10 (1.46%) Automotive
14 10 (1.46%) Legal
15 9 (1.31%) Back Office
15 9 (1.31%) Health Technology
16 8 (1.17%) Military
Job Titles
1 165 (24.05%) Senior
2 126 (18.37%) Software Engineer
3 89 (12.97%) Test Engineer
4 76 (11.08%) Developer
5 66 (9.62%) Analyst
5 66 (9.62%) Lead
6 58 (8.45%) Tester
7 44 (6.41%) Senior Developer
8 41 (5.98%) Software Test Engineer
9 37 (5.39%) Senior Software Engineer
9 37 (5.39%) Software Tester
10 30 (4.37%) QA Engineer
11 29 (4.23%) Software Developer
12 28 (4.08%) Embedded Engineer
13 26 (3.79%) Test Automation Engineer
14 24 (3.50%) Development Engineer
14 24 (3.50%) Junior
14 24 (3.50%) Senior Analyst
15 22 (3.21%) Embedded Software Engineer
16 20 (2.92%) Software Development Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (9.18%) .NET
2 44 (6.41%) HTML
2 44 (6.41%) Playwright
3 38 (5.54%) React
4 29 (4.23%) REST
5 24 (3.50%) ASP.NET
6 21 (3.06%) XML
7 20 (2.92%) CSS
8 14 (2.04%) RESTful
9 13 (1.90%) SOAP
10 12 (1.75%) ASP.NET Core
10 12 (1.75%) Node.js
10 12 (1.75%) Swagger
11 11 (1.60%) Spring
12 10 (1.46%) React Native
13 9 (1.31%) JSON
13 9 (1.31%) pytest
14 8 (1.17%) .NET Framework
14 8 (1.17%) Elastic Stack
14 8 (1.17%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 57 (8.31%) Product Ownership
2 33 (4.81%) Algorithms
3 32 (4.66%) Distributed Systems
4 27 (3.94%) Embedded Systems
5 20 (2.92%) Management Information System
6 16 (2.33%) Robotics
7 15 (2.19%) Client/Server
7 15 (2.19%) Enterprise Software
8 14 (2.04%) AI Agents
8 14 (2.04%) Mobile App
9 13 (1.90%) Cloud Native
10 12 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
10 12 (1.75%) FPGA
11 11 (1.60%) Video\Live Streaming
12 10 (1.46%) Low-Code
12 10 (1.46%) Self-Motivation
13 9 (1.31%) Onboarding
14 8 (1.17%) Driving Licence
14 8 (1.17%) Life Science
14 8 (1.17%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 87 (12.68%) Windows
2 72 (10.50%) Linux
3 20 (2.92%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.02%) CentOS
5 6 (0.87%) Embedded Linux
6 4 (0.58%) Android
6 4 (0.58%) Apple iOS
6 4 (0.58%) Unix
6 4 (0.58%) VMS
7 3 (0.44%) FreeRTOS
7 3 (0.44%) Kali Linux
8 2 (0.29%) Robot Operating System
8 2 (0.29%) zOS
9 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.15%) ThreadX
9 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 275 (40.09%) Test Automation
2 248 (36.15%) Agile
3 213 (31.05%) Software Engineering
4 182 (26.53%) Continuous Improvement
5 161 (23.47%) CI/CD
6 157 (22.89%) Problem-Solving
7 149 (21.72%) DevOps
8 109 (15.89%) Code Quality
9 100 (14.58%) Mentoring
10 96 (13.99%) AI
11 95 (13.85%) Scrum
11 95 (13.85%) SDLC
12 89 (12.97%) Validation
13 80 (11.66%) Test Strategy
14 73 (10.64%) Computer Science
14 73 (10.64%) Regression Testing
15 61 (8.89%) Manual Testing
16 51 (7.43%) Test Scripting
17 48 (7.00%) Software Architecture
18 45 (6.56%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 196 (28.57%) Python
2 124 (18.08%) SQL
3 103 (15.01%) C#
4 84 (12.24%) C++
5 80 (11.66%) JavaScript
6 77 (11.22%) Java
7 61 (8.89%) C
8 44 (6.41%) TypeScript
9 22 (3.21%) MATLAB
9 22 (3.21%) PowerShell
10 16 (2.33%) Bash
11 13 (1.90%) Go
11 13 (1.90%) PL/SQL
12 12 (1.75%) PHP
13 9 (1.31%) Groovy
13 9 (1.31%) Julia
14 8 (1.17%) Embedded C
14 8 (1.17%) R
14 8 (1.17%) Rust
15 7 (1.02%) VBA
Qualifications
1 174 (25.36%) Degree
2 122 (17.78%) Security Cleared
3 73 (10.64%) SC Cleared
4 41 (5.98%) ISTQB
5 40 (5.83%) DV Cleared
6 35 (5.10%) Master's Degree
7 33 (4.81%) Computer Science Degree
8 19 (2.77%) BPSS Clearance
9 10 (1.46%) ISEB
10 9 (1.31%) PhD
11 8 (1.17%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 7 (1.02%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 5 (0.73%) DBS Check
14 4 (0.58%) Chartered Engineer
14 4 (0.58%) CIPD
15 3 (0.44%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 3 (0.44%) PMI Certification
16 2 (0.29%) HND
16 2 (0.29%) MCSA
16 2 (0.29%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 191 (27.84%) QA
2 39 (5.69%) Accessibility
3 21 (3.06%) Software Quality Assurance
4 18 (2.62%) GDPR
5 11 (1.60%) Data Quality
5 11 (1.60%) WCAG
6 9 (1.31%) SLA
7 5 (0.73%) DO-254
7 5 (0.73%) IEC 61508
7 5 (0.73%) PMO
8 4 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 3 (0.44%) IEC 61131
9 3 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 12207
10 2 (0.29%) Automotive SPICE
10 2 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.29%) MISRA
10 2 (0.29%) MISRA C
10 2 (0.29%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.15%) DO-160
11 1 (0.15%) JTAG
System Software
1 47 (6.85%) Docker
2 29 (4.23%) Firmware
3 18 (2.62%) Active Directory
4 14 (2.04%) Embedded Firmware
4 14 (2.04%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.87%) Virtual Machines
6 5 (0.73%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.73%) KVM
7 2 (0.29%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.15%) Terminal Server
Systems Management
1 32 (4.66%) Kubernetes
2 20 (2.92%) Terraform
3 17 (2.48%) Ansible
4 15 (2.19%) Grafana
5 9 (1.31%) Kibana
6 8 (1.17%) logstash
7 6 (0.87%) vCenter Server
8 5 (0.73%) Functional Safety
9 4 (0.58%) SCCM
9 4 (0.58%) SCOM
10 3 (0.44%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.44%) HP Fortify
10 3 (0.44%) Microsoft Intune
10 3 (0.44%) Norton AntiVirus
10 3 (0.44%) Prometheus
10 3 (0.44%) SCOrch
11 2 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 2 (0.29%) Puppet
11 2 (0.29%) Rancher
11 2 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 61 (8.89%) Microsoft
2 21 (3.06%) Oracle
3 20 (2.92%) Splunk
4 16 (2.33%) VMware
5 11 (1.60%) Citrix
6 10 (1.46%) Atlassian
6 10 (1.46%) Red Hat
7 9 (1.31%) Adobe
7 9 (1.31%) Intel
8 8 (1.17%) ServiceNow
9 6 (0.87%) AppDynamics
9 6 (0.87%) Google
9 6 (0.87%) IBM
10 5 (0.73%) Avid
10 5 (0.73%) HP
10 5 (0.73%) Salesforce
10 5 (0.73%) SolarWinds
11 4 (0.58%) Microsemi
11 4 (0.58%) Siemens
11 4 (0.58%) SYSPRO