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

6 months to
29 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 249 260 167
Rank change year-on-year +11 -93 +3
Permanent jobs citing Software Testing 739 499 1,158
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.76% 1.14% 1.63%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.04% 1.28% 2.00%
Number of salaries quoted 500 360 681
10th Percentile £29,500 £26,250 £32,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £39,750 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.35%
75th Percentile £74,500 £68,750 £71,250
90th Percentile £90,000 £78,750 £83,750
UK median annual salary £55,000 £56,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -1.79% +1.82% -4.35%

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 71,056 38,940 57,758
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.41% 88.80% 81.14%
Number of salaries quoted 50,487 22,637 35,999
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £42,000 £37,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £57,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -3.51% -8.80%
75th Percentile £80,000 £76,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,465
% change year-on-year +9.09% -0.84% -7.56%

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 29 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 29 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 +4 160 £46,250 -7.50% 127
London -52 151 £70,000 +9.38% 310
North of England 0 137 £55,000 +29.41% 100
Midlands +4 114 £55,000 +28.65% 78
South West -25 90 £52,500 -6.25% 72
East of England +37 79 £50,000 -5.66% 88
West Midlands +3 72 £55,000 +266.67% 52
North West +16 67 £52,136 -30.49% 66
North East -22 45 £56,250 +59.01% 13
East Midlands -10 42 £55,000 +1.85% 26
Yorkshire -51 25 £37,663 +23.49% 23
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 (1.89%) IIS
2 11 (1.49%) Confluence
3 10 (1.35%) SharePoint
4 9 (1.22%) CMS
5 5 (0.68%) Apache Spark
5 5 (0.68%) Microsoft Exchange
6 4 (0.54%) WinCC
7 3 (0.41%) Apache
7 3 (0.41%) Moodle
7 3 (0.41%) WordPress
8 2 (0.27%) nginx
8 2 (0.27%) Umbraco
Applications
1 18 (2.44%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (2.30%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.62%) Simulink
4 7 (0.95%) Spreadsheet
5 6 (0.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.81%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.68%) AutoCAD
6 5 (0.68%) DaVinci Resolve
7 3 (0.41%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.14%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 3 (0.41%) SystmOne
2 2 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (0.27%) Sage 200
2 2 (0.27%) Shopify
2 2 (0.27%) Workday HCM
3 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.14%) Misys Equation
3 1 (0.14%) Misys Midas
3 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.14%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 133 (18.00%) AWS
2 129 (17.46%) Azure
3 43 (5.82%) Azure DevOps
4 32 (4.33%) GCP
5 31 (4.19%) GitHub
6 29 (3.92%) Power Platform
6 29 (3.92%) Serverless
7 22 (2.98%) Microsoft 365
8 19 (2.57%) SaaS
9 14 (1.89%) AWS Lambda
9 14 (1.89%) GitHub Copilot
10 12 (1.62%) OpenShift
11 10 (1.35%) BrowserStack
11 10 (1.35%) GitHub Actions
12 9 (1.22%) Anthropic Claude
12 9 (1.22%) AWS CloudFormation
13 6 (0.81%) Tricentis Tosca
14 5 (0.68%) Amazon ECS
14 5 (0.68%) Amazon EKS
14 5 (0.68%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.49%) SNMP
1 11 (1.49%) TCP/IP
1 11 (1.49%) VPN
2 8 (1.08%) Broadband
3 7 (0.95%) HTTP
4 4 (0.54%) Ethernet
4 4 (0.54%) Modbus
4 4 (0.54%) Wireshark
5 2 (0.27%) ATM
5 2 (0.27%) DNS
5 2 (0.27%) LTE
5 2 (0.27%) Network Security
5 2 (0.27%) Software-Defined Radio
5 2 (0.27%) Wireless
6 1 (0.14%) 5G
6 1 (0.14%) Bluetooth
6 1 (0.14%) Cisco ISE
6 1 (0.14%) Internet
6 1 (0.14%) SSL
6 1 (0.14%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (5.68%) SQL Server
2 24 (3.25%) Power BI
3 20 (2.71%) PostgreSQL
4 13 (1.76%) DynamoDB
4 13 (1.76%) Relational Database
5 12 (1.62%) Elasticsearch
6 9 (1.22%) Azure SQL Database
6 9 (1.22%) MongoDB
7 8 (1.08%) InfluxDB
7 8 (1.08%) NoSQL
7 8 (1.08%) OLTP
7 8 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 7 (0.95%) MySQL
9 6 (0.81%) Geospatial Data
10 5 (0.68%) Oracle Database
11 4 (0.54%) Crystal Reports
11 4 (0.54%) Flink
11 4 (0.54%) Spark SQL
12 3 (0.41%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (0.41%) DTS
Development Applications
1 95 (12.86%) Git
2 72 (9.74%) JIRA
3 60 (8.12%) Selenium
4 52 (7.04%) GitLab
5 42 (5.68%) Jenkins
6 30 (4.06%) Postman
7 28 (3.79%) Cypress.io
8 20 (2.71%) Cucumber
9 19 (2.57%) TestRail
10 18 (2.44%) JUnit
10 18 (2.44%) Zephyr
11 17 (2.30%) JMeter
12 14 (1.89%) Gatling
13 12 (1.62%) REST Assured
14 9 (1.22%) Claude Code
15 8 (1.08%) LoadRunner
15 8 (1.08%) Maven
15 8 (1.08%) Robot Framework
15 8 (1.08%) SoapUI
15 8 (1.08%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 238 (32.21%) Social Skills
2 135 (18.27%) Analytical Skills
3 93 (12.58%) Finance
4 53 (7.17%) Electronics
5 48 (6.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 39 (5.28%) Law
7 38 (5.14%) Manufacturing
8 22 (2.98%) Public Sector
9 21 (2.84%) Aerospace
9 21 (2.84%) Banking
10 17 (2.30%) Documentation Skills
11 16 (2.17%) Retail
12 15 (2.03%) Organisational Skills
13 14 (1.89%) Aviation
13 14 (1.89%) Games
14 13 (1.76%) Legal
15 12 (1.62%) Automotive
16 9 (1.22%) Back Office
16 9 (1.22%) Military
16 9 (1.22%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 172 (23.27%) Senior
2 124 (16.78%) Software Engineer
3 101 (13.67%) Test Engineer
4 85 (11.50%) Developer
5 83 (11.23%) Lead
6 63 (8.53%) Analyst
7 59 (7.98%) Tester
8 45 (6.09%) Senior Developer
9 41 (5.55%) Software Test Engineer
10 38 (5.14%) Software Developer
11 34 (4.60%) Senior Software Engineer
11 34 (4.60%) Software Tester
12 33 (4.47%) QA Engineer
13 29 (3.92%) Embedded Engineer
13 29 (3.92%) Test Automation Engineer
14 26 (3.52%) Junior
15 24 (3.25%) Development Engineer
15 24 (3.25%) Embedded Software Engineer
16 22 (2.98%) Consultant
16 22 (2.98%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 69 (9.34%) .NET
2 55 (7.44%) Playwright
3 44 (5.95%) HTML
4 43 (5.82%) React
5 32 (4.33%) REST
6 27 (3.65%) ASP.NET
7 23 (3.11%) Terraform
8 22 (2.98%) CSS
9 21 (2.84%) XML
10 15 (2.03%) Node.js
10 15 (2.03%) RESTful
11 13 (1.76%) React Native
11 13 (1.76%) SOAP
12 12 (1.62%) ASP.NET Core
12 12 (1.62%) JSON
12 12 (1.62%) Swagger
13 11 (1.49%) Spring
14 10 (1.35%) pytest
15 9 (1.22%) Elastic Stack
15 9 (1.22%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 61 (8.25%) Product Ownership
2 33 (4.47%) Distributed Systems
3 30 (4.06%) Algorithms
4 28 (3.79%) Embedded Systems
5 23 (3.11%) Management Information System
6 19 (2.57%) Enterprise Software
6 19 (2.57%) Mobile App
7 18 (2.44%) Robotics
8 17 (2.30%) AI Agents
8 17 (2.30%) Cloud Native
9 15 (2.03%) Analytical Mindset
9 15 (2.03%) Client/Server
10 14 (1.89%) Self-Motivation
11 12 (1.62%) Video\Live Streaming
12 11 (1.49%) Driving Licence
12 11 (1.49%) Legacy Applications
12 11 (1.49%) Low-Code
13 10 (1.35%) FPGA
14 9 (1.22%) Onboarding
14 9 (1.22%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 90 (12.18%) Windows
2 72 (9.74%) Linux
3 20 (2.71%) Windows Server
4 8 (1.08%) CentOS
5 6 (0.81%) Embedded Linux
6 5 (0.68%) Android
6 5 (0.68%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.68%) Unix
6 5 (0.68%) VMS
7 4 (0.54%) Kali Linux
7 4 (0.54%) Robot Operating System
8 3 (0.41%) FreeRTOS
9 2 (0.27%) Debian
9 2 (0.27%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.27%) zOS
10 1 (0.14%) ThreadX
10 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 305 (41.27%) Test Automation
2 271 (36.67%) Agile
3 234 (31.66%) Software Engineering
4 196 (26.52%) Continuous Improvement
5 182 (24.63%) Problem-Solving
6 181 (24.49%) CI/CD
7 160 (21.65%) DevOps
8 118 (15.97%) Code Quality
9 112 (15.16%) Validation
10 107 (14.48%) AI
11 106 (14.34%) Mentoring
12 105 (14.21%) SDLC
13 97 (13.13%) Scrum
13 97 (13.13%) Test Strategy
14 78 (10.55%) Regression Testing
15 69 (9.34%) Computer Science
16 64 (8.66%) Manual Testing
17 54 (7.31%) Test Scripting
18 53 (7.17%) Software Architecture
19 51 (6.90%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 198 (26.79%) Python
2 132 (17.86%) SQL
3 110 (14.88%) C#
4 87 (11.77%) JavaScript
5 85 (11.50%) Java
6 76 (10.28%) C++
7 59 (7.98%) C
8 51 (6.90%) TypeScript
9 23 (3.11%) MATLAB
9 23 (3.11%) PowerShell
10 20 (2.71%) Bash
11 13 (1.76%) Go
12 11 (1.49%) Embedded C
12 11 (1.49%) PL/SQL
13 10 (1.35%) Groovy
13 10 (1.35%) PHP
14 9 (1.22%) Julia
15 8 (1.08%) R
16 7 (0.95%) VBA
17 5 (0.68%) Embedded C++
Qualifications
1 166 (22.46%) Degree
2 129 (17.46%) Security Cleared
3 78 (10.55%) SC Cleared
4 41 (5.55%) ISTQB
5 37 (5.01%) DV Cleared
6 33 (4.47%) Master's Degree
7 32 (4.33%) Computer Science Degree
8 19 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
9 11 (1.49%) ISEB
10 8 (1.08%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 8 (1.08%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 8 (1.08%) PhD
11 5 (0.68%) DBS Check
12 4 (0.54%) Chartered Engineer
13 3 (0.41%) AWS Certification
13 3 (0.41%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 3 (0.41%) PMI Certification
14 2 (0.27%) CompTIA Security+
14 2 (0.27%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 2 (0.27%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 208 (28.15%) QA
2 47 (6.36%) Accessibility
3 22 (2.98%) GDPR
4 15 (2.03%) Software Quality Assurance
5 13 (1.76%) Data Quality
5 13 (1.76%) WCAG
6 9 (1.22%) SLA
7 5 (0.68%) DO-254
7 5 (0.68%) IEC 61508
7 5 (0.68%) PMO
8 3 (0.41%) IEC 61131
8 3 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 12207
8 3 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 2 (0.27%) Automotive SPICE
9 2 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.27%) MISRA
9 2 (0.27%) MISRA C
10 1 (0.14%) DO-160
10 1 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 1 (0.14%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 52 (7.04%) Docker
2 35 (4.74%) Firmware
3 19 (2.57%) Active Directory
4 16 (2.17%) Embedded Firmware
5 10 (1.35%) VMware Infrastructure
6 6 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.27%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.27%) KVM
7 2 (0.27%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.14%) Terminal Server
Systems Management
1 35 (4.74%) Kubernetes
2 22 (2.98%) Grafana
3 18 (2.44%) Ansible
4 9 (1.22%) Kibana
5 8 (1.08%) logstash
6 6 (0.81%) vCenter Server
7 5 (0.68%) Functional Safety
8 4 (0.54%) HP Fortify
8 4 (0.54%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.54%) SCCM
8 4 (0.54%) SCOM
9 3 (0.41%) HP ALM
9 3 (0.41%) Microsoft Intune
9 3 (0.41%) Norton AntiVirus
9 3 (0.41%) SCOrch
10 2 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 2 (0.27%) Puppet
10 2 (0.27%) Rancher
10 2 (0.27%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.14%) Fluentd
Vendors
1 71 (9.61%) Microsoft
2 23 (3.11%) Splunk
3 19 (2.57%) Oracle
4 12 (1.62%) VMware
5 11 (1.49%) Citrix
5 11 (1.49%) Google
6 10 (1.35%) Atlassian
6 10 (1.35%) Red Hat
7 9 (1.22%) Intel
8 8 (1.08%) Adobe
8 8 (1.08%) ServiceNow
9 7 (0.95%) AppDynamics
9 7 (0.95%) IBM
10 6 (0.81%) Siemens
11 5 (0.68%) Avid
11 5 (0.68%) SolarWinds
12 4 (0.54%) HP
12 4 (0.54%) SYSPRO
12 4 (0.54%) Veracode
12 4 (0.54%) Xilinx