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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 252 263 171
Rank change year-on-year +11 -92 -6
Permanent jobs citing Software Testing 714 507 1,123
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.76% 1.16% 1.55%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.03% 1.30% 1.90%
Number of salaries quoted 484 369 714
10th Percentile £29,575 £26,150 £32,500
25th Percentile £39,150 £40,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.35%
75th Percentile £72,500 £68,750 £69,688
90th Percentile £90,000 £78,750 £82,000
UK median annual salary £52,500 £56,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -6.25% +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 69,384 39,107 59,001
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.66% 89.38% 81.32%
Number of salaries quoted 48,904 22,532 38,701
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,250
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 £76,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £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 14 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 14 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
London -53 155 £69,000 +7.81% 137
South East +1 152 £46,250 -7.50% 79
North of England +4 131 £55,000 +29.41% 68
Midlands +4 101 £55,000 +29.41% 49
South West -21 91 £52,500 -6.25% 30
East of England +26 76 £47,500 -10.38% 47
North West +20 65 £52,500 -30.00% 39
West Midlands -5 64 £57,500 +283.33% 33
North East -24 41 £57,500 +62.54% 18
East Midlands -15 37 £55,000 +1.85% 16
Yorkshire -48 25 £41,332 +37.20% 13
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 (1.96%) IIS
2 10 (1.40%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.26%) CMS
3 9 (1.26%) Confluence
4 4 (0.56%) Apache Spark
4 4 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (0.56%) Moodle
5 3 (0.42%) Apache
5 3 (0.42%) WinCC
5 3 (0.42%) WordPress
6 2 (0.28%) nginx
6 2 (0.28%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.14%) Jupyter
Applications
1 18 (2.52%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (2.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (1.40%) Simulink
4 6 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.84%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.84%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.70%) AutoCAD
5 5 (0.70%) DaVinci Resolve
6 3 (0.42%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.14%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 2 (0.28%) Sage 200
1 2 (0.28%) Shopify
1 2 (0.28%) SystmOne
1 2 (0.28%) Workday HCM
2 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.14%) Misys Equation
2 1 (0.14%) Misys Midas
2 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.14%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 126 (17.65%) AWS
2 124 (17.37%) Azure
3 41 (5.74%) Azure DevOps
4 33 (4.62%) GCP
5 30 (4.20%) GitHub
6 29 (4.06%) Serverless
7 23 (3.22%) Power Platform
8 18 (2.52%) Microsoft 365
9 14 (1.96%) GitHub Copilot
9 14 (1.96%) SaaS
10 13 (1.82%) AWS Lambda
11 11 (1.54%) OpenShift
12 9 (1.26%) Anthropic Claude
12 9 (1.26%) BrowserStack
12 9 (1.26%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (1.12%) AWS CloudFormation
14 6 (0.84%) Azure Functions
15 5 (0.70%) Amazon ECS
15 5 (0.70%) Amazon EKS
15 5 (0.70%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.54%) SNMP
1 11 (1.54%) VPN
2 8 (1.12%) Broadband
2 8 (1.12%) HTTP
2 8 (1.12%) TCP/IP
3 4 (0.56%) Ethernet
3 4 (0.56%) Software-Defined Radio
4 3 (0.42%) Modbus
5 2 (0.28%) ATM
5 2 (0.28%) DNS
5 2 (0.28%) LTE
5 2 (0.28%) Wireless
5 2 (0.28%) Wireshark
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 (5.88%) SQL Server
2 20 (2.80%) PostgreSQL
2 20 (2.80%) Power BI
3 13 (1.82%) DynamoDB
4 12 (1.68%) Elasticsearch
5 11 (1.54%) Relational Database
6 10 (1.40%) Azure SQL Database
6 10 (1.40%) MongoDB
6 10 (1.40%) OLTP
7 8 (1.12%) NoSQL
7 8 (1.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 7 (0.98%) InfluxDB
8 7 (0.98%) MySQL
9 6 (0.84%) Geospatial Data
10 5 (0.70%) Oracle Database
10 5 (0.70%) Spark SQL
11 4 (0.56%) Crystal Reports
12 3 (0.42%) Big Data
12 3 (0.42%) DTS
12 3 (0.42%) Flink
Development Applications
1 89 (12.46%) Git
2 71 (9.94%) JIRA
3 57 (7.98%) Selenium
4 48 (6.72%) GitLab
5 40 (5.60%) Jenkins
6 27 (3.78%) Postman
7 25 (3.50%) Cypress.io
8 19 (2.66%) TestRail
9 18 (2.52%) JUnit
10 17 (2.38%) Zephyr
11 16 (2.24%) Cucumber
12 14 (1.96%) JMeter
13 11 (1.54%) Gatling
13 11 (1.54%) REST Assured
14 9 (1.26%) Claude Code
15 8 (1.12%) Visual Studio Code
16 7 (0.98%) LoadRunner
16 7 (0.98%) Maven
16 7 (0.98%) Robot Framework
16 7 (0.98%) SpecFlow
General
1 219 (30.67%) Social Skills
2 121 (16.95%) Analytical Skills
3 97 (13.59%) Finance
4 48 (6.72%) Electronics
5 41 (5.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 39 (5.46%) Law
7 37 (5.18%) Manufacturing
8 23 (3.22%) Banking
9 21 (2.94%) Aerospace
9 21 (2.94%) Public Sector
10 14 (1.96%) Aviation
10 14 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
10 14 (1.96%) Retail
11 13 (1.82%) Organisational Skills
12 12 (1.68%) Games
12 12 (1.68%) Legal
13 11 (1.54%) Automotive
14 9 (1.26%) Back Office
14 9 (1.26%) Military
15 8 (1.12%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 171 (23.95%) Senior
2 122 (17.09%) Software Engineer
3 97 (13.59%) Test Engineer
4 84 (11.76%) Developer
5 73 (10.22%) Lead
6 68 (9.52%) Analyst
7 60 (8.40%) Tester
8 47 (6.58%) Senior Developer
9 42 (5.88%) Software Test Engineer
10 39 (5.46%) Software Tester
11 35 (4.90%) Software Developer
12 34 (4.76%) Senior Software Engineer
13 32 (4.48%) QA Engineer
14 28 (3.92%) Embedded Engineer
15 27 (3.78%) Test Automation Engineer
16 25 (3.50%) Junior
16 25 (3.50%) Senior Analyst
17 23 (3.22%) Embedded Software Engineer
18 22 (3.08%) Development Engineer
19 20 (2.80%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 69 (9.66%) .NET
2 49 (6.86%) Playwright
3 47 (6.58%) HTML
4 39 (5.46%) React
5 33 (4.62%) REST
6 26 (3.64%) ASP.NET
7 23 (3.22%) CSS
8 21 (2.94%) XML
9 15 (2.10%) RESTful
10 13 (1.82%) Node.js
10 13 (1.82%) SOAP
11 12 (1.68%) ASP.NET Core
11 12 (1.68%) Swagger
12 11 (1.54%) React Native
12 11 (1.54%) Spring
13 10 (1.40%) JSON
13 10 (1.40%) pytest
14 8 (1.12%) .NET Framework
14 8 (1.12%) Elastic Stack
14 8 (1.12%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 60 (8.40%) Product Ownership
2 32 (4.48%) Distributed Systems
3 31 (4.34%) Algorithms
4 27 (3.78%) Embedded Systems
5 21 (2.94%) Management Information System
6 19 (2.66%) Enterprise Software
7 17 (2.38%) Mobile App
8 16 (2.24%) Cloud Native
9 15 (2.10%) AI Agents
10 14 (1.96%) Client/Server
10 14 (1.96%) Robotics
11 13 (1.82%) Analytical Mindset
12 12 (1.68%) Video\Live Streaming
13 11 (1.54%) FPGA
13 11 (1.54%) Low-Code
13 11 (1.54%) Self-Motivation
14 10 (1.40%) Driving Licence
14 10 (1.40%) Legacy Applications
15 9 (1.26%) Onboarding
16 8 (1.12%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 88 (12.32%) Windows
2 69 (9.66%) Linux
3 20 (2.80%) Windows Server
4 7 (0.98%) CentOS
5 6 (0.84%) Embedded Linux
6 5 (0.70%) Unix
7 4 (0.56%) Android
7 4 (0.56%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.56%) VMS
8 3 (0.42%) FreeRTOS
8 3 (0.42%) Kali Linux
9 2 (0.28%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.28%) zOS
10 1 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.14%) ThreadX
10 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 287 (40.20%) Test Automation
2 259 (36.27%) Agile
3 224 (31.37%) Software Engineering
4 190 (26.61%) Continuous Improvement
5 170 (23.81%) CI/CD
6 167 (23.39%) Problem-Solving
7 156 (21.85%) DevOps
8 116 (16.25%) Code Quality
9 107 (14.99%) Mentoring
10 101 (14.15%) AI
11 100 (14.01%) SDLC
12 98 (13.73%) Validation
13 95 (13.31%) Scrum
14 87 (12.18%) Test Strategy
15 75 (10.50%) Regression Testing
16 69 (9.66%) Computer Science
17 63 (8.82%) Manual Testing
18 54 (7.56%) Test Scripting
19 51 (7.14%) Software Architecture
20 46 (6.44%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 198 (27.73%) Python
2 131 (18.35%) SQL
3 108 (15.13%) C#
4 85 (11.90%) JavaScript
5 80 (11.20%) Java
6 79 (11.06%) C++
7 59 (8.26%) C
8 47 (6.58%) TypeScript
9 22 (3.08%) MATLAB
9 22 (3.08%) PowerShell
10 17 (2.38%) Bash
11 13 (1.82%) Go
11 13 (1.82%) PL/SQL
12 10 (1.40%) PHP
13 9 (1.26%) Embedded C
13 9 (1.26%) Groovy
13 9 (1.26%) Julia
14 8 (1.12%) R
15 7 (0.98%) VBA
16 6 (0.84%) Rust
Qualifications
1 171 (23.95%) Degree
2 130 (18.21%) Security Cleared
3 78 (10.92%) SC Cleared
4 40 (5.60%) ISTQB
5 39 (5.46%) DV Cleared
6 34 (4.76%) Master's Degree
7 30 (4.20%) Computer Science Degree
8 19 (2.66%) BPSS Clearance
9 10 (1.40%) ISEB
10 9 (1.26%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 8 (1.12%) PhD
12 7 (0.98%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 5 (0.70%) DBS Check
14 4 (0.56%) Chartered Engineer
14 4 (0.56%) CIPD
15 3 (0.42%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 3 (0.42%) PMI Certification
16 2 (0.28%) MCSA
16 2 (0.28%) Microsoft Certification
16 2 (0.28%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 203 (28.43%) QA
2 44 (6.16%) Accessibility
3 21 (2.94%) Software Quality Assurance
4 20 (2.80%) GDPR
5 12 (1.68%) Data Quality
5 12 (1.68%) WCAG
6 9 (1.26%) SLA
7 5 (0.70%) DO-254
7 5 (0.70%) IEC 61508
7 5 (0.70%) PMO
8 3 (0.42%) IEC 61131
8 3 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 12207
8 3 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 2 (0.28%) Automotive SPICE
9 2 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.28%) MISRA
9 2 (0.28%) MISRA C
9 2 (0.28%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.14%) DO-160
10 1 (0.14%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 49 (6.86%) Docker
2 30 (4.20%) Firmware
3 18 (2.52%) Active Directory
4 14 (1.96%) Embedded Firmware
5 12 (1.68%) VMware Infrastructure
6 6 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.42%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.42%) KVM
8 2 (0.28%) Time Sharing Option
9 1 (0.14%) Terminal Server
Systems Management
1 35 (4.90%) Kubernetes
2 22 (3.08%) Terraform
3 18 (2.52%) Ansible
3 18 (2.52%) Grafana
4 9 (1.26%) Kibana
5 8 (1.12%) logstash
6 6 (0.84%) vCenter Server
7 5 (0.70%) Functional Safety
8 4 (0.56%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.56%) SCCM
8 4 (0.56%) SCOM
9 3 (0.42%) HP ALM
9 3 (0.42%) HP Fortify
9 3 (0.42%) Microsoft Intune
9 3 (0.42%) Norton AntiVirus
9 3 (0.42%) SCOrch
10 2 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 2 (0.28%) Puppet
10 2 (0.28%) Rancher
10 2 (0.28%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 65 (9.10%) Microsoft
2 22 (3.08%) Oracle
3 21 (2.94%) Splunk
4 14 (1.96%) VMware
5 11 (1.54%) Citrix
6 10 (1.40%) Atlassian
6 10 (1.40%) Red Hat
7 9 (1.26%) Intel
8 8 (1.12%) Adobe
8 8 (1.12%) Google
8 8 (1.12%) ServiceNow
9 7 (0.98%) IBM
10 6 (0.84%) AppDynamics
11 5 (0.70%) Avid
11 5 (0.70%) HP
11 5 (0.70%) Siemens
11 5 (0.70%) SolarWinds
12 4 (0.56%) EMC
12 4 (0.56%) Salesforce
12 4 (0.56%) Xilinx