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

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 240 278 161
Rank change year-on-year +38 -117 +16
Permanent jobs citing Software Testing 751 467 1,148
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.77% 1.09% 1.64%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.05% 1.23% 2.03%
Number of salaries quoted 505 332 658
10th Percentile £29,350 £26,250 £32,500
25th Percentile £39,818 £40,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,783 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -1.40% +1.42% -4.35%
75th Percentile £73,750 £68,750 £71,250
90th Percentile £90,000 £78,625 £82,875
UK median annual salary £54,300 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year -5.57% +4.55% -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 71,441 38,014 56,565
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.31% 88.54% 81.05%
Number of salaries quoted 50,865 21,889 34,478
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £42,500 £37,000 £41,254
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £76,250 £76,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%

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 September 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 September 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 +1 162 £46,250 -7.50% 124
London -48 152 £70,000 +9.38% 283
North of England +7 136 £55,000 +29.41% 109
Midlands +9 119 £55,000 +29.41% 79
South West -26 94 £50,000 -10.71% 79
East of England +27 79 £50,000 -5.66% 93
West Midlands +4 76 £55,000 +266.67% 51
North West +13 66 £49,700 -31.45% 73
North East -19 47 £56,250 +82.93% 12
East Midlands -15 43 £55,000 -3.08% 28
Yorkshire -49 23 £29,330 -3.84% 25
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 (1.86%) IIS
2 11 (1.46%) Confluence
3 10 (1.33%) SharePoint
4 9 (1.20%) CMS
5 5 (0.67%) Apache Spark
5 5 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
5 5 (0.67%) WinCC
6 3 (0.40%) Apache
6 3 (0.40%) Moodle
6 3 (0.40%) WordPress
7 2 (0.27%) nginx
7 2 (0.27%) Umbraco
Applications
1 18 (2.40%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (2.13%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (1.86%) Simulink
4 7 (0.93%) Spreadsheet
5 6 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.80%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.67%) AutoCAD
6 5 (0.67%) DaVinci Resolve
7 3 (0.40%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.13%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 3 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
1 3 (0.40%) SystmOne
2 2 (0.27%) Sage 200
2 2 (0.27%) Shopify
2 2 (0.27%) Workday HCM
3 1 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.13%) Misys Equation
3 1 (0.13%) Misys Midas
3 1 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 132 (17.58%) AWS
2 128 (17.04%) Azure
3 43 (5.73%) Azure DevOps
4 31 (4.13%) GCP
5 30 (3.99%) Power Platform
5 30 (3.99%) Serverless
6 29 (3.86%) GitHub
7 22 (2.93%) Microsoft 365
8 20 (2.66%) SaaS
9 14 (1.86%) AWS Lambda
10 13 (1.73%) GitHub Copilot
10 13 (1.73%) OpenShift
11 10 (1.33%) BrowserStack
11 10 (1.33%) GitHub Actions
12 9 (1.20%) AWS CloudFormation
13 8 (1.07%) Anthropic Claude
14 6 (0.80%) Tricentis Tosca
15 5 (0.67%) Amazon ECS
15 5 (0.67%) Amazon EKS
15 5 (0.67%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 13 (1.73%) TCP/IP
2 11 (1.46%) SNMP
2 11 (1.46%) VPN
3 7 (0.93%) Broadband
3 7 (0.93%) HTTP
4 6 (0.80%) Wireshark
5 5 (0.67%) Modbus
6 4 (0.53%) Ethernet
7 3 (0.40%) DNS
8 2 (0.27%) ATM
8 2 (0.27%) LTE
8 2 (0.27%) Network Security
8 2 (0.27%) Software-Defined Radio
8 2 (0.27%) Wireless
9 1 (0.13%) 5G
9 1 (0.13%) Bluetooth
9 1 (0.13%) Cisco ISE
9 1 (0.13%) SSH
9 1 (0.13%) SSL
9 1 (0.13%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (5.46%) SQL Server
2 25 (3.33%) Power BI
3 19 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
4 14 (1.86%) Relational Database
5 13 (1.73%) DynamoDB
6 12 (1.60%) Elasticsearch
7 9 (1.20%) Azure SQL Database
7 9 (1.20%) InfluxDB
8 8 (1.07%) MongoDB
8 8 (1.07%) NoSQL
8 8 (1.07%) OLTP
8 8 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 6 (0.80%) Geospatial Data
9 6 (0.80%) MySQL
10 5 (0.67%) Oracle Database
11 4 (0.53%) Crystal Reports
11 4 (0.53%) Flink
11 4 (0.53%) Spark SQL
12 3 (0.40%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (0.40%) DTS
Development Applications
1 97 (12.92%) Git
2 72 (9.59%) JIRA
3 61 (8.12%) Selenium
4 54 (7.19%) GitLab
5 43 (5.73%) Jenkins
6 31 (4.13%) Postman
7 29 (3.86%) Cypress.io
8 20 (2.66%) Cucumber
8 20 (2.66%) TestRail
9 19 (2.53%) JUnit
10 18 (2.40%) Zephyr
11 17 (2.26%) JMeter
12 14 (1.86%) Gatling
13 12 (1.60%) REST Assured
14 9 (1.20%) Maven
14 9 (1.20%) Robot Framework
15 8 (1.07%) LoadRunner
15 8 (1.07%) SoapUI
15 8 (1.07%) Spock
15 8 (1.07%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 246 (32.76%) Social Skills
2 138 (18.38%) Analytical Skills
3 93 (12.38%) Finance
4 58 (7.72%) Electronics
5 50 (6.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 40 (5.33%) Manufacturing
7 38 (5.06%) Law
8 23 (3.06%) Public Sector
9 22 (2.93%) Aerospace
10 21 (2.80%) Banking
11 17 (2.26%) Documentation Skills
12 16 (2.13%) Retail
13 15 (2.00%) Aviation
13 15 (2.00%) Organisational Skills
14 13 (1.73%) Automotive
14 13 (1.73%) Games
14 13 (1.73%) Legal
15 10 (1.33%) Telecoms
16 9 (1.20%) Back Office
16 9 (1.20%) Military
Job Titles
1 173 (23.04%) Senior
2 125 (16.64%) Software Engineer
3 102 (13.58%) Test Engineer
4 88 (11.72%) Lead
5 85 (11.32%) Developer
6 65 (8.66%) Analyst
7 58 (7.72%) Tester
8 44 (5.86%) Senior Developer
9 40 (5.33%) Software Test Engineer
10 39 (5.19%) Software Developer
11 35 (4.66%) QA Engineer
11 35 (4.66%) Senior Software Engineer
12 33 (4.39%) Software Tester
13 30 (3.99%) Embedded Engineer
14 29 (3.86%) Test Automation Engineer
15 27 (3.60%) Junior
16 25 (3.33%) Embedded Software Engineer
17 23 (3.06%) Development Engineer
17 23 (3.06%) IT Support
18 22 (2.93%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (9.05%) .NET
2 56 (7.46%) Playwright
3 44 (5.86%) HTML
4 42 (5.59%) React
5 31 (4.13%) REST
6 27 (3.60%) ASP.NET
7 24 (3.20%) Terraform
8 22 (2.93%) CSS
8 22 (2.93%) XML
9 15 (2.00%) Node.js
9 15 (2.00%) RESTful
10 13 (1.73%) React Native
10 13 (1.73%) SOAP
10 13 (1.73%) Spring
11 12 (1.60%) ASP.NET Core
11 12 (1.60%) JSON
11 12 (1.60%) Swagger
12 11 (1.46%) pytest
13 10 (1.33%) Elastic Stack
14 9 (1.20%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 64 (8.52%) Product Ownership
2 34 (4.53%) Distributed Systems
3 30 (3.99%) Algorithms
4 28 (3.73%) Embedded Systems
5 24 (3.20%) Management Information System
6 19 (2.53%) Enterprise Software
6 19 (2.53%) Mobile App
7 18 (2.40%) Robotics
8 17 (2.26%) AI Agents
8 17 (2.26%) Analytical Mindset
8 17 (2.26%) Cloud Native
9 16 (2.13%) Client/Server
9 16 (2.13%) Self-Motivation
10 11 (1.46%) Driving Licence
10 11 (1.46%) Legacy Applications
10 11 (1.46%) Video\Live Streaming
11 10 (1.33%) FPGA
11 10 (1.33%) Low-Code
12 9 (1.20%) SCADA
12 9 (1.20%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 90 (11.98%) Windows
2 74 (9.85%) Linux
3 20 (2.66%) Windows Server
4 9 (1.20%) CentOS
5 6 (0.80%) Embedded Linux
5 6 (0.80%) VMS
6 5 (0.67%) Android
6 5 (0.67%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.67%) Unix
7 4 (0.53%) Kali Linux
7 4 (0.53%) Robot Operating System
8 3 (0.40%) FreeRTOS
9 2 (0.27%) Debian
9 2 (0.27%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.27%) zOS
10 1 (0.13%) ThreadX
10 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 315 (41.94%) Test Automation
2 282 (37.55%) Agile
3 236 (31.42%) Software Engineering
4 199 (26.50%) Continuous Improvement
5 187 (24.90%) CI/CD
6 185 (24.63%) Problem-Solving
7 162 (21.57%) DevOps
8 120 (15.98%) Code Quality
9 113 (15.05%) Validation
10 110 (14.65%) SDLC
11 109 (14.51%) AI
12 107 (14.25%) Mentoring
13 100 (13.32%) Scrum
14 99 (13.18%) Test Strategy
15 83 (11.05%) Regression Testing
16 70 (9.32%) Computer Science
17 64 (8.52%) Manual Testing
18 54 (7.19%) Software Architecture
18 54 (7.19%) Test Scripting
19 51 (6.79%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 200 (26.63%) Python
2 136 (18.11%) SQL
3 109 (14.51%) C#
4 89 (11.85%) Java
5 88 (11.72%) JavaScript
6 78 (10.39%) C++
7 62 (8.26%) C
8 52 (6.92%) TypeScript
9 25 (3.33%) MATLAB
10 24 (3.20%) PowerShell
11 21 (2.80%) Bash
12 14 (1.86%) Embedded C
13 13 (1.73%) Go
14 11 (1.46%) Groovy
14 11 (1.46%) PL/SQL
15 9 (1.20%) Julia
15 9 (1.20%) PHP
16 8 (1.07%) R
17 7 (0.93%) VBA
18 5 (0.67%) Embedded C++
Qualifications
1 169 (22.50%) Degree
2 131 (17.44%) Security Cleared
3 80 (10.65%) SC Cleared
4 44 (5.86%) ISTQB
5 37 (4.93%) DV Cleared
6 34 (4.53%) Master's Degree
7 33 (4.39%) Computer Science Degree
8 18 (2.40%) BPSS Clearance
9 11 (1.46%) ISEB
10 9 (1.20%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 8 (1.07%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 7 (0.93%) PhD
13 5 (0.67%) DBS Check
14 3 (0.40%) AWS Certification
14 3 (0.40%) Chartered Engineer
14 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 3 (0.40%) PMI Certification
15 2 (0.27%) CSQA
15 2 (0.27%) Microsoft Certification
15 2 (0.27%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 209 (27.83%) QA
2 47 (6.26%) Accessibility
3 23 (3.06%) GDPR
4 15 (2.00%) Software Quality Assurance
5 13 (1.73%) Data Quality
5 13 (1.73%) WCAG
6 9 (1.20%) SLA
7 6 (0.80%) DO-254
8 5 (0.67%) PMO
9 4 (0.53%) IEC 61508
10 3 (0.40%) IEC 61131
10 3 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 12207
10 3 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 2 (0.27%) Automotive SPICE
11 2 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.27%) MISRA
11 2 (0.27%) MISRA C
12 1 (0.13%) DO-160
12 1 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 1 (0.13%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 55 (7.32%) Docker
2 38 (5.06%) Firmware
3 19 (2.53%) Active Directory
4 18 (2.40%) Embedded Firmware
5 11 (1.46%) VMware Infrastructure
6 7 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.27%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.27%) KVM
7 2 (0.27%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.13%) Terminal Server
Systems Management
1 37 (4.93%) Kubernetes
2 23 (3.06%) Grafana
3 20 (2.66%) Ansible
4 10 (1.33%) Kibana
5 9 (1.20%) logstash
6 7 (0.93%) vCenter Server
7 5 (0.67%) Functional Safety
8 4 (0.53%) HP Fortify
8 4 (0.53%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.53%) SCCM
8 4 (0.53%) SCOM
9 3 (0.40%) HP ALM
9 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Intune
9 3 (0.40%) Norton AntiVirus
9 3 (0.40%) Puppet
9 3 (0.40%) SCOrch
10 2 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 2 (0.27%) Rancher
10 2 (0.27%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.13%) Fluentd
Vendors
1 71 (9.45%) Microsoft
2 25 (3.33%) Splunk
3 19 (2.53%) Oracle
4 13 (1.73%) VMware
5 11 (1.46%) Atlassian
5 11 (1.46%) Citrix
5 11 (1.46%) Red Hat
6 10 (1.33%) Google
7 9 (1.20%) Intel
8 8 (1.07%) Adobe
8 8 (1.07%) AppDynamics
8 8 (1.07%) ServiceNow
9 7 (0.93%) IBM
9 7 (0.93%) Siemens
10 5 (0.67%) Avid
10 5 (0.67%) SolarWinds
11 4 (0.53%) Rockwell
11 4 (0.53%) SYSPRO
11 4 (0.53%) Veracode
11 4 (0.53%) Xilinx