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

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 248 278 158
Rank change year-on-year +30 -120 +16
Permanent jobs citing Software Testing 768 439 1,161
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.74% 1.02% 1.72%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.01% 1.15% 2.09%
Number of salaries quoted 519 321 584
10th Percentile £29,200 £27,500 £35,000
25th Percentile £39,100 £40,000 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £56,430 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.96% +2.60% -4.35%
75th Percentile £71,250 £68,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £88,000 £78,750 £83,375
UK median annual salary £51,102 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year -11.13% +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 75,980 38,286 55,566
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.46% 88.94% 82.21%
Number of salaries quoted 53,569 21,806 30,376
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £42,215 £36,750 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £59,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -7.56% -4.03%
75th Percentile £80,000 £76,250 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £97,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £58,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -5.17% -3.33%

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 28 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 28 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 -9 159 £45,000 -10.00% 138
North of England +27 152 £51,696 +8.83% 136
London -38 144 £70,000 +9.38% 278
Midlands +5 123 £52,500 +16.67% 118
South West -33 98 £50,000 -9.91% 83
West Midlands +4 84 £45,000 +200.00% 72
East of England +27 80 £52,500 -0.94% 86
North West -5 63 £44,447 -36.50% 75
North East -18 54 £57,500 +46.96% 18
East Midlands -20 39 £55,000 +1.38% 46
Yorkshire -16 35 £44,447 +45.73% 43
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 12 (1.56%) CMS
1 12 (1.56%) SharePoint
2 11 (1.43%) Confluence
2 11 (1.43%) IIS
3 7 (0.91%) WinCC
4 6 (0.78%) Apache Spark
4 6 (0.78%) Microsoft Exchange
5 4 (0.52%) Apache
6 3 (0.39%) WordPress
7 2 (0.26%) Headless CMS
7 2 (0.26%) nginx
7 2 (0.26%) Office Communications Server
7 2 (0.26%) Umbraco
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.13%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 17 (2.21%) Simulink
2 16 (2.08%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (1.95%) Microsoft Excel
4 6 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.65%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.52%) AutoCAD
6 4 (0.52%) DaVinci Resolve
6 4 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.39%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.13%) EPLAN
8 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
8 1 (0.13%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 3 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
1 3 (0.39%) SystmOne
2 2 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.26%) Sage 200
2 2 (0.26%) Shopify
2 2 (0.26%) Workday HCM
3 1 (0.13%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.13%) Misys Equation
3 1 (0.13%) Misys Midas
3 1 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.13%) Oracle Cash Management
3 1 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.13%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 1 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 132 (17.19%) Azure
2 130 (16.93%) AWS
3 42 (5.47%) Azure DevOps
4 39 (5.08%) Serverless
5 35 (4.56%) GitHub
5 35 (4.56%) Power Platform
6 32 (4.17%) GCP
7 21 (2.73%) Microsoft 365
7 21 (2.73%) SaaS
8 18 (2.34%) AWS Lambda
9 16 (2.08%) GitHub Actions
10 14 (1.82%) GitHub Copilot
10 14 (1.82%) OpenShift
11 9 (1.17%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 9 (1.17%) AWS CloudFormation
11 9 (1.17%) BrowserStack
11 9 (1.17%) Google Workspace
12 8 (1.04%) Azure Functions
13 7 (0.91%) Amazon EC2
14 6 (0.78%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 15 (1.95%) TCP/IP
2 10 (1.30%) SNMP
3 9 (1.17%) Wireshark
4 8 (1.04%) Ethernet
4 8 (1.04%) VPN
5 7 (0.91%) Modbus
6 6 (0.78%) HTTP
7 3 (0.39%) DNS
7 3 (0.39%) Profibus
8 2 (0.26%) ATM
8 2 (0.26%) Network Security
8 2 (0.26%) Software-Defined Radio
9 1 (0.13%) Broadband
9 1 (0.13%) DHCP
9 1 (0.13%) IPv4
9 1 (0.13%) IPv6
9 1 (0.13%) LTE
9 1 (0.13%) MPLS
9 1 (0.13%) SSH
9 1 (0.13%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (4.82%) SQL Server
2 30 (3.91%) Power BI
3 18 (2.34%) PostgreSQL
4 15 (1.95%) Relational Database
5 14 (1.82%) DynamoDB
5 14 (1.82%) Elasticsearch
6 12 (1.56%) NoSQL
7 8 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
7 8 (1.04%) InfluxDB
7 8 (1.04%) MySQL
8 6 (0.78%) Geospatial Data
8 6 (0.78%) OLTP
9 5 (0.65%) Oracle Database
9 5 (0.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.52%) Flink
10 4 (0.52%) MongoDB
11 3 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
11 3 (0.39%) Big Data
11 3 (0.39%) Data Warehouse
11 3 (0.39%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 100 (13.02%) Git
2 71 (9.24%) JIRA
3 58 (7.55%) GitLab
4 57 (7.42%) Selenium
5 42 (5.47%) Jenkins
6 31 (4.04%) Postman
7 29 (3.78%) Cypress.io
8 19 (2.47%) JMeter
9 17 (2.21%) Cucumber
9 17 (2.21%) JUnit
9 17 (2.21%) TestRail
10 13 (1.69%) Gatling
10 13 (1.69%) Zephyr
11 9 (1.17%) Eclipse
11 9 (1.17%) Maven
11 9 (1.17%) REST Assured
12 8 (1.04%) Robot Framework
12 8 (1.04%) Spock
12 8 (1.04%) Visual Studio Code
13 7 (0.91%) LabVIEW
General
1 263 (34.24%) Social Skills
2 140 (18.23%) Analytical Skills
3 85 (11.07%) Finance
4 63 (8.20%) Electronics
5 54 (7.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 46 (5.99%) Manufacturing
7 34 (4.43%) Law
8 25 (3.26%) Aerospace
9 23 (2.99%) Documentation Skills
10 22 (2.86%) Public Sector
11 20 (2.60%) Banking
12 18 (2.34%) Automotive
13 17 (2.21%) Retail
14 15 (1.95%) Aviation
14 15 (1.95%) Legal
14 15 (1.95%) Organisational Skills
15 10 (1.30%) Presentation Skills
16 9 (1.17%) Military
16 9 (1.17%) Telecoms
17 8 (1.04%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 170 (22.14%) Senior
2 121 (15.76%) Software Engineer
3 110 (14.32%) Test Engineer
4 88 (11.46%) Developer
5 83 (10.81%) Lead
6 75 (9.77%) Analyst
7 52 (6.77%) Tester
8 43 (5.60%) Software Developer
9 42 (5.47%) Senior Developer
10 40 (5.21%) QA Engineer
10 40 (5.21%) Software Test Engineer
11 36 (4.69%) Senior Software Engineer
12 29 (3.78%) Junior
13 28 (3.65%) Embedded Engineer
13 28 (3.65%) Software Tester
13 28 (3.65%) Test Automation Engineer
14 26 (3.39%) IT Support
14 26 (3.39%) Support Engineer
15 25 (3.26%) Support Analyst
16 23 (2.99%) Embedded Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (9.77%) .NET
2 64 (8.33%) Playwright
3 52 (6.77%) HTML
4 49 (6.38%) React
5 33 (4.30%) CSS
6 30 (3.91%) REST
7 26 (3.39%) ASP.NET
7 26 (3.39%) Terraform
8 23 (2.99%) RESTful
9 22 (2.86%) Node.js
10 21 (2.73%) XML
11 15 (1.95%) Spring
12 14 (1.82%) ASP.NET Core
13 13 (1.69%) Gherkin
13 13 (1.69%) JSON
13 13 (1.69%) Swagger
14 11 (1.43%) SOAP
15 10 (1.30%) .NET Framework
15 10 (1.30%) AngularJS
15 10 (1.30%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 62 (8.07%) Product Ownership
2 36 (4.69%) Distributed Systems
3 28 (3.65%) Algorithms
4 26 (3.39%) Embedded Systems
5 23 (2.99%) Cloud Native
5 23 (2.99%) Management Information System
6 21 (2.73%) AI Agents
7 20 (2.60%) Analytical Mindset
8 19 (2.47%) Enterprise Software
9 18 (2.34%) Self-Motivation
10 17 (2.21%) Mobile App
10 17 (2.21%) Robotics
11 14 (1.82%) Client/Server
12 13 (1.69%) Driving Licence
12 13 (1.69%) Legacy Applications
13 11 (1.43%) FPGA
13 11 (1.43%) SCADA
14 10 (1.30%) Onboarding
15 9 (1.17%) Private Cloud
16 8 (1.04%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 84 (10.94%) Windows
2 70 (9.11%) Linux
3 21 (2.73%) Windows Server
4 8 (1.04%) CentOS
5 7 (0.91%) Android
6 6 (0.78%) Apple iOS
6 6 (0.78%) VMS
7 5 (0.65%) Embedded Linux
7 5 (0.65%) Robot Operating System
8 4 (0.52%) Unix
9 3 (0.39%) Debian
9 3 (0.39%) Kali Linux
9 3 (0.39%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.26%) FreeRTOS
11 1 (0.13%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 337 (43.88%) Test Automation
2 292 (38.02%) Agile
3 235 (30.60%) Software Engineering
4 209 (27.21%) CI/CD
5 204 (26.56%) Problem-Solving
6 200 (26.04%) Continuous Improvement
7 159 (20.70%) DevOps
8 125 (16.28%) Code Quality
9 119 (15.49%) Mentoring
10 115 (14.97%) Validation
11 106 (13.80%) SDLC
12 105 (13.67%) AI
13 102 (13.28%) Scrum
14 99 (12.89%) Test Strategy
15 86 (11.20%) Regression Testing
16 70 (9.11%) Computer Science
17 68 (8.85%) Stakeholder Management
18 58 (7.55%) Manual Testing
19 57 (7.42%) Software Delivery
20 55 (7.16%) Software Architecture
Programming Languages
1 192 (25.00%) Python
2 143 (18.62%) SQL
3 116 (15.10%) C#
4 98 (12.76%) JavaScript
5 92 (11.98%) Java
6 75 (9.77%) C++
7 63 (8.20%) TypeScript
8 58 (7.55%) C
9 28 (3.65%) MATLAB
10 24 (3.13%) PowerShell
11 22 (2.86%) Bash
12 14 (1.82%) Embedded C
13 11 (1.43%) Go
13 11 (1.43%) Groovy
14 10 (1.30%) Julia
14 10 (1.30%) PL/SQL
15 8 (1.04%) R
16 7 (0.91%) PHP
17 6 (0.78%) VB.NET
17 6 (0.78%) VBA
Qualifications
1 172 (22.40%) Degree
2 134 (17.45%) Security Cleared
3 81 (10.55%) SC Cleared
4 39 (5.08%) ISTQB
5 35 (4.56%) DV Cleared
6 33 (4.30%) Master's Degree
7 30 (3.91%) Computer Science Degree
8 18 (2.34%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (1.04%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 8 (1.04%) ISEB
10 5 (0.65%) DBS Check
10 5 (0.65%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 4 (0.52%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 4 (0.52%) PhD
12 3 (0.39%) AWS Certification
12 3 (0.39%) Chartered Engineer
12 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Certification
12 3 (0.39%) PMI Certification
13 2 (0.26%) CompTIA Security+
13 2 (0.26%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 211 (27.47%) QA
2 54 (7.03%) Accessibility
3 23 (2.99%) GDPR
4 22 (2.86%) WCAG
5 13 (1.69%) Data Quality
6 11 (1.43%) Software Quality Assurance
7 7 (0.91%) SLA
8 5 (0.65%) PMO
9 4 (0.52%) DO-254
9 4 (0.52%) IEC 61508
10 3 (0.39%) IEC 61131
10 3 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 12207
10 3 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 2 (0.26%) Automotive SPICE
11 2 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.26%) MISRA
11 2 (0.26%) 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 62 (8.07%) Docker
2 39 (5.08%) Firmware
3 20 (2.60%) Embedded Firmware
4 16 (2.08%) Active Directory
5 8 (1.04%) VMware Infrastructure
6 6 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.13%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.13%) KVM
Systems Management
1 41 (5.34%) Kubernetes
2 21 (2.73%) Grafana
3 20 (2.60%) Ansible
4 10 (1.30%) Kibana
5 8 (1.04%) logstash
6 6 (0.78%) vCenter Server
7 5 (0.65%) Functional Safety
8 4 (0.52%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.39%) HP Fortify
9 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
9 3 (0.39%) Norton AntiVirus
9 3 (0.39%) Puppet
9 3 (0.39%) Rancher
9 3 (0.39%) SCCM
9 3 (0.39%) SCOM
9 3 (0.39%) SCOrch
10 2 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 2 (0.26%) HP ALM
10 2 (0.26%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.13%) Fluentd
Vendors
1 75 (9.77%) Microsoft
2 23 (2.99%) Splunk
3 17 (2.21%) Oracle
4 15 (1.95%) Google
5 13 (1.69%) Siemens
6 10 (1.30%) Atlassian
6 10 (1.30%) Red Hat
6 10 (1.30%) VMware
7 9 (1.17%) Intel
8 8 (1.04%) AppDynamics
8 8 (1.04%) Citrix
9 7 (0.91%) Adobe
9 7 (0.91%) Rockwell
10 6 (0.78%) Databricks
10 6 (0.78%) ServiceNow
11 5 (0.65%) IBM
11 5 (0.65%) SAP
12 4 (0.52%) EMC
12 4 (0.52%) SolarWinds
12 4 (0.52%) Xilinx