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

6 months to
21 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 282 201 174
Rank change year-on-year -81 -27 -104
Permanent jobs citing Software Testing 463 580 1,275
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.69% 1.53% 1.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.89% 1.64% 1.95%
Number of salaries quoted 357 419 1,051
10th Percentile £31,250 £32,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £42,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £72,500 £68,875 £71,250
90th Percentile £94,750 £87,500 £87,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £54,000 £51,760
% change year-on-year +1.85% +4.33% -5.89%

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 52,241 35,401 65,332
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 77.72% 93.58% 86.88%
Number of salaries quoted 32,434 20,236 50,834
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,000 £29,010
25th Percentile £40,000 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £77,500 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £95,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.29%

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 21 March 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 21 March 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 -20 133 £51,000 -2.86% 86
London -29 125 £65,000 - 61
North of England -85 73 £46,421 -11.58% 53
South West -37 46 £43,211 -10.92% 42
Midlands -56 43 £55,000 +22.22% 48
East of England -16 35 £50,000 -13.04% 33
Yorkshire -37 34 £35,000 -7.89% 12
North West -57 30 £55,000 +4.76% 32
East Midlands -71 23 £55,000 +15.79% 22
West Midlands -17 20 £42,500 -5.56% 26
North East -23 9 £56,500 +41.25% 10
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 6 (1.30%) Moodle
2 4 (0.86%) Confluence
2 4 (0.86%) IIS
3 3 (0.65%) WordPress
4 2 (0.43%) Apache
5 1 (0.22%) Jupyter
Applications
1 9 (1.94%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (1.73%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.51%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.86%) Simulink
5 2 (0.43%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (0.43%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.22%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.22%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 3 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.43%) Misys Midas
3 1 (0.22%) Cognos Business Intelligence
3 1 (0.22%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.22%) Sage X3
3 1 (0.22%) SAP Business One
3 1 (0.22%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 99 (21.38%) Azure
2 83 (17.93%) AWS
3 36 (7.78%) Azure DevOps
4 32 (6.91%) GCP
5 28 (6.05%) SaaS
6 19 (4.10%) GitHub
7 15 (3.24%) Power Platform
8 13 (2.81%) BrowserStack
9 9 (1.94%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (1.73%) Serverless
11 7 (1.51%) OpenShift
12 6 (1.30%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (1.30%) Azure Data Factory
12 6 (1.30%) PaaS
13 5 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
14 4 (0.86%) Anthropic Claude
14 4 (0.86%) GitHub Copilot
14 4 (0.86%) IaaS
15 3 (0.65%) Azure AKS
15 3 (0.65%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.51%) Broadband
2 5 (1.08%) HTTP
3 4 (0.86%) Ethernet
4 3 (0.65%) Cisco ISE
4 3 (0.65%) Network Security
5 2 (0.43%) MQTT
5 2 (0.43%) Software-Defined Radio
5 2 (0.43%) VPN
6 1 (0.22%) AMQP
6 1 (0.22%) Bluetooth
6 1 (0.22%) Kerberos
6 1 (0.22%) LTE
6 1 (0.22%) SAN
6 1 (0.22%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.22%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.22%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (7.56%) SQL Server
2 18 (3.89%) PostgreSQL
3 16 (3.46%) OLTP
4 11 (2.38%) MongoDB
5 8 (1.73%) Power BI
6 7 (1.51%) MySQL
6 7 (1.51%) NoSQL
7 6 (1.30%) Azure SQL Database
7 6 (1.30%) Relational Database
8 5 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 4 (0.86%) DynamoDB
9 4 (0.86%) Elasticsearch
9 4 (0.86%) InfluxDB
9 4 (0.86%) Spark SQL
10 3 (0.65%) Crystal Reports
10 3 (0.65%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 2 (0.43%) Data Lake
11 2 (0.43%) Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.43%) GIS
11 2 (0.43%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 73 (15.77%) JIRA
2 69 (14.90%) Selenium
3 44 (9.50%) Postman
4 34 (7.34%) Git
5 31 (6.70%) WebDriver
6 30 (6.48%) SoapUI
7 29 (6.26%) GitLab
8 27 (5.83%) Jenkins
9 26 (5.62%) Team Foundation Server
10 17 (3.67%) Cypress.io
11 14 (3.02%) SpecFlow
11 14 (3.02%) TestRail
12 11 (2.38%) Visual Studio
13 10 (2.16%) Subversion
14 9 (1.94%) REST Assured
14 9 (1.94%) Zephyr
15 8 (1.73%) JUnit
16 7 (1.51%) Cucumber
16 7 (1.51%) Robot Framework
17 6 (1.30%) Atlassian Bamboo
General
1 149 (32.18%) Social Skills
2 74 (15.98%) Finance
3 57 (12.31%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (6.48%) Electronics
5 18 (3.89%) Retail
6 17 (3.67%) Law
7 15 (3.24%) Public Sector
8 12 (2.59%) Banking
8 12 (2.59%) Manufacturing
9 11 (2.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 9 (1.94%) Games
11 8 (1.73%) Documentation Skills
12 7 (1.51%) Marketing
12 7 (1.51%) Pharmaceutical
13 5 (1.08%) Health Technology
13 5 (1.08%) Organisational Skills
13 5 (1.08%) Telecoms
14 4 (0.86%) Aerospace
15 3 (0.65%) Back Office
15 3 (0.65%) Legal
Job Titles
1 87 (18.79%) Senior
2 72 (15.55%) Software Engineer
3 62 (13.39%) Lead
4 51 (11.02%) Analyst
4 51 (11.02%) Developer
4 51 (11.02%) Tester
5 50 (10.80%) Test Engineer
6 31 (6.70%) Test Analyst
7 28 (6.05%) Development Engineer
8 27 (5.83%) Software Development Engineer
9 26 (5.62%) Senior Developer
9 26 (5.62%) Software Test Engineer
9 26 (5.62%) Software Tester
10 25 (5.40%) Test Development Engineer
11 19 (4.10%) Embedded Engineer
11 19 (4.10%) Oracle Developer
11 19 (4.10%) Senior Oracle Developer
11 19 (4.10%) Test Automation Engineer
12 18 (3.89%) QA Engineer
13 17 (3.67%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (17.71%) .NET
2 50 (10.80%) HTML
3 43 (9.29%) SOAP
4 32 (6.91%) Playwright
5 29 (6.26%) React
6 28 (6.05%) XML
7 22 (4.75%) Node.js
8 19 (4.10%) REST
9 10 (2.16%) ASP.NET
9 10 (2.16%) JSON
10 9 (1.94%) .NET Framework
11 7 (1.51%) CSS
11 7 (1.51%) Elastic Stack
11 7 (1.51%) RESTful
11 7 (1.51%) Spring
12 6 (1.30%) Web Services
13 4 (0.86%) Gherkin
13 4 (0.86%) Kafka
13 4 (0.86%) Spring Boot
13 4 (0.86%) Visualforce
Miscellaneous
1 30 (6.48%) Product Ownership
2 27 (5.83%) Cloud Native
3 17 (3.67%) Embedded Systems
4 16 (3.46%) Algorithms
4 16 (3.46%) Self-Motivation
5 15 (3.24%) Mobile App
6 12 (2.59%) Enterprise Software
7 11 (2.38%) Distributed Systems
8 9 (1.94%) Low-Code
9 8 (1.73%) Client/Server
10 7 (1.51%) Robotics
10 7 (1.51%) Video\Live Streaming
11 6 (1.30%) e-Learning
11 6 (1.30%) Legacy Systems
11 6 (1.30%) NHS
11 6 (1.30%) Onboarding
12 5 (1.08%) FPGA
12 5 (1.08%) Life Science
12 5 (1.08%) Web Conferencing
13 4 (0.86%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 29 (6.26%) Windows
2 28 (6.05%) Linux
3 9 (1.94%) Android
4 5 (1.08%) Windows Server
5 4 (0.86%) CentOS
5 4 (0.86%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (0.43%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.43%) Embedded Linux
6 2 (0.43%) FreeRTOS
6 2 (0.43%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.22%) ThreadX
7 1 (0.22%) Unix
7 1 (0.22%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 189 (40.82%) Agile
2 186 (40.17%) Test Automation
3 121 (26.13%) Problem-Solving
4 120 (25.92%) Continuous Improvement
5 103 (22.25%) Software Engineering
6 101 (21.81%) CI/CD
7 96 (20.73%) DevOps
8 82 (17.71%) Scrum
9 70 (15.12%) Test Scripting
10 62 (13.39%) Mentoring
11 60 (12.96%) Computer Science
12 57 (12.31%) Manual Testing
13 56 (12.10%) Test Management
14 55 (11.88%) API Testing
15 53 (11.45%) Non-Functional Testing
16 50 (10.80%) Regression Testing
17 49 (10.58%) SDLC
18 41 (8.86%) AI
19 40 (8.64%) Software Delivery
20 39 (8.42%) SDET
Programming Languages
1 114 (24.62%) SQL
2 94 (20.30%) Java
3 84 (18.14%) Python
4 76 (16.41%) C#
5 54 (11.66%) JavaScript
6 42 (9.07%) TypeScript
7 34 (7.34%) C
8 33 (7.13%) C++
9 19 (4.10%) PL/SQL
10 17 (3.67%) Bash
11 15 (3.24%) Go
12 14 (3.02%) PowerShell
13 10 (2.16%) PHP
14 8 (1.73%) T-SQL
15 6 (1.30%) MATLAB
16 5 (1.08%) Rust
16 5 (1.08%) VBScript
17 4 (0.86%) Apex Code
17 4 (0.86%) Ruby
18 3 (0.65%) COBOL
Qualifications
1 150 (32.40%) Degree
2 75 (16.20%) ISTQB
3 65 (14.04%) Security Cleared
4 38 (8.21%) SC Cleared
5 28 (6.05%) Computer Science Degree
6 26 (5.62%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 23 (4.97%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 19 (4.10%) DV Cleared
9 12 (2.59%) Master's Degree
10 11 (2.38%) ISEB
11 9 (1.94%) PhD
12 5 (1.08%) BPSS Clearance
13 4 (0.86%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 4 (0.86%) BC Cleared
13 4 (0.86%) CIPD
13 4 (0.86%) Numerate Degree
13 4 (0.86%) PMI Certification
14 3 (0.65%) CITP
14 3 (0.65%) CREST Certified
14 3 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (24.19%) QA
2 24 (5.18%) Accessibility
3 8 (1.73%) Software Quality Assurance
4 7 (1.51%) SLA
5 5 (1.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.65%) GDPR
7 2 (0.43%) DO-254
7 2 (0.43%) IEC 61508
7 2 (0.43%) ISO 9001
7 2 (0.43%) JTAG
7 2 (0.43%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.43%) WCAG
8 1 (0.22%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.22%) IEC 61131
System Software
1 20 (4.32%) Docker
2 17 (3.67%) Firmware
3 12 (2.59%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (2.16%) Active Directory
5 9 (1.94%) Embedded Firmware
6 5 (1.08%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.86%) KVM
8 3 (0.65%) Terminal Server
9 2 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.22%) Time Sharing Option
10 1 (0.22%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.22%) Xen
Systems Management
1 19 (4.10%) Kubernetes
2 18 (3.89%) Terraform
3 7 (1.51%) Grafana
4 6 (1.30%) Ansible
5 4 (0.86%) HP ALM
5 4 (0.86%) SCCM
5 4 (0.86%) SCOM
6 3 (0.65%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.65%) Rancher
7 2 (0.43%) Kibana
7 2 (0.43%) logstash
7 2 (0.43%) Nessus
7 2 (0.43%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.22%) Argo
8 1 (0.22%) Istio
Vendors
1 42 (9.07%) Microsoft
2 28 (6.05%) Oracle
3 14 (3.02%) VMware
4 8 (1.73%) Google
5 7 (1.51%) IBM
6 6 (1.30%) HP
7 5 (1.08%) Red Hat
7 5 (1.08%) Salesforce
7 5 (1.08%) ServiceNow
7 5 (1.08%) Siebel
7 5 (1.08%) Zoho
8 4 (0.86%) Altera
8 4 (0.86%) Splunk
9 3 (0.65%) Cisco
9 3 (0.65%) HubSpot
9 3 (0.65%) Juniper
9 3 (0.65%) McAfee
9 3 (0.65%) SAP
10 2 (0.43%) Guidewire
10 2 (0.43%) Xamarin