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

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 249 265 162
Rank change year-on-year +16 -103 +12
Permanent jobs citing Software Testing 752 474 1,146
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.75% 1.09% 1.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.02% 1.23% 2.04%
Number of salaries quoted 508 337 622
10th Percentile £29,425 £26,250 £32,500
25th Percentile £39,818 £40,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,565 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -1.02% +1.03% -4.35%
75th Percentile £72,500 £68,750 £72,188
90th Percentile £90,000 £78,750 £83,750
UK median annual salary £52,500 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.70% +4.55% -3.51%

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 73,420 38,536 56,218
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.29% 88.67% 81.27%
Number of salaries quoted 52,272 22,193 32,991
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,750
25th Percentile £42,000 £37,500 £42,500
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 £77,500
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 11 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 11 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 +5 163 £45,000 -10.00% 81
London -58 152 £70,000 +9.38% 136
North of England +25 138 £55,000 +28.28% 56
Midlands +2 119 £55,000 +29.41% 62
South West -31 92 £50,000 -10.71% 51
East of England +22 79 £52,500 -0.94% 51
West Midlands +2 77 £55,000 +266.67% 42
North West +7 64 £50,000 -31.03% 33
North East -14 48 £55,000 +55.48% 6
East Midlands -16 42 £55,000 -1.79% 20
Yorkshire -49 26 £37,663 +23.49% 17
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 10 (1.33%) Confluence
2 10 (1.33%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.20%) CMS
4 6 (0.80%) WinCC
5 5 (0.66%) Apache Spark
5 5 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
6 3 (0.40%) Apache
6 3 (0.40%) WordPress
7 2 (0.27%) Moodle
7 2 (0.27%) nginx
7 2 (0.27%) Umbraco
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 18 (2.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (1.99%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (1.99%) Simulink
3 7 (0.93%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.80%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.66%) AutoCAD
5 5 (0.66%) DaVinci Resolve
6 3 (0.40%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
7 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%) 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%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 134 (17.82%) AWS
2 127 (16.89%) Azure
3 40 (5.32%) Azure DevOps
4 32 (4.26%) GCP
4 32 (4.26%) Power Platform
4 32 (4.26%) Serverless
5 31 (4.12%) GitHub
6 22 (2.93%) Microsoft 365
7 19 (2.53%) SaaS
8 16 (2.13%) AWS Lambda
9 13 (1.73%) GitHub Actions
10 12 (1.60%) GitHub Copilot
10 12 (1.60%) OpenShift
11 10 (1.33%) BrowserStack
12 9 (1.20%) AWS CloudFormation
13 7 (0.93%) Anthropic Claude
13 7 (0.93%) Google Workspace
14 6 (0.80%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 6 (0.80%) Tricentis Tosca
15 5 (0.66%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 14 (1.86%) TCP/IP
2 11 (1.46%) SNMP
2 11 (1.46%) VPN
3 7 (0.93%) Broadband
3 7 (0.93%) HTTP
3 7 (0.93%) Wireshark
4 6 (0.80%) Modbus
5 4 (0.53%) Ethernet
6 3 (0.40%) DNS
7 2 (0.27%) ATM
7 2 (0.27%) LTE
7 2 (0.27%) Network Security
7 2 (0.27%) Software-Defined Radio
7 2 (0.27%) Wireless
8 1 (0.13%) 5G
8 1 (0.13%) Bluetooth
8 1 (0.13%) Cisco ISE
8 1 (0.13%) DHCP
8 1 (0.13%) SSH
8 1 (0.13%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (5.45%) SQL Server
2 27 (3.59%) Power BI
3 20 (2.66%) 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%) NoSQL
8 8 (1.06%) InfluxDB
8 8 (1.06%) MongoDB
8 8 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 7 (0.93%) OLTP
10 6 (0.80%) Geospatial Data
10 6 (0.80%) MySQL
11 5 (0.66%) Oracle Database
12 4 (0.53%) Crystal Reports
12 4 (0.53%) Flink
12 4 (0.53%) Spark SQL
13 3 (0.40%) Data Warehouse
13 3 (0.40%) DTS
Development Applications
1 98 (13.03%) Git
2 73 (9.71%) JIRA
3 59 (7.85%) Selenium
4 55 (7.31%) GitLab
5 43 (5.72%) Jenkins
6 31 (4.12%) Postman
7 29 (3.86%) Cypress.io
8 20 (2.66%) Cucumber
9 19 (2.53%) JMeter
9 19 (2.53%) JUnit
10 18 (2.39%) TestRail
11 17 (2.26%) Zephyr
12 14 (1.86%) Gatling
13 11 (1.46%) REST Assured
14 9 (1.20%) Maven
15 8 (1.06%) Robot Framework
15 8 (1.06%) Spock
15 8 (1.06%) Visual Studio Code
16 7 (0.93%) Eclipse
16 7 (0.93%) LoadRunner
General
1 245 (32.58%) Social Skills
2 136 (18.09%) Analytical Skills
3 92 (12.23%) Finance
4 58 (7.71%) Electronics
5 50 (6.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 39 (5.19%) Manufacturing
7 37 (4.92%) Law
8 23 (3.06%) Public Sector
9 22 (2.93%) Aerospace
10 21 (2.79%) Banking
11 18 (2.39%) Documentation Skills
12 15 (1.99%) Aviation
12 15 (1.99%) Organisational Skills
13 14 (1.86%) Automotive
13 14 (1.86%) Retail
14 13 (1.73%) Games
14 13 (1.73%) Legal
15 10 (1.33%) Presentation Skills
15 10 (1.33%) Telecoms
16 9 (1.20%) Military
Job Titles
1 174 (23.14%) Senior
2 125 (16.62%) Software Engineer
3 103 (13.70%) Test Engineer
4 86 (11.44%) Lead
5 82 (10.90%) Developer
6 64 (8.51%) Analyst
7 57 (7.58%) Tester
8 43 (5.72%) Senior Developer
9 40 (5.32%) Software Test Engineer
10 38 (5.05%) Software Developer
11 36 (4.79%) Senior Software Engineer
12 35 (4.65%) QA Engineer
13 32 (4.26%) Software Tester
14 29 (3.86%) Embedded Engineer
15 28 (3.72%) Test Automation Engineer
16 27 (3.59%) Junior
17 24 (3.19%) Embedded Software Engineer
17 24 (3.19%) IT Support
18 23 (3.06%) Development Engineer
19 22 (2.93%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (9.04%) .NET
2 57 (7.58%) Playwright
3 46 (6.12%) HTML
4 45 (5.98%) React
5 31 (4.12%) REST
6 27 (3.59%) ASP.NET
7 25 (3.32%) CSS
8 24 (3.19%) Terraform
9 22 (2.93%) XML
10 17 (2.26%) RESTful
11 16 (2.13%) Node.js
12 13 (1.73%) React Native
12 13 (1.73%) Spring
13 12 (1.60%) ASP.NET Core
13 12 (1.60%) JSON
13 12 (1.60%) SOAP
13 12 (1.60%) Swagger
14 11 (1.46%) Gherkin
15 10 (1.33%) pytest
16 9 (1.20%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 63 (8.38%) Product Ownership
2 35 (4.65%) Distributed Systems
3 30 (3.99%) Algorithms
4 28 (3.72%) Embedded Systems
5 23 (3.06%) Management Information System
6 19 (2.53%) Mobile App
7 18 (2.39%) AI Agents
7 18 (2.39%) Analytical Mindset
7 18 (2.39%) Cloud Native
7 18 (2.39%) Enterprise Software
7 18 (2.39%) Robotics
8 17 (2.26%) Self-Motivation
9 16 (2.13%) Client/Server
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%) Onboarding
12 9 (1.20%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 89 (11.84%) Windows
2 74 (9.84%) Linux
3 20 (2.66%) Windows Server
4 8 (1.06%) CentOS
5 6 (0.80%) Embedded Linux
5 6 (0.80%) VMS
6 5 (0.66%) Android
6 5 (0.66%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.66%) Robot Operating System
6 5 (0.66%) Unix
7 4 (0.53%) Kali Linux
8 3 (0.40%) Debian
8 3 (0.40%) FreeRTOS
8 3 (0.40%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.27%) zOS
10 1 (0.13%) ThreadX
10 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 320 (42.55%) Test Automation
2 280 (37.23%) Agile
3 236 (31.38%) Software Engineering
4 195 (25.93%) Continuous Improvement
5 191 (25.40%) CI/CD
6 187 (24.87%) Problem-Solving
7 158 (21.01%) DevOps
8 123 (16.36%) Code Quality
9 113 (15.03%) Validation
10 111 (14.76%) AI
10 111 (14.76%) Mentoring
11 108 (14.36%) SDLC
12 100 (13.30%) Scrum
13 96 (12.77%) Test Strategy
14 81 (10.77%) Regression Testing
15 70 (9.31%) Computer Science
16 61 (8.11%) Manual Testing
17 55 (7.31%) Software Architecture
18 52 (6.91%) Test Scripting
19 51 (6.78%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 198 (26.33%) Python
2 141 (18.75%) SQL
3 110 (14.63%) C#
4 90 (11.97%) JavaScript
5 89 (11.84%) Java
6 79 (10.51%) C++
7 63 (8.38%) C
8 56 (7.45%) TypeScript
9 26 (3.46%) MATLAB
10 24 (3.19%) PowerShell
11 21 (2.79%) 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 (1.06%) R
17 7 (0.93%) VBA
18 5 (0.66%) Embedded C++
Qualifications
1 165 (21.94%) Degree
2 131 (17.42%) Security Cleared
3 81 (10.77%) SC Cleared
4 43 (5.72%) ISTQB
5 37 (4.92%) DV Cleared
6 34 (4.52%) Master's Degree
7 33 (4.39%) Computer Science Degree
8 18 (2.39%) BPSS Clearance
9 11 (1.46%) ISEB
10 8 (1.06%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 8 (1.06%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 6 (0.80%) PhD
12 5 (0.66%) DBS Check
13 3 (0.40%) AWS Certification
13 3 (0.40%) Chartered Engineer
13 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 3 (0.40%) PMI Certification
14 2 (0.27%) CSQA
14 2 (0.27%) Microsoft Certification
14 2 (0.27%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 207 (27.53%) QA
2 49 (6.52%) Accessibility
3 24 (3.19%) GDPR
4 16 (2.13%) WCAG
5 14 (1.86%) Software Quality Assurance
6 13 (1.73%) Data Quality
7 9 (1.20%) SLA
8 5 (0.66%) DO-254
8 5 (0.66%) 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 (7.31%) Docker
2 39 (5.19%) Firmware
3 19 (2.53%) Active Directory
3 19 (2.53%) Embedded Firmware
4 10 (1.33%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.27%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.27%) KVM
6 2 (0.27%) Time Sharing Option
7 1 (0.13%) Terminal Server
Systems Management
1 36 (4.79%) Kubernetes
2 22 (2.93%) Grafana
3 19 (2.53%) Ansible
4 9 (1.20%) Kibana
5 8 (1.06%) logstash
6 6 (0.80%) vCenter Server
7 5 (0.66%) 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%) 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%) HP ALM
10 2 (0.27%) Rancher
10 2 (0.27%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.13%) Fluentd
Vendors
1 74 (9.84%) Microsoft
2 24 (3.19%) Splunk
3 18 (2.39%) Oracle
4 12 (1.60%) Google
4 12 (1.60%) VMware
5 11 (1.46%) Citrix
6 10 (1.33%) Atlassian
6 10 (1.33%) Red Hat
7 9 (1.20%) Intel
8 8 (1.06%) Adobe
8 8 (1.06%) AppDynamics
8 8 (1.06%) ServiceNow
8 8 (1.06%) Siemens
9 7 (0.93%) IBM
10 5 (0.66%) Avid
10 5 (0.66%) Rockwell
10 5 (0.66%) SolarWinds
11 4 (0.53%) Databricks
11 4 (0.53%) SYSPRO
11 4 (0.53%) Veracode