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

6 months to
20 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 272 169 174
Rank change year-on-year -103 +5 -106
Permanent jobs citing Software Testing 409 837 954
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.76% 1.76% 1.77%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.94% 1.93% 1.99%
Number of salaries quoted 327 479 780
10th Percentile £32,750 £35,000 £33,750
25th Percentile £40,750 £42,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £55,000
75th Percentile £71,750 £71,250 £73,750
90th Percentile £90,000 £84,200 £90,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £55,000

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 43,473 43,343 47,936
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 80.77% 91.03% 89.18%
Number of salaries quoted 26,126 21,134 37,387
10th Percentile £28,750 £35,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £38,000 £46,250 £42,439
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £58,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +2.56% -6.40%
75th Percentile £76,250 £81,250 £77,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £100,000 £97,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -8.00%

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 20 January 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 20 January 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 -11 123 £45,000 -22.41% 149
London -20 122 £67,250 +7.60% 61
North of England -72 62 £42,500 -19.05% 85
Midlands -42 41 £45,000 -14.29% 63
South West -56 35 £40,000 -20.00% 70
Yorkshire -14 27 £35,000 -31.71% 37
East of England -30 22 £45,000 -21.74% 72
North West -60 22 £62,500 +19.05% 40
East Midlands -48 21 £55,000 - 37
West Midlands -3 20 £42,500 -19.05% 26
North East +8 13 £56,500 -13.08% 8
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 4 (0.98%) Confluence
1 4 (0.98%) WinCC
2 3 (0.73%) Moodle
3 2 (0.49%) CMS
3 2 (0.49%) Umbraco
4 1 (0.24%) Apache
4 1 (0.24%) IIS
4 1 (0.24%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.24%) WordPress
Applications
1 14 (3.42%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.22%) Microsoft Project
3 4 (0.98%) Simulink
4 2 (0.49%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.24%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.24%) Doxygen
5 1 (0.24%) EPLAN
Business Applications
1 3 (0.73%) Sage X3
2 2 (0.49%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.49%) Misys Midas
2 2 (0.49%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.24%) Cognos Business Intelligence
3 1 (0.24%) Elite 3E
3 1 (0.24%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.24%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.24%) SAP Business One
3 1 (0.24%) Siebel CRM
3 1 (0.24%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 91 (22.25%) Azure
2 63 (15.40%) AWS
3 38 (9.29%) Azure DevOps
4 33 (8.07%) SaaS
5 17 (4.16%) Power Platform
6 15 (3.67%) GCP
7 13 (3.18%) AWS Lambda
7 13 (3.18%) GitHub
7 13 (3.18%) Serverless
8 10 (2.44%) Azure Data Factory
9 7 (1.71%) BrowserStack
10 6 (1.47%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (1.47%) Entra ID
10 6 (1.47%) OpenShift
11 5 (1.22%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 5 (1.22%) GitHub Actions
11 5 (1.22%) PaaS
12 4 (0.98%) Datadog
12 4 (0.98%) IaaS
12 4 (0.98%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.22%) Ethernet
2 4 (0.98%) LAN
2 4 (0.98%) Profibus
2 4 (0.98%) WAN
3 2 (0.49%) Cisco ISE
3 2 (0.49%) HTTP
4 1 (0.24%) Kerberos
4 1 (0.24%) MQTT
4 1 (0.24%) Network Security
4 1 (0.24%) SAN
4 1 (0.24%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.24%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (8.56%) SQL Server
2 16 (3.91%) PostgreSQL
3 15 (3.67%) DynamoDB
4 14 (3.42%) Elasticsearch
5 11 (2.69%) OLTP
6 9 (2.20%) Power BI
7 8 (1.96%) MySQL
7 8 (1.96%) Relational Database
8 6 (1.47%) Data Warehouse
8 6 (1.47%) NoSQL
9 5 (1.22%) Azure SQL Database
9 5 (1.22%) Data Lake
9 5 (1.22%) Metadata
9 5 (1.22%) MongoDB
9 5 (1.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.98%) Oracle Database
10 4 (0.98%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 3 (0.73%) InfluxDB
11 3 (0.73%) Mixpanel
12 2 (0.49%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 81 (19.80%) JIRA
2 80 (19.56%) Selenium
3 58 (14.18%) Postman
4 43 (10.51%) WebDriver
5 39 (9.54%) SoapUI
6 36 (8.80%) Team Foundation Server
7 32 (7.82%) Git
8 24 (5.87%) Jenkins
9 20 (4.89%) Cypress.io
10 16 (3.91%) GitLab
11 14 (3.42%) TestRail
12 12 (2.93%) REST Assured
13 11 (2.69%) Visual Studio
14 10 (2.44%) Subversion
15 9 (2.20%) SpecFlow
16 8 (1.96%) Bitbucket
16 8 (1.96%) JMeter
17 7 (1.71%) Zephyr
18 6 (1.47%) Cucumber
18 6 (1.47%) Robot Framework
General
1 139 (33.99%) Social Skills
2 78 (19.07%) Finance
3 56 (13.69%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (6.36%) Electronics
5 23 (5.62%) Law
6 15 (3.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 12 (2.93%) Public Sector
7 12 (2.93%) Publishing
7 12 (2.93%) Retail
8 11 (2.69%) Health Technology
9 10 (2.44%) Advertising
9 10 (2.44%) Tech for Good
10 9 (2.20%) Documentation Skills
10 9 (2.20%) Legal
11 8 (1.96%) Banking
11 8 (1.96%) Manufacturing
11 8 (1.96%) Organisational Skills
12 6 (1.47%) Games
12 6 (1.47%) Pharmaceutical
12 6 (1.47%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 80 (19.56%) Senior
2 65 (15.89%) Developer
3 55 (13.45%) Lead
4 54 (13.20%) Analyst
5 53 (12.96%) Test Engineer
6 43 (10.51%) Software Engineer
7 42 (10.27%) Test Analyst
8 41 (10.02%) Tester
9 30 (7.33%) Senior Developer
9 30 (7.33%) Software Developer
10 23 (5.62%) Software Test Engineer
11 19 (4.65%) Test Automation Engineer
12 18 (4.40%) Software Tester
13 16 (3.91%) Senior Analyst
14 15 (3.67%) Embedded Engineer
14 15 (3.67%) Full-Stack Engineer
15 14 (3.42%) Development Engineer
15 14 (3.42%) Software Development Engineer
15 14 (3.42%) Test Development Engineer
16 13 (3.18%) Senior Oracle Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (21.76%) .NET
2 58 (14.18%) HTML
3 46 (11.25%) SOAP
4 42 (10.27%) React
5 30 (7.33%) Playwright
6 21 (5.13%) RESTful
7 20 (4.89%) Node.js
7 20 (4.89%) XML
8 17 (4.16%) REST
9 13 (3.18%) .NET Framework
9 13 (3.18%) ASP.NET
9 13 (3.18%) Swagger
10 12 (2.93%) CSS
11 9 (2.20%) .NET Core
12 8 (1.96%) Entity Framework
12 8 (1.96%) Web Services
13 7 (1.71%) AngularJS
14 6 (1.47%) CSS3
14 6 (1.47%) Elastic Stack
14 6 (1.47%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 26 (6.36%) Self-Motivation
2 24 (5.87%) Cloud Native
2 24 (5.87%) Product Ownership
3 20 (4.89%) Embedded Systems
4 11 (2.69%) Mobile App
5 9 (2.20%) Algorithms
6 8 (1.96%) Onboarding
7 7 (1.71%) Distributed Systems
7 7 (1.71%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 6 (1.47%) Driving Licence
8 6 (1.47%) e-Learning
9 5 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (1.22%) Management Information System
10 4 (0.98%) Analytical Mindset
10 4 (0.98%) CCTV
10 4 (0.98%) Fibre Optics
10 4 (0.98%) FPGA
10 4 (0.98%) Life Science
10 4 (0.98%) Reference Data
10 4 (0.98%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 27 (6.60%) Windows
2 22 (5.38%) Linux
3 8 (1.96%) Android
4 6 (1.47%) Unix
5 4 (0.98%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.73%) CentOS
6 3 (0.73%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.49%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.49%) FreeRTOS
7 2 (0.49%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.24%) Embedded Linux
8 1 (0.24%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 200 (48.90%) Agile
2 148 (36.19%) Test Automation
3 128 (31.30%) Problem-Solving
4 95 (23.23%) CI/CD
5 91 (22.25%) Continuous Improvement
6 90 (22.00%) Scrum
7 76 (18.58%) DevOps
8 70 (17.11%) Test Scripting
9 68 (16.63%) Mentoring
10 66 (16.14%) Software Engineering
11 65 (15.89%) Test Management
12 62 (15.16%) API Testing
13 55 (13.45%) Non-Functional Testing
14 53 (12.96%) Computer Science
15 51 (12.47%) Manual Testing
16 44 (10.76%) SDLC
17 37 (9.05%) Regression Testing
18 35 (8.56%) Code Quality
19 34 (8.31%) Cross-Browser Testing
19 34 (8.31%) SDET
Programming Languages
1 126 (30.81%) SQL
2 97 (23.72%) Java
3 91 (22.25%) C#
4 59 (14.43%) Python
5 49 (11.98%) TypeScript
6 48 (11.74%) JavaScript
7 28 (6.85%) C
8 20 (4.89%) C++
9 18 (4.40%) Bash
10 13 (3.18%) PL/SQL
11 12 (2.93%) PowerShell
12 8 (1.96%) Go
13 7 (1.71%) T-SQL
14 5 (1.22%) PHP
15 4 (0.98%) Fortran
16 3 (0.73%) SystemVerilog
16 3 (0.73%) VBScript
17 2 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 2 (0.49%) Embedded C
17 2 (0.49%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 132 (32.27%) Degree
2 87 (21.27%) ISTQB
3 45 (11.00%) Security Cleared
4 37 (9.05%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
5 29 (7.09%) SC Cleared
6 25 (6.11%) Computer Science Degree
7 23 (5.62%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 14 (3.42%) ISEB
9 10 (2.44%) DV Cleared
10 8 (1.96%) Master's Degree
11 7 (1.71%) BPSS Clearance
12 6 (1.47%) Microsoft Certification
13 5 (1.22%) PhD
14 4 (0.98%) PMI Certification
15 3 (0.73%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
15 3 (0.73%) CITP
15 3 (0.73%) CREST Certified
15 3 (0.73%) Numerate Degree
16 2 (0.49%) Azure Certification
16 2 (0.49%) BC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 98 (23.96%) QA
2 24 (5.87%) Accessibility
3 7 (1.71%) Data Quality
3 7 (1.71%) Software Quality Assurance
4 5 (1.22%) SLA
5 4 (0.98%) WCAG
6 3 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.73%) JTAG
6 3 (0.73%) SEPA
7 2 (0.49%) ISO 9000
7 2 (0.49%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.24%) GDPR
8 1 (0.24%) IEC 61131
8 1 (0.24%) IEC 61508
8 1 (0.24%) IEC 62304
System Software
1 20 (4.89%) Docker
2 13 (3.18%) Firmware
3 11 (2.69%) Active Directory
4 8 (1.96%) Embedded Firmware
5 4 (0.98%) VMware Infrastructure
6 2 (0.49%) Terminal Server
7 1 (0.24%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.24%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 23 (5.62%) Kubernetes
2 14 (3.42%) Terraform
3 6 (1.47%) Grafana
4 5 (1.22%) Ansible
5 4 (0.98%) SCCM
6 3 (0.73%) HP ALM
6 3 (0.73%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.73%) Rancher
6 3 (0.73%) SCOM
7 2 (0.49%) Nessus
8 1 (0.24%) Argo
8 1 (0.24%) Istio
8 1 (0.24%) Kibana
8 1 (0.24%) logstash
8 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.24%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 47 (11.49%) Microsoft
2 23 (5.62%) Oracle
3 10 (2.44%) Siemens
4 6 (1.47%) VMware
5 5 (1.22%) Google
5 5 (1.22%) Rockwell
5 5 (1.22%) Zoho
6 4 (0.98%) AVEVA
6 4 (0.98%) ServiceNow
6 4 (0.98%) Siebel
7 3 (0.73%) Adobe
7 3 (0.73%) HP
7 3 (0.73%) Intel
7 3 (0.73%) Red Hat
7 3 (0.73%) Sage
7 3 (0.73%) SAP
7 3 (0.73%) Splunk
7 3 (0.73%) Tealium
7 3 (0.73%) Workday
7 3 (0.73%) Xilinx