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

6 months to
31 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 261 246 180
Rank change year-on-year -15 -66 -95
Permanent jobs citing Software Testing 603 541 1,388
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.73% 1.39% 1.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.98% 1.49% 1.88%
Number of salaries quoted 438 381 1,049
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £39,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £51,020
Median % change year-on-year - +7.80% -7.24%
75th Percentile £71,250 £71,250 £66,250
90th Percentile £83,750 £87,500 £85,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - +10.00% -9.09%

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 61,595 36,399 73,671
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 74.07% 93.30% 83.66%
Number of salaries quoted 41,041 19,603 54,687
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,750 £29,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £41,250 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £59,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +1.69% +7.27% -12.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £78,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,500 £93,750
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.69%

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 31 May 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 31 May 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 +22 161 £47,578 -13.49% 57
London -36 155 £60,000 -7.69% 55
North of England -25 99 £50,000 +11.11% 24
South West -46 68 £47,500 -14.41% 30
Midlands -47 67 £55,000 +22.91% 27
North West +11 56 £51,772 -12.25% 17
East of England +3 46 £48,750 -8.02% 45
West Midlands -36 42 £62,500 +225.48% 16
Yorkshire -52 26 £37,663 +21.99% 2
East Midlands -35 25 £55,000 +14.58% 11
North East -35 17 £55,000 +37.50% 6
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 (1.99%) IIS
2 7 (1.16%) Confluence
3 6 (1.00%) SharePoint
4 5 (0.83%) CMS
4 5 (0.83%) Moodle
4 5 (0.83%) WordPress
5 3 (0.50%) Microsoft Exchange
6 2 (0.33%) Apache
6 2 (0.33%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.17%) Jupyter
Applications
1 14 (2.32%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (2.16%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.83%) AutoCAD
3 5 (0.83%) DaVinci Resolve
3 5 (0.83%) MS Visio
3 5 (0.83%) Simulink
4 4 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.66%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.50%) Photoshop
6 2 (0.33%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 2 (0.33%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.33%) Misys Midas
1 2 (0.33%) Shopify
1 2 (0.33%) Workday HCM
2 1 (0.17%) Misys Equation
2 1 (0.17%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 115 (19.07%) Azure
2 105 (17.41%) AWS
3 42 (6.97%) GCP
4 41 (6.80%) Azure DevOps
5 20 (3.32%) GitHub
6 18 (2.99%) Serverless
7 14 (2.32%) BrowserStack
8 12 (1.99%) Power Platform
9 11 (1.82%) SaaS
10 9 (1.49%) Microsoft 365
11 8 (1.33%) AWS Lambda
11 8 (1.33%) OpenShift
12 7 (1.16%) Anthropic Claude
12 7 (1.16%) Azure Data Factory
12 7 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
12 7 (1.16%) GitHub Copilot
13 5 (0.83%) Tricentis Tosca
14 4 (0.66%) AWS CloudFormation
14 4 (0.66%) Azure Functions
15 3 (0.50%) BlazeMeter
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.33%) Broadband
1 8 (1.33%) VPN
2 7 (1.16%) Ethernet
3 5 (0.83%) HTTP
3 5 (0.83%) SNMP
4 4 (0.66%) Software-Defined Radio
5 3 (0.50%) Cisco ISE
6 2 (0.33%) LTE
6 2 (0.33%) Modbus
6 2 (0.33%) MQTT
6 2 (0.33%) Network Security
6 2 (0.33%) TCP/IP
6 2 (0.33%) Wireless
7 1 (0.17%) 5G
7 1 (0.17%) AMQP
7 1 (0.17%) Bluetooth
7 1 (0.17%) DNS
7 1 (0.17%) SSL
7 1 (0.17%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (6.14%) SQL Server
2 20 (3.32%) PostgreSQL
3 18 (2.99%) OLTP
4 11 (1.82%) MongoDB
5 10 (1.66%) Power BI
6 8 (1.33%) DynamoDB
6 8 (1.33%) MySQL
7 7 (1.16%) Azure SQL Database
7 7 (1.16%) Elasticsearch
7 7 (1.16%) Spark SQL
7 7 (1.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 6 (1.00%) NoSQL
9 5 (0.83%) InfluxDB
9 5 (0.83%) Relational Database
10 4 (0.66%) Crystal Reports
10 4 (0.66%) Geospatial Data
10 4 (0.66%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.33%) Big Data
11 2 (0.33%) DB2
11 2 (0.33%) Easytrieve
Development Applications
1 83 (13.76%) JIRA
2 64 (10.61%) Git
3 59 (9.78%) Selenium
4 46 (7.63%) GitLab
5 38 (6.30%) Postman
6 27 (4.48%) Jenkins
7 25 (4.15%) SoapUI
7 25 (4.15%) Team Foundation Server
8 24 (3.98%) WebDriver
9 17 (2.82%) Cypress.io
10 16 (2.65%) TestRail
11 15 (2.49%) JUnit
12 14 (2.32%) Zephyr
13 13 (2.16%) Cucumber
14 11 (1.82%) JMeter
15 10 (1.66%) Visual Studio Code
16 8 (1.33%) REST Assured
16 8 (1.33%) SpecFlow
16 8 (1.33%) Subversion
17 7 (1.16%) LoadRunner
General
1 172 (28.52%) Social Skills
2 85 (14.10%) Analytical Skills
3 83 (13.76%) Finance
4 32 (5.31%) Electronics
5 25 (4.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 23 (3.81%) Law
7 21 (3.48%) Banking
8 20 (3.32%) Manufacturing
8 20 (3.32%) Retail
9 13 (2.16%) Public Sector
10 11 (1.82%) Aerospace
10 11 (1.82%) Games
11 10 (1.66%) Documentation Skills
12 9 (1.49%) Health Technology
13 8 (1.33%) Organisational Skills
14 6 (1.00%) Back Office
14 6 (1.00%) Marketing
14 6 (1.00%) Pharmaceutical
15 5 (0.83%) Publishing
15 5 (0.83%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 137 (22.72%) Senior
2 101 (16.75%) Software Engineer
3 77 (12.77%) Test Engineer
4 67 (11.11%) Developer
5 62 (10.28%) Tester
6 59 (9.78%) Analyst
6 59 (9.78%) Lead
7 43 (7.13%) Senior Developer
8 41 (6.80%) Software Tester
9 40 (6.63%) Software Test Engineer
10 38 (6.30%) Development Engineer
11 35 (5.80%) Software Development Engineer
12 31 (5.14%) Test Development Engineer
13 28 (4.64%) Senior Software Engineer
14 27 (4.48%) Test Analyst
15 24 (3.98%) Test Automation Engineer
16 22 (3.65%) QA Engineer
17 21 (3.48%) Oracle Developer
17 21 (3.48%) Senior Oracle Developer
18 20 (3.32%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (11.61%) .NET
2 58 (9.62%) HTML
3 41 (6.80%) SOAP
4 36 (5.97%) Playwright
5 31 (5.14%) React
6 26 (4.31%) XML
7 21 (3.48%) REST
8 16 (2.65%) Node.js
9 13 (2.16%) ASP.NET
10 12 (1.99%) CSS
10 12 (1.99%) JSON
11 11 (1.82%) RESTful
12 10 (1.66%) Spring
13 9 (1.49%) React Native
14 8 (1.33%) .NET Framework
14 8 (1.33%) LangChain
14 8 (1.33%) LlamaIndex
15 7 (1.16%) PySpark
16 5 (0.83%) Elastic Stack
16 5 (0.83%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 51 (8.46%) Product Ownership
2 32 (5.31%) Algorithms
3 19 (3.15%) Distributed Systems
4 17 (2.82%) Mobile App
5 16 (2.65%) Embedded Systems
6 13 (2.16%) Client/Server
7 11 (1.82%) Cloud Native
7 11 (1.82%) Self-Motivation
8 10 (1.66%) Analytical Mindset
8 10 (1.66%) Life Science
8 10 (1.66%) Management Information System
8 10 (1.66%) Robotics
9 9 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
9 9 (1.49%) FPGA
10 8 (1.33%) AI Agents
10 8 (1.33%) Low-Code
10 8 (1.33%) Video\Live Streaming
11 6 (1.00%) Blog
12 5 (0.83%) e-Learning
12 5 (0.83%) Fat Client
Operating Systems
1 53 (8.79%) Windows
2 42 (6.97%) Linux
3 13 (2.16%) Windows Server
4 5 (0.83%) Android
4 5 (0.83%) CentOS
5 4 (0.66%) Unix
6 3 (0.50%) FreeRTOS
6 3 (0.50%) Kali Linux
6 3 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.33%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.33%) VMS
7 2 (0.33%) zOS
8 1 (0.17%) Embedded Linux
8 1 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.17%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 251 (41.63%) Test Automation
2 217 (35.99%) Agile
3 149 (24.71%) Software Engineering
4 141 (23.38%) Continuous Improvement
5 127 (21.06%) DevOps
6 122 (20.23%) Problem-Solving
7 112 (18.57%) CI/CD
8 99 (16.42%) Scrum
9 81 (13.43%) Mentoring
10 79 (13.10%) Computer Science
10 79 (13.10%) SDLC
11 76 (12.60%) AI
12 73 (12.11%) Code Quality
13 64 (10.61%) Test Strategy
14 59 (9.78%) Regression Testing
15 58 (9.62%) Non-Functional Testing
16 57 (9.45%) Manual Testing
17 55 (9.12%) Test Scripting
18 52 (8.62%) Test Management
19 50 (8.29%) API Testing
Programming Languages
1 144 (23.88%) Python
2 129 (21.39%) SQL
3 101 (16.75%) C#
4 88 (14.59%) Java
5 69 (11.44%) JavaScript
6 56 (9.29%) C++
7 41 (6.80%) TypeScript
8 39 (6.47%) C
9 23 (3.81%) PL/SQL
10 18 (2.99%) MATLAB
11 13 (2.16%) PowerShell
12 12 (1.99%) PHP
13 11 (1.82%) Go
14 9 (1.49%) Bash
15 7 (1.16%) Groovy
15 7 (1.16%) VBA
16 6 (1.00%) Julia
16 6 (1.00%) Rust
17 5 (0.83%) COBOL
17 5 (0.83%) R
Qualifications
1 181 (30.02%) Degree
2 86 (14.26%) Security Cleared
3 70 (11.61%) ISTQB
4 50 (8.29%) SC Cleared
5 35 (5.80%) Computer Science Degree
6 34 (5.64%) Master's Degree
7 33 (5.47%) DV Cleared
8 19 (3.15%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 13 (2.16%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 12 (1.99%) PhD
11 10 (1.66%) BPSS Clearance
12 9 (1.49%) ISEB
13 6 (1.00%) PMI Certification
14 5 (0.83%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
14 5 (0.83%) DBS Check
15 4 (0.66%) BC Cleared
15 4 (0.66%) Chartered Engineer
15 4 (0.66%) CIPD
16 3 (0.50%) Numerate Degree
17 2 (0.33%) CSQA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 170 (28.19%) QA
2 39 (6.47%) Accessibility
3 21 (3.48%) Software Quality Assurance
4 12 (1.99%) SLA
5 8 (1.33%) GDPR
6 7 (1.16%) Data Quality
7 6 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.83%) PMO
9 4 (0.66%) DO-254
9 4 (0.66%) WCAG
10 3 (0.50%) IEC 61508
10 3 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 12207
11 2 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.33%) JTAG
11 2 (0.33%) MISRA
11 2 (0.33%) MISRA C
11 2 (0.33%) PCI DSS
12 1 (0.17%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 27 (4.48%) Docker
1 27 (4.48%) Firmware
2 15 (2.49%) VMware Infrastructure
3 13 (2.16%) Active Directory
4 12 (1.99%) Embedded Firmware
5 5 (0.83%) Hyper-V
5 5 (0.83%) KVM
6 4 (0.66%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.50%) Terminal Server
8 2 (0.33%) Time Sharing Option
9 1 (0.17%) Xen
Systems Management
1 16 (2.65%) Kubernetes
2 15 (2.49%) Terraform
3 10 (1.66%) Ansible
4 8 (1.33%) Grafana
5 6 (1.00%) Kibana
5 6 (1.00%) logstash
5 6 (1.00%) SCCM
5 6 (1.00%) SCOM
6 4 (0.66%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.50%) HP ALM
7 3 (0.50%) HP Fortify
7 3 (0.50%) Rancher
7 3 (0.50%) SCOrch
8 2 (0.33%) Functional Safety
8 2 (0.33%) Microsoft Intune
8 2 (0.33%) Norton AntiVirus
9 1 (0.17%) HP Quality Center
9 1 (0.17%) Istio
Vendors
1 60 (9.95%) Microsoft
2 33 (5.47%) Oracle
3 16 (2.65%) VMware
4 14 (2.32%) Splunk
5 10 (1.66%) Adobe
6 9 (1.49%) IBM
6 9 (1.49%) ServiceNow
7 8 (1.33%) Citrix
8 7 (1.16%) Google
9 6 (1.00%) Red Hat
10 5 (0.83%) Avid
10 5 (0.83%) HP
10 5 (0.83%) Salesforce
10 5 (0.83%) SolarWinds
11 4 (0.66%) Altera
11 4 (0.66%) AppDynamics
11 4 (0.66%) Atlassian
11 4 (0.66%) SYSPRO
12 3 (0.50%) Juniper
12 3 (0.50%) McAfee