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

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 257 271 159
Rank change year-on-year +14 -112 +13
Permanent jobs citing Software Testing 760 469 1,160
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.75% 1.09% 1.69%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.02% 1.22% 2.07%
Number of salaries quoted 513 334 608
10th Percentile £29,500 £26,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £39,200 £40,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £56,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% +1.82% -4.35%
75th Percentile £71,250 £68,750 £72,500
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% -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 74,372 38,333 56,057
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.37% 88.82% 81.58%
Number of salaries quoted 52,671 22,038 32,065
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £32,000
25th Percentile £42,500 £37,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -7.26%
75th Percentile £80,000 £76,250 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £96,250
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 17 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 17 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 -10 158 £45,000 -10.00% 159
North of England +22 151 £52,500 +21.39% 140
London -55 147 £70,000 +9.38% 406
Midlands +13 123 £55,000 +28.65% 132
South West -32 94 £50,000 -10.71% 99
West Midlands +2 80 £52,500 +250.00% 80
East of England +19 77 £52,500 -0.94% 115
North West +9 67 £49,400 -29.43% 82
North East -20 52 £55,000 +37.50% 16
East Midlands -22 43 £55,000 +1.38% 51
Yorkshire -36 32 £43,474 +42.54% 44
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 (1.58%) IIS
2 11 (1.45%) Confluence
2 11 (1.45%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.18%) CMS
4 6 (0.79%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (0.79%) WinCC
5 5 (0.66%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.39%) WordPress
7 2 (0.26%) Apache
7 2 (0.26%) nginx
7 2 (0.26%) Umbraco
8 1 (0.13%) Moodle
8 1 (0.13%) Office Communications Server
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 16 (2.11%) Microsoft Excel
1 16 (2.11%) Microsoft Office
1 16 (2.11%) Simulink
2 6 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 6 (0.79%) MS Visio
3 5 (0.66%) AutoCAD
3 5 (0.66%) DaVinci Resolve
3 5 (0.66%) Spreadsheet
4 3 (0.39%) Photoshop
5 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.13%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 3 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
1 3 (0.39%) SystmOne
2 2 (0.26%) Sage 200
2 2 (0.26%) Shopify
2 2 (0.26%) 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 (17.63%) AWS
2 133 (17.50%) Azure
3 41 (5.39%) Azure DevOps
4 36 (4.74%) GCP
4 36 (4.74%) GitHub
4 36 (4.74%) Serverless
5 32 (4.21%) Power Platform
6 21 (2.76%) Microsoft 365
6 21 (2.76%) SaaS
7 18 (2.37%) AWS Lambda
8 16 (2.11%) GitHub Actions
9 15 (1.97%) GitHub Copilot
10 13 (1.71%) OpenShift
11 9 (1.18%) AWS CloudFormation
11 9 (1.18%) BrowserStack
12 8 (1.05%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 7 (0.92%) Amazon EC2
13 7 (0.92%) Anthropic Claude
13 7 (0.92%) Google Workspace
14 6 (0.79%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 14 (1.84%) TCP/IP
2 11 (1.45%) SNMP
3 9 (1.18%) VPN
4 8 (1.05%) Wireshark
5 6 (0.79%) HTTP
5 6 (0.79%) Modbus
6 4 (0.53%) Ethernet
7 3 (0.39%) DNS
8 2 (0.26%) ATM
8 2 (0.26%) Broadband
8 2 (0.26%) Network Security
8 2 (0.26%) Software-Defined Radio
9 1 (0.13%) 5G
9 1 (0.13%) DHCP
9 1 (0.13%) Internet
9 1 (0.13%) IPv4
9 1 (0.13%) IPv6
9 1 (0.13%) LTE
9 1 (0.13%) SSH
9 1 (0.13%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (5.13%) SQL Server
2 27 (3.55%) Power BI
3 18 (2.37%) PostgreSQL
4 15 (1.97%) Relational Database
5 14 (1.84%) DynamoDB
6 13 (1.71%) Elasticsearch
7 12 (1.58%) NoSQL
8 9 (1.18%) Azure SQL Database
9 8 (1.05%) InfluxDB
9 8 (1.05%) MySQL
10 7 (0.92%) OLTP
11 6 (0.79%) Geospatial Data
11 6 (0.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 5 (0.66%) Oracle Database
13 4 (0.53%) Flink
13 4 (0.53%) MongoDB
13 4 (0.53%) Spark SQL
14 3 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
14 3 (0.39%) Big Data
14 3 (0.39%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 98 (12.89%) Git
2 71 (9.34%) JIRA
3 57 (7.50%) GitLab
3 57 (7.50%) Selenium
4 43 (5.66%) Jenkins
5 32 (4.21%) Postman
6 30 (3.95%) Cypress.io
7 21 (2.76%) JMeter
8 20 (2.63%) Cucumber
9 18 (2.37%) JUnit
9 18 (2.37%) TestRail
10 15 (1.97%) Zephyr
11 14 (1.84%) Gatling
12 10 (1.32%) REST Assured
13 9 (1.18%) Maven
14 8 (1.05%) Claude Code
14 8 (1.05%) Eclipse
14 8 (1.05%) Robot Framework
14 8 (1.05%) Spock
14 8 (1.05%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 251 (33.03%) Social Skills
2 139 (18.29%) Analytical Skills
3 89 (11.71%) Finance
4 56 (7.37%) Electronics
5 52 (6.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 38 (5.00%) Manufacturing
7 36 (4.74%) Law
8 22 (2.89%) Aerospace
9 20 (2.63%) Documentation Skills
10 19 (2.50%) Banking
10 19 (2.50%) Public Sector
11 16 (2.11%) Retail
12 15 (1.97%) Automotive
12 15 (1.97%) Aviation
12 15 (1.97%) Legal
12 15 (1.97%) Organisational Skills
13 10 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
13 10 (1.32%) Telecoms
14 9 (1.18%) Military
15 8 (1.05%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 172 (22.63%) Senior
2 128 (16.84%) Software Engineer
3 106 (13.95%) Test Engineer
4 85 (11.18%) Developer
4 85 (11.18%) Lead
5 68 (8.95%) Analyst
6 56 (7.37%) Tester
7 43 (5.66%) Senior Developer
8 41 (5.39%) Software Developer
9 40 (5.26%) QA Engineer
9 40 (5.26%) Software Test Engineer
10 38 (5.00%) Senior Software Engineer
11 32 (4.21%) Software Tester
12 29 (3.82%) Test Automation Engineer
13 28 (3.68%) Embedded Engineer
13 28 (3.68%) Junior
14 25 (3.29%) IT Support
15 24 (3.16%) Embedded Software Engineer
15 24 (3.16%) Support Engineer
16 23 (3.03%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (9.61%) .NET
2 62 (8.16%) Playwright
3 52 (6.84%) HTML
4 49 (6.45%) React
5 31 (4.08%) CSS
6 28 (3.68%) REST
7 27 (3.55%) ASP.NET
8 26 (3.42%) Terraform
9 22 (2.89%) RESTful
9 22 (2.89%) XML
10 18 (2.37%) Node.js
11 14 (1.84%) ASP.NET Core
12 13 (1.71%) Gherkin
12 13 (1.71%) React Native
12 13 (1.71%) Spring
13 12 (1.58%) JSON
13 12 (1.58%) SOAP
13 12 (1.58%) Swagger
14 11 (1.45%) .NET Framework
15 10 (1.32%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 62 (8.16%) Product Ownership
2 36 (4.74%) Distributed Systems
3 29 (3.82%) Algorithms
4 25 (3.29%) Embedded Systems
5 23 (3.03%) Management Information System
6 20 (2.63%) AI Agents
6 20 (2.63%) Cloud Native
7 19 (2.50%) Analytical Mindset
8 18 (2.37%) Mobile App
9 17 (2.24%) Enterprise Software
9 17 (2.24%) Robotics
9 17 (2.24%) Self-Motivation
10 15 (1.97%) Client/Server
11 13 (1.71%) Legacy Applications
12 12 (1.58%) Driving Licence
13 10 (1.32%) FPGA
14 9 (1.18%) Onboarding
14 9 (1.18%) SCADA
15 8 (1.05%) Life Science
15 8 (1.05%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 88 (11.58%) Windows
2 75 (9.87%) Linux
3 20 (2.63%) Windows Server
4 8 (1.05%) CentOS
5 6 (0.79%) Android
5 6 (0.79%) VMS
6 5 (0.66%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.66%) Embedded Linux
6 5 (0.66%) Robot Operating System
7 4 (0.53%) Kali Linux
7 4 (0.53%) Unix
8 3 (0.39%) Debian
8 3 (0.39%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.26%) FreeRTOS
9 2 (0.26%) zOS
10 1 (0.13%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 328 (43.16%) Test Automation
2 286 (37.63%) Agile
3 238 (31.32%) Software Engineering
4 199 (26.18%) CI/CD
5 195 (25.66%) Problem-Solving
6 194 (25.53%) Continuous Improvement
7 160 (21.05%) DevOps
8 129 (16.97%) Code Quality
9 116 (15.26%) Mentoring
10 111 (14.61%) Validation
11 109 (14.34%) AI
12 107 (14.08%) SDLC
13 99 (13.03%) Scrum
14 97 (12.76%) Test Strategy
15 83 (10.92%) Regression Testing
16 71 (9.34%) Computer Science
17 60 (7.89%) Stakeholder Management
18 57 (7.50%) Manual Testing
19 55 (7.24%) Software Architecture
20 53 (6.97%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 195 (25.66%) Python
2 145 (19.08%) SQL
3 114 (15.00%) C#
4 98 (12.89%) JavaScript
5 87 (11.45%) Java
6 80 (10.53%) C++
7 62 (8.16%) C
8 60 (7.89%) TypeScript
9 27 (3.55%) MATLAB
10 24 (3.16%) PowerShell
11 22 (2.89%) Bash
12 14 (1.84%) Embedded C
13 11 (1.45%) Groovy
13 11 (1.45%) PL/SQL
14 10 (1.32%) Julia
15 9 (1.18%) Go
16 8 (1.05%) PHP
16 8 (1.05%) R
17 7 (0.92%) Rust
17 7 (0.92%) VBA
Qualifications
1 166 (21.84%) Degree
2 133 (17.50%) Security Cleared
3 82 (10.79%) SC Cleared
4 39 (5.13%) ISTQB
5 37 (4.87%) DV Cleared
6 34 (4.47%) Master's Degree
7 32 (4.21%) Computer Science Degree
8 18 (2.37%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (1.05%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 8 (1.05%) ISEB
10 5 (0.66%) DBS Check
10 5 (0.66%) PhD
11 4 (0.53%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 3 (0.39%) AWS Certification
12 3 (0.39%) Chartered Engineer
12 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 3 (0.39%) PMI Certification
13 2 (0.26%) CSQA
13 2 (0.26%) Microsoft Certification
13 2 (0.26%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 211 (27.76%) QA
2 53 (6.97%) Accessibility
3 23 (3.03%) GDPR
4 22 (2.89%) WCAG
5 14 (1.84%) Data Quality
5 14 (1.84%) Software Quality Assurance
6 8 (1.05%) SLA
7 5 (0.66%) DO-254
7 5 (0.66%) PMO
8 4 (0.53%) IEC 61508
9 3 (0.39%) IEC 61131
9 3 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 12207
9 3 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 2 (0.26%) Automotive SPICE
10 2 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.26%) MISRA
10 2 (0.26%) MISRA C
11 1 (0.13%) DO-160
11 1 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 1 (0.13%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 58 (7.63%) Docker
2 37 (4.87%) Firmware
3 19 (2.50%) Embedded Firmware
4 17 (2.24%) Active Directory
5 9 (1.18%) VMware Infrastructure
6 6 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.26%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.26%) KVM
7 2 (0.26%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 39 (5.13%) Kubernetes
2 22 (2.89%) Grafana
3 20 (2.63%) Ansible
4 9 (1.18%) Kibana
5 8 (1.05%) logstash
6 6 (0.79%) vCenter Server
7 5 (0.66%) Functional Safety
8 4 (0.53%) HP Fortify
8 4 (0.53%) Prometheus
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 (9.87%) Microsoft
2 24 (3.16%) Splunk
3 18 (2.37%) Oracle
4 12 (1.58%) Google
5 11 (1.45%) VMware
6 10 (1.32%) Atlassian
6 10 (1.32%) Red Hat
7 9 (1.18%) Citrix
7 9 (1.18%) Intel
8 8 (1.05%) Adobe
8 8 (1.05%) AppDynamics
8 8 (1.05%) Siemens
9 7 (0.92%) IBM
9 7 (0.92%) ServiceNow
10 5 (0.66%) Avid
10 5 (0.66%) Databricks
10 5 (0.66%) Rockwell
10 5 (0.66%) SolarWinds
11 4 (0.53%) EMC
11 4 (0.53%) Veracode