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

6 months to
20 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 264 237 174
Rank change year-on-year -27 -63 -81
Permanent jobs citing Software Testing 613 543 1,488
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.73% 1.36% 1.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.00% 1.47% 1.90%
Number of salaries quoted 448 375 1,034
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,250 £31,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £39,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year - +10.00% -10.71%
75th Percentile £72,500 £70,000 £66,250
90th Percentile £89,125 £87,000 £85,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - +10.00% -10.71%

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 61,307 36,819 78,197
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 73.20% 92.52% 81.80%
Number of salaries quoted 43,146 20,189 56,768
10th Percentile £30,750 £29,000 £29,497
25th Percentile £41,250 £40,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -12.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £78,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.54%

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 June 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 June 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 +11 158 £47,500 -9.52% 69
London -27 157 £60,000 -6.25% 40
North of England -11 97 £51,696 +14.88% 36
South West -49 75 £50,000 -9.09% 32
Midlands -44 64 £55,000 +29.41% 26
North West +21 55 £53,386 -14.58% 16
East of England +20 55 £50,000 -5.66% 48
West Midlands -29 43 £62,500 +316.67% 15
Yorkshire -53 23 £38,832 +19.48% 8
East Midlands -42 21 £55,000 +14.58% 11
North East -36 19 £56,250 +40.63% 13
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 15 (2.45%) IIS
2 8 (1.31%) SharePoint
3 7 (1.14%) Confluence
4 5 (0.82%) CMS
4 5 (0.82%) WordPress
5 4 (0.65%) Microsoft Exchange
5 4 (0.65%) Moodle
6 2 (0.33%) Apache
6 2 (0.33%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.16%) Jupyter
Applications
1 19 (3.10%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (2.45%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (1.47%) Simulink
4 5 (0.82%) AutoCAD
4 5 (0.82%) DaVinci Resolve
4 5 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.82%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.49%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.33%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.33%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.33%) Shopify
1 2 (0.33%) Workday HCM
2 1 (0.16%) Misys Equation
2 1 (0.16%) Misys Midas
2 1 (0.16%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 118 (19.25%) Azure
2 108 (17.62%) AWS
3 42 (6.85%) GCP
4 39 (6.36%) Azure DevOps
5 21 (3.43%) GitHub
5 21 (3.43%) Serverless
6 15 (2.45%) Power Platform
7 14 (2.28%) BrowserStack
8 12 (1.96%) Microsoft 365
9 11 (1.79%) AWS Lambda
9 11 (1.79%) SaaS
10 9 (1.47%) OpenShift
11 8 (1.31%) GitHub Copilot
12 7 (1.14%) Anthropic Claude
12 7 (1.14%) Azure Data Factory
12 7 (1.14%) GitHub Actions
13 5 (0.82%) Tricentis Tosca
14 4 (0.65%) AWS CloudFormation
14 4 (0.65%) Azure Functions
15 3 (0.49%) BlazeMeter
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.79%) VPN
2 8 (1.31%) Broadband
2 8 (1.31%) Ethernet
3 5 (0.82%) HTTP
3 5 (0.82%) SNMP
4 4 (0.65%) Software-Defined Radio
5 2 (0.33%) Cisco ISE
5 2 (0.33%) LTE
5 2 (0.33%) Modbus
5 2 (0.33%) MQTT
5 2 (0.33%) Network Security
5 2 (0.33%) TCP/IP
5 2 (0.33%) Wireless
6 1 (0.16%) 5G
6 1 (0.16%) AMQP
6 1 (0.16%) Bluetooth
6 1 (0.16%) DNS
6 1 (0.16%) SSL
6 1 (0.16%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (6.53%) SQL Server
2 20 (3.26%) PostgreSQL
3 16 (2.61%) OLTP
4 13 (2.12%) Power BI
5 11 (1.79%) DynamoDB
5 11 (1.79%) MongoDB
6 10 (1.63%) Elasticsearch
7 8 (1.31%) Azure SQL Database
7 8 (1.31%) MySQL
7 8 (1.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 7 (1.14%) Spark SQL
9 6 (0.98%) Geospatial Data
9 6 (0.98%) InfluxDB
9 6 (0.98%) NoSQL
9 6 (0.98%) Oracle Database
10 4 (0.65%) Crystal Reports
10 4 (0.65%) Relational Database
11 2 (0.33%) Big Data
11 2 (0.33%) Db2
11 2 (0.33%) Easytrieve
Development Applications
1 67 (10.93%) Git
2 66 (10.77%) JIRA
3 53 (8.65%) Selenium
4 48 (7.83%) GitLab
5 30 (4.89%) Jenkins
6 29 (4.73%) Postman
7 20 (3.26%) Cypress.io
8 16 (2.61%) TestRail
9 15 (2.45%) JUnit
9 15 (2.45%) Team Foundation Server
10 14 (2.28%) JMeter
10 14 (2.28%) SoapUI
10 14 (2.28%) WebDriver
10 14 (2.28%) Zephyr
11 12 (1.96%) Cucumber
12 11 (1.79%) Visual Studio Code
13 10 (1.63%) REST Assured
14 7 (1.14%) Claude Code
14 7 (1.14%) LoadRunner
14 7 (1.14%) SpecFlow
General
1 170 (27.73%) Social Skills
2 94 (15.33%) Analytical Skills
3 75 (12.23%) Finance
4 30 (4.89%) Electronics
5 25 (4.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 25 (4.08%) Law
6 22 (3.59%) Banking
6 22 (3.59%) Manufacturing
7 18 (2.94%) Retail
8 12 (1.96%) Public Sector
9 11 (1.79%) Aerospace
9 11 (1.79%) Games
10 9 (1.47%) Health Technology
10 9 (1.47%) Organisational Skills
11 8 (1.31%) Documentation Skills
12 7 (1.14%) Presentation Skills
13 6 (0.98%) Back Office
13 6 (0.98%) Marketing
13 6 (0.98%) Military
14 5 (0.82%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 139 (22.68%) Senior
2 107 (17.46%) Software Engineer
3 75 (12.23%) Test Engineer
4 67 (10.93%) Developer
5 62 (10.11%) Tester
6 57 (9.30%) Analyst
7 56 (9.14%) Lead
8 44 (7.18%) Senior Developer
8 44 (7.18%) Software Tester
9 39 (6.36%) Development Engineer
10 36 (5.87%) Software Test Engineer
11 35 (5.71%) Software Development Engineer
12 32 (5.22%) Test Development Engineer
13 31 (5.06%) Senior Software Engineer
14 26 (4.24%) Test Automation Engineer
15 22 (3.59%) QA Engineer
16 21 (3.43%) Software Developer
17 20 (3.26%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
17 20 (3.26%) Test Analyst
18 19 (3.10%) Senior Oracle Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 58 (9.46%) .NET
2 46 (7.50%) HTML
3 37 (6.04%) Playwright
4 32 (5.22%) React
5 28 (4.57%) SOAP
6 25 (4.08%) XML
7 21 (3.43%) REST
8 15 (2.45%) ASP.NET
9 14 (2.28%) Node.js
9 14 (2.28%) RESTful
10 13 (2.12%) CSS
11 12 (1.96%) JSON
12 10 (1.63%) Spring
13 9 (1.47%) React Native
14 8 (1.31%) .NET Framework
14 8 (1.31%) LangChain
14 8 (1.31%) LlamaIndex
14 8 (1.31%) Swagger
15 7 (1.14%) ASP.NET Core
15 7 (1.14%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 54 (8.81%) Product Ownership
2 33 (5.38%) Algorithms
3 18 (2.94%) Distributed Systems
4 16 (2.61%) Embedded Systems
4 16 (2.61%) Mobile App
5 14 (2.28%) Client/Server
6 11 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (1.79%) FPGA
6 11 (1.79%) Self-Motivation
7 10 (1.63%) Cloud Native
7 10 (1.63%) Life Science
7 10 (1.63%) Management Information System
7 10 (1.63%) Robotics
8 9 (1.47%) AI Agents
8 9 (1.47%) Analytical Mindset
9 8 (1.31%) Low-Code
9 8 (1.31%) Reinsurance
9 8 (1.31%) Video\Live Streaming
10 7 (1.14%) Onboarding
11 6 (0.98%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 64 (10.44%) Windows
2 44 (7.18%) Linux
3 18 (2.94%) Windows Server
4 6 (0.98%) CentOS
5 4 (0.65%) Unix
6 3 (0.49%) Android
6 3 (0.49%) FreeRTOS
6 3 (0.49%) Kali Linux
7 2 (0.33%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.33%) Embedded Linux
7 2 (0.33%) VMS
7 2 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.33%) zOS
8 1 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.16%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 256 (41.76%) Test Automation
2 207 (33.77%) Agile
3 157 (25.61%) Software Engineering
4 141 (23.00%) Continuous Improvement
5 131 (21.37%) DevOps
6 120 (19.58%) CI/CD
7 119 (19.41%) Problem-Solving
8 91 (14.85%) Scrum
9 81 (13.21%) Computer Science
10 80 (13.05%) Code Quality
11 78 (12.72%) Mentoring
11 78 (12.72%) SDLC
12 76 (12.40%) AI
13 65 (10.60%) Test Strategy
14 58 (9.46%) Manual Testing
14 58 (9.46%) Regression Testing
15 54 (8.81%) Validation
16 47 (7.67%) Non-Functional Testing
17 43 (7.01%) SDET
17 43 (7.01%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 155 (25.29%) Python
2 125 (20.39%) SQL
3 94 (15.33%) C#
4 79 (12.89%) Java
5 69 (11.26%) JavaScript
6 62 (10.11%) C++
7 42 (6.85%) C
7 42 (6.85%) TypeScript
8 23 (3.75%) MATLAB
9 22 (3.59%) PL/SQL
10 16 (2.61%) PowerShell
11 12 (1.96%) PHP
12 11 (1.79%) Bash
12 11 (1.79%) Go
13 9 (1.47%) Julia
14 8 (1.31%) R
15 7 (1.14%) Embedded C
15 7 (1.14%) Groovy
15 7 (1.14%) VBA
16 6 (0.98%) Rust
Qualifications
1 180 (29.36%) Degree
2 89 (14.52%) Security Cleared
3 61 (9.95%) ISTQB
4 51 (8.32%) SC Cleared
5 36 (5.87%) Master's Degree
6 34 (5.55%) Computer Science Degree
6 34 (5.55%) DV Cleared
7 12 (1.96%) BPSS Clearance
7 12 (1.96%) PhD
8 11 (1.79%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 10 (1.63%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 9 (1.47%) ISEB
11 6 (0.98%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 6 (0.98%) PMI Certification
12 5 (0.82%) DBS Check
13 4 (0.65%) Chartered Engineer
13 4 (0.65%) CIPD
14 3 (0.49%) Numerate Degree
15 2 (0.33%) BC Cleared
15 2 (0.33%) CSQA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 177 (28.87%) QA
2 41 (6.69%) Accessibility
3 21 (3.43%) Software Quality Assurance
4 12 (1.96%) SLA
5 11 (1.79%) GDPR
6 7 (1.14%) Data Quality
7 6 (0.98%) WCAG
8 5 (0.82%) PMO
9 4 (0.65%) DO-254
9 4 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 3 (0.49%) IEC 61508
10 3 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 12207
11 2 (0.33%) Automotive SPICE
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
System Software
1 31 (5.06%) Docker
2 25 (4.08%) Firmware
3 17 (2.77%) Active Directory
4 15 (2.45%) VMware Infrastructure
5 12 (1.96%) Embedded Firmware
6 5 (0.82%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.82%) KVM
6 5 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.33%) Terminal Server
7 2 (0.33%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.16%) Xen
Systems Management
1 19 (3.10%) Kubernetes
2 17 (2.77%) Terraform
3 12 (1.96%) Ansible
4 9 (1.47%) Grafana
5 7 (1.14%) Kibana
5 7 (1.14%) logstash
6 5 (0.82%) SCCM
6 5 (0.82%) SCOM
6 5 (0.82%) vCenter Server
7 4 (0.65%) Functional Safety
8 3 (0.49%) HP ALM
8 3 (0.49%) HP Fortify
8 3 (0.49%) Microsoft Intune
8 3 (0.49%) Norton AntiVirus
8 3 (0.49%) Rancher
8 3 (0.49%) SCOrch
9 1 (0.16%) HP Quality Center
9 1 (0.16%) Istio
Vendors
1 62 (10.11%) Microsoft
2 35 (5.71%) Oracle
3 17 (2.77%) VMware
4 15 (2.45%) Splunk
5 11 (1.79%) Citrix
6 10 (1.63%) Adobe
6 10 (1.63%) ServiceNow
7 9 (1.47%) IBM
8 7 (1.14%) Google
8 7 (1.14%) Red Hat
9 5 (0.82%) Atlassian
9 5 (0.82%) Avid
9 5 (0.82%) HP
9 5 (0.82%) Salesforce
9 5 (0.82%) SolarWinds
10 4 (0.65%) Altera
10 4 (0.65%) AppDynamics
10 4 (0.65%) SYSPRO
11 3 (0.49%) Intel
11 3 (0.49%) Veeam