Test Engineer Job Trends in England

Test Engineer
UK > England

The median Test Engineer salary in England is £50,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 11 March 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 271 243 522
Rank change year-on-year -28 +279 -119
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Engineer 457 486 267
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.71% 1.23% 0.36%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.77% 1.36% 0.38%
Number of salaries quoted 317 71 166
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,750 £32,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +16.67% -14.29%
75th Percentile £58,750 £62,500 £55,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £67,500 £69,242
UK median annual salary £47,500 £55,000 £45,000
% change year-on-year -13.64% +22.22% -14.29%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in England. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in England with a recognized job title 59,237 35,681 69,690
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.80% 90.61% 94.43%
Number of salaries quoted 38,503 20,963 55,094
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £45,000 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -9.69%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £73,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.33%

Test Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Test Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in England.

Test Engineer job vacancy trend in England

Test Engineer
Salary Trend in England

Salary distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in England.

Salary distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in England

Test Engineer
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing Test Engineer in England over the 6 months to 11 March 2026.

Salary histogram for Test Engineer in England

Test Engineer
Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Test Engineer within the England region over the 6 months to 11 March 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
East of England -17 111 £45,000 -18.18% 23
North of England +30 85 £40,000 -17.95% 31
South East -88 81 £45,000 -16.28% 34
South West +21 62 £55,000 +59.42% 19
Midlands -35 58 £50,000 -4.76% 26
North West +27 52 £40,000 -15.79% 19
London +46 50 £57,500 -11.54% 21
West Midlands +25 40 £50,000 -11.11% 24
North East +3 21 £45,000 -30.77% 3
East Midlands -82 18 £50,000 +17.65% 2
Yorkshire -31 12 £40,000 -19.80% 9
Test Engineer
UK

Test Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 11 March 2026, Test Engineer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads across the England region featuring Test Engineer in the job title.

1 130 (28.45%) Test Automation
2 53 (11.60%) Validation
3 48 (10.50%) Agile
3 48 (10.50%) Python
4 46 (10.07%) Software Testing
5 42 (9.19%) Security Cleared
6 39 (8.53%) Problem-Solving
7 36 (7.88%) QA
8 35 (7.66%) CI/CD
8 35 (7.66%) Degree
8 35 (7.66%) Test Scripting
8 35 (7.66%) Verification and Validation
9 31 (6.78%) Playwright
9 31 (6.78%) Selenium
10 30 (6.56%) AWS
11 27 (5.91%) Azure
11 27 (5.91%) Performance Testing
12 26 (5.69%) LabVIEW
12 26 (5.69%) Test Strategy
13 25 (5.47%) Continuous Improvement
13 25 (5.47%) JavaScript
14 22 (4.81%) DevOps
14 22 (4.81%) Java
15 21 (4.60%) API Testing
16 19 (4.16%) Git
16 19 (4.16%) Manual Testing
16 19 (4.16%) pytest
17 18 (3.94%) Cypress.io
17 18 (3.94%) JMeter
17 18 (3.94%) Windows

Test Engineer Skill Set
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 7 (1.53%) Confluence
2 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 12 (2.63%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (0.88%) Fusion 360
Business Applications
1 2 (0.44%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 30 (6.56%) AWS
2 27 (5.91%) Azure
3 16 (3.50%) GitHub
4 10 (2.19%) Azure DevOps
5 6 (1.31%) SaaS
6 4 (0.88%) Azure Pipelines
6 4 (0.88%) GCP
6 4 (0.88%) GitHub Actions
7 3 (0.66%) Power Platform
8 2 (0.44%) BrowserStack
8 2 (0.44%) OpenShift
9 1 (0.22%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 1 (0.22%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.22%) Microsoft 365
9 1 (0.22%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 9 (1.97%) SD-WAN
1 9 (1.97%) WAN
2 8 (1.75%) 5G
3 6 (1.31%) HTTP
4 2 (0.44%) Wireless
5 1 (0.22%) Cisco IOS
5 1 (0.22%) DHCP
5 1 (0.22%) DNS
5 1 (0.22%) Ethernet
5 1 (0.22%) FTP
5 1 (0.22%) SNMP
5 1 (0.22%) Spanning Tree
5 1 (0.22%) SSH
5 1 (0.22%) TACACS
5 1 (0.22%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.22%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.75%) Elasticsearch
2 4 (0.88%) Neo4j
3 2 (0.44%) InfluxDB
3 2 (0.44%) Relational Database
3 2 (0.44%) Tableau
4 1 (0.22%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.22%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 31 (6.78%) Selenium
2 26 (5.69%) LabVIEW
3 19 (4.16%) Git
4 18 (3.94%) Cypress.io
4 18 (3.94%) JMeter
5 17 (3.72%) JIRA
6 11 (2.41%) Cucumber
6 11 (2.41%) Jenkins
6 11 (2.41%) Postman
7 10 (2.19%) Gatling
7 10 (2.19%) REST Assured
8 9 (1.97%) LoadRunner
8 9 (1.97%) SpecFlow
9 7 (1.53%) GitLab
10 5 (1.09%) NUnit
10 5 (1.09%) Subversion
10 5 (1.09%) WebDriver
11 4 (0.88%) Appium
11 4 (0.88%) SonarQube
12 3 (0.66%) Robot Framework
General
1 84 (18.38%) Manufacturing
2 72 (15.75%) Electronics
3 32 (7.00%) Social Skills
4 19 (4.16%) Aerospace
4 19 (4.16%) Analytical Skills
4 19 (4.16%) Public Sector
5 15 (3.28%) Finance
6 14 (3.06%) Aviation
7 12 (2.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 9 (1.97%) Organisational Skills
8 9 (1.97%) Presentation Skills
9 7 (1.53%) Military
10 6 (1.31%) Documentation Skills
10 6 (1.31%) Telecoms
11 5 (1.09%) Automotive
11 5 (1.09%) Social Housing
12 4 (0.88%) Games
12 4 (0.88%) Health Technology
13 3 (0.66%) Wearables
14 2 (0.44%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (6.78%) Playwright
2 19 (4.16%) pytest
3 9 (1.97%) .NET
4 5 (1.09%) REST
4 5 (1.09%) Web Services
5 4 (0.88%) AngularJS
5 4 (0.88%) MERN Stack
5 4 (0.88%) React
6 3 (0.66%) Elastic Stack
6 3 (0.66%) Gherkin
6 3 (0.66%) Kafka
6 3 (0.66%) Middleware
6 3 (0.66%) SOAP
6 3 (0.66%) YAML
7 2 (0.44%) GraphQL
7 2 (0.44%) HTML
7 2 (0.44%) Nightwatchjs
7 2 (0.44%) RESTful
8 1 (0.22%) WebAssembly
8 1 (0.22%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 13 (2.84%) Self-Motivation
2 9 (1.97%) Distributed Systems
3 8 (1.75%) Self-Driving Car
4 6 (1.31%) Mobile App
5 5 (1.09%) Embedded Systems
6 4 (0.88%) GNSS
6 4 (0.88%) Life Science
6 4 (0.88%) Robotics
6 4 (0.88%) Satnav
7 3 (0.66%) Acoustics
7 3 (0.66%) Analogue Electronics
8 2 (0.44%) AI Agents
8 2 (0.44%) Product Ownership
8 2 (0.44%) Renewable Energy
9 1 (0.22%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (0.22%) Driving Licence
9 1 (0.22%) Fibre Optics
9 1 (0.22%) Hackathon
9 1 (0.22%) Linux Command Line
9 1 (0.22%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 18 (3.94%) Windows
2 12 (2.63%) Unix
3 6 (1.31%) Linux
4 3 (0.66%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.44%) Android
5 2 (0.44%) CentOS
6 1 (0.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 130 (28.45%) Test Automation
2 53 (11.60%) Validation
3 48 (10.50%) Agile
4 46 (10.07%) Software Testing
5 39 (8.53%) Problem-Solving
6 35 (7.66%) CI/CD
6 35 (7.66%) Test Scripting
6 35 (7.66%) Verification and Validation
7 27 (5.91%) Performance Testing
8 26 (5.69%) Test Strategy
9 25 (5.47%) Continuous Improvement
10 22 (4.81%) DevOps
11 21 (4.60%) API Testing
12 19 (4.16%) Manual Testing
13 17 (3.72%) End-to-End Testing
13 17 (3.72%) Kalman Filter
14 15 (3.28%) AI
14 15 (3.28%) Mentoring
15 14 (3.06%) BDD
16 13 (2.84%) Non-Functional Testing
Programming Languages
1 48 (10.50%) Python
2 25 (5.47%) JavaScript
3 22 (4.81%) Java
4 15 (3.28%) TypeScript
5 14 (3.06%) C#
6 13 (2.84%) MATLAB
6 13 (2.84%) SQL
7 4 (0.88%) C
8 3 (0.66%) Bash
8 3 (0.66%) PowerShell
9 2 (0.44%) Scala
9 2 (0.44%) VB
10 1 (0.22%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.22%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.22%) Swift
Qualifications
1 42 (9.19%) Security Cleared
2 35 (7.66%) Degree
3 17 (3.72%) HND
3 17 (3.72%) SC Cleared
4 11 (2.41%) DV Cleared
4 11 (2.41%) ISTQB
5 9 (1.97%) BPSS Clearance
6 6 (1.31%) HNC
7 5 (1.09%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 4 (0.88%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 3 (0.66%) CCA
10 2 (0.44%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 2 (0.44%) Master's Degree
11 1 (0.22%) Computer Science Degree
11 1 (0.22%) MCSA
11 1 (0.22%) MCSE
11 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Certification
11 1 (0.22%) Numerate Degree
11 1 (0.22%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (7.88%) QA
2 12 (2.63%) Accessibility
3 5 (1.09%) ISO/IEC 17025
4 4 (0.88%) ISO 13485
5 2 (0.44%) ISO 9001
6 1 (0.22%) COSHH
6 1 (0.22%) WCAG
System Software
1 15 (3.28%) Docker
2 4 (0.88%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.66%) Firmware
4 2 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.22%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 15 (3.28%) Kubernetes
2 8 (1.75%) Grafana
3 7 (1.53%) Terraform
4 6 (1.31%) Kibana
5 3 (0.66%) HP Fortify
5 3 (0.66%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.44%) Ansible
6 2 (0.44%) Control-M
6 2 (0.44%) logstash
6 2 (0.44%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.44%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.22%) Argo
Vendors
1 7 (1.53%) EMC
1 7 (1.53%) Microsoft
2 5 (1.09%) Dynatrace
3 4 (0.88%) AppDynamics
3 4 (0.88%) IBM
3 4 (0.88%) VMware
4 3 (0.66%) Oracle
4 3 (0.66%) Red Hat
4 3 (0.66%) Samsung
4 3 (0.66%) ServiceNow
5 2 (0.44%) Atlassian
5 2 (0.44%) Guidewire
5 2 (0.44%) Splunk
6 1 (0.22%) Cisco
6 1 (0.22%) Meraki
6 1 (0.22%) OneLogin