Test Engineer Job Trends in England

Test Engineer
UK > England

The median Test Engineer salary in England is £47,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 2 May 2026.

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

6 months to
2 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 250 164 522
Rank change year-on-year -86 +358 -76
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Engineer 590 753 322
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.74% 1.99% 0.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.79% 2.23% 0.41%
Number of salaries quoted 411 90 176
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,425 £32,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £52,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% +16.67% -18.18%
75th Percentile £62,125 £61,250 £55,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £67,500 £66,742
UK median annual salary £46,500 £52,500 £45,000
% change year-on-year -11.43% +16.67% -16.79%

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 74,369 33,693 78,830
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.85% 89.14% 94.44%
Number of salaries quoted 48,888 21,310 60,127
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,500 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,000 £38,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £54,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +11.11% -11.13%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £72,433
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £91,250
UK median annual salary £55,000 £59,648 £53,000
% change year-on-year -7.79% +12.54% -11.67%

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 2 May 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 2 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
North of England +47 132 £45,000 -7.69% 38
South East -86 130 £45,000 -16.28% 43
East of England -51 123 £45,000 - 31
North West +37 76 £45,000 -5.26% 22
South West -13 73 £55,000 +46.67% 21
Midlands -104 66 £50,000 -4.76% 17
London +9 54 £60,000 +25.00% 9
West Midlands +10 42 £52,500 -12.50% 15
North East - 38 £52,500 - 6
East Midlands -114 24 £50,000 +17.65% 2
Yorkshire -50 18 £40,000 -33.11% 10
Test Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 2 May 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.

1 157 (26.61%) Test Automation
2 91 (15.42%) Validation
3 69 (11.69%) Software Testing
4 60 (10.17%) Agile
5 58 (9.83%) QA
6 55 (9.32%) Verification and Validation
7 50 (8.47%) CI/CD
8 49 (8.31%) Python
9 48 (8.14%) Security Cleared
10 44 (7.46%) Test Strategy
11 43 (7.29%) Degree
11 43 (7.29%) Test Scripting
12 41 (6.95%) Problem-Solving
13 36 (6.10%) Playwright
14 35 (5.93%) AWS
15 33 (5.59%) Continuous Improvement
16 32 (5.42%) Performance Testing
17 30 (5.08%) Java
18 28 (4.75%) Azure
19 27 (4.58%) Selenium
20 26 (4.41%) DevOps
21 24 (4.07%) C#
22 23 (3.90%) API Testing
22 23 (3.90%) LabVIEW
23 22 (3.73%) JavaScript
23 22 (3.73%) JMeter
24 21 (3.56%) Manual Testing
25 20 (3.39%) End-to-End Testing
25 20 (3.39%) SC Cleared
26 19 (3.22%) Cypress.io

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 4 (0.68%) Confluence
2 2 (0.34%) Apache
2 2 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (0.34%) Jupyter
Applications
1 14 (2.37%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (0.68%) Fusion 360
3 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.17%) Endur
1 1 (0.17%) Findur
Cloud Services
1 35 (5.93%) AWS
2 28 (4.75%) Azure
3 14 (2.37%) Azure DevOps
4 12 (2.03%) GitHub
5 8 (1.36%) SaaS
6 5 (0.85%) Azure Pipelines
7 4 (0.68%) GCP
7 4 (0.68%) OpenShift
8 3 (0.51%) Amazon S3
8 3 (0.51%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (0.34%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 2 (0.34%) Amazon EC2
9 2 (0.34%) Amazon EMR
9 2 (0.34%) AWS CodePipeline
9 2 (0.34%) Serverless
10 1 (0.17%) Azure Functions
10 1 (0.17%) BrowserStack
10 1 (0.17%) Dynamics 365
10 1 (0.17%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 9 (1.53%) SD-WAN
1 9 (1.53%) WAN
2 8 (1.36%) 5G
2 8 (1.36%) HTTP
3 2 (0.34%) Wireless
4 1 (0.17%) Broadband
4 1 (0.17%) Cisco IOS
4 1 (0.17%) Ethernet
4 1 (0.17%) FTP
4 1 (0.17%) SNMP
4 1 (0.17%) Spanning Tree
4 1 (0.17%) SSH
4 1 (0.17%) TACACS
4 1 (0.17%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.17%) VoIP
4 1 (0.17%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (1.19%) Elasticsearch
2 4 (0.68%) InfluxDB
3 3 (0.51%) Neo4j
4 2 (0.34%) Amazon Athena
4 2 (0.34%) DynamoDB
5 1 (0.17%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.17%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 27 (4.58%) Selenium
2 23 (3.90%) LabVIEW
3 22 (3.73%) JMeter
4 19 (3.22%) Cypress.io
4 19 (3.22%) Git
5 18 (3.05%) JIRA
6 16 (2.71%) Jenkins
7 15 (2.54%) GitLab
8 13 (2.20%) REST Assured
9 12 (2.03%) Gatling
10 11 (1.86%) LoadRunner
10 11 (1.86%) Postman
11 9 (1.53%) Cucumber
12 8 (1.36%) SpecFlow
13 6 (1.02%) WebDriver
14 5 (0.85%) Robot Framework
14 5 (0.85%) Subversion
14 5 (0.85%) TestRail
15 3 (0.51%) NUnit
15 3 (0.51%) Serenity BDD
General
1 109 (18.47%) Manufacturing
2 101 (17.12%) Electronics
3 46 (7.80%) Aerospace
4 36 (6.10%) Social Skills
5 25 (4.24%) Analytical Skills
6 22 (3.73%) Aviation
6 22 (3.73%) Public Sector
7 15 (2.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 14 (2.37%) Finance
9 10 (1.69%) Automotive
10 9 (1.53%) Organisational Skills
10 9 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
11 8 (1.36%) Documentation Skills
11 8 (1.36%) Games
12 6 (1.02%) Retail
12 6 (1.02%) Telecoms
13 5 (0.85%) Social Housing
14 4 (0.68%) Health Technology
14 4 (0.68%) Military
15 3 (0.51%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (6.10%) Playwright
2 16 (2.71%) pytest
3 11 (1.86%) .NET
4 6 (1.02%) Elastic Stack
5 5 (0.85%) Gherkin
5 5 (0.85%) REST
6 4 (0.68%) React
7 3 (0.51%) AngularJS
7 3 (0.51%) MERN Stack
7 3 (0.51%) Web Services
8 2 (0.34%) GraphQL
8 2 (0.34%) HTML
8 2 (0.34%) Nightwatchjs
8 2 (0.34%) RESTful
8 2 (0.34%) SOAP
9 1 (0.17%) Blazor
9 1 (0.17%) Kafka
9 1 (0.17%) Model Context Protocol
9 1 (0.17%) React Native
9 1 (0.17%) WebAssembly
Miscellaneous
1 13 (2.20%) Distributed Systems
2 11 (1.86%) Embedded Systems
2 11 (1.86%) Self-Motivation
3 8 (1.36%) Mobile App
3 8 (1.36%) Self-Driving Car
4 6 (1.02%) Product Ownership
5 5 (0.85%) Acoustics
5 5 (0.85%) Robotics
6 4 (0.68%) Analogue Electronics
6 4 (0.68%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (0.68%) Life Science
6 4 (0.68%) Online Games
7 3 (0.51%) Analytical Mindset
7 3 (0.51%) Cloud Native
7 3 (0.51%) Renewable Energy
8 2 (0.34%) Smart Energy
9 1 (0.17%) AI Agents
9 1 (0.17%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 15 (2.54%) Windows
2 11 (1.86%) Linux
3 9 (1.53%) Unix
4 4 (0.68%) CentOS
5 2 (0.34%) Android
5 2 (0.34%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.17%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 157 (26.61%) Test Automation
2 91 (15.42%) Validation
3 69 (11.69%) Software Testing
4 60 (10.17%) Agile
5 55 (9.32%) Verification and Validation
6 50 (8.47%) CI/CD
7 44 (7.46%) Test Strategy
8 43 (7.29%) Test Scripting
9 41 (6.95%) Problem-Solving
10 33 (5.59%) Continuous Improvement
11 32 (5.42%) Performance Testing
12 26 (4.41%) DevOps
13 23 (3.90%) API Testing
14 21 (3.56%) Manual Testing
15 20 (3.39%) End-to-End Testing
16 19 (3.22%) Mentoring
17 16 (2.71%) Code Quality
18 14 (2.37%) BDD
18 14 (2.37%) Load Testing
18 14 (2.37%) Non-Functional Testing
Programming Languages
1 49 (8.31%) Python
2 30 (5.08%) Java
3 24 (4.07%) C#
4 22 (3.73%) JavaScript
5 16 (2.71%) TypeScript
6 13 (2.20%) SQL
7 12 (2.03%) MATLAB
8 10 (1.69%) Bash
9 5 (0.85%) C
9 5 (0.85%) PowerShell
10 2 (0.34%) VB
11 1 (0.17%) C++
11 1 (0.17%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 48 (8.14%) Security Cleared
2 43 (7.29%) Degree
3 20 (3.39%) SC Cleared
4 14 (2.37%) HND
5 11 (1.86%) DV Cleared
6 10 (1.69%) ISTQB
7 9 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
8 7 (1.19%) HNC
8 7 (1.19%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 6 (1.02%) Computer Science Degree
10 4 (0.68%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 4 (0.68%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 3 (0.51%) CCA
11 3 (0.51%) Chartered Engineer
12 2 (0.34%) Master's Degree
13 1 (0.17%) ISEB
13 1 (0.17%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 58 (9.83%) QA
2 18 (3.05%) Accessibility
3 6 (1.02%) ISO/IEC 17025
4 4 (0.68%) ISO 13485
5 3 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 12207
6 2 (0.34%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.34%) Def Stans
6 2 (0.34%) IEC 61508
6 2 (0.34%) ISO 26262
6 2 (0.34%) ISO 9001
7 1 (0.17%) COSHH
7 1 (0.17%) GDPR
7 1 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 16 (2.71%) Docker
2 8 (1.36%) Firmware
3 5 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.85%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 15 (2.54%) Kubernetes
2 12 (2.03%) Grafana
3 11 (1.86%) Terraform
4 8 (1.36%) Kibana
5 5 (0.85%) Ansible
6 4 (0.68%) logstash
6 4 (0.68%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.51%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.17%) Argo
8 1 (0.17%) Functional Safety
8 1 (0.17%) HP Fortify
8 1 (0.17%) Puppet
Vendors
1 10 (1.69%) EMC
2 6 (1.02%) Microsoft
3 5 (0.85%) Dynatrace
3 5 (0.85%) Red Hat
3 5 (0.85%) VMware
4 4 (0.68%) AppDynamics
4 4 (0.68%) Atlassian
4 4 (0.68%) Splunk
5 3 (0.51%) ServiceNow
6 2 (0.34%) Guidewire
6 2 (0.34%) IBM
7 1 (0.17%) Cisco
7 1 (0.17%) Meraki
7 1 (0.17%) OneLogin
7 1 (0.17%) OpenLink
7 1 (0.17%) Oracle
7 1 (0.17%) Perfecto Mobile