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 21 February 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 289 262 517
Rank change year-on-year -27 +255 -125
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Engineer 409 516 267
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.67% 1.18% 0.40%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.74% 1.30% 0.42%
Number of salaries quoted 276 81 155
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,750 £32,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £37,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +16.67% -14.29%
75th Percentile £60,000 £60,000 £60,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £65,250 £72,500
UK median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £45,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +16.67% -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 55,493 39,841 63,273
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.39% 91.29% 94.64%
Number of salaries quoted 35,858 21,335 50,538
10th Percentile £29,250 £33,000 £28,750
25th Percentile £38,000 £45,000 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.29%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £95,000
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 21 February 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 21 February 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 -17 101 £47,500 -13.64% 48
South East -109 71 £45,000 -14.29% 45
North of England +13 67 £45,000 -5.26% 35
South West +23 63 £55,000 +58.27% 22
Midlands -26 53 £50,000 - 24
London +60 44 £55,000 -15.38% 10
North West +19 40 £45,000 -5.26% 25
West Midlands +32 36 £55,000 - 19
North East +1 18 £40,000 -38.46% 4
East Midlands -78 17 £50,000 +17.65% 5
Yorkshire -27 9 £52,000 +74.79% 6
Test Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 21 February 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.

1 126 (30.81%) Test Automation
2 51 (12.47%) Validation
3 48 (11.74%) Python
3 48 (11.74%) Software Testing
4 45 (11.00%) Problem-Solving
5 44 (10.76%) Agile
5 44 (10.76%) Security Cleared
6 38 (9.29%) QA
7 36 (8.80%) Verification and Validation
8 35 (8.56%) Degree
9 32 (7.82%) Selenium
9 32 (7.82%) Test Scripting
10 31 (7.58%) CI/CD
11 30 (7.33%) Playwright
12 28 (6.85%) Performance Testing
13 27 (6.60%) Continuous Improvement
14 25 (6.11%) LabVIEW
14 25 (6.11%) Manual Testing
15 24 (5.87%) AWS
16 23 (5.62%) Azure
17 22 (5.38%) Java
17 22 (5.38%) JavaScript
18 20 (4.89%) Test Strategy
19 19 (4.65%) AI
19 19 (4.65%) DevOps
19 19 (4.65%) Git
20 18 (4.40%) API Testing
20 18 (4.40%) HND
20 18 (4.40%) JMeter
20 18 (4.40%) pytest

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 6 (1.47%) Confluence
2 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 11 (2.69%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (0.98%) Fusion 360
Business Applications
1 2 (0.49%) Oracle ERP
1 2 (0.49%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 24 (5.87%) AWS
2 23 (5.62%) Azure
3 16 (3.91%) GitHub
4 8 (1.96%) Azure DevOps
5 5 (1.22%) Power Platform
5 5 (1.22%) SaaS
6 4 (0.98%) BrowserStack
6 4 (0.98%) GCP
6 4 (0.98%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (0.49%) Azure Pipelines
7 2 (0.49%) BlazeMeter
8 1 (0.24%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 1 (0.24%) Amazon S3
8 1 (0.24%) Microsoft 365
8 1 (0.24%) OpenShift
8 1 (0.24%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 9 (2.20%) SD-WAN
1 9 (2.20%) WAN
2 8 (1.96%) 5G
3 3 (0.73%) HTTP
4 2 (0.49%) Wireless
5 1 (0.24%) Cisco IOS
5 1 (0.24%) DHCP
5 1 (0.24%) DNS
5 1 (0.24%) Ethernet
5 1 (0.24%) FTP
5 1 (0.24%) SNMP
5 1 (0.24%) Spanning Tree
5 1 (0.24%) SSH
5 1 (0.24%) TACACS
5 1 (0.24%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.24%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (1.47%) Elasticsearch
2 4 (0.98%) Neo4j
3 2 (0.49%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (0.49%) MongoDB
3 2 (0.49%) Oracle Database
3 2 (0.49%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (0.49%) Relational Database
3 2 (0.49%) Tableau
4 1 (0.24%) InfluxDB
4 1 (0.24%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 32 (7.82%) Selenium
2 25 (6.11%) LabVIEW
3 19 (4.65%) Git
4 18 (4.40%) JMeter
5 17 (4.16%) JIRA
6 16 (3.91%) Cypress.io
7 12 (2.93%) Jenkins
8 11 (2.69%) Cucumber
8 11 (2.69%) Postman
9 10 (2.44%) REST Assured
10 8 (1.96%) LoadRunner
11 7 (1.71%) Subversion
12 6 (1.47%) Gatling
12 6 (1.47%) SpecFlow
13 5 (1.22%) GitLab
13 5 (1.22%) WebDriver
14 4 (0.98%) Appium
14 4 (0.98%) NUnit
14 4 (0.98%) SonarQube
14 4 (0.98%) TestRail
General
1 75 (18.34%) Manufacturing
2 60 (14.67%) Electronics
3 33 (8.07%) Social Skills
4 19 (4.65%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (4.40%) Aerospace
5 18 (4.40%) Finance
6 15 (3.67%) Aviation
7 12 (2.93%) Public Sector
8 9 (2.20%) Organisational Skills
8 9 (2.20%) Presentation Skills
9 8 (1.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 7 (1.71%) Military
11 6 (1.47%) Documentation Skills
11 6 (1.47%) Telecoms
12 5 (1.22%) Automotive
12 5 (1.22%) Games
12 5 (1.22%) Social Housing
13 3 (0.73%) Avionics
14 2 (0.49%) Advertising
15 1 (0.24%) Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (7.33%) Playwright
2 18 (4.40%) pytest
3 8 (1.96%) .NET
3 8 (1.96%) REST
4 5 (1.22%) Kafka
4 5 (1.22%) Web Services
5 4 (0.98%) AngularJS
5 4 (0.98%) MERN Stack
5 4 (0.98%) React
6 3 (0.73%) Middleware
6 3 (0.73%) RESTful
6 3 (0.73%) SOAP
6 3 (0.73%) YAML
7 2 (0.49%) Elastic Stack
7 2 (0.49%) GraphQL
7 2 (0.49%) HTML
7 2 (0.49%) Nightwatchjs
7 2 (0.49%) Swagger
8 1 (0.24%) WebAssembly
8 1 (0.24%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 14 (3.42%) Self-Motivation
2 8 (1.96%) Self-Driving Car
3 6 (1.47%) Robotics
4 5 (1.22%) Distributed Systems
4 5 (1.22%) Embedded Systems
5 4 (0.98%) GNSS
5 4 (0.98%) Life Science
5 4 (0.98%) Satnav
6 3 (0.73%) Acoustics
6 3 (0.73%) Analogue Electronics
6 3 (0.73%) e-Learning
6 3 (0.73%) Fibre Optics
6 3 (0.73%) Mobile App
7 2 (0.49%) AI Agents
7 2 (0.49%) Renewable Energy
7 2 (0.49%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 1 (0.24%) Hackathon
8 1 (0.24%) Linux Command Line
8 1 (0.24%) PKI
8 1 (0.24%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 16 (3.91%) Windows
2 12 (2.93%) Unix
3 7 (1.71%) Linux
4 3 (0.73%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.49%) Android
6 1 (0.24%) CentOS
6 1 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.24%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 126 (30.81%) Test Automation
2 51 (12.47%) Validation
3 48 (11.74%) Software Testing
4 45 (11.00%) Problem-Solving
5 44 (10.76%) Agile
6 36 (8.80%) Verification and Validation
7 32 (7.82%) Test Scripting
8 31 (7.58%) CI/CD
9 28 (6.85%) Performance Testing
10 27 (6.60%) Continuous Improvement
11 25 (6.11%) Manual Testing
12 20 (4.89%) Test Strategy
13 19 (4.65%) AI
13 19 (4.65%) DevOps
14 18 (4.40%) API Testing
15 16 (3.91%) Kalman Filter
16 15 (3.67%) End-to-End Testing
17 14 (3.42%) Mentoring
18 13 (3.18%) Non-Functional Testing
18 13 (3.18%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 48 (11.74%) Python
2 22 (5.38%) Java
2 22 (5.38%) JavaScript
3 16 (3.91%) TypeScript
4 15 (3.67%) C#
5 14 (3.42%) MATLAB
6 13 (3.18%) SQL
7 4 (0.98%) C
8 2 (0.49%) Bash
8 2 (0.49%) Scala
8 2 (0.49%) VB
9 1 (0.24%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.24%) PowerShell
9 1 (0.24%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.24%) Swift
Qualifications
1 44 (10.76%) Security Cleared
2 35 (8.56%) Degree
3 18 (4.40%) HND
4 17 (4.16%) SC Cleared
5 14 (3.42%) ISTQB
6 11 (2.69%) BPSS Clearance
7 9 (2.20%) DV Cleared
8 8 (1.96%) HNC
9 5 (1.22%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 4 (0.98%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 3 (0.73%) CCA
12 2 (0.49%) Master's Degree
13 1 (0.24%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 1 (0.24%) Computer Science Degree
13 1 (0.24%) MCSA
13 1 (0.24%) MCSE
13 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Certification
13 1 (0.24%) Numerate Degree
13 1 (0.24%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (9.29%) QA
2 15 (3.67%) Accessibility
3 5 (1.22%) ISO/IEC 17025
4 4 (0.98%) ISO 13485
5 2 (0.49%) SEPA
6 1 (0.24%) ISO 9001
6 1 (0.24%) WCAG
System Software
1 15 (3.67%) Docker
2 3 (0.73%) Firmware
2 3 (0.73%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.24%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 13 (3.18%) Kubernetes
2 5 (1.22%) Grafana
2 5 (1.22%) Terraform
3 3 (0.73%) HP Fortify
3 3 (0.73%) Kibana
3 3 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (0.49%) Control-M
4 2 (0.49%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.24%) Ansible
5 1 (0.24%) Argo
5 1 (0.24%) logstash
5 1 (0.24%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 9 (2.20%) Microsoft
2 6 (1.47%) EMC
3 5 (1.22%) Oracle
4 4 (0.98%) IBM
4 4 (0.98%) ServiceNow
5 3 (0.73%) Dynatrace
5 3 (0.73%) Samsung
5 3 (0.73%) VMware
6 2 (0.49%) AppDynamics
6 2 (0.49%) CA Agile Central
6 2 (0.49%) Guidewire
6 2 (0.49%) Red Hat
7 1 (0.24%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.24%) Cisco
7 1 (0.24%) Meraki
7 1 (0.24%) OneLogin
7 1 (0.24%) Splunk