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 8 March 2026.

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

6 months to
8 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 281 254 524
Rank change year-on-year -27 +270 -118
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Engineer 445 490 263
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.70% 1.20% 0.36%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.76% 1.32% 0.38%
Number of salaries quoted 303 70 161
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 £58,000 £62,500 £56,184
90th Percentile £75,000 £67,050 £70,000
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 58,452 37,046 68,825
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.71% 90.90% 94.46%
Number of salaries quoted 37,962 21,148 54,559
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,110 £28,500
25th Percentile £39,281 £45,000 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -9.97%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £73,750
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 8 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 8 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 -14 109 £45,000 -18.18% 23
South East -95 79 £45,000 -16.28% 36
North of England +27 78 £40,000 -15.79% 32
South West +21 62 £55,000 +59.42% 19
Midlands -31 57 £50,000 -4.76% 26
London +41 50 £57,500 -11.54% 16
North West +32 50 £40,000 -15.79% 21
West Midlands +35 39 £50,000 -11.11% 23
North East +2 18 £40,000 -38.46% 3
East Midlands -71 18 £50,000 +17.65% 3
Yorkshire -27 10 £52,000 +74.79% 8
Test Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 8 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.

1 124 (27.87%) Test Automation
2 53 (11.91%) Validation
3 47 (10.56%) Python
4 45 (10.11%) Agile
4 45 (10.11%) Software Testing
5 43 (9.66%) Security Cleared
6 42 (9.44%) Problem-Solving
7 36 (8.09%) Degree
7 36 (8.09%) Verification and Validation
8 35 (7.87%) QA
9 34 (7.64%) Test Scripting
10 31 (6.97%) CI/CD
11 29 (6.52%) AWS
11 29 (6.52%) Selenium
12 28 (6.29%) Performance Testing
13 27 (6.07%) Playwright
14 26 (5.84%) Continuous Improvement
14 26 (5.84%) LabVIEW
15 25 (5.62%) Azure
16 23 (5.17%) JavaScript
16 23 (5.17%) Test Strategy
17 21 (4.72%) DevOps
18 20 (4.49%) Java
18 20 (4.49%) Manual Testing
19 19 (4.27%) API Testing
20 18 (4.04%) AI
20 18 (4.04%) Git
20 18 (4.04%) HND
20 18 (4.04%) pytest
20 18 (4.04%) SC Cleared

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 (1.57%) Confluence
2 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 12 (2.70%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (0.90%) Fusion 360
Business Applications
1 2 (0.45%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 29 (6.52%) AWS
2 25 (5.62%) Azure
3 16 (3.60%) GitHub
4 9 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
5 5 (1.12%) SaaS
6 4 (0.90%) GCP
6 4 (0.90%) GitHub Actions
6 4 (0.90%) Power Platform
7 3 (0.67%) Azure Pipelines
8 2 (0.45%) BrowserStack
9 1 (0.22%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 1 (0.22%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.22%) Microsoft 365
9 1 (0.22%) OpenShift
9 1 (0.22%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 9 (2.02%) SD-WAN
1 9 (2.02%) WAN
2 8 (1.80%) 5G
3 6 (1.35%) HTTP
4 2 (0.45%) 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 (1.80%) Elasticsearch
2 4 (0.90%) Neo4j
3 2 (0.45%) Relational Database
3 2 (0.45%) Tableau
4 1 (0.22%) InfluxDB
4 1 (0.22%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.22%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 29 (6.52%) Selenium
2 26 (5.84%) LabVIEW
3 18 (4.04%) Git
4 17 (3.82%) JMeter
5 16 (3.60%) Cypress.io
6 15 (3.37%) JIRA
7 11 (2.47%) Cucumber
8 10 (2.25%) Postman
9 9 (2.02%) Gatling
9 9 (2.02%) Jenkins
9 9 (2.02%) LoadRunner
10 8 (1.80%) REST Assured
10 8 (1.80%) SpecFlow
11 5 (1.12%) GitLab
11 5 (1.12%) NUnit
11 5 (1.12%) Subversion
11 5 (1.12%) WebDriver
12 4 (0.90%) Appium
12 4 (0.90%) SonarQube
13 3 (0.67%) Serenity BDD
General
1 83 (18.65%) Manufacturing
2 70 (15.73%) Electronics
3 33 (7.42%) Social Skills
4 20 (4.49%) Aerospace
5 19 (4.27%) Analytical Skills
6 17 (3.82%) Finance
6 17 (3.82%) Public Sector
7 15 (3.37%) Aviation
8 12 (2.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 9 (2.02%) Organisational Skills
9 9 (2.02%) Presentation Skills
10 7 (1.57%) Military
11 6 (1.35%) Documentation Skills
11 6 (1.35%) Telecoms
12 5 (1.12%) Automotive
12 5 (1.12%) Social Housing
13 4 (0.90%) Games
14 3 (0.67%) Avionics
15 2 (0.45%) Advertising
15 2 (0.45%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (6.07%) Playwright
2 18 (4.04%) pytest
3 9 (2.02%) .NET
4 5 (1.12%) REST
4 5 (1.12%) Web Services
5 4 (0.90%) AngularJS
5 4 (0.90%) MERN Stack
5 4 (0.90%) React
6 3 (0.67%) Kafka
6 3 (0.67%) Middleware
6 3 (0.67%) SOAP
6 3 (0.67%) YAML
7 2 (0.45%) Elastic Stack
7 2 (0.45%) Gherkin
7 2 (0.45%) GraphQL
7 2 (0.45%) HTML
7 2 (0.45%) Nightwatchjs
7 2 (0.45%) RESTful
8 1 (0.22%) WebAssembly
8 1 (0.22%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 13 (2.92%) Self-Motivation
2 9 (2.02%) Distributed Systems
3 8 (1.80%) Self-Driving Car
4 5 (1.12%) Embedded Systems
4 5 (1.12%) Mobile App
4 5 (1.12%) Robotics
5 4 (0.90%) GNSS
5 4 (0.90%) Life Science
5 4 (0.90%) Satnav
6 3 (0.67%) Acoustics
6 3 (0.67%) Analogue Electronics
7 2 (0.45%) AI Agents
7 2 (0.45%) e-Learning
7 2 (0.45%) Fibre Optics
7 2 (0.45%) Renewable Energy
8 1 (0.22%) Analytical Mindset
8 1 (0.22%) Driving Licence
8 1 (0.22%) Hackathon
8 1 (0.22%) Linux Command Line
8 1 (0.22%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 17 (3.82%) Windows
2 12 (2.70%) Unix
3 5 (1.12%) Linux
4 3 (0.67%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.45%) Android
6 1 (0.22%) CentOS
6 1 (0.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 124 (27.87%) Test Automation
2 53 (11.91%) Validation
3 45 (10.11%) Agile
3 45 (10.11%) Software Testing
4 42 (9.44%) Problem-Solving
5 36 (8.09%) Verification and Validation
6 34 (7.64%) Test Scripting
7 31 (6.97%) CI/CD
8 28 (6.29%) Performance Testing
9 26 (5.84%) Continuous Improvement
10 23 (5.17%) Test Strategy
11 21 (4.72%) DevOps
12 20 (4.49%) Manual Testing
13 19 (4.27%) API Testing
14 18 (4.04%) AI
15 17 (3.82%) End-to-End Testing
15 17 (3.82%) Kalman Filter
16 14 (3.15%) Mentoring
17 12 (2.70%) BDD
17 12 (2.70%) Non-Functional Testing
Programming Languages
1 47 (10.56%) Python
2 23 (5.17%) JavaScript
3 20 (4.49%) Java
4 15 (3.37%) TypeScript
5 14 (3.15%) C#
6 13 (2.92%) MATLAB
7 12 (2.70%) SQL
8 4 (0.90%) C
9 2 (0.45%) Bash
9 2 (0.45%) PowerShell
9 2 (0.45%) Scala
9 2 (0.45%) VB
10 1 (0.22%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.22%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.22%) Swift
Qualifications
1 43 (9.66%) Security Cleared
2 36 (8.09%) Degree
3 18 (4.04%) HND
3 18 (4.04%) SC Cleared
4 12 (2.70%) ISTQB
5 11 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (2.47%) DV Cleared
6 7 (1.57%) HNC
7 5 (1.12%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 4 (0.90%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 3 (0.67%) CCA
10 2 (0.45%) Master's Degree
11 1 (0.22%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
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 35 (7.87%) QA
2 11 (2.47%) Accessibility
3 5 (1.12%) ISO/IEC 17025
4 4 (0.90%) ISO 13485
5 2 (0.45%) ISO 9001
6 1 (0.22%) COSHH
6 1 (0.22%) WCAG
System Software
1 14 (3.15%) Docker
2 3 (0.67%) Firmware
2 3 (0.67%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.22%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 14 (3.15%) Kubernetes
2 7 (1.57%) Grafana
3 6 (1.35%) Terraform
4 5 (1.12%) Kibana
5 3 (0.67%) HP Fortify
5 3 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.45%) Control-M
6 2 (0.45%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.22%) Ansible
7 1 (0.22%) Argo
7 1 (0.22%) logstash
7 1 (0.22%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 8 (1.80%) Microsoft
2 7 (1.57%) EMC
3 5 (1.12%) Dynatrace
4 4 (0.90%) AppDynamics
4 4 (0.90%) IBM
5 3 (0.67%) Oracle
5 3 (0.67%) Samsung
5 3 (0.67%) ServiceNow
5 3 (0.67%) VMware
6 2 (0.45%) Guidewire
6 2 (0.45%) Red Hat
7 1 (0.22%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.22%) Cisco
7 1 (0.22%) Meraki
7 1 (0.22%) OneLogin
7 1 (0.22%) Splunk