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 30 May 2026.

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

6 months to
30 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 249 120 494
Rank change year-on-year -129 +374 -13
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Engineer 629 1,068 346
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.76% 2.76% 0.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.81% 3.08% 0.42%
Number of salaries quoted 461 88 188
10th Percentile £34,500 £33,000 £32,675
25th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £38,563
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £51,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +13.33% -16.79%
75th Percentile £65,000 £61,250 £55,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £67,500 £65,000
UK median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £45,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +16.67% -16.67%

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 77,699 34,696 83,000
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.44% 89.68% 94.64%
Number of salaries quoted 52,970 19,964 62,604
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £40,615 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,500 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -3.48% +9.52% -13.65%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £71,250
90th Percentile £96,250 £100,000 £90,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%

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 30 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 30 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 +82 176 £50,000 +8.11% 42
South East -110 141 £48,789 -7.07% 33
East of England -87 98 £48,750 +16.07% 23
North West +69 91 £45,000 - 22
South West -19 74 £55,000 +4.76% 30
Midlands -135 70 £50,000 +47.06% 27
London -6 59 £53,250 +14.52% 15
West Midlands +8 52 £50,000 -16.67% 24
North East - 51 £52,500 - 10
Yorkshire -20 34 £40,000 -33.11% 11
East Midlands -123 18 £30,000 -9.09% 3
Test Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 30 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.

1 185 (29.41%) Test Automation
2 91 (14.47%) Validation
3 77 (12.24%) Agile
3 77 (12.24%) Software Testing
4 71 (11.29%) QA
5 66 (10.49%) CI/CD
6 59 (9.38%) Test Strategy
7 54 (8.59%) Problem-Solving
8 53 (8.43%) Python
8 53 (8.43%) Security Cleared
9 50 (7.95%) Degree
10 47 (7.47%) Verification and Validation
11 46 (7.31%) Continuous Improvement
12 45 (7.15%) Java
13 44 (7.00%) AWS
14 42 (6.68%) Test Scripting
15 40 (6.36%) Mentoring
16 36 (5.72%) Playwright
17 33 (5.25%) DevOps
18 31 (4.93%) LabVIEW
19 30 (4.77%) Azure
19 30 (4.77%) JavaScript
20 29 (4.61%) Coaching
20 29 (4.61%) Performance Testing
20 29 (4.61%) SC Cleared
21 27 (4.29%) Accessibility
22 26 (4.13%) Manual Testing
23 25 (3.97%) API Testing
23 25 (3.97%) C#
23 25 (3.97%) End-to-End Testing

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 5 (0.79%) Apache
1 5 (0.79%) Apache Airflow
1 5 (0.79%) Jupyter
2 4 (0.64%) Confluence
3 3 (0.48%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 17 (2.70%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.48%) Fusion 360
3 2 (0.32%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.16%) AutoCAD
4 1 (0.16%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 1 (0.16%) Endur
1 1 (0.16%) Findur
Cloud Services
1 44 (7.00%) AWS
2 30 (4.77%) Azure
3 18 (2.86%) Azure DevOps
4 14 (2.23%) GitHub
5 11 (1.75%) SaaS
6 5 (0.79%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 5 (0.79%) Amazon EC2
6 5 (0.79%) Amazon EMR
6 5 (0.79%) Amazon S3
6 5 (0.79%) Azure Pipelines
7 4 (0.64%) GCP
7 4 (0.64%) OpenShift
8 3 (0.48%) Amazon ECR
8 3 (0.48%) AWS CodePipeline
9 2 (0.32%) Azure Functions
9 2 (0.32%) BrowserStack
9 2 (0.32%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (0.32%) Serverless
10 1 (0.16%) Dynamics 365
10 1 (0.16%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 10 (1.59%) 5G
1 10 (1.59%) HTTP
1 10 (1.59%) SD-WAN
1 10 (1.59%) WAN
2 9 (1.43%) Wireless
3 1 (0.16%) 3GPP
3 1 (0.16%) Broadband
3 1 (0.16%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.16%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.95%) Elasticsearch
2 5 (0.79%) Amazon Athena
2 5 (0.79%) DynamoDB
3 4 (0.64%) InfluxDB
4 2 (0.32%) Big Data
4 2 (0.32%) Data Lake
4 2 (0.32%) Neo4j
5 1 (0.16%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.16%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.16%) Power BI
5 1 (0.16%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 31 (4.93%) LabVIEW
2 25 (3.97%) Git
3 23 (3.66%) Selenium
4 21 (3.34%) JMeter
5 20 (3.18%) GitLab
6 18 (2.86%) Cypress.io
6 18 (2.86%) Jenkins
7 17 (2.70%) JIRA
8 13 (2.07%) REST Assured
9 12 (1.91%) Gatling
10 11 (1.75%) Postman
11 10 (1.59%) Cucumber
11 10 (1.59%) LoadRunner
12 9 (1.43%) SpecFlow
13 6 (0.95%) TestRail
13 6 (0.95%) WebDriver
14 4 (0.64%) Robot Framework
14 4 (0.64%) Subversion
15 3 (0.48%) NUnit
15 3 (0.48%) SoapUI
General
1 116 (18.44%) Electronics
2 114 (18.12%) Manufacturing
3 51 (8.11%) Aerospace
4 43 (6.84%) Social Skills
5 39 (6.20%) Public Sector
6 31 (4.93%) Analytical Skills
7 21 (3.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 19 (3.02%) Automotive
9 16 (2.54%) Aviation
9 16 (2.54%) Finance
10 12 (1.91%) Telecoms
11 11 (1.75%) Organisational Skills
11 11 (1.75%) Presentation Skills
12 9 (1.43%) Documentation Skills
13 8 (1.27%) Games
14 6 (0.95%) Health Technology
14 6 (0.95%) Influencing Skills
14 6 (0.95%) Retail
15 3 (0.48%) Legal
15 3 (0.48%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (5.72%) Playwright
2 17 (2.70%) pytest
3 12 (1.91%) .NET
4 7 (1.11%) REST
5 5 (0.79%) Elastic Stack
5 5 (0.79%) Gherkin
6 3 (0.48%) React
6 3 (0.48%) RESTful
6 3 (0.48%) Web Services
7 2 (0.32%) AngularJS
7 2 (0.32%) GraphQL
7 2 (0.32%) HTML
7 2 (0.32%) MERN Stack
7 2 (0.32%) Nightwatchjs
7 2 (0.32%) PySpark
7 2 (0.32%) SOAP
7 2 (0.32%) YAML
8 1 (0.16%) Blazor
8 1 (0.16%) Model Context Protocol
8 1 (0.16%) WebAssembly
Miscellaneous
1 16 (2.54%) Distributed Systems
2 14 (2.23%) Self-Motivation
3 11 (1.75%) Mobile App
4 10 (1.59%) Embedded Systems
4 10 (1.59%) Product Ownership
4 10 (1.59%) Self-Driving Car
5 5 (0.79%) Acoustics
5 5 (0.79%) Cloud Native
5 5 (0.79%) Robotics
5 5 (0.79%) Smart Energy
6 4 (0.64%) Analogue Electronics
6 4 (0.64%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (0.64%) Online Games
6 4 (0.64%) Renewable Energy
7 3 (0.48%) Analytical Mindset
7 3 (0.48%) Life Science
7 3 (0.48%) Low-Code
8 1 (0.16%) Arduino
8 1 (0.16%) FMCG
8 1 (0.16%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 18 (2.86%) Windows
2 11 (1.75%) Linux
2 11 (1.75%) Unix
3 5 (0.79%) Android
3 5 (0.79%) Apple iOS
4 4 (0.64%) CentOS
5 1 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.16%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 185 (29.41%) Test Automation
2 91 (14.47%) Validation
3 77 (12.24%) Agile
3 77 (12.24%) Software Testing
4 66 (10.49%) CI/CD
5 59 (9.38%) Test Strategy
6 54 (8.59%) Problem-Solving
7 47 (7.47%) Verification and Validation
8 46 (7.31%) Continuous Improvement
9 42 (6.68%) Test Scripting
10 40 (6.36%) Mentoring
11 33 (5.25%) DevOps
12 29 (4.61%) Coaching
12 29 (4.61%) Performance Testing
13 26 (4.13%) Manual Testing
14 25 (3.97%) API Testing
14 25 (3.97%) End-to-End Testing
15 24 (3.82%) Non-Functional Testing
16 22 (3.50%) Defect Management
17 18 (2.86%) Continuous Integration
Programming Languages
1 53 (8.43%) Python
2 45 (7.15%) Java
3 30 (4.77%) JavaScript
4 25 (3.97%) C#
5 19 (3.02%) SQL
6 18 (2.86%) TypeScript
7 13 (2.07%) MATLAB
8 12 (1.91%) Bash
9 7 (1.11%) C
9 7 (1.11%) C++
10 5 (0.79%) PowerShell
10 5 (0.79%) VB
11 1 (0.16%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 53 (8.43%) Security Cleared
2 50 (7.95%) Degree
3 29 (4.61%) SC Cleared
4 16 (2.54%) HND
5 13 (2.07%) HNC
6 12 (1.91%) DV Cleared
6 12 (1.91%) ISTQB
7 9 (1.43%) BPSS Clearance
8 8 (1.27%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 7 (1.11%) Computer Science Degree
10 4 (0.64%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 4 (0.64%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 3 (0.48%) CCA
11 3 (0.48%) Chartered Engineer
11 3 (0.48%) NVQ Level 3
12 2 (0.32%) Master's Degree
13 1 (0.16%) City & Guilds
13 1 (0.16%) DBS Check
13 1 (0.16%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 71 (11.29%) QA
2 27 (4.29%) Accessibility
3 6 (0.95%) ISO/IEC 17025
4 3 (0.48%) Data Quality
4 3 (0.48%) ISO 13485
4 3 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 12207
5 2 (0.32%) Def Stans
5 2 (0.32%) IEC 61508
5 2 (0.32%) ISO 26262
5 2 (0.32%) ISO 9001
6 1 (0.16%) COSHH
6 1 (0.16%) GDPR
6 1 (0.16%) Software Quality Assurance
6 1 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 18 (2.86%) Docker
2 12 (1.91%) Firmware
3 5 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.79%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 20 (3.18%) Terraform
2 13 (2.07%) Kubernetes
3 11 (1.75%) Grafana
4 8 (1.27%) Kibana
5 5 (0.79%) Ansible
6 4 (0.64%) logstash
6 4 (0.64%) vCenter Server
7 2 (0.32%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.16%) Functional Safety
8 1 (0.16%) Puppet
Vendors
1 9 (1.43%) Microsoft
2 8 (1.27%) EMC
3 5 (0.79%) Red Hat
3 5 (0.79%) VMware
4 4 (0.64%) AppDynamics
4 4 (0.64%) Atlassian
4 4 (0.64%) Dynatrace
4 4 (0.64%) Splunk
5 3 (0.48%) Keysight
5 3 (0.48%) ServiceNow
6 2 (0.32%) Guidewire
6 2 (0.32%) Peregrine
7 1 (0.16%) IBM
7 1 (0.16%) OpenLink
7 1 (0.16%) Oracle
7 1 (0.16%) Perfecto Mobile