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 17 June 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 237 120 489
Rank change year-on-year -117 +369 +1
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Engineer 665 1,080 392
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.80% 2.73% 0.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.85% 3.04% 0.44%
Number of salaries quoted 494 92 208
10th Percentile £34,650 £33,000 £32,750
25th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £39,416
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £51,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +13.33% -15.09%
75th Percentile £65,000 £61,250 £55,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £68,625 £65,000
UK median annual salary £50,000 £51,312 £45,000
% change year-on-year -2.56% +14.03% -14.68%

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 78,266 35,581 89,728
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.06% 89.96% 94.61%
Number of salaries quoted 55,070 20,653 66,430
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,239 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -0.45% +9.52% -12.86%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £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 17 June 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 17 June 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 +111 198 £50,000 +14.29% 47
South East -92 166 £48,789 -7.07% 35
North West +79 108 £49,130 +9.18% 21
East of England -83 95 £50,000 +28.21% 29
South West -26 71 £52,500 - 24
Midlands -131 63 £50,000 +42.86% 22
London -5 61 £55,000 +16.40% 18
North East - 52 £52,500 - 10
West Midlands +19 49 £62,500 -3.85% 17
Yorkshire -14 38 £40,000 +14.29% 17
East Midlands -131 14 £30,000 -9.09% 5
Test Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 17 June 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.

1 188 (28.27%) Test Automation
2 96 (14.44%) Validation
3 83 (12.48%) QA
4 78 (11.73%) Agile
5 77 (11.58%) Software Testing
6 70 (10.53%) CI/CD
7 61 (9.17%) Test Strategy
8 60 (9.02%) Python
9 59 (8.87%) Security Cleared
10 53 (7.97%) Problem-Solving
11 49 (7.37%) Degree
12 47 (7.07%) AWS
13 45 (6.77%) Continuous Improvement
13 45 (6.77%) Java
14 42 (6.32%) Verification and Validation
15 38 (5.71%) Mentoring
15 38 (5.71%) Playwright
15 38 (5.71%) Test Scripting
16 36 (5.41%) DevOps
17 35 (5.26%) Azure
18 34 (5.11%) SC Cleared
19 31 (4.66%) JavaScript
19 31 (4.66%) LabVIEW
20 29 (4.36%) Accessibility
20 29 (4.36%) Coaching
20 29 (4.36%) Manual Testing
21 28 (4.21%) Performance Testing
22 27 (4.06%) API Testing
23 26 (3.91%) Git
23 26 (3.91%) SQL

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 (0.75%) Apache
1 5 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
1 5 (0.75%) Jupyter
2 4 (0.60%) Confluence
3 3 (0.45%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 16 (2.41%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.45%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.15%) AutoCAD
3 1 (0.15%) Fusion 360
3 1 (0.15%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 1 (0.15%) Endur
1 1 (0.15%) Findur
Cloud Services
1 47 (7.07%) AWS
2 35 (5.26%) Azure
3 20 (3.01%) Azure DevOps
4 15 (2.26%) SaaS
5 14 (2.11%) GitHub
6 5 (0.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 5 (0.75%) Amazon EC2
6 5 (0.75%) Amazon EMR
6 5 (0.75%) Amazon S3
6 5 (0.75%) Azure Pipelines
6 5 (0.75%) GCP
6 5 (0.75%) OpenShift
7 3 (0.45%) Amazon ECR
7 3 (0.45%) AWS CodePipeline
8 2 (0.30%) Azure Functions
8 2 (0.30%) BrowserStack
8 2 (0.30%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (0.30%) Serverless
9 1 (0.15%) Dynamics 365
9 1 (0.15%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 10 (1.50%) HTTP
1 10 (1.50%) Wireless
2 9 (1.35%) 5G
2 9 (1.35%) SD-WAN
2 9 (1.35%) WAN
3 3 (0.45%) 3GPP
4 2 (0.30%) DNS
4 2 (0.30%) MGW
4 2 (0.30%) MVNO
4 2 (0.30%) Packet Switching
4 2 (0.30%) RTP
4 2 (0.30%) SGSN
4 2 (0.30%) SMPP
5 1 (0.15%) Broadband
5 1 (0.15%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (1.05%) Elasticsearch
2 5 (0.75%) Amazon Athena
2 5 (0.75%) DynamoDB
2 5 (0.75%) InfluxDB
3 3 (0.45%) Neo4j
4 2 (0.30%) Big Data
4 2 (0.30%) Data Lake
4 2 (0.30%) Data Warehouse
5 1 (0.15%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.15%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.15%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 31 (4.66%) LabVIEW
2 26 (3.91%) Git
3 24 (3.61%) Selenium
4 23 (3.46%) JMeter
5 21 (3.16%) Cypress.io
6 20 (3.01%) GitLab
7 19 (2.86%) Jenkins
8 15 (2.26%) REST Assured
9 12 (1.80%) Cucumber
9 12 (1.80%) Gatling
9 12 (1.80%) JIRA
9 12 (1.80%) Postman
10 10 (1.50%) LoadRunner
11 9 (1.35%) SpecFlow
12 7 (1.05%) Robot Framework
13 6 (0.90%) TestRail
14 5 (0.75%) WebDriver
15 3 (0.45%) NUnit
15 3 (0.45%) SoapUI
16 2 (0.30%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 119 (17.89%) Electronics
2 117 (17.59%) Manufacturing
3 52 (7.82%) Aerospace
4 39 (5.86%) Public Sector
5 38 (5.71%) Social Skills
6 27 (4.06%) Analytical Skills
7 23 (3.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 22 (3.31%) Automotive
9 20 (3.01%) Finance
10 16 (2.41%) Aviation
11 12 (1.80%) Telecoms
12 10 (1.50%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (1.35%) Presentation Skills
14 8 (1.20%) Games
15 6 (0.90%) Documentation Skills
15 6 (0.90%) Health Technology
15 6 (0.90%) Influencing Skills
15 6 (0.90%) Retail
16 3 (0.45%) Legal
16 3 (0.45%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (5.71%) Playwright
2 18 (2.71%) pytest
3 12 (1.80%) .NET
4 7 (1.05%) REST
5 6 (0.90%) Elastic Stack
6 5 (0.75%) Gherkin
7 4 (0.60%) React
8 3 (0.45%) AngularJS
8 3 (0.45%) HTML
8 3 (0.45%) MERN Stack
8 3 (0.45%) RESTful
8 3 (0.45%) Web Services
9 2 (0.30%) GraphQL
9 2 (0.30%) Model Context Protocol
9 2 (0.30%) Nightwatchjs
9 2 (0.30%) PySpark
9 2 (0.30%) SOAP
9 2 (0.30%) Vue
9 2 (0.30%) YAML
10 1 (0.15%) WebAssembly
Miscellaneous
1 17 (2.56%) Distributed Systems
2 12 (1.80%) Product Ownership
2 12 (1.80%) Self-Motivation
3 11 (1.65%) Mobile App
4 9 (1.35%) Self-Driving Car
5 7 (1.05%) Smart Energy
6 6 (0.90%) Cloud Native
6 6 (0.90%) Embedded Systems
7 5 (0.75%) Acoustics
7 5 (0.75%) Robotics
8 4 (0.60%) Analogue Electronics
8 4 (0.60%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (0.60%) Online Games
8 4 (0.60%) Renewable Energy
9 3 (0.45%) AI Agents
9 3 (0.45%) Low-Code
10 2 (0.30%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (0.30%) IVR
11 1 (0.15%) Arduino
11 1 (0.15%) FMCG
Operating Systems
1 18 (2.71%) Windows
2 13 (1.95%) Linux
3 12 (1.80%) Unix
4 5 (0.75%) Android
4 5 (0.75%) Apple iOS
4 5 (0.75%) CentOS
5 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.15%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 188 (28.27%) Test Automation
2 96 (14.44%) Validation
3 78 (11.73%) Agile
4 77 (11.58%) Software Testing
5 70 (10.53%) CI/CD
6 61 (9.17%) Test Strategy
7 53 (7.97%) Problem-Solving
8 45 (6.77%) Continuous Improvement
9 42 (6.32%) Verification and Validation
10 38 (5.71%) Mentoring
10 38 (5.71%) Test Scripting
11 36 (5.41%) DevOps
12 29 (4.36%) Coaching
12 29 (4.36%) Manual Testing
13 28 (4.21%) Performance Testing
14 27 (4.06%) API Testing
15 25 (3.76%) End-to-End Testing
16 24 (3.61%) Non-Functional Testing
17 23 (3.46%) Defect Management
18 19 (2.86%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 60 (9.02%) Python
2 45 (6.77%) Java
3 31 (4.66%) JavaScript
4 26 (3.91%) SQL
5 25 (3.76%) C#
6 19 (2.86%) TypeScript
7 13 (1.95%) Bash
8 12 (1.80%) MATLAB
9 7 (1.05%) C++
10 6 (0.90%) C
10 6 (0.90%) PowerShell
11 5 (0.75%) VB
12 1 (0.15%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 59 (8.87%) Security Cleared
2 49 (7.37%) Degree
3 34 (5.11%) SC Cleared
4 15 (2.26%) HND
5 13 (1.95%) HNC
5 13 (1.95%) ISTQB
6 11 (1.65%) DV Cleared
7 9 (1.35%) BPSS Clearance
8 8 (1.20%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 7 (1.05%) Computer Science Degree
10 5 (0.75%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 4 (0.60%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 3 (0.45%) CCA
12 3 (0.45%) Chartered Engineer
12 3 (0.45%) Master's Degree
12 3 (0.45%) NVQ Level 3
13 1 (0.15%) City & Guilds
13 1 (0.15%) DBS Check
13 1 (0.15%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 83 (12.48%) QA
2 29 (4.36%) Accessibility
3 6 (0.90%) ISO/IEC 17025
4 5 (0.75%) Data Quality
5 3 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 12207
5 3 (0.45%) WCAG
6 2 (0.30%) Def Stans
6 2 (0.30%) IEC 61508
6 2 (0.30%) ISO 26262
6 2 (0.30%) ISO 9001
6 2 (0.30%) Software Quality Assurance
7 1 (0.15%) COSHH
7 1 (0.15%) GDPR
7 1 (0.15%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 20 (3.01%) Docker
2 14 (2.11%) Firmware
3 6 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (0.90%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 21 (3.16%) Terraform
2 15 (2.26%) Kubernetes
3 12 (1.80%) Grafana
4 9 (1.35%) Kibana
5 6 (0.90%) Ansible
6 5 (0.75%) logstash
6 5 (0.75%) vCenter Server
7 2 (0.30%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.15%) Functional Safety
8 1 (0.15%) Puppet
Vendors
1 9 (1.35%) Microsoft
2 8 (1.20%) EMC
3 6 (0.90%) Red Hat
3 6 (0.90%) VMware
4 5 (0.75%) Atlassian
4 5 (0.75%) Splunk
5 4 (0.60%) AppDynamics
5 4 (0.60%) Dynatrace
6 3 (0.45%) Keysight
6 3 (0.45%) Oracle
6 3 (0.45%) ServiceNow
7 2 (0.30%) Databricks
7 2 (0.30%) Guidewire
7 2 (0.30%) Peregrine
8 1 (0.15%) IBM
8 1 (0.15%) OpenLink
8 1 (0.15%) Perfecto Mobile