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 1 September 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 239 146 476
Rank change year-on-year -93 +330 -28
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Engineer 766 972 295
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.79% 2.22% 0.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.84% 2.46% 0.43%
Number of salaries quoted 506 123 155
10th Percentile £31,875 £35,000 £36,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £46,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +8.70% -3.16% -9.52%
75th Percentile £65,000 £60,000 £58,125
90th Percentile £75,000 £68,500 £60,741
UK median annual salary £50,000 £45,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year +11.11% -5.26% -9.52%

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 91,197 39,586 67,877
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.91% 90.45% 95.13%
Number of salaries quoted 64,443 24,001 43,893
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,000 £75,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £92,500
UK median annual salary £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.55% - -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 1 September 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 1 September 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
South East -60 215 £50,000 +13.64% 78
North of England +86 181 £50,000 +25.00% 44
East of England -74 113 £45,000 +15.38% 65
South West -9 111 £50,000 -4.76% 55
North West +52 94 £50,000 +25.00% 31
Midlands -124 78 £49,130 -1.74% 39
London -31 59 £60,000 +22.45% 46
West Midlands +12 51 £50,000 -16.67% 22
Yorkshire -3 48 £40,000 -13.51% 4
North East -23 39 £55,000 +22.22% 10
East Midlands -115 27 £35,000 +6.06% 17
Test Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 1 September 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.

1 229 (29.90%) Test Automation
2 124 (16.19%) Validation
3 105 (13.71%) QA
4 101 (13.19%) Software Testing
5 93 (12.14%) Problem-Solving
6 92 (12.01%) Agile
7 91 (11.88%) Security Cleared
8 77 (10.05%) CI/CD
8 77 (10.05%) Python
9 71 (9.27%) Test Strategy
10 60 (7.83%) Continuous Improvement
10 60 (7.83%) Degree
11 49 (6.40%) SC Cleared
12 47 (6.14%) Java
13 46 (6.01%) SQL
14 45 (5.87%) Playwright
15 44 (5.74%) Test Scripting
16 43 (5.61%) AWS
17 42 (5.48%) JavaScript
17 42 (5.48%) Verification and Validation
18 41 (5.35%) DevOps
18 41 (5.35%) Mentoring
19 40 (5.22%) Defect Management
20 36 (4.70%) Azure
21 35 (4.57%) Manual Testing
21 35 (4.57%) Regression Testing
22 30 (3.92%) API Testing
22 30 (3.92%) Git
22 30 (3.92%) Jenkins
22 30 (3.92%) Linux

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 (0.78%) Apache
1 6 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
1 6 (0.78%) Jupyter
2 4 (0.52%) Apache Spark
3 3 (0.39%) Confluence
3 3 (0.39%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (1.17%) Microsoft Excel
1 9 (1.17%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.26%) Simulink
3 1 (0.13%) AutoCAD
3 1 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 8 (1.04%) SAP EHS
1 8 (1.04%) SAP Oil and Gas
2 1 (0.13%) Endur
2 1 (0.13%) Findur
Cloud Services
1 43 (5.61%) AWS
2 36 (4.70%) Azure
3 22 (2.87%) Azure DevOps
4 12 (1.57%) SaaS
5 10 (1.31%) GitHub
6 8 (1.04%) Power Platform
7 7 (0.91%) OpenShift
8 6 (0.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 6 (0.78%) Amazon EC2
8 6 (0.78%) Amazon EMR
8 6 (0.78%) Amazon S3
9 5 (0.65%) GCP
10 4 (0.52%) Amazon ECR
11 3 (0.39%) AWS CodePipeline
11 3 (0.39%) Azure Pipelines
11 3 (0.39%) GitHub Actions
11 3 (0.39%) PowerApps
12 2 (0.26%) Azure Functions
12 2 (0.26%) BrowserStack
12 2 (0.26%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 18 (2.35%) Wireless
2 9 (1.17%) TCP/IP
3 7 (0.91%) HTTP
4 6 (0.78%) 3GPP
4 6 (0.78%) 5G
4 6 (0.78%) SNMP
5 5 (0.65%) DNS
6 4 (0.52%) SD-WAN
6 4 (0.52%) WAN
7 3 (0.39%) MGW
7 3 (0.39%) MVNO
7 3 (0.39%) Packet Switching
7 3 (0.39%) RTP
7 3 (0.39%) SGSN
7 3 (0.39%) SMPP
8 1 (0.13%) Internet
8 1 (0.13%) NFC
8 1 (0.13%) VLAN
8 1 (0.13%) VPN
8 1 (0.13%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (0.91%) InfluxDB
2 6 (0.78%) Amazon Athena
2 6 (0.78%) DynamoDB
3 5 (0.65%) Data Warehouse
3 5 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
3 5 (0.65%) Power BI
4 4 (0.52%) Neo4j
5 3 (0.39%) Big Data
5 3 (0.39%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.13%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 30 (3.92%) Git
1 30 (3.92%) Jenkins
2 29 (3.79%) GitLab
2 29 (3.79%) LabVIEW
2 29 (3.79%) Selenium
3 23 (3.00%) Cypress.io
4 19 (2.48%) JIRA
4 19 (2.48%) JMeter
5 15 (1.96%) Cucumber
6 12 (1.57%) REST Assured
6 12 (1.57%) Robot Framework
7 10 (1.31%) Postman
7 10 (1.31%) TestRail
8 8 (1.04%) Gatling
9 6 (0.78%) LoadRunner
10 5 (0.65%) SpecFlow
10 5 (0.65%) Zephyr
11 4 (0.52%) SoapUI
12 2 (0.26%) Rational DOORS
12 2 (0.26%) WebDriver
General
1 137 (17.89%) Electronics
2 126 (16.45%) Manufacturing
3 71 (9.27%) Aerospace
4 67 (8.75%) Social Skills
5 46 (6.01%) Analytical Skills
6 38 (4.96%) Public Sector
7 34 (4.44%) Aviation
8 30 (3.92%) Automotive
8 30 (3.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 26 (3.39%) Telecoms
10 25 (3.26%) Finance
11 14 (1.83%) Organisational Skills
12 12 (1.57%) Documentation Skills
13 10 (1.31%) Retail
14 8 (1.04%) Influencing Skills
15 5 (0.65%) Health Technology
16 4 (0.52%) Games
17 3 (0.39%) Legal
17 3 (0.39%) Military
17 3 (0.39%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (5.87%) Playwright
2 23 (3.00%) Terraform
3 15 (1.96%) pytest
4 14 (1.83%) .NET
5 11 (1.44%) XML
6 10 (1.31%) Elastic Stack
7 8 (1.04%) HTML
8 6 (0.78%) ASP.NET
8 6 (0.78%) JSON
8 6 (0.78%) REST
9 5 (0.65%) Gherkin
9 5 (0.65%) React
10 4 (0.52%) AngularJS
10 4 (0.52%) MERN Stack
10 4 (0.52%) Vue
11 3 (0.39%) ADO
11 3 (0.39%) Model Context Protocol
11 3 (0.39%) PySpark
11 3 (0.39%) SOAP
12 2 (0.26%) JSP
Miscellaneous
1 18 (2.35%) Mobile App
2 16 (2.09%) Product Ownership
3 14 (1.83%) Distributed Systems
4 12 (1.57%) Renewable Energy
5 10 (1.31%) Smart Energy
6 9 (1.17%) Cloud Native
6 9 (1.17%) Embedded Systems
7 7 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (0.78%) Client/Server
8 6 (0.78%) Driving Licence
8 6 (0.78%) SCADA
9 4 (0.52%) Analogue Electronics
9 4 (0.52%) Analytical Mindset
9 4 (0.52%) Arduino
9 4 (0.52%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (0.52%) IoT
9 4 (0.52%) Online Games
9 4 (0.52%) Self-Driving Car
10 3 (0.39%) AI Agents
10 3 (0.39%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 30 (3.92%) Linux
2 25 (3.26%) Windows
3 14 (1.83%) Android
3 14 (1.83%) Apple iOS
4 11 (1.44%) Unix
5 7 (0.91%) CentOS
6 1 (0.13%) Embedded Linux
6 1 (0.13%) OpenWrt
6 1 (0.13%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 229 (29.90%) Test Automation
2 124 (16.19%) Validation
3 101 (13.19%) Software Testing
4 93 (12.14%) Problem-Solving
5 92 (12.01%) Agile
6 77 (10.05%) CI/CD
7 71 (9.27%) Test Strategy
8 60 (7.83%) Continuous Improvement
9 44 (5.74%) Test Scripting
10 42 (5.48%) Verification and Validation
11 41 (5.35%) DevOps
11 41 (5.35%) Mentoring
12 40 (5.22%) Defect Management
13 35 (4.57%) Manual Testing
13 35 (4.57%) Regression Testing
14 30 (3.92%) API Testing
15 28 (3.66%) Coaching
16 25 (3.26%) Code Quality
17 24 (3.13%) Software Engineering
17 24 (3.13%) Test Planning
Programming Languages
1 77 (10.05%) Python
2 47 (6.14%) Java
3 46 (6.01%) SQL
4 42 (5.48%) JavaScript
5 27 (3.52%) C#
6 22 (2.87%) C++
7 21 (2.74%) Bash
8 19 (2.48%) C
9 17 (2.22%) TypeScript
10 9 (1.17%) MATLAB
11 7 (0.91%) PowerShell
12 5 (0.65%) VB
13 3 (0.39%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.13%) Go
14 1 (0.13%) Rust
Qualifications
1 91 (11.88%) Security Cleared
2 60 (7.83%) Degree
3 49 (6.40%) SC Cleared
4 19 (2.48%) HNC
5 15 (1.96%) HND
6 14 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
7 12 (1.57%) ISTQB
8 9 (1.17%) DV Cleared
9 7 (0.91%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 7 (0.91%) Computer Science Degree
10 5 (0.65%) Chartered Engineer
10 5 (0.65%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 4 (0.52%) ISEB
11 4 (0.52%) NVQ Level 3
12 3 (0.39%) Master's Degree
13 2 (0.26%) City & Guilds
14 1 (0.13%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 105 (13.71%) QA
2 27 (3.52%) Accessibility
3 5 (0.65%) Data Quality
3 5 (0.65%) Software Quality Assurance
4 4 (0.52%) WCAG
5 3 (0.39%) GDPR
5 3 (0.39%) ISO 9001
5 3 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 12207
6 2 (0.26%) Def Stans
6 2 (0.26%) IEC 61508
6 2 (0.26%) ISO 26262
7 1 (0.13%) COSHH
7 1 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 17025
System Software
1 21 (2.74%) Docker
1 21 (2.74%) Firmware
2 8 (1.04%) Virtual Machines
3 7 (0.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.13%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 15 (1.96%) Kubernetes
2 13 (1.70%) Grafana
3 10 (1.31%) Ansible
4 8 (1.04%) Kibana
5 7 (0.91%) logstash
5 7 (0.91%) vCenter Server
6 3 (0.39%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.39%) Puppet
7 1 (0.13%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 15 (1.96%) Microsoft
2 14 (1.83%) EMC
3 12 (1.57%) SAP
4 7 (0.91%) Atlassian
4 7 (0.91%) Red Hat
4 7 (0.91%) Splunk
4 7 (0.91%) VMware
5 5 (0.65%) Databricks
5 5 (0.65%) Keysight
6 3 (0.39%) Oracle
6 3 (0.39%) Pega
7 2 (0.26%) IBM
7 2 (0.26%) Peregrine
8 1 (0.13%) AppDynamics
8 1 (0.13%) Dynatrace
8 1 (0.13%) OneLogin
8 1 (0.13%) OpenLink
8 1 (0.13%) Perfecto Mobile
8 1 (0.13%) Workday
8 1 (0.13%) YouTube