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 31 January 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 304 251 464
Rank change year-on-year -53 +213 -78
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Engineer 376 542 289
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.67% 1.16% 0.47%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.74% 1.26% 0.49%
Number of salaries quoted 252 91 154
10th Percentile £30,250 £31,750 £32,750
25th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £50,000 £46,250
Median % change year-on-year - +8.11% -11.90%
75th Percentile £58,750 £60,000 £60,741
90th Percentile £76,250 £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 51,087 43,080 58,903
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.03% 92.01% 94.96%
Number of salaries quoted 32,513 22,455 47,048
10th Percentile £29,000 £33,750 £29,160
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
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 31 January 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 31 January 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 -8 93 £50,000 -9.09% 33
South West +32 66 £55,000 +37.50% 19
South East -92 63 £45,000 -14.29% 44
North of England +32 59 £45,000 -14.29% 40
Midlands -28 46 £50,000 - 35
London +63 41 £52,500 -18.29% 29
North West +37 34 £45,000 -2.70% 23
West Midlands +39 29 £55,000 - 30
East Midlands -59 17 £50,000 +17.65% 5
North East +10 15 £42,500 -29.17% 4
Yorkshire -4 10 £52,750 - 13
Test Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 31 January 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.

1 127 (33.78%) Test Automation
2 54 (14.36%) Software Testing
3 51 (13.56%) Validation
4 48 (12.77%) Python
5 47 (12.50%) Agile
6 41 (10.90%) Security Cleared
7 39 (10.37%) Problem-Solving
7 39 (10.37%) QA
8 36 (9.57%) Selenium
9 34 (9.04%) CI/CD
9 34 (9.04%) Verification and Validation
10 31 (8.24%) Degree
10 31 (8.24%) Playwright
11 30 (7.98%) Manual Testing
12 29 (7.71%) Test Scripting
13 26 (6.91%) Azure
14 25 (6.65%) Continuous Improvement
14 25 (6.65%) DevOps
15 23 (6.12%) Java
16 22 (5.85%) API Testing
16 22 (5.85%) JavaScript
16 22 (5.85%) Performance Testing
17 21 (5.59%) Git
17 21 (5.59%) LabVIEW
18 19 (5.05%) C#
18 19 (5.05%) GitHub
18 19 (5.05%) HND
18 19 (5.05%) pytest
19 18 (4.79%) AWS
19 18 (4.79%) ISTQB

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 (1.33%) Confluence
2 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 11 (2.93%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.06%) Fusion 360
3 1 (0.27%) Doxygen
Business Applications
1 2 (0.53%) Oracle ERP
1 2 (0.53%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.27%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 26 (6.91%) Azure
2 19 (5.05%) GitHub
3 18 (4.79%) AWS
4 10 (2.66%) Azure DevOps
5 6 (1.60%) Power Platform
6 4 (1.06%) BrowserStack
6 4 (1.06%) GCP
6 4 (1.06%) GitHub Actions
6 4 (1.06%) SaaS
7 2 (0.53%) Azure Pipelines
7 2 (0.53%) BlazeMeter
8 1 (0.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 1 (0.27%) Amazon S3
8 1 (0.27%) Azure Data Factory
8 1 (0.27%) Dynamics 365
8 1 (0.27%) Microsoft 365
8 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Purview
8 1 (0.27%) OpenShift
8 1 (0.27%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 9 (2.39%) SD-WAN
1 9 (2.39%) WAN
2 8 (2.13%) 5G
3 2 (0.53%) Wireless
4 1 (0.27%) Cisco IOS
4 1 (0.27%) DHCP
4 1 (0.27%) DNS
4 1 (0.27%) Ethernet
4 1 (0.27%) FTP
4 1 (0.27%) SNMP
4 1 (0.27%) Spanning Tree
4 1 (0.27%) SSH
4 1 (0.27%) TACACS
4 1 (0.27%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.27%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.06%) Elasticsearch
1 4 (1.06%) Neo4j
1 4 (1.06%) Relational Database
2 3 (0.80%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (0.53%) MongoDB
3 2 (0.53%) Oracle Database
3 2 (0.53%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (0.53%) SQL Server
3 2 (0.53%) Tableau
4 1 (0.27%) InfluxDB
4 1 (0.27%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 36 (9.57%) Selenium
2 21 (5.59%) Git
2 21 (5.59%) LabVIEW
3 18 (4.79%) JIRA
4 17 (4.52%) Cypress.io
5 16 (4.26%) Jenkins
6 15 (3.99%) JMeter
6 15 (3.99%) Postman
7 13 (3.46%) REST Assured
8 10 (2.66%) Cucumber
9 7 (1.86%) Subversion
10 6 (1.60%) Appium
10 6 (1.60%) LoadRunner
10 6 (1.60%) SpecFlow
11 5 (1.33%) GitLab
11 5 (1.33%) WebDriver
12 4 (1.06%) Bitbucket
12 4 (1.06%) NUnit
12 4 (1.06%) SonarQube
12 4 (1.06%) TestRail
General
1 66 (17.55%) Manufacturing
2 55 (14.63%) Electronics
3 30 (7.98%) Social Skills
4 21 (5.59%) Analytical Skills
5 20 (5.32%) Finance
6 16 (4.26%) Aerospace
7 13 (3.46%) Aviation
8 8 (2.13%) Presentation Skills
8 8 (2.13%) Public Sector
9 7 (1.86%) Military
9 7 (1.86%) Telecoms
10 6 (1.60%) Automotive
11 5 (1.33%) Documentation Skills
11 5 (1.33%) Social Housing
12 4 (1.06%) Games
12 4 (1.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 4 (1.06%) Organisational Skills
13 3 (0.80%) Avionics
13 3 (0.80%) Banking
14 2 (0.53%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (8.24%) Playwright
2 19 (5.05%) pytest
3 11 (2.93%) REST
4 10 (2.66%) .NET
5 5 (1.33%) Kafka
5 5 (1.33%) RESTful
5 5 (1.33%) Web Services
6 4 (1.06%) AngularJS
6 4 (1.06%) MERN Stack
6 4 (1.06%) React
7 3 (0.80%) HTML
7 3 (0.80%) Middleware
7 3 (0.80%) SOAP
7 3 (0.80%) YAML
8 2 (0.53%) Elastic Stack
8 2 (0.53%) GraphQL
8 2 (0.53%) Nightwatchjs
8 2 (0.53%) Swagger
9 1 (0.27%) WebdriverIO
9 1 (0.27%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 12 (3.19%) Self-Motivation
2 8 (2.13%) Self-Driving Car
3 6 (1.60%) Embedded Systems
4 4 (1.06%) GNSS
4 4 (1.06%) Life Science
4 4 (1.06%) Satnav
5 3 (0.80%) e-Learning
5 3 (0.80%) Fibre Optics
5 3 (0.80%) Mobile App
5 3 (0.80%) Robotics
6 2 (0.53%) Acoustics
6 2 (0.53%) AI Agents
6 2 (0.53%) Analogue Electronics
6 2 (0.53%) Analytical Mindset
6 2 (0.53%) Renewable Energy
6 2 (0.53%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 1 (0.27%) Algorithms
7 1 (0.27%) Hackathon
7 1 (0.27%) Linux Command Line
7 1 (0.27%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 15 (3.99%) Windows
2 12 (3.19%) Unix
3 6 (1.60%) Linux
4 3 (0.80%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.53%) Android
6 1 (0.27%) CentOS
6 1 (0.27%) FreeRTOS
6 1 (0.27%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 127 (33.78%) Test Automation
2 54 (14.36%) Software Testing
3 51 (13.56%) Validation
4 47 (12.50%) Agile
5 39 (10.37%) Problem-Solving
6 34 (9.04%) CI/CD
6 34 (9.04%) Verification and Validation
7 30 (7.98%) Manual Testing
8 29 (7.71%) Test Scripting
9 25 (6.65%) Continuous Improvement
9 25 (6.65%) DevOps
10 22 (5.85%) API Testing
10 22 (5.85%) Performance Testing
11 17 (4.52%) AI
12 16 (4.26%) Mentoring
12 16 (4.26%) Test Strategy
13 15 (3.99%) Non-Functional Testing
14 14 (3.72%) End-to-End Testing
14 14 (3.72%) System Testing
15 13 (3.46%) BDD
Programming Languages
1 48 (12.77%) Python
2 23 (6.12%) Java
3 22 (5.85%) JavaScript
4 19 (5.05%) C#
5 17 (4.52%) SQL
6 14 (3.72%) MATLAB
7 13 (3.46%) TypeScript
8 5 (1.33%) C
9 2 (0.53%) Bash
9 2 (0.53%) Scala
10 1 (0.27%) C++
10 1 (0.27%) Groovy
10 1 (0.27%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.27%) PowerShell
10 1 (0.27%) Swift
Qualifications
1 41 (10.90%) Security Cleared
2 31 (8.24%) Degree
3 19 (5.05%) HND
4 18 (4.79%) ISTQB
5 15 (3.99%) SC Cleared
6 9 (2.39%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (2.13%) HNC
8 7 (1.86%) DV Cleared
9 6 (1.60%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 4 (1.06%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 3 (0.80%) CCA
12 2 (0.53%) ISEB
12 2 (0.53%) Master's Degree
13 1 (0.27%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 1 (0.27%) Computer Science Degree
13 1 (0.27%) MCSA
13 1 (0.27%) MCSE
13 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Certification
13 1 (0.27%) Numerate Degree
13 1 (0.27%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (10.37%) QA
2 15 (3.99%) Accessibility
3 4 (1.06%) ISO 13485
4 3 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 17025
5 2 (0.53%) Data Quality
5 2 (0.53%) SEPA
6 1 (0.27%) IEC 62304
6 1 (0.27%) ISO 9001
6 1 (0.27%) WCAG
System Software
1 14 (3.72%) Docker
2 3 (0.80%) Firmware
3 2 (0.53%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.27%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 12 (3.19%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.06%) Terraform
3 3 (0.80%) HP Fortify
3 3 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (0.53%) Control-M
4 2 (0.53%) Grafana
5 1 (0.27%) Ansible
5 1 (0.27%) Argo
5 1 (0.27%) Kibana
5 1 (0.27%) logstash
5 1 (0.27%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.27%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 9 (2.39%) Microsoft
2 6 (1.60%) EMC
3 4 (1.06%) Oracle
4 3 (0.80%) IBM
4 3 (0.80%) Samsung
5 2 (0.53%) CA Agile Central
5 2 (0.53%) Guidewire
5 2 (0.53%) Salesforce
5 2 (0.53%) Sitecore
5 2 (0.53%) VMware
6 1 (0.27%) Atlassian
6 1 (0.27%) Cisco
6 1 (0.27%) Dynatrace
6 1 (0.27%) Meraki
6 1 (0.27%) OneLogin
6 1 (0.27%) Pega
6 1 (0.27%) Red Hat
6 1 (0.27%) SAP
6 1 (0.27%) ServiceNow
6 1 (0.27%) Splunk