Test Automation Job Trends in the Midlands

Automated Testing
England > Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the Midlands requiring Test Automation skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 6 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 140 89 105
Rank change year-on-year -51 +16 -66
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 85 206 137
As % of all permanent jobs in the Midlands 1.09% 3.17% 2.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.33% 3.52% 2.97%
Number of salaries quoted 71 96 121
10th Percentile £32,500 £37,983 £34,000
25th Percentile £42,500 £49,688 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,200 £60,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.00% +14.29% -7.05%
75th Percentile £68,875 £67,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £74,762 £75,000 £75,000
England median annual salary £62,500 £62,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year - - +4.17%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Midlands

Test Automation falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the Midlands.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 6,371 5,854 4,609
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Midlands 81.49% 89.95% 87.91%
Number of salaries quoted 3,518 2,560 3,790
10th Percentile £28,223 £31,250 £26,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £38,750 £36,044
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £75,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in the Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Test Automation relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the Midlands.

Test Automation job vacancy trend in the Midlands

Test Automation
Salary Trend in the Midlands

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the Midlands citing Test Automation.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the Midlands citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Salary Histogram in the Midlands

Salary distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in the Midlands over the 6 months to 6 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Test Automation in the Midlands

Test Automation
Job Locations in the Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Test Automation within the Midlands region over the 6 months to 6 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
West Midlands -28 52 £55,200 -8.00% 38
East Midlands -44 36 £55,100 -8.17% 65
Test Automation
England

Test Automation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Midlands 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 2 (2.35%) IIS
1 2 (2.35%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.18%) SAS
Applications
1 3 (3.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.18%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 4 (4.71%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (1.18%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 15 (17.65%) Azure
2 14 (16.47%) AWS
3 12 (14.12%) SaaS
4 8 (9.41%) Azure DevOps
5 5 (5.88%) GitHub
6 4 (4.71%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 4 (4.71%) OpenShift
6 4 (4.71%) PaaS
7 3 (3.53%) dbt
7 3 (3.53%) Power Automate
7 3 (3.53%) Power Platform
8 2 (2.35%) AWS CloudFormation
8 2 (2.35%) Dynamics 365
8 2 (2.35%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (2.35%) Microsoft 365
8 2 (2.35%) npm
8 2 (2.35%) NuGet
8 2 (2.35%) SonarCloud
9 1 (1.18%) Datadog
9 1 (1.18%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 4 (4.71%) 3G
1 4 (4.71%) GPRS
1 4 (4.71%) GSM
1 4 (4.71%) Modbus
1 4 (4.71%) RS-232
1 4 (4.71%) RS-485
1 4 (4.71%) SSL
1 4 (4.71%) TCP/IP
2 3 (3.53%) Firewall
2 3 (3.53%) VPN
3 2 (2.35%) SD-WAN
3 2 (2.35%) VLAN
3 2 (2.35%) WAN
4 1 (1.18%) Bluetooth
4 1 (1.18%) RFID
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (4.71%) SQL Server
2 3 (3.53%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (2.35%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (2.35%) MongoDB
3 2 (2.35%) NoSQL
4 1 (1.18%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (1.18%) MySQL
4 1 (1.18%) Oracle Database
4 1 (1.18%) Pentaho
4 1 (1.18%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 18 (21.18%) Selenium
2 10 (11.76%) JIRA
3 8 (9.41%) Git
4 7 (8.24%) Postman
5 6 (7.06%) Cucumber
5 6 (7.06%) GitLab
5 6 (7.06%) Jenkins
6 5 (5.88%) Subversion
7 4 (4.71%) JMeter
8 3 (3.53%) JUnit
9 2 (2.35%) Cypress.io
9 2 (2.35%) Gatling
9 2 (2.35%) Katalon Studio
9 2 (2.35%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (2.35%) REST Assured
9 2 (2.35%) SonarQube
10 1 (1.18%) Appium
10 1 (1.18%) Bitbucket Server
10 1 (1.18%) Locust
10 1 (1.18%) WebDriver
General
1 24 (28.24%) Social Skills
2 13 (15.29%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (8.24%) Documentation Skills
4 6 (7.06%) Organisational Skills
5 5 (5.88%) Electronics
5 5 (5.88%) Law
6 4 (4.71%) Finance
6 4 (4.71%) Legal
6 4 (4.71%) Manufacturing
7 3 (3.53%) Public Sector
8 2 (2.35%) Banking
8 2 (2.35%) Retail
9 1 (1.18%) Advertising
9 1 (1.18%) Automotive
9 1 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 20 (23.53%) Lead
2 19 (22.35%) Senior
3 15 (17.65%) Test Engineer
4 13 (15.29%) QA Engineer
5 11 (12.94%) QA Leader
6 10 (11.76%) Analyst
7 9 (10.59%) Tester
8 8 (9.41%) Automation Engineer
8 8 (9.41%) QA Automation Engineer
9 7 (8.24%) Developer
9 7 (8.24%) Embedded Engineer
10 5 (5.88%) DevOps Engineer
10 5 (5.88%) Engineering Manager
10 5 (5.88%) Software Engineer
10 5 (5.88%) Software Test Engineer
10 5 (5.88%) Systems Engineer
10 5 (5.88%) Systems Test Engineer
11 4 (4.71%) Data Manager
11 4 (4.71%) Technical Engineer
11 4 (4.71%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (10.59%) .NET
2 8 (9.41%) Playwright
3 7 (8.24%) React
4 5 (5.88%) Spring
5 4 (4.71%) Spring Boot
6 2 (2.35%) .NET Core
6 2 (2.35%) .NET Framework
6 2 (2.35%) AngularJS
6 2 (2.35%) Django
6 2 (2.35%) Elastic Stack
6 2 (2.35%) Flask
6 2 (2.35%) HTML
6 2 (2.35%) Node.js
6 2 (2.35%) pytest
6 2 (2.35%) XML
6 2 (2.35%) YAML
7 1 (1.18%) CSS
7 1 (1.18%) Gherkin
7 1 (1.18%) REST
7 1 (1.18%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 14 (16.47%) Product Ownership
2 8 (9.41%) Virtual Team
3 5 (5.88%) Embedded Systems
4 4 (4.71%) Legacy Systems
5 3 (3.53%) Security Posture
5 3 (3.53%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (2.35%) Analytical Mindset
6 2 (2.35%) Cloud Native
6 2 (2.35%) Data Centre
6 2 (2.35%) Driving Licence
6 2 (2.35%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 2 (2.35%) Management Information System
6 2 (2.35%) Mobile App
7 1 (1.18%) Cyber Defence
7 1 (1.18%) Operational Technology
7 1 (1.18%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 7 (8.24%) Linux
2 4 (4.71%) Embedded Linux
2 4 (4.71%) FreeRTOS
3 2 (2.35%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 36 (42.35%) Agile
2 30 (35.29%) CI/CD
3 24 (28.24%) Problem-Solving
4 22 (25.88%) Continuous Improvement
4 22 (25.88%) DevOps
5 18 (21.18%) Mentoring
6 16 (18.82%) Manual Testing
7 13 (15.29%) Performance Testing
7 13 (15.29%) Test Strategy
8 12 (14.12%) API Testing
8 12 (14.12%) Software Testing
9 11 (12.94%) Software Engineering
10 10 (11.76%) Technical Leadership
11 9 (10.59%) BDD
11 9 (10.59%) Coaching
11 9 (10.59%) Scenario Testing
11 9 (10.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 8 (9.41%) TDD
13 7 (8.24%) Test Scripting
13 7 (8.24%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 17 (20.00%) C#
2 15 (17.65%) SQL
3 12 (14.12%) Java
3 12 (14.12%) Python
4 7 (8.24%) JavaScript
4 7 (8.24%) PowerShell
5 5 (5.88%) TypeScript
5 5 (5.88%) VBA
6 4 (4.71%) C
6 4 (4.71%) C++
7 3 (3.53%) Go
7 3 (3.53%) PHP
8 2 (2.35%) Bash
8 2 (2.35%) Delphi
8 2 (2.35%) Embedded C++
8 2 (2.35%) Groovy
9 1 (1.18%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 10 (11.76%) Security Cleared
2 7 (8.24%) Degree
3 6 (7.06%) SC Cleared
4 5 (5.88%) Computer Science Degree
5 4 (4.71%) ISTQB
5 4 (4.71%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 3 (3.53%) DV Cleared
7 1 (1.18%) AWS Certification
7 1 (1.18%) Azure Certification
7 1 (1.18%) HNC
7 1 (1.18%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (30.59%) QA
2 4 (4.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (4.71%) MISRA
3 3 (3.53%) Accessibility
3 3 (3.53%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (3.53%) Data Quality
3 3 (3.53%) NIST
3 3 (3.53%) PCI DSS
3 3 (3.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 2 (2.35%) WCAG
5 1 (1.18%) GDPR
5 1 (1.18%) ISO 9001
5 1 (1.18%) SLA
System Software
1 10 (11.76%) Docker
2 4 (4.71%) Embedded Firmware
2 4 (4.71%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 11 (12.94%) Kubernetes
2 9 (10.59%) Terraform
3 4 (4.71%) Grafana
4 2 (2.35%) HP Quality Center
4 2 (2.35%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (1.18%) Ansible
5 1 (1.18%) CA Service Virtualization
Vendors
1 8 (9.41%) Oracle
2 5 (5.88%) Databricks
2 5 (5.88%) Microsoft
3 2 (2.35%) AppDynamics
3 2 (2.35%) Blue Prism
3 2 (2.35%) CrowdStrike
3 2 (2.35%) Pega
4 1 (1.18%) Denodo
4 1 (1.18%) MuleSoft
4 1 (1.18%) NEC
4 1 (1.18%) Salesforce
4 1 (1.18%) Splunk
4 1 (1.18%) Talend