Test Automation Job Trends in the North of England

Automated Testing
England > North of England

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the North of England requiring Test Automation skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 25 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 146 87 112
Rank change year-on-year -59 +25 -71
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 129 258 251
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 1.13% 2.89% 2.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.44% 3.16% 2.68%
Number of salaries quoted 100 97 195
10th Percentile £45,000 £37,630 £38,650
25th Percentile £51,094 £41,625 £44,625
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £50,445 £57,965
Median % change year-on-year +18.94% -12.97% +10.41%
75th Percentile £70,000 £68,750 £73,091
90th Percentile £82,391 £95,278 £82,548
England median annual salary £62,500 £62,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year - +4.17% -1.64%

All Process & Methodology Skills
North of England

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 North of England.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 8,987 8,157 9,376
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 78.61% 91.36% 87.12%
Number of salaries quoted 4,907 3,619 7,549
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,250 £28,250
25th Percentile £33,625 £40,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -6.38%
75th Percentile £67,500 £68,750 £66,778
90th Percentile £82,500 £82,500 £81,357
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -8.00%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in the North of England

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

Test Automation job vacancy trend in the North of England

Test Automation
Salary Trend in the North of England

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Test Automation.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Salary Histogram in the North of England

Salary distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in the North of England over the 6 months to 25 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Test Automation in the North of England

Test Automation
Job Locations in the North of England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Test Automation within the North of England region over the 6 months to 25 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
North West -39 77 £60,000 +27.66% 83
Yorkshire -56 40 £55,000 +9.03% 78
North East -20 12 £57,600 -5.57% 25
Test Automation
England

Test Automation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North of 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 (4.65%) Apache Spark
2 3 (2.33%) Oracle Workflow
3 2 (1.55%) Apache Solr
3 2 (1.55%) Confluence
3 2 (1.55%) nginx
4 1 (0.78%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.78%) Apache
4 1 (0.78%) CMS
4 1 (0.78%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (0.78%) Trello
Business Applications
1 3 (2.33%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (1.55%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.78%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 43 (33.33%) AWS
2 30 (23.26%) Azure
3 19 (14.73%) Salesforce Service Cloud
4 16 (12.40%) GCP
4 16 (12.40%) SaaS
5 13 (10.08%) GitHub
6 8 (6.20%) AWS CloudFormation
6 8 (6.20%) Serverless
7 6 (4.65%) OpenShift
7 6 (4.65%) PaaS
8 5 (3.88%) Azure AKS
9 4 (3.10%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 4 (3.10%) Datadog
9 4 (3.10%) GitHub Actions
9 4 (3.10%) Power Platform
10 3 (2.33%) Amazon EKS
10 3 (2.33%) Azure DevOps
10 3 (2.33%) Boomi
10 3 (2.33%) Dynamics 365
10 3 (2.33%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 6 (4.65%) HTTP
2 5 (3.88%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.78%) SSH
3 1 (0.78%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (8.53%) MongoDB
1 11 (8.53%) MySQL
2 7 (5.43%) NoSQL
3 6 (4.65%) SQL Server
4 5 (3.88%) Elasticsearch
4 5 (3.88%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (2.33%) DynamoDB
5 3 (2.33%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (1.55%) PostHog
6 2 (1.55%) Redis
6 2 (1.55%) Relational Database
6 2 (1.55%) Tableau
7 1 (0.78%) Amazon Athena
7 1 (0.78%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 12 (9.30%) Selenium
2 8 (6.20%) Git
2 8 (6.20%) GitLab
2 8 (6.20%) Jenkins
3 7 (5.43%) Cypress.io
3 7 (5.43%) JMeter
4 6 (4.65%) Cucumber
4 6 (4.65%) JIRA
5 5 (3.88%) SonarQube
6 4 (3.10%) Bitbucket
6 4 (3.10%) Postman
6 4 (3.10%) Visual Studio
7 3 (2.33%) Appium
7 3 (2.33%) LoadRunner
8 2 (1.55%) JUnit
8 2 (1.55%) Locust
8 2 (1.55%) SpecFlow
9 1 (0.78%) Maven
9 1 (0.78%) REST Assured
9 1 (0.78%) SoapUI
General
1 27 (20.93%) Social Skills
2 19 (14.73%) Marketing
3 13 (10.08%) Finance
4 7 (5.43%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (5.43%) Public Sector
5 6 (4.65%) Law
6 5 (3.88%) Games
6 5 (3.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (3.10%) Retail
8 3 (2.33%) French Language
8 3 (2.33%) Italian Language
8 3 (2.33%) Portuguese Language
8 3 (2.33%) Spanish Language
9 2 (1.55%) Billing
10 1 (0.78%) Automotive
10 1 (0.78%) Pharmaceutical
10 1 (0.78%) Publishing
10 1 (0.78%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 44 (34.11%) Developer
2 42 (32.56%) Senior
3 28 (21.71%) Senior Developer
4 21 (16.28%) Lead
5 18 (13.95%) Salesforce Developer
5 18 (13.95%) Senior Salesforce Developer
6 16 (12.40%) QA Engineer
7 11 (8.53%) Automation Engineer
7 11 (8.53%) QA Automation Engineer
8 8 (6.20%) Test Engineer
9 7 (5.43%) Cloud Engineer
9 7 (5.43%) Data Engineer
9 7 (5.43%) Graduate
10 6 (4.65%) Analyst
10 6 (4.65%) Java Engineer
10 6 (4.65%) Python Developer
11 5 (3.88%) QA Leader
11 5 (3.88%) Software Engineer
11 5 (3.88%) Test Analyst
11 5 (3.88%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (10.08%) .NET
2 12 (9.30%) CSS
2 12 (9.30%) HTML
2 12 (9.30%) React
2 12 (9.30%) Spring
3 8 (6.20%) RESTful
4 7 (5.43%) Django
4 7 (5.43%) Flask
4 7 (5.43%) Playwright
4 7 (5.43%) Spring Boot
5 6 (4.65%) FastAPI
5 6 (4.65%) Kafka
5 6 (4.65%) Node.js
5 6 (4.65%) Vue
6 5 (3.88%) Middleware
7 4 (3.10%) .NET Framework
7 4 (3.10%) Qt
7 4 (3.10%) REST
7 4 (3.10%) STL
8 3 (2.33%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 15 (11.63%) Cloud Native
2 8 (6.20%) Product Ownership
3 5 (3.88%) Data Structures
4 4 (3.10%) Client/Server
4 4 (3.10%) Onboarding
5 3 (2.33%) Algorithms
5 3 (2.33%) Data Centre
5 3 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
5 3 (2.33%) Mobile App
5 3 (2.33%) Public Cloud
5 3 (2.33%) Virtual Team
6 2 (1.55%) Analytical Mindset
6 2 (1.55%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 2 (1.55%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.78%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.78%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.78%) Greenfield Project
7 1 (0.78%) Life Science
7 1 (0.78%) Linux Command Line
7 1 (0.78%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 8 (6.20%) Android
1 8 (6.20%) Apple iOS
2 6 (4.65%) Linux
2 6 (4.65%) Windows
3 2 (1.55%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 59 (45.74%) Mentoring
2 57 (44.19%) CI/CD
3 50 (38.76%) Agile
4 38 (29.46%) DevOps
5 31 (24.03%) Problem-Solving
6 27 (20.93%) Software Engineering
7 24 (18.60%) Continuous Improvement
8 21 (16.28%) Infrastructure as Code
8 21 (16.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 19 (14.73%) Process Improvement
10 18 (13.95%) Business Analysis
10 18 (13.95%) Business Transformation
11 17 (13.18%) Coaching
12 14 (10.85%) Machine Learning
12 14 (10.85%) Microservices
12 14 (10.85%) SDLC
12 14 (10.85%) Software Testing
12 14 (10.85%) TDD
12 14 (10.85%) Technical Leadership
13 13 (10.08%) AI
Programming Languages
1 37 (28.68%) Python
2 29 (22.48%) SQL
3 27 (20.93%) Java
4 25 (19.38%) JavaScript
5 20 (15.50%) C#
6 7 (5.43%) Go
6 7 (5.43%) Scala
6 7 (5.43%) TypeScript
7 4 (3.10%) C++
8 3 (2.33%) Kotlin
8 3 (2.33%) PHP
8 3 (2.33%) PowerShell
9 2 (1.55%) Bash
10 1 (0.78%) Delphi
Qualifications
1 21 (16.28%) DBS Check
2 10 (7.75%) Degree
3 5 (3.88%) SC Cleared
3 5 (3.88%) Security Cleared
4 3 (2.33%) BPSS Clearance
5 1 (0.78%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (0.78%) ISTQB
5 1 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
5 1 (0.78%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (31.01%) QA
2 5 (3.88%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.55%) GDPR
3 2 (1.55%) WCAG
4 1 (0.78%) GRC
System Software
1 19 (14.73%) Docker
Systems Management
1 17 (13.18%) Terraform
2 13 (10.08%) Kubernetes
3 6 (4.65%) Ansible
3 6 (4.65%) Grafana
4 3 (2.33%) HP Fortify
4 3 (2.33%) Rancher
5 2 (1.55%) Control-M
6 1 (0.78%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.78%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 20 (15.50%) Salesforce
2 12 (9.30%) Oracle
3 9 (6.98%) Microsoft
4 8 (6.20%) Databricks
5 5 (3.88%) Palantir
6 3 (2.33%) IBM
6 3 (2.33%) Software AG
6 3 (2.33%) webMethods
7 2 (1.55%) AppDynamics
8 1 (0.78%) Adobe
8 1 (0.78%) Checkmarx
8 1 (0.78%) Genesys
8 1 (0.78%) Google
8 1 (0.78%) Qualys
8 1 (0.78%) Samsung
8 1 (0.78%) SAP
8 1 (0.78%) Siebel