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 11 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 87 120 76
Rank change year-on-year +33 -44 +15
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 433 242 346
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 1.80% 2.54% 2.63%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.54% 2.89% 3.29%
Number of salaries quoted 300 91 115
10th Percentile £40,000 £39,750 £38,388
25th Percentile £47,000 £50,125 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £60,000 £52,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +15.38% -13.33%
75th Percentile £74,986 £71,000 £68,750
90th Percentile £83,750 £80,000 £73,250
England median annual salary £62,500 £65,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year -3.85% +4.00% -

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 17,056 8,380 10,528
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 71.00% 87.92% 80.10%
Number of salaries quoted 12,608 4,095 5,174
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £48,720 £50,309
Median % change year-on-year +12.89% -3.16% -8.53%
75th Percentile £74,112 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £80,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -1.32%

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 11 October 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 11 October 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 -2 195 £60,000 -2.44% 215
North East +23 134 £55,000 +78.86% 64
Yorkshire +27 113 £69,305 +26.01% 144
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 24 (5.54%) Apache Spark
2 19 (4.39%) Apache
2 19 (4.39%) Apache Airflow
3 16 (3.70%) Jupyter
4 13 (3.00%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 8 (1.85%) Confluence
6 6 (1.39%) nginx
7 5 (1.15%) Palantir Foundry
7 5 (1.15%) WebLogic
8 4 (0.92%) CMS
9 3 (0.69%) Headless CMS
9 3 (0.69%) SharePoint
10 1 (0.23%) Kentico
10 1 (0.23%) Umbraco
Applications
1 3 (0.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.23%) EPLAN
3 1 (0.23%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 4 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.23%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 181 (41.80%) AWS
2 123 (28.41%) Azure
3 53 (12.24%) Serverless
4 46 (10.62%) Amazon S3
4 46 (10.62%) Azure DevOps
5 39 (9.01%) GitHub
6 32 (7.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 28 (6.47%) AWS Lambda
8 23 (5.31%) Amazon ECS
9 22 (5.08%) Amazon EC2
9 22 (5.08%) GCP
10 21 (4.85%) Amazon ECR
11 20 (4.62%) AWS CloudFormation
11 20 (4.62%) GitHub Actions
12 18 (4.16%) Amazon EMR
13 17 (3.93%) Azure Data Factory
14 14 (3.23%) dbt
14 14 (3.23%) Firebase
15 13 (3.00%) AWS KMS
15 13 (3.00%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.69%) Reverse Proxy
2 2 (0.46%) DNS
2 2 (0.46%) HTTP
2 2 (0.46%) SMS
3 1 (0.23%) BIG-IP
3 1 (0.23%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
3 1 (0.23%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
3 1 (0.23%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (7.39%) MongoDB
2 22 (5.08%) DynamoDB
2 22 (5.08%) PostgreSQL
3 21 (4.85%) Amazon Athena
4 20 (4.62%) SQL Server
5 17 (3.93%) NoSQL
6 14 (3.23%) Data Warehouse
6 14 (3.23%) Metadata
7 11 (2.54%) Spark SQL
8 9 (2.08%) Amazon Redshift
8 9 (2.08%) MySQL
8 9 (2.08%) Semantic Layer
9 8 (1.85%) Data Lake
9 8 (1.85%) Delta Lake
9 8 (1.85%) Relational Database
10 6 (1.39%) DocumentDB
10 6 (1.39%) Power BI
11 5 (1.15%) Elasticsearch
12 4 (0.92%) Amazon RDS
12 4 (0.92%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 88 (20.32%) GitLab
2 50 (11.55%) Git
3 39 (9.01%) Jenkins
4 23 (5.31%) Cypress.io
5 19 (4.39%) JIRA
6 15 (3.46%) fastlane
6 15 (3.46%) JUnit
6 15 (3.46%) Maven
7 13 (3.00%) Spock
8 11 (2.54%) Postman
9 10 (2.31%) Selenium
10 9 (2.08%) Bitbucket
10 9 (2.08%) Cucumber
11 8 (1.85%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 8 (1.85%) SonarQube
11 8 (1.85%) Storybook
12 7 (1.62%) JMeter
13 6 (1.39%) Xcode
14 5 (1.15%) Android Studio
14 5 (1.15%) REST Assured
General
1 121 (27.94%) Public Sector
2 113 (26.10%) Social Skills
3 71 (16.40%) Finance
4 61 (14.09%) Analytical Skills
5 42 (9.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 16 (3.70%) Banking
7 12 (2.77%) Electronics
7 12 (2.77%) Marketing
8 11 (2.54%) Publishing
9 10 (2.31%) Manufacturing
10 8 (1.85%) Legal
11 7 (1.62%) Games
12 6 (1.39%) Documentation Skills
12 6 (1.39%) Law
12 6 (1.39%) Retail
12 6 (1.39%) Retail Banking
13 5 (1.15%) Investment Banking
14 3 (0.69%) Organisational Skills
14 3 (0.69%) Police
14 3 (0.69%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 134 (30.95%) Senior
2 74 (17.09%) Developer
3 57 (13.16%) Test Engineer
4 47 (10.85%) DevOps Engineer
5 39 (9.01%) Software Engineer
6 37 (8.55%) Lead
7 34 (7.85%) Data Engineer
8 30 (6.93%) Senior Developer
9 27 (6.24%) Tester
10 26 (6.00%) Senior DevOps
10 26 (6.00%) Senior DevOps Engineer
11 25 (5.77%) Full-Stack Engineer
11 25 (5.77%) QA Engineer
12 20 (4.62%) Analyst
13 19 (4.39%) Java Developer
13 19 (4.39%) QA Tester
14 17 (3.93%) Software Developer
15 16 (3.70%) Automation Engineer
15 16 (3.70%) QA Automation Engineer
16 14 (3.23%) Databricks Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (18.48%) Node.js
2 72 (16.63%) Terraform
3 52 (12.01%) AngularJS
3 52 (12.01%) REST
4 45 (10.39%) Spring
5 41 (9.47%) CSS
5 41 (9.47%) HTML
6 38 (8.78%) React
7 35 (8.08%) PySpark
8 32 (7.39%) Playwright
8 32 (7.39%) Spring Boot
9 30 (6.93%) .NET
9 30 (6.93%) RESTful
10 23 (5.31%) Kafka
11 16 (3.70%) Next.js
12 12 (2.77%) GraphQL
12 12 (2.77%) Vue
13 11 (2.54%) React Native
14 10 (2.31%) .NET Core
14 10 (2.31%) Gherkin
Miscellaneous
1 50 (11.55%) Product Ownership
2 49 (11.32%) Cloud Native
3 30 (6.93%) Mobile App
4 21 (4.85%) Distributed Systems
5 20 (4.62%) Private Cloud
6 10 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
7 9 (2.08%) Onboarding
7 9 (2.08%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (1.85%) AI Agents
8 8 (1.85%) Data Structures
8 8 (1.85%) Low-Code
9 7 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
10 6 (1.39%) Driving Licence
10 6 (1.39%) Marketing Technology
10 6 (1.39%) Virtual Team
11 5 (1.15%) Culture of Ownership
11 5 (1.15%) Greenfield Project
11 5 (1.15%) Mobile Banking
12 3 (0.69%) Analogue Electronics
12 3 (0.69%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 33 (7.62%) Linux
2 24 (5.54%) Windows
3 23 (5.31%) Unix
4 13 (3.00%) Apple iOS
5 9 (2.08%) Android
6 4 (0.92%) VMS
7 1 (0.23%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 291 (67.21%) CI/CD
2 245 (56.58%) Agile
3 187 (43.19%) DevOps
4 150 (34.64%) Mentoring
5 142 (32.79%) Continuous Improvement
6 114 (26.33%) Problem-Solving
7 109 (25.17%) Software Engineering
8 87 (20.09%) Coaching
9 84 (19.40%) Scrum
10 82 (18.94%) Infrastructure as Code
11 79 (18.24%) Microservices
12 74 (17.09%) AI
13 73 (16.86%) Observability
14 70 (16.17%) TDD
15 68 (15.70%) Technical Leadership
16 66 (15.24%) Software Testing
17 64 (14.78%) Full-Stack Development
17 64 (14.78%) Validation
18 62 (14.32%) Continuous Integration
19 53 (12.24%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 128 (29.56%) Python
2 126 (29.10%) Java
3 108 (24.94%) JavaScript
4 98 (22.63%) SQL
5 82 (18.94%) TypeScript
6 44 (10.16%) C#
7 21 (4.85%) Bash
8 13 (3.00%) Kotlin
9 12 (2.77%) Swift
10 11 (2.54%) Go
11 10 (2.31%) C++
12 9 (2.08%) Groovy
12 9 (2.08%) PowerShell
13 8 (1.85%) Ruby
14 5 (1.15%) C
14 5 (1.15%) Rust
15 4 (0.92%) PHP
16 3 (0.69%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 3 (0.69%) VB
16 3 (0.69%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 84 (19.40%) Security Cleared
2 71 (16.40%) SC Cleared
3 29 (6.70%) Degree
4 15 (3.46%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (2.77%) AWS Certification
5 12 (2.77%) HNC
6 7 (1.62%) Master's Degree
7 6 (1.39%) DBS Check
8 5 (1.15%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
8 5 (1.15%) Azure Certification
8 5 (1.15%) DV Cleared
9 4 (0.92%) HND
10 3 (0.69%) NVQ Level 3
11 2 (0.46%) ISTQB
11 2 (0.46%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.23%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 1 (0.23%) BPSS Clearance
12 1 (0.23%) CISM
12 1 (0.23%) ITIL Certification
12 1 (0.23%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (26.33%) QA
2 49 (11.32%) Accessibility
3 32 (7.39%) Data Quality
4 26 (6.00%) WCAG
5 8 (1.85%) GDPR
6 4 (0.92%) GRC
7 2 (0.46%) PMO
8 1 (0.23%) ISO 22301
8 1 (0.23%) NIST
System Software
1 83 (19.17%) Docker
2 1 (0.23%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 51 (11.78%) Kubernetes
2 10 (2.31%) Argo
3 8 (1.85%) Ansible
4 5 (1.15%) Grafana
5 3 (0.69%) Progress Chef
5 3 (0.69%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.69%) Puppet
6 2 (0.46%) Kibana
6 2 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.23%) Fluentd
7 1 (0.23%) HP Fortify
Vendors
1 33 (7.62%) Microsoft
2 29 (6.70%) Databricks
3 18 (4.16%) Dynatrace
3 18 (4.16%) Splunk
4 13 (3.00%) Adobe
4 13 (3.00%) AppDynamics
4 13 (3.00%) Google
5 8 (1.85%) Apple
6 6 (1.39%) Confluent
6 6 (1.39%) Pega
7 5 (1.15%) Foundry
7 5 (1.15%) Palantir
8 4 (0.92%) Allen-Bradley
8 4 (0.92%) Oracle
8 4 (0.92%) Sage
8 4 (0.92%) Siemens
9 3 (0.69%) Keysight
9 3 (0.69%) Salesforce
9 3 (0.69%) SAP
10 2 (0.46%) Informatica