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 18 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 155 93 123
Rank change year-on-year -62 +30 -80
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 154 188 314
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 1.07% 2.79% 2.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.41% 2.93% 2.48%
Number of salaries quoted 120 121 232
10th Percentile £40,675 £36,250 £33,875
25th Percentile £49,875 £42,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £52,809 £57,965
Median % change year-on-year +13.62% -8.89% +5.39%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £71,991
90th Percentile £83,750 £97,528 £82,543
England median annual salary £64,482 £61,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year +4.85% +2.50% -7.69%

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 10,890 6,413 12,658
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 75.65% 95.09% 85.22%
Number of salaries quoted 6,321 3,644 10,161
10th Percentile £28,250 £28,500 £27,750
25th Percentile £35,000 £38,750 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £67,500 £70,000 £65,625
90th Percentile £85,000 £85,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%

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 18 March 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 18 March 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 -23 85 £60,000 +14.29% 83
Yorkshire -57 47 £58,250 +16.50% 47
North East -27 22 £55,200 -9.14% 44
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 4 (2.60%) Apache Spark
2 3 (1.95%) Oracle Workflow
3 2 (1.30%) Confluence
3 2 (1.30%) nginx
4 1 (0.65%) Apache Solr
4 1 (0.65%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (1.95%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (1.30%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.65%) Oracle SCM
2 1 (0.65%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 60 (38.96%) AWS
2 36 (23.38%) Azure
3 17 (11.04%) SaaS
4 16 (10.39%) GCP
5 15 (9.74%) Serverless
6 12 (7.79%) GitHub
7 10 (6.49%) Salesforce Service Cloud
8 8 (5.19%) AWS CloudFormation
9 6 (3.90%) GitHub Actions
10 5 (3.25%) Azure AKS
10 5 (3.25%) dbt
10 5 (3.25%) PaaS
11 4 (2.60%) Azure DevOps
11 4 (2.60%) Datadog
11 4 (2.60%) OpenShift
12 3 (1.95%) AWS Lambda
12 3 (1.95%) Azure Data Factory
12 3 (1.95%) Boomi
12 3 (1.95%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 3 (1.95%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 7 (4.55%) HTTP
2 5 (3.25%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.65%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (11.69%) MongoDB
2 17 (11.04%) MySQL
2 17 (11.04%) NoSQL
3 15 (9.74%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (3.25%) SQL Server
5 4 (2.60%) Elasticsearch
6 3 (1.95%) DynamoDB
6 3 (1.95%) Relational Database
6 3 (1.95%) Spark SQL
6 3 (1.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 2 (1.30%) PostHog
7 2 (1.30%) Power BI
7 2 (1.30%) Redis
7 2 (1.30%) Tableau
8 1 (0.65%) BusinessObjects
8 1 (0.65%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.65%) Flink
Development Applications
1 12 (7.79%) Selenium
2 11 (7.14%) Jenkins
3 10 (6.49%) GitLab
3 10 (6.49%) JMeter
4 9 (5.84%) JIRA
5 8 (5.19%) Cypress.io
5 8 (5.19%) Git
6 7 (4.55%) Cucumber
7 5 (3.25%) Postman
8 4 (2.60%) LoadRunner
8 4 (2.60%) REST Assured
8 4 (2.60%) Visual Studio
9 3 (1.95%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 3 (1.95%) Bitbucket
9 3 (1.95%) fastlane
9 3 (1.95%) Gatling
9 3 (1.95%) LabVIEW
9 3 (1.95%) SonarQube
10 2 (1.30%) Appium
10 2 (1.30%) Locust
General
1 35 (22.73%) Social Skills
2 22 (14.29%) Public Sector
3 19 (12.34%) Finance
4 13 (8.44%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (5.84%) Marketing
6 5 (3.25%) Games
6 5 (3.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 5 (3.25%) Law
6 5 (3.25%) Organisational Skills
7 4 (2.60%) Retail
8 3 (1.95%) Banking
8 3 (1.95%) Electronics
8 3 (1.95%) French Language
8 3 (1.95%) Health Technology
8 3 (1.95%) Italian Language
8 3 (1.95%) Portuguese Language
8 3 (1.95%) Spanish Language
9 2 (1.30%) Billing
10 1 (0.65%) Automotive
10 1 (0.65%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 50 (32.47%) Senior
2 36 (23.38%) Developer
3 28 (18.18%) Lead
4 23 (14.94%) Senior Developer
5 20 (12.99%) Test Engineer
6 17 (11.04%) Java Engineer
7 16 (10.39%) QA Engineer
7 16 (10.39%) Software Engineer
8 10 (6.49%) Automation Engineer
8 10 (6.49%) QA Automation Engineer
9 9 (5.84%) Analyst
9 9 (5.84%) Applications Engineer
9 9 (5.84%) Java Software Engineer
9 9 (5.84%) Salesforce Developer
9 9 (5.84%) Senior Applications Engineer
9 9 (5.84%) Senior Salesforce Developer
9 9 (5.84%) Senior Test Engineer
10 8 (5.19%) Data Engineer
10 8 (5.19%) Python Developer
11 7 (4.55%) Graduate
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (13.64%) Spring
2 18 (11.69%) React
2 18 (11.69%) RESTful
3 17 (11.04%) Spring Boot
4 12 (7.79%) CSS
5 11 (7.14%) HTML
5 11 (7.14%) Playwright
6 9 (5.84%) Node.js
6 9 (5.84%) Vue
7 8 (5.19%) .NET
8 7 (4.55%) Django
8 7 (4.55%) Flask
8 7 (4.55%) Kafka
8 7 (4.55%) REST
9 6 (3.90%) FastAPI
9 6 (3.90%) Middleware
9 6 (3.90%) OAuth
9 6 (3.90%) OAuth2
10 5 (3.25%) PySpark
11 4 (2.60%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 21 (13.64%) Cloud Native
2 8 (5.19%) Onboarding
3 7 (4.55%) Mobile App
4 6 (3.90%) Product Ownership
5 5 (3.25%) Data Structures
6 4 (2.60%) Analytical Mindset
6 4 (2.60%) Client/Server
6 4 (2.60%) Legacy Systems
7 3 (1.95%) Algorithms
7 3 (1.95%) Data Centre
7 3 (1.95%) Public Cloud
8 2 (1.30%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (1.30%) Low-Code
8 2 (1.30%) Management Information System
8 2 (1.30%) NHS
9 1 (0.65%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.65%) Distributed Architecture
9 1 (0.65%) Distributed Systems
9 1 (0.65%) Educational Technology
9 1 (0.65%) Hackathon
Operating Systems
1 11 (7.14%) Apple iOS
2 8 (5.19%) Android
3 5 (3.25%) Windows
4 4 (2.60%) Linux
5 1 (0.65%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 69 (44.81%) CI/CD
2 68 (44.16%) Agile
3 67 (43.51%) Mentoring
4 43 (27.92%) DevOps
5 39 (25.32%) Software Engineering
6 34 (22.08%) Continuous Improvement
6 34 (22.08%) Problem-Solving
7 28 (18.18%) TDD
8 27 (17.53%) Coaching
8 27 (17.53%) Microservices
9 25 (16.23%) BDD
10 24 (15.58%) Infrastructure as Code
11 17 (11.04%) Open Source
11 17 (11.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 16 (10.39%) Containerisation
12 16 (10.39%) Machine Learning
13 15 (9.74%) SDLC
14 14 (9.09%) AI
14 14 (9.09%) API Testing
14 14 (9.09%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 52 (33.77%) Java
2 45 (29.22%) Python
3 40 (25.97%) SQL
4 28 (18.18%) JavaScript
5 20 (12.99%) C#
6 10 (6.49%) TypeScript
7 7 (4.55%) Go
8 6 (3.90%) Kotlin
9 5 (3.25%) Scala
10 4 (2.60%) C++
11 3 (1.95%) PHP
11 3 (1.95%) Swift
12 2 (1.30%) Bash
12 2 (1.30%) VB
13 1 (0.65%) Delphi
13 1 (0.65%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.65%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 14 (9.09%) Degree
2 12 (7.79%) DBS Check
3 5 (3.25%) BPSS Clearance
4 3 (1.95%) SC Cleared
4 3 (1.95%) Security Cleared
5 2 (1.30%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (0.65%) ISTQB
6 1 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (25.32%) QA
2 7 (4.55%) Accessibility
3 3 (1.95%) GDPR
4 2 (1.30%) WCAG
5 1 (0.65%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.65%) GRC
System Software
1 20 (12.99%) Docker
Systems Management
1 19 (12.34%) Terraform
2 16 (10.39%) Kubernetes
3 7 (4.55%) Grafana
4 5 (3.25%) Ansible
5 3 (1.95%) HP Fortify
5 3 (1.95%) Rancher
6 2 (1.30%) Control-M
7 1 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.65%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 12 (7.79%) Oracle
2 11 (7.14%) Salesforce
3 8 (5.19%) Databricks
4 7 (4.55%) Microsoft
5 4 (2.60%) Palantir
6 3 (1.95%) IBM
6 3 (1.95%) Software AG
6 3 (1.95%) webMethods
7 1 (0.65%) AppDynamics
7 1 (0.65%) Checkmarx
7 1 (0.65%) Dynatrace
7 1 (0.65%) Genesys
7 1 (0.65%) Google
7 1 (0.65%) Qualys
7 1 (0.65%) Samsung
7 1 (0.65%) SAP
7 1 (0.65%) Siebel