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 9 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 152 87 124
Rank change year-on-year -65 +37 -83
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 125 243 251
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 1.03% 2.97% 2.03%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.32% 3.22% 2.35%
Number of salaries quoted 97 96 188
10th Percentile £43,300 £37,716 £39,325
25th Percentile £50,250 £44,688 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,250 £57,965
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% -2.96% +5.39%
75th Percentile £72,750 £74,522 £73,750
90th Percentile £83,750 £97,528 £82,548
England median annual salary £62,500 £65,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -3.85% +8.33% -3.23%

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 9,448 7,541 10,685
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 77.74% 92.20% 86.36%
Number of salaries quoted 5,196 3,472 8,715
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,250 £27,500
25th Percentile £34,745 £40,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -5.87%
75th Percentile £66,250 £69,500 £66,250
90th Percentile £82,500 £83,750 £80,435
England median annual salary £55,000 £62,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -11.29% +12.73% -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 9 February 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 9 February 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 -31 75 £60,000 +14.29% 84
Yorkshire -62 38 £55,000 -10.01% 32
North East -24 12 £60,000 -1.64% 12
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 5 (4.00%) Apache Spark
2 3 (2.40%) Oracle Workflow
3 2 (1.60%) Apache Solr
3 2 (1.60%) Confluence
3 2 (1.60%) nginx
4 1 (0.80%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.80%) Apache
4 1 (0.80%) CMS
4 1 (0.80%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (1.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.80%) Trello
Business Applications
1 3 (2.40%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (1.60%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.80%) Oracle SCM
3 1 (0.80%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 43 (34.40%) AWS
2 26 (20.80%) Azure
3 16 (12.80%) SaaS
3 16 (12.80%) Salesforce Service Cloud
4 15 (12.00%) GCP
5 10 (8.00%) GitHub
6 8 (6.40%) AWS CloudFormation
6 8 (6.40%) Serverless
7 6 (4.80%) OpenShift
7 6 (4.80%) PaaS
8 5 (4.00%) Azure AKS
9 4 (3.20%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 4 (3.20%) Datadog
9 4 (3.20%) GitHub Actions
9 4 (3.20%) Power Platform
10 3 (2.40%) Amazon EKS
10 3 (2.40%) Azure DevOps
10 3 (2.40%) Boomi
10 3 (2.40%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 3 (2.40%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 6 (4.80%) HTTP
2 5 (4.00%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.80%) SSH
3 1 (0.80%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (8.00%) MongoDB
1 10 (8.00%) MySQL
2 8 (6.40%) NoSQL
3 5 (4.00%) Elasticsearch
3 5 (4.00%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (4.00%) SQL Server
4 3 (2.40%) DynamoDB
4 3 (2.40%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 2 (1.60%) PostHog
5 2 (1.60%) Redis
5 2 (1.60%) Relational Database
5 2 (1.60%) Tableau
6 1 (0.80%) Amazon Athena
6 1 (0.80%) Big Data
6 1 (0.80%) BusinessObjects
6 1 (0.80%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 9 (7.20%) Selenium
2 8 (6.40%) Git
2 8 (6.40%) GitLab
2 8 (6.40%) Jenkins
3 7 (5.60%) JIRA
3 7 (5.60%) JMeter
4 6 (4.80%) Cucumber
5 5 (4.00%) Cypress.io
5 5 (4.00%) SonarQube
6 4 (3.20%) Visual Studio
7 3 (2.40%) Bitbucket
7 3 (2.40%) LoadRunner
7 3 (2.40%) Postman
8 2 (1.60%) Appium
8 2 (1.60%) JUnit
8 2 (1.60%) Locust
8 2 (1.60%) SpecFlow
9 1 (0.80%) LabVIEW
9 1 (0.80%) Maven
9 1 (0.80%) SoapUI
General
1 29 (23.20%) Social Skills
2 16 (12.80%) Marketing
3 12 (9.60%) Finance
4 10 (8.00%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (5.60%) Public Sector
6 6 (4.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 5 (4.00%) Games
7 5 (4.00%) Law
8 4 (3.20%) Retail
9 3 (2.40%) French Language
9 3 (2.40%) Italian Language
9 3 (2.40%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (2.40%) Portuguese Language
9 3 (2.40%) Spanish Language
10 2 (1.60%) Billing
11 1 (0.80%) Automotive
11 1 (0.80%) Electronics
11 1 (0.80%) Pharmaceutical
11 1 (0.80%) Publishing
11 1 (0.80%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 41 (32.80%) Developer
2 38 (30.40%) Senior
3 25 (20.00%) Senior Developer
4 21 (16.80%) Lead
5 16 (12.80%) QA Engineer
6 15 (12.00%) Salesforce Developer
6 15 (12.00%) Senior Salesforce Developer
7 11 (8.80%) Automation Engineer
7 11 (8.80%) QA Automation Engineer
8 8 (6.40%) Analyst
9 7 (5.60%) Graduate
9 7 (5.60%) Java Engineer
9 7 (5.60%) Test Engineer
10 6 (4.80%) Data Engineer
10 6 (4.80%) Python Developer
11 5 (4.00%) Cloud Engineer
11 5 (4.00%) QA Leader
11 5 (4.00%) Software Engineer
11 5 (4.00%) Test Analyst
12 4 (3.20%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (11.20%) Spring
2 13 (10.40%) CSS
2 13 (10.40%) React
3 12 (9.60%) HTML
4 11 (8.80%) .NET
5 9 (7.20%) Spring Boot
6 8 (6.40%) RESTful
7 7 (5.60%) Django
7 7 (5.60%) Flask
7 7 (5.60%) Kafka
7 7 (5.60%) Node.js
8 6 (4.80%) FastAPI
8 6 (4.80%) Middleware
8 6 (4.80%) REST
8 6 (4.80%) Vue
9 5 (4.00%) Playwright
10 4 (3.20%) OAuth
10 4 (3.20%) Qt
10 4 (3.20%) STL
11 3 (2.40%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 15 (12.00%) Cloud Native
2 8 (6.40%) Product Ownership
3 6 (4.80%) Onboarding
4 5 (4.00%) Data Structures
5 4 (3.20%) Client/Server
5 4 (3.20%) Mobile App
6 3 (2.40%) Algorithms
6 3 (2.40%) Analytical Mindset
6 3 (2.40%) Data Centre
6 3 (2.40%) Legacy Systems
6 3 (2.40%) Public Cloud
7 2 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (1.60%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 2 (1.60%) Management Information System
7 2 (1.60%) Virtual Team
8 1 (0.80%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.80%) IoT
8 1 (0.80%) Legacy Applications
8 1 (0.80%) Life Science
8 1 (0.80%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 8 (6.40%) Android
1 8 (6.40%) Apple iOS
2 6 (4.80%) Linux
2 6 (4.80%) Windows
3 2 (1.60%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 58 (46.40%) Mentoring
2 55 (44.00%) CI/CD
3 49 (39.20%) Agile
4 36 (28.80%) DevOps
5 33 (26.40%) Problem-Solving
6 28 (22.40%) Continuous Improvement
7 27 (21.60%) Software Engineering
8 20 (16.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 19 (15.20%) Infrastructure as Code
10 17 (13.60%) Coaching
11 16 (12.80%) Microservices
11 16 (12.80%) Process Improvement
12 15 (12.00%) Business Analysis
12 15 (12.00%) Business Transformation
12 15 (12.00%) Machine Learning
12 15 (12.00%) SDLC
12 15 (12.00%) TDD
13 14 (11.20%) AI
14 12 (9.60%) API Testing
14 12 (9.60%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 38 (30.40%) Python
2 31 (24.80%) Java
3 30 (24.00%) SQL
4 25 (20.00%) JavaScript
5 20 (16.00%) C#
6 8 (6.40%) Go
6 8 (6.40%) TypeScript
7 6 (4.80%) Scala
8 4 (3.20%) C++
8 4 (3.20%) Kotlin
9 3 (2.40%) PHP
9 3 (2.40%) PowerShell
10 2 (1.60%) Bash
11 1 (0.80%) Delphi
11 1 (0.80%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.80%) VB
Qualifications
1 18 (14.40%) DBS Check
2 12 (9.60%) Degree
3 4 (3.20%) BPSS Clearance
3 4 (3.20%) SC Cleared
3 4 (3.20%) Security Cleared
4 1 (0.80%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (0.80%) ISTQB
4 1 (0.80%) ITIL Certification
4 1 (0.80%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (31.20%) QA
2 5 (4.00%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.60%) GDPR
3 2 (1.60%) WCAG
4 1 (0.80%) GRC
System Software
1 19 (15.20%) Docker
Systems Management
1 15 (12.00%) Terraform
2 14 (11.20%) Kubernetes
3 6 (4.80%) Ansible
3 6 (4.80%) Grafana
4 3 (2.40%) HP Fortify
4 3 (2.40%) Rancher
5 2 (1.60%) Control-M
6 1 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.80%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 17 (13.60%) Salesforce
2 12 (9.60%) Oracle
3 7 (5.60%) Databricks
3 7 (5.60%) Microsoft
4 4 (3.20%) Palantir
5 3 (2.40%) IBM
5 3 (2.40%) Software AG
5 3 (2.40%) webMethods
6 2 (1.60%) AppDynamics
7 1 (0.80%) Adobe
7 1 (0.80%) Checkmarx
7 1 (0.80%) Genesys
7 1 (0.80%) Google
7 1 (0.80%) Qualys
7 1 (0.80%) Samsung
7 1 (0.80%) SAP
7 1 (0.80%) Siebel