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 16 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 144 108 132
Rank change year-on-year -36 +24 -88
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 194 184 332
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 1.13% 2.70% 2.02%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.54% 2.85% 2.42%
Number of salaries quoted 141 137 229
10th Percentile £40,000 £34,750 £36,250
25th Percentile £48,289 £43,750 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £61,500 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +11.82% -4.35% +4.55%
75th Percentile £76,250 £80,000 £71,250
90th Percentile £83,750 £97,528 £78,750
England median annual salary £63,500 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +5.83% - -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 12,567 6,449 13,744
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 73.48% 94.52% 83.62%
Number of salaries quoted 7,658 3,722 10,966
10th Percentile £28,500 £28,500 £27,500
25th Percentile £36,250 £37,500 £36,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £70,000 £70,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £85,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% +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 16 April 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 16 April 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 -13 101 £60,000 +9.09% 51
Yorkshire -63 57 £68,076 +36.15% 31
North East -26 36 £55,000 -9.10% 33
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 (2.06%) Apache Spark
2 3 (1.55%) Oracle Workflow
3 2 (1.03%) Confluence
3 2 (1.03%) nginx
4 1 (0.52%) CMS
4 1 (0.52%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.52%) Umbraco
4 1 (0.52%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (1.55%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.52%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.52%) Oracle SCM
1 1 (0.52%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 68 (35.05%) AWS
2 56 (28.87%) Azure
3 25 (12.89%) Serverless
4 22 (11.34%) Azure DevOps
5 20 (10.31%) SaaS
6 15 (7.73%) GCP
7 11 (5.67%) GitHub
8 8 (4.12%) Azure AKS
8 8 (4.12%) Azure Data Factory
8 8 (4.12%) dbt
8 8 (4.12%) PaaS
9 7 (3.61%) AWS CloudFormation
9 7 (3.61%) Azure Monitor
10 6 (3.09%) Amazon EKS
10 6 (3.09%) Salesforce Service Cloud
11 5 (2.58%) AWS Lambda
11 5 (2.58%) Azure Functions
11 5 (2.58%) Azure Logic Apps
11 5 (2.58%) Power Platform
12 4 (2.06%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 5 (2.58%) HTTP
2 4 (2.06%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (10.82%) MongoDB
2 20 (10.31%) NoSQL
3 18 (9.28%) PostgreSQL
4 16 (8.25%) MySQL
5 8 (4.12%) Spark SQL
6 5 (2.58%) Data Warehouse
6 5 (2.58%) SQL Server
7 4 (2.06%) Power BI
8 3 (1.55%) DynamoDB
8 3 (1.55%) Elasticsearch
8 3 (1.55%) Relational Database
8 3 (1.55%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 2 (1.03%) Flink
9 2 (1.03%) PostHog
9 2 (1.03%) Redis
10 1 (0.52%) Azure SQL Database
10 1 (0.52%) BusinessObjects
Development Applications
1 16 (8.25%) GitLab
1 16 (8.25%) JIRA
2 14 (7.22%) Postman
3 13 (6.70%) Cucumber
4 12 (6.19%) Jenkins
5 11 (5.67%) Git
5 11 (5.67%) JMeter
6 10 (5.15%) Selenium
7 8 (4.12%) Cypress.io
8 7 (3.61%) REST Assured
9 4 (2.06%) Bitbucket
9 4 (2.06%) Gatling
9 4 (2.06%) SonarQube
9 4 (2.06%) SpecFlow
9 4 (2.06%) Visual Studio
10 3 (1.55%) Artifactory
10 3 (1.55%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 3 (1.55%) LabVIEW
10 3 (1.55%) LoadRunner
10 3 (1.55%) Locust
General
1 44 (22.68%) Social Skills
2 29 (14.95%) Public Sector
3 24 (12.37%) Finance
4 16 (8.25%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (6.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 9 (4.64%) Banking
7 6 (3.09%) Marketing
8 5 (2.58%) Games
8 5 (2.58%) Investment Banking
8 5 (2.58%) Law
8 5 (2.58%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (1.55%) Electronics
9 3 (1.55%) French Language
9 3 (1.55%) Health Technology
9 3 (1.55%) Italian Language
9 3 (1.55%) Portuguese Language
9 3 (1.55%) Retail
9 3 (1.55%) Spanish Language
10 2 (1.03%) Documentation Skills
10 2 (1.03%) Legal
Job Titles
1 50 (25.77%) Senior
2 39 (20.10%) Lead
3 36 (18.56%) Developer
4 28 (14.43%) Test Engineer
5 26 (13.40%) Java Engineer
6 20 (10.31%) Software Engineer
7 18 (9.28%) Senior Developer
8 15 (7.73%) QA Engineer
9 14 (7.22%) Data Engineer
10 12 (6.19%) Test Leader
11 11 (5.67%) Analyst
12 10 (5.15%) Java Software Engineer
13 9 (4.64%) Applications Engineer
13 9 (4.64%) Automation Engineer
13 9 (4.64%) Full-Stack Developer
13 9 (4.64%) Python Developer
13 9 (4.64%) QA Automation Engineer
13 9 (4.64%) Senior Applications Engineer
13 9 (4.64%) Senior Test Engineer
14 8 (4.12%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (13.92%) Spring
2 25 (12.89%) React
3 23 (11.86%) Spring Boot
4 22 (11.34%) REST
5 19 (9.79%) Playwright
6 16 (8.25%) RESTful
7 15 (7.73%) .NET
8 12 (6.19%) CSS
8 12 (6.19%) Vue
9 11 (5.67%) HTML
9 11 (5.67%) Node.js
9 11 (5.67%) OAuth
9 11 (5.67%) OAuth2
9 11 (5.67%) PySpark
10 9 (4.64%) AngularJS
11 8 (4.12%) Flask
12 7 (3.61%) Kafka
13 6 (3.09%) RabbitMQ
14 5 (2.58%) Django
14 5 (2.58%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 24 (12.37%) Cloud Native
2 10 (5.15%) Mobile App
3 8 (4.12%) Onboarding
3 8 (4.12%) Product Ownership
4 6 (3.09%) Data Structures
5 5 (2.58%) Analytical Mindset
6 4 (2.06%) Client/Server
6 4 (2.06%) Distributed Systems
7 3 (1.55%) Algorithms
7 3 (1.55%) Data Centre
7 3 (1.55%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
7 3 (1.55%) Low-Code
7 3 (1.55%) NHS
7 3 (1.55%) PKI
7 3 (1.55%) Public Cloud
8 2 (1.03%) Educational Technology
8 2 (1.03%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (1.03%) Management Information System
8 2 (1.03%) Online Games
Operating Systems
1 12 (6.19%) Apple iOS
2 9 (4.64%) Android
2 9 (4.64%) Linux
3 7 (3.61%) Windows
4 3 (1.55%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (49.48%) CI/CD
2 84 (43.30%) Agile
3 71 (36.60%) Mentoring
4 69 (35.57%) DevOps
5 46 (23.71%) Problem-Solving
6 44 (22.68%) Continuous Improvement
7 40 (20.62%) Software Engineering
8 36 (18.56%) Infrastructure as Code
9 35 (18.04%) Microservices
10 31 (15.98%) BDD
11 30 (15.46%) TDD
12 28 (14.43%) Full-Stack Development
13 27 (13.92%) Coaching
14 23 (11.86%) Test Strategy
15 22 (11.34%) Event-Driven
15 22 (11.34%) Observability
16 19 (9.79%) Containerisation
17 18 (9.28%) AI
17 18 (9.28%) Deployment Automation
17 18 (9.28%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 70 (36.08%) Java
2 59 (30.41%) Python
3 52 (26.80%) SQL
4 30 (15.46%) JavaScript
5 28 (14.43%) C#
6 11 (5.67%) TypeScript
7 8 (4.12%) Go
8 6 (3.09%) Kotlin
9 5 (2.58%) Scala
10 4 (2.06%) C++
11 3 (1.55%) Groovy
11 3 (1.55%) Swift
12 2 (1.03%) PHP
12 2 (1.03%) VB
13 1 (0.52%) Bash
13 1 (0.52%) C
13 1 (0.52%) Delphi
13 1 (0.52%) Perl
13 1 (0.52%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.52%) VBA
Qualifications
1 17 (8.76%) Degree
2 10 (5.15%) Security Cleared
3 9 (4.64%) SC Cleared
4 8 (4.12%) DBS Check
5 5 (2.58%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (2.06%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (1.03%) ISTQB
8 1 (0.52%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 1 (0.52%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 49 (25.26%) QA
2 10 (5.15%) Accessibility
3 9 (4.64%) GDPR
4 5 (2.58%) WCAG
5 2 (1.03%) Data Quality
System Software
1 21 (10.82%) Docker
Systems Management
1 31 (15.98%) Terraform
2 20 (10.31%) Kubernetes
3 8 (4.12%) Grafana
4 6 (3.09%) Ansible
5 3 (1.55%) Argo
5 3 (1.55%) Packer
5 3 (1.55%) Rancher
6 1 (0.52%) HP Fortify
6 1 (0.52%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 15 (7.73%) Microsoft
2 13 (6.70%) Databricks
2 13 (6.70%) Salesforce
3 10 (5.15%) Oracle
4 4 (2.06%) AppDynamics
4 4 (2.06%) IBM
4 4 (2.06%) Palantir
5 3 (1.55%) Google
5 3 (1.55%) Software AG
5 3 (1.55%) webMethods
6 1 (0.52%) Blue Prism
6 1 (0.52%) DevExpress
6 1 (0.52%) Dynatrace
6 1 (0.52%) Genesys
6 1 (0.52%) Hotjar
6 1 (0.52%) Pega
6 1 (0.52%) Samsung
6 1 (0.52%) SAP
6 1 (0.52%) Siebel