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

6 months to
12 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 162 93 125
Rank change year-on-year -69 +32 -83
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 142 198 297
As % of all permanent jobs in the North of England 1.00% 2.88% 2.04%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.32% 3.02% 2.39%
Number of salaries quoted 111 118 231
10th Percentile £40,750 £37,125 £35,000
25th Percentile £49,750 £42,813 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £52,655 £57,965
Median % change year-on-year +13.95% -9.16% +5.39%
75th Percentile £74,066 £75,442 £71,991
90th Percentile £83,750 £97,528 £82,548
England median annual salary £62,500 £62,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +0.81% +3.33% -5.51%

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 10,750 6,549 12,431
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North of England 75.99% 95.13% 85.48%
Number of salaries quoted 6,211 3,558 10,037
10th Percentile £28,250 £29,500 £27,750
25th Percentile £35,000 £38,918 £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 £66,000
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 12 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 12 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 -27 77 £60,000 +14.29% 90
Yorkshire -64 44 £55,000 -0.17% 68
North East -29 21 £55,100 -9.67% 37
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 (2.82%) Apache Spark
2 3 (2.11%) Oracle Workflow
3 2 (1.41%) Confluence
3 2 (1.41%) nginx
4 1 (0.70%) Apache Solr
4 1 (0.70%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (2.11%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (1.41%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.70%) Oracle SCM
2 1 (0.70%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 54 (38.03%) AWS
2 34 (23.94%) Azure
3 16 (11.27%) SaaS
4 15 (10.56%) GCP
5 12 (8.45%) GitHub
5 12 (8.45%) Serverless
6 11 (7.75%) Salesforce Service Cloud
7 7 (4.93%) AWS CloudFormation
8 6 (4.23%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (3.52%) Azure AKS
9 5 (3.52%) OpenShift
9 5 (3.52%) PaaS
10 4 (2.82%) Datadog
10 4 (2.82%) dbt
11 3 (2.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 3 (2.11%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (2.11%) AWS Lambda
11 3 (2.11%) Boomi
11 3 (2.11%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 3 (2.11%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 7 (4.93%) HTTP
2 5 (3.52%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.70%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (11.97%) MongoDB
2 16 (11.27%) MySQL
2 16 (11.27%) NoSQL
3 14 (9.86%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (3.52%) SQL Server
5 4 (2.82%) Elasticsearch
6 3 (2.11%) DynamoDB
6 3 (2.11%) Relational Database
6 3 (2.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 2 (1.41%) PostHog
7 2 (1.41%) Power BI
7 2 (1.41%) Redis
7 2 (1.41%) Tableau
8 1 (0.70%) BusinessObjects
8 1 (0.70%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 11 (7.75%) GitLab
1 11 (7.75%) Jenkins
1 11 (7.75%) Selenium
2 10 (7.04%) JMeter
3 8 (5.63%) JIRA
4 7 (4.93%) Cypress.io
4 7 (4.93%) Git
5 6 (4.23%) Cucumber
6 4 (2.82%) LoadRunner
6 4 (2.82%) Postman
6 4 (2.82%) SonarQube
6 4 (2.82%) Visual Studio
7 3 (2.11%) Bitbucket
7 3 (2.11%) Gatling
7 3 (2.11%) LabVIEW
7 3 (2.11%) REST Assured
8 2 (1.41%) Appium
8 2 (1.41%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 2 (1.41%) fastlane
8 2 (1.41%) SpecFlow
General
1 33 (23.24%) Social Skills
2 21 (14.79%) Public Sector
3 16 (11.27%) Finance
4 11 (7.75%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (7.04%) Marketing
6 5 (3.52%) Games
6 5 (3.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 5 (3.52%) Law
6 5 (3.52%) Organisational Skills
7 4 (2.82%) Retail
8 3 (2.11%) Electronics
8 3 (2.11%) French Language
8 3 (2.11%) Health Technology
8 3 (2.11%) Italian Language
8 3 (2.11%) Portuguese Language
8 3 (2.11%) Spanish Language
9 2 (1.41%) Banking
9 2 (1.41%) Billing
10 1 (0.70%) Automotive
10 1 (0.70%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 43 (30.28%) Senior
2 35 (24.65%) Developer
3 24 (16.90%) Lead
4 22 (15.49%) Senior Developer
5 17 (11.97%) Test Engineer
6 16 (11.27%) Java Engineer
6 16 (11.27%) QA Engineer
7 13 (9.15%) Software Engineer
8 10 (7.04%) Automation Engineer
8 10 (7.04%) QA Automation Engineer
8 10 (7.04%) Salesforce Developer
8 10 (7.04%) Senior Salesforce Developer
9 9 (6.34%) Analyst
9 9 (6.34%) Java Software Engineer
10 8 (5.63%) Python Developer
11 7 (4.93%) Applications Engineer
11 7 (4.93%) Graduate
11 7 (4.93%) Senior Applications Engineer
11 7 (4.93%) Senior Test Engineer
12 6 (4.23%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (13.38%) React
2 17 (11.97%) RESTful
2 17 (11.97%) Spring
3 13 (9.15%) Spring Boot
4 12 (8.45%) CSS
5 11 (7.75%) HTML
6 9 (6.34%) .NET
6 9 (6.34%) Playwright
6 9 (6.34%) Vue
7 8 (5.63%) Node.js
8 7 (4.93%) Django
8 7 (4.93%) Flask
9 6 (4.23%) FastAPI
9 6 (4.23%) Kafka
9 6 (4.23%) Middleware
9 6 (4.23%) REST
10 5 (3.52%) OAuth
10 5 (3.52%) OAuth2
11 4 (2.82%) GraphQL
11 4 (2.82%) STL
Miscellaneous
1 21 (14.79%) Cloud Native
2 8 (5.63%) Onboarding
3 6 (4.23%) Mobile App
3 6 (4.23%) Product Ownership
4 5 (3.52%) Data Structures
4 5 (3.52%) Legacy Systems
5 4 (2.82%) Analytical Mindset
5 4 (2.82%) Client/Server
6 3 (2.11%) Algorithms
6 3 (2.11%) Data Centre
6 3 (2.11%) Public Cloud
7 2 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (1.41%) Low-Code
7 2 (1.41%) Management Information System
7 2 (1.41%) NHS
8 1 (0.70%) Cloud Security Posture
8 1 (0.70%) Distributed Architecture
8 1 (0.70%) Distributed Systems
8 1 (0.70%) Hackathon
8 1 (0.70%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 10 (7.04%) Apple iOS
2 8 (5.63%) Android
3 5 (3.52%) Windows
4 4 (2.82%) Linux
5 1 (0.70%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 64 (45.07%) CI/CD
1 64 (45.07%) Mentoring
2 63 (44.37%) Agile
3 40 (28.17%) DevOps
4 36 (25.35%) Software Engineering
5 32 (22.54%) Problem-Solving
6 31 (21.83%) Continuous Improvement
7 25 (17.61%) Coaching
8 24 (16.90%) Microservices
8 24 (16.90%) TDD
9 22 (15.49%) BDD
10 20 (14.08%) Infrastructure as Code
11 18 (12.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 15 (10.56%) Containerisation
12 15 (10.56%) Machine Learning
12 15 (10.56%) Open Source
13 14 (9.86%) AI
13 14 (9.86%) SDLC
14 13 (9.15%) API Testing
14 13 (9.15%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 45 (31.69%) Java
2 41 (28.87%) Python
3 36 (25.35%) SQL
4 27 (19.01%) JavaScript
5 20 (14.08%) C#
6 10 (7.04%) TypeScript
7 8 (5.63%) Go
8 5 (3.52%) Kotlin
8 5 (3.52%) Scala
9 4 (2.82%) C++
10 3 (2.11%) PHP
11 2 (1.41%) Bash
11 2 (1.41%) Swift
11 2 (1.41%) VB
12 1 (0.70%) Delphi
12 1 (0.70%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.70%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 13 (9.15%) DBS Check
2 12 (8.45%) Degree
3 5 (3.52%) BPSS Clearance
4 3 (2.11%) SC Cleared
4 3 (2.11%) Security Cleared
5 1 (0.70%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (0.70%) ISTQB
5 1 (0.70%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (28.17%) QA
2 7 (4.93%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.41%) GDPR
3 2 (1.41%) WCAG
4 1 (0.70%) GRC
System Software
1 19 (13.38%) Docker
Systems Management
1 16 (11.27%) Terraform
2 15 (10.56%) Kubernetes
3 7 (4.93%) Grafana
4 5 (3.52%) Ansible
5 3 (2.11%) HP Fortify
5 3 (2.11%) Rancher
6 2 (1.41%) Control-M
7 1 (0.70%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.70%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 12 (8.45%) Oracle
1 12 (8.45%) Salesforce
2 7 (4.93%) Microsoft
3 6 (4.23%) Databricks
4 4 (2.82%) Palantir
5 3 (2.11%) IBM
5 3 (2.11%) Software AG
5 3 (2.11%) webMethods
6 2 (1.41%) AppDynamics
7 1 (0.70%) Checkmarx
7 1 (0.70%) Dynatrace
7 1 (0.70%) Genesys
7 1 (0.70%) Google
7 1 (0.70%) Qualys
7 1 (0.70%) Samsung
7 1 (0.70%) SAP
7 1 (0.70%) Siebel