Test Automation Job Trends in the North West

Automated Testing
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Test Automation skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 10 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 109 83 119
Rank change year-on-year -26 +36 -72
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 74 134 125
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 1.03% 2.85% 1.89%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.32% 3.07% 2.21%
Number of salaries quoted 58 51 84
10th Percentile £46,750 £37,716 £38,250
25th Percentile £52,500 £41,625 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £52,500 £54,584
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% -3.82% -0.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £72,500 £68,125
90th Percentile £83,750 £97,528 £80,875
England median annual salary £62,500 £65,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -3.85% +8.33% -4.00%

All Process & Methodology Skills
North West

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 West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 5,618 4,364 5,659
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 78.52% 92.71% 85.70%
Number of salaries quoted 2,876 2,134 4,620
10th Percentile £28,250 £32,155 £28,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -8.90%
75th Percentile £66,250 £67,500 £66,778
90th Percentile £82,500 £82,500 £80,000
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 West

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Test Automation relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Test Automation job vacancy trend in the North West

Test Automation
Salary Trend in the North West

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Test Automation.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Salary Histogram in the North West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in the North West over the 6 months to 10 February 2026.

Salary histogram for Test Automation in the North West

Test Automation
Job Locations in the North West

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 West region over the 6 months to 10 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
Manchester -17 47 £57,500 - 59
Cheshire -11 23 £60,000 +33.33% 8
Merseyside -21 2 £77,500 +181.82% 5
Lancashire -15 1 £64,482 +65.48% 18
Test Automation
England

Test Automation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 3 (4.05%) Oracle Workflow
2 2 (2.70%) Apache Solr
2 2 (2.70%) nginx
3 1 (1.35%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (1.35%) Apache
3 1 (1.35%) Apache Spark
3 1 (1.35%) CMS
3 1 (1.35%) Confluence
3 1 (1.35%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (2.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.35%) Trello
Business Applications
1 2 (2.70%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (1.35%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 23 (31.08%) AWS
2 17 (22.97%) Azure
3 14 (18.92%) Salesforce Service Cloud
4 9 (12.16%) GCP
5 7 (9.46%) AWS CloudFormation
6 6 (8.11%) SaaS
7 5 (6.76%) Azure AKS
7 5 (6.76%) OpenShift
8 4 (5.41%) PaaS
9 3 (4.05%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 3 (4.05%) Amazon EKS
9 3 (4.05%) Boomi
9 3 (4.05%) Cloud Computing
9 3 (4.05%) GitHub
9 3 (4.05%) GitHub Actions
9 3 (4.05%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 2 (2.70%) Azure DevOps
10 2 (2.70%) Power Automate
10 2 (2.70%) Power Platform
10 2 (2.70%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 5 (6.76%) HTTP
2 4 (5.41%) TCP/IP
3 1 (1.35%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (8.11%) MongoDB
1 6 (8.11%) MySQL
2 5 (6.76%) Elasticsearch
2 5 (6.76%) NoSQL
3 4 (5.41%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (4.05%) DynamoDB
4 3 (4.05%) SQL Server
4 3 (4.05%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 2 (2.70%) PostHog
5 2 (2.70%) Redis
6 1 (1.35%) Amazon Athena
6 1 (1.35%) Big Data
6 1 (1.35%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 7 (9.46%) Git
2 6 (8.11%) GitLab
2 6 (8.11%) Jenkins
3 5 (6.76%) Cypress.io
3 5 (6.76%) Selenium
4 4 (5.41%) Visual Studio
5 3 (4.05%) Bitbucket
6 2 (2.70%) Cucumber
6 2 (2.70%) JIRA
6 2 (2.70%) Postman
6 2 (2.70%) SonarQube
7 1 (1.35%) CircleCI
7 1 (1.35%) JMeter
7 1 (1.35%) JUnit
7 1 (1.35%) Locust
7 1 (1.35%) Maven
7 1 (1.35%) Protractor
7 1 (1.35%) SoapUI
General
1 19 (25.68%) Social Skills
2 15 (20.27%) Marketing
3 7 (9.46%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (8.11%) Finance
5 3 (4.05%) French Language
5 3 (4.05%) Games
5 3 (4.05%) Italian Language
5 3 (4.05%) Portuguese Language
5 3 (4.05%) Spanish Language
6 2 (2.70%) Billing
6 2 (2.70%) Organisational Skills
6 2 (2.70%) Public Sector
6 2 (2.70%) Retail
7 1 (1.35%) Automotive
7 1 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (1.35%) Pharmaceutical
7 1 (1.35%) Publishing
7 1 (1.35%) Tech for Good
Job Titles
1 30 (40.54%) Developer
2 28 (37.84%) Senior
3 22 (29.73%) Senior Developer
4 14 (18.92%) Salesforce Developer
4 14 (18.92%) Senior Salesforce Developer
5 8 (10.81%) Lead
5 8 (10.81%) QA Engineer
6 5 (6.76%) Cloud Engineer
7 4 (5.41%) Analyst
7 4 (5.41%) C++ Developer
7 4 (5.41%) Java Developer
7 4 (5.41%) Mobile Engineer
8 3 (4.05%) Automation Engineer
8 3 (4.05%) DevOps Engineer
8 3 (4.05%) Graduate
8 3 (4.05%) Integration Manager
8 3 (4.05%) Java Engineer
8 3 (4.05%) Senior C++ Developer
8 3 (4.05%) Software Engineer
8 3 (4.05%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (10.81%) Spring
2 7 (9.46%) .NET
2 7 (9.46%) CSS
2 7 (9.46%) HTML
2 7 (9.46%) Spring Boot
3 6 (8.11%) RESTful
4 4 (5.41%) OAuth
4 4 (5.41%) Qt
4 4 (5.41%) STL
5 3 (4.05%) .NET Framework
5 3 (4.05%) Node.js
5 3 (4.05%) OAuth2
5 3 (4.05%) QML
5 3 (4.05%) React
5 3 (4.05%) REST
6 2 (2.70%) Entity Framework
6 2 (2.70%) Kafka
6 2 (2.70%) Loki
6 2 (2.70%) Middleware
6 2 (2.70%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 9 (12.16%) Cloud Native
2 6 (8.11%) Onboarding
3 4 (5.41%) Client/Server
3 4 (5.41%) Mobile App
3 4 (5.41%) Product Ownership
4 3 (4.05%) Algorithms
4 3 (4.05%) Data Centre
4 3 (4.05%) Public Cloud
5 1 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (1.35%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 1 (1.35%) IoT
5 1 (1.35%) Life Science
5 1 (1.35%) Linux Command Line
5 1 (1.35%) Low-Code
5 1 (1.35%) Management Information System
5 1 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 8 (10.81%) Android
1 8 (10.81%) Apple iOS
2 6 (8.11%) Linux
2 6 (8.11%) Windows
3 2 (2.70%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 36 (48.65%) Mentoring
2 33 (44.59%) Agile
3 30 (40.54%) CI/CD
4 21 (28.38%) DevOps
5 17 (22.97%) Problem-Solving
6 16 (21.62%) Software Engineering
6 16 (21.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 14 (18.92%) Business Analysis
7 14 (18.92%) Business Transformation
7 14 (18.92%) Continuous Improvement
7 14 (18.92%) Process Improvement
8 12 (16.22%) SDLC
9 11 (14.86%) Infrastructure as Code
9 11 (14.86%) Microservices
9 11 (14.86%) TDD
10 9 (12.16%) AI
10 9 (12.16%) Coaching
10 9 (12.16%) Continuous Integration
10 9 (12.16%) Machine Learning
11 8 (10.81%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 20 (27.03%) Java
2 15 (20.27%) Python
3 14 (18.92%) JavaScript
4 13 (17.57%) SQL
5 11 (14.86%) C#
6 6 (8.11%) Go
7 4 (5.41%) C++
7 4 (5.41%) Kotlin
7 4 (5.41%) TypeScript
8 3 (4.05%) PHP
9 2 (2.70%) PowerShell
10 1 (1.35%) Bash
10 1 (1.35%) Scala
Qualifications
1 17 (22.97%) DBS Check
2 6 (8.11%) Degree
3 3 (4.05%) BPSS Clearance
4 2 (2.70%) SC Cleared
4 2 (2.70%) Security Cleared
5 1 (1.35%) ITIL Certification
5 1 (1.35%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (28.38%) QA
2 4 (5.41%) Accessibility
3 2 (2.70%) GDPR
4 1 (1.35%) WCAG
System Software
1 9 (12.16%) Docker
Systems Management
1 10 (13.51%) Kubernetes
2 7 (9.46%) Terraform
3 6 (8.11%) Ansible
4 4 (5.41%) Grafana
5 3 (4.05%) Rancher
6 1 (1.35%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (1.35%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 14 (18.92%) Salesforce
2 6 (8.11%) Microsoft
3 4 (5.41%) Oracle
4 3 (4.05%) Software AG
4 3 (4.05%) webMethods
5 2 (2.70%) AppDynamics
6 1 (1.35%) Adobe
6 1 (1.35%) Databricks
6 1 (1.35%) Genesys
6 1 (1.35%) Google
6 1 (1.35%) Samsung
6 1 (1.35%) SAP
6 1 (1.35%) Siebel