Exploratory Testing Job Trends in the South East

Exploratory Testing
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the South East requiring Exploratory Testing skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 267 299 285
Rank change year-on-year +32 -14 +70
Permanent jobs citing Exploratory Testing 3 7 10
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 0.029% 0.078% 0.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.036% 0.088% 0.13%
Number of salaries quoted 3 5 1
10th Percentile £43,250 - -
25th Percentile £46,250 £41,250 £51,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £42,500 £53,500
Median % change year-on-year +35.29% -20.56% -10.83%
75th Percentile £63,875 £43,750 £55,250
90th Percentile £63,950 £55,450 -
England median annual salary £41,250 £62,000 £51,250
% change year-on-year -33.47% +20.98% -14.58%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South East

Exploratory Testing 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 South East.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 8,324 7,915 7,772
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 80.21% 88.16% 88.29%
Number of salaries quoted 4,975 3,773 5,421
10th Percentile £27,750 £33,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £34,250 £45,000 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £58,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -14.53% +11.43% -4.55%
75th Percentile £65,000 £75,000 £67,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £85,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

Exploratory Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Exploratory Testing relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Exploratory Testing job vacancy trend in the South East

Exploratory Testing
Salary Trend in the South East

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Exploratory Testing.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Exploratory Testing

Exploratory Testing
Salary Histogram in the South East

Salary distribution for jobs citing Exploratory Testing in the South East over the 6 months to 14 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Exploratory Testing in the South East

Exploratory Testing
Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Exploratory Testing within the South East region over the 6 months to 14 January 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
Thames Valley - 2 £50,000 - 10
Berkshire - 1 £57,500 - 6
Hampshire - 1 £62,000 - 1
Oxfordshire - 1 £42,500 - 4
Exploratory Testing
England

Exploratory Testing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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:

Cloud Services
1 1 (33.33%) BrowserStack
Development Applications
1 2 (66.67%) Selenium
2 1 (33.33%) JMeter
2 1 (33.33%) NUnit
2 1 (33.33%) Postman
General
1 2 (66.67%) Social Skills
2 1 (33.33%) Finance
2 1 (33.33%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 2 (66.67%) Test Automation Engineer
1 2 (66.67%) Test Engineer
2 1 (33.33%) Lead
2 1 (33.33%) Lead Test Engineer
2 1 (33.33%) Platform Engineer
2 1 (33.33%) QA Automation Engineer
2 1 (33.33%) QA Engineer
2 1 (33.33%) Senior
2 1 (33.33%) Senior Test Automation Engineer
2 1 (33.33%) Senior Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (33.33%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 1 (33.33%) Hedge funds
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (100.00%) CI/CD
1 3 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 1 (33.33%) Agile
2 1 (33.33%) API Testing
2 1 (33.33%) ATDD
2 1 (33.33%) BDD
2 1 (33.33%) Coaching
2 1 (33.33%) Code Quality
2 1 (33.33%) Compatibility Testing
2 1 (33.33%) Continuous Improvement
2 1 (33.33%) Manual Testing
2 1 (33.33%) Mentoring
2 1 (33.33%) Non-Functional Testing
2 1 (33.33%) Open Source
2 1 (33.33%) Operational Acceptance Testing
2 1 (33.33%) Performance Engineering
2 1 (33.33%) Problem-Solving
2 1 (33.33%) SDLC
2 1 (33.33%) TDD
2 1 (33.33%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 1 (33.33%) Java
1 1 (33.33%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 1 (33.33%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (100.00%) QA
2 1 (33.33%) Accessibility