QA Automation Job Trends in the South East

Quality Assurance (QA) Automation
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the South East requiring QA Automation skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 12 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 267 300 273
Rank change year-on-year +33 -27 +111
Permanent jobs citing QA Automation 8 2 17
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 0.078% 0.022% 0.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.097% 0.025% 0.22%
Number of salaries quoted 8 2 14
10th Percentile £40,300 - £42,500
25th Percentile £40,750 £46,250 £44,313
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £47,500 £55,500
Median % change year-on-year +21.05% -14.41% -3.48%
75th Percentile £65,313 £48,750 £63,000
90th Percentile £85,000 - £65,000
England median annual salary £61,500 £63,750 £60,000
% change year-on-year -3.53% +6.25% +9.09%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South East

QA 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 South East.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 8,270 7,935 7,841
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 80.17% 88.05% 88.33%
Number of salaries quoted 4,919 3,791 5,460
10th Percentile £27,750 £33,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £34,250 £45,000 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £58,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -13.79% +10.48% -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%

QA Automation
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

QA Automation job vacancy trend in the South East

QA Automation
Salary Trend in the South East

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing QA Automation.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing QA Automation

QA Automation
Salary Histogram in the South East

Salary distribution for jobs citing QA Automation in the South East over the 6 months to 12 January 2026.

Salary histogram for QA Automation in the South East

QA Automation
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 QA Automation within the South East region over the 6 months to 12 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
Berkshire - 3 £57,500 - 4
Isle of Wight - 3 £41,500 - 2
Thames Valley - 3 £57,500 - 5
Surrey +9 2 £85,000 +78.95% 3
QA Automation
England

QA Automation
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 3 (37.50%) Azure
1 3 (37.50%) Azure DevOps
1 3 (37.50%) GitHub
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (37.50%) Relational Database
1 3 (37.50%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 6 (75.00%) Selenium
2 3 (37.50%) Cucumber
2 3 (37.50%) Postman
2 3 (37.50%) SoapUI
2 3 (37.50%) Visual Studio
General
1 3 (37.50%) Finance
2 2 (25.00%) Games
Job Titles
1 5 (62.50%) QA Automation Engineer
1 5 (62.50%) QA Engineer
2 3 (37.50%) Automation Engineer
2 3 (37.50%) Automation Tester
2 3 (37.50%) Software Tester
2 3 (37.50%) Tester
3 2 (25.00%) Python Engineer
3 2 (25.00%) QA Test Engineer
3 2 (25.00%) Test Automation Engineer
3 2 (25.00%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (37.50%) .NET
1 3 (37.50%) ASP.NET
1 3 (37.50%) pytest
1 3 (37.50%) SOAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 8 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 5 (62.50%) Fintech
2 5 (62.50%) SDET
3 3 (37.50%) Batch Processing
3 3 (37.50%) Computer Science
3 3 (37.50%) Continuous Improvement
3 3 (37.50%) DevOps
3 3 (37.50%) Performance Testing
3 3 (37.50%) Problem-Solving
3 3 (37.50%) Process Improvement
3 3 (37.50%) Scenario Testing
3 3 (37.50%) Software Testing
4 2 (25.00%) Agile
Programming Languages
1 8 (100.00%) Python
2 6 (75.00%) Java
2 6 (75.00%) SQL
3 3 (37.50%) C#
3 3 (37.50%) Go
3 3 (37.50%) PHP
Qualifications
1 3 (37.50%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (100.00%) QA