Test Automation Job Trends in the South West

Automated Testing
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the South West requiring Test Automation skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 66 41 91
Rank change year-on-year -25 +50 -40
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 166 158 253
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 2.27% 5.95% 2.91%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.27% 6.62% 3.46%
Number of salaries quoted 102 90 163
10th Percentile £41,375 £38,750 £36,000
25th Percentile £46,250 £44,620 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £58,750 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -6.38% +2.17% +9.52%
75th Percentile £70,000 £88,188 £73,886
90th Percentile £79,075 £115,750 £91,147
England median annual salary £63,076 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +5.13% - -7.69%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South 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 South West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 5,076 2,386 7,318
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South West 69.27% 89.87% 84.16%
Number of salaries quoted 3,374 1,528 5,556
10th Percentile £29,750 £28,500 £28,667
25th Percentile £36,000 £37,188 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £52,600 £50,993
Median % change year-on-year -0.19% +3.15% -2.87%
75th Percentile £70,000 £68,568 £65,000
90th Percentile £81,025 £81,250 £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 South West

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

Test Automation job vacancy trend in the South West

Test Automation
Salary Trend in the South West

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

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

Test Automation
Salary Histogram in the South West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Test Automation in the South West over the 6 months to 18 April 2026.

Salary histogram for Test Automation in the South West

Test Automation
Job Locations in the South 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 South West region over the 6 months to 18 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
Devon -2 62 £47,500 -13.64% 4
Gloucestershire -10 31 £60,000 +6.67% 15
Bristol -50 30 £65,000 -9.71% 25
Dorset -18 13 £49,250 +15.88% 4
Somerset -29 8 £46,250 -40.32% 13
Wiltshire -12 3 £55,000 +46.67% 5
Cornwall - 1 - -
Test Automation
England

Test Automation
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South 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 6 (3.61%) CMS
2 3 (1.81%) Confluence
3 2 (1.20%) Apache
3 2 (1.20%) Oracle Application Server
3 2 (1.20%) WordPress
4 1 (0.60%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.60%) Headless CMS
4 1 (0.60%) nginx
4 1 (0.60%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 8 (4.82%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (2.41%) Fusion 360
3 2 (1.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 4 (2.41%) Visualfiles
2 2 (1.20%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 50 (30.12%) Azure
2 48 (28.92%) AWS
3 31 (18.67%) Azure DevOps
4 19 (11.45%) GitHub
5 14 (8.43%) GCP
6 9 (5.42%) Serverless
7 8 (4.82%) OpenShift
8 7 (4.22%) GitHub Actions
9 6 (3.61%) AWS Lambda
9 6 (3.61%) Datadog
9 6 (3.61%) SaaS
10 5 (3.01%) Amazon S3
11 4 (2.41%) Amazon EKS
11 4 (2.41%) Power Platform
12 3 (1.81%) Amazon ECS
12 3 (1.81%) Amazon SQS
13 2 (1.20%) AWS Step Functions
13 2 (1.20%) Azure Pipelines
13 2 (1.20%) Canva
13 2 (1.20%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 8 (4.82%) 5G
1 8 (4.82%) SD-WAN
1 8 (4.82%) WAN
2 4 (2.41%) DNS
2 4 (2.41%) HTTP
2 4 (2.41%) SMTP
2 4 (2.41%) TCP/IP
3 2 (1.20%) Firewall
4 1 (0.60%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (4.82%) MongoDB
1 8 (4.82%) PostgreSQL
2 7 (4.22%) InfluxDB
3 6 (3.61%) NoSQL
3 6 (3.61%) SQL Server
4 5 (3.01%) MySQL
4 5 (3.01%) Relational Database
5 4 (2.41%) CockroachDB
5 4 (2.41%) Power BI
6 3 (1.81%) Oracle Database
6 3 (1.81%) Star Schema
7 2 (1.20%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (1.20%) Metadata
7 2 (1.20%) Oracle ODI
7 2 (1.20%) Oracle Reports
8 1 (0.60%) Data Lake
8 1 (0.60%) DynamoDB
8 1 (0.60%) Elasticsearch
8 1 (0.60%) MariaDB
8 1 (0.60%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 39 (23.49%) Git
2 35 (21.08%) Cypress.io
3 30 (18.07%) Selenium
4 25 (15.06%) Jenkins
5 14 (8.43%) JIRA
6 13 (7.83%) GitLab
7 10 (6.02%) TestRail
8 8 (4.82%) LabVIEW
9 7 (4.22%) CircleCI
9 7 (4.22%) Gradle
9 7 (4.22%) Robot Framework
10 6 (3.61%) JMeter
10 6 (3.61%) Maven
10 6 (3.61%) REST Assured
11 5 (3.01%) JUnit
11 5 (3.01%) Postman
12 4 (2.41%) TestNG
13 3 (1.81%) Mockito
13 3 (1.81%) SonarQube
14 2 (1.20%) Bitbucket
General
1 52 (31.33%) Social Skills
2 23 (13.86%) Electronics
3 21 (12.65%) Analytical Skills
4 20 (12.05%) Finance
5 17 (10.24%) Manufacturing
6 8 (4.82%) Presentation Skills
7 6 (3.61%) Aerospace
8 5 (3.01%) Organisational Skills
9 4 (2.41%) Automotive
9 4 (2.41%) Law
10 3 (1.81%) Retail
11 2 (1.20%) Avionics
11 2 (1.20%) Marketing
11 2 (1.20%) Public Sector
11 2 (1.20%) Tech for Good
12 1 (0.60%) Banking
12 1 (0.60%) Games
12 1 (0.60%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 36 (21.69%) Lead
2 26 (15.66%) Software Engineer
2 26 (15.66%) Test Engineer
3 17 (10.24%) Developer
3 17 (10.24%) Senior
4 14 (8.43%) QA Leader
4 14 (8.43%) Test Leader
4 14 (8.43%) Tester
5 12 (7.23%) Automation Tester
6 10 (6.02%) Test Automation Engineer
7 9 (5.42%) DevSecOps Engineer
7 9 (5.42%) Product Engineer
8 8 (4.82%) Product Test Engineer
8 8 (4.82%) Support Supervisor
8 8 (4.82%) Technical Support
8 8 (4.82%) Technical Support Supervisor
8 8 (4.82%) Verification Engineer
9 7 (4.22%) QA Engineer
9 7 (4.22%) RF Engineer
9 7 (4.22%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (22.29%) Playwright
2 20 (12.05%) React
3 15 (9.04%) RESTful
4 13 (7.83%) .NET
4 13 (7.83%) pytest
4 13 (7.83%) Spring
5 12 (7.23%) Elastic Stack
5 12 (7.23%) Node.js
6 11 (6.63%) REST
7 8 (4.82%) Spring Boot
8 5 (3.01%) AngularJS
8 5 (3.01%) React Native
9 4 (2.41%) .NET Core
9 4 (2.41%) .NET Framework
9 4 (2.41%) Next.js
10 3 (1.81%) Django
10 3 (1.81%) Entity Framework
10 3 (1.81%) HTML
10 3 (1.81%) OAuth
10 3 (1.81%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 15 (9.04%) Cloud Native
2 14 (8.43%) Self-Motivation
3 12 (7.23%) GNSS
3 12 (7.23%) Product Ownership
3 12 (7.23%) Satnav
4 8 (4.82%) Hybrid Cloud
4 8 (4.82%) Self-Driving Car
5 5 (3.01%) Distributed Systems
6 4 (2.41%) Life Science
6 4 (2.41%) Mobile App
7 3 (1.81%) Embedded Systems
7 3 (1.81%) Fat Client
7 3 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
7 3 (1.81%) Private Cloud
7 3 (1.81%) Renewable Energy
7 3 (1.81%) Thin Client
8 2 (1.20%) Algorithms
8 2 (1.20%) Cyber Threat
8 2 (1.20%) Social Media
8 2 (1.20%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 37 (22.29%) Linux
2 26 (15.66%) Windows
3 11 (6.63%) Unix
4 7 (4.22%) CentOS
5 3 (1.81%) Android
5 3 (1.81%) Apple iOS
5 3 (1.81%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.60%) FreeRTOS
6 1 (0.60%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 97 (58.43%) CI/CD
2 64 (38.55%) Agile
2 64 (38.55%) DevOps
3 57 (34.34%) Problem-Solving
4 50 (30.12%) Software Engineering
5 45 (27.11%) Continuous Improvement
6 33 (19.88%) Validation
7 28 (16.87%) Manual Testing
7 28 (16.87%) SDLC
8 26 (15.66%) Infrastructure as Code
9 25 (15.06%) Containerisation
9 25 (15.06%) Software Testing
10 24 (14.46%) API Testing
11 23 (13.86%) Decision-Making
12 21 (12.65%) Test Scripting
13 20 (12.05%) B2B
13 20 (12.05%) Mentoring
14 18 (10.84%) Test Strategy
15 17 (10.24%) Regression Testing
15 17 (10.24%) Test Management
Programming Languages
1 49 (29.52%) Python
2 30 (18.07%) TypeScript
3 26 (15.66%) JavaScript
4 25 (15.06%) Java
5 23 (13.86%) C#
6 20 (12.05%) SQL
7 19 (11.45%) Bash
8 17 (10.24%) PowerShell
9 10 (6.02%) C++
10 8 (4.82%) MATLAB
11 5 (3.01%) PHP
12 4 (2.41%) C
13 3 (1.81%) Clojure
14 2 (1.20%) Go
14 2 (1.20%) Kotlin
14 2 (1.20%) Shell Script
14 2 (1.20%) T-SQL
15 1 (0.60%) Embedded C
15 1 (0.60%) Rust
15 1 (0.60%) Swift
Qualifications
1 39 (23.49%) Degree
2 26 (15.66%) Security Cleared
3 17 (10.24%) ISTQB
4 9 (5.42%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (4.82%) DV Cleared
5 8 (4.82%) HND
6 7 (4.22%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
7 5 (3.01%) SC Cleared
8 3 (1.81%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 3 (1.81%) Master's Degree
9 2 (1.20%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 1 (0.60%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (26.51%) QA
2 21 (12.65%) Accessibility
3 8 (4.82%) ISO 9001
4 4 (2.41%) Data Quality
4 4 (2.41%) ISO 13485
5 2 (1.20%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (1.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (1.20%) NIST
6 1 (0.60%) Def Stans
6 1 (0.60%) GDPR
6 1 (0.60%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 31 (18.67%) Docker
2 4 (2.41%) Virtual Machines
2 4 (2.41%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.81%) Firmware
4 1 (0.60%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 33 (19.88%) Kubernetes
2 23 (13.86%) Terraform
3 19 (11.45%) Ansible
4 17 (10.24%) Grafana
5 5 (3.01%) Kibana
5 5 (3.01%) logstash
6 4 (2.41%) Prometheus
6 4 (2.41%) vCenter Server
7 3 (1.81%) SCCM
7 3 (1.81%) SCOM
7 3 (1.81%) SCOrch
8 2 (1.20%) Puppet
9 1 (0.60%) Microsoft Intune
9 1 (0.60%) Rancher
Vendors
1 12 (7.23%) Oracle
2 10 (6.02%) Splunk
3 8 (4.82%) Microsoft
4 7 (4.22%) Red Hat
5 5 (3.01%) VMware
6 4 (2.41%) Atlassian
6 4 (2.41%) Google
7 3 (1.81%) IFS
8 2 (1.20%) Adobe
8 2 (1.20%) Facebook
8 2 (1.20%) Guidewire
8 2 (1.20%) HubSpot
9 1 (0.60%) Databricks
9 1 (0.60%) Foundry
9 1 (0.60%) Palantir
9 1 (0.60%) Zoho