Test Engineer Job Trends in the South West

Test Engineer
England > South West

The median Test Engineer salary in the South West is £50,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 13 August 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 144 135 169
Rank change year-on-year -9 +34 +14
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Engineer 92 43 79
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 1.03% 1.22% 0.98%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.09% 1.34% 1.03%
Number of salaries quoted 41 20 36
10th Percentile £35,000 £35,000 £32,500
25th Percentile £41,250 £43,500 -
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £40,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +31.25% -20.00%
75th Percentile £57,500 £62,500 £54,063
90th Percentile £75,000 £70,375 £65,000
England median annual salary £50,000 £45,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year +11.11% -5.26% -9.52%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
South West

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in the South West. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the South West with a recognized job title 8,427 3,208 7,684
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.04% 91.21% 95.68%
Number of salaries quoted 5,738 2,134 5,506
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £35,780 £32,000 £38,572
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £48,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.25% -3.00% -8.41%
75th Percentile £70,000 £64,625 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £80,000
England median annual salary £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.55% - -8.33%

Test Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Test Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the South West.

Test Engineer job vacancy trend in the South West

Test Engineer
Salary Trend in the South West

Salary distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in the South West.

Salary distribution trend for Test Engineer job vacancies in the South West

Test Engineer
Salary Histogram in the South West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Test Engineer in the South West over the 6 months to 13 August 2026.

Salary histogram for Test Engineer in the South West

Test Engineer
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 Engineer within the South West region over the 6 months to 13 August 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
Gloucestershire -17 36 £45,000 -14.29% 11
Dorset +15 23 £45,000 -16.28% 4
Wiltshire -6 12 £55,000 -
Bristol -22 9 £75,000 +62.16% 16
Somerset -36 7 £42,500 +21.43% 9
Devon - 5 £50,000 - 1
Test Engineer
England

Test Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West

For the 6 months to 13 August 2026, Test Engineer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads across the South West region featuring Test Engineer in the job title.

1 46 (50.00%) Test Automation
2 27 (29.35%) Software Testing
3 22 (23.91%) Python
3 22 (23.91%) QA
4 20 (21.74%) Security Cleared
5 19 (20.65%) Agile
5 19 (20.65%) Manual Testing
6 15 (16.30%) Windows
7 14 (15.22%) Selenium
8 13 (14.13%) DevOps
8 13 (14.13%) Playwright
8 13 (14.13%) Test Strategy
9 12 (13.04%) CI/CD
9 12 (13.04%) Git
9 12 (13.04%) Jenkins
10 11 (11.96%) AWS
10 11 (11.96%) Defect Tracking
10 11 (11.96%) Test Scripting
10 11 (11.96%) Validation
11 10 (10.87%) Bash
11 10 (10.87%) Cypress.io
11 10 (10.87%) JavaScript
11 10 (10.87%) Linux
11 10 (10.87%) pytest
11 10 (10.87%) SC Cleared
11 10 (10.87%) SQL
12 9 (9.78%) API Testing
12 9 (9.78%) Continuous Improvement
12 9 (9.78%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 8 (8.70%) Ansible

Test Engineer Skill Set
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:

Applications
1 6 (6.52%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (5.43%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (1.09%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 11 (11.96%) AWS
2 6 (6.52%) OpenShift
3 5 (5.43%) Azure
4 4 (4.35%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (4.35%) GitHub
4 4 (4.35%) Power Platform
5 2 (2.17%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 4 (4.35%) 5G
1 4 (4.35%) SD-WAN
1 4 (4.35%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (6.52%) InfluxDB
2 4 (4.35%) Power BI
3 1 (1.09%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 14 (15.22%) Selenium
2 12 (13.04%) Git
2 12 (13.04%) Jenkins
3 10 (10.87%) Cypress.io
4 8 (8.70%) GitLab
5 7 (7.61%) LabVIEW
5 7 (7.61%) TestRail
6 6 (6.52%) Robot Framework
7 4 (4.35%) JMeter
8 3 (3.26%) JIRA
9 2 (2.17%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (2.17%) REST Assured
10 1 (1.09%) Postman
10 1 (1.09%) SoapUI
10 1 (1.09%) Zephyr
General
1 9 (9.78%) Documentation Skills
2 8 (8.70%) Electronics
3 7 (7.61%) Aviation
4 6 (6.52%) Retail
5 5 (5.43%) Analytical Skills
5 5 (5.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 5 (5.43%) Manufacturing
5 5 (5.43%) Social Skills
6 4 (4.35%) Aerospace
6 4 (4.35%) Finance
7 3 (3.26%) Influencing Skills
7 3 (3.26%) Military
7 3 (3.26%) Public Sector
8 2 (2.17%) Environmental Health
9 1 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (14.13%) Playwright
2 10 (10.87%) pytest
3 8 (8.70%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (2.17%) JSP
5 1 (1.09%) React Native
Miscellaneous
1 9 (9.78%) Product Ownership
2 4 (4.35%) Self-Driving Car
3 3 (3.26%) Embedded Systems
4 2 (2.17%) 3D Printing
4 2 (2.17%) Arduino
4 2 (2.17%) FPGA
4 2 (2.17%) Raspberry Pi
5 1 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
5 1 (1.09%) FMCG
5 1 (1.09%) Mobile App
5 1 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 15 (16.30%) Windows
2 10 (10.87%) Linux
3 6 (6.52%) CentOS
3 6 (6.52%) Unix
4 1 (1.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 46 (50.00%) Test Automation
2 27 (29.35%) Software Testing
3 19 (20.65%) Agile
3 19 (20.65%) Manual Testing
4 13 (14.13%) DevOps
4 13 (14.13%) Test Strategy
5 12 (13.04%) CI/CD
6 11 (11.96%) Defect Tracking
6 11 (11.96%) Test Scripting
6 11 (11.96%) Validation
7 9 (9.78%) API Testing
7 9 (9.78%) Continuous Improvement
7 9 (9.78%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 8 (8.70%) Defect Management
8 8 (8.70%) Infrastructure as Code
9 7 (7.61%) Collaborative Culture
9 7 (7.61%) Problem-Solving
9 7 (7.61%) Scrum
9 7 (7.61%) Test Management
10 6 (6.52%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 22 (23.91%) Python
2 10 (10.87%) Bash
2 10 (10.87%) JavaScript
2 10 (10.87%) SQL
3 6 (6.52%) PowerShell
4 5 (5.43%) MATLAB
5 3 (3.26%) Java
6 2 (2.17%) C
6 2 (2.17%) C++
7 1 (1.09%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 20 (21.74%) Security Cleared
2 10 (10.87%) SC Cleared
3 6 (6.52%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
4 5 (5.43%) Degree
4 5 (5.43%) HND
5 3 (3.26%) DV Cleared
6 2 (2.17%) ISTQB
7 1 (1.09%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (1.09%) City & Guilds
7 1 (1.09%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (23.91%) QA
2 5 (5.43%) Software Quality Assurance
3 3 (3.26%) Accessibility
4 2 (2.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 8 (8.70%) Docker
2 7 (7.61%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (6.52%) Virtual Machines
4 4 (4.35%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 8 (8.70%) Ansible
1 8 (8.70%) Grafana
1 8 (8.70%) Kubernetes
1 8 (8.70%) Terraform
2 6 (6.52%) Kibana
2 6 (6.52%) logstash
2 6 (6.52%) vCenter Server
3 2 (2.17%) Prometheus
3 2 (2.17%) Puppet
Vendors
1 7 (7.61%) Red Hat
1 7 (7.61%) VMware
2 6 (6.52%) Atlassian
2 6 (6.52%) Microsoft
2 6 (6.52%) Splunk
3 2 (2.17%) EMC
3 2 (2.17%) IBM
4 1 (1.09%) Oracle