Lead Test Engineer Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Lead Test Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Lead Test Engineer salary in the UK excluding London is £90,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 31 December 2025.

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

6 months to
31 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 496 564 524
Rank change year-on-year +68 -40 +219
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Test Engineer 19 3 17
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.045% 0.008% 0.056%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.050% 0.009% 0.058%
Number of salaries quoted 17 3 5
10th Percentile £50,250 - £52,292
25th Percentile £60,000 £61,000 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £90,000 £64,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +40.63% +6.67% -
75th Percentile - £75,375 £65,000
90th Percentile - £80,400 £78,500
UK median annual salary £90,000 £70,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year +28.57% +16.67% -

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. 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 UK excluding London with a recognized job title 37,904 34,869 29,181
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.34% 93.17% 95.28%
Number of salaries quoted 22,945 17,378 22,098
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £34,750 £40,000 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £66,250
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £80,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -

Lead Test Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Lead Test Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Lead Test Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Lead Test Engineer
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for Lead Test Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Salary distribution trend for Lead Test Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Lead Test Engineer
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Lead Test Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 31 December 2025.

Salary histogram for Lead Test Engineer in the UK excluding London

Lead Test Engineer
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Lead Test Engineer within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 31 December 2025. 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
North of England +24 12 £90,000 +9.09% 7
Yorkshire - 5 £53,500 - 3
North West +29 4 £90,000 +9.09% 2
South East +32 3 £60,000 -6.25% 1
Midlands - 3 £90,000 - 2
North East - 3 £90,000 - 2
West Midlands - 3 £90,000 - 2
South West - 1 £74,500 - 1
Lead Test Engineer
UK

Lead Test Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 31 December 2025, Lead 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 UK excluding London region featuring Lead Test Engineer in the job title.

1 9 (47.37%) Test Automation
2 6 (31.58%) Mentoring
3 5 (26.32%) Continuous Improvement
3 5 (26.32%) DevOps
3 5 (26.32%) JMeter
4 4 (21.05%) CI/CD
4 4 (21.05%) End-to-End Testing
4 4 (21.05%) QA
4 4 (21.05%) Security Testing
4 4 (21.05%) Selenium
5 3 (15.79%) HP Fortify
5 3 (15.79%) IBM
5 3 (15.79%) JavaScript
5 3 (15.79%) Kafka
5 3 (15.79%) LoadRunner
5 3 (15.79%) Middleware
5 3 (15.79%) Performance Testing
5 3 (15.79%) Playwright
5 3 (15.79%) Python
5 3 (15.79%) SonarQube
5 3 (15.79%) TypeScript
6 2 (10.53%) AI
6 2 (10.53%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (10.53%) BrowserStack
6 2 (10.53%) Compatibility Testing
6 2 (10.53%) Control-M
6 2 (10.53%) Cost Control
6 2 (10.53%) Customer Requirements
6 2 (10.53%) Degree
6 2 (10.53%) ERP

Lead Test Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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:

Business Applications
1 2 (10.53%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 2 (10.53%) BrowserStack
2 1 (5.26%) AWS
2 1 (5.26%) Azure
2 1 (5.26%) Azure Pipelines
2 1 (5.26%) GCP
2 1 (5.26%) GitHub
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (10.53%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 5 (26.32%) JMeter
2 4 (21.05%) Selenium
3 3 (15.79%) LoadRunner
3 3 (15.79%) SonarQube
4 2 (10.53%) REST Assured
5 1 (5.26%) Appium
5 1 (5.26%) Bitbucket
5 1 (5.26%) Cypress.io
5 1 (5.26%) GitLab
5 1 (5.26%) Postman
General
1 2 (10.53%) Military
1 2 (10.53%) Social Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (15.79%) Kafka
1 3 (15.79%) Middleware
1 3 (15.79%) Playwright
2 1 (5.26%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 1 (5.26%) Hackathon
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (47.37%) Test Automation
2 6 (31.58%) Mentoring
3 5 (26.32%) Continuous Improvement
3 5 (26.32%) DevOps
4 4 (21.05%) CI/CD
4 4 (21.05%) End-to-End Testing
4 4 (21.05%) Security Testing
5 3 (15.79%) Performance Testing
6 2 (10.53%) AI
6 2 (10.53%) Compatibility Testing
6 2 (10.53%) Cost Control
6 2 (10.53%) Customer Requirements
6 2 (10.53%) ERP
6 2 (10.53%) Exploratory Testing
6 2 (10.53%) Functional Testing
6 2 (10.53%) Generative AI
6 2 (10.53%) Non-Functional Testing
6 2 (10.53%) Performance Engineering
6 2 (10.53%) Software Testing
7 1 (5.26%) Collaborative Culture
Programming Languages
1 3 (15.79%) JavaScript
1 3 (15.79%) Python
1 3 (15.79%) TypeScript
2 1 (5.26%) Java
Qualifications
1 2 (10.53%) BPSS Clearance
1 2 (10.53%) Degree
2 1 (5.26%) ISTQB
2 1 (5.26%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
2 1 (5.26%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (21.05%) QA
2 1 (5.26%) Accessibility
System Software
1 1 (5.26%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (15.79%) HP Fortify
2 2 (10.53%) Control-M
3 1 (5.26%) Kubernetes
3 1 (5.26%) Terraform
Vendors
1 3 (15.79%) IBM
2 2 (10.53%) Oracle
3 1 (5.26%) Guidewire