Test Automation Engineer Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Automation Test Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Automation Test Engineer salary in the UK excluding London is £55,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 25 June 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 542 443 716
Rank change year-on-year -99 +273 -104
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Automation Engineer 56 86 38
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.082% 0.28% 0.049%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.087% 0.32% 0.051%
Number of salaries quoted 44 12 23
10th Percentile £45,000 £56,250 £36,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £56,963 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +41.18% -15.00%
75th Percentile £70,000 £68,125 £49,375
90th Percentile £76,250 £82,375 £55,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +26.32% -13.64%

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 64,654 27,116 73,797
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.52% 89.01% 94.85%
Number of salaries quoted 44,836 14,802 52,905
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £26,750
25th Percentile £37,500 £33,750 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -6.54%
75th Percentile £70,000 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £77,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%

Test Automation Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Test Automation Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Test Automation Engineer
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

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

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

Test Automation Engineer
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Test Automation Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 25 June 2026.

Salary histogram for Test Automation Engineer in the UK excluding London

Test Automation 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 Test Automation Engineer within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 25 June 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
South East -50 15 £65,000 +7.00% 6
East of England -17 11 £50,000 -
South West -59 11 £51,000 -15.00% 2
North of England -41 8 £55,000 -15.38% 3
Wales - 6 £70,000 -
North West -7 4 £70,000 -1.75% 1
North East - 4 £55,000 - 1
Midlands -35 3 £50,000 -23.08% 2
Scotland +8 2 £58,750 +4.44% 5
East Midlands -42 2 - -
West Midlands -20 1 £50,000 -23.08% 2
Test Automation Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 25 June 2026, Test Automation 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 Test Automation Engineer in the job title.

1 56 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 24 (42.86%) Software Testing
3 20 (35.71%) QA
4 19 (33.93%) Agile
5 16 (28.57%) Python
6 15 (26.79%) Playwright
7 13 (23.21%) Selenium
8 12 (21.43%) C#
8 12 (21.43%) CI/CD
9 9 (16.07%) Cypress.io
9 9 (16.07%) Security Cleared
9 9 (16.07%) Test Strategy
10 8 (14.29%) API Testing
10 8 (14.29%) AWS
10 8 (14.29%) SDET
11 7 (12.50%) Azure
11 7 (12.50%) Collaborative Culture
11 7 (12.50%) Containerisation
11 7 (12.50%) DevOps
11 7 (12.50%) Docker
11 7 (12.50%) Fintech
11 7 (12.50%) GitLab
11 7 (12.50%) Grafana
11 7 (12.50%) JavaScript
11 7 (12.50%) Jenkins
11 7 (12.50%) Kubernetes
11 7 (12.50%) Terraform
11 7 (12.50%) Test Management
12 6 (10.71%) Ansible
12 6 (10.71%) Atlassian

Test Automation 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:

Cloud Services
1 8 (14.29%) AWS
2 7 (12.50%) Azure
3 6 (10.71%) OpenShift
4 5 (8.93%) Azure DevOps
5 2 (3.57%) GCP
6 1 (1.79%) AWS Data Pipeline
6 1 (1.79%) Azure Monitor
6 1 (1.79%) Azure Pipelines
6 1 (1.79%) SaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (10.71%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 13 (23.21%) Selenium
2 9 (16.07%) Cypress.io
3 7 (12.50%) GitLab
3 7 (12.50%) Jenkins
4 6 (10.71%) Git
4 6 (10.71%) Robot Framework
4 6 (10.71%) TestRail
5 4 (7.14%) JMeter
6 3 (5.36%) REST Assured
7 1 (1.79%) Burp Suite
7 1 (1.79%) Cucumber
7 1 (1.79%) NUnit
7 1 (1.79%) Postman
General
1 8 (14.29%) Games
2 4 (7.14%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (5.36%) Documentation Skills
4 2 (3.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 2 (3.57%) Influencing Skills
4 2 (3.57%) Social Skills
5 1 (1.79%) Finance
5 1 (1.79%) Health Technology
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (26.79%) Playwright
2 6 (10.71%) Elastic Stack
2 6 (10.71%) pytest
3 3 (5.36%) .NET
4 2 (3.57%) RESTful
5 1 (1.79%) AngularJS
5 1 (1.79%) Blazor
5 1 (1.79%) React
5 1 (1.79%) React Native
5 1 (1.79%) REST
5 1 (1.79%) Spring
5 1 (1.79%) Spring Boot
5 1 (1.79%) WebAssembly
Miscellaneous
1 8 (14.29%) Product Ownership
2 6 (10.71%) Mobile App
3 4 (7.14%) Online Games
4 2 (3.57%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (1.79%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 6 (10.71%) CentOS
1 6 (10.71%) Linux
1 6 (10.71%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 24 (42.86%) Software Testing
3 19 (33.93%) Agile
4 12 (21.43%) CI/CD
5 9 (16.07%) Test Strategy
6 8 (14.29%) API Testing
6 8 (14.29%) SDET
7 7 (12.50%) Collaborative Culture
7 7 (12.50%) Containerisation
7 7 (12.50%) DevOps
7 7 (12.50%) Fintech
7 7 (12.50%) Test Management
8 6 (10.71%) Dashboard Development
8 6 (10.71%) Infrastructure as Code
8 6 (10.71%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 6 (10.71%) Line Management
9 5 (8.93%) Continuous Improvement
9 5 (8.93%) Manual Testing
10 4 (7.14%) Software Engineering
10 4 (7.14%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 16 (28.57%) Python
2 12 (21.43%) C#
3 7 (12.50%) JavaScript
4 6 (10.71%) Bash
4 6 (10.71%) PowerShell
5 5 (8.93%) Java
6 2 (3.57%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 9 (16.07%) Security Cleared
2 6 (10.71%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
3 4 (7.14%) ISTQB
4 2 (3.57%) SC Cleared
5 1 (1.79%) Degree
5 1 (1.79%) ISEB
5 1 (1.79%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
5 1 (1.79%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (35.71%) QA
2 3 (5.36%) Accessibility
3 2 (3.57%) WCAG
4 1 (1.79%) Data Quality
System Software
1 7 (12.50%) Docker
2 6 (10.71%) Virtual Machines
2 6 (10.71%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 7 (12.50%) Grafana
1 7 (12.50%) Kubernetes
1 7 (12.50%) Terraform
2 6 (10.71%) Ansible
2 6 (10.71%) Kibana
2 6 (10.71%) logstash
2 6 (10.71%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 6 (10.71%) Atlassian
1 6 (10.71%) Red Hat
1 6 (10.71%) Splunk
1 6 (10.71%) VMware
2 1 (1.79%) Guidewire
2 1 (1.79%) ServiceNow