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 £50,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 20 January 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 473 531 536
Rank change year-on-year +58 +5 +60
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Automation Engineer 39 34 47
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.090% 0.096% 0.12%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.099% 0.10% 0.13%
Number of salaries quoted 35 22 37
10th Percentile £41,750 £46,250 £38,100
25th Percentile £45,000 £46,563 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £63,750 £58,438 £57,500
90th Percentile £78,050 £63,175 £61,500
UK median annual salary £52,500 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.55% +10.00% -9.09%

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 39,207 32,850 36,637
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.63% 92.64% 95.30%
Number of salaries quoted 23,989 15,902 28,002
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £27,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,361 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £53,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% -5.04%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £77,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £57,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +5.26% -5.00%

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 20 January 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 20 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
East of England +37 16 £50,000 -9.09% 11
South East +30 10 £55,000 +15.79% 14
South West +15 5 £58,750 -6.00% 4
North of England +3 4 £53,500 -35.15% 9
Yorkshire -12 3 £53,500 - 5
West Midlands +28 2 £57,500 +17.95% 3
Midlands +24 2 £57,500 +9.52% 4
Wales - 2 £41,000 - 3
North East - 1 - - 1
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 20 January 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 39 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 20 (51.28%) QA
3 17 (43.59%) Selenium
4 16 (41.03%) CI/CD
4 16 (41.03%) Python
5 14 (35.90%) Software Testing
6 13 (33.33%) Agile
7 11 (28.21%) Manual Testing
7 11 (28.21%) Playwright
8 10 (25.64%) API Testing
8 10 (25.64%) DevOps
8 10 (25.64%) Security Testing
9 9 (23.08%) Continuous Improvement
10 8 (20.51%) JavaScript
10 8 (20.51%) Jenkins
11 7 (17.95%) Azure
11 7 (17.95%) C#
11 7 (17.95%) Docker
11 7 (17.95%) Java
11 7 (17.95%) Kubernetes
12 6 (15.38%) AWS
12 6 (15.38%) BDD
12 6 (15.38%) GitLab
12 6 (15.38%) Postman
12 6 (15.38%) Security Cleared
13 5 (12.82%) Accessibility
13 5 (12.82%) Containerisation
13 5 (12.82%) End-to-End Testing
13 5 (12.82%) Exploratory Testing
13 5 (12.82%) JMeter

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:

Application Platforms
1 1 (2.56%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (2.56%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (5.13%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 7 (17.95%) Azure
2 6 (15.38%) AWS
3 4 (10.26%) Azure DevOps
3 4 (10.26%) GCP
3 4 (10.26%) GitHub
4 3 (7.69%) GitHub Actions
5 2 (5.13%) Azure Pipelines
5 2 (5.13%) SaaS
6 1 (2.56%) BrowserStack
6 1 (2.56%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.56%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (5.13%) MongoDB
1 2 (5.13%) Tableau
2 1 (2.56%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 17 (43.59%) Selenium
2 8 (20.51%) Jenkins
3 6 (15.38%) GitLab
3 6 (15.38%) Postman
4 5 (12.82%) JMeter
5 4 (10.26%) Cypress.io
5 4 (10.26%) Git
6 3 (7.69%) LoadRunner
6 3 (7.69%) NUnit
6 3 (7.69%) REST Assured
6 3 (7.69%) SonarQube
6 3 (7.69%) SpecFlow
6 3 (7.69%) WebDriver
7 2 (5.13%) Cucumber
7 2 (5.13%) JIRA
7 2 (5.13%) MSTest
7 2 (5.13%) Robot Framework
7 2 (5.13%) TestNG
8 1 (2.56%) Appium
8 1 (2.56%) Bitbucket
General
1 3 (7.69%) Finance
1 3 (7.69%) Games
1 3 (7.69%) Social Skills
2 2 (5.13%) Advertising
2 2 (5.13%) Electronics
2 2 (5.13%) Public Sector
3 1 (2.56%) Banking
3 1 (2.56%) Financial Institution
3 1 (2.56%) International Banking
3 1 (2.56%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (28.21%) Playwright
2 5 (12.82%) RESTful
3 3 (7.69%) Kafka
3 3 (7.69%) Middleware
4 2 (5.13%) .NET
4 2 (5.13%) REST
5 1 (2.56%) Elastic Stack
5 1 (2.56%) pytest
5 1 (2.56%) Web Services
5 1 (2.56%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 1 (2.56%) Hackathon
1 1 (2.56%) Hedge funds
1 1 (2.56%) Linux Command Line
1 1 (2.56%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 2 (5.13%) Linux
2 1 (2.56%) CentOS
2 1 (2.56%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 16 (41.03%) CI/CD
3 14 (35.90%) Software Testing
4 13 (33.33%) Agile
5 11 (28.21%) Manual Testing
6 10 (25.64%) API Testing
6 10 (25.64%) DevOps
6 10 (25.64%) Security Testing
7 9 (23.08%) Continuous Improvement
8 6 (15.38%) BDD
9 5 (12.82%) Containerisation
9 5 (12.82%) End-to-End Testing
9 5 (12.82%) Exploratory Testing
9 5 (12.82%) Mentoring
9 5 (12.82%) Non-Functional Testing
9 5 (12.82%) SDET
10 4 (10.26%) Fintech
10 4 (10.26%) QA Automation
10 4 (10.26%) Test Strategy
11 3 (7.69%) Functional Testing
Programming Languages
1 16 (41.03%) Python
2 8 (20.51%) JavaScript
3 7 (17.95%) C#
3 7 (17.95%) Java
4 4 (10.26%) TypeScript
5 3 (7.69%) SQL
6 1 (2.56%) Bash
6 1 (2.56%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 6 (15.38%) Security Cleared
2 4 (10.26%) ISTQB
3 3 (7.69%) Degree
3 3 (7.69%) SC Cleared
4 2 (5.13%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
4 2 (5.13%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 2 (5.13%) Master's Degree
5 1 (2.56%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (51.28%) QA
2 5 (12.82%) Accessibility
3 1 (2.56%) WCAG
System Software
1 7 (17.95%) Docker
2 1 (2.56%) Firmware
2 1 (2.56%) Virtual Machines
2 1 (2.56%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 7 (17.95%) Kubernetes
2 3 (7.69%) HP Fortify
2 3 (7.69%) Terraform
3 2 (5.13%) Control-M
4 1 (2.56%) Ansible
4 1 (2.56%) Grafana
4 1 (2.56%) Kibana
4 1 (2.56%) logstash
4 1 (2.56%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 3 (7.69%) IBM
2 2 (5.13%) Guidewire
2 2 (5.13%) Oracle
3 1 (2.56%) Atlassian
3 1 (2.56%) Red Hat
3 1 (2.56%) Splunk
3 1 (2.56%) VMware