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 £60,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 17 September 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 602 452 600
Rank change year-on-year -150 +148 -82
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Automation Engineer 65 87 36
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.077% 0.25% 0.065%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.083% 0.28% 0.068%
Number of salaries quoted 41 14 17
10th Percentile £40,750 £51,250 £38,500
25th Percentile £50,000 £56,488 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year - +26.32% -5.00%
75th Percentile £70,000 £66,563 £55,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £70,000 £65,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £58,650 £52,500
% change year-on-year +2.30% +11.71% -

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 78,697 30,688 52,634
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.48% 89.33% 95.20%
Number of salaries quoted 54,596 17,458 30,845
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,572
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £59,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +7.27% - -8.33%

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 17 September 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 17 September 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 West -70 17 £42,500 -27.66% 16
Scotland +11 11 £62,500 -10.71% 13
North of England -52 10 £55,000 -8.18% 25
East of England -41 8 £40,000 -33.33% 12
South East -78 8 £75,000 +30.43% 21
Wales -68 6 £70,000 - 1
Midlands -55 5 - - 9
North East - 4 £55,000 - 3
North West -27 3 £61,250 - 15
West Midlands -37 3 - - 5
Yorkshire -40 3 £72,500 +21.04% 7
East Midlands -52 2 - - 4
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 17 September 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 65 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 28 (43.08%) Software Testing
3 22 (33.85%) Agile
4 19 (29.23%) QA
4 19 (29.23%) Selenium
5 18 (27.69%) CI/CD
6 17 (26.15%) Playwright
7 16 (24.62%) Jenkins
7 16 (24.62%) Python
8 15 (23.08%) Security Cleared
9 13 (20.00%) AWS
9 13 (20.00%) GitLab
10 12 (18.46%) Test Management
10 12 (18.46%) Test Scripting
11 11 (16.92%) C#
11 11 (16.92%) DevOps
12 10 (15.38%) Cypress.io
12 10 (15.38%) JavaScript
12 10 (15.38%) Windows
13 9 (13.85%) BDD
13 9 (13.85%) Git
13 9 (13.85%) Java
13 9 (13.85%) JMeter
13 9 (13.85%) Problem-Solving
14 8 (12.31%) Bash
14 8 (12.31%) Continuous Improvement
14 8 (12.31%) Linux
14 8 (12.31%) Robot Framework
14 8 (12.31%) Test Strategy
15 7 (10.77%) API Testing

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 3 (4.62%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (3.08%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 13 (20.00%) AWS
2 6 (9.23%) Azure
2 6 (9.23%) OpenShift
3 5 (7.69%) Azure DevOps
4 2 (3.08%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 2 (3.08%) Amazon EC2
4 2 (3.08%) Amazon S3
4 2 (3.08%) AWS Lambda
4 2 (3.08%) GitHub
4 2 (3.08%) GitHub Actions
4 2 (3.08%) Serverless
5 1 (1.54%) AWS Data Pipeline
5 1 (1.54%) Azure Monitor
5 1 (1.54%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 2 (3.08%) BGP
1 2 (3.08%) DHCP
1 2 (3.08%) DNS
1 2 (3.08%) OSPF
1 2 (3.08%) TCP/IP
1 2 (3.08%) VLAN
1 2 (3.08%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (9.23%) InfluxDB
2 3 (4.62%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 19 (29.23%) Selenium
2 16 (24.62%) Jenkins
3 13 (20.00%) GitLab
4 10 (15.38%) Cypress.io
5 9 (13.85%) Git
5 9 (13.85%) JMeter
6 8 (12.31%) Robot Framework
7 7 (10.77%) JIRA
8 6 (9.23%) TestRail
9 5 (7.69%) Postman
10 4 (6.15%) Cucumber
11 3 (4.62%) SoapUI
11 3 (4.62%) Zephyr
12 2 (3.08%) Rational DOORS
12 2 (3.08%) REST Assured
13 1 (1.54%) Appium
13 1 (1.54%) Burp Suite
General
1 9 (13.85%) Analytical Skills
2 5 (7.69%) Aviation
2 5 (7.69%) Public Sector
2 5 (7.69%) Social Skills
3 4 (6.15%) Games
4 3 (4.62%) Telecoms
5 2 (3.08%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (3.08%) Environmental Health
5 2 (3.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 2 (3.08%) Influencing Skills
5 2 (3.08%) Military
6 1 (1.54%) Finance
6 1 (1.54%) Manufacturing
6 1 (1.54%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (26.15%) Playwright
2 6 (9.23%) Elastic Stack
2 6 (9.23%) pytest
2 6 (9.23%) Terraform
3 3 (4.62%) .NET
3 3 (4.62%) ADO
3 3 (4.62%) JSON
3 3 (4.62%) SOAP
3 3 (4.62%) XML
4 2 (3.08%) Gherkin
4 2 (3.08%) JSP
4 2 (3.08%) REST
4 2 (3.08%) RESTful
5 1 (1.54%) AngularJS
5 1 (1.54%) React
5 1 (1.54%) React Native
5 1 (1.54%) Spring
5 1 (1.54%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 10 (15.38%) Product Ownership
2 4 (6.15%) Mobile App
2 4 (6.15%) Online Games
3 3 (4.62%) Virtual Team
4 2 (3.08%) Analytical Mindset
4 2 (3.08%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 10 (15.38%) Windows
2 8 (12.31%) Linux
3 6 (9.23%) CentOS
4 2 (3.08%) Unix
5 1 (1.54%) Android
5 1 (1.54%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 65 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 28 (43.08%) Software Testing
3 22 (33.85%) Agile
4 18 (27.69%) CI/CD
5 12 (18.46%) Test Management
5 12 (18.46%) Test Scripting
6 11 (16.92%) DevOps
7 9 (13.85%) BDD
7 9 (13.85%) Problem-Solving
8 8 (12.31%) Continuous Improvement
8 8 (12.31%) Test Strategy
9 7 (10.77%) API Testing
9 7 (10.77%) Scrum
9 7 (10.77%) Validation
10 6 (9.23%) Collaborative Culture
10 6 (9.23%) Containerisation
10 6 (9.23%) Dashboard Development
10 6 (9.23%) Infrastructure as Code
10 6 (9.23%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 6 (9.23%) Line Management
Programming Languages
1 16 (24.62%) Python
2 11 (16.92%) C#
3 10 (15.38%) JavaScript
4 9 (13.85%) Java
5 8 (12.31%) Bash
6 6 (9.23%) PowerShell
7 5 (7.69%) SQL
8 2 (3.08%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 15 (23.08%) Security Cleared
2 6 (9.23%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
2 6 (9.23%) ISTQB
2 6 (9.23%) SC Cleared
3 4 (6.15%) ISEB
4 2 (3.08%) Degree
4 2 (3.08%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (29.23%) QA
2 2 (3.08%) Accessibility
2 2 (3.08%) WCAG
3 1 (1.54%) Data Quality
System Software
1 6 (9.23%) Docker
1 6 (9.23%) Virtual Machines
1 6 (9.23%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 7 (10.77%) Grafana
2 6 (9.23%) Ansible
2 6 (9.23%) Kibana
2 6 (9.23%) Kubernetes
2 6 (9.23%) logstash
2 6 (9.23%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 6 (9.23%) Atlassian
1 6 (9.23%) Red Hat
1 6 (9.23%) Splunk
1 6 (9.23%) VMware
2 5 (7.69%) IBM
3 3 (4.62%) HP
3 3 (4.62%) Pega
3 3 (4.62%) SAP
4 2 (3.08%) Microsoft