Test Engineer Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Test Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Test Engineer salary in the UK excluding London is £45,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 2 January 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 242 251 337
Rank change year-on-year +9 +86 -8
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Engineer 312 391 225
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.74% 1.05% 0.72%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.82% 1.13% 0.76%
Number of salaries quoted 202 98 125
10th Percentile £33,300 £33,750 £32,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £40,313 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £49,552 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.19% +10.12% -10.00%
75th Percentile £57,500 £60,000 £58,750
90th Percentile £76,125 £65,000 £70,144
UK median annual salary £45,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -14.29% +5.00% -4.76%

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 37,950 34,527 29,578
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.35% 93.12% 95.27%
Number of salaries quoted 22,994 17,103 22,411
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £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% - -

Test Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Test Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Test Engineer
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

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

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

Test Engineer
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Test Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 2 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Test Engineer in the UK excluding London

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 Test Engineer within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 2 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 +8 72 £45,000 - 34
South East -50 66 £45,000 -5.26% 30
South West +35 59 £47,500 +18.75% 24
North of England +43 47 £51,000 -12.02% 47
Midlands +1 44 £55,000 - 17
North West +54 31 £45,000 -10.00% 19
West Midlands +39 29 £55,000 -4.73% 12
East Midlands -49 15 £52,500 +5.00% 5
Scotland -16 11 £40,000 -20.79% 21
Wales +6 9 £40,000 -57.89% 3
Yorkshire -2 9 £55,500 -4.25% 16
North East +7 7 £90,000 +55.27% 12
Northern Ireland - 4 £38,000 - 1
Test Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 2 January 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 UK excluding London region featuring Test Engineer in the job title.

1 91 (29.17%) Test Automation
2 40 (12.82%) Degree
3 37 (11.86%) Problem-Solving
4 36 (11.54%) Validation
5 34 (10.90%) Agile
6 33 (10.58%) Security Cleared
6 33 (10.58%) Software Testing
7 30 (9.62%) Python
7 30 (9.62%) Verification and Validation
8 27 (8.65%) QA
9 24 (7.69%) CI/CD
9 24 (7.69%) Continuous Improvement
10 23 (7.37%) Selenium
11 19 (6.09%) C#
11 19 (6.09%) Playwright
12 18 (5.77%) HND
12 18 (5.77%) Java
13 17 (5.45%) DevOps
13 17 (5.45%) JavaScript
14 16 (5.13%) JIRA
15 15 (4.81%) Azure
15 15 (4.81%) GitHub
15 15 (4.81%) Performance Testing
15 15 (4.81%) Test Scripting
16 14 (4.49%) API Testing
16 14 (4.49%) AWS
16 14 (4.49%) Git
16 14 (4.49%) LabVIEW
16 14 (4.49%) Manual Testing
16 14 (4.49%) Mentoring

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:

Application Platforms
1 3 (0.96%) Confluence
2 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 11 (3.53%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.28%) Fusion 360
2 4 (1.28%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (0.96%) OrCAD
4 1 (0.32%) Doxygen
Business Applications
1 2 (0.64%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 15 (4.81%) Azure
1 15 (4.81%) GitHub
2 14 (4.49%) AWS
3 6 (1.92%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (1.28%) GCP
4 4 (1.28%) GitHub Actions
5 3 (0.96%) BrowserStack
6 2 (0.64%) Azure Pipelines
6 2 (0.64%) SaaS
7 1 (0.32%) Dynamics 365
7 1 (0.32%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.60%) 5G
1 5 (1.60%) SD-WAN
1 5 (1.60%) WAN
2 2 (0.64%) Wireless
3 1 (0.32%) DHCP
3 1 (0.32%) DNS
3 1 (0.32%) Modbus
3 1 (0.32%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.96%) Elasticsearch
1 3 (0.96%) Neo4j
2 2 (0.64%) MongoDB
2 2 (0.64%) Tableau
3 1 (0.32%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 23 (7.37%) Selenium
2 16 (5.13%) JIRA
3 14 (4.49%) Git
3 14 (4.49%) LabVIEW
4 12 (3.85%) Cypress.io
4 12 (3.85%) Postman
5 11 (3.53%) Jenkins
6 8 (2.56%) JMeter
7 7 (2.24%) REST Assured
8 6 (1.92%) Cucumber
9 5 (1.60%) GitLab
9 5 (1.60%) Subversion
9 5 (1.60%) WebDriver
10 4 (1.28%) Appium
10 4 (1.28%) LoadRunner
11 3 (0.96%) SonarQube
11 3 (0.96%) SpecFlow
12 2 (0.64%) Bitbucket
12 2 (0.64%) MSTest
12 2 (0.64%) Rational DOORS
General
1 55 (17.63%) Electronics
1 55 (17.63%) Manufacturing
2 28 (8.97%) Social Skills
3 16 (5.13%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (4.81%) Aerospace
5 12 (3.85%) Aviation
6 7 (2.24%) Finance
6 7 (2.24%) Military
7 6 (1.92%) Retail
7 6 (1.92%) Telecoms
8 5 (1.60%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (1.60%) Presentation Skills
9 4 (1.28%) Organisational Skills
9 4 (1.28%) Public Sector
10 3 (0.96%) Automotive
10 3 (0.96%) Avionics
10 3 (0.96%) Games
11 2 (0.64%) Advertising
11 2 (0.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.64%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (6.09%) Playwright
2 9 (2.88%) pytest
3 7 (2.24%) .NET
3 7 (2.24%) RESTful
4 4 (1.28%) REST
5 3 (0.96%) AngularJS
5 3 (0.96%) HTML
5 3 (0.96%) Kafka
5 3 (0.96%) MERN Stack
5 3 (0.96%) Middleware
5 3 (0.96%) React
6 2 (0.64%) SOAP
6 2 (0.64%) Web Services
6 2 (0.64%) WebdriverIO
7 1 (0.32%) CSS
7 1 (0.32%) Gherkin
7 1 (0.32%) React Native
Miscellaneous
1 9 (2.88%) Self-Motivation
2 6 (1.92%) Embedded Systems
3 5 (1.60%) Self-Driving Car
4 4 (1.28%) Analytical Mindset
4 4 (1.28%) GNSS
4 4 (1.28%) Life Science
4 4 (1.28%) Renewable Energy
4 4 (1.28%) Satnav
5 3 (0.96%) Driving Licence
5 3 (0.96%) e-Learning
5 3 (0.96%) Fibre Optics
5 3 (0.96%) Onboarding
5 3 (0.96%) Robotics
6 2 (0.64%) Mobile App
6 2 (0.64%) PDA
7 1 (0.32%) Analogue Electronics
7 1 (0.32%) Hackathon
7 1 (0.32%) IoT
7 1 (0.32%) Linux Command Line
7 1 (0.32%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 10 (3.21%) Windows
2 9 (2.88%) Unix
3 2 (0.64%) Android
3 2 (0.64%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.32%) FreeRTOS
4 1 (0.32%) Linux
4 1 (0.32%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 91 (29.17%) Test Automation
2 37 (11.86%) Problem-Solving
3 36 (11.54%) Validation
4 34 (10.90%) Agile
5 33 (10.58%) Software Testing
6 30 (9.62%) Verification and Validation
7 24 (7.69%) CI/CD
7 24 (7.69%) Continuous Improvement
8 17 (5.45%) DevOps
9 15 (4.81%) Performance Testing
9 15 (4.81%) Test Scripting
10 14 (4.49%) API Testing
10 14 (4.49%) Manual Testing
10 14 (4.49%) Mentoring
11 12 (3.85%) End-to-End Testing
12 11 (3.53%) Non-Functional Testing
12 11 (3.53%) Security Testing
13 10 (3.21%) Analytics
13 10 (3.21%) Integration Testing
13 10 (3.21%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 30 (9.62%) Python
2 19 (6.09%) C#
3 18 (5.77%) Java
4 17 (5.45%) JavaScript
5 12 (3.85%) TypeScript
6 11 (3.53%) MATLAB
7 9 (2.88%) SQL
8 5 (1.60%) C
8 5 (1.60%) C++
9 3 (0.96%) Pascal
9 3 (0.96%) VB
9 3 (0.96%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 40 (12.82%) Degree
2 33 (10.58%) Security Cleared
3 18 (5.77%) HND
4 11 (3.53%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (3.53%) HNC
4 11 (3.53%) SC Cleared
5 9 (2.88%) ISTQB
6 6 (1.92%) DV Cleared
7 5 (1.60%) City & Guilds
8 4 (1.28%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (1.28%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 4 (1.28%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 4 (1.28%) Numerate Degree
9 3 (0.96%) CCA
9 3 (0.96%) NVQ Level 3
10 2 (0.64%) Master's Degree
11 1 (0.32%) MCSA
11 1 (0.32%) MCSE
11 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Certification
11 1 (0.32%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (8.65%) QA
2 7 (2.24%) Accessibility
3 4 (1.28%) ISO 13485
4 1 (0.32%) IEC 62304
4 1 (0.32%) ISO 9001
4 1 (0.32%) WCAG
System Software
1 10 (3.21%) Docker
2 2 (0.64%) Firmware
3 1 (0.32%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 10 (3.21%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.96%) HP Fortify
3 2 (0.64%) Control-M
3 2 (0.64%) HP Quality Center
3 2 (0.64%) Terraform
4 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 4 (1.28%) EMC
2 3 (0.96%) IBM
2 3 (0.96%) Microsoft
3 2 (0.64%) Guidewire
3 2 (0.64%) Oracle
4 1 (0.32%) Samsung
4 1 (0.32%) SAP
4 1 (0.32%) ServiceNow
4 1 (0.32%) VMware