Automation Engineer Job Trends

Automation Engineer
UK

The median Automation Engineer salary in the UK is £55,000 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 487 549 487
Rank change year-on-year +62 -62 +141
Permanent jobs requiring an Automation Engineer 163 151 258
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.27% 0.29% 0.43%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.29% 0.31% 0.45%
Number of salaries quoted 97 99 129
10th Percentile £37,500 £47,000 £24,000
25th Percentile £46,750 £63,125 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £75,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -26.67% +42.86% -12.50%
75th Percentile £64,750 £92,500 £75,000
90th Percentile £75,500 £100,000 £77,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £67,500 £44,400
% change year-on-year -18.52% +52.03% -15.43%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies. 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 with a recognized job title 55,541 49,002 57,717
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.82% 92.63% 95.20%
Number of salaries quoted 34,360 25,280 44,689
10th Percentile £28,697 £33,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £40,988
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £57,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £98,272 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £53,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% -5.04%

Automation Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Automation Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Automation Engineer
Salary Trend

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

Salary distribution trend for Automation Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Automation Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Automation Engineer over the 6 months to 20 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Automation Engineer in the UK

Automation Engineer
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Automation Engineer within the UK 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
England +70 145 £57,500 -23.33% 109
UK excluding London +98 104 £55,000 -18.52% 111
London +11 48 £62,500 -21.88% 13
Work from Home +55 44 £61,500 -23.13% 44
North of England +35 42 £53,750 -32.81% 21
Midlands +28 25 £55,000 -8.33% 19
North West - 21 £49,500 - 10
West Midlands +31 18 £57,500 -14.81% 9
Yorkshire -6 16 £61,500 -23.13% 9
South East +27 13 £55,000 -36.42% 35
South West +15 9 £55,000 -1.35% 10
East of England +32 7 £70,000 - 20
East Midlands -9 7 £39,500 -24.04% 10
North East +10 5 £57,500 -42.50% 2
Northern Ireland -4 5 £45,000 - 1
Wales +6 2 - - 7
Scotland -1 2 - - 6

Automation Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 20 January 2026, 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 featuring Automation Engineer in the job title.

1 55 (33.74%) Python
2 50 (30.67%) Test Automation
3 43 (26.38%) Degree
4 39 (23.93%) QA
5 38 (23.31%) SQL
6 37 (22.70%) CI/CD
7 32 (19.63%) AI
7 32 (19.63%) QA Automation
8 26 (15.95%) Computer Science
8 26 (15.95%) Process Improvement
9 25 (15.34%) Azure
10 24 (14.72%) SaaS
11 22 (13.50%) Bash
12 21 (12.88%) AWS
12 21 (12.88%) C#
12 21 (12.88%) DevOps
13 20 (12.27%) Change Management
13 20 (12.27%) Project Management
13 20 (12.27%) Siemens
14 19 (11.66%) Problem-Solving
15 18 (11.04%) Computer Science Degree
15 18 (11.04%) Infrastructure as Code
15 18 (11.04%) Linux
15 18 (11.04%) Mentoring
15 18 (11.04%) pytest
16 17 (10.43%) CSS
16 17 (10.43%) Java
16 17 (10.43%) Kubernetes
16 17 (10.43%) Terraform
17 16 (9.82%) Allen-Bradley

Automation Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 10 (6.13%) Appian
2 2 (1.23%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (1.23%) WinCC
Applications
1 14 (8.59%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (4.91%) AutoCAD
2 8 (4.91%) MS Visio
2 8 (4.91%) SOLIDWORKS
3 3 (1.84%) Chatbot
4 2 (1.23%) EPLAN
5 1 (0.61%) EngageOne
Business Applications
1 1 (0.61%) TIBCO iProcess
Cloud Services
1 25 (15.34%) Azure
2 24 (14.72%) SaaS
3 21 (12.88%) AWS
4 12 (7.36%) GCP
5 10 (6.13%) Anthropic Claude
5 10 (6.13%) Azure AI
5 10 (6.13%) Azure Data Factory
5 10 (6.13%) IaaS
5 10 (6.13%) PaaS
5 10 (6.13%) Power Automate
6 7 (4.29%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 4 (2.45%) GitHub
7 4 (2.45%) GitHub Actions
8 3 (1.84%) Azure DevOps
9 2 (1.23%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 2 (1.23%) dbt
9 2 (1.23%) Power Platform
9 2 (1.23%) SAP Commerce Cloud
10 1 (0.61%) n8n
Communications & Networking
1 7 (4.29%) Firewall
1 7 (4.29%) Network Security
2 4 (2.45%) Intrusion Detection
3 2 (1.23%) Profibus
3 2 (1.23%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.61%) HTTP
4 1 (0.61%) LAN
4 1 (0.61%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (6.13%) Pinecone
1 10 (6.13%) SQL Server
2 5 (3.07%) Relational Database
3 2 (1.23%) CockroachDB
3 2 (1.23%) Data Lake
3 2 (1.23%) Data Mining
3 2 (1.23%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (1.23%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 14 (8.59%) Selenium
2 10 (6.13%) Cucumber
2 10 (6.13%) MLflow
2 10 (6.13%) Postman
3 9 (5.52%) Git
4 8 (4.91%) Cypress.io
5 7 (4.29%) SoapUI
6 6 (3.68%) Appium
7 5 (3.07%) Jenkins
8 4 (2.45%) TeamCity
9 3 (1.84%) GitLab
9 3 (1.84%) JIRA
9 3 (1.84%) REST Assured
9 3 (1.84%) SpecFlow
10 2 (1.23%) Artifactory
10 2 (1.23%) JMeter
10 2 (1.23%) JUnit
10 2 (1.23%) TestNG
11 1 (0.61%) SonarQube
11 1 (0.61%) Visual Studio
General
1 49 (30.06%) Finance
2 35 (21.47%) Social Skills
3 25 (15.34%) Manufacturing
4 8 (4.91%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (4.29%) Automotive
5 7 (4.29%) Banking
6 6 (3.68%) Pharmaceutical
7 4 (2.45%) Advertising
7 4 (2.45%) Back Office
7 4 (2.45%) Financial Institution
7 4 (2.45%) Retail
8 3 (1.84%) Telecoms
9 2 (1.23%) Electronics
9 2 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.61%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (11.04%) pytest
2 17 (10.43%) CSS
3 13 (7.98%) RESTful
4 11 (6.75%) Swagger
5 10 (6.13%) Django
5 10 (6.13%) Faiss
5 10 (6.13%) FastAPI
5 10 (6.13%) Flask
5 10 (6.13%) Hugging Face
5 10 (6.13%) JWT
5 10 (6.13%) NumPy
5 10 (6.13%) OAuth
5 10 (6.13%) OpenAPI
5 10 (6.13%) Pandas
5 10 (6.13%) PyTorch
5 10 (6.13%) REST
5 10 (6.13%) scikit-learn
5 10 (6.13%) TensorFlow
5 10 (6.13%) Web Services
6 7 (4.29%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 19 (11.66%) Onboarding
2 17 (10.43%) SCADA
3 12 (7.36%) Driving Licence
3 12 (7.36%) Legacy Systems
4 11 (6.75%) Low-Code
4 11 (6.75%) Robotics
5 10 (6.13%) Product Ownership
6 8 (4.91%) Management Information System
7 7 (4.29%) Hedge funds
7 7 (4.29%) Security Posture
8 6 (3.68%) Cloud Native
9 5 (3.07%) Industrial Internet of Things
10 4 (2.45%) Blog
10 4 (2.45%) Renewable Energy
11 3 (1.84%) AI Agents
11 3 (1.84%) Life Science
12 2 (1.23%) Hybrid Cloud
13 1 (0.61%) Data Centre
13 1 (0.61%) Linux Command Line
13 1 (0.61%) Omics
Operating Systems
1 18 (11.04%) Linux
2 10 (6.13%) Unix
3 1 (0.61%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 50 (30.67%) Test Automation
2 37 (22.70%) CI/CD
3 32 (19.63%) AI
3 32 (19.63%) QA Automation
4 26 (15.95%) Computer Science
4 26 (15.95%) Process Improvement
5 21 (12.88%) DevOps
6 20 (12.27%) Change Management
6 20 (12.27%) Project Management
7 19 (11.66%) Problem-Solving
8 18 (11.04%) Infrastructure as Code
8 18 (11.04%) Mentoring
9 16 (9.82%) API Testing
9 16 (9.82%) Containerisation
9 16 (9.82%) Validation
10 15 (9.20%) Agile
10 15 (9.20%) Machine Learning
11 14 (8.59%) Continuous Improvement
12 13 (7.98%) Coaching
12 13 (7.98%) Fintech
Programming Languages
1 55 (33.74%) Python
2 38 (23.31%) SQL
3 22 (13.50%) Bash
4 21 (12.88%) C#
5 17 (10.43%) Java
6 15 (9.20%) Perl
7 14 (8.59%) JavaScript
8 9 (5.52%) Go
9 8 (4.91%) C
10 5 (3.07%) PHP
10 5 (3.07%) TypeScript
11 2 (1.23%) Ladder Logic
12 1 (0.61%) C++
12 1 (0.61%) R
Qualifications
1 43 (26.38%) Degree
2 18 (11.04%) Computer Science Degree
3 13 (7.98%) HNC
4 12 (7.36%) HND
5 11 (6.75%) Master's Degree
6 7 (4.29%) CCSK
6 7 (4.29%) CISSP
7 4 (2.45%) AWS Certification
8 2 (1.23%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (0.61%) CCNP
9 1 (0.61%) Cisco Certification
9 1 (0.61%) ISTQB
9 1 (0.61%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 1 (0.61%) PhD
9 1 (0.61%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (23.93%) QA
2 10 (6.13%) Data Quality
2 10 (6.13%) IEC 61131
3 7 (4.29%) GDPR
3 7 (4.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 4 (2.45%) GRC
4 4 (2.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 4 (2.45%) PCI DSS
4 4 (2.45%) SOC 2
5 1 (0.61%) Accessibility
System Software
1 15 (9.20%) Docker
2 1 (0.61%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 17 (10.43%) Kubernetes
1 17 (10.43%) Terraform
2 13 (7.98%) Ansible
3 7 (4.29%) Red Hat Satellite
4 4 (2.45%) Cilium
4 4 (2.45%) Functional Safety
5 2 (1.23%) Grafana
5 2 (1.23%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.61%) Docker Swarm
6 1 (0.61%) Kibana
6 1 (0.61%) MOM
6 1 (0.61%) Rundeck
6 1 (0.61%) Wonderware InTouch
Vendors
1 20 (12.27%) Siemens
2 16 (9.82%) Allen-Bradley
3 14 (8.59%) Microsoft
4 11 (6.75%) OpenAI
5 10 (6.13%) Automation Anywhere
5 10 (6.13%) UiPath
6 8 (4.91%) Red Hat
6 8 (4.91%) Rockwell
6 8 (4.91%) Toshiba
7 7 (4.29%) Google
8 5 (3.07%) ServiceNow
9 3 (1.84%) Genesys
9 3 (1.84%) Splunk
10 2 (1.23%) Oracle
11 1 (0.61%) AVEVA
11 1 (0.61%) Cisco
11 1 (0.61%) Foundry
11 1 (0.61%) Palantir
11 1 (0.61%) VMware
11 1 (0.61%) Wonderware