Automation Test Lead Job Trends

Test Automation Leader
UK

The median Test Automation Leader salary in the UK is £67,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 16 December 2025.

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

6 months to
16 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 612 707 676
Rank change year-on-year +95 -31 +279
Permanent jobs requiring an Automation Test Lead 39 17 23
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.067% 0.030% 0.047%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.074% 0.032% 0.049%
Number of salaries quoted 17 7 12
10th Percentile £50,250 £60,750 £50,250
25th Percentile £55,000 £64,375 £53,438
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £70,000 £66,250
Median % change year-on-year -3.57% +5.66% +6.00%
75th Percentile £73,750 £72,500 £69,063
90th Percentile £79,250 £75,500 £83,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £62,500 £60,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year +4.17% -7.69% +8.33%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
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 52,799 53,782 46,643
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.16% 93.79% 95.24%
Number of salaries quoted 32,457 29,075 36,182
10th Percentile £28,500 £32,750 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £43,750 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £97,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £49,000 £52,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -6.67% - -

Automation Test Lead
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Automation Test Lead job vacancy trend in the UK

Automation Test Lead
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Automation Test Lead job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Automation Test Lead job vacancies in the UK

Automation Test Lead
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Automation Test Lead over the 6 months to 16 December 2025.

Salary histogram for Automation Test Lead in the UK

Automation Test Lead
Top 11 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Automation Test Lead within the UK over the 6 months to 16 December 2025. 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 +112 39 £67,500 +8.00% 6
UK excluding London +74 31 £62,500 +4.17% 6
South East +53 24 £67,500 - 1
Work from Home - 11 £65,000 - 3
London +56 8 £76,250 -4.69% 1
North of England +24 4 £53,500 -10.83% 5
Midlands +23 3 £62,500 -
Yorkshire - 3 £53,500 - 5
West Midlands +20 2 £62,500 -
East Midlands - 1 £62,500 -
North West - 1 £62,500 -

Automation Test Lead Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 16 December 2025, Automation Test Lead 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 Test Lead in the job title.

1 39 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 30 (76.92%) Test Strategy
3 26 (66.67%) Azure DevOps
4 21 (53.85%) Performance Testing
4 21 (53.85%) Roadmaps
4 21 (53.85%) Test Management
5 20 (51.28%) SAP
5 20 (51.28%) SAP S/4HANA
6 19 (48.72%) Product Roadmap
6 19 (48.72%) Source to Pay
7 18 (46.15%) ERP
7 18 (46.15%) NeoLoad
8 16 (41.03%) Continuous Delivery
8 16 (41.03%) eCATT
8 16 (41.03%) HP
8 16 (41.03%) HP ALM
8 16 (41.03%) JIRA
8 16 (41.03%) Requirements Gathering
9 13 (33.33%) DevOps
9 13 (33.33%) Selenium
10 11 (28.21%) CI/CD
11 10 (25.64%) Azure
11 10 (25.64%) Mentoring
11 10 (25.64%) QA
12 9 (23.08%) C#
13 7 (17.95%) Agile
13 7 (17.95%) Continuous Improvement
13 7 (17.95%) End-to-End Testing
13 7 (17.95%) User Acceptance Testing
14 6 (15.38%) Playwright

Automation Test Lead 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:

Business Applications
1 20 (51.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (5.13%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 26 (66.67%) Azure DevOps
2 10 (25.64%) Azure
3 3 (7.69%) SaaS
4 2 (5.13%) AWS
4 2 (5.13%) BrowserStack
4 2 (5.13%) GCP
4 2 (5.13%) Tricentis Tosca
5 1 (2.56%) GitHub
5 1 (2.56%) GitHub Actions
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (5.13%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 18 (46.15%) NeoLoad
2 16 (41.03%) eCATT
2 16 (41.03%) JIRA
3 13 (33.33%) Selenium
4 5 (12.82%) Jenkins
4 5 (12.82%) JMeter
5 4 (10.26%) Cypress.io
5 4 (10.26%) WebDriver
6 3 (7.69%) GitLab
6 3 (7.69%) LoadRunner
6 3 (7.69%) SonarQube
7 2 (5.13%) Appium
7 2 (5.13%) Cucumber
7 2 (5.13%) Gatling
7 2 (5.13%) Git
7 2 (5.13%) HP UFT
7 2 (5.13%) Ranorex
7 2 (5.13%) SpecFlow
7 2 (5.13%) Tricentis qTest
8 1 (2.56%) REST Assured
General
1 23 (58.97%) Finance
2 19 (48.72%) Manufacturing
2 19 (48.72%) Marketing
3 5 (12.82%) Legal
4 4 (10.26%) Social Skills
5 3 (7.69%) Retail
6 2 (5.13%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (5.13%) Documentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (15.38%) Playwright
2 5 (12.82%) .NET
3 3 (7.69%) Kafka
3 3 (7.69%) Middleware
4 1 (2.56%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 3 (7.69%) Enterprise Software
2 2 (5.13%) Analytical Mindset
2 2 (5.13%) Product Ownership
3 1 (2.56%) Hackathon
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 30 (76.92%) Test Strategy
3 21 (53.85%) Performance Testing
3 21 (53.85%) Roadmaps
3 21 (53.85%) Test Management
4 19 (48.72%) Product Roadmap
4 19 (48.72%) Source to Pay
5 18 (46.15%) ERP
6 16 (41.03%) Continuous Delivery
6 16 (41.03%) Requirements Gathering
7 13 (33.33%) DevOps
8 11 (28.21%) CI/CD
9 10 (25.64%) Mentoring
10 7 (17.95%) Agile
10 7 (17.95%) Continuous Improvement
10 7 (17.95%) End-to-End Testing
10 7 (17.95%) User Acceptance Testing
11 5 (12.82%) AI
11 5 (12.82%) Coaching
11 5 (12.82%) Security Testing
Programming Languages
1 9 (23.08%) C#
2 5 (12.82%) JavaScript
3 4 (10.26%) Java
4 3 (7.69%) Python
5 2 (5.13%) TypeScript
6 1 (2.56%) SQL
Qualifications
1 2 (5.13%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (25.64%) QA
Systems Management
1 16 (41.03%) HP ALM
2 3 (7.69%) HP Fortify
3 2 (5.13%) Control-M
Vendors
1 20 (51.28%) SAP
2 16 (41.03%) HP
3 3 (7.69%) IBM
4 2 (5.13%) Oracle
5 1 (2.56%) Microsoft