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 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 595 692 683
Rank change year-on-year +97 -9 +241
Permanent jobs requiring an Automation Test Lead 40 17 25
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.068% 0.031% 0.048%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.075% 0.033% 0.051%
Number of salaries quoted 18 7 15
10th Percentile £50,250 £64,500 £51,000
25th Percentile £56,563 £67,500 £55,625
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £70,000 £65,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.57% +7.69% +4.00%
75th Percentile £78,438 £76,250 £68,750
90th Percentile £81,125 £81,500 £79,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £67,500 £71,250 £62,500
% change year-on-year -5.26% +14.00% +4.17%

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 53,612 51,163 49,282
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.49% 93.12% 95.22%
Number of salaries quoted 32,999 26,912 38,093
10th Percentile £28,500 £33,200 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £44,956 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £77,500
90th Percentile £93,750 £97,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%

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 2 January 2026.

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 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
England +86 40 £67,500 -15.63% 7
UK excluding London +70 31 £67,500 -5.26% 7
South East +46 24 £67,500 - 1
Work from Home +81 11 £67,500 -18.18% 3
London +55 9 £77,500 -3.13% 1
North of England +22 3 £53,500 -24.91% 5
Yorkshire - 3 £53,500 - 5
Midlands +18 2 £61,250 -
South West - 2 £73,500 - 1
West Midlands +22 1 £60,000 -
East Midlands - 1 £62,500 -

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

For the 6 months to 2 January 2026, 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 40 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 32 (80.00%) Test Strategy
3 26 (65.00%) Azure DevOps
4 21 (52.50%) Performance Testing
4 21 (52.50%) Roadmaps
4 21 (52.50%) Test Management
5 20 (50.00%) SAP
5 20 (50.00%) SAP S/4HANA
6 19 (47.50%) Product Roadmap
6 19 (47.50%) Source to Pay
7 18 (45.00%) ERP
7 18 (45.00%) NeoLoad
8 16 (40.00%) Continuous Delivery
8 16 (40.00%) eCATT
8 16 (40.00%) HP
8 16 (40.00%) HP ALM
8 16 (40.00%) JIRA
8 16 (40.00%) Requirements Gathering
9 15 (37.50%) DevOps
10 13 (32.50%) CI/CD
11 12 (30.00%) Azure
11 12 (30.00%) Selenium
12 11 (27.50%) QA
13 9 (22.50%) Continuous Improvement
13 9 (22.50%) End-to-End Testing
13 9 (22.50%) Playwright
14 8 (20.00%) C#
14 8 (20.00%) Mentoring
15 7 (17.50%) Agile
15 7 (17.50%) Java

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 (50.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (5.00%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 26 (65.00%) Azure DevOps
2 12 (30.00%) Azure
3 4 (10.00%) GCP
4 2 (5.00%) AWS
4 2 (5.00%) Azure Pipelines
4 2 (5.00%) BrowserStack
4 2 (5.00%) Tricentis Tosca
5 1 (2.50%) GitHub
5 1 (2.50%) GitHub Actions
5 1 (2.50%) SaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (5.00%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 18 (45.00%) NeoLoad
2 16 (40.00%) eCATT
2 16 (40.00%) JIRA
3 12 (30.00%) Selenium
4 5 (12.50%) GitLab
4 5 (12.50%) Jenkins
4 5 (12.50%) JMeter
5 4 (10.00%) Cypress.io
5 4 (10.00%) WebDriver
6 3 (7.50%) LoadRunner
6 3 (7.50%) REST Assured
6 3 (7.50%) SonarQube
7 2 (5.00%) Appium
7 2 (5.00%) Cucumber
7 2 (5.00%) Gatling
7 2 (5.00%) Git
7 2 (5.00%) HP UFT
7 2 (5.00%) Ranorex
7 2 (5.00%) SpecFlow
7 2 (5.00%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 23 (57.50%) Finance
2 19 (47.50%) Manufacturing
2 19 (47.50%) Marketing
3 5 (12.50%) Legal
4 4 (10.00%) Social Skills
5 3 (7.50%) Retail
6 2 (5.00%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (5.00%) Documentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (22.50%) Playwright
2 5 (12.50%) .NET
3 3 (7.50%) Kafka
3 3 (7.50%) Middleware
4 2 (5.00%) RESTful
5 1 (2.50%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 3 (7.50%) Enterprise Software
2 2 (5.00%) Analytical Mindset
3 1 (2.50%) Hackathon
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 32 (80.00%) Test Strategy
3 21 (52.50%) Performance Testing
3 21 (52.50%) Roadmaps
3 21 (52.50%) Test Management
4 19 (47.50%) Product Roadmap
4 19 (47.50%) Source to Pay
5 18 (45.00%) ERP
6 16 (40.00%) Continuous Delivery
6 16 (40.00%) Requirements Gathering
7 15 (37.50%) DevOps
8 13 (32.50%) CI/CD
9 9 (22.50%) Continuous Improvement
9 9 (22.50%) End-to-End Testing
10 8 (20.00%) Mentoring
11 7 (17.50%) Agile
11 7 (17.50%) Security Testing
11 7 (17.50%) User Acceptance Testing
12 6 (15.00%) Software Testing
13 5 (12.50%) AI
Programming Languages
1 8 (20.00%) C#
2 7 (17.50%) Java
3 5 (12.50%) JavaScript
4 4 (10.00%) TypeScript
5 3 (7.50%) Python
6 1 (2.50%) SQL
Qualifications
1 4 (10.00%) ISTQB
2 2 (5.00%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
2 2 (5.00%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (27.50%) QA
2 2 (5.00%) Accessibility
System Software
1 2 (5.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 16 (40.00%) HP ALM
2 3 (7.50%) HP Fortify
3 2 (5.00%) Control-M
3 2 (5.00%) Kubernetes
3 2 (5.00%) Terraform
Vendors
1 20 (50.00%) SAP
2 16 (40.00%) HP
3 3 (7.50%) IBM
4 2 (5.00%) Guidewire
4 2 (5.00%) Oracle
5 1 (2.50%) Microsoft