Exploratory Testing Job Trends

Exploratory Testing
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Exploratory Testing skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 672 598 778
Rank change year-on-year -74 +180 +87
Permanent jobs citing Exploratory Testing 26 43 63
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.035% 0.10% 0.074%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.045% 0.11% 0.085%
Number of salaries quoted 25 32 46
10th Percentile £25,750 £25,750 £29,750
25th Percentile £26,250 £32,500 £32,603
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £42,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year - -5.56% -20.42%
75th Percentile £58,750 £55,938 £57,500
90th Percentile £59,500 £63,750 £74,375
UK excluding London median annual salary £40,000 £42,500 £37,500
% change year-on-year -5.88% +13.33% -31.82%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Exploratory Testing falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 58,218 39,990 74,105
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 77.81% 93.48% 87.20%
Number of salaries quoted 35,252 22,229 56,158
10th Percentile £29,750 £31,750 £29,035
25th Percentile £40,000 £44,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.29%
75th Percentile £77,424 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,410 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -8.90%

Exploratory Testing
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Exploratory Testing relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Exploratory Testing job vacancy trend in the UK

Exploratory Testing
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Exploratory Testing.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Exploratory Testing

Exploratory Testing
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Exploratory Testing over the 6 months to 18 March 2026.

Salary histogram for Exploratory Testing in the UK

Exploratory Testing
Top 12 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Exploratory Testing within the UK over the 6 months to 18 March 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 -38 24 £40,000 -5.88% 18
UK excluding London -54 15 £40,000 -5.88% 16
Work from Home +8 13 £52,500 +7.69% 7
London +1 10 £57,500 -8.00% 3
North of England -45 6 £26,500 - 7
West Midlands +1 5 £40,000 -5.88%
Midlands -18 5 £40,000 -5.88%
Yorkshire -45 5 £26,500 -
South West -29 2 £46,250 - 3
South East -14 1 £42,500 - 4
North West -16 1 £56,000 +100.00% 4
Scotland -23 1 £62,500 +13.64% 1

Exploratory Testing
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 1 (3.85%) WordPress
Business Applications
1 1 (3.85%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 7 (26.92%) AWS
2 6 (23.08%) Azure
3 5 (19.23%) Azure DevOps
3 5 (19.23%) SaaS
4 2 (7.69%) GitHub
4 2 (7.69%) GitHub Actions
5 1 (3.85%) Snowflake
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (19.23%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 10 (38.46%) Selenium
2 7 (26.92%) Postman
2 7 (26.92%) SpecFlow
3 6 (23.08%) JIRA
4 5 (19.23%) WebDriver
5 4 (15.38%) TestRail
6 3 (11.54%) Jenkins
7 2 (7.69%) Cypress.io
7 2 (7.69%) Git
7 2 (7.69%) GitLab
7 2 (7.69%) REST Assured
7 2 (7.69%) Zephyr
8 1 (3.85%) CircleCI
8 1 (3.85%) fastlane
8 1 (3.85%) JMeter
8 1 (3.85%) LoadRunner
8 1 (3.85%) Locust
8 1 (3.85%) NUnit
8 1 (3.85%) Xcode
8 1 (3.85%) XCTest
General
1 10 (38.46%) Social Skills
2 9 (34.62%) Finance
3 8 (30.77%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (19.23%) Organisational Skills
5 2 (7.69%) Public Sector
6 1 (3.85%) Banking
6 1 (3.85%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (3.85%) Financial Institution
6 1 (3.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 10 (38.46%) QA Engineer
2 5 (19.23%) 1st Line Engineer
2 5 (19.23%) 1st Line Support
2 5 (19.23%) 1st Line Support Engineer
2 5 (19.23%) Applications Engineer
2 5 (19.23%) Applications Support
2 5 (19.23%) Applications Support Engineer
2 5 (19.23%) Desktop Engineer
2 5 (19.23%) Desktop Support
2 5 (19.23%) Desktop Support Engineer
2 5 (19.23%) IT Engineer
2 5 (19.23%) IT Support
2 5 (19.23%) IT Support Engineer
2 5 (19.23%) Support Engineer
3 4 (15.38%) Test Automation Engineer
3 4 (15.38%) Test Engineer
4 3 (11.54%) Senior
4 3 (11.54%) Tester
5 2 (7.69%) Analyst
5 2 (7.69%) Software Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (42.31%) Playwright
2 9 (34.62%) REST
3 8 (30.77%) .NET
3 8 (30.77%) XML
4 5 (19.23%) JSON
5 2 (7.69%) GraphQL
6 1 (3.85%) Blazor
6 1 (3.85%) pytest
6 1 (3.85%) WebAssembly
Miscellaneous
1 6 (23.08%) Mobile App
2 5 (19.23%) Self-Motivation
3 4 (15.38%) Product Ownership
4 2 (7.69%) Virtual Team
5 1 (3.85%) Derivative
5 1 (3.85%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (3.85%) Equities
5 1 (3.85%) Fixed Income
5 1 (3.85%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 6 (23.08%) Android
1 6 (23.08%) Windows
2 1 (3.85%) Apple iOS
2 1 (3.85%) Linux
2 1 (3.85%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (69.23%) Test Automation
2 15 (57.69%) Agile
2 15 (57.69%) Software Testing
3 9 (34.62%) Regression Testing
4 8 (30.77%) BDD
4 8 (30.77%) CI/CD
4 8 (30.77%) Problem-Solving
5 7 (26.92%) Manual Testing
5 7 (26.92%) Test Strategy
5 7 (26.92%) Validation
6 6 (23.08%) API Testing
6 6 (23.08%) DevOps
6 6 (23.08%) Fintech
6 6 (23.08%) Scenario Testing
7 5 (19.23%) Acceptance Criteria
7 5 (19.23%) Analytical Thinking
7 5 (19.23%) Data Privacy
7 5 (19.23%) Functional Testing
7 5 (19.23%) QA Automation
7 5 (19.23%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 13 (50.00%) SQL
2 9 (34.62%) C#
3 7 (26.92%) Java
4 4 (15.38%) Python
5 2 (7.69%) JavaScript
6 1 (3.85%) PHP
6 1 (3.85%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 5 (19.23%) ISTQB
1 5 (19.23%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
2 2 (7.69%) Computer Science Degree
2 2 (7.69%) Degree
3 1 (3.85%) ISEB
3 1 (3.85%) SC Cleared
3 1 (3.85%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (73.08%) QA
2 1 (3.85%) Accessibility
2 1 (3.85%) Data Quality
2 1 (3.85%) WCAG
Systems Management
1 1 (3.85%) Grafana
1 1 (3.85%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 6 (23.08%) Microsoft
2 5 (19.23%) Zoho
3 1 (3.85%) AppDynamics
3 1 (3.85%) Charles River
3 1 (3.85%) Dynatrace
3 1 (3.85%) Murex
3 1 (3.85%) YouTube