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 12 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 677 580 804
Rank change year-on-year -97 +224 +70
Permanent jobs citing Exploratory Testing 25 50 60
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.030% 0.12% 0.065%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.039% 0.13% 0.075%
Number of salaries quoted 24 38 42
10th Percentile £25,750 £25,750 £28,550
25th Percentile £26,250 £26,313 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £43,767 £42,500 £43,750
Median % change year-on-year +2.98% -2.86% -22.63%
75th Percentile £58,750 £55,000 £57,500
90th Percentile £59,625 £63,750 £65,000
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 63,952 38,221 79,637
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 75.80% 92.98% 86.04%
Number of salaries quoted 39,483 22,497 58,940
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -10.57%
75th Percentile £77,500 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £53,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -6.54% +7.00% -8.26%

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 12 April 2026.

Salary histogram for Exploratory Testing in the UK

Exploratory Testing
Top 11 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 12 April 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 -85 23 £40,000 -5.88% 14
UK excluding London -100 16 £40,000 -5.88% 14
Work from Home 0 11 £56,000 +12.00% 6
London -15 8 £57,500 -8.00% 1
West Midlands -12 6 £40,000 -5.88%
Midlands -41 6 £40,000 -5.88%
North of England -70 6 £26,500 - 6
Yorkshire -60 5 £26,500 -
South West -44 3 £46,250 -15.91% 2
Scotland -22 1 £62,500 +13.64% 1
North West -33 1 £56,000 +100.00% 3

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:

Cloud Services
1 7 (28.00%) AWS
1 7 (28.00%) Azure
2 6 (24.00%) Azure DevOps
3 5 (20.00%) SaaS
4 2 (8.00%) GitHub
4 2 (8.00%) GitHub Actions
5 1 (4.00%) BlazeMeter
5 1 (4.00%) Tricentis Tosca
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (20.00%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 11 (44.00%) Selenium
2 7 (28.00%) SpecFlow
3 6 (24.00%) JIRA
3 6 (24.00%) Postman
4 5 (20.00%) WebDriver
5 4 (16.00%) Cypress.io
5 4 (16.00%) Jenkins
5 4 (16.00%) TestRail
6 3 (12.00%) JMeter
7 2 (8.00%) Cucumber
7 2 (8.00%) Gatling
7 2 (8.00%) Git
7 2 (8.00%) GitLab
7 2 (8.00%) LoadRunner
7 2 (8.00%) REST Assured
7 2 (8.00%) Zephyr
8 1 (4.00%) CircleCI
8 1 (4.00%) fastlane
8 1 (4.00%) Locust
8 1 (4.00%) XCTest
General
1 10 (40.00%) Social Skills
2 9 (36.00%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (28.00%) Finance
4 5 (20.00%) Organisational Skills
5 2 (8.00%) Public Sector
6 1 (4.00%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (4.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 9 (36.00%) QA Engineer
2 5 (20.00%) 1st Line Engineer
2 5 (20.00%) 1st Line Support
2 5 (20.00%) 1st Line Support Engineer
2 5 (20.00%) Applications Engineer
2 5 (20.00%) Applications Support
2 5 (20.00%) Applications Support Engineer
2 5 (20.00%) Desktop Engineer
2 5 (20.00%) Desktop Support
2 5 (20.00%) Desktop Support Engineer
2 5 (20.00%) IT Engineer
2 5 (20.00%) IT Support
2 5 (20.00%) IT Support Engineer
2 5 (20.00%) Support Engineer
3 4 (16.00%) Senior
3 4 (16.00%) Test Engineer
3 4 (16.00%) Tester
4 3 (12.00%) Test Automation Engineer
5 2 (8.00%) Analyst
5 2 (8.00%) Software Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (44.00%) Playwright
2 8 (32.00%) .NET
2 8 (32.00%) REST
2 8 (32.00%) XML
3 5 (20.00%) JSON
4 2 (8.00%) GraphQL
5 1 (4.00%) Blazor
5 1 (4.00%) WebAssembly
Miscellaneous
1 6 (24.00%) Mobile App
2 5 (20.00%) Self-Motivation
3 4 (16.00%) Product Ownership
4 2 (8.00%) Virtual Team
5 1 (4.00%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 6 (24.00%) Android
1 6 (24.00%) Windows
2 2 (8.00%) Linux
2 2 (8.00%) Unix
3 1 (4.00%) Apple iOS
3 1 (4.00%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (68.00%) Test Automation
2 16 (64.00%) Software Testing
3 15 (60.00%) Agile
4 10 (40.00%) Regression Testing
5 8 (32.00%) BDD
5 8 (32.00%) CI/CD
6 7 (28.00%) DevOps
6 7 (28.00%) Validation
7 6 (24.00%) Acceptance Criteria
7 6 (24.00%) Performance Testing
7 6 (24.00%) Problem-Solving
7 6 (24.00%) Scenario Testing
7 6 (24.00%) Test Strategy
8 5 (20.00%) AI
8 5 (20.00%) Analytical Thinking
8 5 (20.00%) CRM
8 5 (20.00%) Customer Service
8 5 (20.00%) Manual Testing
8 5 (20.00%) Mathematics
8 5 (20.00%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 15 (60.00%) SQL
2 9 (36.00%) C#
2 9 (36.00%) Java
3 3 (12.00%) Python
4 2 (8.00%) JavaScript
5 1 (4.00%) Groovy
5 1 (4.00%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 5 (20.00%) ISTQB
1 5 (20.00%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
2 3 (12.00%) Computer Science Degree
2 3 (12.00%) Degree
3 1 (4.00%) ISEB
3 1 (4.00%) Master's Degree
3 1 (4.00%) SC Cleared
3 1 (4.00%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (72.00%) QA
2 1 (4.00%) Accessibility
2 1 (4.00%) WCAG
Systems Management
1 2 (8.00%) Grafana
2 1 (4.00%) HP Fortify
2 1 (4.00%) Kibana
2 1 (4.00%) logstash
2 1 (4.00%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 6 (24.00%) Microsoft
2 5 (20.00%) Zoho
3 1 (4.00%) AppDynamics
3 1 (4.00%) Dynatrace
3 1 (4.00%) Veracode
3 1 (4.00%) YouTube