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 11 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 637 647 743
Rank change year-on-year +10 +96 +96
Permanent jobs citing Exploratory Testing 26 46 59
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.039% 0.093% 0.080%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.049% 0.10% 0.090%
Number of salaries quoted 25 23 42
10th Percentile £25,750 £38,250 £28,550
25th Percentile £26,250 £41,250 £32,526
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £57,500 £48,750
Median % change year-on-year -26.09% +17.95% -15.22%
75th Percentile £62,500 £69,375 £57,500
90th Percentile £64,000 £79,750 £65,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £40,000 £42,500 £36,250
% change year-on-year -5.88% +17.24% -34.09%

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 52,730 45,725 65,371
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 79.77% 92.08% 88.28%
Number of salaries quoted 31,308 22,323 50,742
10th Percentile £29,000 £35,000 £29,500
25th Percentile £38,000 £46,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £76,250 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,125 £102,500 £95,000
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 11 February 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 11 February 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 +12 25 £41,250 -33.47% 18
UK excluding London +9 18 £40,000 -5.88% 12
Work from Home +57 10 £42,500 -34.62% 13
London +24 7 £50,000 -24.53% 8
West Midlands +22 7 £40,000 - 2
Midlands +21 7 £40,000 - 2
North of England -9 5 £26,500 -5.36% 4
Yorkshire - 5 £26,500 -
South East +6 3 £57,500 +35.29% 4
South West -12 2 £56,250 -
East of England +15 1 £60,000 - 2

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 8 (30.77%) AWS
2 5 (19.23%) SaaS
3 4 (15.38%) Azure
4 3 (11.54%) Azure DevOps
5 2 (7.69%) BrowserStack
6 1 (3.85%) GitHub
6 1 (3.85%) GitHub Actions
6 1 (3.85%) Snowflake
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (19.23%) SQL Server
2 1 (3.85%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 10 (38.46%) Selenium
2 6 (23.08%) Postman
3 5 (19.23%) JIRA
4 4 (15.38%) Jenkins
4 4 (15.38%) JMeter
4 4 (15.38%) SpecFlow
5 3 (11.54%) Git
5 3 (11.54%) TestRail
6 2 (7.69%) Cypress.io
6 2 (7.69%) GitLab
6 2 (7.69%) WebDriver
7 1 (3.85%) CircleCI
7 1 (3.85%) Gatling
7 1 (3.85%) LoadRunner
7 1 (3.85%) Locust
7 1 (3.85%) NUnit
7 1 (3.85%) REST Assured
7 1 (3.85%) Zephyr
General
1 12 (46.15%) Social Skills
2 8 (30.77%) Analytical Skills
3 6 (23.08%) Finance
4 5 (19.23%) Organisational Skills
5 1 (3.85%) Banking
5 1 (3.85%) Financial Institution
5 1 (3.85%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 9 (34.62%) Test Engineer
2 7 (26.92%) QA Engineer
3 6 (23.08%) Senior
3 6 (23.08%) Test Automation Engineer
4 5 (19.23%) 1st Line Engineer
4 5 (19.23%) 1st Line Support
4 5 (19.23%) 1st Line Support Engineer
4 5 (19.23%) Applications Engineer
4 5 (19.23%) Applications Support
4 5 (19.23%) Applications Support Engineer
4 5 (19.23%) Desktop Engineer
4 5 (19.23%) Desktop Support
4 5 (19.23%) Desktop Support Engineer
4 5 (19.23%) IT Engineer
4 5 (19.23%) IT Support
4 5 (19.23%) IT Support Engineer
4 5 (19.23%) Senior Test Engineer
4 5 (19.23%) Support Engineer
5 3 (11.54%) Lead
5 3 (11.54%) Senior Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (38.46%) Playwright
2 6 (23.08%) REST
3 5 (19.23%) .NET
3 5 (19.23%) XML
4 2 (7.69%) GraphQL
4 2 (7.69%) JSON
5 1 (3.85%) pytest
5 1 (3.85%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 5 (19.23%) Mobile App
1 5 (19.23%) Self-Motivation
2 3 (11.54%) Product Ownership
3 2 (7.69%) Virtual Team
4 1 (3.85%) Derivative
4 1 (3.85%) Equities
4 1 (3.85%) Fixed Income
4 1 (3.85%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 6 (23.08%) Windows
2 5 (19.23%) Android
3 1 (3.85%) Linux
3 1 (3.85%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (73.08%) Test Automation
2 15 (57.69%) Agile
3 13 (50.00%) Software Testing
4 12 (46.15%) CI/CD
5 10 (38.46%) Manual Testing
6 8 (30.77%) BDD
6 8 (30.77%) Problem-Solving
7 7 (26.92%) Validation
8 6 (23.08%) Scenario Testing
8 6 (23.08%) Test Strategy
9 5 (19.23%) API Testing
9 5 (19.23%) CRM
9 5 (19.23%) Customer Service
9 5 (19.23%) Data Privacy
9 5 (19.23%) DevOps
9 5 (19.23%) Mathematics
9 5 (19.23%) Migration
9 5 (19.23%) Non-Functional Testing
9 5 (19.23%) Regression Testing
9 5 (19.23%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 11 (42.31%) SQL
2 7 (26.92%) C#
2 7 (26.92%) Java
3 4 (15.38%) Python
4 3 (11.54%) TypeScript
5 2 (7.69%) JavaScript
6 1 (3.85%) PHP
Qualifications
1 6 (23.08%) ISTQB
2 5 (19.23%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
3 2 (7.69%) Computer Science Degree
3 2 (7.69%) Degree
3 2 (7.69%) Security Cleared
4 1 (3.85%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (80.77%) QA
2 3 (11.54%) Accessibility
3 1 (3.85%) Data Quality
System Software
1 1 (3.85%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (3.85%) Grafana
1 1 (3.85%) Kubernetes
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