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 23 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 709 593 842
Rank change year-on-year -116 +249 +4
Permanent jobs citing Exploratory Testing 27 53 50
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.029% 0.12% 0.051%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.039% 0.13% 0.061%
Number of salaries quoted 23 42 44
10th Percentile £26,250 - £29,150
25th Percentile £34,375 £25,750 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £56,000 £42,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +31.76% -5.56% -20.42%
75th Percentile £59,375 £52,188 £57,500
90th Percentile £63,750 £62,250 £70,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £44,611 £40,000 £40,000
% change year-on-year +11.53% - -27.27%

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 68,427 39,782 82,504
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.76% 93.32% 84.70%
Number of salaries quoted 44,356 20,831 59,666
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,000 £29,035
25th Percentile £40,797 £41,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £59,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +0.84% +8.18% -9.84%
75th Percentile £78,750 £78,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £52,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +0.96% +4.00% -9.09%

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 23 May 2026.

Salary histogram for Exploratory Testing in the UK

Exploratory Testing
Top 13 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 23 May 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 -104 23 £56,750 +62.14% 15
UK excluding London -73 19 £44,611 +11.53% 17
Work from Home -6 10 £57,500 +35.29% 9
London -24 7 £57,500 - 2
Midlands -31 5 £35,000 -17.65%
West Midlands -33 5 £35,000 -17.65%
South East -25 4 £62,500 +47.06% 6
North of England -65 4 £26,500 - 4
South West -58 3 £52,500 +31.25% 4
North West -3 2 £56,000 +100.00% 4
Yorkshire -56 2 £26,500 -
Wales - 2 £39,221 -
Scotland -1 1 £62,500 +13.64%

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 3 (11.11%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 12 (44.44%) Azure
2 9 (33.33%) Azure DevOps
3 5 (18.52%) AWS
4 4 (14.81%) GitHub
5 3 (11.11%) Microsoft 365
5 3 (11.11%) Tricentis Tosca
6 2 (7.41%) BlazeMeter
6 2 (7.41%) SaaS
7 1 (3.70%) AWS CodePipeline
7 1 (3.70%) GitHub Actions
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (7.41%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 15 (55.56%) Selenium
2 9 (33.33%) Git
3 8 (29.63%) Cucumber
3 8 (29.63%) Jenkins
3 8 (29.63%) Postman
3 8 (29.63%) SpecFlow
4 7 (25.93%) Cypress.io
5 6 (22.22%) WebDriver
6 5 (18.52%) JMeter
7 4 (14.81%) JIRA
7 4 (14.81%) REST Assured
8 3 (11.11%) Burp Suite
8 3 (11.11%) Gatling
8 3 (11.11%) GitLab
8 3 (11.11%) HP UFT
8 3 (11.11%) LoadRunner
8 3 (11.11%) SonarQube
8 3 (11.11%) TestRail
9 2 (7.41%) Gradle
9 2 (7.41%) Maven
General
1 8 (29.63%) Finance
1 8 (29.63%) Social Skills
2 6 (22.22%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (11.11%) Public Sector
4 2 (7.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 2 (7.41%) Organisational Skills
5 1 (3.70%) Back Office
5 1 (3.70%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (3.70%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 7 (25.93%) Tester
2 6 (22.22%) QA Engineer
3 5 (18.52%) Test Engineer
4 4 (14.81%) Automation Tester
5 3 (11.11%) Automation Engineer
5 3 (11.11%) Lead
5 3 (11.11%) Quality Engineer
5 3 (11.11%) Test Automation Engineer
6 2 (7.41%) 1st Line Support
6 2 (7.41%) 1st Line Support Engineer
6 2 (7.41%) Applications Engineer
6 2 (7.41%) Applications Support
6 2 (7.41%) Applications Support Engineer
6 2 (7.41%) Desktop Engineer
6 2 (7.41%) Desktop Support Engineer
6 2 (7.41%) Functional Tester
6 2 (7.41%) IT Support
6 2 (7.41%) IT Support Engineer
6 2 (7.41%) Software Tester
6 2 (7.41%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (66.67%) Playwright
2 10 (37.04%) .NET
3 8 (29.63%) REST
4 5 (18.52%) JSON
4 5 (18.52%) XML
5 3 (11.11%) .NET Framework
5 3 (11.11%) Gherkin
5 3 (11.11%) Razor View Engine
5 3 (11.11%) Swagger
6 2 (7.41%) GraphQL
7 1 (3.70%) Blazor
7 1 (3.70%) CSS
7 1 (3.70%) HTML
7 1 (3.70%) WebAssembly
Miscellaneous
1 5 (18.52%) Product Ownership
2 4 (14.81%) Mobile App
3 2 (7.41%) Self-Motivation
4 1 (3.70%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 4 (14.81%) Android
2 3 (11.11%) Kali Linux
2 3 (11.11%) Linux
3 2 (7.41%) Apple iOS
3 2 (7.41%) Unix
3 2 (7.41%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (81.48%) Test Automation
2 21 (77.78%) Agile
3 15 (55.56%) Software Testing
4 12 (44.44%) CI/CD
5 11 (40.74%) BDD
5 11 (40.74%) Regression Testing
6 9 (33.33%) DevOps
7 8 (29.63%) AI
8 7 (25.93%) Continuous Improvement
8 7 (25.93%) SDLC
8 7 (25.93%) Validation
9 6 (22.22%) API Testing
9 6 (22.22%) Non-Functional Testing
9 6 (22.22%) Performance Testing
9 6 (22.22%) TDD
10 5 (18.52%) Computer Science
10 5 (18.52%) Scrum
10 5 (18.52%) Software Engineering
10 5 (18.52%) Test Scripting
10 5 (18.52%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 14 (51.85%) SQL
2 10 (37.04%) C#
2 10 (37.04%) Java
3 3 (11.11%) C
3 3 (11.11%) Python
4 2 (7.41%) Groovy
5 1 (3.70%) JavaScript
5 1 (3.70%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 8 (29.63%) Degree
2 5 (18.52%) Computer Science Degree
3 3 (11.11%) Master's Degree
3 3 (11.11%) SC Cleared
3 3 (11.11%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (81.48%) QA
2 3 (11.11%) Accessibility
3 1 (3.70%) WCAG
Systems Management
1 3 (11.11%) Grafana
1 3 (11.11%) HP Fortify
2 2 (7.41%) Kibana
2 2 (7.41%) logstash
Vendors
1 5 (18.52%) Microsoft
2 3 (11.11%) Veracode
3 2 (7.41%) Zoho