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 15 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 734 646 784
Rank change year-on-year -88 +138 -18
Permanent jobs citing Exploratory Testing 51 46 33
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.048% 0.092% 0.040%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.065% 0.10% 0.049%
Number of salaries quoted 38 41 26
10th Percentile £37,205 - £34,375
25th Percentile £43,750 £25,750 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,250 £40,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +28.13% -11.11% -5.26%
75th Percentile £61,250 £52,500 £58,125
90th Percentile £63,750 £62,500 £68,125
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £35,000 £42,500
% change year-on-year +42.86% -17.65% -6.59%

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 78,311 44,508 67,246
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.48% 89.25% 80.98%
Number of salaries quoted 53,938 25,218 43,343
10th Percentile £30,775 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,750 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.71%
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,250 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -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 15 August 2026.

Salary histogram for Exploratory Testing in the UK

Exploratory Testing
Top 15 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 15 August 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 -79 44 £52,500 +40.00% 26
UK excluding London -86 40 £50,000 +42.86% 17
Work from Home -31 16 £47,500 - 19
South East -19 13 £57,500 +15.00% 7
North of England -50 9 £50,000 +88.68% 1
South West -71 9 £50,000 +25.00% 4
London -52 7 £57,500 -8.00% 13
North East - 6 £50,000 -
East of England -18 3 £28,500 -52.50% 2
West Midlands -27 3 £35,000 -17.65%
Midlands -32 3 £35,000 -20.00%
North West -6 2 £56,000 +6.67% 1
Wales - 2 £39,221 -
Scotland +3 1 £62,500 +21.95% 2
Yorkshire -46 1 £60,000 +126.42%

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 4 (7.84%) SharePoint
2 3 (5.88%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 17 (33.33%) Azure
2 13 (25.49%) Azure DevOps
3 11 (21.57%) GitHub
4 7 (13.73%) GitHub Actions
5 6 (11.76%) AWS
6 4 (7.84%) Microsoft 365
7 3 (5.88%) BrowserStack
7 3 (5.88%) Datadog
7 3 (5.88%) Sentry
7 3 (5.88%) Tricentis Tosca
8 2 (3.92%) BlazeMeter
8 2 (3.92%) GCP
9 1 (1.96%) AWS CodePipeline
9 1 (1.96%) Azure Monitor
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (5.88%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (1.96%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 19 (37.25%) Selenium
2 17 (33.33%) Cypress.io
3 13 (25.49%) Postman
4 12 (23.53%) Git
5 9 (17.65%) Cucumber
5 9 (17.65%) JIRA
6 8 (15.69%) Jenkins
6 8 (15.69%) JMeter
7 6 (11.76%) REST Assured
8 5 (9.80%) Gatling
9 4 (7.84%) Appium
10 3 (5.88%) Burp Suite
10 3 (5.88%) GitLab
10 3 (5.88%) HP UFT
10 3 (5.88%) LoadRunner
10 3 (5.88%) SonarQube
10 3 (5.88%) SpecFlow
10 3 (5.88%) TestRail
10 3 (5.88%) WebDriver
10 3 (5.88%) Zephyr
General
1 13 (25.49%) Analytical Skills
2 10 (19.61%) Social Skills
3 9 (17.65%) Public Sector
4 8 (15.69%) Finance
5 4 (7.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.96%) Back Office
6 1 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (1.96%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 16 (31.37%) Test Engineer
2 12 (23.53%) QA Engineer
3 9 (17.65%) Analyst
4 8 (15.69%) Quality Engineer
4 8 (15.69%) Senior
5 5 (9.80%) Automation Engineer
5 5 (9.80%) Tester
6 4 (7.84%) Automation Tester
6 4 (7.84%) Lead
7 3 (5.88%) Senior QA Engineer
7 3 (5.88%) Senior Quality Engineer
7 3 (5.88%) Test Analyst
7 3 (5.88%) Test Automation Engineer
8 2 (3.92%) Functional Tester
8 2 (3.92%) Junior Analyst
8 2 (3.92%) Junior Test Analyst
8 2 (3.92%) Linux Engineer
8 2 (3.92%) QA Analyst
8 2 (3.92%) QA Automation Engineer
8 2 (3.92%) QA Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (47.06%) Playwright
2 7 (13.73%) .NET
2 7 (13.73%) CSS
2 7 (13.73%) HTML
3 6 (11.76%) Node.js
3 6 (11.76%) REST
4 5 (9.80%) React
4 5 (9.80%) React Native
5 4 (7.84%) .NET Framework
5 4 (7.84%) Gherkin
5 4 (7.84%) JSON
5 4 (7.84%) Razor View Engine
5 4 (7.84%) Swagger
6 3 (5.88%) GraphQL
6 3 (5.88%) Jest
6 3 (5.88%) RabbitMQ
6 3 (5.88%) Symfony
7 2 (3.92%) XML
8 1 (1.96%) OAuth
8 1 (1.96%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 16 (31.37%) Mobile App
2 8 (15.69%) Product Ownership
3 3 (5.88%) Blog
3 3 (5.88%) Clustering
4 2 (3.92%) Linux Command Line
4 2 (3.92%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (1.96%) Hackathon
5 1 (1.96%) PropTech
Operating Systems
1 13 (25.49%) Android
1 13 (25.49%) Apple iOS
2 6 (11.76%) Linux
3 3 (5.88%) Kali Linux
4 2 (3.92%) Ubuntu
4 2 (3.92%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (94.12%) Test Automation
2 43 (84.31%) Agile
3 28 (54.90%) CI/CD
3 28 (54.90%) Regression Testing
4 22 (43.14%) Problem-Solving
5 21 (41.18%) SDLC
6 20 (39.22%) Continuous Improvement
7 18 (35.29%) Software Testing
8 14 (27.45%) AI
8 14 (27.45%) Sprint Planning
9 13 (25.49%) DevOps
9 13 (25.49%) Manual Testing
9 13 (25.49%) Test Strategy
9 13 (25.49%) Validation
10 12 (23.53%) Software Engineering
10 12 (23.53%) Test Planning
11 10 (19.61%) Defect Management
12 9 (17.65%) BDD
12 9 (17.65%) Performance Testing
13 8 (15.69%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 15 (29.41%) JavaScript
2 7 (13.73%) C#
2 7 (13.73%) Java
2 7 (13.73%) SQL
2 7 (13.73%) TypeScript
3 6 (11.76%) Python
4 4 (7.84%) C
5 3 (5.88%) Kotlin
5 3 (5.88%) PHP
5 3 (5.88%) Swift
6 2 (3.92%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 15 (29.41%) Security Cleared
2 11 (21.57%) SC Cleared
3 9 (17.65%) Degree
4 3 (5.88%) Computer Science Degree
4 3 (5.88%) ISTQB
4 3 (5.88%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (86.27%) QA
2 7 (13.73%) Accessibility
3 5 (9.80%) WCAG
System Software
1 4 (7.84%) Docker
Systems Management
1 8 (15.69%) Grafana
2 3 (5.88%) HP Fortify
2 3 (5.88%) Kubernetes
3 2 (3.92%) Kibana
3 2 (3.92%) logstash
Vendors
1 4 (7.84%) Microsoft
2 3 (5.88%) Veracode
3 2 (3.92%) Google
4 1 (1.96%) CheckPoint