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 26 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 622 713 675
Rank change year-on-year +91 -38 +168
Permanent jobs citing Exploratory Testing 31 37 49
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.058% 0.055% 0.096%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.068% 0.065% 0.10%
Number of salaries quoted 29 17 32
10th Percentile £31,150 £36,250 £35,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £48,750 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £65,000 £48,750
Median % change year-on-year -23.08% +33.33% -18.75%
75th Percentile £62,500 £78,750 £57,500
90th Percentile £64,200 £80,000 £59,875
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £37,500 £45,500
% change year-on-year +33.33% -17.58% -19.41%

All Process and 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 45,560 57,007 47,921
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 84.92% 84.85% 93.78%
Number of salaries quoted 27,788 29,760 36,892
10th Percentile £28,250 £34,000 £32,500
25th Percentile £36,250 £45,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £98,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £54,439 £52,500
% change year-on-year -12.75% +3.69% -0.19%

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 26 November 2025.

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 26 November 2025. 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 +103 30 £50,000 -24.53% 22
UK excluding London +96 26 £50,000 +33.33% 24
Work from Home +100 16 £47,500 -38.71% 7
South East +53 7 £50,000 - 9
Midlands - 7 £47,500 - 5
West Midlands - 7 £47,500 - 5
South West - 5 £46,250 - 3
London +50 4 £42,500 -37.04% 5
North of England +42 4 £26,500 -29.33% 5
East of England +28 3 £60,000 -
Yorkshire - 3 £26,500 - 2
North West +36 1 £52,500 +40.00% 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:

Application Platforms
1 1 (3.23%) WordPress
Business Applications
1 1 (3.23%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 9 (29.03%) AWS
2 7 (22.58%) Azure
3 5 (16.13%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (12.90%) SaaS
5 2 (6.45%) BrowserStack
5 2 (6.45%) GitHub
6 1 (3.23%) GitHub Actions
6 1 (3.23%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 2 (6.45%) RFID
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (9.68%) MongoDB
1 3 (9.68%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 12 (38.71%) Postman
1 12 (38.71%) Selenium
2 7 (22.58%) Git
2 7 (22.58%) Jenkins
3 6 (19.35%) Cypress.io
3 6 (19.35%) JMeter
4 5 (16.13%) JIRA
5 3 (9.68%) GitLab
5 3 (9.68%) TestRail
5 3 (9.68%) Zephyr
6 2 (6.45%) CircleCI
6 2 (6.45%) Gatling
6 2 (6.45%) LoadRunner
6 2 (6.45%) Locust
7 1 (3.23%) Bitbucket
7 1 (3.23%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (3.23%) Jasmine
7 1 (3.23%) JUnit
7 1 (3.23%) NUnit
7 1 (3.23%) REST Assured
General
1 9 (29.03%) Social Skills
2 7 (22.58%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (9.68%) Banking
3 3 (9.68%) Finance
3 3 (9.68%) Military
3 3 (9.68%) Organisational Skills
4 1 (3.23%) Financial Institution
4 1 (3.23%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 12 (38.71%) Senior
2 9 (29.03%) Test Engineer
3 8 (25.81%) QA Engineer
4 7 (22.58%) Senior Test Engineer
5 6 (19.35%) Test Automation Engineer
6 5 (16.13%) Senior Test Automation Engineer
7 4 (12.90%) Lead
7 4 (12.90%) Tester
8 3 (9.68%) 1st Line Engineer
8 3 (9.68%) 1st Line Support
8 3 (9.68%) Applications Support
8 3 (9.68%) Applications Support Engineer
8 3 (9.68%) Desktop Engineer
8 3 (9.68%) Desktop Support
8 3 (9.68%) Desktop Support Engineer
8 3 (9.68%) IT Engineer
8 3 (9.68%) IT Support
8 3 (9.68%) IT Support Engineer
8 3 (9.68%) Senior Tester
8 3 (9.68%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (22.58%) Playwright
2 5 (16.13%) XML
3 4 (12.90%) REST
3 4 (12.90%) RESTful
4 1 (3.23%) .NET
4 1 (3.23%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 6 (19.35%) Mobile App
1 6 (19.35%) Product Ownership
2 3 (9.68%) Self-Motivation
3 2 (6.45%) Virtual Team
4 1 (3.23%) Derivative
4 1 (3.23%) Equities
4 1 (3.23%) Fixed Income
4 1 (3.23%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 5 (16.13%) Windows
2 3 (9.68%) Android
3 2 (6.45%) Unix
4 1 (3.23%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (74.19%) Agile
1 23 (74.19%) Test Automation
2 15 (48.39%) CI/CD
2 15 (48.39%) Software Testing
3 13 (41.94%) Manual Testing
4 10 (32.26%) DevOps
4 10 (32.26%) Test Strategy
5 8 (25.81%) API Testing
5 8 (25.81%) BDD
6 7 (22.58%) Continuous Improvement
6 7 (22.58%) Scenario Testing
6 7 (22.58%) SDLC
6 7 (22.58%) Test Management
7 6 (19.35%) Problem-Solving
8 5 (16.13%) Mentoring
9 4 (12.90%) Acceptance Criteria
9 4 (12.90%) Code Quality
9 4 (12.90%) Non-Functional Testing
9 4 (12.90%) SDET
9 4 (12.90%) Security Testing
Programming Languages
1 11 (35.48%) SQL
2 8 (25.81%) Java
3 6 (19.35%) JavaScript
4 5 (16.13%) C#
4 5 (16.13%) Python
5 4 (12.90%) TypeScript
6 1 (3.23%) Kotlin
6 1 (3.23%) PHP
Qualifications
1 15 (48.39%) ISTQB
2 8 (25.81%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
3 5 (16.13%) Security Cleared
4 4 (12.90%) ISEB
5 3 (9.68%) SC Cleared
6 1 (3.23%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (3.23%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (74.19%) QA
2 3 (9.68%) Accessibility
2 3 (9.68%) GDPR
3 1 (3.23%) Data Quality
System Software
1 4 (12.90%) Docker
2 2 (6.45%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 4 (12.90%) Kubernetes
2 1 (3.23%) Grafana
2 1 (3.23%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 4 (12.90%) Microsoft
2 3 (9.68%) Zoho
3 1 (3.23%) AppDynamics
3 1 (3.23%) Charles River
3 1 (3.23%) Dynatrace
3 1 (3.23%) Murex
3 1 (3.23%) YouTube