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

6 months to
1 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 725 631 789
Rank change year-on-year -94 +158 +1
Permanent jobs citing Exploratory Testing 43 47 37
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.042% 0.095% 0.043%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.057% 0.11% 0.053%
Number of salaries quoted 35 42 30
10th Percentile £35,188 - £32,375
25th Percentile £42,250 £25,750 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £40,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +31.25% -11.11% -7.69%
75th Percentile £61,250 £52,500 £58,125
90th Percentile £63,750 £62,125 £65,625
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £37,500 £42,500
% change year-on-year +33.33% -11.76% -5.56%

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 76,038 44,320 69,725
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.68% 89.51% 81.15%
Number of salaries quoted 52,466 25,228 46,329
10th Percentile £30,603 £28,500 £30,500
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,500 £40,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.41%
75th Percentile £78,750 £76,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +10.00% - -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 1 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 1 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 -80 37 £54,250 +35.63% 16
UK excluding London -86 33 £50,000 +33.33% 14
Work from Home -19 16 £52,500 +16.67% 9
South East -30 10 £57,500 +15.00% 2
North of England -52 8 £50,000 +88.68% 4
London -34 7 £57,500 -8.00% 3
South West -70 6 £46,250 +15.63% 4
North East - 5 £50,000 - 1
East of England -15 3 £28,500 -52.50% 2
West Midlands -31 3 £35,000 -17.65% 1
Midlands -34 3 £35,000 -17.65% 1
North West -2 2 £56,000 +6.67% 2
Wales - 2 £39,221 -
Scotland +12 1 £62,500 +21.95% 1
Yorkshire -47 1 £60,000 +126.42% 1

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 (9.30%) SharePoint
2 2 (4.65%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 17 (39.53%) Azure
2 13 (30.23%) Azure DevOps
3 10 (23.26%) GitHub
4 6 (13.95%) GitHub Actions
5 5 (11.63%) AWS
6 4 (9.30%) Microsoft 365
7 3 (6.98%) Tricentis Tosca
8 2 (4.65%) BlazeMeter
8 2 (4.65%) BrowserStack
8 2 (4.65%) Datadog
8 2 (4.65%) Sentry
9 1 (2.33%) AWS CodePipeline
9 1 (2.33%) Azure Monitor
9 1 (2.33%) GCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (4.65%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (2.33%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 19 (44.19%) Selenium
2 14 (32.56%) Cypress.io
3 12 (27.91%) Postman
4 10 (23.26%) Git
5 9 (20.93%) Cucumber
6 8 (18.60%) Jenkins
7 7 (16.28%) JMeter
8 6 (13.95%) REST Assured
9 5 (11.63%) JIRA
9 5 (11.63%) SpecFlow
9 5 (11.63%) WebDriver
10 4 (9.30%) Gatling
11 3 (6.98%) Appium
11 3 (6.98%) Burp Suite
11 3 (6.98%) GitLab
11 3 (6.98%) HP UFT
11 3 (6.98%) LoadRunner
11 3 (6.98%) SonarQube
12 2 (4.65%) Gradle
12 2 (4.65%) Maven
General
1 10 (23.26%) Analytical Skills
2 8 (18.60%) Public Sector
3 7 (16.28%) Finance
3 7 (16.28%) Social Skills
4 4 (9.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (2.33%) Back Office
5 1 (2.33%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (2.33%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 11 (25.58%) QA Engineer
2 10 (23.26%) Test Engineer
3 8 (18.60%) Analyst
4 7 (16.28%) Quality Engineer
5 6 (13.95%) Senior
6 5 (11.63%) Automation Engineer
6 5 (11.63%) Tester
7 4 (9.30%) Automation Tester
7 4 (9.30%) Lead
8 3 (6.98%) Test Analyst
8 3 (6.98%) Test Automation Engineer
9 2 (4.65%) Functional Tester
9 2 (4.65%) Junior
9 2 (4.65%) Junior Analyst
9 2 (4.65%) Junior Test Analyst
9 2 (4.65%) QA Analyst
9 2 (4.65%) QA Automation Engineer
9 2 (4.65%) QA Test Analyst
9 2 (4.65%) Senior QA Engineer
9 2 (4.65%) Senior Quality Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (51.16%) Playwright
2 9 (20.93%) .NET
3 7 (16.28%) REST
4 6 (13.95%) CSS
4 6 (13.95%) HTML
5 5 (11.63%) JSON
5 5 (11.63%) Node.js
6 4 (9.30%) .NET Framework
6 4 (9.30%) Gherkin
6 4 (9.30%) Razor View Engine
6 4 (9.30%) Swagger
6 4 (9.30%) XML
7 3 (6.98%) React
7 3 (6.98%) React Native
8 2 (4.65%) GraphQL
8 2 (4.65%) Jest
8 2 (4.65%) RabbitMQ
8 2 (4.65%) Symfony
9 1 (2.33%) OAuth
9 1 (2.33%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 11 (25.58%) Mobile App
2 7 (16.28%) Product Ownership
3 2 (4.65%) Blog
3 2 (4.65%) Clustering
4 1 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
4 1 (2.33%) Hackathon
4 1 (2.33%) Linux Command Line
4 1 (2.33%) PropTech
4 1 (2.33%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 9 (20.93%) Android
1 9 (20.93%) Apple iOS
2 4 (9.30%) Linux
3 3 (6.98%) Kali Linux
4 2 (4.65%) Unix
5 1 (2.33%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (95.35%) Test Automation
2 37 (86.05%) Agile
3 25 (58.14%) CI/CD
4 23 (53.49%) Regression Testing
5 18 (41.86%) SDLC
6 17 (39.53%) Problem-Solving
6 17 (39.53%) Software Testing
7 16 (37.21%) Continuous Improvement
8 14 (32.56%) AI
9 13 (30.23%) DevOps
10 11 (25.58%) BDD
10 11 (25.58%) Manual Testing
10 11 (25.58%) Test Strategy
11 9 (20.93%) Functional Testing
11 9 (20.93%) Sprint Planning
11 9 (20.93%) Test Planning
11 9 (20.93%) Validation
12 8 (18.60%) API Testing
12 8 (18.60%) Performance Testing
12 8 (18.60%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 10 (23.26%) JavaScript
2 9 (20.93%) C#
2 9 (20.93%) Java
2 9 (20.93%) SQL
3 4 (9.30%) C
3 4 (9.30%) Python
3 4 (9.30%) TypeScript
4 2 (4.65%) Groovy
4 2 (4.65%) Kotlin
4 2 (4.65%) PHP
4 2 (4.65%) Swift
Qualifications
1 11 (25.58%) Security Cleared
2 10 (23.26%) SC Cleared
3 8 (18.60%) Degree
4 3 (6.98%) Computer Science Degree
4 3 (6.98%) ISTQB
4 3 (6.98%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (86.05%) QA
2 6 (13.95%) Accessibility
3 4 (9.30%) WCAG
System Software
1 3 (6.98%) Docker
Systems Management
1 6 (13.95%) Grafana
2 3 (6.98%) HP Fortify
3 2 (4.65%) Kibana
3 2 (4.65%) Kubernetes
3 2 (4.65%) logstash
Vendors
1 4 (9.30%) Microsoft
2 3 (6.98%) Veracode
3 1 (2.33%) CheckPoint
3 1 (2.33%) Google