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 18 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 724 637 825
Rank change year-on-year -87 +188 -33
Permanent jobs citing Exploratory Testing 35 45 43
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.035% 0.092% 0.044%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.048% 0.10% 0.054%
Number of salaries quoted 31 38 36
10th Percentile £32,500 - £28,250
25th Percentile £41,625 £25,750 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £37,500 £43,750
Median % change year-on-year +40.00% -14.29% -12.50%
75th Percentile £61,250 £51,250 £59,063
90th Percentile £63,750 £59,875 £68,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £26,500 £42,500
% change year-on-year +88.68% -37.65% -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 73,194 44,164 80,263
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.69% 90.07% 82.10%
Number of salaries quoted 50,654 24,819 55,696
10th Percentile £30,250 £28,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £38,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £56,888 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.47% +3.43% -8.71%
75th Percentile £78,750 £76,840 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £98,474 £92,500
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 18 July 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 18 July 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 -99 31 £54,250 +55.00% 7
UK excluding London -87 28 £50,000 +88.68% 7
Work from Home -6 15 £54,250 +24.00% 3
South East -21 7 £62,500 +25.00% 3
London -20 6 £57,500 - 1
South West -57 6 £46,250 +15.63%
North of England -61 6 £50,000 +88.68% 2
East of England -9 3 £28,500 -52.50% 1
West Midlands -24 3 £35,000 -17.65%
Midlands -36 3 £35,000 -17.65%
North East - 3 £50,000 - 2
North West - 2 £56,000 -
Wales - 2 £39,221 -
Scotland +12 1 £62,500 +21.95% 1
Yorkshire -50 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 (11.43%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 17 (48.57%) Azure
2 13 (37.14%) Azure DevOps
3 8 (22.86%) GitHub
4 4 (11.43%) GitHub Actions
4 4 (11.43%) Microsoft 365
5 3 (8.57%) AWS
5 3 (8.57%) Tricentis Tosca
6 2 (5.71%) BlazeMeter
7 1 (2.86%) AWS CodePipeline
7 1 (2.86%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (2.86%) BrowserStack
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.86%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 19 (54.29%) Selenium
2 13 (37.14%) Cypress.io
3 11 (31.43%) Postman
4 10 (28.57%) Git
5 9 (25.71%) Cucumber
6 8 (22.86%) Jenkins
7 7 (20.00%) JMeter
8 6 (17.14%) REST Assured
8 6 (17.14%) SpecFlow
8 6 (17.14%) WebDriver
9 3 (8.57%) Burp Suite
9 3 (8.57%) Gatling
9 3 (8.57%) GitLab
9 3 (8.57%) HP UFT
9 3 (8.57%) LoadRunner
9 3 (8.57%) SonarQube
10 2 (5.71%) Gradle
10 2 (5.71%) JIRA
10 2 (5.71%) Maven
11 1 (2.86%) XCTest
General
1 8 (22.86%) Analytical Skills
2 6 (17.14%) Finance
2 6 (17.14%) Public Sector
2 6 (17.14%) Social Skills
3 4 (11.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 1 (2.86%) Back Office
4 1 (2.86%) Documentation Skills
4 1 (2.86%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 10 (28.57%) QA Engineer
2 7 (20.00%) Test Engineer
3 6 (17.14%) Analyst
4 5 (14.29%) Automation Engineer
4 5 (14.29%) Quality Engineer
4 5 (14.29%) Tester
5 4 (11.43%) Automation Tester
5 4 (11.43%) Lead
5 4 (11.43%) Senior
6 3 (8.57%) Test Analyst
6 3 (8.57%) Test Automation Engineer
7 2 (5.71%) Functional Tester
7 2 (5.71%) Junior Analyst
7 2 (5.71%) Junior QA Analyst
7 2 (5.71%) Junior Test Analyst
7 2 (5.71%) QA Analyst
7 2 (5.71%) QA Automation Engineer
7 2 (5.71%) QA Test Analyst
7 2 (5.71%) Senior Automation Engineer
7 2 (5.71%) Senior QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (62.86%) Playwright
2 10 (28.57%) .NET
3 7 (20.00%) REST
4 5 (14.29%) JSON
4 5 (14.29%) XML
5 4 (11.43%) .NET Framework
5 4 (11.43%) CSS
5 4 (11.43%) Gherkin
5 4 (11.43%) HTML
5 4 (11.43%) Razor View Engine
5 4 (11.43%) Swagger
6 3 (8.57%) Node.js
7 1 (2.86%) Blazor
7 1 (2.86%) OAuth
7 1 (2.86%) OAuth2
7 1 (2.86%) OpenID
7 1 (2.86%) Vitest
7 1 (2.86%) WebAssembly
Miscellaneous
1 6 (17.14%) Product Ownership
2 5 (14.29%) Mobile App
3 1 (2.86%) Enterprise Software
3 1 (2.86%) Hackathon
3 1 (2.86%) PropTech
Operating Systems
1 4 (11.43%) Android
1 4 (11.43%) Apple iOS
2 3 (8.57%) Kali Linux
2 3 (8.57%) Linux
3 2 (5.71%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 34 (97.14%) Test Automation
2 31 (88.57%) Agile
3 20 (57.14%) CI/CD
4 18 (51.43%) Regression Testing
5 17 (48.57%) Software Testing
6 13 (37.14%) Continuous Improvement
6 13 (37.14%) DevOps
6 13 (37.14%) SDLC
7 12 (34.29%) AI
7 12 (34.29%) BDD
8 11 (31.43%) Problem-Solving
9 9 (25.71%) Manual Testing
10 8 (22.86%) API Testing
10 8 (22.86%) Functional Testing
10 8 (22.86%) Test Strategy
11 7 (20.00%) Performance Testing
11 7 (20.00%) TDD
12 6 (17.14%) Security Testing
12 6 (17.14%) Test Planning
12 6 (17.14%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 10 (28.57%) C#
1 10 (28.57%) Java
1 10 (28.57%) SQL
2 6 (17.14%) JavaScript
3 4 (11.43%) C
3 4 (11.43%) Python
4 2 (5.71%) Groovy
4 2 (5.71%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 8 (22.86%) SC Cleared
1 8 (22.86%) Security Cleared
2 7 (20.00%) Degree
3 3 (8.57%) Computer Science Degree
3 3 (8.57%) ISTQB
3 3 (8.57%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (88.57%) QA
2 5 (14.29%) Accessibility
3 3 (8.57%) WCAG
System Software
1 1 (2.86%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (8.57%) Grafana
1 3 (8.57%) HP Fortify
2 2 (5.71%) Kibana
2 2 (5.71%) logstash
Vendors
1 4 (11.43%) Microsoft
2 3 (8.57%) Veracode
3 1 (2.86%) CheckPoint