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 20 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 708 623 860
Rank change year-on-year -85 +237 -30
Permanent jobs citing Exploratory Testing 31 52 52
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.033% 0.12% 0.048%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.045% 0.13% 0.058%
Number of salaries quoted 27 41 44
10th Percentile £32,500 - £29,150
25th Percentile £40,236 £25,750 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £56,000 £40,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +40.00% -11.11% -18.18%
75th Percentile £60,625 £47,500 £57,813
90th Percentile £63,750 £62,500 £70,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £27,250 £41,250
% change year-on-year +83.49% -33.94% -17.50%

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 68,746 41,496 89,251
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.03% 92.46% 81.73%
Number of salaries quoted 47,319 22,262 63,244
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,822 £29,750
25th Percentile £41,250 £39,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.54%
75th Percentile £78,750 £77,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £92,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +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 20 June 2026.

Salary histogram for Exploratory Testing in the UK

Exploratory Testing
Top 14 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 20 June 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 -98 27 £56,750 +62.14% 7
UK excluding London -68 22 £50,000 +83.49% 8
Work from Home -2 11 £56,750 +33.53% 4
London -26 8 £57,500 -
South East -24 6 £62,500 +47.06% 2
South West -64 5 £42,500 +6.25% 1
West Midlands -18 4 £35,000 -17.65%
Midlands -27 4 £35,000 -17.65%
North of England -41 4 £50,000 +88.68% 5
North West +4 2 £56,000 +100.00% 3
Wales - 2 £39,221 - 1
Scotland +9 1 £62,500 +13.64%
Yorkshire -56 1 £26,500 -
North East - 1 £50,000 - 2

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 (12.90%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 16 (51.61%) Azure
2 12 (38.71%) Azure DevOps
3 5 (16.13%) GitHub
4 4 (12.90%) AWS
4 4 (12.90%) Microsoft 365
5 3 (9.68%) Tricentis Tosca
6 2 (6.45%) BlazeMeter
7 1 (3.23%) AWS CodePipeline
7 1 (3.23%) BrowserStack
7 1 (3.23%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (3.23%) SaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (3.23%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 16 (51.61%) Selenium
2 10 (32.26%) Cypress.io
2 10 (32.26%) Git
2 10 (32.26%) Postman
3 9 (29.03%) Cucumber
4 8 (25.81%) Jenkins
4 8 (25.81%) SpecFlow
5 7 (22.58%) JMeter
6 6 (19.35%) REST Assured
6 6 (19.35%) WebDriver
7 3 (9.68%) Burp Suite
7 3 (9.68%) Gatling
7 3 (9.68%) GitLab
7 3 (9.68%) HP UFT
7 3 (9.68%) JIRA
7 3 (9.68%) LoadRunner
7 3 (9.68%) SonarQube
8 2 (6.45%) Gradle
8 2 (6.45%) Maven
8 2 (6.45%) TestRail
General
1 8 (25.81%) Finance
2 7 (22.58%) Analytical Skills
2 7 (22.58%) Social Skills
3 4 (12.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 4 (12.90%) Public Sector
4 1 (3.23%) Back Office
4 1 (3.23%) Documentation Skills
4 1 (3.23%) Marketing
4 1 (3.23%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 8 (25.81%) Test Engineer
2 7 (22.58%) QA Engineer
3 6 (19.35%) Tester
4 5 (16.13%) Test Automation Engineer
5 4 (12.90%) Automation Tester
5 4 (12.90%) Lead
5 4 (12.90%) Quality Engineer
6 3 (9.68%) Automation Engineer
6 3 (9.68%) Senior
7 2 (6.45%) Analyst
7 2 (6.45%) Functional Tester
7 2 (6.45%) Senior QA Engineer
8 1 (3.23%) 1st Line Support
8 1 (3.23%) Applications Support
8 1 (3.23%) Desktop Support
8 1 (3.23%) Desktop Support Engineer
8 1 (3.23%) Junior
8 1 (3.23%) Software Tester
8 1 (3.23%) Support Engineer
8 1 (3.23%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (64.52%) Playwright
2 11 (35.48%) .NET
3 8 (25.81%) REST
4 5 (16.13%) JSON
4 5 (16.13%) XML
5 4 (12.90%) .NET Framework
5 4 (12.90%) Gherkin
5 4 (12.90%) Razor View Engine
5 4 (12.90%) Swagger
6 2 (6.45%) CSS
6 2 (6.45%) GraphQL
6 2 (6.45%) HTML
7 1 (3.23%) Blazor
7 1 (3.23%) Node.js
7 1 (3.23%) WebAssembly
Miscellaneous
1 6 (19.35%) Product Ownership
2 5 (16.13%) Mobile App
3 1 (3.23%) Enterprise Software
3 1 (3.23%) Hackathon
3 1 (3.23%) PropTech
3 1 (3.23%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 4 (12.90%) Android
2 3 (9.68%) Apple iOS
2 3 (9.68%) Kali Linux
2 3 (9.68%) Linux
3 2 (6.45%) Unix
4 1 (3.23%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (90.32%) Test Automation
2 26 (83.87%) Agile
3 15 (48.39%) CI/CD
3 15 (48.39%) Software Testing
4 14 (45.16%) Regression Testing
5 12 (38.71%) BDD
5 12 (38.71%) DevOps
6 10 (32.26%) AI
7 9 (29.03%) SDLC
8 8 (25.81%) Continuous Improvement
8 8 (25.81%) Performance Testing
9 7 (22.58%) API Testing
9 7 (22.58%) TDD
9 7 (22.58%) Test Strategy
9 7 (22.58%) Validation
10 6 (19.35%) Functional Testing
10 6 (19.35%) Problem-Solving
11 5 (16.13%) Non-Functional Testing
11 5 (16.13%) QA Automation
11 5 (16.13%) Test Planning
Programming Languages
1 13 (41.94%) SQL
2 11 (35.48%) C#
3 10 (32.26%) Java
4 4 (12.90%) C
5 3 (9.68%) Python
6 2 (6.45%) Groovy
6 2 (6.45%) JavaScript
7 1 (3.23%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 8 (25.81%) Degree
2 6 (19.35%) SC Cleared
2 6 (19.35%) Security Cleared
3 4 (12.90%) Computer Science Degree
4 3 (9.68%) Master's Degree
5 2 (6.45%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (87.10%) QA
2 5 (16.13%) Accessibility
3 3 (9.68%) WCAG
Systems Management
1 3 (9.68%) Grafana
1 3 (9.68%) HP Fortify
2 2 (6.45%) Kibana
2 2 (6.45%) logstash
Vendors
1 5 (16.13%) Microsoft
2 3 (9.68%) Veracode
3 1 (3.23%) Zoho