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 9 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 699 599 824
Rank change year-on-year -100 +225 +45
Permanent jobs citing Exploratory Testing 28 55 53
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.031% 0.13% 0.055%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.042% 0.14% 0.064%
Number of salaries quoted 24 44 41
10th Percentile £25,750 - £28,250
25th Percentile £30,938 £25,750 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £42,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% -20.42%
75th Percentile £58,750 £54,063 £57,500
90th Percentile £62,625 £63,025 £72,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £39,221 £40,000 £37,500
% change year-on-year -1.95% +6.67% -31.82%

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 67,307 40,602 82,234
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 74.25% 93.30% 85.26%
Number of salaries quoted 42,652 22,587 59,697
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,450 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - +9.09% -10.10%
75th Percentile £78,750 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,446 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £52,500 £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 9 May 2026.

Salary histogram for Exploratory Testing in the UK

Exploratory Testing
Top 13 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 9 May 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 -51 25 £45,000 +20.00% 16
UK excluding London -81 20 £39,221 -1.95% 17
Work from Home +7 11 £56,750 +33.53% 11
London -22 7 £57,500 -8.00% 4
West Midlands -31 6 £35,000 -17.65% 1
Midlands -36 6 £35,000 -17.65% 1
North of England -72 6 £26,500 - 3
South West -51 4 £46,250 +15.63% 5
Yorkshire -64 4 £26,500 -
North West -17 2 £56,000 +100.00% 3
South East -24 2 £62,500 +47.06% 6
Scotland -17 1 £62,500 +13.64%
Wales - 1 £39,221 - 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 2 (7.14%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 11 (39.29%) Azure
2 8 (28.57%) AWS
2 8 (28.57%) Azure DevOps
3 4 (14.29%) SaaS
4 3 (10.71%) GitHub
4 3 (10.71%) Tricentis Tosca
5 2 (7.14%) BlazeMeter
5 2 (7.14%) Microsoft 365
6 1 (3.57%) AWS CodePipeline
6 1 (3.57%) GitHub Actions
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (14.29%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 15 (53.57%) Selenium
2 8 (28.57%) Git
2 8 (28.57%) Jenkins
2 8 (28.57%) Postman
2 8 (28.57%) SpecFlow
3 7 (25.00%) Cucumber
3 7 (25.00%) Cypress.io
4 6 (21.43%) WebDriver
5 5 (17.86%) JIRA
5 5 (17.86%) JMeter
6 4 (14.29%) Gatling
6 4 (14.29%) LoadRunner
6 4 (14.29%) REST Assured
6 4 (14.29%) TestRail
7 3 (10.71%) Burp Suite
7 3 (10.71%) GitLab
7 3 (10.71%) HP UFT
7 3 (10.71%) SonarQube
8 2 (7.14%) Maven
8 2 (7.14%) Zephyr
General
1 11 (39.29%) Social Skills
2 9 (32.14%) Analytical Skills
3 8 (28.57%) Finance
4 4 (14.29%) Organisational Skills
5 2 (7.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 2 (7.14%) Public Sector
6 1 (3.57%) Back Office
6 1 (3.57%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (3.57%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 7 (25.00%) QA Engineer
2 6 (21.43%) Tester
3 4 (14.29%) 1st Line Engineer
3 4 (14.29%) 1st Line Support
3 4 (14.29%) 1st Line Support Engineer
3 4 (14.29%) Applications Engineer
3 4 (14.29%) Applications Support
3 4 (14.29%) Applications Support Engineer
3 4 (14.29%) Desktop Engineer
3 4 (14.29%) Desktop Support
3 4 (14.29%) Desktop Support Engineer
3 4 (14.29%) IT Engineer
3 4 (14.29%) IT Support
3 4 (14.29%) IT Support Engineer
3 4 (14.29%) Support Engineer
3 4 (14.29%) Test Engineer
4 3 (10.71%) Automation Engineer
4 3 (10.71%) Automation Tester
4 3 (10.71%) Test Automation Engineer
5 2 (7.14%) Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (57.14%) Playwright
2 9 (32.14%) .NET
3 8 (28.57%) REST
4 6 (21.43%) XML
5 5 (17.86%) JSON
6 2 (7.14%) .NET Framework
6 2 (7.14%) Gherkin
6 2 (7.14%) GraphQL
6 2 (7.14%) Razor View Engine
6 2 (7.14%) Swagger
7 1 (3.57%) Blazor
7 1 (3.57%) CSS
7 1 (3.57%) HTML
7 1 (3.57%) WebAssembly
Miscellaneous
1 5 (17.86%) Mobile App
1 5 (17.86%) Product Ownership
2 4 (14.29%) Self-Motivation
3 1 (3.57%) Enterprise Software
3 1 (3.57%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 5 (17.86%) Android
2 4 (14.29%) Windows
3 3 (10.71%) Kali Linux
3 3 (10.71%) Linux
4 2 (7.14%) Unix
5 1 (3.57%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 21 (75.00%) Test Automation
2 20 (71.43%) Agile
3 18 (64.29%) Software Testing
4 12 (42.86%) CI/CD
5 11 (39.29%) Regression Testing
6 10 (35.71%) BDD
7 9 (32.14%) DevOps
8 8 (28.57%) SDLC
8 8 (28.57%) Validation
9 7 (25.00%) AI
9 7 (25.00%) Continuous Improvement
9 7 (25.00%) Performance Testing
10 6 (21.43%) Problem-Solving
11 5 (17.86%) Acceptance Criteria
11 5 (17.86%) API Testing
11 5 (17.86%) Computer Science
11 5 (17.86%) Fintech
11 5 (17.86%) Functional Testing
11 5 (17.86%) Non-Functional Testing
11 5 (17.86%) QA Automation
Programming Languages
1 16 (57.14%) SQL
2 11 (39.29%) Java
3 9 (32.14%) C#
4 4 (14.29%) Python
5 2 (7.14%) C
5 2 (7.14%) Groovy
5 2 (7.14%) JavaScript
6 1 (3.57%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 7 (25.00%) Degree
2 5 (17.86%) Computer Science Degree
3 3 (10.71%) Master's Degree
4 2 (7.14%) ISTQB
4 2 (7.14%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 2 (7.14%) SC Cleared
4 2 (7.14%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (75.00%) QA
2 2 (7.14%) Accessibility
3 1 (3.57%) WCAG
Systems Management
1 3 (10.71%) Grafana
1 3 (10.71%) HP Fortify
2 2 (7.14%) Kibana
2 2 (7.14%) logstash
Vendors
1 6 (21.43%) Microsoft
2 4 (14.29%) Zoho
3 3 (10.71%) Veracode