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

6 months to
29 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 737 629 763
Rank change year-on-year -108 +134 -7
Permanent jobs citing Exploratory Testing 56 45 35
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.051% 0.090% 0.043%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.070% 0.10% 0.053%
Number of salaries quoted 38 40 24
10th Percentile £37,205 - £34,125
25th Percentile £43,438 £25,750 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £41,250 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +21.21% -8.33% -10.00%
75th Percentile £61,250 £53,750 £64,063
90th Percentile £63,750 £62,500 £72,125
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £40,000 £42,500
% change year-on-year +25.00% -5.88% -12.82%

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 80,048 44,438 65,626
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.13% 88.74% 80.77%
Number of salaries quoted 55,528 25,365 40,468
10th Percentile £31,125 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,250 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,465
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -0.84% -7.56%
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,250 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £50,803
% change year-on-year +15.79% -6.50% -6.94%

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 29 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 29 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 -85 49 £50,000 +25.00% 35
UK excluding London -96 44 £50,000 +25.00% 27
South East -28 15 £57,500 +15.00% 7
Work from Home -38 13 £44,000 -7.37% 24
South West -64 9 £50,000 +8.11% 8
London -48 8 £45,000 -21.74% 13
North of England -62 8 £50,000 +88.68% 8
West Midlands -18 6 £41,250 -2.94% 1
Midlands -33 6 £41,250 -5.71% 1
North East - 6 £50,000 - 4
East of England -13 3 £28,500 -52.50%
Wales - 2 £39,221 -
Scotland -3 1 £62,500 +21.95% 2
North West -14 1 - - 3
Yorkshire -55 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 5 (8.93%) Confluence
2 4 (7.14%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (3.57%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 19 (33.93%) Azure
2 15 (26.79%) Azure DevOps
3 11 (19.64%) GitHub
4 8 (14.29%) AWS
5 7 (12.50%) GitHub Actions
6 4 (7.14%) BrowserStack
6 4 (7.14%) Microsoft 365
6 4 (7.14%) Tricentis Tosca
7 3 (5.36%) Datadog
7 3 (5.36%) GCP
7 3 (5.36%) Sentry
8 2 (3.57%) BlazeMeter
9 1 (1.79%) AWS CodePipeline
9 1 (1.79%) Azure Monitor
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (5.36%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (3.57%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.79%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 20 (35.71%) Selenium
2 19 (33.93%) Cypress.io
3 16 (28.57%) Postman
4 14 (25.00%) Git
5 12 (21.43%) Cucumber
6 11 (19.64%) Jenkins
6 11 (19.64%) JIRA
6 11 (19.64%) JMeter
7 7 (12.50%) Gatling
7 7 (12.50%) REST Assured
8 6 (10.71%) GitLab
8 6 (10.71%) HP UFT
9 5 (8.93%) Zephyr
10 4 (7.14%) Appium
10 4 (7.14%) Burp Suite
10 4 (7.14%) LoadRunner
10 4 (7.14%) SonarQube
11 3 (5.36%) SoapUI
11 3 (5.36%) TestRail
12 2 (3.57%) Robot Framework
General
1 13 (23.21%) Analytical Skills
1 13 (23.21%) Social Skills
2 11 (19.64%) Public Sector
3 6 (10.71%) Finance
4 4 (7.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (1.79%) Back Office
5 1 (1.79%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 19 (33.93%) Test Engineer
2 14 (25.00%) QA Engineer
3 11 (19.64%) Senior
4 10 (17.86%) Quality Engineer
5 9 (16.07%) Analyst
6 6 (10.71%) Automation Engineer
6 6 (10.71%) Senior QA Engineer
7 5 (8.93%) Senior Quality Engineer
7 5 (8.93%) Tester
8 4 (7.14%) Automation Tester
8 4 (7.14%) Lead
8 4 (7.14%) Test Automation Engineer
9 3 (5.36%) QA Automation Engineer
9 3 (5.36%) Senior Automation Engineer
9 3 (5.36%) Test Analyst
10 2 (3.57%) Junior
10 2 (3.57%) Junior QA Analyst
10 2 (3.57%) Junior QA Engineer
10 2 (3.57%) Junior Test Analyst
10 2 (3.57%) Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (46.43%) Playwright
2 7 (12.50%) CSS
2 7 (12.50%) HTML
2 7 (12.50%) REST
3 6 (10.71%) Node.js
3 6 (10.71%) React
3 6 (10.71%) React Native
3 6 (10.71%) Swagger
4 5 (8.93%) .NET
4 5 (8.93%) JSON
5 4 (7.14%) .NET Framework
5 4 (7.14%) Gherkin
5 4 (7.14%) Razor View Engine
6 3 (5.36%) GraphQL
6 3 (5.36%) Jest
6 3 (5.36%) RabbitMQ
6 3 (5.36%) Symfony
7 2 (3.57%) Kafka
7 2 (3.57%) Model Context Protocol
7 2 (3.57%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 19 (33.93%) Mobile App
2 10 (17.86%) Product Ownership
3 3 (5.36%) Blog
3 3 (5.36%) Clustering
4 2 (3.57%) Cloud Native
4 2 (3.57%) Distributed Systems
4 2 (3.57%) Linux Command Line
4 2 (3.57%) Self-Motivation
4 2 (3.57%) Virtual Team
5 1 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (1.79%) Hackathon
5 1 (1.79%) PropTech
Operating Systems
1 15 (26.79%) Android
1 15 (26.79%) Apple iOS
2 7 (12.50%) Linux
3 4 (7.14%) Kali Linux
4 2 (3.57%) Ubuntu
4 2 (3.57%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 53 (94.64%) Test Automation
2 49 (87.50%) Agile
3 31 (55.36%) CI/CD
3 31 (55.36%) Regression Testing
4 26 (46.43%) Problem-Solving
5 25 (44.64%) SDLC
6 21 (37.50%) Continuous Improvement
7 20 (35.71%) Software Testing
8 17 (30.36%) Sprint Planning
8 17 (30.36%) Test Planning
8 17 (30.36%) Validation
9 16 (28.57%) Defect Management
9 16 (28.57%) Test Strategy
10 15 (26.79%) AI
10 15 (26.79%) DevOps
11 13 (23.21%) Software Engineering
12 12 (21.43%) Manual Testing
13 11 (19.64%) API Testing
13 11 (19.64%) End-to-End Testing
13 11 (19.64%) Performance Testing
Programming Languages
1 15 (26.79%) JavaScript
2 8 (14.29%) Java
2 8 (14.29%) SQL
3 7 (12.50%) Python
3 7 (12.50%) TypeScript
4 5 (8.93%) C#
5 4 (7.14%) C
6 3 (5.36%) Kotlin
6 3 (5.36%) PHP
6 3 (5.36%) Swift
7 2 (3.57%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 15 (26.79%) Security Cleared
2 11 (19.64%) SC Cleared
3 10 (17.86%) Degree
4 5 (8.93%) ISTQB
5 4 (7.14%) Computer Science Degree
5 4 (7.14%) Master's Degree
6 2 (3.57%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 50 (89.29%) QA
2 8 (14.29%) Accessibility
3 6 (10.71%) WCAG
System Software
1 4 (7.14%) Docker
Systems Management
1 10 (17.86%) Grafana
2 4 (7.14%) HP Fortify
3 3 (5.36%) Kubernetes
4 2 (3.57%) Kibana
4 2 (3.57%) logstash
Vendors
1 6 (10.71%) Microsoft
2 4 (7.14%) Veracode
3 3 (5.36%) Google
4 2 (3.57%) Pega
4 2 (3.57%) SAP
5 1 (1.79%) CheckPoint