Software Test Engineer Job Trends

Software Test Engineer
UK

The median Software Test Engineer salary in the UK is £60,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 18 September 2025.

The table below provides salary benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 655 731 742
Rank change year-on-year +76 +11 +288
Permanent jobs requiring a Software Test Engineer 21 65 35
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.042% 0.083% 0.058%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.047% 0.087% 0.062%
Number of salaries quoted 11 24 30
10th Percentile £42,000 £31,750 £38,525
25th Percentile £58,750 £36,188 £43,218
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £42,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +41.18% -19.05% +26.51%
75th Percentile £62,825 £50,313 £67,813
90th Percentile £68,750 £58,125 £77,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £42,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +41.18% -19.05% +28.05%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 44,338 74,395 56,728
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.65% 95.25% 94.13%
Number of salaries quoted 26,053 44,780 43,966
10th Percentile £28,250 £30,000 £32,500
25th Percentile £36,250 £40,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year - -8.33% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £73,750 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £92,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -

Software Test Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Software Test Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Software Test Engineer in the UK

Software Test Engineer
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Software Test Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Software Test Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Software Test Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Software Test Engineer over the 6 months to 18 September 2025.

Salary histogram for Software Test Engineer in the UK

Software Test Engineer
Top 9 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Software Test Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 18 September 2025. 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 +77 20 £60,000 +41.18% 12
UK excluding London +69 17 £60,000 +41.18% 12
South East +49 9 £60,000 +20.00% 3
South West +60 6 £60,000 +60.00% 1
London +67 4 £44,000 +3.53% 2
Work from Home +65 3 £44,000 -7.37% 8
North of England +18 1 £75,000 +76.47% 2
North West +6 1 £75,000 +76.47% 1
Wales - 1 £60,000 -

Software Test Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 18 September 2025, Software Test Engineer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads featuring Software Test Engineer in the job title.

1 20 (95.24%) Test Automation
2 17 (80.95%) Software Testing
3 11 (52.38%) Agile
4 10 (47.62%) Validation
5 9 (42.86%) Test Scripting
5 9 (42.86%) Jenkins
5 9 (42.86%) Playwright
6 8 (38.10%) Python
7 7 (33.33%) Configuration Management
7 7 (33.33%) UML
7 7 (33.33%) Computer Science
7 7 (33.33%) Degree
7 7 (33.33%) Waterfall
7 7 (33.33%) CI/CD
7 7 (33.33%) Verification and Validation
7 7 (33.33%) API Testing
8 6 (28.57%) Machine Learning
8 6 (28.57%) Docker
8 6 (28.57%) Problem-Solving
8 6 (28.57%) JIRA
8 6 (28.57%) Selenium
8 6 (28.57%) Artificial Intelligence
8 6 (28.57%) Software Engineering
9 5 (23.81%) Finance
9 5 (23.81%) SQL
9 5 (23.81%) AWS
10 4 (19.05%) Amazon S3
10 4 (19.05%) Unit Testing
10 4 (19.05%) Integration Testing
10 4 (19.05%) ETL

Software Test Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 1 (4.76%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (4.76%) Doxygen
Business Applications
1 2 (9.52%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 5 (23.81%) AWS
2 4 (19.05%) Amazon Bedrock
2 4 (19.05%) Amazon ECS
2 4 (19.05%) Amazon EKS
2 4 (19.05%) Amazon S3
2 4 (19.05%) Amazon SageMaker
2 4 (19.05%) AWS Lambda
2 4 (19.05%) Serverless
3 2 (9.52%) BlazeMeter
3 2 (9.52%) GitHub
3 2 (9.52%) SaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (9.52%) Data Warehouse
1 2 (9.52%) Oracle Database
1 2 (9.52%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 9 (42.86%) Jenkins
2 6 (28.57%) JIRA
2 6 (28.57%) Selenium
3 4 (19.05%) JMeter
3 4 (19.05%) Locust
4 2 (9.52%) Bitbucket
4 2 (9.52%) LoadRunner
4 2 (9.52%) REST Assured
4 2 (9.52%) Robot Framework
4 2 (9.52%) Subversion
4 2 (9.52%) TestRail
5 1 (4.76%) Git
5 1 (4.76%) SoapUI
General
1 5 (23.81%) Finance
2 4 (19.05%) Analytical Skills
2 4 (19.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 4 (19.05%) Law
2 4 (19.05%) Marketing
3 2 (9.52%) Manufacturing
4 1 (4.76%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (42.86%) Playwright
2 4 (19.05%) pytest
3 2 (9.52%) Kafka
3 2 (9.52%) REST
3 2 (9.52%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 2 (9.52%) Biopharmaceutical
1 2 (9.52%) SWIFT Messaging Network
2 1 (4.76%) Embedded Systems
2 1 (4.76%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 3 (14.29%) Linux
2 1 (4.76%) FreeRTOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (95.24%) Test Automation
2 17 (80.95%) Software Testing
3 11 (52.38%) Agile
4 10 (47.62%) Validation
5 9 (42.86%) Test Scripting
6 7 (33.33%) API Testing
6 7 (33.33%) CI/CD
6 7 (33.33%) Computer Science
6 7 (33.33%) Configuration Management
6 7 (33.33%) UML
6 7 (33.33%) Verification and Validation
6 7 (33.33%) Waterfall
7 6 (28.57%) Artificial Intelligence
7 6 (28.57%) Machine Learning
7 6 (28.57%) Problem-Solving
7 6 (28.57%) Software Engineering
8 4 (19.05%) ETL
8 4 (19.05%) Integration Testing
8 4 (19.05%) System Integration Testing
8 4 (19.05%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 8 (38.10%) Python
2 5 (23.81%) SQL
3 4 (19.05%) Java
4 3 (14.29%) Ada
5 2 (9.52%) C#
5 2 (9.52%) C++
6 1 (4.76%) Bash
6 1 (4.76%) C
Qualifications
1 7 (33.33%) Degree
2 4 (19.05%) BPSS Clearance
2 4 (19.05%) Computer Science Degree
2 4 (19.05%) Numerate Degree
3 2 (9.52%) ISTQB
3 2 (9.52%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
3 2 (9.52%) SC Cleared
3 2 (9.52%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (14.29%) ISO/IEC 12207
2 2 (9.52%) Accessibility
2 2 (9.52%) GxP
2 2 (9.52%) SEPA
3 1 (4.76%) IEC 62304
System Software
1 6 (28.57%) Docker
Systems Management
1 4 (19.05%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 4 (19.05%) Databricks
2 2 (9.52%) CA Agile Central
2 2 (9.52%) Oracle