Test Automation Engineer Job Trends

Automation Test Engineer
UK

The median Automation Test Engineer salary in the UK is £55,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 6 May 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
6 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 640 540 839
Rank change year-on-year -100 +299 -55
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Automation Engineer 86 112 44
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.094% 0.26% 0.046%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.10% 0.29% 0.049%
Number of salaries quoted 74 38 33
10th Percentile £41,100 £42,350 £36,250
25th Percentile £45,000 £52,500 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +33.33% -18.18%
75th Percentile £75,000 £68,438 £57,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £72,500 £65,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £58,650 £42,500
% change year-on-year -6.22% +38.00% -22.73%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
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 84,854 38,887 90,629
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.95% 89.46% 94.55%
Number of salaries quoted 54,818 23,400 66,698
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £41,250 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £59,000 £52,777
Median % change year-on-year -6.78% +11.79% -12.04%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £71,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -5.66%

Test Automation Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Test Automation Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Test Automation Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Test Automation Engineer
Salary Trend

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

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

Test Automation Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Test Automation Engineer over the 6 months to 6 May 2026.

Salary histogram for Test Automation Engineer in the UK

Test Automation Engineer
Top 16 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Test Automation Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 6 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 -57 77 £55,000 -8.33% 8
UK excluding London -93 61 £55,000 -6.22% 12
Work from Home +22 32 £58,000 -3.33% 4
London -22 21 £60,000 +4.35% 2
South East -42 20 £55,000 -9.47% 1
East of England -17 13 £50,000 -9.09%
North of England -49 10 £55,000 -15.38% 3
South West -49 10 £59,500 -0.83% 3
North East - 5 £55,000 -
North West -25 4 £70,000 -1.75% 3
Wales - 4 £68,000 - 2
Midlands -50 3 £50,000 -4.76%
East Midlands -54 2 - -
Scotland -19 1 £55,000 - 3
West Midlands -23 1 £50,000 -
Yorkshire -52 1 £53,500 -17.57%

Test Automation Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 6 May 2026, Test Automation Engineer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads featuring Test Automation Engineer in the job title.

1 86 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 31 (36.05%) QA
3 27 (31.40%) Playwright
3 27 (31.40%) Software Testing
4 25 (29.07%) CI/CD
5 24 (27.91%) Python
6 20 (23.26%) Agile
6 20 (23.26%) Selenium
7 19 (22.09%) C#
8 17 (19.77%) Azure
8 17 (19.77%) Test Strategy
9 16 (18.60%) DevOps
10 15 (17.44%) API Testing
10 15 (17.44%) JavaScript
11 14 (16.28%) Java
12 12 (13.95%) SDET
12 12 (13.95%) TypeScript
13 11 (12.79%) Azure DevOps
14 10 (11.63%) Cypress.io
15 9 (10.47%) Continuous Improvement
15 9 (10.47%) Fintech
16 8 (9.30%) .NET
16 8 (9.30%) BDD
16 8 (9.30%) GitLab
16 8 (9.30%) Jenkins
16 8 (9.30%) Manual Testing
17 7 (8.14%) Performance Testing
17 7 (8.14%) QA Automation
17 7 (8.14%) Security Cleared
17 7 (8.14%) SpecFlow

Test Automation Engineer Skill Set
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:

Applications
1 1 (1.16%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.16%) Endur
1 1 (1.16%) Findur
Cloud Services
1 17 (19.77%) Azure
2 11 (12.79%) Azure DevOps
3 6 (6.98%) AWS
4 5 (5.81%) Azure Pipelines
5 4 (4.65%) GitHub
5 4 (4.65%) GitHub Actions
5 4 (4.65%) OpenShift
6 3 (3.49%) GCP
7 1 (1.16%) AWS Data Pipeline
7 1 (1.16%) Azure Functions
7 1 (1.16%) BrowserStack
7 1 (1.16%) Dynamics 365
7 1 (1.16%) SaaS
7 1 (1.16%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 1 (1.16%) Broadband
1 1 (1.16%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (4.65%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 20 (23.26%) Selenium
2 10 (11.63%) Cypress.io
3 8 (9.30%) GitLab
3 8 (9.30%) Jenkins
4 7 (8.14%) SpecFlow
5 5 (5.81%) Git
5 5 (5.81%) Robot Framework
6 4 (4.65%) TestRail
7 3 (3.49%) Appium
7 3 (3.49%) Postman
7 3 (3.49%) REST Assured
7 3 (3.49%) WebDriver
8 2 (2.33%) JMeter
9 1 (1.16%) Cucumber
9 1 (1.16%) LoadRunner
9 1 (1.16%) NUnit
9 1 (1.16%) SonarQube
General
1 10 (11.63%) Games
2 5 (5.81%) Social Skills
3 4 (4.65%) Finance
4 3 (3.49%) Health Technology
4 3 (3.49%) Influencing Skills
5 2 (2.33%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (2.33%) Electronics
5 2 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.16%) Advertising
6 1 (1.16%) Analytical Skills
6 1 (1.16%) Public Sector
6 1 (1.16%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (31.40%) Playwright
2 8 (9.30%) .NET
3 5 (5.81%) pytest
4 4 (4.65%) Elastic Stack
4 4 (4.65%) Gherkin
5 3 (3.49%) REST
5 3 (3.49%) RESTful
6 2 (2.33%) GraphQL
6 2 (2.33%) React
7 1 (1.16%) .NET Framework
7 1 (1.16%) AngularJS
7 1 (1.16%) Blazor
7 1 (1.16%) Kafka
7 1 (1.16%) Middleware
7 1 (1.16%) Model Context Protocol
7 1 (1.16%) React Native
7 1 (1.16%) Spring
7 1 (1.16%) Spring Boot
7 1 (1.16%) Web Services
7 1 (1.16%) WebAssembly
Miscellaneous
1 8 (9.30%) Mobile App
2 5 (5.81%) Product Ownership
3 4 (4.65%) Online Games
4 2 (2.33%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (1.16%) AI Agents
5 1 (1.16%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (1.16%) Linux Command Line
5 1 (1.16%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 6 (6.98%) Linux
2 5 (5.81%) Windows
3 4 (4.65%) CentOS
4 2 (2.33%) Android
4 2 (2.33%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 86 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 27 (31.40%) Software Testing
3 25 (29.07%) CI/CD
4 20 (23.26%) Agile
5 17 (19.77%) Test Strategy
6 16 (18.60%) DevOps
7 15 (17.44%) API Testing
8 12 (13.95%) SDET
9 9 (10.47%) Continuous Improvement
9 9 (10.47%) Fintech
10 8 (9.30%) BDD
10 8 (9.30%) Manual Testing
11 7 (8.14%) Performance Testing
11 7 (8.14%) QA Automation
11 7 (8.14%) Validation
12 6 (6.98%) Collaborative Culture
12 6 (6.98%) Containerisation
12 6 (6.98%) Security Testing
12 6 (6.98%) Test Scripting
13 5 (5.81%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 24 (27.91%) Python
2 19 (22.09%) C#
3 15 (17.44%) JavaScript
4 14 (16.28%) Java
5 12 (13.95%) TypeScript
6 7 (8.14%) SQL
7 5 (5.81%) PowerShell
8 4 (4.65%) Bash
Qualifications
1 7 (8.14%) Security Cleared
2 4 (4.65%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
2 4 (4.65%) Degree
3 2 (2.33%) ISTQB
3 2 (2.33%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
3 2 (2.33%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
3 2 (2.33%) Master's Degree
4 1 (1.16%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (36.05%) QA
2 3 (3.49%) Accessibility
3 1 (1.16%) Data Quality
System Software
1 6 (6.98%) Docker
2 5 (5.81%) Virtual Machines
3 4 (4.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (1.16%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 6 (6.98%) Kubernetes
1 6 (6.98%) Terraform
2 4 (4.65%) Ansible
2 4 (4.65%) Grafana
2 4 (4.65%) Kibana
2 4 (4.65%) logstash
2 4 (4.65%) vCenter Server
3 1 (1.16%) HP Fortify
Vendors
1 4 (4.65%) Atlassian
1 4 (4.65%) Red Hat
1 4 (4.65%) Splunk
1 4 (4.65%) VMware
2 2 (2.33%) Guidewire
2 2 (2.33%) Microsoft
3 1 (1.16%) IBM
3 1 (1.16%) OpenLink
3 1 (1.16%) Perfecto Mobile
3 1 (1.16%) ServiceNow