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 18 June 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 643 559 857
Rank change year-on-year -84 +298 -104
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Automation Engineer 91 107 61
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.097% 0.24% 0.056%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.10% 0.27% 0.059%
Number of salaries quoted 76 27 41
10th Percentile £38,750 £42,000 £36,250
25th Percentile £48,750 £53,750 £38,750
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 £64,125 £57,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £72,000 £65,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £42,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +41.18% -17.07%

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 88,029 40,047 103,056
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.98% 89.54% 94.75%
Number of salaries quoted 60,387 22,686 74,432
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £39,000 £38,620
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £98,474 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - - -6.54%

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 18 June 2026.

Salary histogram for Test Automation Engineer in the UK

Test Automation Engineer
Top 15 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 18 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 -84 79 £55,000 -8.33% 18
UK excluding London -88 60 £55,000 -8.33% 22
Work from Home +16 30 £72,500 +20.83% 7
London -11 27 £60,000 +9.09% 4
South East -35 17 £75,000 +23.46% 5
East of England -18 13 £50,000 - 2
South West -62 11 £59,500 -0.83% 3
North of England -41 8 £55,000 -15.38% 4
Wales - 6 £70,000 -
North West +5 4 £70,000 -1.75% 1
North East - 4 £55,000 -
Midlands -39 3 £50,000 -23.08% 2
Scotland +13 2 £58,750 +4.44% 5
East Midlands -35 2 - -
West Midlands -20 1 £50,000 -23.08% 2

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

For the 6 months to 18 June 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 91 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 35 (38.46%) QA
3 29 (31.87%) Playwright
4 28 (30.77%) Software Testing
5 27 (29.67%) CI/CD
6 26 (28.57%) Agile
7 24 (26.37%) Python
8 21 (23.08%) Azure
8 21 (23.08%) Test Strategy
9 18 (19.78%) DevOps
10 17 (18.68%) C#
11 16 (17.58%) API Testing
11 16 (17.58%) Selenium
12 15 (16.48%) Azure DevOps
12 15 (16.48%) Java
13 13 (14.29%) JavaScript
13 13 (14.29%) TypeScript
14 12 (13.19%) SDET
15 11 (12.09%) Cypress.io
16 9 (9.89%) .NET
16 9 (9.89%) BDD
16 9 (9.89%) Continuous Improvement
16 9 (9.89%) Fintech
16 9 (9.89%) Jenkins
16 9 (9.89%) Performance Testing
16 9 (9.89%) Security Cleared
16 9 (9.89%) Validation
17 8 (8.79%) Containerisation
17 8 (8.79%) GitLab
17 8 (8.79%) QA Automation

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 (1.10%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.10%) Endur
1 1 (1.10%) Findur
Cloud Services
1 21 (23.08%) Azure
2 15 (16.48%) Azure DevOps
3 7 (7.69%) AWS
4 6 (6.59%) GitHub
5 5 (5.49%) Azure Pipelines
5 5 (5.49%) OpenShift
6 4 (4.40%) GitHub Actions
7 3 (3.30%) GCP
8 2 (2.20%) Azure Functions
8 2 (2.20%) Serverless
9 1 (1.10%) Anthropic Claude
9 1 (1.10%) AWS Data Pipeline
9 1 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
9 1 (1.10%) BrowserStack
9 1 (1.10%) Dynamics 365
9 1 (1.10%) GitHub Copilot
9 1 (1.10%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (1.10%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (5.49%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 16 (17.58%) Selenium
2 11 (12.09%) Cypress.io
3 9 (9.89%) Jenkins
4 8 (8.79%) GitLab
5 7 (7.69%) Git
5 7 (7.69%) SpecFlow
6 5 (5.49%) REST Assured
6 5 (5.49%) Robot Framework
6 5 (5.49%) TestRail
7 4 (4.40%) JMeter
8 3 (3.30%) Appium
8 3 (3.30%) Cucumber
8 3 (3.30%) Postman
9 1 (1.10%) Burp Suite
9 1 (1.10%) Claude Code
9 1 (1.10%) NUnit
9 1 (1.10%) WebDriver
General
1 10 (10.99%) Games
2 6 (6.59%) Social Skills
3 5 (5.49%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (5.49%) Health Technology
4 4 (4.40%) Finance
4 4 (4.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 3 (3.30%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (3.30%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (31.87%) Playwright
2 9 (9.89%) .NET
3 7 (7.69%) pytest
4 5 (5.49%) Elastic Stack
5 4 (4.40%) Gherkin
6 3 (3.30%) REST
6 3 (3.30%) RESTful
7 2 (2.20%) GraphQL
7 2 (2.20%) Model Context Protocol
7 2 (2.20%) React
8 1 (1.10%) .NET Framework
8 1 (1.10%) AngularJS
8 1 (1.10%) Blazor
8 1 (1.10%) Django
8 1 (1.10%) React Native
8 1 (1.10%) Spring
8 1 (1.10%) Spring Boot
8 1 (1.10%) WebAssembly
8 1 (1.10%) WebSockets
8 1 (1.10%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 9 (9.89%) Mobile App
2 7 (7.69%) Product Ownership
3 4 (4.40%) Online Games
4 2 (2.20%) AI Agents
4 2 (2.20%) Data Protection Act
4 2 (2.20%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (1.10%) Cloud Native
5 1 (1.10%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 6 (6.59%) Linux
1 6 (6.59%) Windows
2 5 (5.49%) CentOS
3 2 (2.20%) Android
3 2 (2.20%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 91 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 28 (30.77%) Software Testing
3 27 (29.67%) CI/CD
4 26 (28.57%) Agile
5 21 (23.08%) Test Strategy
6 18 (19.78%) DevOps
7 16 (17.58%) API Testing
8 12 (13.19%) SDET
9 9 (9.89%) BDD
9 9 (9.89%) Continuous Improvement
9 9 (9.89%) Fintech
9 9 (9.89%) Performance Testing
9 9 (9.89%) Validation
10 8 (8.79%) Containerisation
10 8 (8.79%) QA Automation
11 7 (7.69%) AI
11 7 (7.69%) Collaborative Culture
11 7 (7.69%) Problem-Solving
12 6 (6.59%) Manual Testing
12 6 (6.59%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 24 (26.37%) Python
2 17 (18.68%) C#
3 15 (16.48%) Java
4 13 (14.29%) JavaScript
4 13 (14.29%) TypeScript
5 6 (6.59%) PowerShell
5 6 (6.59%) SQL
6 5 (5.49%) Bash
Qualifications
1 9 (9.89%) Security Cleared
2 5 (5.49%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
2 5 (5.49%) ISTQB
3 2 (2.20%) Degree
3 2 (2.20%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
3 2 (2.20%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
3 2 (2.20%) SC Cleared
4 1 (1.10%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (38.46%) QA
2 5 (5.49%) Accessibility
3 2 (2.20%) WCAG
4 1 (1.10%) Data Quality
System Software
1 7 (7.69%) Docker
2 6 (6.59%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (5.49%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 7 (7.69%) Kubernetes
1 7 (7.69%) Terraform
2 6 (6.59%) Grafana
3 5 (5.49%) Ansible
3 5 (5.49%) Kibana
3 5 (5.49%) logstash
3 5 (5.49%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 5 (5.49%) Atlassian
1 5 (5.49%) Red Hat
1 5 (5.49%) Splunk
1 5 (5.49%) VMware
2 2 (2.20%) Guidewire
2 2 (2.20%) Microsoft
3 1 (1.10%) OpenLink
3 1 (1.10%) Perfecto Mobile
3 1 (1.10%) ServiceNow