Test Automation Engineer Job Trends

Automation Test Engineer
UK

The median Automation Test Engineer salary in the UK is £54,250 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 1 April 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 622 599 822
Rank change year-on-year -23 +223 -77
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Automation Engineer 73 38 46
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.092% 0.093% 0.051%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.100% 0.10% 0.054%
Number of salaries quoted 66 30 37
10th Percentile £42,500 £47,000 £36,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £52,500 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £54,250 £58,750 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.66% +30.56% -18.18%
75th Percentile £73,750 £68,750 £57,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £72,500 £65,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £55,000 £42,500
% change year-on-year -4.55% +29.41% -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 73,166 36,757 84,704
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.18% 89.95% 94.57%
Number of salaries quoted 46,994 23,163 63,811
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £28,550
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £72,433
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £91,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £53,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% -4.76%

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 1 April 2026.

Salary histogram for Test Automation Engineer in the UK

Test Automation Engineer
Top 14 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 1 April 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 -8 68 £55,000 -4.35% 19
UK excluding London -41 48 £52,500 -4.55% 19
Work from Home +11 30 £53,500 -10.83% 11
London 0 21 £60,000 -5.51% 4
East of England -13 15 £50,000 -9.09% 1
South East -21 15 £55,000 -9.47% 5
North of England -48 9 £55,000 -21.43% 6
South West -33 7 £59,500 - 3
North West -19 4 £70,000 -1.75% 2
North East - 3 £55,000 - 2
Yorkshire -51 2 £53,500 -23.57% 2
West Midlands -13 1 £50,000 -13.04% 1
Midlands -31 1 £50,000 -9.09% 1
Wales - 1 £41,000 -

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

For the 6 months to 1 April 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 73 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 26 (35.62%) Python
2 26 (35.62%) QA
3 24 (32.88%) Playwright
4 23 (31.51%) CI/CD
5 21 (28.77%) Selenium
6 20 (27.40%) Software Testing
7 16 (21.92%) Agile
8 15 (20.55%) Azure
8 15 (20.55%) DevOps
9 14 (19.18%) API Testing
10 13 (17.81%) JavaScript
11 11 (15.07%) C#
11 11 (15.07%) Java
11 11 (15.07%) Test Strategy
11 11 (15.07%) TypeScript
12 10 (13.70%) Azure DevOps
12 10 (13.70%) Continuous Improvement
12 10 (13.70%) SDET
13 9 (12.33%) Cypress.io
13 9 (12.33%) Manual Testing
13 9 (12.33%) SQL
14 8 (10.96%) Fintech
14 8 (10.96%) QA Automation
14 8 (10.96%) Security Testing
14 8 (10.96%) SpecFlow
15 7 (9.59%) BDD
15 7 (9.59%) Jenkins
15 7 (9.59%) Validation
16 6 (8.22%) Mentoring

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:

Application Platforms
1 2 (2.74%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (2.74%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.37%) Endur
1 1 (1.37%) Findur
1 1 (1.37%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 15 (20.55%) Azure
2 10 (13.70%) Azure DevOps
3 5 (6.85%) Azure Pipelines
4 4 (5.48%) AWS
4 4 (5.48%) GitHub
4 4 (5.48%) GitHub Actions
5 3 (4.11%) GCP
6 2 (2.74%) OpenShift
6 2 (2.74%) SaaS
7 1 (1.37%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 1 (1.37%) Broadband
1 1 (1.37%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (2.74%) InfluxDB
1 2 (2.74%) Relational Database
2 1 (1.37%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 21 (28.77%) Selenium
2 9 (12.33%) Cypress.io
3 8 (10.96%) SpecFlow
4 7 (9.59%) Jenkins
5 5 (6.85%) GitLab
5 5 (6.85%) Postman
6 4 (5.48%) Appium
7 3 (4.11%) Git
7 3 (4.11%) REST Assured
7 3 (4.11%) Robot Framework
8 2 (2.74%) JIRA
8 2 (2.74%) JMeter
8 2 (2.74%) LoadRunner
8 2 (2.74%) NUnit
8 2 (2.74%) SonarQube
8 2 (2.74%) TestRail
8 2 (2.74%) WebDriver
9 1 (1.37%) Cucumber
9 1 (1.37%) MSTest
9 1 (1.37%) TestNG
General
1 8 (10.96%) Games
2 6 (8.22%) Finance
3 5 (6.85%) Social Skills
4 3 (4.11%) Health Technology
4 3 (4.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 2 (2.74%) Electronics
5 2 (2.74%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (1.37%) Advertising
6 1 (1.37%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (1.37%) Public Sector
6 1 (1.37%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (32.88%) Playwright
2 6 (8.22%) pytest
3 5 (6.85%) .NET
4 4 (5.48%) Gherkin
4 4 (5.48%) REST
5 3 (4.11%) RESTful
6 2 (2.74%) Elastic Stack
6 2 (2.74%) GraphQL
6 2 (2.74%) Kafka
6 2 (2.74%) Middleware
6 2 (2.74%) React
6 2 (2.74%) Spring
6 2 (2.74%) Web Services
6 2 (2.74%) YAML
7 1 (1.37%) .NET Framework
7 1 (1.37%) Blazor
7 1 (1.37%) Django
7 1 (1.37%) SOAP
7 1 (1.37%) Spring Boot
7 1 (1.37%) WebAssembly
Miscellaneous
1 6 (8.22%) Mobile App
2 2 (2.74%) AI Agents
2 2 (2.74%) Online Games
2 2 (2.74%) Product Ownership
3 1 (1.37%) Distributed Systems
3 1 (1.37%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 4 (5.48%) Linux
2 3 (4.11%) Windows
3 2 (2.74%) CentOS
4 1 (1.37%) Android
4 1 (1.37%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 73 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 23 (31.51%) CI/CD
3 20 (27.40%) Software Testing
4 16 (21.92%) Agile
5 15 (20.55%) DevOps
6 14 (19.18%) API Testing
7 11 (15.07%) Test Strategy
8 10 (13.70%) Continuous Improvement
8 10 (13.70%) SDET
9 9 (12.33%) Manual Testing
10 8 (10.96%) Fintech
10 8 (10.96%) QA Automation
10 8 (10.96%) Security Testing
11 7 (9.59%) BDD
11 7 (9.59%) Validation
12 6 (8.22%) Mentoring
12 6 (8.22%) Performance Testing
13 5 (6.85%) AI
13 5 (6.85%) Integration Testing
13 5 (6.85%) Test Scripting
Programming Languages
1 26 (35.62%) Python
2 13 (17.81%) JavaScript
3 11 (15.07%) C#
3 11 (15.07%) Java
3 11 (15.07%) TypeScript
4 9 (12.33%) SQL
5 3 (4.11%) PowerShell
6 2 (2.74%) Bash
Qualifications
1 5 (6.85%) Security Cleared
2 4 (5.48%) Degree
3 3 (4.11%) ISTQB
4 2 (2.74%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
4 2 (2.74%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
4 2 (2.74%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 2 (2.74%) Master's Degree
4 2 (2.74%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (35.62%) QA
2 2 (2.74%) Accessibility
System Software
1 5 (6.85%) Docker
2 3 (4.11%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (2.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (1.37%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 5 (6.85%) Kubernetes
2 4 (5.48%) Terraform
3 2 (2.74%) Ansible
3 2 (2.74%) Grafana
3 2 (2.74%) HP Fortify
3 2 (2.74%) Kibana
3 2 (2.74%) logstash
3 2 (2.74%) vCenter Server
4 1 (1.37%) Control-M
Vendors
1 2 (2.74%) Atlassian
1 2 (2.74%) Guidewire
1 2 (2.74%) IBM
1 2 (2.74%) Microsoft
1 2 (2.74%) Red Hat
1 2 (2.74%) Splunk
1 2 (2.74%) VMware
2 1 (1.37%) OpenLink
2 1 (1.37%) Oracle
2 1 (1.37%) Perfecto Mobile
2 1 (1.37%) ServiceNow