Test Automation Engineer Job Trends

Automation Test Engineer
UK

The median Automation Test Engineer salary in the UK is £52,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 28 February 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 605 633 748
Rank change year-on-year +28 +115 -36
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Automation Engineer 66 38 69
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.094% 0.080% 0.091%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.10% 0.088% 0.096%
Number of salaries quoted 61 27 55
10th Percentile £42,500 £47,500 £36,750
25th Percentile £49,750 £52,500 £41,125
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £60,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% +20.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £63,750 £68,750 £57,500
90th Percentile £82,500 £72,500 £66,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £55,000 £45,000
% change year-on-year -4.55% +22.22% -18.18%

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 64,045 43,160 71,846
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.47% 91.32% 94.74%
Number of salaries quoted 40,457 23,120 55,854
10th Percentile £29,250 £32,500 £28,500
25th Percentile £38,000 £45,000 £39,280
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 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -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 28 February 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 28 February 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 +56 60 £53,000 -7.83% 15
UK excluding London +20 46 £52,500 -4.55% 14
Work from Home +54 33 £53,500 -10.83% 7
London +35 16 £55,000 -16.98% 3
East of England +24 16 £50,000 -9.09% 1
South East +4 16 £56,250 -7.41% 6
South West -4 5 £58,750 +6.82% 3
North of England -10 5 £53,500 -24.91% 1
Yorkshire -32 3 £53,500 -
West Midlands +12 2 £57,500 +17.95% 2
Midlands -5 2 £57,500 +9.52% 2
Wales - 2 £41,000 -
North West -4 1 £56,000 -21.40% 1
North East - 1 - -

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

For the 6 months to 28 February 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 66 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 29 (43.94%) QA
3 26 (39.39%) Python
3 26 (39.39%) Selenium
4 25 (37.88%) CI/CD
5 24 (36.36%) Playwright
6 21 (31.82%) Agile
7 20 (30.30%) Software Testing
8 18 (27.27%) DevOps
9 15 (22.73%) Manual Testing
10 14 (21.21%) Azure
10 14 (21.21%) JavaScript
11 12 (18.18%) TypeScript
12 11 (16.67%) Azure DevOps
12 11 (16.67%) Continuous Improvement
13 10 (15.15%) API Testing
13 10 (15.15%) Fintech
13 10 (15.15%) Security Testing
13 10 (15.15%) Test Scripting
14 9 (13.64%) Cypress.io
14 9 (13.64%) Java
15 8 (12.12%) AI
15 8 (12.12%) BDD
15 8 (12.12%) Postman
15 8 (12.12%) SDET
15 8 (12.12%) Test Strategy
16 7 (10.61%) C#
16 7 (10.61%) Jenkins
16 7 (10.61%) Non-Functional Testing
16 7 (10.61%) Performance Testing

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 (3.03%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (3.03%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 14 (21.21%) Azure
2 11 (16.67%) Azure DevOps
3 6 (9.09%) GitHub
4 5 (7.58%) AWS
4 5 (7.58%) GitHub Actions
5 4 (6.06%) GCP
5 4 (6.06%) Power Platform
6 2 (3.03%) Azure Pipelines
6 2 (3.03%) SaaS
7 1 (1.52%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (1.52%) BrowserStack
7 1 (1.52%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 1 (1.52%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (3.03%) Relational Database
1 2 (3.03%) Tableau
2 1 (1.52%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 26 (39.39%) Selenium
2 9 (13.64%) Cypress.io
3 8 (12.12%) Postman
4 7 (10.61%) Jenkins
5 6 (9.09%) Appium
5 6 (9.09%) GitLab
6 5 (7.58%) SpecFlow
7 3 (4.55%) Cucumber
7 3 (4.55%) JIRA
7 3 (4.55%) JMeter
7 3 (4.55%) LoadRunner
7 3 (4.55%) NUnit
7 3 (4.55%) REST Assured
7 3 (4.55%) SonarQube
7 3 (4.55%) WebDriver
8 2 (3.03%) Git
8 2 (3.03%) MSTest
8 2 (3.03%) Robot Framework
8 2 (3.03%) TestNG
9 1 (1.52%) Gatling
General
1 11 (16.67%) Finance
2 6 (9.09%) Games
3 5 (7.58%) Social Skills
4 3 (4.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 3 (4.55%) Public Sector
5 2 (3.03%) Advertising
5 2 (3.03%) Electronics
5 2 (3.03%) Health Technology
6 1 (1.52%) Banking
6 1 (1.52%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (1.52%) Financial Institution
6 1 (1.52%) International Banking
6 1 (1.52%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (36.36%) Playwright
2 5 (7.58%) .NET
2 5 (7.58%) pytest
3 3 (4.55%) Kafka
3 3 (4.55%) Middleware
3 3 (4.55%) REST
3 3 (4.55%) RESTful
3 3 (4.55%) YAML
4 2 (3.03%) GraphQL
4 2 (3.03%) Web Services
5 1 (1.52%) .NET Framework
5 1 (1.52%) Blazor
5 1 (1.52%) Elastic Stack
5 1 (1.52%) SOAP
5 1 (1.52%) Spring
5 1 (1.52%) WebAssembly
5 1 (1.52%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 4 (6.06%) Mobile App
2 2 (3.03%) AI Agents
3 1 (1.52%) Hackathon
3 1 (1.52%) Hedge funds
3 1 (1.52%) Linux Command Line
3 1 (1.52%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 2 (3.03%) Linux
2 1 (1.52%) CentOS
2 1 (1.52%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 66 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 25 (37.88%) CI/CD
3 21 (31.82%) Agile
4 20 (30.30%) Software Testing
5 18 (27.27%) DevOps
6 15 (22.73%) Manual Testing
7 11 (16.67%) Continuous Improvement
8 10 (15.15%) API Testing
8 10 (15.15%) Fintech
8 10 (15.15%) Security Testing
8 10 (15.15%) Test Scripting
9 8 (12.12%) AI
9 8 (12.12%) BDD
9 8 (12.12%) SDET
9 8 (12.12%) Test Strategy
10 7 (10.61%) Non-Functional Testing
10 7 (10.61%) Performance Testing
10 7 (10.61%) QA Automation
11 6 (9.09%) Exploratory Testing
11 6 (9.09%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 26 (39.39%) Python
2 14 (21.21%) JavaScript
3 12 (18.18%) TypeScript
4 9 (13.64%) Java
5 7 (10.61%) C#
6 5 (7.58%) SQL
7 1 (1.52%) Bash
7 1 (1.52%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 7 (10.61%) Security Cleared
2 6 (9.09%) ISTQB
3 4 (6.06%) SC Cleared
4 3 (4.55%) Degree
5 2 (3.03%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
5 2 (3.03%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 2 (3.03%) Master's Degree
6 1 (1.52%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
6 1 (1.52%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (43.94%) QA
2 6 (9.09%) Accessibility
3 1 (1.52%) WCAG
System Software
1 5 (7.58%) Docker
2 1 (1.52%) Firmware
2 1 (1.52%) Virtual Machines
2 1 (1.52%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 5 (7.58%) Kubernetes
2 3 (4.55%) HP Fortify
2 3 (4.55%) Terraform
3 2 (3.03%) Control-M
4 1 (1.52%) Ansible
4 1 (1.52%) Grafana
4 1 (1.52%) Kibana
4 1 (1.52%) logstash
4 1 (1.52%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 4 (6.06%) Microsoft
2 3 (4.55%) IBM
3 2 (3.03%) Guidewire
3 2 (3.03%) Oracle
4 1 (1.52%) Atlassian
4 1 (1.52%) Red Hat
4 1 (1.52%) ServiceNow
4 1 (1.52%) Splunk
4 1 (1.52%) VMware