Test Automation Engineer Job Trends

Automation Test Engineer
UK

The median Automation Test Engineer salary in the UK is £57,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 16 November 2025.

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

6 months to
16 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 618 700 644
Rank change year-on-year +82 -56 +74
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Automation Engineer 52 51 87
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.099% 0.075% 0.16%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.11% 0.079% 0.17%
Number of salaries quoted 40 27 70
10th Percentile £49,725 £40,000 £41,725
25th Percentile £50,000 £46,250 £42,874
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £62,813 £61,250 £59,688
90th Percentile £67,500 £66,250 £75,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% +10.00% -9.09%

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 47,393 64,241 50,771
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.95% 94.75% 95.43%
Number of salaries quoted 29,512 36,137 39,329
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,468 £31,250
25th Percentile £35,000 £42,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £57,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,000 £50,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -6.93% -3.81% -

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 16 November 2025.

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 16 November 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 +110 46 £55,000 +15.79% 44
UK excluding London +77 27 £60,000 +9.09% 32
London +78 22 £53,750 - 18
Work from Home +83 19 £55,000 - 34
East of England +24 6 £60,000 +9.09% 2
North of England +40 5 £53,500 - 14
South West +35 5 £47,500 -24.00% 2
South East +26 5 £52,500 +10.53% 9
Midlands +58 3 £61,250 +53.13%
West Midlands +57 3 £61,250 +25.64%
Yorkshire +12 3 £53,500 - 2
North West +44 2 - - 11
Scotland -7 2 £70,000 +27.27% 5
Wales - 1 - -

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

For the 6 months to 16 November 2025, 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 52 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 30 (57.69%) Selenium
3 28 (53.85%) CI/CD
4 24 (46.15%) Agile
4 24 (46.15%) Python
5 20 (38.46%) Playwright
6 18 (34.62%) QA
7 17 (32.69%) Test Scripting
8 16 (30.77%) API Testing
8 16 (30.77%) AWS
8 16 (30.77%) Jenkins
9 15 (28.85%) AI
9 15 (28.85%) Software Testing
10 14 (26.92%) DevOps
11 13 (25.00%) Docker
11 13 (25.00%) Kubernetes
12 11 (21.15%) Azure
12 11 (21.15%) ISTQB
12 11 (21.15%) Manual Testing
12 11 (21.15%) pytest
12 11 (21.15%) Security Testing
13 10 (19.23%) Appium
13 10 (19.23%) Postman
13 10 (19.23%) Problem-Solving
13 10 (19.23%) SQL
14 9 (17.31%) Azure DevOps
14 9 (17.31%) Java
14 9 (17.31%) JavaScript
14 9 (17.31%) TypeScript
15 8 (15.38%) Continuous Improvement

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 (3.85%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (1.92%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (3.85%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (1.92%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 16 (30.77%) AWS
2 11 (21.15%) Azure
3 9 (17.31%) Azure DevOps
4 7 (13.46%) Amazon Bedrock
4 7 (13.46%) Amazon ECS
4 7 (13.46%) Amazon EKS
4 7 (13.46%) Amazon S3
4 7 (13.46%) Amazon SageMaker
4 7 (13.46%) AWS Lambda
4 7 (13.46%) Serverless
5 5 (9.62%) GitHub
5 5 (9.62%) Power Platform
6 4 (7.69%) GitHub Actions
7 3 (5.77%) SaaS
8 2 (3.85%) GCP
9 1 (1.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 1 (1.92%) BrowserStack
Communications & Networking
1 2 (3.85%) Modbus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (13.46%) Relational Database
2 4 (7.69%) Data Warehouse
3 3 (5.77%) MongoDB
4 2 (3.85%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 30 (57.69%) Selenium
2 16 (30.77%) Jenkins
3 10 (19.23%) Appium
3 10 (19.23%) Postman
4 8 (15.38%) Cypress.io
4 8 (15.38%) JIRA
5 7 (13.46%) Locust
6 5 (9.62%) Git
6 5 (9.62%) JMeter
7 4 (7.69%) Cucumber
8 3 (5.77%) NUnit
9 2 (3.85%) GitLab
9 2 (3.85%) LoadRunner
9 2 (3.85%) MSTest
9 2 (3.85%) REST Assured
9 2 (3.85%) SonarQube
9 2 (3.85%) SpecFlow
9 2 (3.85%) TestNG
10 1 (1.92%) Bitbucket
10 1 (1.92%) Gatling
General
1 19 (36.54%) Finance
2 12 (23.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 9 (17.31%) Social Skills
4 8 (15.38%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (13.46%) Law
5 7 (13.46%) Marketing
6 3 (5.77%) Health Technology
7 2 (3.85%) Banking
7 2 (3.85%) Manufacturing
7 2 (3.85%) Pharmaceutical
7 2 (3.85%) Public Sector
7 2 (3.85%) Tech for Good
8 1 (1.92%) Advertising
8 1 (1.92%) Financial Institution
8 1 (1.92%) International Banking
8 1 (1.92%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (38.46%) Playwright
2 11 (21.15%) pytest
3 4 (7.69%) ADO
3 4 (7.69%) JSON
3 4 (7.69%) REST
3 4 (7.69%) RESTful
3 4 (7.69%) XML
4 3 (5.77%) .NET
5 2 (3.85%) Kafka
5 2 (3.85%) Middleware
5 2 (3.85%) WebdriverIO
5 2 (3.85%) YAML
6 1 (1.92%) .NET Framework
6 1 (1.92%) Gherkin
6 1 (1.92%) React Native
6 1 (1.92%) SOAP
6 1 (1.92%) Spring
6 1 (1.92%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 4 (7.69%) Mobile App
2 2 (3.85%) Biopharmaceutical
2 2 (3.85%) Operational Technology
2 2 (3.85%) Renewable Energy
2 2 (3.85%) SCADA
3 1 (1.92%) AI Agents
3 1 (1.92%) Analytical Mindset
3 1 (1.92%) Hackathon
3 1 (1.92%) Hedge funds
3 1 (1.92%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.92%) Android
1 1 (1.92%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 52 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 28 (53.85%) CI/CD
3 24 (46.15%) Agile
4 17 (32.69%) Test Scripting
5 16 (30.77%) API Testing
6 15 (28.85%) AI
6 15 (28.85%) Software Testing
7 14 (26.92%) DevOps
8 11 (21.15%) Manual Testing
8 11 (21.15%) Security Testing
9 10 (19.23%) Problem-Solving
10 8 (15.38%) Continuous Improvement
11 7 (13.46%) BDD
11 7 (13.46%) Machine Learning
11 7 (13.46%) Software Engineering
11 7 (13.46%) Test Management
12 6 (11.54%) Performance Testing
12 6 (11.54%) Scrum
12 6 (11.54%) System Testing
12 6 (11.54%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 24 (46.15%) Python
2 10 (19.23%) SQL
3 9 (17.31%) Java
3 9 (17.31%) JavaScript
3 9 (17.31%) TypeScript
4 7 (13.46%) C#
Qualifications
1 11 (21.15%) ISTQB
2 7 (13.46%) Security Cleared
3 3 (5.77%) SC Cleared
4 2 (3.85%) DBS Check
4 2 (3.85%) Degree
4 2 (3.85%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 1 (1.92%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (34.62%) QA
2 4 (7.69%) Accessibility
2 4 (7.69%) Data Quality
3 2 (3.85%) ISO 9001
4 1 (1.92%) WCAG
System Software
1 13 (25.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 13 (25.00%) Kubernetes
2 2 (3.85%) Control-M
2 2 (3.85%) Functional Safety
2 2 (3.85%) HP Fortify
Vendors
1 7 (13.46%) Databricks
2 5 (9.62%) Microsoft
3 2 (3.85%) IBM
3 2 (3.85%) Oracle