Test Automation Engineer Job Trends

Automation Test Engineer
UK

The median Automation Test Engineer salary in the UK is £65,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 11 August 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 693 567 780
Rank change year-on-year -126 +213 -86
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Automation Engineer 84 113 43
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.079% 0.23% 0.051%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.084% 0.25% 0.054%
Number of salaries quoted 59 34 25
10th Percentile £24,000 £43,275 £37,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £50,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% +14.29% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £62,500 £62,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £69,250 £70,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £60,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year +8.33% +26.32% -5.00%

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 99,805 44,765 79,346
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.04% 89.92% 94.99%
Number of salaries quoted 68,253 26,575 53,046
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +0.91% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £71,991
90th Percentile £96,250 £95,000 £91,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £48,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +8.25% -3.00% -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 11 August 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 11 August 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 -131 69 £56,000 -2.61% 32
UK excluding London -116 57 £65,000 +8.33% 19
London -28 25 £70,000 +40.00% 16
South West -67 17 £42,500 -27.66% 2
Work from Home -35 15 £75,000 +33.33% 14
South East -60 13 £65,000 +8.33% 3
North of England -45 9 £55,000 -8.33% 3
Scotland +14 7 £65,000 -7.14% 2
Wales - 6 £70,000 - 1
North West -17 5 £63,000 +5.00% 1
Midlands -60 4 £50,000 -23.08% 5
North East - 4 £55,000 - 2
East Midlands -35 2 - - 3
West Midlands -37 2 £50,000 -23.08% 2
East of England -45 1 - - 1

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

For the 6 months to 11 August 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 84 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 28 (33.33%) Software Testing
3 26 (30.95%) Agile
4 25 (29.76%) CI/CD
5 24 (28.57%) QA
6 23 (27.38%) Playwright
7 20 (23.81%) Python
7 20 (23.81%) Selenium
8 18 (21.43%) Java
9 17 (20.24%) DevOps
10 16 (19.05%) Azure
10 16 (19.05%) BDD
10 16 (19.05%) Security Cleared
10 16 (19.05%) Test Strategy
11 15 (17.86%) C#
11 15 (17.86%) Jenkins
12 14 (16.67%) JavaScript
13 13 (15.48%) API Testing
14 12 (14.29%) Continuous Improvement
14 12 (14.29%) Validation
15 11 (13.10%) AWS
15 11 (13.10%) Azure DevOps
15 11 (13.10%) Problem-Solving
15 11 (13.10%) Test Scripting
15 11 (13.10%) Windows
16 10 (11.90%) Git
17 9 (10.71%) Cypress.io
18 8 (9.52%) AI
18 8 (9.52%) Bash
18 8 (9.52%) Containerisation

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 1 (1.19%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (1.19%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.19%) Endur
1 1 (1.19%) Findur
Cloud Services
1 16 (19.05%) Azure
2 11 (13.10%) AWS
2 11 (13.10%) Azure DevOps
3 6 (7.14%) OpenShift
4 5 (5.95%) GitHub
5 3 (3.57%) Azure Pipelines
5 3 (3.57%) GitHub Actions
6 2 (2.38%) Azure Functions
6 2 (2.38%) Serverless
7 1 (1.19%) Anthropic Claude
7 1 (1.19%) AWS Data Pipeline
7 1 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (1.19%) BrowserStack
7 1 (1.19%) Dynamics 365
7 1 (1.19%) GCP
7 1 (1.19%) GitHub Copilot
7 1 (1.19%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (1.19%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (7.14%) InfluxDB
2 1 (1.19%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 20 (23.81%) Selenium
2 15 (17.86%) Jenkins
3 10 (11.90%) Git
4 9 (10.71%) Cypress.io
5 8 (9.52%) GitLab
6 6 (7.14%) Cucumber
6 6 (7.14%) Robot Framework
6 6 (7.14%) TestRail
7 5 (5.95%) JMeter
7 5 (5.95%) SpecFlow
8 4 (4.76%) JIRA
8 4 (4.76%) Postman
8 4 (4.76%) REST Assured
9 2 (2.38%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (2.38%) WebDriver
10 1 (1.19%) Burp Suite
10 1 (1.19%) Maven
10 1 (1.19%) NUnit
10 1 (1.19%) SoapUI
10 1 (1.19%) Zephyr
General
1 9 (10.71%) Analytical Skills
2 5 (5.95%) Aviation
2 5 (5.95%) Games
3 4 (4.76%) Public Sector
3 4 (4.76%) Social Skills
4 3 (3.57%) Documentation Skills
4 3 (3.57%) Finance
4 3 (3.57%) Health Technology
4 3 (3.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 3 (3.57%) Influencing Skills
4 3 (3.57%) Telecoms
5 2 (2.38%) Environmental Health
5 2 (2.38%) Military
6 1 (1.19%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (27.38%) Playwright
2 8 (9.52%) pytest
3 7 (8.33%) .NET
4 6 (7.14%) Elastic Stack
5 4 (4.76%) Gherkin
6 3 (3.57%) Model Context Protocol
7 2 (2.38%) JSON
7 2 (2.38%) JSP
7 2 (2.38%) React
7 2 (2.38%) REST
7 2 (2.38%) XML
8 1 (1.19%) .NET Framework
8 1 (1.19%) Django
8 1 (1.19%) React Native
8 1 (1.19%) RESTful
8 1 (1.19%) SOAP
8 1 (1.19%) Spring
8 1 (1.19%) Spring Boot
8 1 (1.19%) Swagger
8 1 (1.19%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 9 (10.71%) Product Ownership
2 7 (8.33%) Mobile App
3 4 (4.76%) Distributed Systems
3 4 (4.76%) Online Games
4 3 (3.57%) Cloud Native
5 2 (2.38%) AI Agents
5 2 (2.38%) Analytical Mindset
5 2 (2.38%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (1.19%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 11 (13.10%) Windows
2 7 (8.33%) Linux
3 6 (7.14%) CentOS
4 2 (2.38%) Android
4 2 (2.38%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 28 (33.33%) Software Testing
3 26 (30.95%) Agile
4 25 (29.76%) CI/CD
5 17 (20.24%) DevOps
6 16 (19.05%) BDD
6 16 (19.05%) Test Strategy
7 13 (15.48%) API Testing
8 12 (14.29%) Continuous Improvement
8 12 (14.29%) Validation
9 11 (13.10%) Problem-Solving
9 11 (13.10%) Test Scripting
10 8 (9.52%) AI
10 8 (9.52%) Containerisation
10 8 (9.52%) Test Management
11 7 (8.33%) Integration Testing
11 7 (8.33%) Mentoring
11 7 (8.33%) Regression Testing
12 6 (7.14%) Dashboard Development
12 6 (7.14%) Line Management
Programming Languages
1 20 (23.81%) Python
2 18 (21.43%) Java
3 15 (17.86%) C#
4 14 (16.67%) JavaScript
5 8 (9.52%) Bash
6 7 (8.33%) PowerShell
6 7 (8.33%) TypeScript
7 5 (5.95%) SQL
Qualifications
1 16 (19.05%) Security Cleared
2 6 (7.14%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
3 5 (5.95%) ISTQB
3 5 (5.95%) SC Cleared
4 3 (3.57%) Degree
5 2 (2.38%) DV Cleared
5 2 (2.38%) ISEB
6 1 (1.19%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (28.57%) QA
2 4 (4.76%) Accessibility
3 3 (3.57%) WCAG
4 1 (1.19%) Data Quality
System Software
1 7 (8.33%) Virtual Machines
2 6 (7.14%) Docker
2 6 (7.14%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 7 (8.33%) Grafana
2 6 (7.14%) Ansible
2 6 (7.14%) Kibana
2 6 (7.14%) Kubernetes
2 6 (7.14%) logstash
2 6 (7.14%) Terraform
2 6 (7.14%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 6 (7.14%) Atlassian
1 6 (7.14%) Red Hat
1 6 (7.14%) Splunk
1 6 (7.14%) VMware
2 5 (5.95%) IBM
3 3 (3.57%) HP
4 2 (2.38%) Microsoft
5 1 (1.19%) OpenLink
5 1 (1.19%) Pega
5 1 (1.19%) Perfecto Mobile
5 1 (1.19%) SAP