Test Automation Engineer Job Trends

Automation Test Engineer
UK

The median Automation Test Engineer salary in the UK is £60,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 16 July 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 692 570 839
Rank change year-on-year -122 +269 -124
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Automation Engineer 86 108 50
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.087% 0.22% 0.050%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.092% 0.24% 0.052%
Number of salaries quoted 66 28 31
10th Percentile £30,125 £42,000 £36,250
25th Percentile £50,313 £52,500 £38,125
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year - +14.29% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £62,500 £57,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £70,000 £67,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £61,000 £60,000 £40,000
% change year-on-year +1.67% +50.00% -20.00%

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 93,088 44,174 95,628
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.23% 89.90% 94.75%
Number of salaries quoted 63,779 26,115 68,243
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,750 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £37,500 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year - +4.76% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -5.12%

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 July 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 16 July 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 -106 71 £55,500 -7.19% 26
UK excluding London -115 55 £61,000 +1.67% 25
London -21 27 £70,000 +42.86% 5
Work from Home -5 21 £75,000 +25.00% 21
South East -31 16 £75,000 +25.00% 4
South West -56 13 £42,500 -29.17% 2
North of England -32 9 £55,000 -8.33% 5
Wales - 6 £70,000 -
Scotland +16 5 £65,000 -7.14% 4
North West -4 5 £63,000 +5.00% 3
North East - 4 £55,000 - 2
East of England -25 3 £55,000 -8.33% 2
Midlands -32 3 £50,000 -23.08% 8
East Midlands -46 2 - - 2
West Midlands -31 1 £50,000 -23.08% 6

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

For the 6 months to 16 July 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 86 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 27 (31.40%) CI/CD
2 27 (31.40%) Playwright
3 26 (30.23%) Agile
3 26 (30.23%) QA
4 25 (29.07%) Software Testing
5 21 (24.42%) Python
6 20 (23.26%) Azure
7 19 (22.09%) Test Strategy
8 18 (20.93%) Selenium
9 17 (19.77%) C#
9 17 (19.77%) DevOps
10 15 (17.44%) Azure DevOps
11 14 (16.28%) Java
11 14 (16.28%) JavaScript
12 12 (13.95%) BDD
12 12 (13.95%) Jenkins
12 12 (13.95%) Security Cleared
13 11 (12.79%) API Testing
13 11 (12.79%) Cypress.io
13 11 (12.79%) Validation
14 10 (11.63%) SDET
14 10 (11.63%) TypeScript
15 9 (10.47%) .NET
15 9 (10.47%) AI
15 9 (10.47%) AWS
15 9 (10.47%) Continuous Improvement
15 9 (10.47%) Problem-Solving
15 9 (10.47%) pytest
15 9 (10.47%) Windows

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 (1.16%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.16%) Endur
1 1 (1.16%) Findur
Cloud Services
1 20 (23.26%) Azure
2 15 (17.44%) Azure DevOps
3 9 (10.47%) AWS
4 6 (6.98%) GitHub
4 6 (6.98%) OpenShift
5 4 (4.65%) GitHub Actions
6 3 (3.49%) Azure Pipelines
7 2 (2.33%) Azure Functions
7 2 (2.33%) Serverless
8 1 (1.16%) Anthropic Claude
8 1 (1.16%) AWS Data Pipeline
8 1 (1.16%) Azure Monitor
8 1 (1.16%) BrowserStack
8 1 (1.16%) Dynamics 365
8 1 (1.16%) GCP
8 1 (1.16%) GitHub Copilot
8 1 (1.16%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (1.16%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (6.98%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 18 (20.93%) Selenium
2 12 (13.95%) Jenkins
3 11 (12.79%) Cypress.io
4 8 (9.30%) Git
5 7 (8.14%) GitLab
5 7 (8.14%) SpecFlow
6 6 (6.98%) Robot Framework
6 6 (6.98%) TestRail
7 4 (4.65%) Cucumber
7 4 (4.65%) JMeter
8 3 (3.49%) Postman
8 3 (3.49%) REST Assured
9 2 (2.33%) Appium
10 1 (1.16%) Burp Suite
10 1 (1.16%) Claude Code
10 1 (1.16%) NUnit
10 1 (1.16%) WebDriver
General
1 8 (9.30%) Games
2 7 (8.14%) Analytical Skills
3 6 (6.98%) Social Skills
4 5 (5.81%) Finance
5 4 (4.65%) Health Technology
5 4 (4.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 3 (3.49%) Aviation
6 3 (3.49%) Documentation Skills
6 3 (3.49%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (2.33%) Telecoms
8 1 (1.16%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (31.40%) Playwright
2 9 (10.47%) .NET
2 9 (10.47%) pytest
3 6 (6.98%) Elastic Stack
4 4 (4.65%) Gherkin
5 3 (3.49%) Model Context Protocol
5 3 (3.49%) REST
6 2 (2.33%) GraphQL
6 2 (2.33%) React
7 1 (1.16%) .NET Framework
7 1 (1.16%) AngularJS
7 1 (1.16%) Blazor
7 1 (1.16%) Django
7 1 (1.16%) React Native
7 1 (1.16%) RESTful
7 1 (1.16%) Spring
7 1 (1.16%) Spring Boot
7 1 (1.16%) WebAssembly
7 1 (1.16%) WebSockets
7 1 (1.16%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 8 (9.30%) Mobile App
1 8 (9.30%) Product Ownership
2 4 (4.65%) Online Games
3 3 (3.49%) AI Agents
3 3 (3.49%) Distributed Systems
4 2 (2.33%) Cloud Native
4 2 (2.33%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (1.16%) Analytical Mindset
5 1 (1.16%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 9 (10.47%) Windows
2 7 (8.14%) Linux
3 6 (6.98%) CentOS
4 2 (2.33%) Android
4 2 (2.33%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 86 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 27 (31.40%) CI/CD
3 26 (30.23%) Agile
4 25 (29.07%) Software Testing
5 19 (22.09%) Test Strategy
6 17 (19.77%) DevOps
7 12 (13.95%) BDD
8 11 (12.79%) API Testing
8 11 (12.79%) Validation
9 10 (11.63%) SDET
10 9 (10.47%) AI
10 9 (10.47%) Continuous Improvement
10 9 (10.47%) Problem-Solving
11 8 (9.30%) Containerisation
11 8 (9.30%) Performance Testing
11 8 (9.30%) Test Scripting
12 7 (8.14%) Fintech
12 7 (8.14%) Integration Testing
12 7 (8.14%) Test Management
13 6 (6.98%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 21 (24.42%) Python
2 17 (19.77%) C#
3 14 (16.28%) Java
3 14 (16.28%) JavaScript
4 10 (11.63%) TypeScript
5 7 (8.14%) PowerShell
6 6 (6.98%) Bash
6 6 (6.98%) SQL
Qualifications
1 12 (13.95%) Security Cleared
2 6 (6.98%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
3 4 (4.65%) ISTQB
4 2 (2.33%) Degree
4 2 (2.33%) SC Cleared
5 1 (1.16%) DV Cleared
5 1 (1.16%) ISEB
5 1 (1.16%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (30.23%) QA
2 3 (3.49%) Accessibility
3 2 (2.33%) WCAG
4 1 (1.16%) Data Quality
System Software
1 7 (8.14%) Virtual Machines
2 6 (6.98%) Docker
2 6 (6.98%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 7 (8.14%) Grafana
2 6 (6.98%) Ansible
2 6 (6.98%) Kibana
2 6 (6.98%) Kubernetes
2 6 (6.98%) logstash
2 6 (6.98%) Terraform
2 6 (6.98%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 6 (6.98%) Atlassian
1 6 (6.98%) Red Hat
1 6 (6.98%) Splunk
1 6 (6.98%) VMware
2 2 (2.33%) HP
2 2 (2.33%) IBM
2 2 (2.33%) Microsoft
3 1 (1.16%) OpenLink
3 1 (1.16%) Perfecto Mobile
3 1 (1.16%) ServiceNow