Test Automation Engineer Job Trends

Automation Test Engineer
UK

The median Automation Test Engineer salary in the UK is £52,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 14 January 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 596 652 649
Rank change year-on-year +56 -3 +45
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Automation Engineer 57 47 72
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.095% 0.088% 0.13%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.10% 0.095% 0.14%
Number of salaries quoted 53 33 56
10th Percentile £42,500 £46,250 £41,125
25th Percentile £49,500 £47,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.45% +10.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £62,250 £67,500 £59,063
90th Percentile £67,000 £72,500 £73,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -9.09%

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 54,426 49,714 53,040
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.72% 92.90% 95.25%
Number of salaries quoted 33,710 25,743 40,880
10th Percentile £28,500 £33,625 £30,000
25th Percentile £37,000 £45,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £77,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £96,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,609 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.96% +5.22% -5.25%

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 14 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Test Automation Engineer in the UK

Test Automation Engineer
Top 13 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 14 January 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 +83 55 £52,250 -5.00% 53
UK excluding London +60 38 £50,000 -9.09% 54
Work from Home +71 29 £52,250 -11.06% 56
London +68 19 £52,500 -19.23% 4
East of England +35 15 £50,000 -9.09% 11
South East +36 9 £52,500 +10.53% 15
South West +15 5 £47,500 -24.00% 5
North of England +5 5 £53,500 -35.15% 13
Yorkshire -11 4 £53,500 - 11
West Midlands +20 2 £57,500 +17.95% 4
Midlands +19 2 £57,500 +9.52% 5
Wales - 2 £41,000 - 3
North East - 1 - - 1

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

For the 6 months to 14 January 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 57 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 25 (43.86%) Selenium
3 24 (42.11%) QA
4 23 (40.35%) Python
5 22 (38.60%) Agile
6 21 (36.84%) CI/CD
7 17 (29.82%) Software Testing
8 16 (28.07%) DevOps
8 16 (28.07%) Manual Testing
9 15 (26.32%) Playwright
10 12 (21.05%) API Testing
10 12 (21.05%) Azure
10 12 (21.05%) JavaScript
11 11 (19.30%) Continuous Improvement
12 10 (17.54%) Java
12 10 (17.54%) Security Testing
13 9 (15.79%) ISTQB
13 9 (15.79%) Jenkins
13 9 (15.79%) Postman
13 9 (15.79%) SQL
14 8 (14.04%) AI
14 8 (14.04%) Azure DevOps
14 8 (14.04%) BDD
14 8 (14.04%) C#
14 8 (14.04%) Test Scripting
14 8 (14.04%) TypeScript
15 7 (12.28%) Appium
15 7 (12.28%) AWS
15 7 (12.28%) Fintech
15 7 (12.28%) JIRA

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 (3.51%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (1.75%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (3.51%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (1.75%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 12 (21.05%) Azure
2 8 (14.04%) Azure DevOps
3 7 (12.28%) AWS
4 5 (8.77%) GitHub
4 5 (8.77%) Power Platform
5 4 (7.02%) GCP
5 4 (7.02%) GitHub Actions
6 2 (3.51%) Azure Pipelines
6 2 (3.51%) SaaS
7 1 (1.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (1.75%) BrowserStack
Communications & Networking
1 1 (1.75%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (10.53%) Relational Database
2 3 (5.26%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (3.51%) MongoDB
3 2 (3.51%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 25 (43.86%) Selenium
2 9 (15.79%) Jenkins
2 9 (15.79%) Postman
3 7 (12.28%) Appium
3 7 (12.28%) JIRA
4 6 (10.53%) Cypress.io
5 5 (8.77%) GitLab
5 5 (8.77%) JMeter
6 4 (7.02%) Cucumber
6 4 (7.02%) REST Assured
7 3 (5.26%) Git
7 3 (5.26%) LoadRunner
7 3 (5.26%) NUnit
7 3 (5.26%) SonarQube
7 3 (5.26%) SpecFlow
7 3 (5.26%) WebDriver
8 2 (3.51%) MSTest
8 2 (3.51%) TestNG
9 1 (1.75%) Android Studio
9 1 (1.75%) Bitbucket
General
1 12 (21.05%) Finance
2 8 (14.04%) Social Skills
3 4 (7.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 3 (5.26%) Public Sector
5 2 (3.51%) Advertising
5 2 (3.51%) Banking
5 2 (3.51%) Electronics
5 2 (3.51%) Games
6 1 (1.75%) Analytical Skills
6 1 (1.75%) Financial Institution
6 1 (1.75%) International Banking
6 1 (1.75%) Investment Banking
6 1 (1.75%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (26.32%) Playwright
2 6 (10.53%) RESTful
3 4 (7.02%) pytest
4 3 (5.26%) .NET
4 3 (5.26%) ADO
4 3 (5.26%) JSON
4 3 (5.26%) Kafka
4 3 (5.26%) Middleware
4 3 (5.26%) REST
4 3 (5.26%) XML
5 2 (3.51%) Web Services
5 2 (3.51%) WebdriverIO
5 2 (3.51%) YAML
6 1 (1.75%) .NET Framework
6 1 (1.75%) Gherkin
6 1 (1.75%) React Native
6 1 (1.75%) SOAP
6 1 (1.75%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 1 (1.75%) AI Agents
1 1 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
1 1 (1.75%) Hackathon
1 1 (1.75%) Hedge funds
1 1 (1.75%) Linux Command Line
1 1 (1.75%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.75%) Android
1 1 (1.75%) Apple iOS
1 1 (1.75%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 57 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 22 (38.60%) Agile
3 21 (36.84%) CI/CD
4 17 (29.82%) Software Testing
5 16 (28.07%) DevOps
5 16 (28.07%) Manual Testing
6 12 (21.05%) API Testing
7 11 (19.30%) Continuous Improvement
8 10 (17.54%) Security Testing
9 8 (14.04%) AI
9 8 (14.04%) BDD
9 8 (14.04%) Test Scripting
10 7 (12.28%) Fintech
10 7 (12.28%) Non-Functional Testing
10 7 (12.28%) Scrum
11 6 (10.53%) Test Management
12 5 (8.77%) End-to-End Testing
12 5 (8.77%) Exploratory Testing
12 5 (8.77%) Mentoring
12 5 (8.77%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 23 (40.35%) Python
2 12 (21.05%) JavaScript
3 10 (17.54%) Java
4 9 (15.79%) SQL
5 8 (14.04%) C#
5 8 (14.04%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 9 (15.79%) ISTQB
2 6 (10.53%) Security Cleared
3 4 (7.02%) SC Cleared
4 3 (5.26%) Degree
5 2 (3.51%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
5 2 (3.51%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 2 (3.51%) Master's Degree
6 1 (1.75%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (42.11%) QA
2 6 (10.53%) Accessibility
3 3 (5.26%) Data Quality
4 1 (1.75%) WCAG
System Software
1 6 (10.53%) Docker
2 1 (1.75%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 6 (10.53%) Kubernetes
2 3 (5.26%) HP Fortify
3 2 (3.51%) Control-M
3 2 (3.51%) Terraform
Vendors
1 5 (8.77%) Microsoft
2 3 (5.26%) IBM
3 2 (3.51%) Guidewire
3 2 (3.51%) Oracle