Test Automation Engineer Job Trends

Automation Test Engineer
UK

The median Automation Test Engineer salary in the UK is £62,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 4 September 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 719 568 745
Rank change year-on-year -151 +177 -75
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Automation Engineer 82 113 48
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.074% 0.23% 0.060%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.079% 0.26% 0.063%
Number of salaries quoted 55 36 26
10th Percentile £24,000 £44,125 £38,125
25th Percentile £52,500 £50,000 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £59,900 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +4.34% +14.10% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £62,500 £58,750
90th Percentile £78,450 £68,750 £66,875
UK excluding London median annual salary £63,750 £60,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year +6.25% +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 103,497 43,997 75,693
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.82% 89.68% 95.22%
Number of salaries quoted 71,228 25,950 47,905
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,169 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £76,250 £74,258 £72,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £95,000 £92,159
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -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 4 September 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 4 September 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 -141 64 £59,750 +6.22% 48
UK excluding London -137 58 £63,750 +6.25% 50
London -50 21 £62,500 +25.00% 17
South West -68 18 £42,500 -27.66% 7
Work from Home -54 14 £73,750 +28.26% 29
Scotland +15 10 £63,750 -8.93% 10
South East -69 9 £75,000 - 12
North of England -58 8 £55,000 -8.33% 3
Wales - 6 £70,000 - 1
Midlands -49 5 - - 5
North West -20 4 £70,000 - 1
North East - 4 £55,000 - 2
West Midlands -28 3 - - 2
East of England -40 2 £60,000 - 7
East Midlands -45 2 - - 3

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

For the 6 months to 4 September 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 82 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 30 (36.59%) Software Testing
3 29 (35.37%) CI/CD
4 28 (34.15%) Agile
5 27 (32.93%) QA
6 26 (31.71%) Playwright
7 22 (26.83%) Python
8 21 (25.61%) Selenium
9 19 (23.17%) Java
10 18 (21.95%) Jenkins
11 17 (20.73%) DevOps
11 17 (20.73%) Security Cleared
12 16 (19.51%) BDD
12 16 (19.51%) Test Strategy
13 15 (18.29%) JavaScript
14 14 (17.07%) AWS
14 14 (17.07%) Azure
15 13 (15.85%) API Testing
15 13 (15.85%) C#
15 13 (15.85%) Git
15 13 (15.85%) Problem-Solving
16 12 (14.63%) GitLab
16 12 (14.63%) Test Management
17 11 (13.41%) Test Scripting
17 11 (13.41%) Windows
18 10 (12.20%) Azure DevOps
18 10 (12.20%) Containerisation
18 10 (12.20%) Continuous Improvement
18 10 (12.20%) Cypress.io
18 10 (12.20%) Linux

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 3 (3.66%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (2.44%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (1.22%) Endur
1 1 (1.22%) Findur
Cloud Services
1 14 (17.07%) AWS
1 14 (17.07%) Azure
2 10 (12.20%) Azure DevOps
3 7 (8.54%) OpenShift
4 6 (7.32%) GitHub
5 3 (3.66%) GitHub Actions
6 2 (2.44%) Azure Functions
6 2 (2.44%) Azure Pipelines
6 2 (2.44%) GitHub Copilot
6 2 (2.44%) SaaS
6 2 (2.44%) Serverless
7 1 (1.22%) Anthropic Claude
7 1 (1.22%) AWS Data Pipeline
7 1 (1.22%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (1.22%) BrowserStack
7 1 (1.22%) Dynamics 365
7 1 (1.22%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.44%) DNS
1 2 (2.44%) TCP/IP
2 1 (1.22%) BGP
2 1 (1.22%) Broadband
2 1 (1.22%) DHCP
2 1 (1.22%) OSPF
2 1 (1.22%) VLAN
2 1 (1.22%) VPN
2 1 (1.22%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (8.54%) InfluxDB
2 3 (3.66%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 21 (25.61%) Selenium
2 18 (21.95%) Jenkins
3 13 (15.85%) Git
4 12 (14.63%) GitLab
5 10 (12.20%) Cypress.io
6 8 (9.76%) Cucumber
6 8 (9.76%) Robot Framework
7 7 (8.54%) JMeter
7 7 (8.54%) TestRail
8 6 (7.32%) JIRA
9 5 (6.10%) Postman
10 4 (4.88%) REST Assured
11 3 (3.66%) SoapUI
11 3 (3.66%) SpecFlow
11 3 (3.66%) Zephyr
12 2 (2.44%) Rational DOORS
12 2 (2.44%) WebDriver
13 1 (1.22%) Appium
13 1 (1.22%) Burp Suite
13 1 (1.22%) Maven
General
1 10 (12.20%) Analytical Skills
2 6 (7.32%) Public Sector
3 5 (6.10%) Aviation
3 5 (6.10%) Social Skills
4 4 (4.88%) Games
5 3 (3.66%) Health Technology
5 3 (3.66%) Telecoms
6 2 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (2.44%) Environmental Health
6 2 (2.44%) Finance
6 2 (2.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (2.44%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (2.44%) Military
7 1 (1.22%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (31.71%) Playwright
2 9 (10.98%) pytest
3 8 (9.76%) Terraform
4 7 (8.54%) Elastic Stack
5 6 (7.32%) .NET
6 4 (4.88%) JSON
6 4 (4.88%) XML
7 3 (3.66%) ADO
7 3 (3.66%) Model Context Protocol
7 3 (3.66%) SOAP
8 2 (2.44%) Gherkin
8 2 (2.44%) JSP
8 2 (2.44%) React
8 2 (2.44%) REST
9 1 (1.22%) Django
9 1 (1.22%) React Native
9 1 (1.22%) RESTful
9 1 (1.22%) Spring Boot
9 1 (1.22%) Swagger
9 1 (1.22%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 11 (13.41%) Product Ownership
2 5 (6.10%) Distributed Systems
2 5 (6.10%) Mobile App
3 4 (4.88%) Online Games
4 3 (3.66%) Cloud Native
4 3 (3.66%) Virtual Team
5 2 (2.44%) AI Agents
5 2 (2.44%) Analytical Mindset
5 2 (2.44%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (1.22%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 11 (13.41%) Windows
2 10 (12.20%) Linux
3 7 (8.54%) CentOS
4 2 (2.44%) Android
4 2 (2.44%) Apple iOS
5 1 (1.22%) Embedded Linux
5 1 (1.22%) OpenWrt
5 1 (1.22%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 82 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 30 (36.59%) Software Testing
3 29 (35.37%) CI/CD
4 28 (34.15%) Agile
5 17 (20.73%) DevOps
6 16 (19.51%) BDD
6 16 (19.51%) Test Strategy
7 13 (15.85%) API Testing
7 13 (15.85%) Problem-Solving
8 12 (14.63%) Test Management
9 11 (13.41%) Test Scripting
10 10 (12.20%) Containerisation
10 10 (12.20%) Continuous Improvement
10 10 (12.20%) Validation
11 9 (10.98%) AI
12 8 (9.76%) Integration Testing
12 8 (9.76%) Mentoring
12 8 (9.76%) Performance Testing
13 7 (8.54%) Dashboard Development
13 7 (8.54%) Regression Testing
Programming Languages
1 22 (26.83%) Python
2 19 (23.17%) Java
3 15 (18.29%) JavaScript
4 13 (15.85%) C#
5 9 (10.98%) Bash
6 7 (8.54%) PowerShell
6 7 (8.54%) TypeScript
7 6 (7.32%) SQL
8 1 (1.22%) C
8 1 (1.22%) Go
8 1 (1.22%) Rust
8 1 (1.22%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 17 (20.73%) Security Cleared
2 8 (9.76%) ISTQB
3 7 (8.54%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
4 5 (6.10%) SC Cleared
5 4 (4.88%) ISEB
6 2 (2.44%) Degree
6 2 (2.44%) DV Cleared
7 1 (1.22%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (32.93%) QA
2 4 (4.88%) Accessibility
3 3 (3.66%) WCAG
4 1 (1.22%) Data Quality
System Software
1 8 (9.76%) Docker
1 8 (9.76%) Virtual Machines
2 7 (8.54%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (1.22%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 8 (9.76%) Grafana
2 7 (8.54%) Ansible
2 7 (8.54%) Kibana
2 7 (8.54%) Kubernetes
2 7 (8.54%) logstash
2 7 (8.54%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 7 (8.54%) Atlassian
1 7 (8.54%) Red Hat
1 7 (8.54%) Splunk
1 7 (8.54%) VMware
2 5 (6.10%) IBM
3 3 (3.66%) HP
3 3 (3.66%) Microsoft
3 3 (3.66%) Pega
3 3 (3.66%) SAP
4 1 (1.22%) OpenLink
4 1 (1.22%) Perfecto Mobile
4 1 (1.22%) Salesforce