Test Automation Engineer Job Trends

Automation Test Engineer
UK

The median Automation Test Engineer salary in the UK is £58,650 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 17 September 2025.

The table below provides salary benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 562 750 659
Rank change year-on-year +188 -91 +156
Permanent jobs requiring a Test Automation Engineer 116 51 102
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.24% 0.066% 0.17%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.26% 0.069% 0.18%
Number of salaries quoted 38 26 89
10th Percentile £44,975 £40,000 £41,050
25th Percentile £50,000 £46,250 £42,874
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,650 £52,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +11.71% - -5.83%
75th Percentile £62,500 £61,875 £65,000
90th Percentile £65,750 £66,875 £75,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +26.32% -5.00% -

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 44,259 74,162 57,379
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.67% 95.25% 94.07%
Number of salaries quoted 26,008 44,624 44,413
10th Percentile £28,250 £30,000 £32,500
25th Percentile £36,250 £40,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year - -8.33% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £73,750 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £92,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -

Test Automation Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Test Automation Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Test Automation Engineer 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 17 September 2025.

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 17 September 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 +171 107 £56,250 +18.42% 16
UK excluding London +148 87 £60,000 +26.32% 12
South East +75 35 £57,500 +21.05% 6
Work from Home +79 23 £57,500 +4.55% 11
London +85 22 £50,750 -32.33% 6
East of England +15 18 £60,000 +71.43% 2
Midlands +66 17 £61,250 +53.13% 2
South West +81 13 £58,750 +6.82%
East Midlands +42 13 - -
North of England +36 8 £59,900 +40.94% 1
North West +17 6 - - 1
West Midlands - 4 £61,250 - 2
Scotland +53 2 £70,000 +27.27% 1
Yorkshire +13 2 £59,900 -
Wales - 1 - -

Test Automation Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 17 September 2025, Test Automation Engineer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads featuring Test Automation Engineer in the job title.

1 116 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 89 (76.72%) Python
3 85 (73.28%) QA
4 78 (67.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 77 (66.38%) JavaScript
6 76 (65.52%) DevOps
7 75 (64.66%) Problem-Solving
8 73 (62.93%) System Testing
9 70 (60.34%) Test Management
9 70 (60.34%) Social Skills
10 68 (58.62%) Degree
11 67 (57.76%) Linux
11 67 (57.76%) Coaching
12 66 (56.90%) Mentoring
12 66 (56.90%) Cucumber
13 65 (56.03%) Robot Framework
14 64 (55.17%) Linux Command Line
14 64 (55.17%) PowerShell
14 64 (55.17%) Bash
14 64 (55.17%) Windows
14 64 (55.17%) TCP/IP
14 64 (55.17%) VPN
14 64 (55.17%) Telecoms
15 31 (26.72%) Selenium
16 26 (22.41%) Agile
16 26 (22.41%) CI/CD
17 20 (17.24%) Playwright
17 20 (17.24%) Test Scripting
18 17 (14.66%) Software Testing
18 17 (14.66%) API Testing

Test Automation Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 1 (0.86%) Apache Spark
Business Applications
1 1 (0.86%) Aladdin
1 1 (0.86%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 15 (12.93%) AWS
2 10 (8.62%) Azure
3 7 (6.03%) Amazon Bedrock
3 7 (6.03%) Amazon ECS
3 7 (6.03%) Amazon EKS
3 7 (6.03%) Amazon S3
3 7 (6.03%) Amazon SageMaker
3 7 (6.03%) AWS Lambda
3 7 (6.03%) Azure DevOps
3 7 (6.03%) Serverless
4 2 (1.72%) BrowserStack
4 2 (1.72%) GitHub
4 2 (1.72%) Power Platform
5 1 (0.86%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 1 (0.86%) Azure Data Factory
5 1 (0.86%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 1 (0.86%) GitHub Actions
5 1 (0.86%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 64 (55.17%) TCP/IP
1 64 (55.17%) VPN
2 2 (1.72%) Modbus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (5.17%) Relational Database
2 4 (3.45%) Data Warehouse
3 3 (2.59%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.86%) Big Data
4 1 (0.86%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 66 (56.90%) Cucumber
2 65 (56.03%) Robot Framework
3 31 (26.72%) Selenium
4 13 (11.21%) Jenkins
5 12 (10.34%) Cypress.io
6 10 (8.62%) Appium
7 8 (6.90%) Locust
8 7 (6.03%) Git
8 7 (6.03%) JIRA
8 7 (6.03%) Postman
9 5 (4.31%) JMeter
10 2 (1.72%) GitLab
10 2 (1.72%) MSTest
10 2 (1.72%) NUnit
11 1 (0.86%) Android Studio
11 1 (0.86%) Bitbucket
11 1 (0.86%) REST Assured
11 1 (0.86%) SonarQube
11 1 (0.86%) WebDriver
11 1 (0.86%) Zephyr
General
1 78 (67.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 70 (60.34%) Social Skills
3 64 (55.17%) Telecoms
4 11 (9.48%) Finance
5 8 (6.90%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (6.90%) Law
5 8 (6.90%) Marketing
6 6 (5.17%) Health Technology
7 4 (3.45%) Tech for Good
8 2 (1.72%) Manufacturing
8 2 (1.72%) Pharmaceutical
8 2 (1.72%) Public Sector
9 1 (0.86%) Banking
9 1 (0.86%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.86%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (17.24%) Playwright
2 10 (8.62%) pytest
3 4 (3.45%) ADO
3 4 (3.45%) JSON
3 4 (3.45%) RESTful
3 4 (3.45%) XML
4 3 (2.59%) REST
5 2 (1.72%) .NET
5 2 (1.72%) .NET Framework
5 2 (1.72%) YAML
6 1 (0.86%) Apache Cordova
6 1 (0.86%) Gherkin
6 1 (0.86%) Ionic Framework
6 1 (0.86%) React Native
6 1 (0.86%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 64 (55.17%) Linux Command Line
2 8 (6.90%) Mobile App
3 2 (1.72%) Biopharmaceutical
3 2 (1.72%) Operational Technology
3 2 (1.72%) Renewable Energy
3 2 (1.72%) SCADA
4 1 (0.86%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (0.86%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 67 (57.76%) Linux
2 64 (55.17%) Windows
3 1 (0.86%) Android
3 1 (0.86%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 116 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 76 (65.52%) DevOps
3 75 (64.66%) Problem-Solving
4 73 (62.93%) System Testing
5 70 (60.34%) Test Management
6 67 (57.76%) Coaching
7 66 (56.90%) Mentoring
8 26 (22.41%) Agile
8 26 (22.41%) CI/CD
9 20 (17.24%) Test Scripting
10 17 (14.66%) API Testing
10 17 (14.66%) Software Testing
11 13 (11.21%) Artificial Intelligence
12 11 (9.48%) Manual Testing
13 10 (8.62%) Machine Learning
13 10 (8.62%) Security Testing
13 10 (8.62%) Software Engineering
14 9 (7.76%) Continuous Integration
14 9 (7.76%) Performance Testing
14 9 (7.76%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 89 (76.72%) Python
2 77 (66.38%) JavaScript
3 64 (55.17%) Bash
3 64 (55.17%) PowerShell
4 16 (13.79%) SQL
5 14 (12.07%) TypeScript
6 12 (10.34%) Java
7 8 (6.90%) C#
8 2 (1.72%) T-SQL
9 1 (0.86%) Go
9 1 (0.86%) PHP
Qualifications
1 68 (58.62%) Degree
2 13 (11.21%) Security Cleared
3 9 (7.76%) ISTQB
4 6 (5.17%) DV Cleared
5 4 (3.45%) SC Cleared
6 2 (1.72%) DBS Check
6 2 (1.72%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 85 (73.28%) QA
2 4 (3.45%) Data Quality
3 2 (1.72%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.72%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 15 (12.93%) Docker
Systems Management
1 12 (10.34%) Kubernetes
2 2 (1.72%) Functional Safety
3 1 (0.86%) Terraform
Vendors
1 8 (6.90%) Databricks
2 3 (2.59%) Microsoft
3 1 (0.86%) CyberSource
3 1 (0.86%) IBM