Test Automation Job Trends

Automated Testing
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Test Automation skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 99 89 92
Rank change year-on-year -10 +3 -60
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 1,618 1,362 2,688
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.91% 3.31% 2.89%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.52% 3.56% 3.36%
Number of salaries quoted 1,011 894 1,787
10th Percentile £42,500 £38,750 £36,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £46,813 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £60,000 £57,965
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% +3.51% -10.82%
75th Percentile £83,750 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £105,000 £98,474 £91,934
UK excluding London median annual salary £57,500 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +4.55% +4.76% -8.70%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Test Automation falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 64,151 38,285 80,022
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 75.65% 92.95% 86.03%
Number of salaries quoted 39,600 22,564 59,023
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -10.57%
75th Percentile £77,500 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £53,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% -7.94%

Test Automation
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Test Automation relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Test Automation job vacancy trend in the UK

Test Automation
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Test Automation.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Test Automation

Test Automation
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Test Automation over the 6 months to 14 April 2026.

Salary histogram for Test Automation in the UK

Test Automation
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Test Automation within the UK over the 6 months to 14 April 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 -13 1,357 £63,288 +5.48% 637
UK excluding London -44 865 £57,500 +4.55% 537
Work from Home +6 678 £65,000 +6.56% 303
London +33 604 £80,000 +12.28% 194
North of England -41 192 £60,750 +10.45% 131
South East -72 171 £57,500 +9.52% 143
South West -24 161 £55,000 -4.35% 68
Midlands -39 128 £60,000 +4.35% 76
Scotland +13 116 £62,500 +4.17% 41
North West -10 101 £60,000 +11.63% 56
West Midlands -29 65 £61,000 -0.41% 48
East Midlands -35 63 £55,200 +10.40% 28
East of England -16 57 £50,000 -27.27% 65
Yorkshire -71 56 £66,538 +33.08% 37
Wales -5 38 £55,000 +4.67% 17
North East -26 35 £55,000 -9.10% 38
Northern Ireland -44 10 £80,000 +45.45% 10

Test Automation
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 39 (2.41%) Confluence
2 22 (1.36%) Apache Airflow
3 17 (1.05%) Apache Spark
4 12 (0.74%) Appian
5 10 (0.62%) Apache
5 10 (0.62%) CMS
5 10 (0.62%) Palantir Foundry
6 9 (0.56%) IIS
6 9 (0.56%) Jupyter
6 9 (0.56%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 9 (0.56%) SharePoint
7 6 (0.37%) WordPress
8 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.19%) nginx
8 3 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.12%) Camunda
9 2 (0.12%) JBoss
9 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
9 2 (0.12%) SAS
9 2 (0.12%) Umbraco
Applications
1 14 (0.87%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (0.80%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.56%) MS Visio
4 8 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.31%) PlantUML
6 4 (0.25%) Fusion 360
7 3 (0.19%) CANalyzer
8 2 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
9 1 (0.062%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.062%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 17 (1.05%) Oracle ERP
2 12 (0.74%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
4 4 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
4 4 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 4 (0.25%) Shopify
5 3 (0.19%) Visualfiles
6 2 (0.12%) SAP CX
7 1 (0.062%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.062%) Endur
7 1 (0.062%) Findur
7 1 (0.062%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.062%) Oracle Financials
7 1 (0.062%) Oracle SCM
7 1 (0.062%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.062%) Siebel CRM
7 1 (0.062%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 540 (33.37%) Azure
2 496 (30.66%) AWS
3 255 (15.76%) Azure DevOps
4 203 (12.55%) GCP
5 197 (12.18%) GitHub
6 131 (8.10%) SaaS
7 129 (7.97%) Serverless
8 78 (4.82%) Amazon EKS
9 70 (4.33%) GitHub Actions
9 70 (4.33%) PaaS
10 58 (3.58%) dbt
11 57 (3.52%) GitHub Copilot
12 55 (3.40%) Azure Data Factory
13 54 (3.34%) AWS Lambda
14 50 (3.09%) Power Platform
15 46 (2.84%) AWS CloudFormation
16 45 (2.78%) Amazon S3
17 41 (2.53%) Datadog
18 34 (2.10%) Entra ID
18 34 (2.10%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 20 (1.24%) DNS
2 18 (1.11%) Broadband
3 13 (0.80%) CHAP
3 13 (0.80%) HTTP
4 12 (0.74%) Firewall
4 12 (0.74%) WAN
5 11 (0.68%) SD-WAN
6 10 (0.62%) TCP/IP
7 8 (0.49%) 5G
7 8 (0.49%) VPN
8 4 (0.25%) SMTP
9 3 (0.19%) Cisco ISE
9 3 (0.19%) Ethernet
9 3 (0.19%) Multicast
9 3 (0.19%) VLAN
9 3 (0.19%) Wi-Fi
10 2 (0.12%) LTE
10 2 (0.12%) Network Security
10 2 (0.12%) PuTTY
10 2 (0.12%) SpaceWire
Database & Business Intelligence
1 103 (6.37%) NoSQL
2 100 (6.18%) PostgreSQL
3 89 (5.50%) SQL Server
4 54 (3.34%) MongoDB
5 43 (2.66%) Relational Database
6 38 (2.35%) MySQL
7 35 (2.16%) Data Warehouse
8 34 (2.10%) Power BI
9 27 (1.67%) DynamoDB
10 18 (1.11%) Amazon RDS
11 15 (0.93%) Metadata
12 14 (0.87%) Redis
13 13 (0.80%) Data Lake
13 13 (0.80%) Pinecone
14 12 (0.74%) BigQuery
14 12 (0.74%) DB2
15 10 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
15 10 (0.62%) Oracle Database
15 10 (0.62%) Spark SQL
15 10 (0.62%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 186 (11.50%) Selenium
2 183 (11.31%) Git
3 138 (8.53%) Jenkins
4 136 (8.41%) JIRA
5 90 (5.56%) Cypress.io
6 85 (5.25%) GitLab
7 79 (4.88%) Cucumber
8 68 (4.20%) TeamCity
9 62 (3.83%) Postman
10 52 (3.21%) JMeter
11 37 (2.29%) SpecFlow
12 31 (1.92%) REST Assured
13 27 (1.67%) CircleCI
14 25 (1.55%) JUnit
14 25 (1.55%) TestRail
15 24 (1.48%) MLflow
16 21 (1.30%) Bitbucket
17 20 (1.24%) Robot Framework
18 19 (1.17%) Zephyr
19 18 (1.11%) WebDriver
General
1 458 (28.31%) Social Skills
2 442 (27.32%) Finance
3 186 (11.50%) Banking
4 151 (9.33%) Analytical Skills
5 139 (8.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 127 (7.85%) Law
7 99 (6.12%) Retail
8 98 (6.06%) Public Sector
9 63 (3.89%) Financial Institution
10 48 (2.97%) Back Office
11 42 (2.60%) Electronics
12 40 (2.47%) Legal
12 40 (2.47%) Manufacturing
13 37 (2.29%) Marketing
14 35 (2.16%) Front Office
15 26 (1.61%) Games
16 19 (1.17%) Documentation Skills
17 17 (1.05%) Organisational Skills
18 14 (0.87%) Telecoms
19 13 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 414 (25.59%) Senior
2 264 (16.32%) Lead
3 224 (13.84%) Developer
4 220 (13.60%) Software Engineer
5 165 (10.20%) Test Engineer
6 102 (6.30%) Senior Developer
7 96 (5.93%) QA Engineer
8 87 (5.38%) Tester
9 84 (5.19%) Java Engineer
10 80 (4.94%) Test Leader
11 74 (4.57%) Test Automation Engineer
12 70 (4.33%) Senior Software Engineer
13 65 (4.02%) Analyst
14 58 (3.58%) Automation Engineer
15 53 (3.28%) Automation Tester
15 53 (3.28%) Full-Stack Engineer
16 50 (3.09%) QA Automation Engineer
17 49 (3.03%) Python Developer
18 46 (2.84%) Data Engineer
18 46 (2.84%) QA Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 202 (12.48%) React
2 163 (10.07%) .NET
3 146 (9.02%) Playwright
3 146 (9.02%) RESTful
4 136 (8.41%) REST
5 97 (6.00%) Spring
6 89 (5.50%) Node.js
7 69 (4.26%) Spring Boot
8 68 (4.20%) HTML
9 67 (4.14%) CSS
10 65 (4.02%) Kafka
11 56 (3.46%) JSON
12 52 (3.21%) OAuth
13 48 (2.97%) pytest
14 41 (2.53%) Elastic Stack
14 41 (2.53%) Web Services
15 39 (2.41%) AngularJS
15 39 (2.41%) Django
15 39 (2.41%) OAuth2
16 37 (2.29%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 265 (16.38%) Cloud Native
2 139 (8.59%) Product Ownership
3 82 (5.07%) Mobile App
4 66 (4.08%) Distributed Systems
5 59 (3.65%) Management Information System
6 45 (2.78%) Enterprise Software
7 44 (2.72%) Legacy Systems
7 44 (2.72%) Self-Motivation
8 40 (2.47%) Onboarding
9 37 (2.29%) Algorithms
10 35 (2.16%) Greenfield Project
11 32 (1.98%) Low-Code
12 31 (1.92%) Data Structures
13 27 (1.67%) Public Cloud
14 26 (1.61%) Hybrid Cloud
15 25 (1.55%) Equities
15 25 (1.55%) Hedge funds
16 21 (1.30%) Blog
17 20 (1.24%) Client/Server
17 20 (1.24%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 158 (9.77%) Linux
2 84 (5.19%) Windows
3 66 (4.08%) Apple iOS
4 56 (3.46%) Android
5 36 (2.22%) Unix
6 10 (0.62%) CentOS
7 9 (0.56%) Windows Server
8 5 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.25%) Debian
9 4 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (0.19%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.19%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.12%) FreeRTOS
11 2 (0.12%) Kali Linux
11 2 (0.12%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.12%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.062%) AIX
12 1 (0.062%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 830 (51.30%) CI/CD
2 657 (40.61%) Agile
3 561 (34.67%) DevOps
4 397 (24.54%) Continuous Improvement
5 393 (24.29%) Software Engineering
6 351 (21.69%) Mentoring
7 344 (21.26%) Problem-Solving
8 264 (16.32%) Microservices
9 259 (16.01%) AI
10 246 (15.20%) Infrastructure as Code
11 236 (14.59%) Software Testing
12 230 (14.22%) Coaching
13 221 (13.66%) Observability
14 202 (12.48%) Clean Code
15 196 (12.11%) Test Strategy
16 194 (11.99%) Containerisation
17 185 (11.43%) Full-Stack Development
18 160 (9.89%) Deployment Automation
19 156 (9.64%) Validation
20 155 (9.58%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 493 (30.47%) Python
2 422 (26.08%) Java
3 307 (18.97%) SQL
4 242 (14.96%) JavaScript
5 208 (12.86%) TypeScript
6 180 (11.12%) C#
7 78 (4.82%) PowerShell
8 71 (4.39%) C++
9 57 (3.52%) Bash
10 51 (3.15%) Go
11 37 (2.29%) C
12 32 (1.98%) Bicep
13 29 (1.79%) Kotlin
14 25 (1.55%) Apex Code
14 25 (1.55%) Rust
14 25 (1.55%) Shell Script
15 24 (1.48%) PL/SQL
16 19 (1.17%) PHP
16 19 (1.17%) Swift
17 13 (0.80%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 212 (13.10%) Degree
2 151 (9.33%) Security Cleared
3 101 (6.24%) SC Cleared
4 83 (5.13%) Computer Science Degree
5 82 (5.07%) ISTQB
6 30 (1.85%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 30 (1.85%) Master's Degree
7 27 (1.67%) DV Cleared
8 19 (1.17%) AWS Certification
8 19 (1.17%) CISSP
9 17 (1.05%) ISEB
10 14 (0.87%) Azure Certification
10 14 (0.87%) CISA
11 13 (0.80%) CEH
11 13 (0.80%) CGEIT
11 13 (0.80%) CISM
11 13 (0.80%) FFIEC
11 13 (0.80%) HND
11 13 (0.80%) PhD
11 13 (0.80%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 384 (23.73%) QA
2 127 (7.85%) Accessibility
3 66 (4.08%) Data Quality
4 48 (2.97%) GDPR
5 42 (2.60%) NIST
6 32 (1.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 27 (1.67%) WCAG
8 13 (0.80%) COBIT
8 13 (0.80%) ISO 22301
8 13 (0.80%) SLA
9 10 (0.62%) Software Quality Assurance
10 9 (0.56%) ISO 9001
11 8 (0.49%) NCSC
12 7 (0.43%) GRC
12 7 (0.43%) IEC 61508
13 5 (0.31%) ISO 26262
13 5 (0.31%) PMO
13 5 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 5 (0.31%) SOC 2
14 4 (0.25%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 233 (14.40%) Docker
2 28 (1.73%) Active Directory
3 21 (1.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (0.93%) Hyper-V
5 14 (0.87%) Virtual Machines
6 13 (0.80%) Firmware
6 13 (0.80%) KVM
7 7 (0.43%) Embedded Firmware
8 3 (0.19%) Terminal Server
9 2 (0.12%) vSphere
10 1 (0.062%) Xen
Systems Management
1 290 (17.92%) Kubernetes
2 284 (17.55%) Terraform
3 135 (8.34%) Grafana
4 66 (4.08%) Ansible
5 45 (2.78%) Prometheus
6 27 (1.67%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (0.74%) Argo
8 8 (0.49%) logstash
9 7 (0.43%) Microsoft Intune
10 6 (0.37%) HP ALM
10 6 (0.37%) Kibana
10 6 (0.37%) SCCM
10 6 (0.37%) SCOM
11 4 (0.25%) Packer
11 4 (0.25%) Rancher
12 3 (0.19%) Functional Safety
12 3 (0.19%) HP Fortify
12 3 (0.19%) vCenter Server
13 2 (0.12%) SCOrch
13 2 (0.12%) VxRail
Vendors
1 127 (7.85%) Microsoft
2 74 (4.57%) Oracle
3 52 (3.21%) Salesforce
4 51 (3.15%) Databricks
5 44 (2.72%) VMware
6 37 (2.29%) Google
7 20 (1.24%) OpenAI
8 19 (1.17%) Commvault
9 18 (1.11%) SAP
9 18 (1.11%) ServiceNow
10 17 (1.05%) Splunk
11 14 (0.87%) Atlassian
11 14 (0.87%) Palantir
12 13 (0.80%) Foundry
12 13 (0.80%) Pega
13 12 (0.74%) Automation Anywhere
13 12 (0.74%) UiPath
14 11 (0.68%) IBM
15 10 (0.62%) Ab Initio
15 10 (0.62%) Blue Prism