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 20 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 94 89
Rank change year-on-year +12 -5 -21
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 2,406 1,555 2,133
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.07% 3.15% 2.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.83% 3.56% 3.37%
Number of salaries quoted 1,300 733 1,029
10th Percentile £41,250 £38,860 £38,750
25th Percentile £47,500 £50,000 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £62,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year - +4.17% -4.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £82,751 £77,500
90th Percentile £94,100 £100,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £57,500 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +4.55% -4.35%

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 84,898 43,727 63,303
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.06% 88.69% 81.28%
Number of salaries quoted 58,675 24,676 35,715
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £32,000
25th Percentile £41,750 £36,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £80,000 £75,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,313 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +15.79% -9.52% -2.78%

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 20 September 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 20 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 +4 1,957 £62,500 -3.85% 2,917
UK excluding London +17 1,534 £57,500 - 1,739
Work from Home +12 857 £65,000 +4.00% 1,202
London -1 705 £80,000 - 1,477
North of England +14 391 £57,500 -4.17% 415
South East -3 273 £60,000 +4.35% 390
South West +13 257 £60,000 +14.29% 237
Midlands -14 205 £54,500 -11.38% 195
North West -2 190 £60,000 - 232
Northern Ireland +10 164 £80,000 +45.45% 57
Wales +13 132 £55,000 +2.33% 35
West Midlands -18 117 £55,000 -2.22% 127
North East +17 110 £55,000 +67.30% 61
Yorkshire +12 94 £69,310 +26.02% 122
East Midlands -27 88 £54,000 -13.60% 67
East of England -33 81 £48,750 -16.67% 192
Scotland -45 46 £62,500 -10.71% 226

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 56 (2.33%) Confluence
2 33 (1.37%) Apache Spark
3 26 (1.08%) Apache
4 24 (1.00%) SharePoint
5 19 (0.79%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.75%) Jupyter
7 14 (0.58%) Anypoint
7 14 (0.58%) CMS
7 14 (0.58%) Mule
8 13 (0.54%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 6 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
9 6 (0.25%) nginx
9 6 (0.25%) Umbraco
10 5 (0.21%) Cloud Foundry
10 5 (0.21%) Headless CMS
10 5 (0.21%) SAS
10 5 (0.21%) WinCC
11 4 (0.17%) Camunda
11 4 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
12 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
Applications
1 81 (3.37%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.58%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (0.58%) Simulink
3 9 (0.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.25%) Lightworks
4 6 (0.25%) Moqups
5 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.12%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.083%) CANalyzer
7 2 (0.083%) EPLAN
7 2 (0.083%) PlantUML
7 2 (0.083%) SOLIDWORKS
8 1 (0.042%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.042%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 68 (2.83%) Dynamics CRM
2 27 (1.12%) Dynamics GP
3 11 (0.46%) SAP S/4HANA
4 5 (0.21%) Visualfiles
5 3 (0.12%) Magento
5 3 (0.12%) Oracle Applications
5 3 (0.12%) Payment Gateway
5 3 (0.12%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.083%) FLEXCUBE
6 2 (0.083%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.083%) Towers Watson Igloo
6 2 (0.083%) Workday HCM
7 1 (0.042%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.042%) Endur
7 1 (0.042%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.042%) Misys Midas
7 1 (0.042%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.042%) Oracle Assets
7 1 (0.042%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 805 (33.46%) AWS
2 679 (28.22%) Azure
3 320 (13.30%) SaaS
4 252 (10.47%) GCP
5 247 (10.27%) Azure DevOps
6 202 (8.40%) GitHub
7 195 (8.10%) Serverless
8 109 (4.53%) GitHub Actions
9 99 (4.11%) AWS CloudFormation
10 98 (4.07%) Amazon EKS
11 90 (3.74%) AWS Lambda
12 84 (3.49%) Amazon S3
13 64 (2.66%) Power Platform
14 59 (2.45%) Google Ads
14 59 (2.45%) Meta Ads
15 55 (2.29%) Azure Logic Apps
16 54 (2.24%) Azure Service Bus
17 50 (2.08%) Azure Monitor
18 46 (1.91%) Azure Functions
19 40 (1.66%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 56 (2.33%) Broadband
2 30 (1.25%) TCP/IP
3 25 (1.04%) DNS
4 24 (1.00%) Firewall
5 17 (0.71%) SSL
6 16 (0.67%) Wireless
7 14 (0.58%) DMARC
7 14 (0.58%) Modbus
8 13 (0.54%) DHCP
8 13 (0.54%) HTTP
8 13 (0.54%) MQTT
8 13 (0.54%) Wi-Fi
9 11 (0.46%) 5G
9 11 (0.46%) WAN
10 10 (0.42%) Ethernet
10 10 (0.42%) LTE
11 9 (0.37%) 3GPP
11 9 (0.37%) Network Security
12 7 (0.29%) GSM
12 7 (0.29%) UMTS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (5.90%) PostgreSQL
2 124 (5.15%) NoSQL
3 89 (3.70%) MongoDB
4 81 (3.37%) SQL Server
5 66 (2.74%) Relational Database
6 45 (1.87%) DynamoDB
7 44 (1.83%) Redis
8 41 (1.70%) MySQL
9 37 (1.54%) Power BI
10 35 (1.45%) Data Warehouse
11 34 (1.41%) Data Lake
12 30 (1.25%) BigQuery
13 25 (1.04%) Amazon Athena
14 24 (1.00%) Amazon RDS
15 22 (0.91%) Semantic Layer
16 21 (0.87%) Metadata
17 16 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
18 14 (0.58%) Amazon Aurora
19 13 (0.54%) Delta Lake
19 13 (0.54%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 368 (15.30%) Git
2 239 (9.93%) GitLab
3 216 (8.98%) Jenkins
4 165 (6.86%) Selenium
5 152 (6.32%) JIRA
6 108 (4.49%) Cucumber
7 106 (4.41%) Cypress.io
8 95 (3.95%) Postman
9 71 (2.95%) TeamCity
10 52 (2.16%) JMeter
11 48 (2.00%) JUnit
12 41 (1.70%) REST Assured
13 33 (1.37%) Zephyr
14 32 (1.33%) Gatling
15 30 (1.25%) SonarQube
16 28 (1.16%) LabVIEW
17 24 (1.00%) Bitbucket
17 24 (1.00%) Robot Framework
17 24 (1.00%) TestRail
18 23 (0.96%) Maven
General
1 667 (27.72%) Social Skills
2 583 (24.23%) Finance
3 372 (15.46%) Analytical Skills
4 268 (11.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 230 (9.56%) Public Sector
6 202 (8.40%) Banking
6 202 (8.40%) Law
7 169 (7.02%) Marketing
8 142 (5.90%) Legal
9 125 (5.20%) Retail
10 116 (4.82%) Manufacturing
11 88 (3.66%) Electronics
12 80 (3.33%) Financial Institution
13 60 (2.49%) Back Office
14 51 (2.12%) Aerospace
15 43 (1.79%) Telecoms
16 38 (1.58%) Games
17 33 (1.37%) Documentation Skills
18 30 (1.25%) Automotive
19 24 (1.00%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 660 (27.43%) Senior
2 352 (14.63%) Software Engineer
3 338 (14.05%) Developer
4 326 (13.55%) Lead
5 252 (10.47%) Test Engineer
6 124 (5.15%) Senior Developer
7 114 (4.74%) Java Engineer
8 109 (4.53%) DevOps Engineer
9 102 (4.24%) Senior Software Engineer
10 101 (4.20%) QA Engineer
11 87 (3.62%) Test Automation Engineer
12 80 (3.33%) Full-Stack Engineer
13 77 (3.20%) Analyst
14 73 (3.03%) Data Engineer
15 68 (2.83%) Lead Software Engineer
16 64 (2.66%) Architect
17 63 (2.62%) Principal Engineer
18 62 (2.58%) Software Developer
18 62 (2.58%) Tester
19 61 (2.54%) Marketing Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 336 (13.97%) Terraform
2 246 (10.22%) REST
3 234 (9.73%) React
4 227 (9.43%) .NET
5 209 (8.69%) Playwright
6 200 (8.31%) Node.js
7 197 (8.19%) RESTful
8 195 (8.10%) Spring
9 144 (5.99%) Spring Boot
10 137 (5.69%) Kafka
11 127 (5.28%) CSS
12 119 (4.95%) HTML
13 116 (4.82%) AngularJS
14 76 (3.16%) OAuth
15 68 (2.83%) Middleware
15 68 (2.83%) OAuth2
16 62 (2.58%) JSON
17 53 (2.20%) Next.js
17 53 (2.20%) PySpark
17 53 (2.20%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 421 (17.50%) Cloud Native
2 288 (11.97%) Product Ownership
3 207 (8.60%) Distributed Systems
4 106 (4.41%) Onboarding
5 101 (4.20%) Mobile App
6 98 (4.07%) Enterprise Software
7 90 (3.74%) Public Cloud
8 84 (3.49%) Blog
9 79 (3.28%) Virtual Team
10 65 (2.70%) Legacy Systems
11 64 (2.66%) Marketing Technology
12 53 (2.20%) Algorithms
12 53 (2.20%) Cyber Threat
13 50 (2.08%) Low-Code
14 48 (2.00%) Self-Motivation
15 47 (1.95%) Embedded Systems
16 43 (1.79%) Data Structures
17 41 (1.70%) e-Learning
18 38 (1.58%) Management Information System
19 37 (1.54%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 182 (7.56%) Linux
2 103 (4.28%) Windows
3 63 (2.62%) Android
4 56 (2.33%) Unix
5 55 (2.29%) Apple iOS
6 9 (0.37%) Embedded Linux
6 9 (0.37%) Windows Server
7 8 (0.33%) CentOS
8 7 (0.29%) FreeRTOS
9 4 (0.17%) AIX
9 4 (0.17%) Debian
9 4 (0.17%) Kali Linux
9 4 (0.17%) VMS
10 3 (0.12%) VxWorks
11 2 (0.083%) OpenWrt
12 1 (0.042%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.042%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 1 (0.042%) ThreadX
12 1 (0.042%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,353 (56.23%) CI/CD
2 1,008 (41.90%) Agile
3 866 (35.99%) DevOps
4 773 (32.13%) Software Engineering
5 703 (29.22%) Continuous Improvement
6 623 (25.89%) Mentoring
7 595 (24.73%) AI
8 553 (22.98%) Problem-Solving
9 446 (18.54%) Microservices
10 422 (17.54%) Software Testing
11 391 (16.25%) Infrastructure as Code
12 322 (13.38%) Test Strategy
13 303 (12.59%) Validation
14 295 (12.26%) Observability
15 293 (12.18%) Code Quality
16 291 (12.09%) Coaching
17 270 (11.22%) Full-Stack Development
18 267 (11.10%) Containerisation
19 262 (10.89%) Technical Leadership
20 259 (10.76%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 689 (28.64%) Python
2 580 (24.11%) Java
3 455 (18.91%) SQL
4 436 (18.12%) JavaScript
5 349 (14.51%) TypeScript
6 338 (14.05%) C#
7 125 (5.20%) C++
8 103 (4.28%) PowerShell
9 97 (4.03%) Go
10 92 (3.82%) Bash
11 80 (3.33%) C
12 35 (1.45%) Kotlin
12 35 (1.45%) PHP
13 32 (1.33%) Rust
14 30 (1.25%) Groovy
15 29 (1.21%) Ruby
16 25 (1.04%) MATLAB
17 24 (1.00%) Bicep
18 20 (0.83%) Swift
19 16 (0.67%) Scala
Qualifications
1 361 (15.00%) Security Cleared
2 250 (10.39%) Degree
3 223 (9.27%) SC Cleared
4 104 (4.32%) Computer Science Degree
5 81 (3.37%) ISTQB
6 64 (2.66%) DV Cleared
7 57 (2.37%) AWS Certification
8 56 (2.33%) CISSP
9 54 (2.24%) ITIL Certification
10 53 (2.20%) CISM
11 47 (1.95%) Master's Degree
12 41 (1.70%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 40 (1.66%) HNC
14 34 (1.41%) HND
15 33 (1.37%) BPSS Clearance
16 17 (0.71%) DBS Check
17 16 (0.67%) ISEB
18 13 (0.54%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
19 12 (0.50%) Azure Certification
20 11 (0.46%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 555 (23.07%) QA
2 205 (8.52%) Accessibility
3 84 (3.49%) Data Quality
4 69 (2.87%) WCAG
5 55 (2.29%) NIST
6 48 (2.00%) ISO 22301
7 40 (1.66%) GDPR
8 13 (0.54%) SLA
9 10 (0.42%) GRC
10 9 (0.37%) MISRA
10 9 (0.37%) SOC 2
10 9 (0.37%) Software Quality Assurance
11 8 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 6 (0.25%) JTAG
12 6 (0.25%) PMO
13 5 (0.21%) COBIT
13 5 (0.21%) NCSC
14 4 (0.17%) ECSS
14 4 (0.17%) IEC 61508
14 4 (0.17%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 335 (13.92%) Docker
2 44 (1.83%) Firmware
3 14 (0.58%) Active Directory
4 11 (0.46%) Embedded Firmware
4 11 (0.46%) VMware Infrastructure
5 7 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (0.17%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.083%) KVM
7 2 (0.083%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.042%) IAG
8 1 (0.042%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.042%) QEMU
8 1 (0.042%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 344 (14.30%) Kubernetes
2 156 (6.48%) Grafana
3 79 (3.28%) Ansible
4 67 (2.78%) Prometheus
5 30 (1.25%) Argo
6 17 (0.71%) Kibana
7 15 (0.62%) Puppet
8 14 (0.58%) CloudHub
9 12 (0.50%) Rancher
10 11 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
11 9 (0.37%) logstash
12 8 (0.33%) Functional Safety
12 8 (0.33%) HP Fortify
12 8 (0.33%) Single Sign-On
13 6 (0.25%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.25%) vCenter Server
14 5 (0.21%) Packer
15 3 (0.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 3 (0.12%) SCCM
15 3 (0.12%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 260 (10.81%) Microsoft
2 126 (5.24%) Google
3 65 (2.70%) Databricks
4 61 (2.54%) Salesforce
5 53 (2.20%) Oracle
6 50 (2.08%) SAP
7 46 (1.91%) ServiceNow
8 36 (1.50%) Splunk
9 32 (1.33%) Dynatrace
10 23 (0.96%) Pega
11 20 (0.83%) MuleSoft
12 19 (0.79%) AppDynamics
13 18 (0.75%) VMware
14 17 (0.71%) IBM
15 16 (0.67%) OpenAI
16 15 (0.62%) Allen-Bradley
16 15 (0.62%) Atlassian
16 15 (0.62%) Red Hat
17 14 (0.58%) Adobe
17 14 (0.58%) SendGrid