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 15 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 97 84
Rank change year-on-year +21 -13 -14
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 2,579 1,547 2,045
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.17% 3.14% 2.88%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.96% 3.54% 3.51%
Number of salaries quoted 1,390 745 917
10th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £40,000
25th Percentile £46,939 £51,250 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,130 £65,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.49% +8.33% -4.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £85,000 £78,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £105,000 £102,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -4.07%

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 87,229 43,738 58,305
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.43% 88.90% 82.16%
Number of salaries quoted 59,718 24,553 31,325
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,250 £32,925
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,250 £44,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -
75th Percentile £78,243 £75,000 £78,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £52,600
% change year-on-year +15.79% -9.70% -2.59%

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 15 October 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 15 October 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 2,123 £62,500 -3.85% 2,471
UK excluding London +14 1,644 £57,500 -4.17% 1,462
Work from Home +17 927 £67,500 +6.30% 1,189
London 0 757 £80,000 -3.03% 1,217
North of England +37 442 £57,500 -4.17% 395
South East -6 292 £60,000 +4.35% 312
South West +17 256 £60,000 +14.29% 152
Midlands +2 217 £52,500 -13.58% 154
North West -6 199 £60,000 -4.00% 205
Northern Ireland +11 160 - - 78
North East +27 137 £55,000 +78.86% 65
Wales +9 133 £53,171 -3.33% 31
West Midlands -14 118 £51,250 -10.87% 107
Yorkshire +33 115 £69,305 +26.01% 125
East of England -3 110 £46,000 -23.33% 146
East Midlands -12 99 £52,500 -16.00% 47
Scotland -48 46 £60,000 -14.29% 200

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 58 (2.25%) Confluence
2 42 (1.63%) Apache Spark
3 36 (1.40%) Apache
4 25 (0.97%) SharePoint
5 24 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (0.78%) Jupyter
7 18 (0.70%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 14 (0.54%) Anypoint
8 14 (0.54%) CMS
8 14 (0.54%) Mule
9 11 (0.43%) Palantir Foundry
10 9 (0.35%) Microsoft Exchange
10 9 (0.35%) nginx
11 7 (0.27%) Headless CMS
11 7 (0.27%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.23%) SAS
13 5 (0.19%) Camunda
13 5 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
13 5 (0.19%) WinCC
14 4 (0.16%) WordPress
Applications
1 89 (3.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (0.54%) Simulink
4 9 (0.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.27%) Moqups
6 6 (0.23%) Chatbot
6 6 (0.23%) Lightworks
7 5 (0.19%) MS Visio
8 4 (0.16%) EPLAN
8 4 (0.16%) SOLIDWORKS
9 1 (0.039%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.039%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 71 (2.75%) Dynamics CRM
2 27 (1.05%) Dynamics GP
3 11 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
5 3 (0.12%) Magento
5 3 (0.12%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.078%) FLEXCUBE
6 2 (0.078%) Oracle Applications
6 2 (0.078%) Towers Watson Igloo
6 2 (0.078%) Visualfiles
6 2 (0.078%) Workday HCM
7 1 (0.039%) Academy Revenues and Benefits
7 1 (0.039%) Adobe Campaign
7 1 (0.039%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.039%) Endur
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle Assets
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.039%) Sage 200
7 1 (0.039%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 854 (33.11%) AWS
2 687 (26.64%) Azure
3 330 (12.80%) SaaS
4 267 (10.35%) GCP
5 250 (9.69%) GitHub
6 222 (8.61%) Azure DevOps
7 186 (7.21%) Serverless
8 127 (4.92%) GitHub Actions
9 109 (4.23%) AWS CloudFormation
10 104 (4.03%) Amazon EKS
11 98 (3.80%) Amazon S3
12 91 (3.53%) AWS Lambda
13 82 (3.18%) Power Platform
14 61 (2.37%) Google Ads
14 61 (2.37%) Meta Ads
15 55 (2.13%) GitHub Copilot
16 54 (2.09%) Azure Service Bus
17 50 (1.94%) Azure Logic Apps
17 50 (1.94%) Azure Monitor
18 46 (1.78%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 56 (2.17%) Broadband
2 34 (1.32%) TCP/IP
3 28 (1.09%) DNS
4 26 (1.01%) Firewall
5 18 (0.70%) Wireless
6 17 (0.66%) Modbus
6 17 (0.66%) SSL
7 15 (0.58%) DMARC
7 15 (0.58%) Ethernet
8 14 (0.54%) HTTP
8 14 (0.54%) MQTT
9 13 (0.50%) 5G
9 13 (0.50%) Wi-Fi
10 12 (0.47%) DHCP
10 12 (0.47%) Network Security
11 11 (0.43%) WAN
12 10 (0.39%) LTE
13 9 (0.35%) 3GPP
14 8 (0.31%) Internet
14 8 (0.31%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 158 (6.13%) PostgreSQL
2 122 (4.73%) NoSQL
3 88 (3.41%) MongoDB
4 87 (3.37%) SQL Server
5 77 (2.99%) Relational Database
6 52 (2.02%) Power BI
6 52 (2.02%) Redis
7 51 (1.98%) MySQL
8 42 (1.63%) DynamoDB
9 36 (1.40%) Metadata
10 35 (1.36%) Data Lake
10 35 (1.36%) Data Warehouse
11 30 (1.16%) Amazon Athena
11 30 (1.16%) BigQuery
12 29 (1.12%) Amazon RDS
13 27 (1.05%) Semantic Layer
14 18 (0.70%) Amazon Aurora
14 18 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
15 17 (0.66%) Amazon Redshift
16 16 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 368 (14.27%) Git
2 271 (10.51%) GitLab
3 213 (8.26%) Jenkins
4 162 (6.28%) Selenium
5 146 (5.66%) JIRA
6 117 (4.54%) Cypress.io
7 108 (4.19%) Cucumber
8 84 (3.26%) Postman
9 77 (2.99%) TeamCity
10 51 (1.98%) JUnit
11 48 (1.86%) JMeter
12 47 (1.82%) REST Assured
13 44 (1.71%) LabVIEW
14 31 (1.20%) Gatling
15 29 (1.12%) Claude Code
16 25 (0.97%) Zephyr
17 24 (0.93%) Robot Framework
18 22 (0.85%) SonarQube
19 21 (0.81%) Bitbucket
19 21 (0.81%) Maven
General
1 712 (27.61%) Social Skills
2 626 (24.27%) Finance
3 410 (15.90%) Analytical Skills
4 288 (11.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 276 (10.70%) Public Sector
6 216 (8.38%) Banking
7 205 (7.95%) Law
8 179 (6.94%) Marketing
9 136 (5.27%) Legal
9 136 (5.27%) Manufacturing
10 133 (5.16%) Retail
11 115 (4.46%) Electronics
12 87 (3.37%) Financial Institution
13 65 (2.52%) Back Office
14 63 (2.44%) Aerospace
15 48 (1.86%) Telecoms
16 40 (1.55%) Automotive
17 39 (1.51%) Games
18 36 (1.40%) Documentation Skills
19 25 (0.97%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 722 (28.00%) Senior
2 397 (15.39%) Software Engineer
3 347 (13.45%) Developer
4 296 (11.48%) Lead
5 284 (11.01%) Test Engineer
6 132 (5.12%) Senior Developer
7 122 (4.73%) Java Engineer
8 119 (4.61%) QA Engineer
9 114 (4.42%) DevOps Engineer
9 114 (4.42%) Senior Software Engineer
10 89 (3.45%) Test Automation Engineer
11 88 (3.41%) Analyst
12 86 (3.33%) Data Engineer
13 83 (3.22%) Tester
14 82 (3.18%) Principal Engineer
15 76 (2.95%) Full-Stack Engineer
16 74 (2.87%) Automation Engineer
17 71 (2.75%) Lead Software Engineer
18 68 (2.64%) Software Developer
19 66 (2.56%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 347 (13.45%) Terraform
2 279 (10.82%) REST
3 236 (9.15%) .NET
4 225 (8.72%) React
5 213 (8.26%) Node.js
6 209 (8.10%) Playwright
6 209 (8.10%) Spring
7 207 (8.03%) RESTful
8 163 (6.32%) Spring Boot
9 151 (5.85%) Kafka
10 136 (5.27%) CSS
11 127 (4.92%) HTML
12 116 (4.50%) AngularJS
13 74 (2.87%) Middleware
13 74 (2.87%) OAuth
14 66 (2.56%) OAuth2
15 59 (2.29%) JSON
16 55 (2.13%) Next.js
17 54 (2.09%) PySpark
18 52 (2.02%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 449 (17.41%) Cloud Native
2 295 (11.44%) Product Ownership
3 225 (8.72%) Distributed Systems
4 118 (4.58%) Onboarding
5 116 (4.50%) Enterprise Software
6 95 (3.68%) Mobile App
7 93 (3.61%) Public Cloud
8 87 (3.37%) Blog
9 75 (2.91%) Virtual Team
10 72 (2.79%) Legacy Systems
11 64 (2.48%) Marketing Technology
12 54 (2.09%) Self-Motivation
13 53 (2.06%) Cyber Threat
14 52 (2.02%) Algorithms
15 51 (1.98%) Low-Code
16 48 (1.86%) e-Learning
16 48 (1.86%) Embedded Systems
17 46 (1.78%) AI Agents
18 39 (1.51%) Data Structures
19 37 (1.43%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 179 (6.94%) Linux
2 94 (3.64%) Windows
3 63 (2.44%) Android
4 59 (2.29%) Unix
5 52 (2.02%) Apple iOS
6 10 (0.39%) Embedded Linux
7 8 (0.31%) CentOS
8 7 (0.27%) Windows Server
9 5 (0.19%) FreeRTOS
10 4 (0.16%) AIX
10 4 (0.16%) Debian
10 4 (0.16%) VMS
10 4 (0.16%) VxWorks
11 3 (0.12%) Kali Linux
12 2 (0.078%) OpenWrt
12 2 (0.078%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 1 (0.039%) macOS
13 1 (0.039%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,424 (55.22%) CI/CD
2 1,033 (40.05%) Agile
3 881 (34.16%) DevOps
4 830 (32.18%) Software Engineering
5 756 (29.31%) Continuous Improvement
6 665 (25.79%) Mentoring
7 657 (25.47%) AI
8 608 (23.58%) Problem-Solving
9 470 (18.22%) Microservices
10 438 (16.98%) Software Testing
11 404 (15.66%) Infrastructure as Code
12 349 (13.53%) Validation
13 332 (12.87%) Test Strategy
14 314 (12.18%) Observability
15 311 (12.06%) Coaching
16 305 (11.83%) Code Quality
17 297 (11.52%) Technical Leadership
18 277 (10.74%) Event-Driven
19 274 (10.62%) Containerisation
20 265 (10.28%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 712 (27.61%) Python
2 606 (23.50%) Java
3 515 (19.97%) SQL
4 443 (17.18%) JavaScript
5 366 (14.19%) TypeScript
6 334 (12.95%) C#
7 125 (4.85%) C++
8 113 (4.38%) Go
9 102 (3.96%) PowerShell
10 100 (3.88%) Bash
11 82 (3.18%) C
12 49 (1.90%) Kotlin
13 44 (1.71%) Rust
14 38 (1.47%) PHP
15 31 (1.20%) Ruby
16 24 (0.93%) MATLAB
17 23 (0.89%) Bicep
17 23 (0.89%) Groovy
18 20 (0.78%) Swift
19 18 (0.70%) Scala
Qualifications
1 424 (16.44%) Security Cleared
2 269 (10.43%) Degree
3 260 (10.08%) SC Cleared
4 96 (3.72%) Computer Science Degree
5 83 (3.22%) DV Cleared
6 75 (2.91%) AWS Certification
7 72 (2.79%) ISTQB
8 54 (2.09%) CISSP
8 54 (2.09%) ITIL Certification
9 52 (2.02%) Master's Degree
10 51 (1.98%) CISM
11 49 (1.90%) HNC
12 48 (1.86%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 41 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
13 41 (1.59%) HND
14 29 (1.12%) Azure Certification
15 17 (0.66%) ISEB
16 16 (0.62%) DBS Check
17 13 (0.50%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
18 11 (0.43%) NVQ Level 4
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 576 (22.33%) QA
2 209 (8.10%) Accessibility
3 106 (4.11%) Data Quality
4 67 (2.60%) WCAG
5 53 (2.06%) NIST
6 48 (1.86%) ISO 22301
7 33 (1.28%) GDPR
8 11 (0.43%) GRC
9 9 (0.35%) SLA
10 8 (0.31%) MISRA
11 7 (0.27%) JTAG
12 6 (0.23%) SOC 2
12 6 (0.23%) Software Quality Assurance
13 5 (0.19%) ISO 9001
13 5 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
13 5 (0.19%) NCSC
14 4 (0.16%) ECSS
14 4 (0.16%) ISO 20022
14 4 (0.16%) ISO 26262
14 4 (0.16%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 375 (14.54%) Docker
2 55 (2.13%) Firmware
3 15 (0.58%) Active Directory
4 11 (0.43%) VMware Infrastructure
5 10 (0.39%) Embedded Firmware
6 9 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.12%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.078%) KVM
8 2 (0.078%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.039%) IAG
9 1 (0.039%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.039%) QEMU
9 1 (0.039%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.039%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.039%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 375 (14.54%) Kubernetes
2 174 (6.75%) Grafana
3 74 (2.87%) Ansible
4 68 (2.64%) Prometheus
5 27 (1.05%) Argo
6 17 (0.66%) Puppet
7 16 (0.62%) Kibana
8 14 (0.54%) CloudHub
9 11 (0.43%) Rancher
10 10 (0.39%) logstash
10 10 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
11 9 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
12 7 (0.27%) HP Fortify
13 6 (0.23%) Functional Safety
13 6 (0.23%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.23%) vCenter Server
14 3 (0.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 2 (0.078%) Bosun
15 2 (0.078%) kaniko
16 1 (0.039%) Packer
Vendors
1 275 (10.66%) Microsoft
2 140 (5.43%) Google
3 68 (2.64%) Databricks
4 63 (2.44%) Salesforce
5 55 (2.13%) Oracle
6 50 (1.94%) SAP
6 50 (1.94%) ServiceNow
7 38 (1.47%) Dynatrace
8 36 (1.40%) Splunk
9 22 (0.85%) Pega
10 20 (0.78%) Adobe
10 20 (0.78%) Foundry
11 19 (0.74%) MuleSoft
11 19 (0.74%) OpenAI
12 18 (0.70%) Allen-Bradley
12 18 (0.70%) VMware
13 15 (0.58%) Atlassian
13 15 (0.58%) Red Hat
13 15 (0.58%) SendGrid
13 15 (0.58%) Siemens