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

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 88 99
Rank change year-on-year +7 +11 -28
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 2,324 1,612 2,055
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.12% 3.22% 2.52%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.90% 3.64% 3.12%
Number of salaries quoted 1,276 777 1,161
10th Percentile £41,375 £37,500 £38,750
25th Percentile £48,750 £47,500 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £62,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -7.69%
75th Percentile £80,000 £82,751 £73,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -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 80,269 44,315 65,850
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.06% 88.64% 80.88%
Number of salaries quoted 55,761 25,263 40,217
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,250 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £56,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -1.79% -6.67%
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,250 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £51,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -6.86% -6.87%

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 1 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 1 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 1,888 £65,000 +2.93% 2,270
UK excluding London +17 1,475 £60,000 +9.09% 1,400
Work from Home +16 870 £67,500 +8.00% 1,006
London +8 691 £80,000 - 1,223
North of England +16 366 £58,750 -2.08% 297
South East -12 265 £60,000 +9.09% 295
South West +10 248 £60,000 +14.29% 240
Midlands -8 202 £56,000 -7.82% 138
North West -9 185 £65,000 +1.96% 169
Northern Ireland +7 165 £80,000 +45.45% 75
Wales +10 114 £54,085 +0.62% 30
West Midlands -1 113 £60,500 -1.63% 84
North East +16 103 £53,750 +74.80% 58
East Midlands -17 89 £55,000 -8.33% 54
Yorkshire -16 78 £69,310 +40.73% 71
East of England -27 73 £50,000 -11.89% 149
Scotland -45 55 £62,500 - 193

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 52 (2.24%) Confluence
2 29 (1.25%) Apache Spark
3 25 (1.08%) Apache
3 25 (1.08%) SharePoint
4 20 (0.86%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (0.73%) Jupyter
6 14 (0.60%) Anypoint
6 14 (0.60%) Mule
7 13 (0.56%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 11 (0.47%) CMS
9 6 (0.26%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.22%) Cloud Foundry
10 5 (0.22%) nginx
10 5 (0.22%) Umbraco
11 4 (0.17%) Camunda
11 4 (0.17%) IIS
11 4 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
11 4 (0.17%) SAS
12 3 (0.13%) WinCC
12 3 (0.13%) WordPress
Applications
1 63 (2.71%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (0.56%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (0.56%) Simulink
3 7 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.22%) Lightworks
4 5 (0.22%) Moqups
5 3 (0.13%) CANalyzer
5 3 (0.13%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.13%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.086%) PlantUML
7 1 (0.043%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.043%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.043%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 67 (2.88%) Dynamics CRM
2 27 (1.16%) Dynamics GP
3 11 (0.47%) SAP S/4HANA
4 5 (0.22%) Visualfiles
5 3 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
5 3 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
5 3 (0.13%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.086%) FLEXCUBE
6 2 (0.086%) Magento
6 2 (0.086%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.086%) Towers Watson Igloo
6 2 (0.086%) Workday HCM
7 1 (0.043%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.043%) Dynamics AX
7 1 (0.043%) Endur
7 1 (0.043%) Findur
7 1 (0.043%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.043%) Misys Midas
7 1 (0.043%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.043%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 798 (34.34%) AWS
2 675 (29.04%) Azure
3 297 (12.78%) SaaS
4 256 (11.02%) Azure DevOps
5 248 (10.67%) GCP
6 195 (8.39%) GitHub
7 181 (7.79%) Serverless
8 101 (4.35%) GitHub Actions
9 99 (4.26%) AWS CloudFormation
10 78 (3.36%) AWS Lambda
11 74 (3.18%) Amazon EKS
12 72 (3.10%) Amazon S3
13 62 (2.67%) Power Platform
14 52 (2.24%) Azure Service Bus
15 49 (2.11%) Azure Logic Apps
16 47 (2.02%) Azure Monitor
17 43 (1.85%) Google Ads
17 43 (1.85%) Meta Ads
18 39 (1.68%) Amazon EC2
19 37 (1.59%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 70 (3.01%) Broadband
2 26 (1.12%) Firewall
3 24 (1.03%) TCP/IP
4 21 (0.90%) DNS
5 16 (0.69%) SSL
5 16 (0.69%) Wireless
6 13 (0.56%) DMARC
6 13 (0.56%) Wi-Fi
7 12 (0.52%) DHCP
7 12 (0.52%) MQTT
8 11 (0.47%) WAN
9 10 (0.43%) HTTP
9 10 (0.43%) LTE
10 9 (0.39%) 3GPP
10 9 (0.39%) Modbus
10 9 (0.39%) Network Security
11 8 (0.34%) 5G
12 7 (0.30%) GSM
12 7 (0.30%) SS7
12 7 (0.30%) UMTS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 136 (5.85%) PostgreSQL
2 122 (5.25%) NoSQL
3 90 (3.87%) MongoDB
4 77 (3.31%) SQL Server
5 63 (2.71%) Relational Database
6 47 (2.02%) DynamoDB
7 40 (1.72%) MySQL
8 36 (1.55%) Data Warehouse
9 34 (1.46%) Power BI
10 30 (1.29%) Redis
11 27 (1.16%) BigQuery
12 23 (0.99%) Data Lake
13 20 (0.86%) Amazon RDS
14 19 (0.82%) Metadata
14 19 (0.82%) Semantic Layer
15 18 (0.77%) Spark SQL
16 16 (0.69%) Amazon Athena
17 12 (0.52%) Elasticsearch
18 11 (0.47%) Big Data
18 11 (0.47%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 340 (14.63%) Git
2 224 (9.64%) GitLab
3 217 (9.34%) Jenkins
4 170 (7.31%) Selenium
5 145 (6.24%) JIRA
6 107 (4.60%) Cypress.io
7 103 (4.43%) Cucumber
8 96 (4.13%) Postman
9 60 (2.58%) TeamCity
10 54 (2.32%) JMeter
11 48 (2.07%) REST Assured
12 47 (2.02%) JUnit
13 37 (1.59%) Zephyr
14 36 (1.55%) Gatling
15 30 (1.29%) SonarQube
16 28 (1.20%) TestRail
17 25 (1.08%) Bitbucket
17 25 (1.08%) LabVIEW
18 23 (0.99%) Robot Framework
19 21 (0.90%) SpecFlow
General
1 648 (27.88%) Social Skills
2 545 (23.45%) Finance
3 324 (13.94%) Analytical Skills
4 251 (10.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 219 (9.42%) Public Sector
6 198 (8.52%) Law
7 192 (8.26%) Banking
8 146 (6.28%) Legal
9 142 (6.11%) Marketing
10 104 (4.48%) Retail
11 92 (3.96%) Manufacturing
12 80 (3.44%) Electronics
13 72 (3.10%) Financial Institution
14 55 (2.37%) Back Office
15 50 (2.15%) Games
16 41 (1.76%) Aerospace
17 37 (1.59%) Telecoms
18 29 (1.25%) Documentation Skills
19 27 (1.16%) Front Office
20 23 (0.99%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 652 (28.06%) Senior
2 350 (15.06%) Lead
3 342 (14.72%) Software Engineer
4 332 (14.29%) Developer
5 254 (10.93%) Test Engineer
6 126 (5.42%) Senior Developer
7 113 (4.86%) Java Engineer
8 101 (4.35%) Senior Software Engineer
9 98 (4.22%) DevOps Engineer
10 97 (4.17%) QA Engineer
11 86 (3.70%) Test Automation Engineer
12 83 (3.57%) Full-Stack Engineer
13 69 (2.97%) Lead Software Engineer
14 66 (2.84%) Data Engineer
15 64 (2.75%) Analyst
15 64 (2.75%) Software Developer
15 64 (2.75%) Tester
16 63 (2.71%) Architect
16 63 (2.71%) Senior Manager
17 60 (2.58%) Marketing Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 320 (13.77%) Terraform
2 238 (10.24%) React
3 234 (10.07%) REST
4 217 (9.34%) .NET
5 205 (8.82%) Playwright
6 195 (8.39%) Spring
7 191 (8.22%) Node.js
8 190 (8.18%) RESTful
9 143 (6.15%) Spring Boot
10 128 (5.51%) Kafka
11 112 (4.82%) AngularJS
12 106 (4.56%) CSS
13 100 (4.30%) HTML
14 70 (3.01%) OAuth
15 66 (2.84%) Middleware
16 64 (2.75%) OAuth2
17 57 (2.45%) JSON
18 50 (2.15%) Next.js
19 49 (2.11%) Vue
20 48 (2.07%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 404 (17.38%) Cloud Native
2 286 (12.31%) Product Ownership
3 206 (8.86%) Distributed Systems
4 115 (4.95%) Mobile App
5 93 (4.00%) Enterprise Software
6 83 (3.57%) Onboarding
6 83 (3.57%) Public Cloud
7 78 (3.36%) Blog
7 78 (3.36%) Virtual Team
8 67 (2.88%) Legacy Systems
9 64 (2.75%) Marketing Technology
10 60 (2.58%) Algorithms
11 57 (2.45%) Cyber Threat
12 54 (2.32%) Low-Code
13 46 (1.98%) Self-Motivation
14 45 (1.94%) Data Structures
14 45 (1.94%) Management Information System
15 42 (1.81%) Embedded Systems
16 38 (1.64%) Greenfield Project
17 37 (1.59%) e-Learning
Operating Systems
1 193 (8.30%) Linux
2 103 (4.43%) Windows
3 65 (2.80%) Apple iOS
4 64 (2.75%) Android
5 53 (2.28%) Unix
6 11 (0.47%) Windows Server
7 9 (0.39%) CentOS
7 9 (0.39%) Embedded Linux
8 6 (0.26%) FreeRTOS
9 5 (0.22%) Kali Linux
10 4 (0.17%) AIX
10 4 (0.17%) Debian
10 4 (0.17%) VMS
11 3 (0.13%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.086%) OpenWrt
13 1 (0.043%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 1 (0.043%) ThreadX
13 1 (0.043%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.043%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.043%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,301 (55.98%) CI/CD
2 1,010 (43.46%) Agile
3 842 (36.23%) DevOps
4 748 (32.19%) Software Engineering
5 684 (29.43%) Continuous Improvement
6 608 (26.16%) Mentoring
7 549 (23.62%) AI
8 512 (22.03%) Problem-Solving
9 427 (18.37%) Microservices
10 399 (17.17%) Software Testing
11 394 (16.95%) Infrastructure as Code
12 333 (14.33%) Test Strategy
13 290 (12.48%) Observability
14 286 (12.31%) Code Quality
15 284 (12.22%) Full-Stack Development
16 279 (12.01%) Validation
17 273 (11.75%) Coaching
17 273 (11.75%) Containerisation
18 256 (11.02%) Decision-Making
19 248 (10.67%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 685 (29.48%) Python
2 583 (25.09%) Java
3 416 (17.90%) JavaScript
4 409 (17.60%) SQL
5 336 (14.46%) TypeScript
6 328 (14.11%) C#
7 128 (5.51%) C++
8 109 (4.69%) PowerShell
9 102 (4.39%) Go
10 82 (3.53%) Bash
11 81 (3.49%) C
12 41 (1.76%) Kotlin
13 34 (1.46%) Rust
14 33 (1.42%) PHP
15 29 (1.25%) Ruby
16 28 (1.20%) Swift
17 24 (1.03%) Groovy
18 23 (0.99%) Bicep
19 22 (0.95%) MATLAB
20 16 (0.69%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 319 (13.73%) Security Cleared
2 246 (10.59%) Degree
3 188 (8.09%) SC Cleared
4 110 (4.73%) Computer Science Degree
5 80 (3.44%) ISTQB
6 64 (2.75%) DV Cleared
7 58 (2.50%) CISSP
8 57 (2.45%) ITIL Certification
9 55 (2.37%) CISM
10 52 (2.24%) AWS Certification
11 43 (1.85%) Master's Degree
12 37 (1.59%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 31 (1.33%) BPSS Clearance
14 27 (1.16%) HNC
15 22 (0.95%) HND
16 18 (0.77%) ISEB
17 16 (0.69%) DBS Check
18 14 (0.60%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
18 14 (0.60%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
19 11 (0.47%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 548 (23.58%) QA
2 208 (8.95%) Accessibility
3 70 (3.01%) Data Quality
4 62 (2.67%) WCAG
5 59 (2.54%) NIST
6 50 (2.15%) ISO 22301
7 43 (1.85%) GDPR
8 14 (0.60%) SLA
9 13 (0.56%) GRC
10 12 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 10 (0.43%) Software Quality Assurance
12 9 (0.39%) SOC 2
13 8 (0.34%) MISRA
14 7 (0.30%) COBIT
14 7 (0.30%) JTAG
15 5 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
15 5 (0.22%) NCSC
15 5 (0.22%) PCI DSS
15 5 (0.22%) PMO
16 4 (0.17%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 318 (13.68%) Docker
2 40 (1.72%) Firmware
3 17 (0.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.69%) Active Directory
4 16 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
5 11 (0.47%) Embedded Firmware
6 8 (0.34%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.26%) KVM
8 2 (0.086%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.043%) IAG
9 1 (0.043%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.043%) QEMU
9 1 (0.043%) Terminal Server
9 1 (0.043%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.043%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 327 (14.07%) Kubernetes
2 137 (5.90%) Grafana
3 84 (3.61%) Ansible
4 56 (2.41%) Prometheus
5 27 (1.16%) Argo
6 17 (0.73%) Kibana
7 15 (0.65%) Puppet
8 14 (0.60%) CloudHub
9 10 (0.43%) logstash
10 9 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
11 8 (0.34%) HP Fortify
12 7 (0.30%) Single Sign-On
12 7 (0.30%) vCenter Server
13 6 (0.26%) Functional Safety
13 6 (0.26%) Progress Chef
14 5 (0.22%) Packer
14 5 (0.22%) Rancher
15 4 (0.17%) SCCM
15 4 (0.17%) SCOM
16 3 (0.13%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 236 (10.15%) Microsoft
2 107 (4.60%) Google
3 62 (2.67%) Databricks
4 57 (2.45%) Salesforce
5 54 (2.32%) Oracle
6 46 (1.98%) SAP
7 41 (1.76%) ServiceNow
8 38 (1.64%) Splunk
9 28 (1.20%) Dynatrace
10 27 (1.16%) VMware
11 24 (1.03%) Pega
12 21 (0.90%) AppDynamics
13 17 (0.73%) Atlassian
13 17 (0.73%) IBM
13 17 (0.73%) MuleSoft
14 16 (0.69%) OpenAI
14 16 (0.69%) Red Hat
15 14 (0.60%) Adobe
16 13 (0.56%) Braze
16 13 (0.56%) SendGrid