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 24 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 100 76 88
Rank change year-on-year -24 +12 -57
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 1,446 1,756 2,372
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.09% 3.71% 3.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.64% 4.00% 3.55%
Number of salaries quoted 876 854 1,686
10th Percentile £41,250 £41,250 £36,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £48,250 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £62,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year - +4.17% -4.00%
75th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £77,500
90th Percentile £106,250 £105,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £56,750 £57,500 £53,500
% change year-on-year -1.30% +7.48% -6.96%

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 54,747 43,918 66,767
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 79.09% 92.80% 88.41%
Number of salaries quoted 32,789 21,812 51,500
10th Percentile £29,000 £33,750 £29,500
25th Percentile £38,000 £45,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £76,250 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -8.90%

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 24 February 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 24 February 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 -25 1,199 £62,500 - 578
UK excluding London -56 735 £56,750 -1.30% 505
Work from Home +13 618 £65,000 +4.00% 306
London +39 575 £80,000 - 174
South East -67 177 £55,000 - 153
North of England -72 134 £60,000 +4.35% 126
Scotland +3 129 £83,750 +39.58% 42
South West -18 124 £55,000 -8.33% 67
Midlands -65 91 £55,000 -8.33% 60
North West -32 78 £60,000 +14.29% 69
East of England -45 52 £50,000 -28.57% 56
East Midlands -50 48 £55,000 -4.35% 20
West Midlands -50 44 £55,000 -8.33% 39
Yorkshire -66 41 £55,000 -12.00% 38
Wales -4 26 £56,350 +15.55% 13
North East -29 15 £55,200 -9.51% 19
Northern Ireland -47 5 £64,859 +1.74% 4

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 33 (2.28%) Confluence
2 22 (1.52%) Apache Airflow
3 18 (1.24%) Apache Spark
3 18 (1.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 15 (1.04%) Appian
5 11 (0.76%) Apache
6 10 (0.69%) Jupyter
6 10 (0.69%) Palantir Foundry
6 10 (0.69%) SharePoint
7 8 (0.55%) CMS
8 6 (0.41%) WordPress
9 5 (0.35%) IIS
10 4 (0.28%) Apache Solr
11 3 (0.21%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.21%) nginx
11 3 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
12 2 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 2 (0.14%) JBoss
12 2 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
12 2 (0.14%) SAS
Applications
1 19 (1.31%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (0.90%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.76%) MS Visio
4 10 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.28%) Fusion 360
6 3 (0.21%) Photoshop
6 3 (0.21%) PlantUML
7 2 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle Smart View
7 2 (0.14%) Sketch
8 1 (0.069%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.069%) Trello
Business Applications
1 37 (2.56%) Oracle ERP
2 30 (2.07%) SAP S/4HANA
3 20 (1.38%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
4 4 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 4 (0.28%) Shopify
5 3 (0.21%) Oracle Financials
5 3 (0.21%) SAP CX
6 2 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
6 2 (0.14%) Hyperion Planning
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.069%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.069%) NEC Housing
7 1 (0.069%) Postilion
7 1 (0.069%) SAP Hybris
7 1 (0.069%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 491 (33.96%) Azure
2 412 (28.49%) AWS
3 279 (19.29%) Azure DevOps
4 224 (15.49%) GitHub
5 169 (11.69%) GCP
6 109 (7.54%) SaaS
7 85 (5.88%) Serverless
8 76 (5.26%) GitHub Actions
9 75 (5.19%) GitHub Copilot
10 70 (4.84%) Amazon EKS
11 69 (4.77%) Power Platform
12 57 (3.94%) PaaS
13 49 (3.39%) Azure Data Factory
14 41 (2.84%) Snowflake
15 40 (2.77%) dbt
16 39 (2.70%) Datadog
16 39 (2.70%) Entra ID
17 38 (2.63%) AWS CloudFormation
18 36 (2.49%) Amazon S3
19 35 (2.42%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.45%) DNS
2 19 (1.31%) HTTP
2 19 (1.31%) TCP/IP
3 16 (1.11%) WAN
4 15 (1.04%) SD-WAN
5 12 (0.83%) 5G
6 11 (0.76%) VPN
7 9 (0.62%) CHAP
8 8 (0.55%) Firewall
9 5 (0.35%) Multicast
10 4 (0.28%) 3G
10 4 (0.28%) Broadband
10 4 (0.28%) GPRS
10 4 (0.28%) GSM
10 4 (0.28%) Modbus
10 4 (0.28%) RS-232
10 4 (0.28%) RS-485
10 4 (0.28%) SMTP
10 4 (0.28%) SSL
11 3 (0.21%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 87 (6.02%) PostgreSQL
2 81 (5.60%) NoSQL
3 80 (5.53%) SQL Server
4 56 (3.87%) Relational Database
5 47 (3.25%) MySQL
6 44 (3.04%) Data Warehouse
7 41 (2.84%) Power BI
8 39 (2.70%) MongoDB
9 19 (1.31%) DynamoDB
9 19 (1.31%) Tableau
10 15 (1.04%) Amazon RDS
10 15 (1.04%) Elasticsearch
11 14 (0.97%) DB2
12 13 (0.90%) Pinecone
13 12 (0.83%) BigQuery
13 12 (0.83%) Metadata
13 12 (0.83%) Snowflake Schema
14 11 (0.76%) RDBMS
15 10 (0.69%) Data Lake
16 9 (0.62%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 184 (12.72%) Selenium
2 154 (10.65%) Git
3 151 (10.44%) JIRA
4 140 (9.68%) Jenkins
5 77 (5.33%) Cypress.io
6 69 (4.77%) Cucumber
7 68 (4.70%) GitLab
8 63 (4.36%) TeamCity
9 48 (3.32%) Postman
10 43 (2.97%) JMeter
11 35 (2.42%) Oracle Forms
12 27 (1.87%) Robot Framework
12 27 (1.87%) SpecFlow
13 26 (1.80%) JUnit
14 25 (1.73%) CircleCI
14 25 (1.73%) eCATT
15 24 (1.66%) MLflow
16 22 (1.52%) REST Assured
16 22 (1.52%) Snyk
16 22 (1.52%) WebDriver
General
1 473 (32.71%) Finance
2 437 (30.22%) Social Skills
3 153 (10.58%) Analytical Skills
4 149 (10.30%) Banking
5 113 (7.81%) Law
6 105 (7.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 85 (5.88%) Retail
8 74 (5.12%) Marketing
9 72 (4.98%) Public Sector
10 62 (4.29%) Financial Institution
11 46 (3.18%) Manufacturing
12 40 (2.77%) Back Office
13 34 (2.35%) Front Office
14 32 (2.21%) Electronics
15 28 (1.94%) Legal
16 26 (1.80%) Presentation Skills
17 21 (1.45%) Documentation Skills
17 21 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
18 18 (1.24%) Games
18 18 (1.24%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 403 (27.87%) Senior
2 226 (15.63%) Developer
3 216 (14.94%) Lead
4 167 (11.55%) Software Engineer
5 134 (9.27%) Test Engineer
6 103 (7.12%) Senior Developer
7 84 (5.81%) QA Engineer
8 73 (5.05%) Tester
9 72 (4.98%) Analyst
10 67 (4.63%) Java Engineer
10 67 (4.63%) Test Leader
11 65 (4.50%) Test Automation Engineer
12 57 (3.94%) Automation Engineer
13 53 (3.67%) Senior Software Engineer
14 50 (3.46%) Applications Engineer
15 49 (3.39%) QA Automation Engineer
16 47 (3.25%) Automation Tester
16 47 (3.25%) Python Developer
17 46 (3.18%) Cloud Engineer
18 40 (2.77%) Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 156 (10.79%) React
2 151 (10.44%) RESTful
3 133 (9.20%) .NET
4 112 (7.75%) Playwright
5 108 (7.47%) REST
6 83 (5.74%) Spring
7 71 (4.91%) Node.js
8 66 (4.56%) JSON
9 61 (4.22%) Kafka
10 60 (4.15%) CSS
10 60 (4.15%) HTML
11 57 (3.94%) OAuth
11 57 (3.94%) Spring Boot
12 54 (3.73%) pytest
13 53 (3.67%) SOAP
14 43 (2.97%) OAuth2
15 38 (2.63%) XML
16 37 (2.56%) Elastic Stack
17 33 (2.28%) Flask
18 32 (2.21%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 256 (17.70%) Cloud Native
2 109 (7.54%) Product Ownership
3 57 (3.94%) Self-Motivation
4 52 (3.60%) Enterprise Software
5 49 (3.39%) Management Information System
5 49 (3.39%) Mobile App
6 38 (2.63%) Legacy Systems
6 38 (2.63%) Onboarding
7 34 (2.35%) Distributed Systems
8 28 (1.94%) Low-Code
9 27 (1.87%) Algorithms
9 27 (1.87%) Data Structures
9 27 (1.87%) Hedge funds
10 26 (1.80%) Greenfield Project
11 23 (1.59%) Equities
11 23 (1.59%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 20 (1.38%) GNSS
12 20 (1.38%) Hybrid Cloud
12 20 (1.38%) Satnav
12 20 (1.38%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 137 (9.47%) Linux
2 73 (5.05%) Windows
3 47 (3.25%) Apple iOS
4 43 (2.97%) Android
5 34 (2.35%) Unix
6 9 (0.62%) Windows Server
7 8 (0.55%) CentOS
8 5 (0.35%) Debian
8 5 (0.35%) Embedded Linux
8 5 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.28%) FreeRTOS
10 3 (0.21%) Windows 10
10 3 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.14%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.14%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.14%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.069%) AIX
12 1 (0.069%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 743 (51.38%) CI/CD
2 610 (42.19%) Agile
3 502 (34.72%) DevOps
4 331 (22.89%) Mentoring
5 326 (22.54%) Continuous Improvement
6 324 (22.41%) Problem-Solving
7 315 (21.78%) Software Engineering
8 235 (16.25%) Coaching
9 234 (16.18%) AI
10 230 (15.91%) Microservices
11 185 (12.79%) Observability
12 182 (12.59%) Software Testing
13 181 (12.52%) Clean Code
14 175 (12.10%) Infrastructure as Code
15 159 (11.00%) Test Strategy
16 156 (10.79%) Analytics
17 145 (10.03%) Containerisation
18 136 (9.41%) Full-Stack Development
19 122 (8.44%) Deployment Automation
19 122 (8.44%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 422 (29.18%) Python
2 363 (25.10%) Java
3 306 (21.16%) SQL
4 199 (13.76%) JavaScript
5 170 (11.76%) TypeScript
6 147 (10.17%) C#
7 78 (5.39%) PowerShell
8 59 (4.08%) C++
9 47 (3.25%) Bash
10 43 (2.97%) PL/SQL
11 40 (2.77%) Shell Script
12 38 (2.63%) Go
13 30 (2.07%) Bicep
14 29 (2.01%) C
15 28 (1.94%) PHP
16 26 (1.80%) Apex Code
17 22 (1.52%) Kotlin
18 17 (1.18%) Rust
19 14 (0.97%) MATLAB
20 13 (0.90%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 185 (12.79%) Degree
2 135 (9.34%) Security Cleared
3 91 (6.29%) SC Cleared
4 69 (4.77%) Computer Science Degree
5 65 (4.50%) ISTQB
6 33 (2.28%) DV Cleared
6 33 (2.28%) Master's Degree
7 24 (1.66%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 23 (1.59%) AWS Certification
9 17 (1.18%) DBS Check
9 17 (1.18%) HND
10 15 (1.04%) CISSP
11 14 (0.97%) Azure Certification
11 14 (0.97%) ISEB
11 14 (0.97%) PhD
12 13 (0.90%) CEH
13 10 (0.69%) BPSS Clearance
13 10 (0.69%) CISA
14 9 (0.62%) CGEIT
14 9 (0.62%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 329 (22.75%) QA
2 96 (6.64%) Accessibility
3 58 (4.01%) Data Quality
4 43 (2.97%) NIST
5 42 (2.90%) GDPR
6 36 (2.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 22 (1.52%) WCAG
8 16 (1.11%) SLA
9 14 (0.97%) NCSC
10 13 (0.90%) ISO 22301
11 9 (0.62%) COBIT
11 9 (0.62%) ISO 9001
12 6 (0.41%) Software Quality Assurance
13 5 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 4 (0.28%) IEC 61508
14 4 (0.28%) ISO 13485
14 4 (0.28%) ISO 26262
14 4 (0.28%) MISRA
15 3 (0.21%) Section 508
15 3 (0.21%) SEPA
System Software
1 207 (14.32%) Docker
2 39 (2.70%) Active Directory
3 16 (1.11%) Firmware
4 15 (1.04%) VMware Infrastructure
5 13 (0.90%) Embedded Firmware
6 10 (0.69%) Hyper-V
7 9 (0.62%) KVM
8 6 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.21%) vSphere
10 2 (0.14%) Terminal Server
11 1 (0.069%) Xen
Systems Management
1 252 (17.43%) Terraform
2 251 (17.36%) Kubernetes
3 110 (7.61%) Grafana
4 63 (4.36%) Ansible
5 43 (2.97%) Single Sign-On
6 39 (2.70%) Prometheus
7 28 (1.94%) HP ALM
8 8 (0.55%) Argo
9 6 (0.41%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.35%) logstash
11 3 (0.21%) HP Fortify
11 3 (0.21%) Progress Chef
11 3 (0.21%) Rancher
11 3 (0.21%) SCCM
11 3 (0.21%) SCOM
12 2 (0.14%) Control-M
12 2 (0.14%) Kibana
12 2 (0.14%) Nessus
12 2 (0.14%) Puppet
13 1 (0.069%) CA Service Virtualization
Vendors
1 111 (7.68%) Microsoft
2 91 (6.29%) Oracle
3 58 (4.01%) Salesforce
4 49 (3.39%) SAP
5 40 (2.77%) VMware
6 34 (2.35%) Databricks
6 34 (2.35%) Google
7 29 (2.01%) HP
8 19 (1.31%) OpenAI
9 18 (1.24%) Black Duck
9 18 (1.24%) Commvault
9 18 (1.24%) Coverity
9 18 (1.24%) Okta
9 18 (1.24%) Splunk
10 17 (1.18%) ServiceNow
11 15 (1.04%) UiPath
12 14 (0.97%) Ab Initio
12 14 (0.97%) Palantir
13 13 (0.90%) Foundry
14 12 (0.83%) Guidewire