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

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 78 93 85
Rank change year-on-year +15 -8 -15
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 2,474 1,586 2,131
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.09% 3.20% 2.86%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.86% 3.59% 3.49%
Number of salaries quoted 1,341 731 950
10th Percentile £40,750 £39,750 £40,000
25th Percentile £47,000 £51,250 £46,479
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £65,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +8.33% -4.00%
75th Percentile £78,750 £85,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £93,750 £105,000 £100,250
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 86,399 44,171 61,013
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.12% 89.11% 81.89%
Number of salaries quoted 59,417 24,443 33,150
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £58,700
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -6.30% -2.17%
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £96,250
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 3 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 3 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 +9 2,027 £62,500 -3.85% 3,710
UK excluding London +18 1,571 £57,500 - 2,827
Work from Home +18 882 £67,500 +8.00% 2,165
London +1 731 £79,000 -1.25% 1,654
North of England +33 413 £57,500 -4.17% 587
South East -17 273 £60,000 +4.35% 526
South West +17 257 £60,000 +14.29% 343
Midlands -11 205 £52,500 -8.70% 308
North West -13 187 £60,000 -1.23% 303
Northern Ireland +4 163 £80,000 +45.45% 134
North East +27 131 £55,000 +78.86% 102
Wales +4 130 £53,171 -3.33% 157
West Midlands -22 111 £50,000 -9.09% 194
Yorkshire +22 104 £69,306 +26.01% 185
East of England -21 97 £46,000 -23.33% 259
East Midlands -28 94 £54,000 -13.60% 114
Scotland -52 44 £62,500 -5.66% 535

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 60 (2.43%) Confluence
2 41 (1.66%) Apache Spark
3 33 (1.33%) Apache
4 24 (0.97%) SharePoint
5 23 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (0.81%) Jupyter
7 16 (0.65%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 15 (0.61%) CMS
9 14 (0.57%) Anypoint
9 14 (0.57%) Mule
10 8 (0.32%) Microsoft Exchange
10 8 (0.32%) nginx
10 8 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
11 6 (0.24%) Headless CMS
11 6 (0.24%) Umbraco
12 5 (0.20%) Camunda
12 5 (0.20%) Cloud Foundry
12 5 (0.20%) SAS
12 5 (0.20%) WebLogic
12 5 (0.20%) WinCC
Applications
1 83 (3.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (0.73%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (0.57%) Simulink
4 9 (0.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.28%) Moqups
6 6 (0.24%) Chatbot
6 6 (0.24%) Lightworks
7 4 (0.16%) MS Visio
8 3 (0.12%) EPLAN
8 3 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
9 2 (0.081%) PlantUML
10 1 (0.040%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.040%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 68 (2.75%) Dynamics CRM
2 27 (1.09%) Dynamics GP
3 11 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.16%) Visualfiles
5 3 (0.12%) Magento
5 3 (0.12%) Payment Gateway
5 3 (0.12%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.081%) FLEXCUBE
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle Applications
6 2 (0.081%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.081%) Towers Watson Igloo
6 2 (0.081%) Workday HCM
7 1 (0.040%) Adobe Campaign
7 1 (0.040%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.040%) Endur
7 1 (0.040%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.040%) Misys Midas
7 1 (0.040%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.040%) Oracle Assets
7 1 (0.040%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 815 (32.94%) AWS
2 674 (27.24%) Azure
3 320 (12.93%) SaaS
4 259 (10.47%) GCP
5 229 (9.26%) Azure DevOps
6 223 (9.01%) GitHub
7 189 (7.64%) Serverless
8 120 (4.85%) GitHub Actions
9 107 (4.32%) AWS CloudFormation
10 97 (3.92%) Amazon EKS
11 90 (3.64%) Amazon S3
12 88 (3.56%) AWS Lambda
13 69 (2.79%) Power Platform
14 59 (2.38%) Google Ads
14 59 (2.38%) Meta Ads
15 58 (2.34%) Azure Service Bus
16 52 (2.10%) Azure Logic Apps
17 49 (1.98%) Azure Monitor
18 46 (1.86%) GitHub Copilot
19 45 (1.82%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 56 (2.26%) Broadband
2 30 (1.21%) TCP/IP
3 25 (1.01%) DNS
3 25 (1.01%) Firewall
4 17 (0.69%) SSL
5 16 (0.65%) Wireless
6 15 (0.61%) DMARC
6 15 (0.61%) Modbus
7 14 (0.57%) MQTT
8 13 (0.53%) Ethernet
8 13 (0.53%) HTTP
8 13 (0.53%) Wi-Fi
9 12 (0.49%) DHCP
10 11 (0.44%) 5G
10 11 (0.44%) WAN
11 10 (0.40%) LTE
11 10 (0.40%) Network Security
12 9 (0.36%) 3GPP
13 8 (0.32%) Internet
14 7 (0.28%) UMTS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 153 (6.18%) PostgreSQL
2 124 (5.01%) NoSQL
3 93 (3.76%) MongoDB
4 83 (3.35%) SQL Server
5 73 (2.95%) Relational Database
6 48 (1.94%) Redis
7 44 (1.78%) DynamoDB
7 44 (1.78%) MySQL
8 42 (1.70%) Power BI
9 37 (1.50%) Data Warehouse
10 36 (1.46%) Data Lake
11 31 (1.25%) BigQuery
12 29 (1.17%) Metadata
13 28 (1.13%) Amazon Athena
14 27 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
15 24 (0.97%) Semantic Layer
16 16 (0.65%) Amazon Aurora
17 15 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
17 15 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
18 13 (0.53%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 366 (14.79%) Git
2 256 (10.35%) GitLab
3 210 (8.49%) Jenkins
4 160 (6.47%) Selenium
5 148 (5.98%) JIRA
6 108 (4.37%) Cypress.io
7 103 (4.16%) Cucumber
8 87 (3.52%) Postman
9 71 (2.87%) TeamCity
10 50 (2.02%) JUnit
11 48 (1.94%) JMeter
12 41 (1.66%) REST Assured
13 36 (1.46%) LabVIEW
14 28 (1.13%) Gatling
15 27 (1.09%) Zephyr
16 24 (0.97%) Bitbucket
16 24 (0.97%) Maven
17 23 (0.93%) Robot Framework
17 23 (0.93%) SonarQube
18 22 (0.89%) Claude Code
General
1 686 (27.73%) Social Skills
2 587 (23.73%) Finance
3 403 (16.29%) Analytical Skills
4 274 (11.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 264 (10.67%) Public Sector
6 199 (8.04%) Banking
6 199 (8.04%) Law
7 175 (7.07%) Marketing
8 136 (5.50%) Legal
9 131 (5.30%) Retail
10 126 (5.09%) Manufacturing
11 100 (4.04%) Electronics
12 83 (3.35%) Financial Institution
13 61 (2.47%) Back Office
14 57 (2.30%) Aerospace
15 45 (1.82%) Telecoms
16 37 (1.50%) Games
17 35 (1.41%) Automotive
18 34 (1.37%) Documentation Skills
19 25 (1.01%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 690 (27.89%) Senior
2 370 (14.96%) Software Engineer
3 331 (13.38%) Developer
4 314 (12.69%) Lead
5 258 (10.43%) Test Engineer
6 121 (4.89%) Senior Developer
7 114 (4.61%) DevOps Engineer
7 114 (4.61%) Java Engineer
8 107 (4.32%) QA Engineer
9 106 (4.28%) Senior Software Engineer
10 87 (3.52%) Analyst
11 84 (3.40%) Test Automation Engineer
12 78 (3.15%) Tester
13 76 (3.07%) Data Engineer
14 75 (3.03%) Full-Stack Engineer
15 72 (2.91%) Principal Engineer
16 71 (2.87%) Lead Software Engineer
17 69 (2.79%) Architect
18 63 (2.55%) Software Developer
19 61 (2.47%) Marketing Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 341 (13.78%) Terraform
2 254 (10.27%) REST
3 233 (9.42%) .NET
4 221 (8.93%) React
5 211 (8.53%) Node.js
6 202 (8.16%) RESTful
6 202 (8.16%) Spring
7 200 (8.08%) Playwright
8 156 (6.31%) Spring Boot
9 146 (5.90%) Kafka
10 125 (5.05%) CSS
11 117 (4.73%) HTML
12 111 (4.49%) AngularJS
13 74 (2.99%) OAuth
14 71 (2.87%) Middleware
15 66 (2.67%) OAuth2
16 58 (2.34%) JSON
17 55 (2.22%) Next.js
18 51 (2.06%) PySpark
19 47 (1.90%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 423 (17.10%) Cloud Native
2 284 (11.48%) Product Ownership
3 210 (8.49%) Distributed Systems
4 108 (4.37%) Onboarding
5 104 (4.20%) Enterprise Software
6 96 (3.88%) Mobile App
7 90 (3.64%) Public Cloud
8 85 (3.44%) Blog
9 75 (3.03%) Virtual Team
10 69 (2.79%) Legacy Systems
11 64 (2.59%) Marketing Technology
12 55 (2.22%) Self-Motivation
13 53 (2.14%) Cyber Threat
14 52 (2.10%) Algorithms
15 51 (2.06%) Low-Code
16 46 (1.86%) Embedded Systems
17 45 (1.82%) e-Learning
18 42 (1.70%) Data Structures
19 41 (1.66%) AI Agents
20 39 (1.58%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 180 (7.28%) Linux
2 102 (4.12%) Windows
3 64 (2.59%) Android
4 61 (2.47%) Unix
5 56 (2.26%) Apple iOS
6 9 (0.36%) Embedded Linux
6 9 (0.36%) Windows Server
7 7 (0.28%) CentOS
8 6 (0.24%) FreeRTOS
9 5 (0.20%) AIX
10 4 (0.16%) Debian
10 4 (0.16%) VMS
11 3 (0.12%) Kali Linux
11 3 (0.12%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.081%) OpenWrt
13 1 (0.040%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.040%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 1 (0.040%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,376 (55.62%) CI/CD
2 1,016 (41.07%) Agile
3 862 (34.84%) DevOps
4 792 (32.01%) Software Engineering
5 725 (29.30%) Continuous Improvement
6 642 (25.95%) Mentoring
7 608 (24.58%) AI
8 578 (23.36%) Problem-Solving
9 454 (18.35%) Microservices
10 427 (17.26%) Software Testing
11 395 (15.97%) Infrastructure as Code
12 330 (13.34%) Validation
13 321 (12.97%) Test Strategy
14 306 (12.37%) Coaching
15 304 (12.29%) Observability
16 296 (11.96%) Code Quality
17 275 (11.12%) Technical Leadership
18 266 (10.75%) Containerisation
19 263 (10.63%) Event-Driven
20 255 (10.31%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 693 (28.01%) Python
2 585 (23.65%) Java
3 476 (19.24%) SQL
4 425 (17.18%) JavaScript
5 349 (14.11%) TypeScript
6 331 (13.38%) C#
7 124 (5.01%) C++
8 103 (4.16%) Go
9 101 (4.08%) PowerShell
10 95 (3.84%) Bash
11 79 (3.19%) C
12 40 (1.62%) Kotlin
13 37 (1.50%) Rust
14 32 (1.29%) PHP
14 32 (1.29%) Ruby
15 25 (1.01%) MATLAB
16 24 (0.97%) Groovy
17 23 (0.93%) Bicep
18 21 (0.85%) Swift
19 17 (0.69%) Scala
Qualifications
1 389 (15.72%) Security Cleared
2 259 (10.47%) Degree
3 244 (9.86%) SC Cleared
4 98 (3.96%) Computer Science Degree
5 77 (3.11%) ISTQB
6 71 (2.87%) DV Cleared
7 68 (2.75%) AWS Certification
8 56 (2.26%) CISSP
9 54 (2.18%) ITIL Certification
10 53 (2.14%) CISM
11 49 (1.98%) Master's Degree
12 45 (1.82%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 43 (1.74%) HNC
14 37 (1.50%) BPSS Clearance
15 36 (1.46%) HND
16 19 (0.77%) Azure Certification
17 17 (0.69%) DBS Check
18 15 (0.61%) ISEB
19 12 (0.49%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
20 11 (0.44%) NVQ Level 4
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 563 (22.76%) QA
2 202 (8.16%) Accessibility
3 94 (3.80%) Data Quality
4 67 (2.71%) WCAG
5 55 (2.22%) NIST
6 48 (1.94%) ISO 22301
7 34 (1.37%) GDPR
8 11 (0.44%) SLA
9 9 (0.36%) GRC
9 9 (0.36%) MISRA
9 9 (0.36%) Software Quality Assurance
10 7 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 6 (0.24%) JTAG
11 6 (0.24%) SOC 2
12 5 (0.20%) COBIT
12 5 (0.20%) NCSC
13 4 (0.16%) ISO 20022
13 4 (0.16%) ISO 9001
13 4 (0.16%) PCI DSS
13 4 (0.16%) PMO
System Software
1 352 (14.23%) Docker
2 51 (2.06%) Firmware
3 15 (0.61%) Active Directory
4 11 (0.44%) Embedded Firmware
5 9 (0.36%) VMware Infrastructure
6 7 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.12%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.081%) KVM
8 2 (0.081%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.040%) IAG
9 1 (0.040%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.040%) QEMU
9 1 (0.040%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 356 (14.39%) Kubernetes
2 162 (6.55%) Grafana
3 72 (2.91%) Ansible
4 68 (2.75%) Prometheus
5 30 (1.21%) Argo
6 16 (0.65%) Kibana
6 16 (0.65%) Puppet
7 14 (0.57%) CloudHub
8 12 (0.49%) Rancher
9 11 (0.44%) Microsoft Intune
10 8 (0.32%) logstash
10 8 (0.32%) Single Sign-On
11 7 (0.28%) Functional Safety
11 7 (0.28%) HP Fortify
12 6 (0.24%) Progress Chef
13 5 (0.20%) vCenter Server
14 3 (0.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 3 (0.12%) SCCM
14 3 (0.12%) SCOM
14 3 (0.12%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 263 (10.63%) Microsoft
2 132 (5.34%) Google
3 66 (2.67%) Databricks
4 61 (2.47%) Salesforce
5 58 (2.34%) Oracle
6 50 (2.02%) SAP
7 48 (1.94%) ServiceNow
8 36 (1.46%) Dynatrace
9 35 (1.41%) Splunk
10 22 (0.89%) Pega
11 19 (0.77%) MuleSoft
12 18 (0.73%) Adobe
13 16 (0.65%) OpenAI
13 16 (0.65%) VMware
14 15 (0.61%) Allen-Bradley
14 15 (0.61%) SendGrid
15 14 (0.57%) AppDynamics
15 14 (0.57%) Red Hat
16 12 (0.49%) Foundry
16 12 (0.49%) IBM