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

6 months to
3 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 88 101
Rank change year-on-year +3 +13 -45
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 2,132 1,689 2,055
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.06% 3.40% 2.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.79% 3.79% 3.05%
Number of salaries quoted 1,210 831 1,262
10th Percentile £42,497 £37,500 £37,550
25th Percentile £49,531 £47,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £62,500 £59,425
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +5.17% -8.58%
75th Percentile £81,250 £82,500 £71,991
90th Percentile £96,375 £97,528 £87,399
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £57,000 £53,750
% change year-on-year +5.26% +6.05% -6.52%

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 76,352 44,509 67,465
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.64% 89.49% 81.05%
Number of salaries quoted 52,648 25,381 44,449
10th Percentile £30,580 £28,500 £31,210
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,500 £41,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £78,750 £76,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +10.00% - -9.09%

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 August 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 August 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 -3 1,764 £65,000 +3.17% 1,017
UK excluding London -3 1,320 £60,000 +5.26% 660
Work from Home +17 891 £67,500 +12.50% 467
London +1 651 £80,000 +3.23% 490
North of England +12 356 £57,500 -4.01% 160
South East -18 244 £62,250 +13.18% 174
South West -12 217 £60,000 +9.09% 103
Midlands -8 191 £62,500 +4.17% 80
North West +2 185 £63,750 -1.92% 86
Northern Ireland +2 134 £80,000 +45.45% 57
West Midlands -22 97 £62,500 -1.96% 56
North East +8 95 £53,750 +34.38% 22
East Midlands -9 93 £60,000 +26.32% 24
Wales -1 78 £55,000 - 9
Yorkshire -18 76 £69,310 +41.45% 53
East of England -44 61 £55,000 -3.51% 58
Scotland -38 52 £62,500 +2.04% 35

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 47 (2.20%) Confluence
2 29 (1.36%) Apache Airflow
2 29 (1.36%) Apache Spark
3 25 (1.17%) Apache
4 23 (1.08%) SharePoint
5 16 (0.75%) Jupyter
6 13 (0.61%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 13 (0.61%) Anypoint
6 13 (0.61%) Mule
7 11 (0.52%) CMS
8 5 (0.23%) Cloud Foundry
8 5 (0.23%) IIS
8 5 (0.23%) Umbraco
9 4 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
9 4 (0.19%) nginx
9 4 (0.19%) WordPress
10 3 (0.14%) Camunda
10 3 (0.14%) JBoss
10 3 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
10 3 (0.14%) SAS
Applications
1 29 (1.36%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.56%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (0.56%) Simulink
3 7 (0.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.28%) PlantUML
5 5 (0.23%) Lightworks
6 3 (0.14%) CANalyzer
6 3 (0.14%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.14%) Moqups
6 3 (0.14%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.047%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.047%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 38 (1.78%) Dynamics CRM
2 27 (1.27%) Dynamics GP
3 5 (0.23%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.23%) Visualfiles
4 4 (0.19%) Dynamics AX
5 3 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.094%) FLEXCUBE
6 2 (0.094%) Oracle Applications
6 2 (0.094%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.094%) Towers Watson Igloo
6 2 (0.094%) Workday HCM
7 1 (0.047%) Endur
7 1 (0.047%) Findur
7 1 (0.047%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.047%) Misys Midas
7 1 (0.047%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.047%) Oracle Assets
7 1 (0.047%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.047%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.047%) Oracle SCM
Cloud Services
1 782 (36.68%) AWS
2 665 (31.19%) Azure
3 252 (11.82%) SaaS
4 249 (11.68%) Azure DevOps
5 241 (11.30%) GCP
6 183 (8.58%) Serverless
7 180 (8.44%) GitHub
8 92 (4.32%) GitHub Actions
9 90 (4.22%) AWS CloudFormation
10 78 (3.66%) AWS Lambda
11 73 (3.42%) Amazon EKS
11 73 (3.42%) Amazon S3
12 58 (2.72%) Power Platform
13 52 (2.44%) Azure Service Bus
14 49 (2.30%) PaaS
15 45 (2.11%) Azure Logic Apps
15 45 (2.11%) dbt
16 44 (2.06%) Azure Monitor
17 42 (1.97%) Amazon EC2
18 35 (1.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 71 (3.33%) Broadband
2 25 (1.17%) Firewall
3 15 (0.70%) Wireless
4 14 (0.66%) DNS
4 14 (0.66%) SSL
5 13 (0.61%) DMARC
6 12 (0.56%) MQTT
6 12 (0.56%) TCP/IP
7 11 (0.52%) Wi-Fi
8 10 (0.47%) LTE
9 9 (0.42%) 3GPP
10 8 (0.38%) HTTP
10 8 (0.38%) WAN
11 7 (0.33%) DHCP
11 7 (0.33%) GSM
11 7 (0.33%) Radio Access Network
11 7 (0.33%) RANAP
11 7 (0.33%) UMTS
11 7 (0.33%) Wireshark
11 7 (0.33%) ZigBee
Database & Business Intelligence
1 133 (6.24%) PostgreSQL
2 131 (6.14%) NoSQL
3 103 (4.83%) MongoDB
4 71 (3.33%) SQL Server
5 49 (2.30%) Relational Database
6 47 (2.20%) DynamoDB
7 41 (1.92%) MySQL
8 31 (1.45%) Data Warehouse
9 30 (1.41%) Redis
10 28 (1.31%) Power BI
11 26 (1.22%) BigQuery
12 18 (0.84%) Amazon RDS
12 18 (0.84%) Spark SQL
13 17 (0.80%) Data Lake
14 16 (0.75%) Metadata
14 16 (0.75%) Semantic Layer
15 15 (0.70%) Amazon Athena
16 13 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
16 13 (0.61%) Oracle Database
17 9 (0.42%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 282 (13.23%) Git
2 194 (9.10%) GitLab
3 192 (9.01%) Jenkins
4 163 (7.65%) Selenium
5 137 (6.43%) JIRA
6 96 (4.50%) Cypress.io
7 95 (4.46%) Cucumber
8 87 (4.08%) Postman
9 58 (2.72%) TeamCity
10 51 (2.39%) JMeter
11 45 (2.11%) JUnit
12 40 (1.88%) REST Assured
13 33 (1.55%) Zephyr
14 27 (1.27%) Gatling
15 26 (1.22%) SpecFlow
15 26 (1.22%) TestRail
16 22 (1.03%) SonarQube
17 21 (0.98%) Bitbucket
17 21 (0.98%) fastlane
18 20 (0.94%) Crashlytics
General
1 570 (26.74%) Social Skills
2 484 (22.70%) Finance
3 242 (11.35%) Analytical Skills
4 223 (10.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 214 (10.04%) Public Sector
6 190 (8.91%) Law
7 189 (8.86%) Banking
8 116 (5.44%) Legal
9 96 (4.50%) Retail
10 77 (3.61%) Manufacturing
11 73 (3.42%) Marketing
12 65 (3.05%) Financial Institution
13 61 (2.86%) Electronics
14 53 (2.49%) Games
15 51 (2.39%) Back Office
16 30 (1.41%) Telecoms
17 28 (1.31%) Front Office
18 25 (1.17%) Aerospace
18 25 (1.17%) Documentation Skills
19 20 (0.94%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 603 (28.28%) Senior
2 338 (15.85%) Lead
3 330 (15.48%) Software Engineer
4 300 (14.07%) Developer
5 226 (10.60%) Test Engineer
6 121 (5.68%) Senior Developer
7 117 (5.49%) Java Engineer
8 100 (4.69%) Senior Software Engineer
9 87 (4.08%) Full-Stack Engineer
10 86 (4.03%) QA Engineer
10 86 (4.03%) Test Automation Engineer
11 81 (3.80%) DevOps Engineer
12 70 (3.28%) Architect
13 69 (3.24%) Test Leader
14 65 (3.05%) Data Engineer
14 65 (3.05%) Tester
15 63 (2.95%) Lead Software Engineer
16 62 (2.91%) Senior Manager
17 58 (2.72%) Analyst
18 57 (2.67%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 221 (10.37%) React
2 209 (9.80%) .NET
3 190 (8.91%) Playwright
3 190 (8.91%) REST
4 184 (8.63%) Spring
5 182 (8.54%) RESTful
6 181 (8.49%) Node.js
7 135 (6.33%) Spring Boot
8 121 (5.68%) Kafka
9 111 (5.21%) AngularJS
10 89 (4.17%) CSS
11 85 (3.99%) HTML
12 66 (3.10%) OAuth
13 65 (3.05%) Middleware
14 60 (2.81%) OAuth2
15 53 (2.49%) JSON
16 47 (2.20%) Vue
17 45 (2.11%) RabbitMQ
18 43 (2.02%) Next.js
19 41 (1.92%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 382 (17.92%) Cloud Native
2 242 (11.35%) Product Ownership
3 178 (8.35%) Distributed Systems
4 109 (5.11%) Mobile App
5 84 (3.94%) Enterprise Software
6 73 (3.42%) Virtual Team
7 72 (3.38%) Legacy Systems
8 69 (3.24%) Public Cloud
9 60 (2.81%) Cyber Threat
10 59 (2.77%) Algorithms
11 51 (2.39%) Blog
12 50 (2.35%) Low-Code
13 48 (2.25%) Management Information System
13 48 (2.25%) Onboarding
14 44 (2.06%) Data Structures
15 40 (1.88%) Greenfield Project
15 40 (1.88%) Self-Motivation
16 35 (1.64%) Embedded Systems
17 34 (1.59%) Marketing Technology
17 34 (1.59%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 187 (8.77%) Linux
2 96 (4.50%) Windows
3 64 (3.00%) Apple iOS
4 55 (2.58%) Android
5 53 (2.49%) Unix
6 11 (0.52%) Windows Server
7 7 (0.33%) CentOS
7 7 (0.33%) Embedded Linux
8 6 (0.28%) FreeRTOS
9 4 (0.19%) Debian
9 4 (0.19%) Kali Linux
10 3 (0.14%) AIX
11 2 (0.094%) VMS
11 2 (0.094%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.047%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 1 (0.047%) ThreadX
12 1 (0.047%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.047%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.047%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,221 (57.27%) CI/CD
2 951 (44.61%) Agile
3 818 (38.37%) DevOps
4 696 (32.65%) Software Engineering
5 620 (29.08%) Continuous Improvement
6 597 (28.00%) Mentoring
7 435 (20.40%) Problem-Solving
8 430 (20.17%) AI
9 408 (19.14%) Microservices
10 375 (17.59%) Infrastructure as Code
11 362 (16.98%) Software Testing
12 303 (14.21%) Test Strategy
13 275 (12.90%) Observability
14 274 (12.85%) Full-Stack Development
15 273 (12.80%) Coaching
16 271 (12.71%) Containerisation
17 251 (11.77%) Code Quality
18 239 (11.21%) Validation
19 220 (10.32%) Scrum
20 216 (10.13%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 670 (31.43%) Python
2 572 (26.83%) Java
3 386 (18.11%) JavaScript
4 341 (15.99%) SQL
5 320 (15.01%) TypeScript
6 311 (14.59%) C#
7 125 (5.86%) C++
8 105 (4.92%) PowerShell
9 88 (4.13%) Go
10 77 (3.61%) C
11 74 (3.47%) Bash
12 42 (1.97%) Kotlin
13 36 (1.69%) Rust
14 32 (1.50%) Swift
15 30 (1.41%) PHP
16 25 (1.17%) Ruby
17 22 (1.03%) Bicep
18 21 (0.98%) MATLAB
19 19 (0.89%) Groovy
20 16 (0.75%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 278 (13.04%) Security Cleared
2 244 (11.44%) Degree
3 172 (8.07%) SC Cleared
4 108 (5.07%) Computer Science Degree
5 80 (3.75%) ISTQB
6 62 (2.91%) CISSP
7 60 (2.81%) ITIL Certification
8 56 (2.63%) CISM
9 53 (2.49%) DV Cleared
10 42 (1.97%) AWS Certification
11 36 (1.69%) Master's Degree
12 29 (1.36%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 20 (0.94%) BPSS Clearance
14 17 (0.80%) DBS Check
14 17 (0.80%) HNC
14 17 (0.80%) ISEB
15 14 (0.66%) HND
16 13 (0.61%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 12 (0.56%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
18 8 (0.38%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 501 (23.50%) QA
2 196 (9.19%) Accessibility
3 73 (3.42%) Data Quality
4 63 (2.95%) NIST
5 58 (2.72%) WCAG
6 52 (2.44%) ISO 22301
7 47 (2.20%) GDPR
8 14 (0.66%) SLA
9 13 (0.61%) Software Quality Assurance
10 12 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 11 (0.52%) GRC
12 9 (0.42%) SOC 2
13 8 (0.38%) COBIT
13 8 (0.38%) MISRA
14 7 (0.33%) JTAG
15 6 (0.28%) PMO
16 5 (0.23%) NCSC
17 4 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
17 4 (0.19%) ISO 9001
17 4 (0.19%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 295 (13.84%) Docker
2 31 (1.45%) Firmware
3 22 (1.03%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
5 14 (0.66%) Active Directory
6 13 (0.61%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.52%) KVM
8 10 (0.47%) Embedded Firmware
9 2 (0.094%) vSphere
10 1 (0.047%) IAG
10 1 (0.047%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.047%) ProxySG
10 1 (0.047%) Terminal Server
10 1 (0.047%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.047%) Xen
Systems Management
1 321 (15.06%) Terraform
2 319 (14.96%) Kubernetes
3 136 (6.38%) Grafana
4 81 (3.80%) Ansible
5 62 (2.91%) Prometheus
6 26 (1.22%) Argo
7 16 (0.75%) Kibana
8 13 (0.61%) CloudHub
9 10 (0.47%) Puppet
10 9 (0.42%) logstash
11 8 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
12 7 (0.33%) HP Fortify
12 7 (0.33%) Microsoft Intune
13 6 (0.28%) Functional Safety
13 6 (0.28%) vCenter Server
14 5 (0.23%) Packer
15 4 (0.19%) SCCM
15 4 (0.19%) SCOM
16 3 (0.14%) Progress Chef
16 3 (0.14%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 177 (8.30%) Microsoft
2 64 (3.00%) Google
3 59 (2.77%) Databricks
4 56 (2.63%) Oracle
5 50 (2.35%) Salesforce
6 41 (1.92%) ServiceNow
7 35 (1.64%) VMware
8 32 (1.50%) Splunk
9 29 (1.36%) SAP
10 26 (1.22%) Dynatrace
11 21 (0.98%) Pega
12 19 (0.89%) AppDynamics
13 16 (0.75%) Braze
13 16 (0.75%) MuleSoft
14 15 (0.70%) Atlassian
15 14 (0.66%) Adobe
15 14 (0.66%) Amplitude
15 14 (0.66%) IBM
15 14 (0.66%) OpenAI
16 13 (0.61%) SendGrid