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 3 months leading up to 13 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

3 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 96 108
Rank change year-on-year +15 +12 -35
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 1,212 691 766
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.18% 2.69% 2.06%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.95% 3.10% 2.68%
Number of salaries quoted 621 379 460
10th Percentile £41,250 £37,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £48,000 £49,375 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £65,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year - +8.33% -4.00%
75th Percentile £78,750 £85,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £94,000 £102,500 £95,500
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 41,027 22,280 28,597
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.96% 86.79% 76.86%
Number of salaries quoted 28,806 13,501 17,442
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,750 £33,000
25th Percentile £41,647 £36,250 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,375 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.95% -8.33% -
75th Percentile £77,500 £75,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £54,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -12.04% -

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 3 months to 13 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 3 months to 13 August 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 3 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 3 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +5 950 £65,000 - 1,373
UK excluding London +40 788 £57,500 - 775
Work from Home +33 498 £67,500 +3.85% 539
London -17 351 £80,000 -5.88% 703
North of England +20 183 £55,000 -8.33% 169
South West +14 138 £60,000 +14.29% 127
Northern Ireland +6 133 - - 19
South East -22 131 £62,500 +13.64% 209
North West -12 94 £60,000 - 89
Midlands -8 86 £54,000 -15.29% 107
North East +5 57 £55,000 +87.23% 36
Wales 0 56 £53,171 +6.34% 20
West Midlands -7 43 £53,000 -15.20% 68
East Midlands -9 43 £54,000 -16.92% 39
East of England -14 40 £51,250 -18.00% 76
Yorkshire +12 32 £55,000 +5.26% 44
Scotland -13 22 £65,000 -7.14% 63

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 49 (2.24%) Confluence
2 28 (1.28%) Apache Spark
3 26 (1.19%) SharePoint
4 24 (1.10%) Apache
4 24 (1.10%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (0.73%) Jupyter
6 14 (0.64%) Anypoint
6 14 (0.64%) Mule
7 13 (0.59%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 11 (0.50%) CMS
9 5 (0.23%) Cloud Foundry
9 5 (0.23%) IIS
9 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Exchange
9 5 (0.23%) nginx
9 5 (0.23%) Umbraco
10 4 (0.18%) Camunda
10 4 (0.18%) SAS
11 3 (0.14%) WordPress
12 2 (0.091%) NServiceBus
12 2 (0.091%) WebLogic
Applications
1 42 (1.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.64%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (0.55%) Simulink
4 7 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.23%) Lightworks
5 5 (0.23%) PlantUML
6 4 (0.18%) Moqups
7 3 (0.14%) CANalyzer
7 3 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.14%) MS Visio
8 1 (0.046%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.046%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.046%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 43 (1.97%) Dynamics CRM
2 27 (1.23%) Dynamics GP
3 9 (0.41%) SAP S/4HANA
4 5 (0.23%) Visualfiles
5 4 (0.18%) Dynamics AX
6 3 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
6 3 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
7 2 (0.091%) FLEXCUBE
7 2 (0.091%) Magento
7 2 (0.091%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.091%) SAP ERP
7 2 (0.091%) Towers Watson Igloo
7 2 (0.091%) Workday HCM
8 1 (0.046%) Endur
8 1 (0.046%) Findur
8 1 (0.046%) Misys Equation
8 1 (0.046%) Misys Midas
8 1 (0.046%) NetSuite
8 1 (0.046%) Oracle Assets
8 1 (0.046%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 780 (35.65%) AWS
2 669 (30.58%) Azure
3 263 (12.02%) SaaS
4 250 (11.43%) Azure DevOps
5 234 (10.69%) GCP
6 183 (8.36%) Serverless
7 180 (8.23%) GitHub
8 94 (4.30%) AWS CloudFormation
9 91 (4.16%) GitHub Actions
10 77 (3.52%) AWS Lambda
11 72 (3.29%) Amazon S3
12 66 (3.02%) Amazon EKS
13 62 (2.83%) Power Platform
14 53 (2.42%) Azure Service Bus
15 48 (2.19%) PaaS
16 47 (2.15%) Azure Logic Apps
17 44 (2.01%) Azure Monitor
18 41 (1.87%) Amazon EC2
18 41 (1.87%) dbt
19 35 (1.60%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 73 (3.34%) Broadband
2 25 (1.14%) Firewall
3 15 (0.69%) DNS
3 15 (0.69%) SSL
3 15 (0.69%) TCP/IP
3 15 (0.69%) Wireless
4 13 (0.59%) DMARC
4 13 (0.59%) Wi-Fi
5 12 (0.55%) MQTT
6 9 (0.41%) 3GPP
6 9 (0.41%) HTTP
6 9 (0.41%) LTE
6 9 (0.41%) WAN
7 8 (0.37%) DHCP
7 8 (0.37%) Network Security
8 7 (0.32%) CHAP
8 7 (0.32%) GSM
8 7 (0.32%) RANAP
8 7 (0.32%) SS7
8 7 (0.32%) UMTS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 127 (5.80%) PostgreSQL
2 126 (5.76%) NoSQL
3 96 (4.39%) MongoDB
4 74 (3.38%) SQL Server
5 53 (2.42%) Relational Database
6 47 (2.15%) DynamoDB
7 38 (1.74%) MySQL
8 33 (1.51%) Data Warehouse
9 32 (1.46%) Power BI
10 28 (1.28%) Redis
11 26 (1.19%) BigQuery
12 21 (0.96%) Data Lake
13 19 (0.87%) Amazon RDS
14 18 (0.82%) Spark SQL
15 17 (0.78%) Metadata
15 17 (0.78%) Semantic Layer
16 15 (0.69%) Amazon Athena
17 12 (0.55%) Elasticsearch
17 12 (0.55%) Oracle Database
18 11 (0.50%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 297 (13.57%) Git
2 198 (9.05%) GitLab
3 196 (8.96%) Jenkins
4 161 (7.36%) Selenium
5 141 (6.44%) JIRA
6 99 (4.52%) Cucumber
7 93 (4.25%) Cypress.io
8 89 (4.07%) Postman
9 53 (2.42%) JMeter
9 53 (2.42%) TeamCity
10 45 (2.06%) JUnit
11 39 (1.78%) REST Assured
12 34 (1.55%) Zephyr
13 27 (1.23%) Gatling
14 26 (1.19%) SonarQube
14 26 (1.19%) TestRail
15 25 (1.14%) SpecFlow
16 24 (1.10%) Bitbucket
17 21 (0.96%) fastlane
18 19 (0.87%) Crashlytics
General
1 591 (27.01%) Social Skills
2 514 (23.49%) Finance
3 268 (12.25%) Analytical Skills
4 230 (10.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 216 (9.87%) Public Sector
6 196 (8.96%) Law
7 181 (8.27%) Banking
8 122 (5.58%) Legal
9 100 (4.57%) Marketing
10 92 (4.20%) Retail
11 85 (3.88%) Manufacturing
12 69 (3.15%) Electronics
13 63 (2.88%) Financial Institution
14 52 (2.38%) Games
15 47 (2.15%) Back Office
16 36 (1.65%) Aerospace
17 34 (1.55%) Telecoms
18 27 (1.23%) Front Office
19 26 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
20 20 (0.91%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 621 (28.38%) Senior
2 351 (16.04%) Lead
3 330 (15.08%) Software Engineer
4 307 (14.03%) Developer
5 234 (10.69%) Test Engineer
6 120 (5.48%) Senior Developer
7 110 (5.03%) Java Engineer
8 99 (4.52%) Senior Software Engineer
9 89 (4.07%) QA Engineer
10 87 (3.98%) DevOps Engineer
11 84 (3.84%) Full-Stack Engineer
12 83 (3.79%) Test Automation Engineer
13 70 (3.20%) Architect
14 68 (3.11%) Lead Software Engineer
15 67 (3.06%) Test Leader
16 64 (2.93%) Data Engineer
16 64 (2.93%) Tester
17 62 (2.83%) Senior Manager
18 61 (2.79%) Software Developer
19 59 (2.70%) Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 226 (10.33%) React
2 214 (9.78%) .NET
3 197 (9.00%) REST
4 187 (8.55%) Playwright
5 184 (8.41%) Node.js
6 182 (8.32%) Spring
7 178 (8.14%) RESTful
8 134 (6.12%) Spring Boot
9 120 (5.48%) Kafka
10 108 (4.94%) AngularJS
11 88 (4.02%) CSS
12 85 (3.88%) HTML
13 67 (3.06%) OAuth
14 63 (2.88%) Middleware
15 61 (2.79%) OAuth2
16 53 (2.42%) JSON
17 47 (2.15%) Vue
18 46 (2.10%) RabbitMQ
19 44 (2.01%) Next.js
20 43 (1.97%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 377 (17.23%) Cloud Native
2 249 (11.38%) Product Ownership
3 186 (8.50%) Distributed Systems
4 111 (5.07%) Mobile App
5 85 (3.88%) Enterprise Software
6 75 (3.43%) Public Cloud
7 74 (3.38%) Virtual Team
8 72 (3.29%) Legacy Systems
9 61 (2.79%) Algorithms
10 60 (2.74%) Cyber Threat
11 59 (2.70%) Onboarding
12 54 (2.47%) Blog
13 52 (2.38%) Management Information System
14 51 (2.33%) Low-Code
15 46 (2.10%) Self-Motivation
16 45 (2.06%) Data Structures
17 40 (1.83%) Marketing Technology
18 39 (1.78%) Greenfield Project
19 36 (1.65%) Embedded Systems
20 34 (1.55%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 187 (8.55%) Linux
2 99 (4.52%) Windows
3 66 (3.02%) Apple iOS
4 58 (2.65%) Android
5 52 (2.38%) Unix
6 12 (0.55%) Windows Server
7 7 (0.32%) CentOS
7 7 (0.32%) Embedded Linux
8 6 (0.27%) FreeRTOS
9 4 (0.18%) Debian
9 4 (0.18%) Kali Linux
10 3 (0.14%) AIX
10 3 (0.14%) VxWorks
11 2 (0.091%) VMS
12 1 (0.046%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 1 (0.046%) ThreadX
12 1 (0.046%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.046%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.046%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,235 (56.44%) CI/CD
2 966 (44.15%) Agile
3 820 (37.48%) DevOps
4 705 (32.22%) Software Engineering
5 633 (28.93%) Continuous Improvement
6 594 (27.15%) Mentoring
7 470 (21.48%) AI
8 460 (21.02%) Problem-Solving
9 406 (18.56%) Microservices
10 378 (17.28%) Infrastructure as Code
11 370 (16.91%) Software Testing
12 314 (14.35%) Test Strategy
13 277 (12.66%) Observability
14 275 (12.57%) Containerisation
15 274 (12.52%) Full-Stack Development
16 269 (12.29%) Code Quality
17 267 (12.20%) Coaching
18 251 (11.47%) Validation
19 229 (10.47%) Technical Leadership
20 227 (10.37%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 680 (31.08%) Python
2 563 (25.73%) Java
3 390 (17.82%) JavaScript
4 361 (16.50%) SQL
5 319 (14.58%) TypeScript
6 318 (14.53%) C#
7 127 (5.80%) C++
8 106 (4.84%) PowerShell
9 91 (4.16%) Go
10 79 (3.61%) C
11 73 (3.34%) Bash
12 41 (1.87%) Kotlin
13 34 (1.55%) Rust
14 32 (1.46%) PHP
14 32 (1.46%) Swift
15 25 (1.14%) Ruby
16 21 (0.96%) Bicep
16 21 (0.96%) MATLAB
17 19 (0.87%) Groovy
18 16 (0.73%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 299 (13.67%) Security Cleared
2 244 (11.15%) Degree
3 184 (8.41%) SC Cleared
4 110 (5.03%) Computer Science Degree
5 77 (3.52%) ISTQB
6 63 (2.88%) CISSP
7 60 (2.74%) DV Cleared
7 60 (2.74%) ITIL Certification
8 56 (2.56%) CISM
9 46 (2.10%) AWS Certification
10 37 (1.69%) Master's Degree
11 32 (1.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 25 (1.14%) BPSS Clearance
13 22 (1.01%) HNC
14 17 (0.78%) HND
14 17 (0.78%) ISEB
15 16 (0.73%) DBS Check
16 14 (0.64%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 12 (0.55%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
18 10 (0.46%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 516 (23.58%) QA
2 203 (9.28%) Accessibility
3 69 (3.15%) Data Quality
4 63 (2.88%) NIST
5 59 (2.70%) WCAG
6 52 (2.38%) ISO 22301
7 49 (2.24%) GDPR
8 14 (0.64%) SLA
9 13 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 12 (0.55%) GRC
11 11 (0.50%) Software Quality Assurance
12 9 (0.41%) SOC 2
13 8 (0.37%) COBIT
13 8 (0.37%) MISRA
14 7 (0.32%) JTAG
15 6 (0.27%) PMO
16 5 (0.23%) ISO 9001
16 5 (0.23%) NCSC
16 5 (0.23%) PCI DSS
17 4 (0.18%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 300 (13.71%) Docker
2 34 (1.55%) Firmware
3 19 (0.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.73%) Active Directory
4 16 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
5 11 (0.50%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.46%) Embedded Firmware
7 9 (0.41%) KVM
8 2 (0.091%) ProxySG
8 2 (0.091%) vSphere
9 1 (0.046%) IAG
9 1 (0.046%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.046%) Terminal Server
9 1 (0.046%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 313 (14.31%) Kubernetes
2 310 (14.17%) Terraform
3 126 (5.76%) Grafana
4 82 (3.75%) Ansible
5 58 (2.65%) Prometheus
6 27 (1.23%) Argo
7 16 (0.73%) Kibana
8 14 (0.64%) CloudHub
9 11 (0.50%) Puppet
10 9 (0.41%) logstash
10 9 (0.41%) Microsoft Intune
11 8 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
12 7 (0.32%) HP Fortify
13 6 (0.27%) Functional Safety
13 6 (0.27%) vCenter Server
14 5 (0.23%) Packer
15 4 (0.18%) Progress Chef
15 4 (0.18%) SCCM
15 4 (0.18%) SCOM
16 3 (0.14%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 201 (9.19%) Microsoft
2 81 (3.70%) Google
3 61 (2.79%) Databricks
4 57 (2.61%) Oracle
5 51 (2.33%) Salesforce
6 40 (1.83%) ServiceNow
7 36 (1.65%) SAP
8 34 (1.55%) Splunk
9 33 (1.51%) VMware
10 25 (1.14%) Dynatrace
11 21 (0.96%) Pega
12 19 (0.87%) AppDynamics
13 17 (0.78%) MuleSoft
14 16 (0.73%) Atlassian
14 16 (0.73%) IBM
15 15 (0.69%) Braze
16 14 (0.64%) Adobe
16 14 (0.64%) OpenAI
17 13 (0.59%) Red Hat
17 13 (0.59%) SendGrid