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

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 86 83 101
Rank change year-on-year -3 +18 -67
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 1,834 1,622 2,716
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.96% 3.64% 2.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.69% 3.93% 3.06%
Number of salaries quoted 1,140 791 1,718
10th Percentile £41,250 £39,000 £36,250
25th Percentile £48,289 £47,750 £44,063
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £62,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year - +8.70% -11.54%
75th Percentile £82,500 £82,751 £71,991
90th Percentile £96,375 £100,000 £87,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +4.35% +9.52% -8.70%

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 68,162 41,264 88,785
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 72.90% 92.57% 81.89%
Number of salaries quoted 46,887 22,044 62,842
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,822 £29,607
25th Percentile £41,250 £39,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -9.54%
75th Percentile £78,750 £77,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £100,000 £91,991
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -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 17 June 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 17 June 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 +6 1,614 £62,500 -0.79% 669
UK excluding London -27 1,018 £60,000 +4.35% 539
Work from Home +12 741 £65,000 +8.33% 338
London +20 651 £80,000 +6.67% 226
North of England -4 290 £62,500 +4.17% 150
South East -13 211 £60,000 +9.09% 157
South West -21 181 £55,000 -8.33% 55
Midlands -25 164 £60,000 +4.35% 66
North West -2 153 £63,750 -1.92% 77
West Midlands -32 82 £61,000 -9.63% 38
East Midlands -23 81 £55,000 +20.88% 28
Yorkshire -30 70 £70,905 +34.49% 48
East of England -12 69 £53,750 -5.70% 61
North East -6 67 £52,500 -4.55% 26
Wales 0 56 £55,000 -4.35% 10
Scotland -47 49 £60,000 - 31
Northern Ireland -30 11 £80,000 +45.45% 23

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 35 (1.91%) Confluence
2 26 (1.42%) Apache Airflow
3 21 (1.15%) Apache Spark
4 20 (1.09%) Jupyter
5 19 (1.04%) Apache
6 15 (0.82%) SharePoint
7 10 (0.55%) CMS
8 9 (0.49%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 9 (0.49%) Palantir Foundry
9 8 (0.44%) IIS
10 7 (0.38%) Appian
11 5 (0.27%) Umbraco
12 4 (0.22%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.22%) Mule
12 4 (0.22%) SAS
13 3 (0.16%) nginx
13 3 (0.16%) WordPress
14 2 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.11%) JBoss
14 2 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 17 (0.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.60%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (0.49%) Simulink
4 6 (0.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.33%) PlantUML
5 3 (0.16%) CANalyzer
6 2 (0.11%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 2 (0.11%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.11%) Lightworks
6 2 (0.11%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.055%) Fusion 360
Business Applications
1 12 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.27%) Visualfiles
3 4 (0.22%) Dynamics AX
4 3 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.11%) FLEXCUBE
5 2 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.11%) Shopify
5 2 (0.11%) Towers Watson Igloo
5 2 (0.11%) Workday HCM
6 1 (0.055%) Elite 3E
6 1 (0.055%) Endur
6 1 (0.055%) Findur
6 1 (0.055%) Magento
6 1 (0.055%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.055%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.055%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.055%) Oracle Financials
6 1 (0.055%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.055%) Oracle SCM
Cloud Services
1 631 (34.41%) AWS
2 557 (30.37%) Azure
3 241 (13.14%) Azure DevOps
4 217 (11.83%) GCP
5 174 (9.49%) Serverless
6 152 (8.29%) GitHub
7 128 (6.98%) SaaS
8 79 (4.31%) AWS Lambda
9 76 (4.14%) GitHub Actions
10 74 (4.03%) Amazon S3
11 73 (3.98%) Amazon EKS
12 69 (3.76%) AWS CloudFormation
13 56 (3.05%) PaaS
14 48 (2.62%) Azure Service Bus
15 47 (2.56%) Power Platform
16 41 (2.24%) Azure Monitor
16 41 (2.24%) dbt
17 39 (2.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 39 (2.13%) Amazon EC2
17 39 (2.13%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 69 (3.76%) Broadband
2 24 (1.31%) Firewall
3 11 (0.60%) CHAP
3 11 (0.60%) DMARC
3 11 (0.60%) DNS
4 10 (0.55%) WAN
5 9 (0.49%) 5G
5 9 (0.49%) SD-WAN
6 7 (0.38%) Wireless
7 6 (0.33%) Bluetooth
7 6 (0.33%) MQTT
8 5 (0.27%) HTTP
8 5 (0.27%) SMS
8 5 (0.27%) Wi-Fi
8 5 (0.27%) ZigBee
9 4 (0.22%) DHCP
9 4 (0.22%) LTE
9 4 (0.22%) SSL
9 4 (0.22%) VPN
10 3 (0.16%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 130 (7.09%) NoSQL
2 116 (6.32%) PostgreSQL
3 95 (5.18%) MongoDB
4 66 (3.60%) SQL Server
5 41 (2.24%) DynamoDB
6 30 (1.64%) MySQL
7 29 (1.58%) Data Warehouse
7 29 (1.58%) Relational Database
8 25 (1.36%) Power BI
9 22 (1.20%) Amazon RDS
10 19 (1.04%) BigQuery
11 18 (0.98%) Redis
11 18 (0.98%) Spark SQL
12 16 (0.87%) Oracle Database
13 15 (0.82%) Semantic Layer
14 14 (0.76%) Metadata
15 12 (0.65%) Amazon Athena
16 10 (0.55%) Data Lake
17 9 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
17 9 (0.49%) Pinecone
Development Applications
1 213 (11.61%) Git
2 159 (8.67%) Jenkins
3 147 (8.02%) GitLab
4 143 (7.80%) Selenium
5 111 (6.05%) JIRA
6 88 (4.80%) Cypress.io
7 75 (4.09%) Cucumber
8 67 (3.65%) Postman
9 58 (3.16%) TeamCity
10 47 (2.56%) JMeter
11 39 (2.13%) REST Assured
12 31 (1.69%) JUnit
13 29 (1.58%) SpecFlow
14 24 (1.31%) CircleCI
15 23 (1.25%) Zephyr
16 22 (1.20%) LabVIEW
16 22 (1.20%) TestRail
17 21 (1.15%) Gatling
18 20 (1.09%) Crashlytics
19 19 (1.04%) fastlane
General
1 453 (24.70%) Social Skills
2 411 (22.41%) Finance
3 188 (10.25%) Banking
3 188 (10.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 162 (8.83%) Public Sector
5 152 (8.29%) Analytical Skills
6 109 (5.94%) Law
7 90 (4.91%) Retail
8 59 (3.22%) Manufacturing
9 58 (3.16%) Financial Institution
10 56 (3.05%) Games
11 51 (2.78%) Electronics
12 46 (2.51%) Back Office
13 33 (1.80%) Front Office
14 32 (1.74%) Legal
15 31 (1.69%) Marketing
16 20 (1.09%) Documentation Skills
17 18 (0.98%) Investment Banking
18 17 (0.93%) Influencing Skills
18 17 (0.93%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 484 (26.39%) Senior
2 299 (16.30%) Lead
3 279 (15.21%) Software Engineer
4 264 (14.39%) Developer
5 217 (11.83%) Test Engineer
6 118 (6.43%) Senior Developer
7 109 (5.94%) Java Engineer
8 92 (5.02%) Test Automation Engineer
9 88 (4.80%) QA Engineer
10 83 (4.53%) Senior Software Engineer
11 81 (4.42%) Tester
12 75 (4.09%) Test Leader
13 63 (3.44%) Full-Stack Engineer
14 62 (3.38%) Architect
14 62 (3.38%) Data Engineer
15 56 (3.05%) Senior Test Engineer
16 53 (2.89%) DevOps Engineer
17 51 (2.78%) Python Developer
18 50 (2.73%) Software Developer
19 47 (2.56%) Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 193 (10.52%) .NET
2 186 (10.14%) React
3 162 (8.83%) RESTful
4 160 (8.72%) Playwright
4 160 (8.72%) REST
5 147 (8.02%) Spring
6 141 (7.69%) Node.js
7 105 (5.73%) Spring Boot
8 100 (5.45%) Kafka
9 74 (4.03%) AngularJS
10 62 (3.38%) CSS
10 62 (3.38%) HTML
11 54 (2.94%) OAuth
12 46 (2.51%) OAuth2
13 45 (2.45%) RabbitMQ
14 39 (2.13%) JSON
15 38 (2.07%) YAML
16 37 (2.02%) ASP.NET
16 37 (2.02%) PyTorch
16 37 (2.02%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 342 (18.65%) Cloud Native
2 193 (10.52%) Product Ownership
3 140 (7.63%) Distributed Systems
4 99 (5.40%) Mobile App
5 57 (3.11%) Management Information System
6 54 (2.94%) Public Cloud
7 52 (2.84%) Low-Code
8 51 (2.78%) Algorithms
8 51 (2.78%) Enterprise Software
9 49 (2.67%) Onboarding
10 43 (2.34%) Data Structures
10 43 (2.34%) Legacy Systems
11 38 (2.07%) Greenfield Project
12 34 (1.85%) Video\Live Streaming
13 30 (1.64%) Self-Motivation
14 25 (1.36%) Blog
14 25 (1.36%) Embedded Systems
15 24 (1.31%) Hedge funds
16 22 (1.20%) e-Learning
16 22 (1.20%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 154 (8.40%) Linux
2 76 (4.14%) Windows
3 68 (3.71%) Apple iOS
4 56 (3.05%) Android
5 49 (2.67%) Unix
6 9 (0.49%) CentOS
7 8 (0.44%) Windows Server
8 4 (0.22%) FreeRTOS
8 4 (0.22%) Kali Linux
9 3 (0.16%) AIX
9 3 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.16%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.11%) Debian
10 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.055%) ThreadX
11 1 (0.055%) VxWorks
11 1 (0.055%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.055%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,013 (55.23%) CI/CD
2 761 (41.49%) Agile
3 627 (34.19%) DevOps
4 521 (28.41%) Software Engineering
5 460 (25.08%) Continuous Improvement
6 457 (24.92%) Mentoring
7 365 (19.90%) Problem-Solving
8 340 (18.54%) Microservices
9 331 (18.05%) Infrastructure as Code
10 313 (17.07%) AI
11 286 (15.59%) Software Testing
12 252 (13.74%) Observability
13 240 (13.09%) Containerisation
14 232 (12.65%) Full-Stack Development
15 227 (12.38%) Coaching
15 227 (12.38%) Test Strategy
16 213 (11.61%) Validation
17 192 (10.47%) Clean Code
18 182 (9.92%) Technical Leadership
19 176 (9.60%) Code Quality
Programming Languages
1 574 (31.30%) Python
2 509 (27.75%) Java
3 300 (16.36%) SQL
4 276 (15.05%) JavaScript
5 231 (12.60%) C#
6 230 (12.54%) TypeScript
7 98 (5.34%) C++
8 87 (4.74%) Go
9 75 (4.09%) Bash
10 63 (3.44%) C
11 60 (3.27%) PowerShell
12 33 (1.80%) Kotlin
13 32 (1.74%) Rust
14 27 (1.47%) Swift
15 25 (1.36%) Bicep
16 23 (1.25%) MATLAB
16 23 (1.25%) PHP
17 19 (1.04%) Ruby
18 17 (0.93%) Groovy
19 16 (0.87%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 230 (12.54%) Degree
2 213 (11.61%) Security Cleared
3 129 (7.03%) SC Cleared
4 92 (5.02%) Computer Science Degree
5 84 (4.58%) ISTQB
6 43 (2.34%) DV Cleared
7 31 (1.69%) AWS Certification
8 30 (1.64%) Master's Degree
9 22 (1.20%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 19 (1.04%) CISSP
10 19 (1.04%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 18 (0.98%) DBS Check
12 14 (0.76%) HND
13 13 (0.71%) PhD
14 12 (0.65%) BPSS Clearance
14 12 (0.65%) ISEB
14 12 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
15 11 (0.60%) CGEIT
15 11 (0.60%) FFIEC
15 11 (0.60%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 412 (22.46%) QA
2 169 (9.21%) Accessibility
3 84 (4.58%) Data Quality
4 46 (2.51%) GDPR
5 38 (2.07%) WCAG
6 21 (1.15%) NIST
7 16 (0.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 15 (0.82%) SLA
9 13 (0.71%) Software Quality Assurance
10 12 (0.65%) COBIT
11 11 (0.60%) GRC
12 8 (0.44%) ISO 9001
13 7 (0.38%) ISO 22301
13 7 (0.38%) SOC 2
14 6 (0.33%) PMO
15 5 (0.27%) JTAG
16 4 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
16 4 (0.22%) MISRA
17 3 (0.16%) IEC 61508
17 3 (0.16%) MISRA C
System Software
1 252 (13.74%) Docker
2 25 (1.36%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (1.15%) Firmware
4 18 (0.98%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.87%) Virtual Machines
6 14 (0.76%) KVM
7 12 (0.65%) Active Directory
8 9 (0.49%) Embedded Firmware
9 2 (0.11%) Terminal Server
9 2 (0.11%) vSphere
10 1 (0.055%) IAG
10 1 (0.055%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.055%) Xen
Systems Management
1 297 (16.19%) Terraform
2 285 (15.54%) Kubernetes
3 133 (7.25%) Grafana
4 75 (4.09%) Ansible
5 66 (3.60%) Prometheus
6 24 (1.31%) Argo
7 14 (0.76%) Kibana
8 13 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (0.38%) logstash
10 6 (0.33%) Functional Safety
10 6 (0.33%) HP Fortify
11 5 (0.27%) Packer
11 5 (0.27%) SCCM
11 5 (0.27%) SCOM
11 5 (0.27%) vCenter Server
12 4 (0.22%) CloudHub
13 3 (0.16%) HP ALM
13 3 (0.16%) Microsoft Intune
13 3 (0.16%) Puppet
13 3 (0.16%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 141 (7.69%) Microsoft
2 53 (2.89%) Databricks
3 50 (2.73%) Oracle
4 45 (2.45%) Salesforce
5 39 (2.13%) VMware
6 38 (2.07%) Google
7 29 (1.58%) ServiceNow
8 25 (1.36%) Splunk
9 23 (1.25%) Dynatrace
10 20 (1.09%) OpenAI
11 16 (0.87%) Braze
12 15 (0.82%) SAP
13 14 (0.76%) Amplitude
13 14 (0.76%) AppDynamics
14 13 (0.71%) IFS
15 12 (0.65%) CrowdStrike
15 12 (0.65%) MuleSoft
16 11 (0.60%) Adobe
16 11 (0.60%) Foundry
16 11 (0.60%) SendGrid