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

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 89 85 98
Rank change year-on-year -4 +13 -47
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 1,956 1,714 2,575
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.98% 3.48% 2.55%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.69% 3.86% 3.10%
Number of salaries quoted 1,165 840 1,636
10th Percentile £42,500 £38,725 £36,250
25th Percentile £48,750 £47,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £62,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +8.70% -11.54%
75th Percentile £82,500 £82,751 £71,991
90th Percentile £96,250 £100,000 £86,485
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 72,820 44,444 83,107
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.76% 90.26% 82.20%
Number of salaries quoted 50,274 24,878 58,156
10th Percentile £30,250 £28,750 £29,750
25th Percentile £41,250 £38,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £57,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.55% -8.71%
75th Percentile £78,750 £77,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £98,750 £92,500
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 13 July 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 13 July 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 -1 1,678 £65,000 - 754
UK excluding London -12 1,139 £60,000 +4.35% 592
Work from Home +10 817 £67,500 +12.50% 350
London +9 642 £80,000 +3.23% 322
North of England +2 324 £57,500 -4.17% 140
South East -22 221 £60,000 +9.09% 171
South West -25 194 £55,000 -8.33% 123
Midlands -18 175 £62,500 +6.38% 67
North West -11 169 £63,750 -1.92% 71
West Midlands -22 92 £62,500 -3.85% 32
North East -1 85 £52,500 -0.59% 24
East Midlands -26 82 £64,000 +34.74% 35
Yorkshire -23 70 £69,310 +41.45% 46
East of England -27 65 £55,000 -4.76% 43
Wales -4 62 £55,000 - 14
Northern Ireland -14 62 £80,000 +45.45% 27
Scotland -43 49 £62,500 -5.66% 21

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 36 (1.84%) Confluence
2 28 (1.43%) Apache Spark
3 26 (1.33%) Apache Airflow
4 23 (1.18%) Apache
5 17 (0.87%) Jupyter
5 17 (0.87%) SharePoint
6 13 (0.66%) CMS
7 10 (0.51%) Anypoint
7 10 (0.51%) Mule
8 9 (0.46%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 8 (0.41%) IIS
10 6 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
11 5 (0.26%) Umbraco
11 5 (0.26%) WordPress
12 4 (0.20%) SAS
13 3 (0.15%) Appian
13 3 (0.15%) Headless CMS
13 3 (0.15%) nginx
14 2 (0.10%) Camunda
14 2 (0.10%) Cloud Foundry
Applications
1 22 (1.12%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.61%) Simulink
3 11 (0.56%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.31%) PlantUML
6 5 (0.26%) Lightworks
7 3 (0.15%) CANalyzer
7 3 (0.15%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.10%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.051%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.051%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 10 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.26%) Visualfiles
3 4 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
4 3 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.10%) FLEXCUBE
5 2 (0.10%) Payment Gateway
5 2 (0.10%) Towers Watson Igloo
5 2 (0.10%) Workday HCM
6 1 (0.051%) Elite 3E
6 1 (0.051%) Endur
6 1 (0.051%) Findur
6 1 (0.051%) Magento
6 1 (0.051%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.051%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.051%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.051%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.051%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.051%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.051%) Oracle Financials
6 1 (0.051%) Oracle SCM
Cloud Services
1 734 (37.53%) AWS
2 620 (31.70%) Azure
3 243 (12.42%) Azure DevOps
4 239 (12.22%) GCP
5 189 (9.66%) SaaS
6 183 (9.36%) Serverless
7 167 (8.54%) GitHub
8 85 (4.35%) GitHub Actions
9 82 (4.19%) AWS CloudFormation
10 78 (3.99%) AWS Lambda
11 76 (3.89%) Amazon EKS
12 73 (3.73%) Amazon S3
13 52 (2.66%) Azure Service Bus
13 52 (2.66%) PaaS
14 50 (2.56%) Power Platform
15 43 (2.20%) Azure Logic Apps
15 43 (2.20%) Azure Monitor
16 40 (2.04%) Amazon EC2
17 39 (1.99%) dbt
18 33 (1.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 71 (3.63%) Broadband
2 24 (1.23%) Firewall
3 13 (0.66%) DMARC
4 12 (0.61%) MQTT
5 11 (0.56%) Wireless
6 10 (0.51%) DNS
6 10 (0.51%) SSL
7 9 (0.46%) CHAP
8 8 (0.41%) WAN
8 8 (0.41%) Wi-Fi
9 7 (0.36%) LTE
9 7 (0.36%) TCP/IP
9 7 (0.36%) ZigBee
10 6 (0.31%) 5G
10 6 (0.31%) Bluetooth
10 6 (0.31%) HTTP
10 6 (0.31%) SD-WAN
11 5 (0.26%) DHCP
11 5 (0.26%) SMS
11 5 (0.26%) Software-Defined Radio
Database & Business Intelligence
1 140 (7.16%) NoSQL
2 129 (6.60%) PostgreSQL
3 103 (5.27%) MongoDB
4 67 (3.43%) SQL Server
5 47 (2.40%) DynamoDB
6 37 (1.89%) Relational Database
7 34 (1.74%) MySQL
8 27 (1.38%) Data Warehouse
9 26 (1.33%) Redis
10 23 (1.18%) Power BI
11 18 (0.92%) Amazon RDS
11 18 (0.92%) BigQuery
11 18 (0.92%) Spark SQL
12 17 (0.87%) Metadata
13 16 (0.82%) Semantic Layer
14 14 (0.72%) Amazon Athena
14 14 (0.72%) Oracle Database
15 13 (0.66%) Elasticsearch
16 12 (0.61%) Data Lake
17 9 (0.46%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 253 (12.93%) Git
2 175 (8.95%) Jenkins
3 171 (8.74%) GitLab
4 147 (7.52%) Selenium
5 118 (6.03%) JIRA
6 90 (4.60%) Cypress.io
7 87 (4.45%) Cucumber
8 72 (3.68%) Postman
9 64 (3.27%) TeamCity
10 52 (2.66%) JMeter
11 40 (2.04%) REST Assured
12 33 (1.69%) JUnit
13 30 (1.53%) SpecFlow
13 30 (1.53%) Zephyr
14 27 (1.38%) TestRail
15 22 (1.12%) Gatling
16 21 (1.07%) fastlane
17 20 (1.02%) Crashlytics
17 20 (1.02%) LabVIEW
18 19 (0.97%) CircleCI
General
1 477 (24.39%) Social Skills
2 439 (22.44%) Finance
3 199 (10.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 197 (10.07%) Public Sector
5 189 (9.66%) Banking
6 176 (9.00%) Law
7 173 (8.84%) Analytical Skills
8 102 (5.21%) Retail
9 65 (3.32%) Manufacturing
10 63 (3.22%) Financial Institution
11 60 (3.07%) Legal
12 55 (2.81%) Electronics
13 54 (2.76%) Games
14 53 (2.71%) Back Office
15 32 (1.64%) Front Office
16 31 (1.58%) Marketing
17 23 (1.18%) Documentation Skills
18 20 (1.02%) Influencing Skills
19 18 (0.92%) Investment Banking
19 18 (0.92%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 538 (27.51%) Senior
2 320 (16.36%) Lead
3 307 (15.70%) Software Engineer
4 284 (14.52%) Developer
5 218 (11.15%) Test Engineer
6 117 (5.98%) Java Engineer
6 117 (5.98%) Senior Developer
7 91 (4.65%) Senior Software Engineer
8 88 (4.50%) Test Automation Engineer
9 83 (4.24%) QA Engineer
10 79 (4.04%) Full-Stack Engineer
11 76 (3.89%) Test Leader
12 71 (3.63%) Tester
13 70 (3.58%) DevOps Engineer
14 68 (3.48%) Architect
15 59 (3.02%) Data Engineer
16 56 (2.86%) Software Developer
17 53 (2.71%) Senior Test Engineer
18 50 (2.56%) Analyst
18 50 (2.56%) Lead Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 206 (10.53%) React
2 204 (10.43%) .NET
3 172 (8.79%) RESTful
4 171 (8.74%) Playwright
5 169 (8.64%) Spring
6 167 (8.54%) REST
7 166 (8.49%) Node.js
8 125 (6.39%) Spring Boot
9 108 (5.52%) Kafka
10 91 (4.65%) AngularJS
11 74 (3.78%) CSS
11 74 (3.78%) HTML
12 58 (2.97%) OAuth
13 51 (2.61%) OAuth2
14 48 (2.45%) Middleware
15 44 (2.25%) RabbitMQ
16 42 (2.15%) Vue
17 41 (2.10%) JSON
18 40 (2.04%) YAML
19 39 (1.99%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 368 (18.81%) Cloud Native
2 220 (11.25%) Product Ownership
3 162 (8.28%) Distributed Systems
4 96 (4.91%) Mobile App
5 65 (3.32%) Enterprise Software
6 64 (3.27%) Public Cloud
7 55 (2.81%) Legacy Systems
8 54 (2.76%) Algorithms
9 53 (2.71%) Low-Code
9 53 (2.71%) Management Information System
10 45 (2.30%) Onboarding
10 45 (2.30%) Virtual Team
11 42 (2.15%) Data Structures
12 40 (2.04%) Cyber Threat
13 38 (1.94%) Greenfield Project
14 35 (1.79%) Embedded Systems
15 34 (1.74%) Video\Live Streaming
16 30 (1.53%) Self-Motivation
17 29 (1.48%) Blog
18 26 (1.33%) e-Learning
Operating Systems
1 180 (9.20%) Linux
2 92 (4.70%) Windows
3 59 (3.02%) Apple iOS
4 56 (2.86%) Unix
5 49 (2.51%) Android
6 9 (0.46%) CentOS
6 9 (0.46%) Windows Server
7 6 (0.31%) FreeRTOS
8 4 (0.20%) Embedded Linux
8 4 (0.20%) Kali Linux
9 3 (0.15%) AIX
10 2 (0.10%) Debian
10 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.051%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.051%) ThreadX
11 1 (0.051%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.051%) VMS
11 1 (0.051%) VxWorks
11 1 (0.051%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.051%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,129 (57.72%) CI/CD
2 871 (44.53%) Agile
3 733 (37.47%) DevOps
4 610 (31.19%) Software Engineering
5 548 (28.02%) Mentoring
6 522 (26.69%) Continuous Improvement
7 395 (20.19%) Problem-Solving
8 392 (20.04%) Microservices
9 365 (18.66%) Infrastructure as Code
10 336 (17.18%) AI
11 323 (16.51%) Software Testing
12 267 (13.65%) Test Strategy
13 262 (13.39%) Containerisation
14 254 (12.99%) Observability
15 252 (12.88%) Full-Stack Development
16 251 (12.83%) Coaching
17 230 (11.76%) Validation
18 213 (10.89%) Code Quality
19 200 (10.22%) Clean Code
20 195 (9.97%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 630 (32.21%) Python
2 550 (28.12%) Java
3 330 (16.87%) JavaScript
4 321 (16.41%) SQL
5 271 (13.85%) C#
6 266 (13.60%) TypeScript
7 109 (5.57%) C++
8 88 (4.50%) PowerShell
9 87 (4.45%) Go
10 81 (4.14%) Bash
11 71 (3.63%) C
12 37 (1.89%) Kotlin
13 35 (1.79%) Rust
14 28 (1.43%) Swift
15 27 (1.38%) PHP
16 23 (1.18%) Bicep
16 23 (1.18%) MATLAB
17 22 (1.12%) Ruby
18 18 (0.92%) Groovy
19 16 (0.82%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 256 (13.09%) Security Cleared
2 236 (12.07%) Degree
3 151 (7.72%) SC Cleared
4 99 (5.06%) Computer Science Degree
5 82 (4.19%) ISTQB
6 48 (2.45%) DV Cleared
7 46 (2.35%) CISSP
8 41 (2.10%) ITIL Certification
9 38 (1.94%) CISM
9 38 (1.94%) Master's Degree
10 36 (1.84%) AWS Certification
11 26 (1.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 21 (1.07%) DBS Check
13 16 (0.82%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 15 (0.77%) ISEB
15 14 (0.72%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
16 11 (0.56%) BPSS Clearance
16 11 (0.56%) HND
17 10 (0.51%) HNC
18 9 (0.46%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 447 (22.85%) QA
2 173 (8.84%) Accessibility
3 78 (3.99%) Data Quality
4 47 (2.40%) NIST
5 46 (2.35%) GDPR
6 43 (2.20%) WCAG
7 35 (1.79%) ISO 22301
8 15 (0.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 13 (0.66%) Software Quality Assurance
10 12 (0.61%) SLA
11 11 (0.56%) GRC
12 10 (0.51%) COBIT
13 7 (0.36%) JTAG
13 7 (0.36%) SOC 2
14 6 (0.31%) MISRA
14 6 (0.31%) PMO
15 4 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials
15 4 (0.20%) ECSS
15 4 (0.20%) ISO 9001
16 3 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 12207
System Software
1 269 (13.75%) Docker
2 29 (1.48%) Firmware
3 26 (1.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (0.87%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
6 13 (0.66%) KVM
7 12 (0.61%) Active Directory
8 10 (0.51%) Embedded Firmware
9 2 (0.10%) Terminal Server
9 2 (0.10%) vSphere
10 1 (0.051%) IAG
10 1 (0.051%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.051%) Xen
Systems Management
1 321 (16.41%) Terraform
2 312 (15.95%) Kubernetes
3 144 (7.36%) Grafana
4 83 (4.24%) Ansible
5 61 (3.12%) Prometheus
6 24 (1.23%) Argo
7 16 (0.82%) Kibana
8 10 (0.51%) CloudHub
8 10 (0.51%) logstash
9 8 (0.41%) Puppet
9 8 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
10 7 (0.36%) HP Fortify
10 7 (0.36%) vCenter Server
11 6 (0.31%) Functional Safety
12 5 (0.26%) Packer
12 5 (0.26%) SCCM
12 5 (0.26%) SCOM
13 4 (0.20%) Microsoft Intune
14 3 (0.15%) Rancher
14 3 (0.15%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 147 (7.52%) Microsoft
2 54 (2.76%) Databricks
3 46 (2.35%) Google
3 46 (2.35%) Oracle
4 45 (2.30%) Salesforce
5 40 (2.04%) VMware
6 37 (1.89%) ServiceNow
7 27 (1.38%) Splunk
8 24 (1.23%) Dynatrace
9 20 (1.02%) SAP
10 18 (0.92%) OpenAI
10 18 (0.92%) Pega
11 16 (0.82%) Braze
12 15 (0.77%) AppDynamics
13 14 (0.72%) Amplitude
14 13 (0.66%) Atlassian
14 13 (0.66%) IFS
14 13 (0.66%) MuleSoft
14 13 (0.66%) SendGrid
15 12 (0.61%) CrowdStrike