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

6 months to
8 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 83 100
Rank change year-on-year -5 +17 -51
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 1,933 1,679 2,628
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.98% 3.49% 2.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.69% 3.84% 3.10%
Number of salaries quoted 1,156 823 1,685
10th Percentile £42,125 £38,860 £36,250
25th Percentile £48,750 £47,500 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £62,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +8.70% -11.54%
75th Percentile £81,250 £82,500 £71,991
90th Percentile £95,625 £100,000 £87,094
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 71,935 43,736 84,643
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.79% 90.86% 82.47%
Number of salaries quoted 49,710 24,302 59,641
10th Percentile £30,250 £28,822 £29,750
25th Percentile £41,250 £38,500 £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 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £54,068 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +8.14% - -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 8 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 8 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 1,656 £65,000 - 628
UK excluding London -12 1,125 £60,000 +4.35% 514
Work from Home +11 807 £67,500 +12.50% 398
London +15 631 £80,000 +6.67% 230
North of England -1 321 £60,000 - 122
South East -17 221 £60,000 +9.09% 157
South West -23 191 £55,000 -8.33% 61
Midlands -16 172 £62,500 +6.38% 69
North West -7 170 £63,750 -1.92% 65
West Midlands -23 89 £62,500 -3.85% 29
East Midlands -22 82 £64,000 +34.74% 40
North East +3 81 £52,500 -0.59% 20
Yorkshire -15 70 £69,310 +41.45% 37
East of England -34 63 £55,000 -7.17% 50
Northern Ireland -15 62 £80,000 +45.45% 24
Wales -8 61 £55,000 - 11
Scotland -47 47 £61,250 -2.00% 28

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 32 (1.66%) Confluence
2 27 (1.40%) Apache Spark
3 25 (1.29%) Apache Airflow
4 22 (1.14%) Apache
5 18 (0.93%) Jupyter
6 16 (0.83%) SharePoint
7 13 (0.67%) CMS
8 9 (0.47%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 8 (0.41%) Anypoint
9 8 (0.41%) IIS
9 8 (0.41%) Mule
10 7 (0.36%) Palantir Foundry
11 5 (0.26%) Umbraco
12 4 (0.21%) Appian
12 4 (0.21%) SAS
12 4 (0.21%) WordPress
13 3 (0.16%) Headless CMS
13 3 (0.16%) nginx
14 2 (0.10%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.10%) NServiceBus
Applications
1 19 (0.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.62%) Simulink
3 9 (0.47%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.31%) PlantUML
5 5 (0.26%) Lightworks
5 5 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 3 (0.16%) CANalyzer
7 2 (0.10%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.10%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.052%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 11 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.26%) Visualfiles
3 4 (0.21%) Dynamics AX
4 3 (0.16%) 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 (0.052%) Elite 3E
6 1 (0.052%) Endur
6 1 (0.052%) Findur
6 1 (0.052%) Magento
6 1 (0.052%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.052%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.052%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.052%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.052%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.052%) Oracle Financials
6 1 (0.052%) Oracle SCM
Cloud Services
1 726 (37.56%) AWS
2 610 (31.56%) Azure
3 240 (12.42%) Azure DevOps
4 234 (12.11%) GCP
5 188 (9.73%) SaaS
6 185 (9.57%) Serverless
7 160 (8.28%) GitHub
8 84 (4.35%) GitHub Actions
9 82 (4.24%) AWS Lambda
10 81 (4.19%) AWS CloudFormation
11 76 (3.93%) Amazon EKS
11 76 (3.93%) Amazon S3
12 52 (2.69%) PaaS
13 50 (2.59%) Azure Service Bus
14 48 (2.48%) Power Platform
15 43 (2.22%) Azure Monitor
16 40 (2.07%) Amazon EC2
16 40 (2.07%) Azure Logic Apps
17 39 (2.02%) dbt
18 34 (1.76%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 71 (3.67%) Broadband
2 24 (1.24%) Firewall
3 13 (0.67%) DMARC
4 11 (0.57%) MQTT
5 10 (0.52%) CHAP
5 10 (0.52%) DNS
5 10 (0.52%) Wireless
6 8 (0.41%) SSL
6 8 (0.41%) WAN
7 7 (0.36%) Wi-Fi
8 6 (0.31%) 5G
8 6 (0.31%) Bluetooth
8 6 (0.31%) HTTP
8 6 (0.31%) LTE
8 6 (0.31%) SD-WAN
8 6 (0.31%) ZigBee
9 5 (0.26%) DHCP
9 5 (0.26%) Ethernet
9 5 (0.26%) SMS
9 5 (0.26%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 139 (7.19%) NoSQL
2 129 (6.67%) PostgreSQL
3 100 (5.17%) MongoDB
4 66 (3.41%) SQL Server
5 46 (2.38%) DynamoDB
6 35 (1.81%) Relational Database
7 32 (1.66%) MySQL
8 28 (1.45%) Data Warehouse
9 24 (1.24%) Power BI
9 24 (1.24%) Redis
10 19 (0.98%) Amazon RDS
10 19 (0.98%) BigQuery
11 18 (0.93%) Spark SQL
12 16 (0.83%) Metadata
12 16 (0.83%) Semantic Layer
13 14 (0.72%) Oracle Database
14 13 (0.67%) Amazon Athena
14 13 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
15 11 (0.57%) Data Lake
16 9 (0.47%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 240 (12.42%) Git
2 168 (8.69%) Jenkins
3 165 (8.54%) GitLab
4 142 (7.35%) Selenium
5 111 (5.74%) JIRA
6 89 (4.60%) Cypress.io
7 86 (4.45%) Cucumber
8 68 (3.52%) Postman
9 61 (3.16%) TeamCity
10 49 (2.53%) JMeter
11 40 (2.07%) REST Assured
12 33 (1.71%) JUnit
13 30 (1.55%) SpecFlow
14 29 (1.50%) Zephyr
15 26 (1.35%) TestRail
16 22 (1.14%) CircleCI
16 22 (1.14%) Gatling
17 21 (1.09%) fastlane
18 20 (1.03%) Crashlytics
18 20 (1.03%) LabVIEW
General
1 474 (24.52%) Social Skills
2 432 (22.35%) Finance
3 196 (10.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 192 (9.93%) Public Sector
5 188 (9.73%) Banking
6 172 (8.90%) Law
7 167 (8.64%) Analytical Skills
8 98 (5.07%) Retail
9 65 (3.36%) Manufacturing
10 62 (3.21%) Financial Institution
11 60 (3.10%) Legal
12 54 (2.79%) Games
13 52 (2.69%) Electronics
14 50 (2.59%) Back Office
15 31 (1.60%) Front Office
15 31 (1.60%) Marketing
16 22 (1.14%) Documentation Skills
17 20 (1.03%) Influencing Skills
18 19 (0.98%) Organisational Skills
19 18 (0.93%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 536 (27.73%) Senior
2 310 (16.04%) Lead
3 298 (15.42%) Software Engineer
4 279 (14.43%) Developer
5 214 (11.07%) Test Engineer
6 118 (6.10%) Senior Developer
7 115 (5.95%) Java Engineer
8 89 (4.60%) Senior Software Engineer
9 86 (4.45%) QA Engineer
9 86 (4.45%) Test Automation Engineer
10 80 (4.14%) Full-Stack Engineer
11 75 (3.88%) Test Leader
12 70 (3.62%) DevOps Engineer
13 68 (3.52%) Tester
14 67 (3.47%) Architect
15 61 (3.16%) Data Engineer
16 56 (2.90%) Software Developer
17 53 (2.74%) Senior Test Engineer
18 48 (2.48%) Analyst
19 47 (2.43%) Lead Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 204 (10.55%) React
2 198 (10.24%) .NET
3 169 (8.74%) RESTful
4 166 (8.59%) REST
4 166 (8.59%) Spring
5 164 (8.48%) Playwright
6 163 (8.43%) Node.js
7 122 (6.31%) Spring Boot
8 107 (5.54%) Kafka
9 89 (4.60%) AngularJS
10 71 (3.67%) CSS
10 71 (3.67%) HTML
11 56 (2.90%) OAuth
12 48 (2.48%) Middleware
12 48 (2.48%) OAuth2
13 44 (2.28%) RabbitMQ
14 41 (2.12%) Vue
15 40 (2.07%) YAML
16 38 (1.97%) ASP.NET
16 38 (1.97%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 363 (18.78%) Cloud Native
2 210 (10.86%) Product Ownership
3 160 (8.28%) Distributed Systems
4 96 (4.97%) Mobile App
5 63 (3.26%) Public Cloud
6 61 (3.16%) Enterprise Software
7 54 (2.79%) Management Information System
8 53 (2.74%) Algorithms
8 53 (2.74%) Low-Code
9 51 (2.64%) Legacy Systems
10 45 (2.33%) Onboarding
11 44 (2.28%) Virtual Team
12 41 (2.12%) Data Structures
13 40 (2.07%) Cyber Threat
14 37 (1.91%) Greenfield Project
15 34 (1.76%) Embedded Systems
15 34 (1.76%) Video\Live Streaming
16 30 (1.55%) Self-Motivation
17 28 (1.45%) Blog
18 26 (1.35%) e-Learning
Operating Systems
1 177 (9.16%) Linux
2 86 (4.45%) Windows
3 62 (3.21%) Apple iOS
4 57 (2.95%) Unix
5 50 (2.59%) Android
6 9 (0.47%) CentOS
6 9 (0.47%) Windows Server
7 6 (0.31%) FreeRTOS
8 4 (0.21%) Kali Linux
9 3 (0.16%) AIX
9 3 (0.16%) Debian
9 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
10 2 (0.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.10%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.052%) ThreadX
11 1 (0.052%) VMS
11 1 (0.052%) VxWorks
11 1 (0.052%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.052%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,101 (56.96%) CI/CD
2 855 (44.23%) Agile
3 723 (37.40%) DevOps
4 598 (30.94%) Software Engineering
5 534 (27.63%) Mentoring
6 513 (26.54%) Continuous Improvement
7 393 (20.33%) Problem-Solving
8 387 (20.02%) Microservices
9 359 (18.57%) Infrastructure as Code
10 327 (16.92%) AI
11 313 (16.19%) Software Testing
12 264 (13.66%) Test Strategy
13 260 (13.45%) Containerisation
14 253 (13.09%) Full-Stack Development
14 253 (13.09%) Observability
15 248 (12.83%) Coaching
16 225 (11.64%) Validation
17 202 (10.45%) Code Quality
18 198 (10.24%) Clean Code
19 193 (9.98%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 621 (32.13%) Python
2 540 (27.94%) Java
3 325 (16.81%) JavaScript
4 315 (16.30%) SQL
5 264 (13.66%) C#
6 262 (13.55%) TypeScript
7 107 (5.54%) C++
8 87 (4.50%) Go
9 84 (4.35%) PowerShell
10 77 (3.98%) Bash
11 71 (3.67%) C
12 36 (1.86%) Rust
13 35 (1.81%) Kotlin
14 28 (1.45%) Swift
15 26 (1.35%) PHP
16 23 (1.19%) MATLAB
17 22 (1.14%) Bicep
17 22 (1.14%) Ruby
18 18 (0.93%) Groovy
19 16 (0.83%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 247 (12.78%) Security Cleared
2 235 (12.16%) Degree
3 147 (7.60%) SC Cleared
4 99 (5.12%) Computer Science Degree
5 78 (4.04%) ISTQB
6 47 (2.43%) CISSP
6 47 (2.43%) DV Cleared
7 41 (2.12%) ITIL Certification
8 39 (2.02%) CISM
9 37 (1.91%) Master's Degree
10 36 (1.86%) AWS Certification
11 26 (1.35%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 22 (1.14%) DBS Check
13 16 (0.83%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 14 (0.72%) ISEB
15 12 (0.62%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
16 11 (0.57%) BPSS Clearance
16 11 (0.57%) HND
17 10 (0.52%) CISA
17 10 (0.52%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 438 (22.66%) QA
2 172 (8.90%) Accessibility
3 81 (4.19%) Data Quality
4 48 (2.48%) NIST
5 47 (2.43%) GDPR
6 42 (2.17%) WCAG
7 35 (1.81%) ISO 22301
8 15 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 14 (0.72%) SLA
10 12 (0.62%) Software Quality Assurance
11 11 (0.57%) COBIT
11 11 (0.57%) GRC
12 7 (0.36%) SOC 2
13 6 (0.31%) JTAG
13 6 (0.31%) MISRA
13 6 (0.31%) PMO
14 4 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials
14 4 (0.21%) ECSS
14 4 (0.21%) ISO 9001
15 3 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 12207
System Software
1 266 (13.76%) Docker
2 28 (1.45%) Firmware
3 26 (1.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.93%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
6 14 (0.72%) KVM
7 12 (0.62%) Active Directory
8 10 (0.52%) Embedded Firmware
9 2 (0.10%) Terminal Server
9 2 (0.10%) vSphere
10 1 (0.052%) IAG
10 1 (0.052%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.052%) Xen
Systems Management
1 315 (16.30%) Terraform
2 308 (15.93%) Kubernetes
3 141 (7.29%) Grafana
4 80 (4.14%) Ansible
5 62 (3.21%) Prometheus
6 26 (1.35%) Argo
7 15 (0.78%) Kibana
8 9 (0.47%) logstash
8 9 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.41%) CloudHub
9 8 (0.41%) Puppet
10 7 (0.36%) HP Fortify
11 6 (0.31%) Functional Safety
11 6 (0.31%) vCenter Server
12 5 (0.26%) Packer
12 5 (0.26%) SCCM
12 5 (0.26%) SCOM
13 4 (0.21%) Microsoft Intune
14 3 (0.16%) HP ALM
14 3 (0.16%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 142 (7.35%) Microsoft
2 55 (2.85%) Databricks
3 46 (2.38%) Oracle
4 45 (2.33%) Salesforce
5 43 (2.22%) Google
6 40 (2.07%) VMware
7 35 (1.81%) ServiceNow
8 25 (1.29%) Splunk
9 24 (1.24%) Dynatrace
10 19 (0.98%) OpenAI
11 17 (0.88%) Pega
11 17 (0.88%) SAP
12 16 (0.83%) Braze
13 15 (0.78%) AppDynamics
14 14 (0.72%) Amplitude
15 13 (0.67%) IFS
15 13 (0.67%) SendGrid
16 12 (0.62%) Atlassian
16 12 (0.62%) CrowdStrike
16 12 (0.62%) MuleSoft