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

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 83 104
Rank change year-on-year 0 +21 -47
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 2,068 1,691 2,148
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.03% 3.43% 2.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.76% 3.82% 2.99%
Number of salaries quoted 1,189 826 1,358
10th Percentile £42,500 £37,500 £37,500
25th Percentile £50,000 £47,298 £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 £81,250 £82,500 £71,991
90th Percentile £95,250 £97,528 £86,790
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £57,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +5.26% +8.57% -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 74,833 44,225 71,828
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.64% 89.70% 81.44%
Number of salaries quoted 51,638 25,059 48,434
10th Percentile £30,500 £28,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.66%
75th Percentile £78,750 £76,250 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £93,750
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 28 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 28 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 -4 1,717 £65,000 +3.17% 764
UK excluding London -3 1,262 £60,000 +5.26% 516
Work from Home +20 889 £67,500 +12.50% 339
London +1 643 £80,000 +3.23% 330
North of England +9 344 £57,500 -4.01% 146
South East -16 233 £60,000 +9.09% 151
South West -16 205 £57,500 +2.27% 77
Midlands -13 181 £62,500 +4.17% 63
North West +4 178 £60,000 -7.69% 79
Northern Ireland +6 131 £80,000 +45.45% 9
West Midlands -16 96 £62,500 -3.85% 38
North East +8 91 £52,500 +31.25% 29
East Midlands -22 84 £60,000 +26.32% 25
Yorkshire -23 75 £69,310 +41.45% 40
Wales -8 70 £55,000 - 8
East of England -33 62 £55,000 -3.51% 54
Scotland -39 49 £62,500 -5.66% 27

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 43 (2.08%) Confluence
2 29 (1.40%) Apache Airflow
2 29 (1.40%) Apache Spark
3 23 (1.11%) Apache
3 23 (1.11%) SharePoint
4 14 (0.68%) Jupyter
5 13 (0.63%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 13 (0.63%) Anypoint
5 13 (0.63%) CMS
5 13 (0.63%) Mule
6 5 (0.24%) IIS
6 5 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
6 5 (0.24%) Umbraco
6 5 (0.24%) WordPress
7 4 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.19%) nginx
8 3 (0.15%) Camunda
8 3 (0.15%) Cloud Foundry
8 3 (0.15%) Headless CMS
8 3 (0.15%) JBoss
Applications
1 23 (1.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.58%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (0.58%) Simulink
3 7 (0.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.29%) PlantUML
5 5 (0.24%) Lightworks
6 3 (0.15%) CANalyzer
6 3 (0.15%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.097%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.097%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.097%) Moqups
8 1 (0.048%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 38 (1.84%) Dynamics CRM
2 27 (1.31%) Dynamics GP
3 5 (0.24%) Visualfiles
4 4 (0.19%) Dynamics AX
4 4 (0.19%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.097%) FLEXCUBE
5 2 (0.097%) Oracle Applications
5 2 (0.097%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.097%) Payment Gateway
5 2 (0.097%) Towers Watson Igloo
5 2 (0.097%) Workday HCM
6 1 (0.048%) Endur
6 1 (0.048%) Findur
6 1 (0.048%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.048%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.048%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.048%) Oracle Assets
6 1 (0.048%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.048%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.048%) Oracle SCM
Cloud Services
1 767 (37.09%) AWS
2 655 (31.67%) Azure
3 246 (11.90%) Azure DevOps
4 234 (11.32%) SaaS
5 231 (11.17%) GCP
6 182 (8.80%) Serverless
7 176 (8.51%) GitHub
8 89 (4.30%) GitHub Actions
9 87 (4.21%) AWS CloudFormation
10 77 (3.72%) AWS Lambda
11 72 (3.48%) Amazon S3
12 68 (3.29%) Amazon EKS
13 56 (2.71%) Power Platform
14 52 (2.51%) Azure Service Bus
15 51 (2.47%) PaaS
16 45 (2.18%) Azure Logic Apps
17 44 (2.13%) Azure Monitor
17 44 (2.13%) dbt
18 40 (1.93%) Amazon EC2
19 33 (1.60%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 71 (3.43%) Broadband
2 25 (1.21%) Firewall
3 14 (0.68%) DNS
3 14 (0.68%) SSL
3 14 (0.68%) Wireless
4 13 (0.63%) DMARC
5 12 (0.58%) MQTT
5 12 (0.58%) TCP/IP
6 11 (0.53%) Wi-Fi
7 10 (0.48%) LTE
8 8 (0.39%) 3GPP
8 8 (0.39%) HTTP
8 8 (0.39%) WAN
9 7 (0.34%) CHAP
9 7 (0.34%) DHCP
9 7 (0.34%) GSM
9 7 (0.34%) Radio Access Network
9 7 (0.34%) RANAP
9 7 (0.34%) SS7
9 7 (0.34%) UMTS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 135 (6.53%) NoSQL
2 131 (6.33%) PostgreSQL
3 104 (5.03%) MongoDB
4 67 (3.24%) SQL Server
5 46 (2.22%) DynamoDB
6 44 (2.13%) Relational Database
7 39 (1.89%) MySQL
8 29 (1.40%) Data Warehouse
9 27 (1.31%) Redis
10 26 (1.26%) Power BI
11 24 (1.16%) BigQuery
12 18 (0.87%) Spark SQL
13 17 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.77%) Metadata
14 16 (0.77%) Semantic Layer
15 14 (0.68%) Amazon Athena
15 14 (0.68%) Data Lake
16 13 (0.63%) Oracle Database
17 12 (0.58%) Elasticsearch
18 10 (0.48%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 271 (13.10%) Git
2 186 (8.99%) GitLab
2 186 (8.99%) Jenkins
3 155 (7.50%) Selenium
4 130 (6.29%) JIRA
5 95 (4.59%) Cucumber
6 91 (4.40%) Cypress.io
7 81 (3.92%) Postman
8 55 (2.66%) TeamCity
9 52 (2.51%) JMeter
10 39 (1.89%) JUnit
11 38 (1.84%) REST Assured
12 32 (1.55%) Zephyr
13 25 (1.21%) Gatling
13 25 (1.21%) SpecFlow
13 25 (1.21%) TestRail
14 21 (1.02%) fastlane
15 20 (0.97%) Crashlytics
16 19 (0.92%) Bitbucket
16 19 (0.92%) SonarQube
General
1 546 (26.40%) Social Skills
2 461 (22.29%) Finance
3 218 (10.54%) Analytical Skills
4 212 (10.25%) Public Sector
5 205 (9.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 186 (8.99%) Banking
7 180 (8.70%) Law
8 113 (5.46%) Legal
9 91 (4.40%) Retail
10 69 (3.34%) Manufacturing
11 62 (3.00%) Marketing
12 61 (2.95%) Financial Institution
13 58 (2.80%) Electronics
14 54 (2.61%) Games
15 49 (2.37%) Back Office
16 29 (1.40%) Front Office
17 28 (1.35%) Telecoms
18 24 (1.16%) Documentation Skills
19 22 (1.06%) Aerospace
20 21 (1.02%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 583 (28.19%) Senior
2 326 (15.76%) Lead
3 317 (15.33%) Software Engineer
4 294 (14.22%) Developer
5 218 (10.54%) Test Engineer
6 120 (5.80%) Java Engineer
7 119 (5.75%) Senior Developer
8 95 (4.59%) Senior Software Engineer
9 86 (4.16%) QA Engineer
9 86 (4.16%) Test Automation Engineer
10 83 (4.01%) Full-Stack Engineer
11 77 (3.72%) DevOps Engineer
12 70 (3.38%) Test Leader
13 69 (3.34%) Architect
14 66 (3.19%) Tester
15 63 (3.05%) Data Engineer
16 58 (2.80%) Senior Manager
17 56 (2.71%) Lead Software Engineer
18 55 (2.66%) Analyst
18 55 (2.66%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 214 (10.35%) React
2 201 (9.72%) .NET
3 184 (8.90%) Playwright
3 184 (8.90%) Spring
4 181 (8.75%) REST
5 174 (8.41%) Node.js
5 174 (8.41%) RESTful
6 138 (6.67%) Spring Boot
7 120 (5.80%) Kafka
8 102 (4.93%) AngularJS
9 86 (4.16%) CSS
10 83 (4.01%) HTML
11 67 (3.24%) OAuth
12 66 (3.19%) Middleware
13 60 (2.90%) OAuth2
14 50 (2.42%) JSON
15 45 (2.18%) RabbitMQ
16 44 (2.13%) Vue
17 43 (2.08%) Next.js
18 39 (1.89%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 370 (17.89%) Cloud Native
2 231 (11.17%) Product Ownership
3 174 (8.41%) Distributed Systems
4 103 (4.98%) Mobile App
5 77 (3.72%) Enterprise Software
6 69 (3.34%) Virtual Team
7 68 (3.29%) Public Cloud
8 65 (3.14%) Legacy Systems
9 60 (2.90%) Cyber Threat
10 57 (2.76%) Algorithms
11 50 (2.42%) Blog
11 50 (2.42%) Low-Code
12 47 (2.27%) Management Information System
13 43 (2.08%) Data Structures
14 42 (2.03%) Onboarding
15 41 (1.98%) Greenfield Project
16 35 (1.69%) Embedded Systems
16 35 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
17 34 (1.64%) Marketing Technology
17 34 (1.64%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 183 (8.85%) Linux
2 92 (4.45%) Windows
3 60 (2.90%) Apple iOS
4 53 (2.56%) Unix
5 51 (2.47%) Android
6 11 (0.53%) Windows Server
7 7 (0.34%) CentOS
8 6 (0.29%) Embedded Linux
8 6 (0.29%) FreeRTOS
9 4 (0.19%) Kali Linux
10 3 (0.15%) AIX
10 3 (0.15%) Debian
11 1 (0.048%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.048%) ThreadX
11 1 (0.048%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.048%) VMS
11 1 (0.048%) VxWorks
11 1 (0.048%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.048%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,186 (57.35%) CI/CD
2 924 (44.68%) Agile
3 793 (38.35%) DevOps
4 663 (32.06%) Software Engineering
5 590 (28.53%) Continuous Improvement
6 585 (28.29%) Mentoring
7 413 (19.97%) Problem-Solving
8 407 (19.68%) AI
9 406 (19.63%) Microservices
10 373 (18.04%) Infrastructure as Code
11 349 (16.88%) Software Testing
12 292 (14.12%) Test Strategy
13 269 (13.01%) Containerisation
14 267 (12.91%) Coaching
15 265 (12.81%) Full-Stack Development
16 263 (12.72%) Observability
17 238 (11.51%) Code Quality
18 231 (11.17%) Validation
19 214 (10.35%) Scrum
20 210 (10.15%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 655 (31.67%) Python
2 561 (27.13%) Java
3 369 (17.84%) JavaScript
4 326 (15.76%) SQL
5 305 (14.75%) TypeScript
6 299 (14.46%) C#
7 117 (5.66%) C++
8 104 (5.03%) PowerShell
9 84 (4.06%) Go
10 75 (3.63%) Bash
11 74 (3.58%) C
12 41 (1.98%) Kotlin
13 33 (1.60%) Rust
14 30 (1.45%) Swift
15 29 (1.40%) PHP
16 25 (1.21%) Ruby
17 21 (1.02%) Bicep
17 21 (1.02%) MATLAB
18 18 (0.87%) Groovy
19 16 (0.77%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 260 (12.57%) Security Cleared
2 236 (11.41%) Degree
3 161 (7.79%) SC Cleared
4 107 (5.17%) Computer Science Degree
5 82 (3.97%) ISTQB
6 62 (3.00%) CISSP
7 60 (2.90%) ITIL Certification
8 56 (2.71%) CISM
9 51 (2.47%) DV Cleared
10 41 (1.98%) AWS Certification
11 37 (1.79%) Master's Degree
12 30 (1.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 17 (0.82%) BPSS Clearance
13 17 (0.82%) DBS Check
13 17 (0.82%) ISEB
14 13 (0.63%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 12 (0.58%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
16 11 (0.53%) HNC
17 9 (0.44%) HND
18 8 (0.39%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 484 (23.40%) QA
2 188 (9.09%) Accessibility
3 75 (3.63%) Data Quality
4 62 (3.00%) NIST
5 54 (2.61%) WCAG
6 53 (2.56%) ISO 22301
7 46 (2.22%) GDPR
8 15 (0.73%) SLA
9 14 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 13 (0.63%) Software Quality Assurance
11 11 (0.53%) GRC
12 9 (0.44%) SOC 2
13 8 (0.39%) COBIT
14 7 (0.34%) JTAG
14 7 (0.34%) MISRA
15 6 (0.29%) PMO
16 4 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
16 4 (0.19%) ISO 9001
16 4 (0.19%) NCSC
17 3 (0.15%) Automotive SPICE
System Software
1 284 (13.73%) Docker
2 30 (1.45%) Firmware
3 22 (1.06%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
5 13 (0.63%) Active Directory
5 13 (0.63%) Hyper-V
6 11 (0.53%) KVM
7 10 (0.48%) Embedded Firmware
8 2 (0.097%) vSphere
9 1 (0.048%) IAG
9 1 (0.048%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.048%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.048%) Terminal Server
9 1 (0.048%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.048%) Xen
Systems Management
1 312 (15.09%) Terraform
2 310 (14.99%) Kubernetes
3 131 (6.33%) Grafana
4 80 (3.87%) Ansible
5 61 (2.95%) Prometheus
6 26 (1.26%) Argo
7 16 (0.77%) Kibana
8 13 (0.63%) CloudHub
9 9 (0.44%) logstash
9 9 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
10 8 (0.39%) Puppet
11 7 (0.34%) HP Fortify
11 7 (0.34%) Microsoft Intune
12 6 (0.29%) Functional Safety
12 6 (0.29%) vCenter Server
13 5 (0.24%) Packer
14 4 (0.19%) SCCM
14 4 (0.19%) SCOM
15 3 (0.15%) Progress Chef
15 3 (0.15%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 163 (7.88%) Microsoft
2 58 (2.80%) Databricks
3 53 (2.56%) Google
4 51 (2.47%) Oracle
5 50 (2.42%) Salesforce
6 43 (2.08%) ServiceNow
7 36 (1.74%) VMware
8 30 (1.45%) Splunk
9 27 (1.31%) SAP
10 25 (1.21%) Dynatrace
11 21 (1.02%) Pega
12 17 (0.82%) AppDynamics
13 16 (0.77%) Braze
13 16 (0.77%) MuleSoft
14 15 (0.73%) Adobe
14 15 (0.73%) OpenAI
15 14 (0.68%) Amplitude
15 14 (0.68%) Atlassian
15 14 (0.68%) IBM
16 13 (0.63%) SendGrid