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 19 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 101 76 91
Rank change year-on-year -25 +15 -59
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 1,446 1,802 2,341
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.12% 3.69% 3.15%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.67% 3.99% 3.56%
Number of salaries quoted 880 864 1,676
10th Percentile £42,375 £41,594 £36,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £48,750 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £62,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year - +4.17% -4.00%
75th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £77,500
90th Percentile £106,250 £105,000 £98,125
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £53,000
% change year-on-year -4.35% +8.49% -7.83%

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 54,175 45,213 65,719
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 79.32% 92.48% 88.31%
Number of salaries quoted 32,471 22,205 50,855
10th Percentile £29,000 £34,750 £29,440
25th Percentile £38,000 £46,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -12.00%
75th Percentile £76,000 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £96,375 £102,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -8.90%

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 19 February 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 19 February 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 -26 1,200 £62,500 - 597
UK excluding London -56 733 £55,000 -4.35% 523
Work from Home +11 612 £65,000 +2.36% 332
London +33 578 £80,000 - 176
South East -64 179 £55,000 - 167
North of England -75 136 £60,000 +2.36% 118
Scotland +9 130 £83,750 +28.85% 41
South West -19 123 £55,000 -8.33% 70
Midlands -73 87 £55,000 -8.33% 68
North West -43 79 £60,000 +14.29% 69
East of England -48 51 £50,000 -28.57% 60
East Midlands -53 46 £55,000 -4.35% 21
West Midlands -42 44 £55,000 -8.33% 47
Yorkshire -62 42 £55,000 -12.00% 34
Wales -5 26 £56,350 +15.55% 13
North East -26 15 £55,200 -9.51% 15
Northern Ireland -43 5 £64,859 +1.74%

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 (2.42%) Confluence
2 21 (1.45%) Apache Airflow
3 19 (1.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 18 (1.24%) Apache Spark
5 15 (1.04%) Appian
6 12 (0.83%) Apache
7 10 (0.69%) Jupyter
7 10 (0.69%) Palantir Foundry
8 9 (0.62%) SharePoint
9 8 (0.55%) CMS
10 6 (0.41%) WordPress
11 5 (0.35%) IIS
12 4 (0.28%) Apache Solr
13 3 (0.21%) Microsoft Exchange
13 3 (0.21%) nginx
13 3 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
14 2 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 2 (0.14%) JBoss
14 2 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
14 2 (0.14%) SAS
Applications
1 20 (1.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (0.90%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (0.76%) MS Visio
4 10 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.28%) Fusion 360
6 3 (0.21%) Oracle Smart View
6 3 (0.21%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.14%) PlantUML
7 2 (0.14%) Sketch
8 1 (0.069%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.069%) Trello
Business Applications
1 40 (2.77%) Oracle ERP
2 30 (2.07%) SAP S/4HANA
3 20 (1.38%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
4 4 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
4 4 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 4 (0.28%) Shopify
5 3 (0.21%) Hyperion Planning
5 3 (0.21%) Oracle Assets
5 3 (0.21%) Oracle General Ledger
5 3 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
5 3 (0.21%) SAP CX
6 2 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.069%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.069%) NEC Housing
7 1 (0.069%) Oracle SCM
7 1 (0.069%) Postilion
7 1 (0.069%) SAP Hybris
7 1 (0.069%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 485 (33.54%) Azure
2 405 (28.01%) AWS
3 281 (19.43%) Azure DevOps
4 227 (15.70%) GitHub
5 160 (11.07%) GCP
6 108 (7.47%) SaaS
7 82 (5.67%) Serverless
8 77 (5.33%) GitHub Actions
8 77 (5.33%) GitHub Copilot
9 71 (4.91%) Power Platform
10 70 (4.84%) Amazon EKS
11 57 (3.94%) PaaS
12 51 (3.53%) Azure Data Factory
13 41 (2.84%) Snowflake
14 39 (2.70%) Datadog
14 39 (2.70%) dbt
14 39 (2.70%) Entra ID
15 37 (2.56%) OCI
16 35 (2.42%) Amazon S3
16 35 (2.42%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.45%) DNS
2 20 (1.38%) HTTP
2 20 (1.38%) TCP/IP
3 16 (1.11%) WAN
4 15 (1.04%) SD-WAN
5 12 (0.83%) 5G
5 12 (0.83%) VPN
6 9 (0.62%) CHAP
7 8 (0.55%) Firewall
8 5 (0.35%) Multicast
9 4 (0.28%) 3G
9 4 (0.28%) GPRS
9 4 (0.28%) GSM
9 4 (0.28%) Modbus
9 4 (0.28%) RS-232
9 4 (0.28%) RS-485
9 4 (0.28%) SMTP
9 4 (0.28%) SSL
10 3 (0.21%) VLAN
10 3 (0.21%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 86 (5.95%) PostgreSQL
2 83 (5.74%) SQL Server
3 78 (5.39%) NoSQL
4 57 (3.94%) Relational Database
5 51 (3.53%) MySQL
6 46 (3.18%) Data Warehouse
7 43 (2.97%) Power BI
8 37 (2.56%) MongoDB
9 20 (1.38%) Tableau
10 18 (1.24%) DynamoDB
11 15 (1.04%) Elasticsearch
12 14 (0.97%) Amazon RDS
12 14 (0.97%) DB2
12 14 (0.97%) Pinecone
13 13 (0.90%) BigQuery
13 13 (0.90%) Snowflake Schema
14 12 (0.83%) Metadata
14 12 (0.83%) RDBMS
15 10 (0.69%) Data Lake
16 9 (0.62%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 183 (12.66%) Selenium
2 156 (10.79%) JIRA
3 155 (10.72%) Git
4 139 (9.61%) Jenkins
5 77 (5.33%) Cypress.io
6 69 (4.77%) Cucumber
7 65 (4.50%) GitLab
7 65 (4.50%) TeamCity
8 50 (3.46%) Postman
9 43 (2.97%) JMeter
10 38 (2.63%) Oracle Forms
11 27 (1.87%) Robot Framework
11 27 (1.87%) SpecFlow
12 25 (1.73%) eCATT
12 25 (1.73%) JUnit
13 24 (1.66%) MLflow
14 23 (1.59%) CircleCI
14 23 (1.59%) Snyk
14 23 (1.59%) WebDriver
15 22 (1.52%) REST Assured
General
1 471 (32.57%) Finance
2 437 (30.22%) Social Skills
3 160 (11.07%) Analytical Skills
4 145 (10.03%) Banking
5 112 (7.75%) Law
6 104 (7.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 84 (5.81%) Retail
8 74 (5.12%) Marketing
9 67 (4.63%) Public Sector
10 62 (4.29%) Financial Institution
11 43 (2.97%) Manufacturing
12 40 (2.77%) Back Office
13 38 (2.63%) Front Office
14 33 (2.28%) Electronics
15 27 (1.87%) Presentation Skills
16 25 (1.73%) Legal
17 21 (1.45%) Documentation Skills
17 21 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
18 20 (1.38%) Organisational Skills
19 14 (0.97%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 401 (27.73%) Senior
2 229 (15.84%) Developer
3 213 (14.73%) Lead
4 161 (11.13%) Software Engineer
5 136 (9.41%) Test Engineer
6 103 (7.12%) Senior Developer
7 82 (5.67%) QA Engineer
8 74 (5.12%) Analyst
9 71 (4.91%) Tester
10 67 (4.63%) Test Leader
11 66 (4.56%) Test Automation Engineer
12 65 (4.50%) Java Engineer
13 57 (3.94%) Automation Engineer
14 52 (3.60%) Applications Engineer
15 51 (3.53%) Senior Software Engineer
16 48 (3.32%) Cloud Engineer
16 48 (3.32%) Python Developer
16 48 (3.32%) QA Automation Engineer
17 46 (3.18%) Automation Tester
18 39 (2.70%) Quality Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 153 (10.58%) RESTful
2 152 (10.51%) React
3 132 (9.13%) .NET
4 112 (7.75%) Playwright
5 108 (7.47%) REST
6 80 (5.53%) Spring
7 72 (4.98%) Node.js
8 66 (4.56%) JSON
9 62 (4.29%) CSS
9 62 (4.29%) HTML
10 59 (4.08%) OAuth
11 58 (4.01%) Kafka
12 54 (3.73%) pytest
12 54 (3.73%) SOAP
13 53 (3.67%) Spring Boot
14 45 (3.11%) OAuth2
15 37 (2.56%) XML
16 36 (2.49%) Elastic Stack
17 33 (2.28%) AngularJS
17 33 (2.28%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 260 (17.98%) Cloud Native
2 109 (7.54%) Product Ownership
3 58 (4.01%) Self-Motivation
4 52 (3.60%) Enterprise Software
5 51 (3.53%) Management Information System
6 47 (3.25%) Mobile App
7 39 (2.70%) Onboarding
8 36 (2.49%) Legacy Systems
9 32 (2.21%) Distributed Systems
10 28 (1.94%) Algorithms
10 28 (1.94%) Data Structures
10 28 (1.94%) Hedge funds
10 28 (1.94%) Low-Code
11 24 (1.66%) Equities
11 24 (1.66%) Greenfield Project
12 22 (1.52%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 21 (1.45%) Satnav
13 21 (1.45%) Security Posture
14 20 (1.38%) GNSS
14 20 (1.38%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 134 (9.27%) Linux
2 74 (5.12%) Windows
3 45 (3.11%) Apple iOS
4 42 (2.90%) Android
5 34 (2.35%) Unix
6 10 (0.69%) Windows Server
7 8 (0.55%) CentOS
8 5 (0.35%) Debian
8 5 (0.35%) Embedded Linux
8 5 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.28%) FreeRTOS
10 3 (0.21%) Windows 10
10 3 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.14%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.14%) Solaris
11 2 (0.14%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.14%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.069%) AIX
12 1 (0.069%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 748 (51.73%) CI/CD
2 616 (42.60%) Agile
3 497 (34.37%) DevOps
4 325 (22.48%) Mentoring
5 323 (22.34%) Continuous Improvement
6 322 (22.27%) Problem-Solving
7 305 (21.09%) Software Engineering
8 235 (16.25%) Coaching
9 233 (16.11%) AI
10 226 (15.63%) Microservices
11 183 (12.66%) Clean Code
12 182 (12.59%) Software Testing
13 180 (12.45%) Observability
14 171 (11.83%) Infrastructure as Code
15 160 (11.07%) Analytics
15 160 (11.07%) Test Strategy
16 137 (9.47%) Containerisation
17 131 (9.06%) Full-Stack Development
18 124 (8.58%) SDLC
19 123 (8.51%) Manual Testing
Programming Languages
1 423 (29.25%) Python
2 361 (24.97%) Java
3 309 (21.37%) SQL
4 193 (13.35%) JavaScript
5 167 (11.55%) TypeScript
6 152 (10.51%) C#
7 76 (5.26%) PowerShell
8 57 (3.94%) C++
9 46 (3.18%) Bash
10 45 (3.11%) PL/SQL
11 44 (3.04%) Shell Script
12 38 (2.63%) Go
13 31 (2.14%) PHP
14 30 (2.07%) Bicep
15 27 (1.87%) C
16 26 (1.80%) Apex Code
17 21 (1.45%) Kotlin
18 14 (0.97%) MATLAB
18 14 (0.97%) Rust
19 13 (0.90%) VBA
Qualifications
1 189 (13.07%) Degree
2 130 (8.99%) Security Cleared
3 86 (5.95%) SC Cleared
4 71 (4.91%) Computer Science Degree
5 66 (4.56%) ISTQB
6 35 (2.42%) Master's Degree
7 33 (2.28%) DV Cleared
8 24 (1.66%) AWS Certification
8 24 (1.66%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 18 (1.24%) HND
10 17 (1.18%) DBS Check
11 15 (1.04%) Azure Certification
12 14 (0.97%) ISEB
12 14 (0.97%) PhD
13 13 (0.90%) CISSP
14 12 (0.83%) CEH
15 10 (0.69%) BPSS Clearance
15 10 (0.69%) CISA
16 9 (0.62%) FFIEC
16 9 (0.62%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 332 (22.96%) QA
2 95 (6.57%) Accessibility
3 57 (3.94%) Data Quality
4 42 (2.90%) NIST
5 39 (2.70%) GDPR
6 38 (2.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 22 (1.52%) WCAG
8 16 (1.11%) SLA
9 14 (0.97%) NCSC
10 12 (0.83%) ISO 22301
11 9 (0.62%) COBIT
11 9 (0.62%) ISO 9001
12 6 (0.41%) Software Quality Assurance
13 5 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 4 (0.28%) IEC 61508
14 4 (0.28%) ISO 13485
14 4 (0.28%) ISO 26262
14 4 (0.28%) MISRA
15 3 (0.21%) Section 508
15 3 (0.21%) SEPA
System Software
1 198 (13.69%) Docker
2 40 (2.77%) Active Directory
3 16 (1.11%) Firmware
4 14 (0.97%) VMware Infrastructure
5 13 (0.90%) Embedded Firmware
6 8 (0.55%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.48%) KVM
8 6 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.21%) vSphere
10 2 (0.14%) Terminal Server
11 1 (0.069%) Xen
Systems Management
1 251 (17.36%) Terraform
2 243 (16.80%) Kubernetes
3 108 (7.47%) Grafana
4 60 (4.15%) Ansible
5 44 (3.04%) Single Sign-On
6 36 (2.49%) Prometheus
7 28 (1.94%) HP ALM
8 8 (0.55%) Argo
9 6 (0.41%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.35%) logstash
11 3 (0.21%) HP Fortify
11 3 (0.21%) Progress Chef
11 3 (0.21%) Rancher
11 3 (0.21%) SCCM
11 3 (0.21%) SCOM
12 2 (0.14%) Control-M
12 2 (0.14%) Kibana
12 2 (0.14%) Nessus
12 2 (0.14%) Puppet
13 1 (0.069%) Packer
Vendors
1 113 (7.81%) Microsoft
2 93 (6.43%) Oracle
3 61 (4.22%) Salesforce
4 49 (3.39%) SAP
5 37 (2.56%) VMware
6 35 (2.42%) Databricks
7 32 (2.21%) Google
8 29 (2.01%) HP
9 19 (1.31%) Okta
9 19 (1.31%) OpenAI
10 18 (1.24%) Black Duck
10 18 (1.24%) Coverity
10 18 (1.24%) Splunk
11 17 (1.18%) Commvault
12 15 (1.04%) UiPath
13 14 (0.97%) Ab Initio
13 14 (0.97%) Palantir
14 13 (0.90%) Foundry
14 13 (0.90%) ServiceNow
15 12 (0.83%) Guidewire