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 14 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 87 100
Rank change year-on-year +6 +13 -36
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 2,190 1,659 2,048
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.06% 3.32% 2.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.80% 3.72% 3.03%
Number of salaries quoted 1,228 807 1,229
10th Percentile £42,000 £37,500 £38,250
25th Percentile £49,250 £47,500 £46,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £62,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -7.69%
75th Percentile £80,250 £82,500 £71,991
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £87,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -4.35%

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 78,105 44,566 67,543
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.45% 89.27% 81.06%
Number of salaries quoted 53,741 25,228 43,541
10th Percentile £30,750 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,750 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.71%
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,575 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,683 £50,000
% change year-on-year +15.35% -4.63% -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 14 August 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 14 August 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 1,800 £65,000 +4.00% 1,288
UK excluding London +6 1,383 £60,000 +9.09% 735
Work from Home +18 876 £67,500 +10.20% 517
London -3 653 £80,000 - 647
North of England +9 358 £60,000 +3.45% 172
South East -12 251 £61,000 +10.91% 199
South West +1 234 £60,000 +14.29% 116
Midlands -5 191 £61,000 +1.67% 105
North West +2 183 £65,000 - 86
Northern Ireland +4 143 £80,000 +45.45% 14
West Midlands -13 102 £62,500 - 67
North East +5 100 £55,000 +57.14% 37
Wales +8 93 £55,000 - 18
East Midlands -18 88 £55,000 +4.76% 38
Yorkshire -21 75 £69,310 +41.45% 49
East of England -34 70 £50,000 -12.28% 73
Scotland -38 56 £62,500 +2.04% 55

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 49 (2.24%) Confluence
2 29 (1.32%) Apache Spark
3 26 (1.19%) SharePoint
4 25 (1.14%) Apache
5 24 (1.10%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.78%) Jupyter
7 14 (0.64%) Anypoint
7 14 (0.64%) Mule
8 13 (0.59%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 11 (0.50%) CMS
10 5 (0.23%) Cloud Foundry
10 5 (0.23%) IIS
10 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.23%) nginx
10 5 (0.23%) Umbraco
11 4 (0.18%) Camunda
11 4 (0.18%) SAS
12 3 (0.14%) WordPress
13 2 (0.091%) JBoss
13 2 (0.091%) WebLogic
Applications
1 41 (1.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.64%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (0.55%) Simulink
4 7 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.23%) Lightworks
6 4 (0.18%) Moqups
6 4 (0.18%) PlantUML
7 3 (0.14%) CANalyzer
7 3 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.14%) MS Visio
8 1 (0.046%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.046%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.046%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 43 (1.96%) Dynamics CRM
2 27 (1.23%) Dynamics GP
3 9 (0.41%) SAP S/4HANA
4 5 (0.23%) Visualfiles
5 4 (0.18%) Dynamics AX
6 3 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
6 3 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
7 2 (0.091%) FLEXCUBE
7 2 (0.091%) Magento
7 2 (0.091%) Oracle EBS
7 2 (0.091%) SAP ERP
7 2 (0.091%) Towers Watson Igloo
7 2 (0.091%) Workday HCM
8 1 (0.046%) Bloomberg TOMS
8 1 (0.046%) Endur
8 1 (0.046%) Findur
8 1 (0.046%) Misys Equation
8 1 (0.046%) Misys Midas
8 1 (0.046%) NetSuite
8 1 (0.046%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 774 (35.34%) AWS
2 666 (30.41%) Azure
3 268 (12.24%) SaaS
4 251 (11.46%) Azure DevOps
5 232 (10.59%) GCP
6 182 (8.31%) GitHub
7 181 (8.26%) Serverless
8 92 (4.20%) AWS CloudFormation
9 91 (4.16%) GitHub Actions
10 77 (3.52%) AWS Lambda
11 73 (3.33%) Amazon S3
12 64 (2.92%) Amazon EKS
13 62 (2.83%) Power Platform
14 53 (2.42%) Azure Service Bus
15 48 (2.19%) PaaS
16 47 (2.15%) Azure Logic Apps
17 44 (2.01%) Azure Monitor
18 42 (1.92%) Amazon EC2
19 41 (1.87%) dbt
20 36 (1.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 73 (3.33%) Broadband
2 25 (1.14%) Firewall
3 15 (0.68%) DNS
3 15 (0.68%) SSL
3 15 (0.68%) TCP/IP
3 15 (0.68%) Wireless
4 13 (0.59%) DMARC
4 13 (0.59%) Wi-Fi
5 12 (0.55%) MQTT
6 9 (0.41%) 3GPP
6 9 (0.41%) HTTP
6 9 (0.41%) LTE
6 9 (0.41%) WAN
7 8 (0.37%) DHCP
7 8 (0.37%) Network Security
8 7 (0.32%) CHAP
8 7 (0.32%) RANAP
8 7 (0.32%) SS7
8 7 (0.32%) Wireshark
8 7 (0.32%) ZigBee
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (5.66%) PostgreSQL
2 120 (5.48%) NoSQL
3 91 (4.16%) MongoDB
4 74 (3.38%) SQL Server
5 55 (2.51%) Relational Database
6 48 (2.19%) DynamoDB
7 34 (1.55%) Data Warehouse
7 34 (1.55%) MySQL
8 32 (1.46%) Power BI
9 27 (1.23%) Redis
10 26 (1.19%) BigQuery
11 23 (1.05%) Data Lake
12 19 (0.87%) Amazon RDS
13 18 (0.82%) Spark SQL
14 17 (0.78%) Metadata
14 17 (0.78%) Semantic Layer
15 16 (0.73%) Amazon Athena
16 13 (0.59%) Elasticsearch
17 12 (0.55%) Oracle Database
18 11 (0.50%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 300 (13.70%) Git
2 199 (9.09%) GitLab
3 196 (8.95%) Jenkins
4 159 (7.26%) Selenium
5 141 (6.44%) JIRA
6 97 (4.43%) Cucumber
7 96 (4.38%) Cypress.io
8 89 (4.06%) Postman
9 52 (2.37%) JMeter
9 52 (2.37%) TeamCity
10 44 (2.01%) JUnit
11 39 (1.78%) REST Assured
12 35 (1.60%) Zephyr
13 29 (1.32%) Gatling
14 27 (1.23%) TestRail
15 26 (1.19%) SonarQube
16 24 (1.10%) Bitbucket
16 24 (1.10%) SpecFlow
17 21 (0.96%) fastlane
18 19 (0.87%) Crashlytics
General
1 596 (27.21%) Social Skills
2 512 (23.38%) Finance
3 270 (12.33%) Analytical Skills
4 229 (10.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 213 (9.73%) Public Sector
6 194 (8.86%) Law
7 180 (8.22%) Banking
8 123 (5.62%) Legal
9 100 (4.57%) Marketing
10 91 (4.16%) Retail
11 86 (3.93%) Manufacturing
12 69 (3.15%) Electronics
13 63 (2.88%) Financial Institution
14 52 (2.37%) Games
15 47 (2.15%) Back Office
16 37 (1.69%) Aerospace
17 34 (1.55%) Telecoms
18 28 (1.28%) Front Office
19 26 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
20 20 (0.91%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 622 (28.40%) Senior
2 351 (16.03%) Lead
3 327 (14.93%) Software Engineer
4 308 (14.06%) Developer
5 237 (10.82%) Test Engineer
6 121 (5.53%) Senior Developer
7 105 (4.79%) Java Engineer
8 99 (4.52%) Senior Software Engineer
9 89 (4.06%) QA Engineer
10 88 (4.02%) DevOps Engineer
11 83 (3.79%) Full-Stack Engineer
11 83 (3.79%) Test Automation Engineer
12 68 (3.11%) Architect
13 67 (3.06%) Lead Software Engineer
13 67 (3.06%) Test Leader
14 65 (2.97%) Data Engineer
15 64 (2.92%) Senior Manager
16 63 (2.88%) Tester
17 62 (2.83%) Software Developer
18 61 (2.79%) Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 228 (10.41%) React
2 212 (9.68%) .NET
3 200 (9.13%) REST
4 189 (8.63%) Playwright
5 186 (8.49%) Node.js
6 181 (8.26%) Spring
7 175 (7.99%) RESTful
8 133 (6.07%) Spring Boot
9 118 (5.39%) Kafka
10 108 (4.93%) AngularJS
11 90 (4.11%) CSS
12 87 (3.97%) HTML
13 67 (3.06%) OAuth
14 63 (2.88%) Middleware
15 61 (2.79%) OAuth2
16 54 (2.47%) JSON
17 47 (2.15%) Vue
18 46 (2.10%) Next.js
18 46 (2.10%) RabbitMQ
19 43 (1.96%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 375 (17.12%) Cloud Native
2 252 (11.51%) Product Ownership
3 186 (8.49%) Distributed Systems
4 112 (5.11%) Mobile App
5 86 (3.93%) Enterprise Software
6 76 (3.47%) Virtual Team
7 74 (3.38%) Public Cloud
8 72 (3.29%) Legacy Systems
9 61 (2.79%) Algorithms
10 60 (2.74%) Cyber Threat
11 58 (2.65%) Onboarding
12 53 (2.42%) Blog
13 51 (2.33%) Low-Code
14 50 (2.28%) Management Information System
15 46 (2.10%) Self-Motivation
16 45 (2.05%) Data Structures
17 40 (1.83%) Marketing Technology
18 39 (1.78%) Greenfield Project
19 36 (1.64%) Embedded Systems
20 34 (1.55%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 186 (8.49%) Linux
2 100 (4.57%) Windows
3 64 (2.92%) Apple iOS
4 57 (2.60%) Android
5 52 (2.37%) Unix
6 12 (0.55%) Windows Server
7 7 (0.32%) CentOS
7 7 (0.32%) Embedded Linux
8 6 (0.27%) FreeRTOS
9 4 (0.18%) Debian
9 4 (0.18%) Kali Linux
10 3 (0.14%) AIX
10 3 (0.14%) VxWorks
11 2 (0.091%) VMS
12 1 (0.046%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 1 (0.046%) ThreadX
12 1 (0.046%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.046%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.046%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,238 (56.53%) CI/CD
2 963 (43.97%) Agile
3 825 (37.67%) DevOps
4 712 (32.51%) Software Engineering
5 643 (29.36%) Continuous Improvement
6 591 (26.99%) Mentoring
7 477 (21.78%) AI
8 464 (21.19%) Problem-Solving
9 402 (18.36%) Microservices
10 380 (17.35%) Infrastructure as Code
11 377 (17.21%) Software Testing
12 318 (14.52%) Test Strategy
13 277 (12.65%) Containerisation
14 276 (12.60%) Observability
15 274 (12.51%) Code Quality
15 274 (12.51%) Full-Stack Development
16 259 (11.83%) Coaching
17 257 (11.74%) Validation
18 233 (10.64%) Technical Leadership
19 228 (10.41%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 687 (31.37%) Python
2 558 (25.48%) Java
3 396 (18.08%) JavaScript
4 358 (16.35%) SQL
5 323 (14.75%) TypeScript
6 319 (14.57%) C#
7 126 (5.75%) C++
8 109 (4.98%) PowerShell
9 91 (4.16%) Go
10 78 (3.56%) C
11 74 (3.38%) Bash
12 41 (1.87%) Kotlin
13 34 (1.55%) Rust
14 32 (1.46%) PHP
14 32 (1.46%) Swift
15 25 (1.14%) Ruby
16 21 (0.96%) Bicep
16 21 (0.96%) MATLAB
17 19 (0.87%) Groovy
18 16 (0.73%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 302 (13.79%) Security Cleared
2 243 (11.10%) Degree
3 186 (8.49%) SC Cleared
4 108 (4.93%) Computer Science Degree
5 76 (3.47%) ISTQB
6 61 (2.79%) CISSP
7 60 (2.74%) ITIL Certification
8 59 (2.69%) DV Cleared
9 56 (2.56%) CISM
10 45 (2.05%) AWS Certification
11 37 (1.69%) Master's Degree
12 31 (1.42%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 25 (1.14%) BPSS Clearance
14 22 (1.00%) HNC
15 17 (0.78%) HND
15 17 (0.78%) ISEB
16 16 (0.73%) DBS Check
17 14 (0.64%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
18 12 (0.55%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
19 10 (0.46%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 520 (23.74%) QA
2 202 (9.22%) Accessibility
3 70 (3.20%) Data Quality
4 63 (2.88%) NIST
5 60 (2.74%) WCAG
6 52 (2.37%) ISO 22301
7 47 (2.15%) GDPR
8 14 (0.64%) SLA
9 13 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 12 (0.55%) GRC
11 11 (0.50%) Software Quality Assurance
12 9 (0.41%) SOC 2
13 8 (0.37%) COBIT
13 8 (0.37%) MISRA
14 7 (0.32%) JTAG
15 6 (0.27%) PMO
16 5 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
16 5 (0.23%) ISO 9001
16 5 (0.23%) NCSC
16 5 (0.23%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 303 (13.84%) Docker
2 34 (1.55%) Firmware
3 18 (0.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.73%) Active Directory
4 16 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.46%) Embedded Firmware
5 10 (0.46%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.37%) KVM
7 2 (0.091%) ProxySG
7 2 (0.091%) vSphere
8 1 (0.046%) IAG
8 1 (0.046%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.046%) Terminal Server
8 1 (0.046%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 311 (14.20%) Kubernetes
1 311 (14.20%) Terraform
2 127 (5.80%) Grafana
3 83 (3.79%) Ansible
4 58 (2.65%) Prometheus
5 27 (1.23%) Argo
6 16 (0.73%) Kibana
7 14 (0.64%) CloudHub
8 11 (0.50%) Puppet
9 9 (0.41%) logstash
9 9 (0.41%) Microsoft Intune
10 8 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
11 7 (0.32%) HP Fortify
12 6 (0.27%) Functional Safety
12 6 (0.27%) vCenter Server
13 5 (0.23%) Packer
14 4 (0.18%) Progress Chef
14 4 (0.18%) SCCM
14 4 (0.18%) SCOM
15 3 (0.14%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 202 (9.22%) Microsoft
2 82 (3.74%) Google
3 62 (2.83%) Databricks
4 56 (2.56%) Oracle
5 53 (2.42%) Salesforce
6 40 (1.83%) ServiceNow
7 36 (1.64%) SAP
8 34 (1.55%) Splunk
9 32 (1.46%) VMware
10 25 (1.14%) Dynatrace
11 21 (0.96%) Pega
12 19 (0.87%) AppDynamics
13 17 (0.78%) MuleSoft
14 16 (0.73%) Atlassian
14 16 (0.73%) IBM
15 15 (0.68%) Braze
16 14 (0.64%) Adobe
16 14 (0.64%) OpenAI
17 13 (0.59%) Red Hat
17 13 (0.59%) SendGrid