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 5 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 93 87 93
Rank change year-on-year -6 +6 -61
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 1,674 1,428 2,734
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.84% 3.32% 2.85%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.47% 3.58% 3.34%
Number of salaries quoted 1,044 888 1,774
10th Percentile £42,500 £38,750 £36,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £46,292 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £64,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% +4.35% -11.54%
75th Percentile £83,750 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £105,000 £98,474 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% +4.76% -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 67,799 39,928 81,978
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 74.55% 92.95% 85.54%
Number of salaries quoted 42,318 22,681 59,568
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,625 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,450 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -0.92% +9.09% -10.57%
75th Percentile £78,750 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £51,250 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -2.38% +5.00% -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 5 May 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 5 May 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 -6 1,421 £65,000 +8.33% 606
UK excluding London -35 903 £60,000 +9.09% 498
Work from Home +10 716 £67,500 +12.50% 282
London +43 618 £80,000 +14.29% 190
North of England -39 216 £62,500 +13.64% 136
South East -58 174 £60,000 +14.29% 119
South West -24 171 £55,000 -8.33% 60
Midlands -40 141 £61,500 +6.96% 77
North West -25 107 £60,750 +10.45% 63
Scotland -6 100 £60,000 - 31
West Midlands -42 71 £62,000 +3.33% 52
East Midlands -38 69 £60,000 +20.00% 25
Yorkshire -61 65 £69,310 +38.01% 35
East of England -4 57 £52,500 -7.89% 66
Wales -3 46 £55,000 +4.58% 17
North East -17 44 £55,000 -6.78% 38
Northern Ireland -40 9 £80,000 +45.45% 5

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 37 (2.21%) Confluence
2 23 (1.37%) Apache Airflow
3 19 (1.14%) Apache Spark
4 12 (0.72%) Apache
4 12 (0.72%) Appian
5 11 (0.66%) CMS
5 11 (0.66%) Jupyter
6 10 (0.60%) IIS
6 10 (0.60%) Palantir Foundry
7 9 (0.54%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 9 (0.54%) SharePoint
8 6 (0.36%) WordPress
9 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
9 3 (0.18%) nginx
9 3 (0.18%) Umbraco
10 2 (0.12%) Camunda
10 2 (0.12%) JBoss
10 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
10 2 (0.12%) SAS
11 1 (0.060%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 12 (0.72%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.60%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.36%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.36%) PlantUML
5 4 (0.24%) Fusion 360
6 3 (0.18%) CANalyzer
6 3 (0.18%) Simulink
7 2 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.060%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.060%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 17 (1.02%) Oracle ERP
2 9 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
3 5 (0.30%) Visualfiles
4 4 (0.24%) Dynamics AX
4 4 (0.24%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 4 (0.24%) Shopify
5 2 (0.12%) Workday HCM
6 1 (0.060%) Elite 3E
6 1 (0.060%) Endur
6 1 (0.060%) Findur
6 1 (0.060%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.060%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.060%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.060%) Oracle Financials
6 1 (0.060%) Oracle SCM
6 1 (0.060%) SAP CX
6 1 (0.060%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.060%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 565 (33.75%) Azure
2 520 (31.06%) AWS
3 265 (15.83%) Azure DevOps
4 197 (11.77%) GCP
5 175 (10.45%) GitHub
6 144 (8.60%) Serverless
7 120 (7.17%) SaaS
8 70 (4.18%) GitHub Actions
9 68 (4.06%) Amazon EKS
10 59 (3.52%) AWS Lambda
10 59 (3.52%) PaaS
11 56 (3.35%) AWS CloudFormation
12 55 (3.29%) Amazon S3
12 55 (3.29%) Azure Data Factory
13 49 (2.93%) dbt
13 49 (2.93%) Power Platform
14 45 (2.69%) GitHub Copilot
15 39 (2.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 37 (2.21%) Azure Service Bus
17 35 (2.09%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 32 (1.91%) Broadband
2 17 (1.02%) Firewall
3 16 (0.96%) CHAP
4 15 (0.90%) DNS
5 12 (0.72%) WAN
6 11 (0.66%) HTTP
6 11 (0.66%) SD-WAN
7 9 (0.54%) TCP/IP
8 8 (0.48%) 5G
9 6 (0.36%) VPN
10 4 (0.24%) SMTP
11 3 (0.18%) Cisco ISE
11 3 (0.18%) DHCP
11 3 (0.18%) Ethernet
11 3 (0.18%) LTE
11 3 (0.18%) VLAN
12 2 (0.12%) Modbus
12 2 (0.12%) Multicast
12 2 (0.12%) PuTTY
12 2 (0.12%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 116 (6.93%) NoSQL
2 114 (6.81%) PostgreSQL
3 89 (5.32%) SQL Server
4 78 (4.66%) MongoDB
5 36 (2.15%) MySQL
6 35 (2.09%) Data Warehouse
7 34 (2.03%) DynamoDB
8 32 (1.91%) Relational Database
9 31 (1.85%) Power BI
10 21 (1.25%) Amazon RDS
11 20 (1.19%) Metadata
12 16 (0.96%) Spark SQL
13 14 (0.84%) BigQuery
13 14 (0.84%) Oracle Database
13 14 (0.84%) Pinecone
13 14 (0.84%) Redis
14 12 (0.72%) Data Lake
15 11 (0.66%) DB2
16 10 (0.60%) Elasticsearch
16 10 (0.60%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 194 (11.59%) Git
2 167 (9.98%) Selenium
3 150 (8.96%) Jenkins
4 134 (8.00%) JIRA
5 113 (6.75%) GitLab
6 87 (5.20%) Cypress.io
7 70 (4.18%) Cucumber
8 62 (3.70%) Postman
9 59 (3.52%) TeamCity
10 45 (2.69%) JMeter
11 32 (1.91%) REST Assured
11 32 (1.91%) SpecFlow
12 30 (1.79%) CircleCI
13 27 (1.61%) TestRail
14 25 (1.49%) JUnit
15 24 (1.43%) MLflow
16 21 (1.25%) Bitbucket
17 19 (1.14%) Oracle Forms
17 19 (1.14%) Zephyr
18 18 (1.08%) WebDriver
General
1 467 (27.90%) Social Skills
2 436 (26.05%) Finance
3 180 (10.75%) Banking
4 154 (9.20%) Analytical Skills
5 145 (8.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 119 (7.11%) Law
7 113 (6.75%) Public Sector
8 90 (5.38%) Retail
9 58 (3.46%) Financial Institution
10 51 (3.05%) Manufacturing
11 44 (2.63%) Electronics
12 41 (2.45%) Back Office
13 34 (2.03%) Games
14 33 (1.97%) Front Office
14 33 (1.97%) Legal
15 31 (1.85%) Marketing
16 18 (1.08%) Organisational Skills
17 15 (0.90%) Investment Banking
18 14 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
19 13 (0.78%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 433 (25.87%) Senior
2 276 (16.49%) Lead
3 226 (13.50%) Developer
3 226 (13.50%) Software Engineer
4 179 (10.69%) Test Engineer
5 100 (5.97%) Senior Developer
6 94 (5.62%) QA Engineer
7 88 (5.26%) Tester
8 85 (5.08%) Java Engineer
8 85 (5.08%) Test Automation Engineer
9 74 (4.42%) Test Leader
10 70 (4.18%) Senior Software Engineer
11 59 (3.52%) Automation Engineer
11 59 (3.52%) Full-Stack Engineer
12 56 (3.35%) Data Engineer
13 52 (3.11%) DevOps Engineer
14 51 (3.05%) Automation Tester
15 50 (2.99%) QA Automation Engineer
16 49 (2.93%) Senior Test Engineer
17 46 (2.75%) Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 194 (11.59%) React
2 179 (10.69%) .NET
3 156 (9.32%) RESTful
4 151 (9.02%) REST
5 148 (8.84%) Playwright
6 108 (6.45%) Node.js
7 101 (6.03%) Spring
8 80 (4.78%) Kafka
9 76 (4.54%) Spring Boot
10 61 (3.64%) HTML
11 60 (3.58%) CSS
12 52 (3.11%) OAuth
13 51 (3.05%) JSON
14 45 (2.69%) pytest
15 43 (2.57%) RabbitMQ
16 42 (2.51%) AngularJS
17 40 (2.39%) Elastic Stack
17 40 (2.39%) Web Services
18 39 (2.33%) .NET Framework
18 39 (2.33%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 272 (16.25%) Cloud Native
2 151 (9.02%) Product Ownership
3 89 (5.32%) Distributed Systems
4 75 (4.48%) Mobile App
5 62 (3.70%) Management Information System
6 52 (3.11%) Enterprise Software
7 41 (2.45%) Algorithms
7 41 (2.45%) Legacy Systems
8 39 (2.33%) Greenfield Project
8 39 (2.33%) Onboarding
9 38 (2.27%) Low-Code
10 37 (2.21%) Self-Motivation
11 34 (2.03%) Public Cloud
12 30 (1.79%) Data Structures
13 27 (1.61%) Hybrid Cloud
14 23 (1.37%) Blog
14 23 (1.37%) Equities
14 23 (1.37%) Hedge funds
15 20 (1.19%) Embedded Systems
16 19 (1.14%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 166 (9.92%) Linux
2 86 (5.14%) Windows
3 66 (3.94%) Apple iOS
4 57 (3.41%) Android
5 48 (2.87%) Unix
6 11 (0.66%) CentOS
7 10 (0.60%) Windows Server
8 5 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.24%) Kali Linux
9 4 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (0.18%) FreeRTOS
10 3 (0.18%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) AIX
11 2 (0.12%) Debian
11 2 (0.12%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.060%) ThreadX
12 1 (0.060%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.060%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 877 (52.39%) CI/CD
2 678 (40.50%) Agile
3 591 (35.30%) DevOps
4 427 (25.51%) Software Engineering
5 406 (24.25%) Continuous Improvement
6 376 (22.46%) Mentoring
7 351 (20.97%) Problem-Solving
8 287 (17.14%) Microservices
9 278 (16.61%) Infrastructure as Code
10 276 (16.49%) AI
11 252 (15.05%) Software Testing
12 238 (14.22%) Observability
13 237 (14.16%) Coaching
14 211 (12.60%) Containerisation
15 204 (12.19%) Test Strategy
16 199 (11.89%) Clean Code
17 197 (11.77%) Full-Stack Development
18 177 (10.57%) Validation
19 163 (9.74%) Deployment Automation
20 159 (9.50%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 522 (31.18%) Python
2 427 (25.51%) Java
3 313 (18.70%) SQL
4 229 (13.68%) JavaScript
5 210 (12.54%) TypeScript
6 207 (12.37%) C#
7 79 (4.72%) C++
8 76 (4.54%) PowerShell
9 67 (4.00%) Bash
10 58 (3.46%) Go
11 46 (2.75%) C
12 33 (1.97%) Bicep
13 27 (1.61%) Rust
14 26 (1.55%) Kotlin
14 26 (1.55%) Shell Script
15 24 (1.43%) PL/SQL
16 23 (1.37%) Apex Code
17 20 (1.19%) PHP
18 18 (1.08%) Swift
19 17 (1.02%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 218 (13.02%) Degree
2 163 (9.74%) Security Cleared
3 101 (6.03%) SC Cleared
4 90 (5.38%) Computer Science Degree
5 77 (4.60%) ISTQB
6 31 (1.85%) DV Cleared
7 27 (1.61%) Master's Degree
8 23 (1.37%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 22 (1.31%) CISSP
10 21 (1.25%) AWS Certification
11 18 (1.08%) DBS Check
12 16 (0.96%) CGEIT
12 16 (0.96%) CISA
12 16 (0.96%) CISM
12 16 (0.96%) FFIEC
12 16 (0.96%) SANS
13 15 (0.90%) Azure Certification
14 13 (0.78%) PhD
15 12 (0.72%) CEH
15 12 (0.72%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 393 (23.48%) QA
2 120 (7.17%) Accessibility
3 77 (4.60%) Data Quality
4 53 (3.17%) GDPR
5 37 (2.21%) NIST
6 25 (1.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 19 (1.14%) WCAG
8 17 (1.02%) COBIT
9 14 (0.84%) SLA
10 12 (0.72%) ISO 22301
11 10 (0.60%) Software Quality Assurance
12 8 (0.48%) GRC
12 8 (0.48%) ISO 9001
13 7 (0.42%) IEC 61508
14 6 (0.36%) PMO
14 6 (0.36%) SOC 2
15 5 (0.30%) ISO 26262
16 4 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials
16 4 (0.24%) ISO 13485
16 4 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 237 (14.16%) Docker
2 28 (1.67%) Active Directory
3 23 (1.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (1.08%) Firmware
5 16 (0.96%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
7 13 (0.78%) KVM
8 8 (0.48%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.18%) Terminal Server
10 2 (0.12%) vSphere
11 1 (0.060%) IAG
11 1 (0.060%) Xen
Systems Management
1 288 (17.20%) Terraform
2 287 (17.14%) Kubernetes
3 126 (7.53%) Grafana
4 69 (4.12%) Ansible
5 52 (3.11%) Prometheus
6 27 (1.61%) Single Sign-On
7 25 (1.49%) Argo
8 10 (0.60%) logstash
9 8 (0.48%) Kibana
10 7 (0.42%) SCCM
10 7 (0.42%) SCOM
11 5 (0.30%) HP Fortify
11 5 (0.30%) Microsoft Intune
12 4 (0.24%) Packer
12 4 (0.24%) Rancher
12 4 (0.24%) vCenter Server
13 3 (0.18%) Functional Safety
13 3 (0.18%) HP ALM
13 3 (0.18%) Puppet
13 3 (0.18%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 132 (7.89%) Microsoft
2 78 (4.66%) Oracle
3 60 (3.58%) Databricks
4 52 (3.11%) Salesforce
5 45 (2.69%) VMware
6 36 (2.15%) Google
7 25 (1.49%) OpenAI
8 17 (1.02%) Commvault
8 17 (1.02%) ServiceNow
8 17 (1.02%) Splunk
9 15 (0.90%) Atlassian
9 15 (0.90%) SAP
10 14 (0.84%) Palantir
11 12 (0.72%) Amplitude
11 12 (0.72%) Automation Anywhere
11 12 (0.72%) Braze
11 12 (0.72%) UiPath
12 11 (0.66%) CrowdStrike
12 11 (0.66%) Dynatrace
12 11 (0.66%) Foundry