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

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 92 86 93
Rank change year-on-year -6 +7 -59
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 1,789 1,535 2,709
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.93% 3.61% 2.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.61% 3.87% 3.25%
Number of salaries quoted 1,117 792 1,754
10th Percentile £42,500 £41,250 £36,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £48,750 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £62,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year - +8.70% -11.54%
75th Percentile £83,750 £82,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £99,250 £99,425 £88,533
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 68,523 39,694 83,256
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.83% 93.27% 84.12%
Number of salaries quoted 44,541 20,818 60,168
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,750 £29,250
25th Percentile £40,875 £41,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £58,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% +6.36% -9.84%
75th Percentile £78,750 £78,750 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £51,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +1.94% +3.00% -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 26 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 26 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 -3 1,551 £62,500 - 641
UK excluding London -37 979 £60,000 +4.35% 460
Work from Home +10 739 £65,000 +8.33% 361
London +31 641 £80,000 +14.29% 264
North of England -32 262 £60,000 +0.39% 130
South East -24 203 £60,000 +9.09% 111
South West -23 173 £55,000 -8.33% 59
Midlands -41 160 £61,000 +6.09% 64
North West -21 135 £60,000 -7.69% 77
West Midlands -53 80 £61,750 -5.00% 46
East Midlands -26 79 £55,000 +15.79% 18
Scotland -31 72 £60,000 - 24
Yorkshire -41 67 £72,155 +43.67% 25
East of England -27 64 £50,000 -12.28% 48
North East -8 60 £52,500 -11.02% 28
Wales -1 47 £55,000 - 14
Northern Ireland -38 11 £80,000 +45.45% 19

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 39 (2.18%) Confluence
2 25 (1.40%) Apache Airflow
3 19 (1.06%) Apache Spark
4 16 (0.89%) Apache
4 16 (0.89%) Jupyter
5 15 (0.84%) SharePoint
6 10 (0.56%) CMS
6 10 (0.56%) IIS
6 10 (0.56%) Palantir Foundry
7 9 (0.50%) Appian
8 7 (0.39%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 6 (0.34%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 4 (0.22%) Anypoint
10 4 (0.22%) Umbraco
10 4 (0.22%) WordPress
11 3 (0.17%) Mule
11 3 (0.17%) nginx
11 3 (0.17%) SAS
12 2 (0.11%) Camunda
12 2 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
Applications
1 14 (0.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.34%) PlantUML
3 6 (0.34%) Simulink
4 5 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.17%) CANalyzer
5 3 (0.17%) Fusion 360
5 3 (0.17%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.11%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 2 (0.11%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.056%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 11 (0.61%) Oracle ERP
2 10 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
3 5 (0.28%) Visualfiles
4 4 (0.22%) Dynamics AX
4 4 (0.22%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.17%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.17%) Shopify
6 2 (0.11%) Towers Watson Igloo
6 2 (0.11%) Workday HCM
7 1 (0.056%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.056%) Endur
7 1 (0.056%) Findur
7 1 (0.056%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.056%) Misys Midas
7 1 (0.056%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.056%) Oracle Financials
7 1 (0.056%) Oracle SCM
Cloud Services
1 588 (32.87%) AWS
2 569 (31.81%) Azure
3 263 (14.70%) Azure DevOps
4 211 (11.79%) GCP
5 167 (9.33%) GitHub
6 157 (8.78%) Serverless
7 126 (7.04%) SaaS
8 76 (4.25%) Amazon EKS
9 75 (4.19%) GitHub Actions
10 69 (3.86%) AWS Lambda
11 67 (3.75%) Amazon S3
12 61 (3.41%) AWS CloudFormation
13 56 (3.13%) PaaS
14 49 (2.74%) Power Platform
15 46 (2.57%) Azure Data Factory
16 43 (2.40%) dbt
17 42 (2.35%) Azure Service Bus
18 39 (2.18%) Azure Logic Apps
18 39 (2.18%) Azure Monitor
18 39 (2.18%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 46 (2.57%) Broadband
2 24 (1.34%) Firewall
3 15 (0.84%) DNS
4 13 (0.73%) CHAP
5 12 (0.67%) WAN
6 11 (0.61%) SD-WAN
7 10 (0.56%) 5G
8 9 (0.50%) HTTP
9 6 (0.34%) Bluetooth
9 6 (0.34%) Wireless
10 5 (0.28%) SMS
10 5 (0.28%) TCP/IP
10 5 (0.28%) VPN
10 5 (0.28%) Wi-Fi
10 5 (0.28%) ZigBee
11 4 (0.22%) DHCP
11 4 (0.22%) DMARC
11 4 (0.22%) LTE
11 4 (0.22%) MQTT
12 3 (0.17%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 125 (6.99%) NoSQL
2 115 (6.43%) PostgreSQL
3 90 (5.03%) MongoDB
4 77 (4.30%) SQL Server
5 38 (2.12%) DynamoDB
6 33 (1.84%) MySQL
7 30 (1.68%) Data Warehouse
7 30 (1.68%) Relational Database
8 27 (1.51%) Power BI
9 22 (1.23%) Amazon RDS
10 19 (1.06%) Metadata
11 18 (1.01%) Spark SQL
12 17 (0.95%) Redis
13 15 (0.84%) BigQuery
14 13 (0.73%) Oracle Database
15 11 (0.61%) Data Lake
15 11 (0.61%) Pinecone
16 9 (0.50%) Elasticsearch
16 9 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
17 8 (0.45%) DB2
Development Applications
1 206 (11.51%) Git
2 157 (8.78%) Jenkins
3 150 (8.38%) Selenium
4 133 (7.43%) GitLab
5 122 (6.82%) JIRA
6 83 (4.64%) Cypress.io
7 69 (3.86%) Cucumber
8 64 (3.58%) TeamCity
9 61 (3.41%) Postman
10 44 (2.46%) JMeter
11 34 (1.90%) REST Assured
12 29 (1.62%) SpecFlow
13 28 (1.57%) CircleCI
14 27 (1.51%) JUnit
15 25 (1.40%) TestRail
16 23 (1.29%) LabVIEW
17 21 (1.17%) Zephyr
18 20 (1.12%) MLflow
19 18 (1.01%) Robot Framework
20 17 (0.95%) SonarQube
General
1 454 (25.38%) Social Skills
2 426 (23.81%) Finance
3 188 (10.51%) Banking
4 174 (9.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 155 (8.66%) Analytical Skills
6 150 (8.38%) Public Sector
7 119 (6.65%) Law
8 98 (5.48%) Retail
9 63 (3.52%) Financial Institution
10 58 (3.24%) Electronics
11 57 (3.19%) Manufacturing
12 50 (2.79%) Back Office
13 43 (2.40%) Games
14 33 (1.84%) Front Office
15 32 (1.79%) Legal
16 30 (1.68%) Marketing
17 20 (1.12%) Organisational Skills
18 19 (1.06%) Documentation Skills
19 18 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
20 17 (0.95%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 475 (26.55%) Senior
2 302 (16.88%) Lead
3 257 (14.37%) Software Engineer
4 251 (14.03%) Developer
5 207 (11.57%) Test Engineer
6 117 (6.54%) Senior Developer
7 98 (5.48%) Java Engineer
8 90 (5.03%) QA Engineer
9 86 (4.81%) Test Automation Engineer
10 81 (4.53%) Tester
11 76 (4.25%) Senior Software Engineer
12 75 (4.19%) Test Leader
13 64 (3.58%) Full-Stack Engineer
14 60 (3.35%) Data Engineer
15 57 (3.19%) Architect
16 56 (3.13%) DevOps Engineer
17 51 (2.85%) Senior Test Engineer
18 50 (2.79%) Automation Engineer
19 48 (2.68%) Analyst
19 48 (2.68%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 191 (10.68%) .NET
2 190 (10.62%) React
3 157 (8.78%) RESTful
4 156 (8.72%) REST
5 154 (8.61%) Playwright
6 121 (6.76%) Spring
7 118 (6.60%) Node.js
8 92 (5.14%) Kafka
9 87 (4.86%) Spring Boot
10 64 (3.58%) AngularJS
10 64 (3.58%) HTML
11 62 (3.47%) CSS
12 55 (3.07%) OAuth
13 47 (2.63%) JSON
14 46 (2.57%) RabbitMQ
15 45 (2.52%) OAuth2
16 40 (2.24%) .NET Framework
17 38 (2.12%) pytest
18 35 (1.96%) PyTorch
18 35 (1.96%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 309 (17.27%) Cloud Native
2 187 (10.45%) Product Ownership
3 113 (6.32%) Distributed Systems
4 90 (5.03%) Mobile App
5 58 (3.24%) Management Information System
6 52 (2.91%) Enterprise Software
7 48 (2.68%) Onboarding
8 46 (2.57%) Algorithms
8 46 (2.57%) Low-Code
8 46 (2.57%) Public Cloud
9 37 (2.07%) Greenfield Project
9 37 (2.07%) Legacy Systems
10 36 (2.01%) Data Structures
10 36 (2.01%) Self-Motivation
11 26 (1.45%) Embedded Systems
12 25 (1.40%) Blog
12 25 (1.40%) Video\Live Streaming
13 23 (1.29%) Hedge funds
14 22 (1.23%) Hybrid Cloud
15 21 (1.17%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 162 (9.06%) Linux
2 84 (4.70%) Windows
3 69 (3.86%) Apple iOS
4 59 (3.30%) Android
5 50 (2.79%) Unix
6 10 (0.56%) CentOS
6 10 (0.56%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 4 (0.22%) Kali Linux
8 4 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
9 3 (0.17%) FreeRTOS
9 3 (0.17%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.11%) AIX
10 2 (0.11%) Debian
11 1 (0.056%) ThreadX
11 1 (0.056%) VxWorks
11 1 (0.056%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.056%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 966 (54.00%) CI/CD
2 742 (41.48%) Agile
3 627 (35.05%) DevOps
4 472 (26.38%) Software Engineering
5 445 (24.87%) Continuous Improvement
6 431 (24.09%) Mentoring
7 365 (20.40%) Problem-Solving
8 319 (17.83%) Microservices
9 314 (17.55%) Infrastructure as Code
10 294 (16.43%) AI
11 275 (15.37%) Software Testing
12 250 (13.97%) Observability
13 240 (13.42%) Coaching
14 233 (13.02%) Containerisation
15 220 (12.30%) Full-Stack Development
16 215 (12.02%) Test Strategy
17 203 (11.35%) Clean Code
18 197 (11.01%) Validation
19 171 (9.56%) Deployment Automation
20 167 (9.33%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 557 (31.13%) Python
2 482 (26.94%) Java
3 308 (17.22%) SQL
4 258 (14.42%) JavaScript
5 228 (12.74%) C#
6 218 (12.19%) TypeScript
7 95 (5.31%) C++
8 79 (4.42%) Bash
9 72 (4.02%) Go
9 72 (4.02%) PowerShell
10 56 (3.13%) C
11 33 (1.84%) Bicep
12 30 (1.68%) Rust
13 29 (1.62%) Kotlin
14 21 (1.17%) MATLAB
14 21 (1.17%) Swift
15 19 (1.06%) PHP
15 19 (1.06%) PL/SQL
16 18 (1.01%) Shell Script
17 17 (0.95%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 234 (13.08%) Degree
2 202 (11.29%) Security Cleared
3 119 (6.65%) SC Cleared
4 92 (5.14%) Computer Science Degree
5 77 (4.30%) ISTQB
6 43 (2.40%) DV Cleared
7 30 (1.68%) Master's Degree
8 25 (1.40%) AWS Certification
9 21 (1.17%) CISSP
10 19 (1.06%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 18 (1.01%) DBS Check
12 17 (0.95%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 15 (0.84%) HND
14 13 (0.73%) Azure Certification
14 13 (0.73%) CGEIT
14 13 (0.73%) CISA
14 13 (0.73%) CISM
14 13 (0.73%) FFIEC
14 13 (0.73%) PhD
14 13 (0.73%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 405 (22.64%) QA
2 149 (8.33%) Accessibility
3 79 (4.42%) Data Quality
4 51 (2.85%) GDPR
5 25 (1.40%) NIST
6 24 (1.34%) WCAG
7 18 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 14 (0.78%) COBIT
8 14 (0.78%) SLA
9 11 (0.61%) GRC
9 11 (0.61%) Software Quality Assurance
10 9 (0.50%) ISO 22301
11 8 (0.45%) ISO 9001
12 7 (0.39%) SOC 2
13 6 (0.34%) PMO
14 5 (0.28%) JTAG
14 5 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 4 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
16 3 (0.17%) ISO 13485
16 3 (0.17%) PERC
System Software
1 251 (14.03%) Docker
2 25 (1.40%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (1.29%) Active Directory
4 19 (1.06%) Firmware
5 18 (1.01%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
7 14 (0.78%) KVM
8 7 (0.39%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.17%) Terminal Server
10 2 (0.11%) vSphere
11 1 (0.056%) IAG
11 1 (0.056%) Xen
Systems Management
1 310 (17.33%) Terraform
2 293 (16.38%) Kubernetes
3 139 (7.77%) Grafana
4 76 (4.25%) Ansible
5 66 (3.69%) Prometheus
6 26 (1.45%) Argo
7 21 (1.17%) Single Sign-On
8 11 (0.61%) Kibana
9 9 (0.50%) logstash
10 7 (0.39%) SCCM
10 7 (0.39%) SCOM
11 5 (0.28%) HP Fortify
12 4 (0.22%) Microsoft Intune
12 4 (0.22%) Packer
12 4 (0.22%) Rancher
12 4 (0.22%) vCenter Server
13 3 (0.17%) CloudHub
13 3 (0.17%) Functional Safety
13 3 (0.17%) HP ALM
13 3 (0.17%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 141 (7.88%) Microsoft
2 62 (3.47%) Oracle
3 57 (3.19%) Databricks
4 52 (2.91%) Salesforce
5 42 (2.35%) VMware
6 35 (1.96%) Google
7 23 (1.29%) ServiceNow
7 23 (1.29%) Splunk
8 22 (1.23%) OpenAI
9 19 (1.06%) SAP
10 17 (0.95%) Dynatrace
11 15 (0.84%) Braze
12 14 (0.78%) CrowdStrike
13 13 (0.73%) Amplitude
14 12 (0.67%) AppDynamics
14 12 (0.67%) Atlassian
14 12 (0.67%) Commvault
14 12 (0.67%) Foundry
14 12 (0.67%) MuleSoft
14 12 (0.67%) Palantir