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 16 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 97 92 93
Rank change year-on-year -5 +1 -60
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 1,626 1,348 2,720
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.90% 3.25% 2.89%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.51% 3.50% 3.36%
Number of salaries quoted 1,011 883 1,798
10th Percentile £42,500 £38,750 £36,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £46,504 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £60,000 £57,965
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% +3.51% -10.82%
75th Percentile £83,750 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £105,000 £98,284 £91,934
UK excluding London median annual salary £57,500 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +4.55% +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 64,759 38,558 80,920
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 75.53% 92.98% 86.03%
Number of salaries quoted 39,875 22,521 59,469
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -10.54%
75th Percentile £77,500 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,600 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.94% +5.20% -8.26%

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 16 April 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 16 April 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 -7 1,365 £63,500 +5.83% 608
UK excluding London -36 869 £57,500 +4.55% 526
Work from Home +10 681 £65,000 +7.44% 295
London +33 606 £80,000 +14.29% 179
North of England -36 194 £61,500 +11.82% 123
South East -66 170 £57,500 +9.52% 143
South West -30 165 £55,000 -6.38% 65
Midlands -33 129 £60,500 +5.22% 79
Scotland +9 116 £62,500 +4.17% 39
North West -13 101 £60,000 +9.09% 54
West Midlands -27 66 £61,250 - 50
East Midlands -35 62 £55,200 +10.40% 29
Yorkshire -63 57 £68,076 +36.15% 33
East of England -19 56 £52,500 -23.64% 65
Wales -11 38 £55,000 +4.58% 19
North East -26 36 £55,000 -9.10% 36
Northern Ireland -41 10 £80,000 +45.45% 8

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 40 (2.46%) Confluence
2 23 (1.41%) Apache Airflow
3 18 (1.11%) Apache Spark
4 12 (0.74%) Appian
5 11 (0.68%) Apache
6 10 (0.62%) CMS
6 10 (0.62%) Palantir Foundry
7 9 (0.55%) IIS
7 9 (0.55%) Jupyter
7 9 (0.55%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 9 (0.55%) SharePoint
8 6 (0.37%) WordPress
9 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
9 3 (0.18%) nginx
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.12%) Camunda
10 2 (0.12%) JBoss
10 2 (0.12%) Oracle Application Server
10 2 (0.12%) SAS
10 2 (0.12%) Umbraco
Applications
1 14 (0.86%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (0.68%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.55%) MS Visio
4 8 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.37%) PlantUML
6 4 (0.25%) Fusion 360
7 3 (0.18%) CANalyzer
8 2 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
9 1 (0.062%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.062%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 17 (1.05%) Oracle ERP
2 12 (0.74%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
4 4 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
4 4 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 4 (0.25%) Shopify
5 3 (0.18%) Visualfiles
6 2 (0.12%) SAP CX
7 1 (0.062%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.062%) Endur
7 1 (0.062%) Findur
7 1 (0.062%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.062%) Oracle Financials
7 1 (0.062%) Oracle SCM
7 1 (0.062%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.062%) Siebel CRM
7 1 (0.062%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 544 (33.46%) Azure
2 498 (30.63%) AWS
3 256 (15.74%) Azure DevOps
4 203 (12.48%) GCP
5 195 (11.99%) GitHub
6 133 (8.18%) Serverless
7 132 (8.12%) SaaS
8 80 (4.92%) Amazon EKS
9 71 (4.37%) PaaS
10 69 (4.24%) GitHub Actions
11 59 (3.63%) dbt
12 57 (3.51%) Azure Data Factory
12 57 (3.51%) GitHub Copilot
13 54 (3.32%) AWS Lambda
14 50 (3.08%) Power Platform
15 46 (2.83%) AWS CloudFormation
16 45 (2.77%) Amazon S3
17 41 (2.52%) Datadog
18 34 (2.09%) Entra ID
18 34 (2.09%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 19 (1.17%) DNS
2 18 (1.11%) Broadband
3 14 (0.86%) CHAP
4 13 (0.80%) Firewall
4 13 (0.80%) HTTP
5 12 (0.74%) WAN
6 11 (0.68%) SD-WAN
7 10 (0.62%) TCP/IP
8 8 (0.49%) 5G
9 7 (0.43%) VPN
10 4 (0.25%) SMTP
11 3 (0.18%) Cisco ISE
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%) Network Security
12 2 (0.12%) SpaceWire
12 2 (0.12%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 106 (6.52%) NoSQL
2 99 (6.09%) PostgreSQL
3 89 (5.47%) SQL Server
4 56 (3.44%) MongoDB
5 41 (2.52%) Relational Database
6 37 (2.28%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (2.28%) MySQL
7 34 (2.09%) Power BI
8 27 (1.66%) DynamoDB
9 18 (1.11%) Amazon RDS
10 15 (0.92%) Metadata
11 14 (0.86%) Data Lake
11 14 (0.86%) Redis
12 13 (0.80%) BigQuery
12 13 (0.80%) DB2
12 13 (0.80%) Pinecone
13 11 (0.68%) Oracle Database
13 11 (0.68%) Spark SQL
14 10 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
14 10 (0.62%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 186 (11.44%) Git
2 184 (11.32%) Selenium
3 141 (8.67%) Jenkins
4 137 (8.43%) JIRA
5 93 (5.72%) Cypress.io
6 88 (5.41%) GitLab
7 77 (4.74%) Cucumber
8 70 (4.31%) TeamCity
9 64 (3.94%) Postman
10 52 (3.20%) JMeter
11 37 (2.28%) SpecFlow
12 32 (1.97%) REST Assured
13 27 (1.66%) CircleCI
13 27 (1.66%) TestRail
14 25 (1.54%) JUnit
15 24 (1.48%) MLflow
16 22 (1.35%) Bitbucket
17 21 (1.29%) Robot Framework
18 19 (1.17%) Zephyr
19 18 (1.11%) WebDriver
General
1 456 (28.04%) Social Skills
2 449 (27.61%) Finance
3 190 (11.69%) Banking
4 156 (9.59%) Analytical Skills
5 143 (8.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 130 (8.00%) Law
7 102 (6.27%) Retail
8 97 (5.97%) Public Sector
9 65 (4.00%) Financial Institution
10 50 (3.08%) Back Office
11 43 (2.64%) Electronics
12 41 (2.52%) Manufacturing
13 39 (2.40%) Legal
14 36 (2.21%) Marketing
15 35 (2.15%) Front Office
16 26 (1.60%) Games
17 19 (1.17%) Documentation Skills
18 16 (0.98%) Organisational Skills
19 14 (0.86%) Telecoms
20 13 (0.80%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 415 (25.52%) Senior
2 267 (16.42%) Lead
3 228 (14.02%) Developer
4 222 (13.65%) Software Engineer
5 163 (10.02%) Test Engineer
6 103 (6.33%) Senior Developer
7 92 (5.66%) QA Engineer
8 88 (5.41%) Tester
9 87 (5.35%) Java Engineer
10 81 (4.98%) Test Leader
11 73 (4.49%) Test Automation Engineer
12 71 (4.37%) Senior Software Engineer
13 65 (4.00%) Analyst
14 56 (3.44%) Automation Engineer
15 55 (3.38%) Full-Stack Engineer
16 54 (3.32%) Automation Tester
17 48 (2.95%) Python Developer
17 48 (2.95%) QA Automation Engineer
18 47 (2.89%) Data Engineer
19 45 (2.77%) QA Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 203 (12.48%) React
2 167 (10.27%) .NET
3 148 (9.10%) Playwright
4 147 (9.04%) RESTful
5 141 (8.67%) REST
6 99 (6.09%) Spring
7 91 (5.60%) Node.js
8 71 (4.37%) Spring Boot
9 69 (4.24%) HTML
10 68 (4.18%) CSS
11 67 (4.12%) Kafka
12 56 (3.44%) JSON
13 53 (3.26%) OAuth
14 48 (2.95%) pytest
15 43 (2.64%) Elastic Stack
16 42 (2.58%) AngularJS
17 41 (2.52%) Web Services
18 40 (2.46%) OAuth2
19 39 (2.40%) .NET Framework
20 38 (2.34%) Django
Miscellaneous
1 267 (16.42%) Cloud Native
2 141 (8.67%) Product Ownership
3 81 (4.98%) Mobile App
4 69 (4.24%) Distributed Systems
5 60 (3.69%) Management Information System
6 46 (2.83%) Enterprise Software
7 45 (2.77%) Self-Motivation
8 43 (2.64%) Legacy Systems
9 40 (2.46%) Onboarding
10 37 (2.28%) Algorithms
11 35 (2.15%) Greenfield Project
12 33 (2.03%) Low-Code
13 31 (1.91%) Data Structures
14 28 (1.72%) Public Cloud
15 27 (1.66%) Hybrid Cloud
16 25 (1.54%) Equities
16 25 (1.54%) Hedge funds
17 22 (1.35%) Blog
18 20 (1.23%) Client/Server
19 19 (1.17%) Embedded Systems
Operating Systems
1 157 (9.66%) Linux
2 85 (5.23%) Windows
3 66 (4.06%) Apple iOS
4 57 (3.51%) Android
5 37 (2.28%) Unix
6 12 (0.74%) CentOS
7 9 (0.55%) Windows Server
8 5 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (0.18%) Debian
10 3 (0.18%) FreeRTOS
10 3 (0.18%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) AIX
11 2 (0.12%) Kali Linux
11 2 (0.12%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.12%) VxWorks
11 2 (0.12%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.062%) ThreadX
12 1 (0.062%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 837 (51.48%) CI/CD
2 661 (40.65%) Agile
3 565 (34.75%) DevOps
4 402 (24.72%) Continuous Improvement
4 402 (24.72%) Software Engineering
5 349 (21.46%) Mentoring
6 347 (21.34%) Problem-Solving
7 268 (16.48%) Microservices
8 262 (16.11%) AI
9 251 (15.44%) Infrastructure as Code
10 239 (14.70%) Software Testing
11 232 (14.27%) Coaching
12 223 (13.71%) Observability
13 205 (12.61%) Clean Code
14 199 (12.24%) Containerisation
14 199 (12.24%) Test Strategy
15 187 (11.50%) Full-Stack Development
16 163 (10.02%) Deployment Automation
17 159 (9.78%) Validation
18 156 (9.59%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 495 (30.44%) Python
2 421 (25.89%) Java
3 308 (18.94%) SQL
4 243 (14.94%) JavaScript
5 212 (13.04%) TypeScript
6 185 (11.38%) C#
7 79 (4.86%) PowerShell
8 72 (4.43%) C++
9 59 (3.63%) Bash
10 49 (3.01%) Go
11 38 (2.34%) C
12 35 (2.15%) Bicep
13 28 (1.72%) Kotlin
14 26 (1.60%) Shell Script
15 25 (1.54%) Apex Code
15 25 (1.54%) Rust
16 24 (1.48%) PL/SQL
17 19 (1.17%) Swift
18 18 (1.11%) PHP
19 12 (0.74%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 214 (13.16%) Degree
2 154 (9.47%) Security Cleared
3 100 (6.15%) SC Cleared
4 84 (5.17%) Computer Science Degree
5 83 (5.10%) ISTQB
6 30 (1.85%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 30 (1.85%) Master's Degree
7 28 (1.72%) DV Cleared
8 20 (1.23%) AWS Certification
8 20 (1.23%) CISSP
9 17 (1.05%) ISEB
10 15 (0.92%) CISA
11 14 (0.86%) Azure Certification
11 14 (0.86%) CGEIT
11 14 (0.86%) CISM
11 14 (0.86%) FFIEC
11 14 (0.86%) SANS
12 13 (0.80%) CEH
12 13 (0.80%) HND
12 13 (0.80%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 381 (23.43%) QA
2 126 (7.75%) Accessibility
3 67 (4.12%) Data Quality
4 49 (3.01%) GDPR
5 43 (2.64%) NIST
6 32 (1.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 27 (1.66%) WCAG
8 14 (0.86%) COBIT
8 14 (0.86%) SLA
9 13 (0.80%) ISO 22301
10 10 (0.62%) Software Quality Assurance
11 9 (0.55%) ISO 9001
12 8 (0.49%) NCSC
13 7 (0.43%) GRC
13 7 (0.43%) IEC 61508
14 5 (0.31%) ISO 26262
14 5 (0.31%) PMO
14 5 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 5 (0.31%) SOC 2
15 4 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 236 (14.51%) Docker
2 28 (1.72%) Active Directory
3 22 (1.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (0.92%) Hyper-V
4 15 (0.92%) Virtual Machines
5 14 (0.86%) Firmware
6 13 (0.80%) KVM
7 8 (0.49%) Embedded Firmware
8 3 (0.18%) Terminal Server
9 2 (0.12%) vSphere
10 1 (0.062%) Xen
Systems Management
1 294 (18.08%) Kubernetes
2 290 (17.84%) Terraform
3 139 (8.55%) Grafana
4 67 (4.12%) Ansible
5 46 (2.83%) Prometheus
6 27 (1.66%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (0.74%) Argo
8 9 (0.55%) logstash
9 7 (0.43%) Kibana
9 7 (0.43%) Microsoft Intune
10 6 (0.37%) HP ALM
10 6 (0.37%) SCCM
10 6 (0.37%) SCOM
11 4 (0.25%) Packer
11 4 (0.25%) Rancher
11 4 (0.25%) vCenter Server
12 3 (0.18%) Functional Safety
12 3 (0.18%) HP Fortify
13 2 (0.12%) SCOrch
13 2 (0.12%) VxRail
Vendors
1 129 (7.93%) Microsoft
2 75 (4.61%) Oracle
3 53 (3.26%) Databricks
3 53 (3.26%) Salesforce
4 45 (2.77%) VMware
5 39 (2.40%) Google
6 20 (1.23%) OpenAI
7 19 (1.17%) Commvault
7 19 (1.17%) Splunk
8 18 (1.11%) SAP
8 18 (1.11%) ServiceNow
9 15 (0.92%) Atlassian
10 14 (0.86%) Palantir
11 13 (0.80%) Foundry
11 13 (0.80%) Pega
12 12 (0.74%) Automation Anywhere
12 12 (0.74%) UiPath
13 11 (0.68%) IBM
13 11 (0.68%) Red Hat
14 10 (0.62%) Ab Initio