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

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 97 84
Rank change year-on-year +21 -13 -14
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 2,563 1,535 2,037
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.16% 3.12% 2.87%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.94% 3.51% 3.49%
Number of salaries quoted 1,381 736 910
10th Percentile £40,000 £39,934 £40,000
25th Percentile £46,939 £51,250 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,927 £65,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.27% +8.33% -4.00%
75th Percentile £80,000 £85,000 £78,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £105,000 £102,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £57,500 £59,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -2.54% +7.27% -3.79%

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 87,115 43,732 58,410
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.39% 88.90% 82.19%
Number of salaries quoted 59,537 24,546 31,188
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,250 £32,750
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,250 £43,997
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £78,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +15.79% -9.52% -2.78%

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 October 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 October 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 +13 2,111 £62,500 -3.85% 2,428
UK excluding London +20 1,632 £57,500 -2.54% 1,411
Work from Home +22 920 £67,500 +7.14% 1,090
London +1 754 £80,000 -3.03% 1,238
North of England +39 439 £57,500 -4.17% 376
South East +2 288 £60,000 +9.09% 302
South West +26 255 £60,000 +14.29% 148
Midlands -3 216 £52,500 -13.58% 146
North West -4 196 £60,000 -3.23% 197
Northern Ireland +12 160 - - 76
North East +21 136 £55,000 +78.86% 61
Wales +6 130 £53,171 -3.33% 33
West Midlands -11 117 £52,500 -8.70% 101
Yorkshire +36 116 £69,305 +26.01% 118
East of England +5 110 £46,000 -23.33% 136
East Midlands -17 99 £52,500 -16.00% 45
Scotland -52 46 £60,000 -14.29% 200

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 59 (2.30%) Confluence
2 43 (1.68%) Apache Spark
3 37 (1.44%) Apache
4 25 (0.98%) Apache Airflow
4 25 (0.98%) SharePoint
5 20 (0.78%) Jupyter
6 18 (0.70%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 14 (0.55%) Anypoint
7 14 (0.55%) CMS
7 14 (0.55%) Mule
8 11 (0.43%) Palantir Foundry
9 9 (0.35%) Microsoft Exchange
9 9 (0.35%) nginx
10 7 (0.27%) Headless CMS
10 7 (0.27%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.23%) SAS
12 5 (0.20%) Camunda
12 5 (0.20%) Cloud Foundry
12 5 (0.20%) WinCC
13 4 (0.16%) WordPress
Applications
1 86 (3.36%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (0.74%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (0.55%) Simulink
4 9 (0.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.27%) Moqups
6 6 (0.23%) Chatbot
6 6 (0.23%) Lightworks
7 5 (0.20%) MS Visio
8 4 (0.16%) EPLAN
8 4 (0.16%) SOLIDWORKS
9 1 (0.039%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.039%) Microsoft Project
9 1 (0.039%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 71 (2.77%) Dynamics CRM
2 27 (1.05%) Dynamics GP
3 11 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
5 3 (0.12%) Magento
5 3 (0.12%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.078%) FLEXCUBE
6 2 (0.078%) Oracle Applications
6 2 (0.078%) Towers Watson Igloo
6 2 (0.078%) Visualfiles
6 2 (0.078%) Workday HCM
7 1 (0.039%) Academy Revenues and Benefits
7 1 (0.039%) Adobe Campaign
7 1 (0.039%) Bloomberg TOMS
7 1 (0.039%) Endur
7 1 (0.039%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle Assets
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.039%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 849 (33.13%) AWS
2 685 (26.73%) Azure
3 328 (12.80%) SaaS
4 266 (10.38%) GCP
5 249 (9.72%) GitHub
6 222 (8.66%) Azure DevOps
7 188 (7.34%) Serverless
8 127 (4.96%) GitHub Actions
9 109 (4.25%) AWS CloudFormation
10 103 (4.02%) Amazon EKS
11 98 (3.82%) Amazon S3
12 91 (3.55%) AWS Lambda
13 78 (3.04%) Power Platform
14 59 (2.30%) Google Ads
14 59 (2.30%) Meta Ads
15 54 (2.11%) Azure Service Bus
15 54 (2.11%) GitHub Copilot
16 51 (1.99%) Azure Logic Apps
16 51 (1.99%) Azure Monitor
17 47 (1.83%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 56 (2.18%) Broadband
2 34 (1.33%) TCP/IP
3 28 (1.09%) DNS
4 26 (1.01%) Firewall
5 17 (0.66%) SSL
5 17 (0.66%) Wireless
6 16 (0.62%) Modbus
7 15 (0.59%) DMARC
8 14 (0.55%) Ethernet
8 14 (0.55%) HTTP
8 14 (0.55%) MQTT
9 13 (0.51%) Wi-Fi
10 12 (0.47%) 5G
10 12 (0.47%) DHCP
10 12 (0.47%) Network Security
11 11 (0.43%) WAN
12 10 (0.39%) LTE
13 9 (0.35%) 3GPP
14 8 (0.31%) Internet
15 7 (0.27%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (6.13%) PostgreSQL
2 121 (4.72%) NoSQL
3 90 (3.51%) MongoDB
4 84 (3.28%) SQL Server
5 75 (2.93%) Relational Database
6 52 (2.03%) Redis
7 51 (1.99%) Power BI
8 50 (1.95%) MySQL
9 42 (1.64%) DynamoDB
10 37 (1.44%) Data Warehouse
11 36 (1.40%) Data Lake
11 36 (1.40%) Metadata
12 30 (1.17%) Amazon Athena
12 30 (1.17%) BigQuery
13 29 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
14 27 (1.05%) Semantic Layer
15 18 (0.70%) Amazon Aurora
15 18 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
16 17 (0.66%) Amazon Redshift
17 16 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 364 (14.20%) Git
2 271 (10.57%) GitLab
3 214 (8.35%) Jenkins
4 163 (6.36%) Selenium
5 147 (5.74%) JIRA
6 118 (4.60%) Cypress.io
7 108 (4.21%) Cucumber
8 86 (3.36%) Postman
9 77 (3.00%) TeamCity
10 52 (2.03%) JUnit
11 48 (1.87%) REST Assured
12 47 (1.83%) JMeter
13 44 (1.72%) LabVIEW
14 31 (1.21%) Gatling
15 27 (1.05%) Claude Code
16 25 (0.98%) Zephyr
17 24 (0.94%) Robot Framework
18 23 (0.90%) SonarQube
19 22 (0.86%) Bitbucket
20 21 (0.82%) Maven
General
1 706 (27.55%) Social Skills
2 622 (24.27%) Finance
3 411 (16.04%) Analytical Skills
4 287 (11.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 276 (10.77%) Public Sector
6 217 (8.47%) Banking
7 204 (7.96%) Law
8 176 (6.87%) Marketing
9 136 (5.31%) Manufacturing
10 135 (5.27%) Legal
11 133 (5.19%) Retail
12 115 (4.49%) Electronics
13 88 (3.43%) Financial Institution
14 65 (2.54%) Back Office
15 62 (2.42%) Aerospace
16 48 (1.87%) Telecoms
17 40 (1.56%) Automotive
18 39 (1.52%) Games
19 36 (1.40%) Documentation Skills
20 25 (0.98%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 714 (27.86%) Senior
2 392 (15.29%) Software Engineer
3 346 (13.50%) Developer
4 297 (11.59%) Lead
5 283 (11.04%) Test Engineer
6 131 (5.11%) Senior Developer
7 122 (4.76%) Java Engineer
8 119 (4.64%) QA Engineer
9 113 (4.41%) DevOps Engineer
9 113 (4.41%) Senior Software Engineer
10 89 (3.47%) Test Automation Engineer
11 88 (3.43%) Analyst
12 86 (3.36%) Data Engineer
13 82 (3.20%) Principal Engineer
14 79 (3.08%) Tester
15 76 (2.97%) Full-Stack Engineer
16 72 (2.81%) Automation Engineer
17 71 (2.77%) Lead Software Engineer
18 69 (2.69%) Software Developer
19 67 (2.61%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 349 (13.62%) Terraform
2 279 (10.89%) REST
3 233 (9.09%) .NET
4 225 (8.78%) React
5 213 (8.31%) Node.js
6 209 (8.15%) Spring
7 207 (8.08%) Playwright
8 204 (7.96%) RESTful
9 163 (6.36%) Spring Boot
10 152 (5.93%) Kafka
11 134 (5.23%) CSS
12 125 (4.88%) HTML
13 117 (4.56%) AngularJS
14 74 (2.89%) Middleware
14 74 (2.89%) OAuth
15 66 (2.58%) OAuth2
16 59 (2.30%) JSON
17 55 (2.15%) Next.js
18 54 (2.11%) PySpark
19 49 (1.91%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 446 (17.40%) Cloud Native
2 293 (11.43%) Product Ownership
3 224 (8.74%) Distributed Systems
4 116 (4.53%) Enterprise Software
5 115 (4.49%) Onboarding
6 95 (3.71%) Mobile App
7 93 (3.63%) Public Cloud
8 87 (3.39%) Blog
9 75 (2.93%) Virtual Team
10 72 (2.81%) Legacy Systems
11 64 (2.50%) Marketing Technology
12 55 (2.15%) Self-Motivation
13 53 (2.07%) Cyber Threat
14 51 (1.99%) Low-Code
15 50 (1.95%) Algorithms
16 49 (1.91%) Embedded Systems
17 48 (1.87%) e-Learning
18 44 (1.72%) AI Agents
19 39 (1.52%) Data Structures
20 37 (1.44%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 175 (6.83%) Linux
2 95 (3.71%) Windows
3 63 (2.46%) Android
4 57 (2.22%) Unix
5 52 (2.03%) Apple iOS
6 10 (0.39%) Embedded Linux
7 8 (0.31%) CentOS
8 7 (0.27%) Windows Server
9 6 (0.23%) FreeRTOS
10 5 (0.20%) AIX
11 4 (0.16%) Debian
11 4 (0.16%) VMS
11 4 (0.16%) VxWorks
12 3 (0.12%) Kali Linux
13 2 (0.078%) OpenWrt
13 2 (0.078%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 1 (0.039%) macOS
14 1 (0.039%) Robot Operating System
14 1 (0.039%) ThreadX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,418 (55.33%) CI/CD
2 1,031 (40.23%) Agile
3 874 (34.10%) DevOps
4 824 (32.15%) Software Engineering
5 753 (29.38%) Continuous Improvement
6 657 (25.63%) Mentoring
7 650 (25.36%) AI
8 604 (23.57%) Problem-Solving
9 468 (18.26%) Microservices
10 435 (16.97%) Software Testing
11 406 (15.84%) Infrastructure as Code
12 350 (13.66%) Validation
13 332 (12.95%) Test Strategy
14 314 (12.25%) Observability
15 312 (12.17%) Coaching
16 304 (11.86%) Code Quality
17 293 (11.43%) Technical Leadership
18 274 (10.69%) Containerisation
19 272 (10.61%) Event-Driven
20 263 (10.26%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 710 (27.70%) Python
2 606 (23.64%) Java
3 506 (19.74%) SQL
4 439 (17.13%) JavaScript
5 365 (14.24%) TypeScript
6 332 (12.95%) C#
7 124 (4.84%) C++
8 112 (4.37%) Go
9 102 (3.98%) PowerShell
10 100 (3.90%) Bash
11 82 (3.20%) C
12 49 (1.91%) Kotlin
13 44 (1.72%) Rust
14 38 (1.48%) PHP
15 31 (1.21%) Ruby
16 24 (0.94%) Bicep
16 24 (0.94%) MATLAB
17 23 (0.90%) Groovy
18 20 (0.78%) Swift
19 18 (0.70%) Scala
Qualifications
1 420 (16.39%) Security Cleared
2 268 (10.46%) Degree
3 257 (10.03%) SC Cleared
4 96 (3.75%) Computer Science Degree
5 81 (3.16%) DV Cleared
6 75 (2.93%) AWS Certification
7 70 (2.73%) ISTQB
8 55 (2.15%) CISSP
9 54 (2.11%) ITIL Certification
10 52 (2.03%) CISM
10 52 (2.03%) Master's Degree
11 49 (1.91%) HNC
12 48 (1.87%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 41 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
13 41 (1.60%) HND
14 29 (1.13%) Azure Certification
15 16 (0.62%) DBS Check
16 15 (0.59%) ISEB
17 13 (0.51%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
18 11 (0.43%) NVQ Level 4
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 571 (22.28%) QA
2 209 (8.15%) Accessibility
3 107 (4.17%) Data Quality
4 67 (2.61%) WCAG
5 54 (2.11%) NIST
6 48 (1.87%) ISO 22301
7 35 (1.37%) GDPR
8 11 (0.43%) GRC
9 10 (0.39%) SLA
10 8 (0.31%) MISRA
11 7 (0.27%) JTAG
12 6 (0.23%) SOC 2
12 6 (0.23%) Software Quality Assurance
13 5 (0.20%) ISO 9001
13 5 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
13 5 (0.20%) NCSC
14 4 (0.16%) COBIT
14 4 (0.16%) ISO 20022
14 4 (0.16%) ISO 26262
14 4 (0.16%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 369 (14.40%) Docker
2 56 (2.18%) Firmware
3 15 (0.59%) Active Directory
4 11 (0.43%) Embedded Firmware
4 11 (0.43%) VMware Infrastructure
5 9 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.12%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.078%) KVM
7 2 (0.078%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.039%) IAG
8 1 (0.039%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.039%) QEMU
8 1 (0.039%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.039%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.039%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 372 (14.51%) Kubernetes
2 174 (6.79%) Grafana
3 74 (2.89%) Ansible
4 68 (2.65%) Prometheus
5 27 (1.05%) Argo
6 17 (0.66%) Puppet
7 16 (0.62%) Kibana
8 14 (0.55%) CloudHub
9 11 (0.43%) Rancher
10 10 (0.39%) logstash
10 10 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
11 9 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
12 7 (0.27%) HP Fortify
13 6 (0.23%) Functional Safety
13 6 (0.23%) Progress Chef
13 6 (0.23%) vCenter Server
14 3 (0.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 2 (0.078%) Bosun
15 2 (0.078%) kaniko
16 1 (0.039%) Packer
Vendors
1 268 (10.46%) Microsoft
2 139 (5.42%) Google
3 69 (2.69%) Databricks
4 62 (2.42%) Salesforce
5 54 (2.11%) Oracle
6 50 (1.95%) SAP
6 50 (1.95%) ServiceNow
7 38 (1.48%) Dynatrace
8 36 (1.40%) Splunk
9 22 (0.86%) Pega
10 20 (0.78%) Adobe
11 19 (0.74%) MuleSoft
12 18 (0.70%) Foundry
12 18 (0.70%) VMware
13 17 (0.66%) Allen-Bradley
13 17 (0.66%) OpenAI
14 15 (0.59%) AppDynamics
14 15 (0.59%) Atlassian
14 15 (0.59%) Red Hat
14 15 (0.59%) SendGrid