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

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 99 88 93
Rank change year-on-year -11 +5 -61
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 1,629 1,369 2,722
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.86% 3.27% 2.88%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.47% 3.52% 3.36%
Number of salaries quoted 1,021 898 1,790
10th Percentile £42,500 £38,750 £36,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £46,502 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% +4.35% -11.54%
75th Percentile £83,750 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £105,000 £97,528 £91,934
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 65,992 38,867 81,094
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 75.24% 92.91% 85.83%
Number of salaries quoted 40,690 22,673 59,246
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -10.86%
75th Percentile £77,500 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -8.90%

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 21 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 21 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 -12 1,367 £63,750 +6.25% 601
UK excluding London -38 878 £60,000 +9.09% 534
Work from Home +13 695 £65,000 +8.33% 299
London +28 599 £80,000 +14.29% 168
North of England -39 202 £62,000 +12.73% 123
South West -23 168 £55,000 -8.33% 71
South East -69 168 £59,500 +8.18% 135
Midlands -27 130 £61,000 +6.09% 80
Scotland +10 114 £62,500 +4.17% 40
North West -16 103 £60,000 +9.09% 55
West Midlands -36 67 £61,250 - 49
East Midlands -43 62 £57,600 +15.20% 31
Yorkshire -65 60 £69,308 +38.62% 35
East of England -23 55 £52,500 -22.22% 65
Wales -9 40 £55,000 +4.58% 15
North East -26 39 £55,000 -9.10% 33
Northern Ireland -44 10 £80,000 +45.45% 21

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 (2.39%) Confluence
2 22 (1.35%) Apache Airflow
3 17 (1.04%) Apache Spark
4 12 (0.74%) Appian
5 11 (0.68%) Apache
6 10 (0.61%) CMS
6 10 (0.61%) 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 13 (0.80%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (0.68%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.49%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.37%) PlantUML
5 4 (0.25%) Fusion 360
6 3 (0.18%) CANalyzer
7 2 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.061%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.061%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.061%) Simulink
8 1 (0.061%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 17 (1.04%) Oracle ERP
2 10 (0.61%) 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
4 4 (0.25%) Visualfiles
5 2 (0.12%) SAP CX
6 1 (0.061%) Elite 3E
6 1 (0.061%) Endur
6 1 (0.061%) Findur
6 1 (0.061%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.061%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.061%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.061%) Oracle Financials
6 1 (0.061%) Oracle SCM
6 1 (0.061%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.061%) Siebel CRM
6 1 (0.061%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 554 (34.01%) Azure
2 500 (30.69%) AWS
3 260 (15.96%) Azure DevOps
4 197 (12.09%) GCP
5 192 (11.79%) GitHub
6 140 (8.59%) Serverless
7 130 (7.98%) SaaS
8 77 (4.73%) Amazon EKS
9 70 (4.30%) PaaS
10 68 (4.17%) GitHub Actions
11 59 (3.62%) dbt
12 58 (3.56%) Azure Data Factory
12 58 (3.56%) GitHub Copilot
13 56 (3.44%) AWS Lambda
14 49 (3.01%) Power Platform
15 47 (2.89%) Amazon S3
15 47 (2.89%) AWS CloudFormation
16 41 (2.52%) Datadog
17 34 (2.09%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 34 (2.09%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.10%) Broadband
2 17 (1.04%) DNS
3 15 (0.92%) CHAP
4 13 (0.80%) Firewall
5 12 (0.74%) HTTP
5 12 (0.74%) WAN
6 11 (0.68%) SD-WAN
7 10 (0.61%) 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%) PuTTY
12 2 (0.12%) SpaceWire
Database & Business Intelligence
1 107 (6.57%) NoSQL
2 103 (6.32%) PostgreSQL
3 91 (5.59%) SQL Server
4 62 (3.81%) MongoDB
5 38 (2.33%) Relational Database
6 37 (2.27%) MySQL
7 36 (2.21%) Data Warehouse
8 34 (2.09%) Power BI
9 29 (1.78%) DynamoDB
10 19 (1.17%) Amazon RDS
11 17 (1.04%) Metadata
12 14 (0.86%) Data Lake
12 14 (0.86%) Pinecone
12 14 (0.86%) Redis
13 12 (0.74%) BigQuery
13 12 (0.74%) DB2
13 12 (0.74%) Oracle Database
13 12 (0.74%) Spark SQL
14 10 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
14 10 (0.61%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 185 (11.36%) Git
2 175 (10.74%) Selenium
3 141 (8.66%) Jenkins
4 135 (8.29%) JIRA
5 93 (5.71%) GitLab
6 90 (5.52%) Cypress.io
7 76 (4.67%) Cucumber
8 67 (4.11%) TeamCity
9 62 (3.81%) Postman
10 54 (3.31%) JMeter
11 35 (2.15%) SpecFlow
12 32 (1.96%) REST Assured
13 28 (1.72%) CircleCI
14 26 (1.60%) JUnit
15 25 (1.53%) TestRail
16 24 (1.47%) MLflow
17 22 (1.35%) Bitbucket
18 19 (1.17%) Zephyr
19 17 (1.04%) Robot Framework
20 16 (0.98%) SonarQube
General
1 457 (28.05%) Social Skills
2 445 (27.32%) Finance
3 187 (11.48%) Banking
4 151 (9.27%) Analytical Skills
5 142 (8.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 127 (7.80%) Law
7 101 (6.20%) Public Sector
8 98 (6.02%) Retail
9 62 (3.81%) Financial Institution
10 49 (3.01%) Back Office
11 43 (2.64%) Manufacturing
12 42 (2.58%) Electronics
13 36 (2.21%) Legal
14 34 (2.09%) Marketing
15 33 (2.03%) Front Office
16 27 (1.66%) Games
17 16 (0.98%) Organisational Skills
18 15 (0.92%) Documentation Skills
19 14 (0.86%) Presentation Skills
20 13 (0.80%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 419 (25.72%) Senior
2 271 (16.64%) Lead
3 227 (13.93%) Developer
4 226 (13.87%) Software Engineer
5 167 (10.25%) Test Engineer
6 100 (6.14%) Senior Developer
7 91 (5.59%) QA Engineer
8 86 (5.28%) Tester
9 85 (5.22%) Java Engineer
10 79 (4.85%) Test Leader
11 76 (4.67%) Test Automation Engineer
12 73 (4.48%) Senior Software Engineer
13 59 (3.62%) Analyst
14 57 (3.50%) Automation Engineer
15 55 (3.38%) Full-Stack Engineer
16 53 (3.25%) Automation Tester
17 49 (3.01%) QA Automation Engineer
18 48 (2.95%) Data Engineer
19 47 (2.89%) Python Developer
20 46 (2.82%) Senior Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 203 (12.46%) React
2 173 (10.62%) .NET
3 151 (9.27%) RESTful
4 150 (9.21%) Playwright
5 144 (8.84%) REST
6 97 (5.95%) Spring
7 95 (5.83%) Node.js
8 71 (4.36%) Kafka
8 71 (4.36%) Spring Boot
9 67 (4.11%) HTML
10 66 (4.05%) CSS
11 55 (3.38%) JSON
12 54 (3.31%) OAuth
13 45 (2.76%) pytest
14 43 (2.64%) AngularJS
15 41 (2.52%) OAuth2
16 40 (2.46%) Elastic Stack
16 40 (2.46%) Web Services
17 39 (2.39%) .NET Framework
18 38 (2.33%) Django
Miscellaneous
1 266 (16.33%) Cloud Native
2 143 (8.78%) Product Ownership
3 77 (4.73%) Mobile App
4 71 (4.36%) Distributed Systems
5 59 (3.62%) Management Information System
6 46 (2.82%) Enterprise Software
7 43 (2.64%) Legacy Systems
8 40 (2.46%) Onboarding
8 40 (2.46%) Self-Motivation
9 38 (2.33%) Algorithms
10 36 (2.21%) Greenfield Project
11 33 (2.03%) Low-Code
12 31 (1.90%) Data Structures
13 28 (1.72%) Public Cloud
14 27 (1.66%) Hybrid Cloud
15 24 (1.47%) Equities
16 23 (1.41%) Hedge funds
17 22 (1.35%) Blog
18 20 (1.23%) Client/Server
19 19 (1.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 159 (9.76%) Linux
2 85 (5.22%) Windows
3 66 (4.05%) Apple iOS
4 58 (3.56%) Android
5 38 (2.33%) Unix
6 11 (0.68%) CentOS
7 10 (0.61%) 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%) Kali Linux
10 3 (0.18%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.12%) AIX
11 2 (0.12%) VxWorks
11 2 (0.12%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.061%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.061%) ThreadX
12 1 (0.061%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 850 (52.18%) CI/CD
2 661 (40.58%) Agile
3 574 (35.24%) DevOps
4 412 (25.29%) Software Engineering
5 404 (24.80%) Continuous Improvement
6 360 (22.10%) Mentoring
7 348 (21.36%) Problem-Solving
8 271 (16.64%) Microservices
9 263 (16.14%) AI
10 259 (15.90%) Infrastructure as Code
11 240 (14.73%) Coaching
12 237 (14.55%) Software Testing
13 228 (14.00%) Observability
14 206 (12.65%) Clean Code
15 205 (12.58%) Containerisation
16 199 (12.22%) Test Strategy
17 186 (11.42%) Full-Stack Development
18 165 (10.13%) Deployment Automation
19 160 (9.82%) Validation
20 157 (9.64%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 499 (30.63%) Python
2 421 (25.84%) Java
3 303 (18.60%) SQL
4 243 (14.92%) JavaScript
5 218 (13.38%) TypeScript
6 191 (11.72%) C#
7 79 (4.85%) PowerShell
8 73 (4.48%) C++
9 59 (3.62%) Bash
10 50 (3.07%) Go
11 40 (2.46%) C
12 35 (2.15%) Bicep
13 28 (1.72%) Kotlin
14 26 (1.60%) Rust
14 26 (1.60%) Shell Script
15 25 (1.53%) Apex Code
16 22 (1.35%) PL/SQL
17 20 (1.23%) PHP
18 18 (1.10%) Swift
19 13 (0.80%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 212 (13.01%) Degree
2 154 (9.45%) Security Cleared
3 99 (6.08%) SC Cleared
4 86 (5.28%) Computer Science Degree
5 80 (4.91%) ISTQB
6 29 (1.78%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 29 (1.78%) Master's Degree
7 27 (1.66%) DV Cleared
8 21 (1.29%) CISSP
9 18 (1.10%) AWS Certification
10 16 (0.98%) CISA
11 15 (0.92%) CGEIT
11 15 (0.92%) CISM
11 15 (0.92%) FFIEC
11 15 (0.92%) SANS
12 14 (0.86%) Azure Certification
12 14 (0.86%) ISEB
13 13 (0.80%) PhD
14 12 (0.74%) CEH
14 12 (0.74%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 384 (23.57%) QA
2 125 (7.67%) Accessibility
3 70 (4.30%) Data Quality
4 50 (3.07%) GDPR
5 42 (2.58%) NIST
6 30 (1.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 27 (1.66%) WCAG
8 15 (0.92%) COBIT
9 14 (0.86%) SLA
10 12 (0.74%) ISO 22301
11 10 (0.61%) Software Quality Assurance
12 8 (0.49%) ISO 9001
13 7 (0.43%) GRC
13 7 (0.43%) IEC 61508
13 7 (0.43%) NCSC
14 6 (0.37%) PMO
15 5 (0.31%) ISO 26262
15 5 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 5 (0.31%) SOC 2
16 4 (0.25%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 239 (14.67%) 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 13 (0.80%) Firmware
5 13 (0.80%) KVM
6 7 (0.43%) Embedded Firmware
7 3 (0.18%) Terminal Server
8 2 (0.12%) vSphere
9 1 (0.061%) Xen
Systems Management
1 295 (18.11%) Kubernetes
2 292 (17.93%) Terraform
3 137 (8.41%) Grafana
4 69 (4.24%) Ansible
5 47 (2.89%) Prometheus
6 27 (1.66%) Single Sign-On
7 16 (0.98%) Argo
8 9 (0.55%) logstash
9 8 (0.49%) Microsoft Intune
10 7 (0.43%) Kibana
10 7 (0.43%) SCCM
10 7 (0.43%) SCOM
11 4 (0.25%) HP ALM
11 4 (0.25%) HP Fortify
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%) SCOrch
13 2 (0.12%) Puppet
Vendors
1 133 (8.16%) Microsoft
2 75 (4.60%) Oracle
3 54 (3.31%) Databricks
4 52 (3.19%) Salesforce
5 45 (2.76%) VMware
6 36 (2.21%) Google
7 22 (1.35%) OpenAI
8 18 (1.10%) Commvault
9 17 (1.04%) SAP
9 17 (1.04%) ServiceNow
9 17 (1.04%) Splunk
10 15 (0.92%) Atlassian
11 14 (0.86%) Foundry
11 14 (0.86%) Palantir
12 12 (0.74%) Automation Anywhere
12 12 (0.74%) Dynatrace
12 12 (0.74%) IBM
12 12 (0.74%) UiPath
13 10 (0.61%) Amplitude
13 10 (0.61%) Braze