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

6 months to
25 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 93 81 78
Rank change year-on-year -12 -3 -45
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 1,387 1,844 2,267
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 2.21% 3.49% 3.39%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.75% 3.83% 3.81%
Number of salaries quoted 851 858 1,632
10th Percentile £41,250 £41,250 £37,500
25th Percentile £50,250 £48,250 £46,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £62,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year - +4.17% -
75th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £78,750
90th Percentile £107,500 £103,250 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,200 £57,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year -4.00% +4.55% -2.65%

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 50,353 48,156 59,526
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 80.28% 91.19% 88.97%
Number of salaries quoted 29,725 23,186 46,025
10th Percentile £28,675 £35,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £76,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -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 25 January 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 25 January 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 -20 1,148 £62,500 - 1,066
UK excluding London -51 705 £55,200 -4.00% 1,004
London +30 567 £80,000 - 200
Work from Home +13 566 £65,258 +1.17% 482
South East -54 171 £55,000 - 303
Scotland +9 133 £83,750 +39.58% 46
North of England -59 129 £60,000 +18.94% 188
South West -9 117 £60,000 - 145
Midlands -65 81 £55,000 -8.33% 123
North West -39 77 £60,000 +27.66% 84
West Midlands -32 49 £55,000 -8.33% 49
East of England -42 48 £52,500 -25.00% 162
Yorkshire -56 40 £55,000 +9.03% 78
East Midlands -50 35 £55,000 -6.38% 71
Wales +7 26 £56,350 +15.55% 48
North East -20 12 £57,600 -5.57% 26
Northern Ireland -30 5 £64,859 +8.10% 18

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 36 (2.60%) Confluence
2 21 (1.51%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 17 (1.23%) Apache Airflow
4 16 (1.15%) Apache Spark
5 14 (1.01%) Appian
6 12 (0.87%) Jupyter
7 11 (0.79%) Apache
8 8 (0.58%) SharePoint
9 7 (0.50%) Apache Solr
9 7 (0.50%) CMS
10 4 (0.29%) WordPress
11 3 (0.22%) IIS
11 3 (0.22%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
12 2 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 2 (0.14%) nginx
12 2 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
12 2 (0.14%) SAS
13 1 (0.072%) Anypoint
13 1 (0.072%) Camunda
Applications
1 18 (1.30%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (1.08%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (0.79%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.29%) Fusion 360
4 4 (0.29%) Oracle Smart View
5 3 (0.22%) Photoshop
5 3 (0.22%) Sketch
6 2 (0.14%) Adobe XD
6 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.072%) Doxygen
7 1 (0.072%) Trello
Business Applications
1 43 (3.10%) Oracle ERP
2 30 (2.16%) SAP S/4HANA
3 19 (1.37%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.36%) Oracle Financials
5 4 (0.29%) Elite 3E
5 4 (0.29%) Hyperion Planning
5 4 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
5 4 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
5 4 (0.29%) Oracle General Ledger
5 4 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.29%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 4 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
5 4 (0.29%) Shopify
6 3 (0.22%) SAP CX
7 2 (0.14%) Aladdin
7 2 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.072%) NEC Housing
8 1 (0.072%) Postilion
8 1 (0.072%) SAP Hybris
8 1 (0.072%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 465 (33.53%) Azure
2 358 (25.81%) AWS
3 284 (20.48%) Azure DevOps
4 230 (16.58%) GitHub
5 139 (10.02%) GCP
6 107 (7.71%) SaaS
7 79 (5.70%) GitHub Copilot
8 76 (5.48%) GitHub Actions
9 70 (5.05%) Power Platform
9 70 (5.05%) Serverless
10 57 (4.11%) PaaS
11 55 (3.97%) Amazon EKS
12 50 (3.60%) Azure Data Factory
13 41 (2.96%) Entra ID
14 40 (2.88%) Snowflake
15 39 (2.81%) OCI
16 37 (2.67%) Datadog
17 36 (2.60%) dbt
18 32 (2.31%) Power Automate
19 30 (2.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.51%) DNS
2 20 (1.44%) HTTP
2 20 (1.44%) TCP/IP
3 16 (1.15%) WAN
4 15 (1.08%) SD-WAN
5 12 (0.87%) 5G
5 12 (0.87%) VPN
6 9 (0.65%) CHAP
7 8 (0.58%) Firewall
8 5 (0.36%) Multicast
9 4 (0.29%) 3G
9 4 (0.29%) GPRS
9 4 (0.29%) GSM
9 4 (0.29%) Modbus
9 4 (0.29%) RS-232
9 4 (0.29%) RS-485
9 4 (0.29%) SMTP
9 4 (0.29%) SSL
10 3 (0.22%) AMQP
10 3 (0.22%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 83 (5.98%) SQL Server
2 74 (5.34%) PostgreSQL
3 65 (4.69%) Relational Database
4 61 (4.40%) NoSQL
5 47 (3.39%) Data Warehouse
6 43 (3.10%) MySQL
7 41 (2.96%) Power BI
8 26 (1.87%) MongoDB
9 20 (1.44%) Tableau
10 17 (1.23%) Elasticsearch
10 17 (1.23%) RDBMS
11 16 (1.15%) BigQuery
12 15 (1.08%) DynamoDB
13 14 (1.01%) DB2
13 14 (1.01%) Pinecone
13 14 (1.01%) Snowflake Schema
14 11 (0.79%) Metadata
15 10 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
16 9 (0.65%) Data Lake
16 9 (0.65%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 189 (13.63%) Selenium
2 168 (12.11%) JIRA
3 160 (11.54%) Git
4 145 (10.45%) Jenkins
5 77 (5.55%) Cypress.io
6 65 (4.69%) Cucumber
7 60 (4.33%) GitLab
8 55 (3.97%) Postman
9 52 (3.75%) TeamCity
10 42 (3.03%) JMeter
11 41 (2.96%) Oracle Forms
12 27 (1.95%) Robot Framework
12 27 (1.95%) SpecFlow
13 25 (1.80%) eCATT
13 25 (1.80%) WebDriver
14 24 (1.73%) JUnit
14 24 (1.73%) REST Assured
15 23 (1.66%) Snyk
16 22 (1.59%) MLflow
17 20 (1.44%) CircleCI
General
1 448 (32.30%) Finance
2 431 (31.07%) Social Skills
3 154 (11.10%) Analytical Skills
4 116 (8.36%) Banking
5 101 (7.28%) Law
6 86 (6.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 78 (5.62%) Marketing
8 70 (5.05%) Retail
9 57 (4.11%) Public Sector
10 54 (3.89%) Financial Institution
11 44 (3.17%) Manufacturing
12 39 (2.81%) Front Office
13 37 (2.67%) Electronics
14 32 (2.31%) Back Office
15 29 (2.09%) Legal
16 27 (1.95%) Presentation Skills
17 20 (1.44%) Documentation Skills
17 20 (1.44%) Organisational Skills
18 16 (1.15%) Influencing Skills
19 15 (1.08%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 378 (27.25%) Senior
2 245 (17.66%) Developer
3 223 (16.08%) Lead
4 133 (9.59%) Test Engineer
5 126 (9.08%) Software Engineer
6 106 (7.64%) Senior Developer
7 77 (5.55%) Analyst
8 72 (5.19%) QA Engineer
9 69 (4.97%) Test Leader
10 68 (4.90%) Tester
11 62 (4.47%) Test Automation Engineer
12 56 (4.04%) Python Developer
13 51 (3.68%) Automation Engineer
13 51 (3.68%) Cloud Engineer
14 50 (3.60%) Applications Engineer
15 46 (3.32%) Automation Tester
16 45 (3.24%) QA Automation Engineer
17 42 (3.03%) Java Engineer
18 41 (2.96%) Senior Software Engineer
19 40 (2.88%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 147 (10.60%) React
2 139 (10.02%) RESTful
3 124 (8.94%) .NET
4 113 (8.15%) REST
5 97 (6.99%) Playwright
6 72 (5.19%) Node.js
7 67 (4.83%) Spring
8 65 (4.69%) JSON
9 59 (4.25%) CSS
9 59 (4.25%) HTML
10 57 (4.11%) SOAP
11 55 (3.97%) OAuth
11 55 (3.97%) pytest
12 47 (3.39%) Kafka
13 42 (3.03%) OAuth2
14 39 (2.81%) Spring Boot
14 39 (2.81%) XML
15 37 (2.67%) Elastic Stack
15 37 (2.67%) Flask
16 35 (2.52%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 229 (16.51%) Cloud Native
2 110 (7.93%) Product Ownership
3 61 (4.40%) Self-Motivation
4 51 (3.68%) Management Information System
5 49 (3.53%) Enterprise Software
6 41 (2.96%) Mobile App
7 38 (2.74%) Onboarding
8 33 (2.38%) Legacy Systems
9 29 (2.09%) Hedge funds
10 27 (1.95%) Data Structures
11 26 (1.87%) Algorithms
11 26 (1.87%) Low-Code
12 25 (1.80%) Distributed Systems
13 24 (1.73%) Satnav
13 24 (1.73%) Security Posture
14 22 (1.59%) Equities
14 22 (1.59%) Virtual Team
15 20 (1.44%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 20 (1.44%) GNSS
16 19 (1.37%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 128 (9.23%) Linux
2 76 (5.48%) Windows
3 37 (2.67%) Apple iOS
4 36 (2.60%) Android
5 33 (2.38%) Unix
6 13 (0.94%) Windows Server
7 8 (0.58%) CentOS
8 5 (0.36%) Debian
8 5 (0.36%) Embedded Linux
8 5 (0.36%) FreeRTOS
8 5 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.22%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.14%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.14%) Solaris
10 2 (0.14%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.14%) VxWorks
11 1 (0.072%) AIX
11 1 (0.072%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 724 (52.20%) CI/CD
2 607 (43.76%) Agile
3 485 (34.97%) DevOps
4 327 (23.58%) Problem-Solving
5 298 (21.49%) Mentoring
6 293 (21.12%) Continuous Improvement
7 260 (18.75%) Software Engineering
8 229 (16.51%) AI
9 220 (15.86%) Coaching
10 184 (13.27%) Microservices
11 167 (12.04%) Software Testing
12 166 (11.97%) Observability
13 165 (11.90%) Clean Code
14 164 (11.82%) Analytics
15 159 (11.46%) Test Strategy
16 144 (10.38%) Infrastructure as Code
17 125 (9.01%) Containerisation
18 122 (8.80%) Asset Management
19 120 (8.65%) Computer Science
19 120 (8.65%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 417 (30.06%) Python
2 316 (22.78%) Java
3 301 (21.70%) SQL
4 188 (13.55%) JavaScript
5 158 (11.39%) C#
6 148 (10.67%) TypeScript
7 73 (5.26%) PowerShell
8 56 (4.04%) C++
9 46 (3.32%) PL/SQL
10 44 (3.17%) Shell Script
11 39 (2.81%) Bash
12 35 (2.52%) Go
13 33 (2.38%) PHP
14 32 (2.31%) Bicep
15 26 (1.87%) C
16 24 (1.73%) Apex Code
17 18 (1.30%) Kotlin
18 14 (1.01%) MATLAB
19 13 (0.94%) T-SQL
19 13 (0.94%) VBA
Qualifications
1 191 (13.77%) Degree
2 120 (8.65%) Security Cleared
3 76 (5.48%) SC Cleared
4 75 (5.41%) Computer Science Degree
5 71 (5.12%) ISTQB
6 43 (3.10%) Master's Degree
7 33 (2.38%) DV Cleared
8 26 (1.87%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 22 (1.59%) DBS Check
10 21 (1.51%) AWS Certification
10 21 (1.51%) HND
11 17 (1.23%) Azure Certification
12 16 (1.15%) ISEB
13 15 (1.08%) PhD
14 11 (0.79%) CISSP
15 10 (0.72%) CEH
15 10 (0.72%) CISA
16 9 (0.65%) CGEIT
16 9 (0.65%) CISM
16 9 (0.65%) FFIEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 329 (23.72%) QA
2 84 (6.06%) Accessibility
3 48 (3.46%) Data Quality
4 45 (3.24%) NIST
5 42 (3.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 36 (2.60%) GDPR
7 24 (1.73%) WCAG
8 17 (1.23%) NCSC
9 15 (1.08%) SLA
10 10 (0.72%) ISO 22301
10 10 (0.72%) ISO 9001
11 9 (0.65%) COBIT
12 7 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 4 (0.29%) IEC 61508
13 4 (0.29%) ISO 13485
13 4 (0.29%) ISO 26262
13 4 (0.29%) MISRA
13 4 (0.29%) PCI DSS
14 3 (0.22%) Section 508
14 3 (0.22%) SEPA
System Software
1 188 (13.55%) Docker
2 43 (3.10%) Active Directory
3 16 (1.15%) Firmware
4 13 (0.94%) Embedded Firmware
5 10 (0.72%) VMware Infrastructure
6 6 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.36%) Hyper-V
8 4 (0.29%) KVM
9 3 (0.22%) vSphere
10 2 (0.14%) Terminal Server
Systems Management
1 223 (16.08%) Terraform
2 212 (15.28%) Kubernetes
3 87 (6.27%) Grafana
4 56 (4.04%) Ansible
5 43 (3.10%) Single Sign-On
6 29 (2.09%) Prometheus
7 28 (2.02%) HP ALM
8 7 (0.50%) Argo
9 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.36%) logstash
11 3 (0.22%) Control-M
11 3 (0.22%) HP Fortify
11 3 (0.22%) Progress Chef
11 3 (0.22%) Rancher
11 3 (0.22%) SCCM
11 3 (0.22%) SCOM
12 2 (0.14%) Kibana
12 2 (0.14%) Nessus
12 2 (0.14%) Puppet
13 1 (0.072%) Packer
Vendors
1 128 (9.23%) Microsoft
2 97 (6.99%) Oracle
3 67 (4.83%) Salesforce
4 52 (3.75%) SAP
5 34 (2.45%) Google
6 33 (2.38%) Databricks
7 31 (2.24%) VMware
8 29 (2.09%) HP
9 20 (1.44%) Okta
10 18 (1.30%) Black Duck
10 18 (1.30%) Coverity
10 18 (1.30%) Splunk
11 17 (1.23%) OpenAI
12 15 (1.08%) Commvault
12 15 (1.08%) Guidewire
12 15 (1.08%) UiPath
13 14 (1.01%) Ab Initio
14 12 (0.87%) Palantir
15 11 (0.79%) Blue Prism
15 11 (0.79%) MuleSoft