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

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 97 98 89
Rank change year-on-year +1 -9 -55
Permanent jobs citing Test Automation 1,571 1,279 2,690
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.98% 3.13% 3.00%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.58% 3.36% 3.47%
Number of salaries quoted 987 883 1,814
10th Percentile £42,500 £38,765 £36,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £47,115 £44,438
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £61,250 £58,500
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% +4.70% -10.00%
75th Percentile £84,750 £82,500 £73,750
90th Percentile £105,000 £98,474 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £57,500 £57,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +0.88% +8.57% -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 60,831 38,033 77,482
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 76.64% 93.07% 86.50%
Number of salaries quoted 37,418 22,319 57,741
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £29,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £43,750 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -10.57%
75th Percentile £77,500 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -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 1 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 1 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 -5 1,313 £62,500 +2.46% 674
UK excluding London -28 836 £57,500 +0.88% 573
Work from Home +13 665 £65,000 +4.00% 333
London +36 588 £80,000 +10.34% 183
North of England -41 185 £60,000 +9.09% 162
South East -42 178 £55,000 - 145
South West -28 142 £55,000 -8.33% 72
Scotland +7 118 £63,750 +6.25% 30
Midlands -21 117 £58,750 -2.08% 83
North West -5 97 £60,000 +14.29% 82
East Midlands -17 61 £55,000 +4.76% 26
East of England 0 59 £50,000 -27.27% 65
Yorkshire -59 57 £63,750 +27.50% 41
West Midlands -34 56 £61,000 -2.40% 57
Wales -4 36 £55,000 +8.37% 27
North East -24 31 £55,000 -9.47% 39
Northern Ireland -37 8 £80,000 +30.61% 7

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 34 (2.16%) Confluence
2 23 (1.46%) Apache Airflow
3 17 (1.08%) Apache Spark
4 13 (0.83%) Appian
5 11 (0.70%) Apache
6 10 (0.64%) Palantir Foundry
7 9 (0.57%) Jupyter
7 9 (0.57%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 9 (0.57%) SharePoint
8 8 (0.51%) CMS
8 8 (0.51%) IIS
9 6 (0.38%) WordPress
10 4 (0.25%) Apache Solr
11 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.19%) nginx
11 3 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
12 2 (0.13%) Camunda
12 2 (0.13%) JBoss
12 2 (0.13%) Oracle Application Server
12 2 (0.13%) SAS
Applications
1 16 (1.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.89%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (0.57%) MS Visio
4 8 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.25%) Fusion 360
5 4 (0.25%) PlantUML
6 3 (0.19%) CANalyzer
7 2 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.13%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.064%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 18 (1.15%) Oracle ERP
2 12 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
3 4 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
3 4 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 4 (0.25%) Shopify
4 2 (0.13%) SAP CX
5 1 (0.064%) Elite 3E
5 1 (0.064%) Endur
5 1 (0.064%) Findur
5 1 (0.064%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.064%) Oracle Financials
5 1 (0.064%) Oracle SCM
5 1 (0.064%) Postilion
5 1 (0.064%) SAP Hybris
5 1 (0.064%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.064%) Siebel CRM
5 1 (0.064%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.064%) Visualfiles
Cloud Services
1 527 (33.55%) Azure
2 485 (30.87%) AWS
3 244 (15.53%) Azure DevOps
4 202 (12.86%) GitHub
5 198 (12.60%) GCP
6 119 (7.57%) SaaS
7 118 (7.51%) Serverless
8 74 (4.71%) Amazon EKS
9 71 (4.52%) GitHub Actions
10 63 (4.01%) PaaS
11 58 (3.69%) GitHub Copilot
12 55 (3.50%) Azure Data Factory
13 53 (3.37%) Power Platform
14 52 (3.31%) dbt
15 49 (3.12%) AWS Lambda
16 43 (2.74%) Amazon S3
16 43 (2.74%) Datadog
17 42 (2.67%) AWS CloudFormation
18 35 (2.23%) Entra ID
19 34 (2.16%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.53%) DNS
2 18 (1.15%) Broadband
3 14 (0.89%) HTTP
3 14 (0.89%) WAN
4 13 (0.83%) SD-WAN
5 12 (0.76%) CHAP
6 11 (0.70%) Firewall
7 10 (0.64%) 5G
7 10 (0.64%) TCP/IP
8 9 (0.57%) VPN
9 4 (0.25%) SMTP
9 4 (0.25%) Wi-Fi
10 3 (0.19%) Cisco ISE
10 3 (0.19%) Multicast
10 3 (0.19%) VLAN
11 2 (0.13%) LTE
11 2 (0.13%) Network Security
11 2 (0.13%) PuTTY
11 2 (0.13%) VSAN
11 2 (0.13%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 98 (6.24%) PostgreSQL
2 97 (6.17%) NoSQL
3 83 (5.28%) SQL Server
4 50 (3.18%) MongoDB
5 46 (2.93%) Relational Database
6 45 (2.86%) MySQL
7 35 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
7 35 (2.23%) Power BI
8 23 (1.46%) DynamoDB
9 17 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
10 15 (0.95%) Metadata
11 14 (0.89%) Elasticsearch
12 13 (0.83%) Pinecone
13 12 (0.76%) Data Lake
13 12 (0.76%) DB2
13 12 (0.76%) Redis
14 11 (0.70%) BigQuery
14 11 (0.70%) Tableau
15 9 (0.57%) Spark SQL
16 8 (0.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 183 (11.65%) Selenium
2 175 (11.14%) Git
3 132 (8.40%) Jenkins
4 125 (7.96%) JIRA
5 89 (5.67%) Cypress.io
6 78 (4.96%) GitLab
7 76 (4.84%) Cucumber
8 65 (4.14%) TeamCity
9 58 (3.69%) Postman
10 50 (3.18%) JMeter
11 35 (2.23%) SpecFlow
12 30 (1.91%) REST Assured
13 27 (1.72%) CircleCI
14 26 (1.65%) Robot Framework
15 24 (1.53%) JUnit
15 24 (1.53%) MLflow
16 20 (1.27%) TestRail
17 19 (1.21%) Appium
17 19 (1.21%) WebDriver
18 18 (1.15%) Bitbucket
General
1 451 (28.71%) Social Skills
2 431 (27.43%) Finance
3 178 (11.33%) Banking
4 151 (9.61%) Analytical Skills
5 125 (7.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 124 (7.89%) Law
7 93 (5.92%) Retail
8 89 (5.67%) Public Sector
9 65 (4.14%) Financial Institution
10 46 (2.93%) Back Office
11 41 (2.61%) Electronics
12 39 (2.48%) Marketing
13 38 (2.42%) Legal
14 35 (2.23%) Front Office
15 33 (2.10%) Manufacturing
16 30 (1.91%) Games
17 21 (1.34%) Documentation Skills
18 16 (1.02%) Organisational Skills
19 14 (0.89%) Influencing Skills
19 14 (0.89%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 408 (25.97%) Senior
2 238 (15.15%) Lead
3 229 (14.58%) Developer
4 206 (13.11%) Software Engineer
5 163 (10.38%) Test Engineer
6 106 (6.75%) Senior Developer
7 95 (6.05%) QA Engineer
8 81 (5.16%) Tester
9 80 (5.09%) Java Engineer
10 73 (4.65%) Test Automation Engineer
11 68 (4.33%) Senior Software Engineer
12 67 (4.26%) Test Leader
13 65 (4.14%) Analyst
14 59 (3.76%) Automation Engineer
15 52 (3.31%) Automation Tester
15 52 (3.31%) Python Developer
16 51 (3.25%) Full-Stack Engineer
16 51 (3.25%) QA Automation Engineer
17 46 (2.93%) Senior Test Engineer
18 43 (2.74%) Java Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 196 (12.48%) React
2 146 (9.29%) .NET
3 144 (9.17%) RESTful
4 138 (8.78%) Playwright
5 127 (8.08%) REST
6 91 (5.79%) Spring
7 87 (5.54%) Node.js
8 68 (4.33%) HTML
9 67 (4.26%) CSS
10 66 (4.20%) Spring Boot
11 58 (3.69%) Kafka
12 57 (3.63%) JSON
13 52 (3.31%) pytest
14 49 (3.12%) OAuth
15 42 (2.67%) Django
16 41 (2.61%) Web Services
17 40 (2.55%) Elastic Stack
18 37 (2.36%) AngularJS
18 37 (2.36%) SOAP
19 35 (2.23%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 251 (15.98%) Cloud Native
2 132 (8.40%) Product Ownership
3 78 (4.96%) Mobile App
4 59 (3.76%) Distributed Systems
5 55 (3.50%) Management Information System
6 49 (3.12%) Self-Motivation
7 45 (2.86%) Enterprise Software
8 44 (2.80%) Legacy Systems
9 40 (2.55%) Onboarding
10 36 (2.29%) Algorithms
11 33 (2.10%) Greenfield Project
11 33 (2.10%) Low-Code
12 31 (1.97%) Data Structures
13 26 (1.65%) Hybrid Cloud
14 25 (1.59%) Hedge funds
15 24 (1.53%) Equities
16 23 (1.46%) Public Cloud
17 20 (1.27%) Blog
17 20 (1.27%) GNSS
18 19 (1.21%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 153 (9.74%) Linux
2 84 (5.35%) Windows
3 62 (3.95%) Apple iOS
4 52 (3.31%) Android
5 35 (2.23%) Unix
6 11 (0.70%) Windows Server
7 9 (0.57%) CentOS
8 5 (0.32%) Debian
8 5 (0.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.25%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (0.19%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.13%) Kali Linux
11 2 (0.13%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.13%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.064%) AIX
12 1 (0.064%) Embedded Linux
12 1 (0.064%) FreeRTOS
12 1 (0.064%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 803 (51.11%) CI/CD
2 641 (40.80%) Agile
3 537 (34.18%) DevOps
4 386 (24.57%) Continuous Improvement
5 371 (23.62%) Software Engineering
6 345 (21.96%) Problem-Solving
7 342 (21.77%) Mentoring
8 262 (16.68%) AI
9 249 (15.85%) Microservices
10 236 (15.02%) Infrastructure as Code
11 219 (13.94%) Coaching
11 219 (13.94%) Software Testing
12 205 (13.05%) Observability
13 194 (12.35%) Clean Code
14 184 (11.71%) Test Strategy
15 180 (11.46%) Full-Stack Development
16 177 (11.27%) Containerisation
17 151 (9.61%) Validation
18 149 (9.48%) Analytics
19 147 (9.36%) Deployment Automation
Programming Languages
1 481 (30.62%) Python
2 399 (25.40%) Java
3 306 (19.48%) SQL
4 240 (15.28%) JavaScript
5 199 (12.67%) TypeScript
6 157 (9.99%) C#
7 80 (5.09%) PowerShell
8 67 (4.26%) C++
9 55 (3.50%) Bash
10 49 (3.12%) Go
11 34 (2.16%) C
12 29 (1.85%) Bicep
13 27 (1.72%) PHP
14 26 (1.65%) Kotlin
14 26 (1.65%) PL/SQL
15 25 (1.59%) Apex Code
16 24 (1.53%) Rust
16 24 (1.53%) Shell Script
17 18 (1.15%) Swift
18 13 (0.83%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 210 (13.37%) Degree
2 142 (9.04%) Security Cleared
3 95 (6.05%) SC Cleared
4 82 (5.22%) Computer Science Degree
5 72 (4.58%) ISTQB
6 32 (2.04%) Master's Degree
7 31 (1.97%) DV Cleared
8 29 (1.85%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 23 (1.46%) AWS Certification
10 19 (1.21%) ISEB
11 18 (1.15%) CISSP
12 15 (0.95%) CEH
12 15 (0.95%) HND
13 13 (0.83%) Azure Certification
13 13 (0.83%) CISA
13 13 (0.83%) PhD
14 12 (0.76%) CGEIT
14 12 (0.76%) CISM
14 12 (0.76%) DBS Check
14 12 (0.76%) FFIEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 372 (23.68%) QA
2 119 (7.57%) Accessibility
3 62 (3.95%) Data Quality
4 48 (3.06%) GDPR
5 47 (2.99%) NIST
6 37 (2.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 26 (1.65%) WCAG
8 15 (0.95%) ISO 22301
9 14 (0.89%) SLA
10 12 (0.76%) COBIT
10 12 (0.76%) NCSC
11 11 (0.70%) ISO 9001
12 7 (0.45%) Software Quality Assurance
13 6 (0.38%) GRC
13 6 (0.38%) IEC 61508
14 5 (0.32%) ISO 26262
14 5 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 5 (0.32%) SOC 2
15 4 (0.25%) ISO 13485
15 4 (0.25%) PMO
System Software
1 224 (14.26%) Docker
2 29 (1.85%) Active Directory
3 20 (1.27%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (0.95%) Hyper-V
5 13 (0.83%) Firmware
5 13 (0.83%) KVM
5 13 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.51%) Embedded Firmware
7 3 (0.19%) Terminal Server
8 2 (0.13%) vSphere
9 1 (0.064%) Xen
Systems Management
1 274 (17.44%) Kubernetes
2 273 (17.38%) Terraform
3 129 (8.21%) Grafana
4 71 (4.52%) Ansible
5 43 (2.74%) Prometheus
6 27 (1.72%) Single Sign-On
7 9 (0.57%) Argo
8 6 (0.38%) logstash
8 6 (0.38%) Microsoft Intune
9 4 (0.25%) HP ALM
9 4 (0.25%) HP Fortify
9 4 (0.25%) Packer
9 4 (0.25%) SCCM
9 4 (0.25%) SCOM
10 3 (0.19%) Kibana
10 3 (0.19%) Rancher
11 2 (0.13%) Functional Safety
11 2 (0.13%) MIIS
11 2 (0.13%) Nessus
11 2 (0.13%) VxRail
Vendors
1 121 (7.70%) Microsoft
2 66 (4.20%) Oracle
3 51 (3.25%) Salesforce
4 49 (3.12%) Databricks
5 45 (2.86%) VMware
6 35 (2.23%) Google
7 21 (1.34%) Commvault
8 20 (1.27%) OpenAI
9 19 (1.21%) ServiceNow
10 18 (1.15%) SAP
11 16 (1.02%) Black Duck
11 16 (1.02%) Coverity
11 16 (1.02%) Splunk
12 14 (0.89%) Palantir
13 13 (0.83%) Atlassian
13 13 (0.83%) Foundry
13 13 (0.83%) Pega
13 13 (0.83%) UiPath
14 12 (0.76%) Automation Anywhere
15 11 (0.70%) Blue Prism